Sermon Cloud

The main point of the Bible is the message that the death of Jesus the Messiah is an atoning sacrifice through which God offers the forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with Him, and life that is eternal to all who repent and believe. The Apostles’ preached “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (Acts 20:21). Before any benefits of such repentance and faith are discussed, this message must be clear. We are not to come to Christ bargaining for temporal advantages. The preponderant motive must be that we get right with God and do right by Him.

Still, blessings in this world are promised, primarily those of a spiritual or psychological nature. Jesus promises us peace, a peace that is not as the world gives, a peace that overwhelms our troubles and fears (Jn 14:1,27). He promises rest for our souls (Mt 11:28-30). He promises His joy, that it will be in us and will be “made full” (Jn 15:11; 16:20-24; 17:13). Jesus not only is concerned with the shedding of His blood through which He promises the forgiveness of our sins (Mt 27:28), He also is concerned with the spiritual benefits which flow from forgiveness and reconciliation with God: peace, joy, rest.

Jesus’ concern is also the Apostle Paul’s concern in Philippians 4. As we move ahead to verses 10-14, we find yet again the Apostle Paul is addressing the matter of the psychological well-being of Christians. We have moved from joy (4:1-5) to peace (4:6-9) and now to contentment (4:10-14). The three, of course, are interrelated. We may regard them as three shades of the same color, or perhaps, three perspectives of the same picture. He is urging anxious Christians to “rejoice in the Lord always,” to experience “the peace that passes comprehension,” and now to join with him in learning to be “content in whatever circumstances” they might find themselves (4:4,6,11). In Christ we are given a sense of spiritual well-being that cannot be shaken, an enduring experience of joy (“always”), peace (“in everything”), and contentment (“in any and every circumstance”).

The Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs (1600–1646) published posthumously in 1648, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.1 His 228 page treatise (in its Banner of Truth edition) defined contentment as, “that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition.”2 This, he said, is a “jewel,” a precious gem. But he conceded it was “rare.” What was rare in his day is no less rare in ours. There can be a righteous discontent that motivates us to pursue excellence. One might be discontent with one’s spiritual immaturity and driven thereby to pursue the things of God with all one’s heart. The Apostle who presses on is not satisfied or content with the spiritual status quo (e.g. Phil 3:13,14). One might be discontent with one’s educational or vocational attainments and motivated to pursue further study and improvement. A discontent that fuels achievement is not what the Bible censures. The discontent of which it disapproves is a destructive state of mind that plunges its possessors, and those around them, into misery. It is not motivated by circumstances but is embittered by them. It does not accept circumstances but seeks to escape them. It aims not at improvement but the scape-goating of others. It does not own responsibility but shifts blame elsewhere.

There are Christians who are married to faithful spouses who are bitterly discontent because of some real or imagined deficiency in their partner. There are Christians who have food, shelter, and clothing, who have all the basics with which the Bible says we ought to be content (1 Tim 6:8), who nevertheless are sad and miserable that they lack the wealth that others have. Others are disappointed with God because He has not made them more beautiful, or talented, or gifted and famous, or placed them in a better job, or in a better geographic location, or in a more prominent social position. Still others are discontent because of sickness or injuries, or because of heartbreak and death. This kind of discontent is destructive because it robs us of our joy and peace, and it can lead to foolish and destructive decisions (1 Tim 6:9,10) – like the woman who left her unexciting husband in search of fulfillment elsewhere, only to see her entire life unravel. The Apostle Paul says he has “learned the secret” of contentment. He writes this so that we might learn it too.

Context

The immediate occasion for the discussion of contentment is the Apostle’s desire to express appreciation for the financial gifts which the Philippians have sent to him by the hand of Epaphroditus, the theme of which continues to 4:19.

Recall the circumstances. When the Apostle Paul was thrown into prison he was abandoned by many. He was isolated. Some were afraid to associate with him out of fear of the Roman government. Others thought that if God approved of the Apostle Paul he would never have ended up in prison, so they distanced themselves from Paul and his gospel (1:15ff). He was also suffering all the deprivations of prison life. He was needy (4:16). Yet the Philippians remained faithful throughout. He commended them because “both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of grace with me” (1:7).

