Philippians 4:10-13

We have two more messages in Philippians, and then we'll be moving on.

It's been, I think it was like two or three years ago when I first, Trey first asked me to preach, and I said sure, and I opened up to one of my favorite passages in Philippians 2, and just been stuck in Philippians ever since. So we're almost there. Let's pray, and then we'll dive in. We'll be in Philippians 4, but let's pray. Father God, I just thank you so much for the opportunity that we have to wake up this morning, to experience your presence.

And like Philip said, just experience the community of this church. And right now to dive into your word, God, I just ask that you would bring truths out of your word that draw us to you and that draw us to contentment, to peace, to life in you. God, just help us to be drawn to you in the next few minutes here. In Jesus' name, amen.

So we're going to be in Philippians 4, and we're going to be talking about contentment. So if there's something that you don't like about my sermon, you can still be content with it. It's been a really, honestly, an enriching couple weeks for me to be thinking and kind of living in these thoughts of contentment. And yeah, it's been good. So I hope to just give you guys a little bit of that and just see what the Apostle Paul has for us through God's Word here.

So Philippians 4, 10 through 13 is what we'll go through. And this is Paul. He's talking to a group of people, this church in Philippi. He swung through Philippi a couple of years previously and started this church. And honestly, they're doing great. And he loves this church. He's thankful for them. They just sent him a gift. He's in prison in Rome, about 600 miles away from them. And if you picture transportation in those days, 600 miles was not an easy trip.

And they sent a gentleman named Epaphroditus with a gift for Paul. Chances are it was a financial gift. It may have been more than just financial. It may have been logistical, encouragement, whatever. But it seems as if there was a financial gift that was sent.

We're going to kind of just touch briefly on giving today. And then really, as we close out Philippians, we'll circle back on some thoughts on giving. But that's what's going on here in this passage. and what Paul is addressing here. He's thankful for them. He's thankful for the gift that they've sent. He's thankful for their partnership with him. And he says to this church, he says, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly because once again, you renewed your care for me.

You were in fact concerned about me, but lacked the opportunity to show it. I don't say this out of need for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know how to make do with little and I know how to make do with a lot. And in any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being content. Whether well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.

So we're going to go through this verse by verse. And as we do, I'm going to make three observations that are just straight out of the scripture, three observations about contentment. So first of all, just on the thought of giving, notice that it starts in verse 10 with, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly because once again, you renewed your care for me. So this, this idea that this, this gift that they gave Paul, it causes him to rejoice.

Again, we'll talk about giving more next time, but, but just, I found this one cool little, little tidbit, this thought on, on giving that I thought I'd share. It says, God initiates giving, empowers givers, supplies gifts, and meets needs. Participating in the activity of God by giving and receiving relates to rejoicing greatly in the Lord. And I can just picture Paul in prison. He's not in an easy circumstance.

And the fact that these people bring this gift to him, he says he doesn't necessarily need the gift, but the fact that they brought a gift to him just brings him so much joy because it shows that partnership with him. He says, you were in fact concerned about me. That word for concerned, it's actually, Paul uses that word a lot. It's one of his favorite verbs. It's it's means like like-minded having the same attitude or mind It's to think in harmony with one another.

It's as if these people by sending them this gift. They're saying hey We got your back. We're on the same team. Okay, we are we are with you in this. That's what the gift Represented and then there's this Interesting turn of phrase and I don't know this for a fact i'm kind of speculating but if you look at it He says. You lacked the opportunity. You were in fact concerned about me, but you lacked the opportunity to show it.

And it's almost like he's writing and he's like, wait a second, but I don't want to, I'm not complaining. I'm not complaining that it took you so long to send the gift. You're 600 miles away. Like it's okay. He says, I don't say this out of need for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. This, this is an interesting dynamic in, in this time, there would have been people like Paul could have entered into patron client relationships.

In other words, they could have worked for people. Hey, I need you to write this for me. I need you to think through this for me. I need you to communicate this for me. And in other words, and I'll pay you for it. Okay. So then there's a patron client. There's a boss service relationship there. And he goes out of his way to say, I don't say this out of need. In other words, I didn't need your gift. In other words, I'm not your client. In other words, you're not my boss.

