I remember growing up hearing of something called the “new math.” That is what it was called, at least in our circles, when I was a child. I never really quite knew or understood what the new math was. I was raised and trained in conservative schools, and the old math worked just fine for us. We used to joke about the new math: “In the new math, one plus one equals three” and those kinds of things. But the new math evidently was something that was based in new scientific assumptions and new ways of viewing the world.

In the same way, the Christian today needs to “do some new math.” The Christian needs to learn to see the world and see his/her life in a new way and live according to that new way. And it requires in our lives addition and subtraction: adding and subtracting not in the ways of the world, but in the ways of Scripture. The world tells us that to be content we need to add things. It is the things of the world that are going to bring us contentment, whether that be material things—the toys of the world—or whether that be relationships. The world says you are not going to be content and you are not going to be fulfilled until you find that right relationship or those relationships in your life. The world says to add things or add people from the outside.

And there are some philosophies in the world that say no, the way to find contentment and peace is by subtracting things. Get things out of your life. Get rid of them in your life. So there is a little tension there, and we will talk more about that in a few moments. But in another way, the world says really together that if we are going to find peace, we need to seek to reduce burdens and get rid of the burdens of life. These are the philosophies and the teaching of the world.

But the Bible teaches a different formula, a different set of rules for our math for addition and subtraction.

We Must Recognize the Seriousness of Our Sin⤒🔗

The first thing that the Bible teaches us is that if we are going to find joy, peace and contentment in our lives and in Christ, we need to do some addition. The first thing that we need to add is a new burden to our lives. What is that burden? It is the burden of our own sin. We need to recognize the seriousness of our sin. We need to be sure in our lives that we are mourning our sin and grieving for our sin. We need to see that our sin is an offense against a holy God.

There are many people in the world today who are sorry for their sin, but they are primarily sorry because of the consequences. They may have hurt someone and they are sorrowful for that, or they are sorrowful for what their sin has done in their own lives. Think of a wonderful football player like Michael Vick, or most recently of Donté Stallworth, a wide receiver who drank too much and went out driving and killed a man. People like that are sorry. They are sorrowful for their sin. They are sorry that they are going to go to prison and that their careers have been shattered. But they are generally not sorry that they have grieved and offended a holy God, the God of the universe. And that is the way we need to view our sin.

Scripture tells us that “the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). What does it mean to fear the Lord? It does not mean to fear His condemnation. If we have trusted in Christ for salvation, we stand secure in him. We belong to him. We do not fear that we will be shut out of the kingdom. And yet, what do we fear? We fear his displeasure. We are to desire the smile of God, not the frown of God. But what is it that causes God to be displeased? It is precisely our sin, when we do not walk according to his will and his way. So it is right and good for us to then grieve those things that cause displeasure. We want him to delight in us. So we need search our hearts. We need to carry daily the burden of our sin. 

There are many people in the world (and some even in Evangelical and Presbyterian circles) who do not like this idea of focusing on our sin. They say we need to overcome our introspection and the sorrow that should mark us, and there should be joy, for instance. Well, we believe there should be both. But there are two primary objections that people have to this kind of “Puritan” or “Reformed” focus on the burden of sin. The first response is this: Christ has removed the guilt of our sin, so we should not be burdened by our sin. The second reason why people object to this kind of introspection is they say we need to be more outward focused than inward focused.

I think we can respond to these in two ways. First of all, though Christ has indeed removed the guilt of our sin, we remain sinners. John tells us that if anyone claims to be without sin, he deceives himself (1 John 1:8). He tells us in 1 John 1 that we are to confess our sin to God—recognize it and confess it. We also need to see that the inward and the outward are not mutually exclusive. It is not mutually exclusive to be inward focused, grieving our sin, and to be outward focused, seeking the good of others (whether it is other Christians, or the world around us, or taking the gospel to other Christians).

Turn back to Psalm 51. We are not going to read all of this psalm, but this is David's famous prayer of confession after committing adultery and murder and being confronted of his sin by Nathan the prophet. David here pours out his heart:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. Psalm 51:1-3, ESV

Here is someone who is consumed by his sin. He grieves over his sin. It is continually before him.

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me. Psalm 51:4a, 5, ESV

I recognize that I am a sinner from birth. By nature I am a sinner.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean…let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice.