And you yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone; (Phil 4:15)

“No church . . . but you alone” supported me, he said. They had stuck by his side through thick and thin. He boasted of the generosity of the Macedonian churches (primarily Philippi), that “their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality” (2 Cor 8:2). So the Apostle is eager to express appreciation for all they have done. He writes,

But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. (Phil 4:10)

The “revived concern” of which he speaks is the gift that had been delayed, that Epaphroditus had at last delivered (2:25; 4:18). Yet, note, there is tension in the Apostle Paul’s words.

Not that I speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. (Phil 4:11)

It is as though he’s saying two things: “Thank you! I am deeply grateful for your gift. But please don’t think that I had become anxious or discontent in my needy condition.” He doesn’t want the very people who he has just urged not to be anxious because of their needs, to think he had become anxious in his.

So he thanks the Philippians. “I rejoice in the Lord greatly,” he says, “that now at last you’ve revived your concern for me” (4:10). They were due his thanks, given all that they had done. He’ll commend them again in verse 14:

Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction. (Phil 4:14)

Yet after his initial thanks in verse 10 he immediately adds, “not that I speak from want,” a word meaning “need, lack, or poverty.”3 Don’t think that I was anxious or distressed, anxious or complaining. God will always supply our needs (4:18). “I have learned,” he says, “to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” My circumstances don’t matter. Whatever they are, I remain content.

Contentment in want

The Apostle Paul is teaching one basic truth in verses 11-13. He is teaching that he has learned to be content in every circumstance through the strength which Christ provides. “I am grateful for the gift; it is helpful; it is a genuine blessing. But I am able, if I must, to get along without it because Christ enables me to cope with every circumstance.”

To be “content” is to be satisfied. The Stoics regarded contentment (autarkēs) to be the “essence of all virtues.”4 For them it was to be happy with one’s lot, to be reconciled to one’s circumstances. For the Apostle Paul it is to be emotionally independent of one’s external circumstances, as O’Brien explains, “but only because (one is) totally dependent on God.”5 “He was not so much self-sufficient as ‘God-sufficient,’” says F. F. Bruce.6

When he said “I have learned” (mathon) in verse 11, he means in the school of hard knocks. Eadie says mathon indicates “that state of contentment was the result of a long and varied experience.”7 It is learning that “had extended over a period of time.”8 His is not textbook theology. He had been stoned, beaten, lynched, and shipwrecked. He said in 2 Corinthians 4, “We are afflicted . . . perplexed . . . persecuted . . . struck down . . . we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake” (8-11). In 2 Corinthians 6:4,5 he speaks of commending himself . . . “in much endurance, in afflictions, in hardships, in distresses, in beatings, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in sleeplessness, in hunger . . .” And in 2 Corinthians 11:23ff he answers his detractors by saying that as a servant of Christ he had experienced

. . . far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure upon me of concern for all the churches. (2 Cor 11:23-28)

These harsh circumstances had taught him contentment. He continues in verse 12,

“I know how to get along with humble means . . . and I have learned the secret of . . . going hungry . . . and (I have learned) the secret of suffering need” (Phil 4:12)

“Humble means” probably refers to “economic deprivation.”9 He had gone without food. “Suffering need” applies comprehensively to physical and emotional deprivation. He had been through it all. How did he do it? How can we gain the ability to cope with our trials and be content in our circumstances? The Apostle Paul tells us in verse 13:

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)

This is not a blank check that God throws in our laps. I had friends on the University of Southern California national championship teams of 1973–1976 who would claim verse 13 prior to a meet. “I can win through Him who strengthens me.” “I can set a world record through Him who strengthens me.” “We can win our meet through Him who strengthens me.” Regrettably false teachers have taught a whole generation to name it and claim it on the basis of this verse. I can make the high school team. I can earn a million dollars. I can, you name it, through Christ who gives me strength. That is not the meaning of the verse. God makes no such promises of worldly success to us. What He does promise is the capacity to deal with the deprivations He sends. The Apostle varies his terminology: “I have learned . . . I know (oida) . . . I have learned the secret” (memuemai). This last word has some background in the initiatory rites of the mystery religions,10 but here probably means no more than, “I know how to deal with.”11 How? Not through mystery rituals and ceremonies, but through the extremes of poverty and abundance. Contentment was learned through suffering.