We are both serving the same purpose here. We are both serving the spreading of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it's easy to miss, but I think that's actually an important thing going on there that Paul's saying, I would be okay without your gift. Thank you for the gift. I would be okay without it. We are both serving the same purpose here. Yeah, it keeps his relationship as like teammates rather than a patron-client relationship.

Okay, so here's an observation about contentment. He says this, he says, I don't say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances. Paul's learning about contentment, and he's saying this at the end of his life, and he has a pretty darn good idea that he's towards the end of his life as he has gone to essentially sought going to Rome to go to prison.

Different story. But he knows he's at the end of his life. So that learning, it encompasses all the experiences of his life circumstances. He didn't learn it in a class. He didn't learn it in a 30-minute sermon. He didn't learn it by reading a book. He learned it through the ups and downs of his everyday life. And he had a lot of ups and downs.

So first observation about contentment, and we'll kind of circle back on this one, but it is learned, okay? Contentment is learned. It's not something that you can just snap your fingers or say, oh, okay, you know, I guess I should be content. There you go, done, check that box. No, it takes learning, it's hard. The second observation is that it comes through the highs and the lows. It comes in the highs and the lows of life.

Paul is reflecting on the extremes of circumstances that he has dealt with. And Lori, I think I have a slide that kind of juxtaposes some of the highs and lows that Paul talks about here. Actually, that's the next slide. But no, this is good. Stay here. So in the highs and the lows, so contentment in the highs, we're going to talk about contentment when things are great. Okay. Things are going well. You have not a complaint in the world.

Contentment also is a difficult thing there. Charles Spurgeon has this devotional book called Morning by Morning. And one of the, it's like a morning devotional book. And one of the mornings talks about this idea of prosperity for Christians. And this really jumped out at me. And I think it's really something worth thinking about for us. So Charles Spurgeon says this, he says, when they, prosperous Christians, are set upon the top of a pinnacle, their heads grow dizzy and they are ready to fall.

The Christian far oftener disgraces his profession or his faith in prosperity than in adversity. It is a dangerous thing to be prosperous. And then he goes on and says, we are full and we forget God. Satisfied with earth, we are content to do without heaven. And that really, I heard that, and that really struck me, like, satisfied with earth, content to do without heaven, is that a danger of prosperity in the Christian life?

And it got me thinking about some of the prosperity that we experience, you know, especially when you look at other parts of the world or at human history. I'll just, just using myself as an example, and we are, we are like very middle class. I will, none of what I'm about to say is bragging, but I can think and I can reflect and I can think, gosh, I have so much food in my refrigerator that sometimes it goes bad and I have to throw some away. Like that is insane. Okay.

Uh, we have so much prosperity. I have a, I have a button on my phone that I push the button and the heater in my car turns on. Like that is, that is amazing. I have, you're going to learn something about me here. You ready? I have a coffee maker in my bathroom. You talk about luxury. I can wake up in the morning and it's not a fan. It's like a $12 coffee maker. I'm not bragging. Okay.

But I have a coffee maker in my bathroom and just that I can wake up in the morning, get in the shower, walk out of the shower, hot cup of coffee. Coffee is waiting for me. Talk about prosperity. Okay. It's a good idea. You guys, yeah, you can get on Amazon right now. Just buy a cheap little coffee maker, but talk about prosperity. I mean, we are so, I don't know. And I'm not saying life's perfect.

I'm not saying we don't have any troubles, but we experience so much prosperity that when we stop and reflect on it, it's really remarkable. Ecclesiastes 5.12 says, Sweet is the sleep of a laborer, whether he eats little or much, but the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep. I think that kind of ties into that Spurgeon quote where, you know, the laborer who doesn't have a lot doesn't even necessarily know where his next meal is coming from.

He doesn't have a lot to worry about. He can sleep and rest where the full stomach of the rich will not let him sleep. I don't think our culture, the media that we consume, we're about to go watch the Super Bowl. We're going to consume a lot of commercials saying, you need this, you need that. We just have this avalanche of just constant stream over us of, here's what you need. Here's what you need to have. Here's what you need to do. Here's where you need to go.