Psalm 51:7a, 8, ESV

That language is such picturesque language. Of course, David literally did not have broken bones, but it felt that way because of the pain and the burden of his sin. “Let those bones be restored. May they rejoice.”

Hide your face from my sins, and blot out my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me…Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.

Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you.

Psalm 51:10, 12-13, ESV

Do you see that? Do you see how David moves from the inward confession of sin to the guilt and the burden and the pain and the anguish, praying to God for confession, and then he says, as he knows the forgiveness and the joy of God, “Then I will teach sinners your ways. Then I will teach your ways. Then sinners will be drawn to you.” It is as we as we see our sin and know the joy and the mercy and the grace of God that then we move out to share that with others. This internal focus is not in opposition to the external going out with the gospel. 

We read in Romans 7 the apostle Paul's great cry. Here is Paul agonizing over his own sin. He delights in the law of God, but he cannot do it because of that indwelling sin, that sin that is still there. It torments him so much that he says “wretched man that I am” (Romans 7:24). I am a wretched man! Was Paul some introspective saint who had no desire to go out into the world? You know that is foolishness! He was the greatest missionary the world has ever known. The internal and the external are not opposed to one another. We confess. We see our sin, we grieve our sin and we confess it, so that there may be restoration and joy and proclamation of that good news. It is the burden of sin that leads us to make Christ known.

But it is also the burden of our sin that swallows up the other burdens in our lives. Paul can be burdened here in Romans 7, but he can also tell us in Philippians 4 that he has learned the secret of being content. When we see the weight of our sin and we carry that burden of our sin, it swallows up all the other burdens in our lives. All the other burdens of life seem like nothing compared to the fact that every day, every hour, most of its minutes, I sin against a holy God. I cause a holy God who loves me, who is my Father, to frown because of my sin. Do you know that burden in your life? Are you burdened by sin? The rest is so small compared to that. It is so small.

Think of the most difficult situation you can face. What is the most difficult situation you can face? Is it to find that you have cancer? Is it to find that you have a terminal illness? Is it to experience the death of a loved one? Is it financial struggle? All these things are great burdens that we face in life, but the most difficult burden in our life is being in a state where we are out of God's good pleasure and out of God's good graces in sin. And that is the burden that we need to carry. It puts all our other burdens in perspective. It makes our other burdens lighter. 

The world says, “Don’t worry about your sin!” The world parades sin for us on television. “It is no big deal. Let's laugh at it! Chill out! Whatever!” Those are some of the slogans of our day over the last ten or fifteen years. We live in a world that is not burdened by anything, or at least tells us, “Don't be burdened by anything.” That does not work. The Bible says, “Christian, be burdened by your sin. Recognize that we stand forgiven in Christ.” If you are trusting in Christ, you are eternally secure, but we need to see the heinousness of our sin. See it, search your heart, confess it, know the joy of the Lord, and our other burdens will come into perspective. So we need to engage in addition.

We Must Bring Our Desires in Line with Our Circumstances←⤒🔗

Secondly, we need to engage in some subtraction. One bit of subtraction that we need to do in our lives is we need to subtract from the desires in our hearts to make them equal to our circumstances. There is a philosophy in the world that was pretty popular back in the 70s. I remember the whole “live more simply” movement. Live more simply. You want your peace? You want more happiness? You want more contentment in your life? Live more simply. Get rid of things. That has been a worldly movement. And in many ways, there is a lot that Christians can learn from that. We should not be consumed by things. We can all find some joy in cutting back and getting rid of some of the toys in our lives. But the problem with this worldly teaching is we get rid of things but the heart is not changed. And that is what needs to change.

For the Christian, we need to subtract from our desires to make them equal to our circumstances. The apostle Paul in Philippians 4:11 says, “I have learned to be content in all circumstances,” both in want and in plenty. When I have more than enough, I am content there, and I am content when I need things. There are many in the world who are content with a little, but it is because their hearts have been fashioned by God to their circumstances. Their desires are in line with their circumstances. And this is how we find contentment. “God, fashion my desires; take away those desires for going above; fashion my heart to where you have put me now”—that needs to be the prayer of the Christian.

How do we attain it? Well, we need to pray and confess our improper desires. We need to pray that God would give us a heart that is in line with what He has given us now with our circumstances. We need to guard our hearts. The Proverbs teaches to guard our “heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). Guard your heart. We need to watch what we let in (i.e. ads, or things that cause the world to be more attractive to us).