“I can do” literally says, “I have strength for” (ischuō), meaning “to have power, be competent, be able.”12 “All things” is qualified by the circumstances described in verse 12. “All” doesn’t mean any thing in an absolute sense (like sprout wings and fly), but all the difficult things just mentioned: going hungry, suffering need, getting along with humble means. “He is content living in the midst of these strikingly different circumstances,” says O’Brien.13 Whatever circumstances I face, he says, I can handle them “through Him,” through Christ, “who strengthens me” (dunamis), or “who gives me the power.”14 He gives us the strength, the power, the ability to stand up to the bad circumstances that come our way When we lack the strength, He provides a way of escape (1 Cor 10:13).

Like all the Bible, these verses were not written just for historical information, so that we know how Paul felt about things. They are written for our instruction. We, like Paul, are to be content and satisfied when trouble and hardship and heartache and affliction come. How? We may try to fill in the blanks.

(1) We must know that our circumstances come from God. Can a sparrow fall from a tree apart from His will? Can a hair fall from our heads apart from His will (Mt 10:29,30)? Does God work all things after the counsel of His will? Does God cause all things to work together for good to those who love Him and are called according to His will (Eph 1:11; Rom 8:23)?

(2) We must know that our circumstances are for our benefit. Realize that our circumstances come to us by the hand of a loving Father, Who allows no trials but those with which we are able to cope (1 Cor 10:13). Every trial which He allows is for our benefit. Paul told the Corinthians “all things are for your sakes” (2 Cor 4:15). So our troubles, our “momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17). “The sufferings of the present time,” says the Apostle, “are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom 8:18).

The writer to the Hebrews teaches us to regard suffering as the loving discipline of the Father. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb 12:11). There isn’t anything slipping through His fingers.

When the Apostle Paul was thrown in prison he didn’t think about how this was a victory for Satan, or think that the universe was now out of control, and God had gone to sleep and this wasn’t His will. When the Apostle was suffering from his thorn in the flesh, did he think it was ruining his ministry and ruining his life? No, he said it was keeping him humble – “to keep me from exalting myself” (2 Cor 12:7-9). He says, “I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). Likewise, the Apostle speaks of his imprisonment resulting in “the great progress of the gospel” (1:12). The whole of Caesar’s guard now knew about Christ, and because of his brave example, “most of the brethren . . . have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear” (1:14).

(3) We must know that Christ will enable us to cope. He will strengthen us (v 13). He will supply all our needs (v 18). The Apostle Paul knows how to get along with “humble means,” “going hungry,” and “suffering need.” He has “learned” (v 12) because Christ has taught him. What if war comes? What if a depression hits and we lose our homes, our cars, our loved ones? Christ will teach us as well. We, like the Apostle Paul, will be able to get along even with “humble means,” in hunger, and when “suffering need,” because Christ will enable us. What if we’re robbed or mugged? What if we we’re crippled in an automobile accident or our health fails? Or, what if God calls us to the mission field? Or, what if He calls us to support someone on the mission field? Christ will strengthen us!

We are to be sufficiently distant from everything in this life that we can survive, and even more than survive, be content with their loss. With Job we want to be able to say, “The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21). We want to be able to trust the kind providence of our loving Father, who withholds no good thing from us; who in Christ freely gives all things, and says all things work together for our good.

(4) We must keep our losses in perspective. When we remember all of God’s vast gifts, our losses are negligible. We spoke of this when we examined thanksgiving in prayer (4:6). For example, we might feel we are being denied by God a particular gift. It becomes an obsession; our thoughts are focused on this one thing we don’t have. We actually begin to resent God and think, “This is all I’m asking for – just this one thing. I don’t ask for much. Why don’t you give it to me? Why?” Instead, begin to count your blessings, and “name them one by one,” as the song says. You’ll find that your blessings are innumerable. All we have ever truly wanted, everything we have truly needed in all our lives, has been given to us. God faithfully has provided even when we have not asked.