And it's honestly, it's really difficult to kind of live the Christian life in abundance. We live in one of the most prosperous areas of the most prosperous country at the most prosperous time in human history yet we have more mental mental illness suicidality loneliness epidemic.

Polarization we could go on and i think there's a lot that we can say about that but just one kind of no-brainer thing we can say about that i don't think there's a correlation at least not a strong correlation but i don't think there's a correlation between abundance and contentment, I don't think there's a correlation between abundance and contentment. In other words, the stuff, the security, the coffee maker in the bathroom, that's not what is going to make you content.

I can tell you a quick little story. It's not even a good story. Don't get excited. But as you hear it, keep in mind, I was in middle school. When I was in middle school, I think seventh grade, this would have been like, oh gosh, I should have done the math previously. 94? 90. Nah, let's call it 94. Okay. 1994 at Pine Lake Middle School, all the cool kids had these Adidas jackets.

I don't know if children of the 90s, if this was a thing where you were, but these jackets and they had, you know, the Adidas logo is like three stripes. So they had three stripes down each sleeve. They were like the cool thing. And literally, again, seventh grade, Ryan, give me a break. All the cool kids in my mind had this. And I just begged and pleaded. And my mom was like, you don't need that. You've got a perfectly good jacket. I was like, no, I need that jacket.

And I think it was Christmas. She finally broke down. She got me not only the Adidas jacket, but it had like the German soccer team logo on it. It was super cool. And this was, this was like the thing that was going to make me content. This was the thing that I needed, right? You've probably all been in those shoes with various, maybe shoes, but various things that you thought, that's the thing I need. That's going to do it for me. That's going to, you know, make me the cool kid or whatever.

So I, Christmas break-ins, I show up at school with my Adidas jacket. And of course, nobody cares. I was so disappointed. I thought I was like going to be awesome and it made

no difference at all. Yeah. You're looking at me thinking shocking Ryan was not like at the cutting edge of of high fashion at any point in his life but yeah we probably all have that experience today it might be that job or that relationship or that house or that vacation or that thing that we think we need I also have a, in our bank account I'm not going to tell you a number but I have a number in my head that I'm like comfortable with in my bank account I don't know if you

guys you relate to that but I have a number that I'm comfortable with. And sometimes over the years, we're below that. And sometimes we get a little bit above it and kind of, okay, whatever. But whenever we're below it and we kind of, something happens, okay, we get up to that number that I'm comfortable with. You know what my first thought is? Well, we need more. Now we need to be more above that number. We need to be more above that number.

There's not a number that actually brings contentment. There's not a number that actually brings satisfaction. It's just the next number is the one that you think is going to bring that. And I would venture to guess that we all kind of understand that to some extent. I don't think I am alone in that. Okay, so that's kind of the high side of contentment. When things are good, when things are good and that we think that's going to

bring contentment and it actually doesn't. on the other end of the spectrum, what Paul terms and Laura, I think I have a slide that has a chart. No. What's the next slide? There we go. Okay. Paul talks about these things as, as when we make do with little, he's saying he's, he's, he's learned to do this, right? He's learned to make do with little. He's learned to be hungry. He's learned to be facing need. And let me tell you, he's not just saying this. He really has. Okay.

Last time I talked, I kind of gave you a little, there's a passage in Corinthians that gives you a biography of Paul and some of the, honestly, the awful stuff he's been through. So he's not saying this out of nothing. There's a brief summary in 2 Corinthians 4 that we can look at. And Paul says, this is kind of autobiographical.

He says, we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted, but not forsaken, struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body, the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. Okay. Paul is not coming from ignorance of hard times, not, not by any stretch. He, I think probably one of the most difficult things that Paul had to do in his life.

He was, he was a respected, you know, both, both family and achievement wise. He would, he was a respected Jewish scholar. He was a leader in that faith community. When he gave that up and he converted to Christianity, he started following Jesus, he no longer fit in that community. But because he had been actively and viciously persecuting Christians, he didn't immediately fit all that great in the Christian community either.