I am not a big fan of this particular book, but I will mention it anyhow: Ron Siders’ book written many, many years ago, Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. One thing that I took from that was that he says: When you are watching television and you see a commercial and it seems to give the impression that your life is going to be made better by such and such a product, learn to laugh at that. “Haha, yeah, that hairspray is going to make my life happier and better and draw all the men to me.” We need to learn to watch what we let into our hearts and into our minds.

The world says to bring your circumstances up to your desires, but we know that that is simply a chasing after the wind. Ecclesiastics 5:10 tells us that he who loves money will never be satisfied with money. The one who loves money will never be satisfied, because there is always the desire for more. We should not bring our circumstances up to our desires, but bring our desires down in line with our circumstances.

Jeremiah Burroughs, in his book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, uses a somewhat grotesque illustration, but I am going to use it now for you. He talks about picturing a man with one very short leg and one very long. Imagine that man trying to get around with the huge leg and the short leg. But then compare that to another man with two short legs. That man with two short legs can get around a lot easier than the man with a long leg and one short leg. That one long leg does not help him. Burrows says that so we as God's people need to bring those things in line with one another: our desires and our circumstances being equal. The point here is not that we are more content when we are poor or more content when we are rich—rich and poor alike can be content—but only as our hearts are fashioned to our circumstances. 

We Must Get Rid of Ungodly Desires←⤒🔗

Third and finally, we also need to subtract in the sense that we need to root out our ungodly desires. Under [point] two, many of the desires that we have are good. They are not wrong. It is not wrong, within certain limits, to desire certain things. There is nothing wrong about a nice home or a nicer car. There is nothing wrong about those things per se. We just need to bring our desires in line with our circumstances. But there are also ungodly desires that we need to root out. We need to do radical heart surgery, by the grace of God purging what is within us. The world says, “To be content, get from the outside”; the Bible says we need to change our heart. We are in a battle for the heart, and we need to purge those unholy desires.

Many saints have known this battle. The battle that wages war in our souls. The battle that many missionaries have known. Henry Martyn, the great missionary to India, knew this battle in his own soul. In fact, in his diary on the boat on the way to India he wrote this: 

I found it hard to realize divine things. I was more tried with desires after the world, than for two years past…The sea-sickness, and the smell of the ship, made me feel very miserable, and the prospect of leaving all the comforts and communion of saints in England, and to go forth to an unknown land, to endure such illness and misery with ungodly men for so many months, weighed heavy on my spirits. My heart was almost ready to break. Journals and Letters of the Rev. Henry Martyn, 1837

He was a missionary! “My heart was ready to break” because of the external circumstances. We all know, at some level, what it means to long after the things of the world—wanting more, wanting things that God has not ordained for us to have. We need to purge what wages war with our souls and purge those unhealthy desires.

(Transcription of audio file from 27:11 to 27:27:35 omitted.)

Let’s look at one more passage. Turn to James 4.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? James 4:1, ESV

We all know the experience of both quarrelling Christians and warring passions within our soul.

You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:2-3, ESV

He goes on in verse 4 to say that we are an “adulterous people.” If we desire the things of the world, then we are at enmity with God. If we are a friend of the world, we are an enemy of God. That is shooting straight, isn’t it? But then go down to verse 8. What are we to do in the midst of all this?

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. James 4:8, ESV

Cleanse your hands. Purify your hearts. Purge the evil desire that is within. We need to do this kind of subtraction. This is what the Bible calls “mortification”—putting to death the sinful desires of our heart. Not playing with them. Not thinking it is okay to indulge those desires—which we do. We do when we sit down at the television to watch something that we know is just a little bit off or we know it is going to indulge our fancies a little bit. We indulge. We allow ourselves to be caught up in that. Whether it be lust or greed or whatever it is, we are to put that to death, and not play with it! That is what we read in Colossians 3:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. Colossians 3:5, ESV

Put those desires to death. We need the grace of God to be able to do this. We cannot do it on our own. Pray for God's strength. Pray for God's help. Pray that God will enable you to take out that scalpel and do some radical heart surgery, bringing our desires down to our circumstances and purging the evil desires that are within. So that we can find contentment by doing…what? Delighting in him and him alone. Not delighting in the things of the world, but delighting in God. Desiring him. Having a heart after him. May God work that in our lives.