Granted there may be some things we think we want, but don’t really need, and which God withholds. Look around and what do we see? Some more, and some less, can count a loving and faithful spouse, healthy children, loving and hardworking parents, loving siblings, material well-being, a full stomach, a warm home, and a solid education. We have friends, opportunities, experiences, health, and on and on. Yet we can focus on the one thing – like Ahab “sullen and vexed” because Naboth would not sell him his vineyard; forgetting all with which he had been blessed and wasting away over the one thing he didn’t have (1 Kings 21:4). Such is the perversity and irrationality of sin! It blinds, it distorts, it makes us want the one Bathsheba we don’t have. It makes us steal our neighbor’s one lamb though we have one hundred of our own. It makes us discontent and resentful of God for what we don’t have, and forgetful of what we do have.

After David committed adultery with Bathsheba, God asked him incredulously, “In light of all I have done for you, in light of all the blessings you have received, how could you have done these things?”

“It is I who anointed you king over Israel and it is I who delivered you from the hand of Saul. I also gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your care, and I gave you the house of Israel and Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added to you many more things like these!” (2 Sam 12:7b-8).

We need to view life not in the light of what we don’t have, or in light of what we have lost, or once had, or was stolen from us, but in light of what we do have. The Apostle Paul says he has been prosperous and lost it, and still has been content. It’s especially difficult to do this once we’ve tasted the delights of prosperity and lost them. Yet that is what the Apostle Paul has learned to do. John Wesley once was robbed while riding his circuit, doing the Lord’s work. Trying to be thankful in all things, he wrote this in his journal that night and said that he was grateful: (1) that he had not been robbed before; (2) that they had only taken his money and not his life; (3) though they had taken all, it was not much; (4) that it was he that was robbed, and not he that robbed.

Jeremy Taylor, a seventeenth century English churchman, answered the question, “What if thieves, publicans and sequestrators should take from him all that he owns?” He says,

“What now? Let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse; and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience: they have still left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I can walk in my neighbor’s pleasant fields, and see the varieties of natural beauties and delight in all that in which God delights, that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrow and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses rather to sit down upon his little handful of thorns . . . But when we create needs that God or nature never made, we have erected to ourselves an infinite stock of trouble, that can have no period.”15

When Peter complained to Jesus and said, “Behold, we have left everything and followed you – what then will there be for us?” (Mt 19:29), Jesus answered him and said,

“Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel's sake, but that he shall receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life” (Mk 10:29,30).

We only gain in following Christ – ultimately we lose nothing. Even in this life, Jesus says, we gain. “Seek first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added to you” (Mt 6:33). In a very true sense it pays to obey God.

Contentment in abundance

I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. (Phil 4:12)

The Apostle Paul also says he is able to be content with “prosperity.” He says he has “learned the secret of being filled and . . . having abundance.” The word translated both “prosperity” and “abundance” (perisseuein) meaning “to overflow.”16 The word translated “being filled” (chotazesthai) means “to have (eaten) enough.” It was used of feeding animals.17

Perhaps you’re thinking, what secret? what lesson? Like my mother used to say, “You don’t have to be poor to be happy.” Who wouldn’t be content with a fancy house, new car, nice clothes, vacation in Hawaii, etc.? Jeremiah Burroughs skipped explaining what it means to learn to abound altogether saying that in “afflictive times” (presumably a reference to the English Civil War) it “does not so nearly concern us at this time.” He claimed, “There are few who have such an abundance that they need to be much taught in that lesson.”18 Yet the Bible does teach that it takes grace from God to learn to prosper and survive spiritually. Why is that so? Because we tend to make an idol of wealth and all the pleasures it brings. Jesus said, “You cannot serve God and money” (Mt 6:24). He said, “Where your treasure is there will your heart be also” (Mt 6:21). He said, “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Lk 18:24). Why? Because a taste of wealth quickly becomes an obsession with wealth. This year’s luxuries become next year’s necessities. One comes to trust in one’s wealth instead of God. Wealth and luxury easily become idols. They become a consuming lust, a little god which we pursue day and night and trust in to provide and protect us. This is why the Proverbs say, “Do not weary yourself to gain wealth, cease from your consideration of it” (Prov 23:4). Similarly, the Apostle Paul said to Timothy that,

“Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang” (1 Tim 6:9,10).