He had to kind of give up both of his possible communities in order to live the life that he lived. He was shipwrecked. He was imprisoned somewhere between three and five times. He did not have an easy life. But he's here telling us, I have learned to be content. In this moment that he's writing, remember he's in prison, he's dependent on others. It's probably not a nice prison if there is such a thing. He may even be chained to a wall as he's writing these words.

And I think we all probably have times in our lives that we can look back on and say, yeah, that was really rough. Actually, we can, as we're going through it, we can say, yeah, that was really rough. In my own life, and I've probably mentioned this before, maybe even in the exact same context, but that's okay. The year that when Cheryl was diagnosed with cancer and we knew we had just a really rough time, it was going to be scary.

It was going to be difficult. And we just knew that that's what was ahead of us. Pastor took me out for breakfast, sat me down, said like very pointedly, like you need to use this time to push into the Lord. And he specifically said, get into the Bible every day. Here's an app. It's a reading plan. Like it was, it was very specific. And I was like, yeah, I got to use this time. And that was the first time that year was the first time I read through the Bible in a year.

And it was one of the most, especially up till that point in my life, it was one of the most kind of like abiding and closeness with Christ that I have ever felt. And it was through that difficult time. Yeah, but it was through pushing into Christ through that. So looking back at our passage, Philippians 2, looking at 12 and 13, Paul's kind of speaking to this. He says, I know how to make do with little. Do I have the 12 and 13, Laurie?

Perfect. I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances, is, I have learned the secret of being content. Whether well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need, I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. He says to this church, he says, I have learned the secret of being content. This is the only time in the New Testament that this word is used.

And I don't want to make too much of that, but it's just an interesting fact, this word secret. It could be that Paul is like going out of his way to tell this church, hey, this is a big deal. This is something you really need to know. It's something that's been probably even hard for me to learn, but I've learned and I want you to know this. It's like he's saying, I've cracked the code. I've discovered something that only insiders will know. And that is the contentment is found in Christ.

Through him who strengthens me or in Christ. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. We're going to watch the Super Bowl. Somebody on that sideline is going to have Philippians 4.13 on their shoes or on their eye black or on their... I see it on cross-country team sleeves, like all over the place. And honestly, that's fine.

That's, I have no problem with that. I do think though, if we look at this passage and we say, this is going to help me achieve some feat of strength, or this is going to help me win an athletic competition. We are at least missing out on the fullness of the verse. We're at least missing out on something that we're trying to be told here.

And that is that contentment is found in Christ. Because again, this is all is just Paul saying, this is how I have learned to be content in through all the highs and the lows and whatnot. So that's the third observation about contentment. If you only walk away with one, this is the one. It's found in Christ. It's found through him who strengthens me. There's a way, and it's very easy to do, to look at this verse. And in this version, it says, I am able. In other versions, it says, I can.

I can do all things. It's easy. It's tempting. It's done over and over again. this is what's on the eye black at football games because it's an I can statement. And we live very much in an I can kind of culture. Paul lived in an I can kind of culture. The weakness and need of help is not honored, but there's actually something better that we can hold onto than just the I can. If we grip too tightly onto the I can, then we end up, we looked at Charles

Spurgeon. He says, we're full and we forget God. Satisfied with him, we are content to do without heaven. Satisfied with earth, we are content to do without heaven. We totally missed the second half of this verse. It's through him who strengthens me. By giving up ourselves and ceding to our own limitations, we're actually able to do more. This is more of an I can't verse than it is an I can verse. If you understand the context and you actually read the whole thing,

This is saying, I can't do all these other things without Christ. I need Christ to do this. So I heard that on a podcast, super clever. I hope it sticks in your head. This is an I can't verse. This is an I need Christ to be able to do this verse. And this is kind of that secret insider message that Paul is sharing. He said, I have learned this.

Speaking of learning this, I was chatting with Lori before the service and contentment is one of those topics that it's difficult to teach on because you have to feel like you have to kind of like have mastered it, right? And I know it's not actually true, but I just kind of feel like you have to have mastered something in order to teach it. And I have not mastered this, not by any stretch.

But because it's something that takes so much learning, somebody like Lori, who has had more opportunities to learn over the years, it just like, she just exudes contentment. And we were talking about that. And she was like, yeah, I can't control it. And I was like, hey, were you content in your 20s? And she was like, no, I tried to control everything. But she's just learned over time. And this is what I'm learning. Like we can't control things. We need to lean into Christ.

And that is where contentment comes from. And it's not just an encouragement for those who are brought low. It's an encouragement to those who abound, to those who have a lot, to those who have coffee makers in their bathroom. It's an encouragement to all of us that we can be content, but only in Christ, not through those other things, those circumstantial things.

So kind of how does that happen? And I realize this is not like a simple, straightforward, you know, step one, step two, step three, check, you're done. Okay. It's not, and that's actually intentional. So we're going to look at John 15. These are words that would have been in Paul's mind and heart as he's thinking about this. This is Jesus talking. Jesus says, abide in me and I in you. And that word abide, it's just such a beautiful word.

And John uses it over and over and over again. It means to like live. A lot of translations, you'll see it say remain, remain or stay, just kind of be, abide, live, remain in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, it is he that bears much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing.

These are words that Paul lives by. When his personal testimony towards the end of his life is, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. And if that sounds too simple or too like ethereal, or okay, how do I actually do that? Yeah, I get it. It is. But that's why it is something that is learned. It's not, you know, you're not going to walk out of here having solved this. That is not my goal.

But just to encourage you guys to continue to sit on this through the ups and downs and to continue learning this. I'm going to call the worship team up. And I just want to finish with a word of encouragement. There's a lot of things that we read in scripture and we can say, okay, this is one of them. We can say, okay, I want that to be true. I believe that to be true.

I want that to be true of me. I want that to be like my everyday reality, regardless of circumstances, I want to be content through the ups and downs. Through hunger and through plenty, but I'm not there yet. Okay. And I just want to encourage you guys. Like I was thinking about this yesterday as I was polishing this up. I'm thinking like, yeah, that is really hard. That is not an easy thing. If it were an easy thing though, we wouldn't be talking about it.

And it really wouldn't be like mentioned in scripture. I don't see passages in here that say, don't forget to breathe. Okay. This is not meant to be like easy stuff. This is meant to be stuff that we look at and we wrestle with and we say, yeah, that matches my experience, but I'm not sure how to make it happen. And I think we need to be okay with that.

We need to be okay that it's difficult. We need to be okay that in our 20s, contentment is going to be more difficult than it is later in life because we are going to learn things. And God has a purpose in taking us through whatever he's going to take us through to help us learn things.

So I want to just encourage us to wrestle with this to wrestle with contentment to not be disappointed If you go out of here and you say gosh, I really want that number in my bank account Or I really want that sweet adidas jacket from the 90s that ryan was talking about or whatever it is Or or when you you you come across something that is really legitimately difficult and you're like I don't know how to be content in this situation.

I just want to encourage you guys that That's okay That that it's okay to wrestle with this and come back to philippians 4 13 read it as a statement of, I can't, okay? I can do all things through him who strengthens me. In other words, I can't do this on my own. I need to lean into Christ more and more and more.

And whether it's the abundance or the suffering or the hunger, whatever it is, that is to draw us to Christ. And that is where contentment is found.

Let me pray. Lord, I just, I thank you for this reminder, this thing that we see through the experience of our lives, even those of us that have, well, I have more than a few years, but even if we had just a few years under our belts, we see pretty obviously that contentment doesn't come from the stuff that we get, or even the stuff that we don't get and the things that we really truly do need, the things that are hard.

God, we just ask that you allow us, We pray that you give us opportunities to lean into you. God, just let the Holy Spirit show us where and how we can push into you more, where and how we can abide and just be grafted into you. Because that's where contentment, that's where happiness, that's where peace, true peace comes from, Lord. Help us to ignore, to push away the things of earth, the temptations, the distractions, the prosperity.

Help us to push that away and know that that is not where true happiness, true peace, true contentment comes from, Lord. But we need you for that, Lord. And you give us the gift of that through your son. You give us access to the fullness of who you are. And that is not to be taken for granted. That is not to be forgotten. And yeah, Lord, Holy Spirit, just help us remember that. Give us opportunities. Give us circumstances and help our mind turn towards you in those circumstances. Music.