Wealth is a “snare,” he says. It gives rise to “harmful desires” leading to “ruin and destruction.” Its pursuit undermines faith. Prosperity also promotes arrogance and pride against the Lord. The Lord warned Israel early on:

“Beware lest you forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; lest, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart becomes proud, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Deut 8:11-14).

When wealth multiplies and we become full and satisfied, the danger is that we no longer depend on God as we did when we were needy. We become “proud” and “forget the Lord (our) God.” We become convinced of our self-sufficiency. The writer of Proverbs says, “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me the food that is my portion, lest I be full and deny Thee and say, ‘Who is the Lord’” (Prov 30:8,9). The desire for worldly things corrupts and quickly drives one into covetousness and idolatry. The accumulation of them promotes pride and arrogance against the Lord. It is the satiated person who says, “Who is the Lord?”

On the other hand, we need to learn the secret of thankfully accepting prosperity. At the other extreme, some believers are guilt ridden about enjoying God’s good gifts. There are super-spiritual Christians who think so-called worldly activity like vacations, sports, going to restaurants, enjoying the creation’s beauty, good food, bodily exercise and activity, are necessary evils at best. For them prosperity is only allowable if it can be justified in terms of enabling us to pray more, read our Bible more, and have longer quiet times. At worst “worldly” activity and pleasure is seen as outright carnal because they distract us from “religious activity.” One could, after all, be passing out gospel tracts instead of going on a hike or going to the beach. To such super-spiritual types it needs to be emphatically said that enjoyment of the creation is good in and of itself. Exercise and recreation and hikes and feasts are appropriate activity for the children of the Creator. Paul told Timothy that it is God “who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Tim 6:17).

The English Puritan named Richard Sibbes (1577–1635) said, “God has given worldly things to sweeten our passage into heaven.” God created a beautiful world for His children to enjoy. He could have made it ugly but He didn’t; it’s beautiful. Look at the stars in heaven. They have absolutely no functional value. They just twinkle in all their glory. Doesn’t that indicate that God cares about beauty and pleasure and the happiness of His people? The rabbis used to say that we’d be held accountable for all the pleasures that God intended to give us and we refused. We are to enjoy this world. We are to learn to live in prosperity; we are to learn the secret of being filled and of having abundance. “Everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected,” writes the Apostle (1 Tim 4:4).

Still others have trouble enjoying prosperity because they see so much poverty in the world, and believe it is a sin to be rich while others are so poor. To have a nice home and car and good food, etc. is wrong when most people in the world have barely enough on which to survive. We may briefly say this: the Apostle Paul instructs those who are rich in this world “to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share” (1 Tim 6:18). We are obligated to be charitable, to be good Samaritans to help those in need – to do good to all men. But the Scriptures commend us to feast as well as fast. Material blessing is promised to those who obey God. “It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich” (Prov 10:22). “Much wealth is in the house of the righteous” (Prov 15:6). We cannot be held accountable and responsible for all the poverty in the world. We are to do what we can, and then with a clear conscience (a gift which God gives to the redeemed – Heb 9:14) we enjoy the good gifts which God gives to His people and withholds from those who will not obey Him. Poverty is a curse from God (Ps 109:8-11; 2 Sam 3:29), and prosperity is a token of God’s love and blessing. What father at Christmas doesn’t delight in seeing his children enjoy their new gifts? What parent isn’t grieved when their children don’t appreciate their gifts? God wants His children to enjoy His gifts and bless Him for them.

This too, the balance between obsession and rejection of material prosperity, the balance of thankful acceptance, is possible through the power of Christ who strengthens me. Contentment! It is a “rare jewel.” Yet we can find it. We can do “all things” through Christ. We can thrive in our circumstances whatever they are. Whatever my health, whatever my wealth, whatever my family situation, I can learn with the Apostle to be content.