Sermon: School’s in Session: Learning the Secret of Contentment

Well, I invite you to grab a Bible and turn with me to the book of Philippians and chapter four, Philippians chapter four. This morning we will be, uh, reading and hearing from Philippians chapter four, verses 10 through 13. And I, I recognize that, uh, we are dropping into the end of a letter. I'm dropping you into the end of a letter here to the Philippian Church. And what we wanna do this morning is hear, uh, what Paul has

to share with the Philippian church. One he appreciates and loves very much. He's written this letter to express that very thing, his appreciation and his love for them. They have been partners with him in the gospel since Paul began his work of ministry. And so Paul expresses his Thanksgiving for their support and encouragement. And that's what's in the backdrop of the whole book, but especially here at the end of Philippians.

And what it does for Paul is becomes an occasion, an occasion for him to share a personal lesson that, uh, God himself has been teaching him and a lesson that he wants us to learn as well about being content, being content. So that's what we're gonna be focusing on this morning in Philippians chapter four. Before we read God's word, let's, uh, pray and ask for God's help in blessing.

Oh, father, we pause now before we hear your holy word read and preached and we pause to ask, oh Lord, that you would clear away any distractions that are in us. Lord, we have many things in this world to be distracted with the car trouble that we experienced or things that are going wrong with our house or the work that did not get done, uh, from this last week of work. And we also have many distractions that are springing up from within perhaps, uh, thoughts about,

uh, how to have a conversation or a difficult conversation with a loved one or, or maybe perhaps we're distracted by the rumbling of our stomach awaiting a Sunday lunch. But we ask that you would clear away any and every distraction so that we may hear from you, oh, how we need to hear from you. So would you speak authoritatively powerfully, clearly? And would you open our hearts to believe what you say to us? Would you empower our hands

and equip them that we may do your will? This we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Philippians chapter four, verses 10 through 13.

I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in ev any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Amen. Well, dear brothers and sisters, in the Lord Jesus Christ in 2004, Greg Easterbrook published a book which he entitled The Progress Paradox. In it, he asserts that quote, the citizens of the United States and the European Union, almost all of whom live better than almost all of the men and women of history entertain considerable discontent far from feeling better about their lives. Many are feeling worse.

Easter Brook asserts in the title of his book that on the surface this seems totally and utterly paradoxical.

You would think as our livelihoods improve that so too would our contentment in life, our feelings about life, our outlook on the future of our lives. But as he draws to a conclusion, he says, this is not the case. Many are feeling worse. Now, one really basic conclusion that you could draw just from knowing this in the book is that contentment is not easy to come by. That's an implication that he is making a thesis that he is drawing.

And I suspect that you don't need to read this book, although you can, I suppose you probably don't need to read this book to figure that out for yourself. When you go to the restaurant and you encounter a server or you go to the cafeteria and, and you see those who are serving you food, sometimes you see them seemingly very discontent with their lot in life, or the nurses who wait at you wait at your bedside day after day after day.

And the dental hygienists who look in your dirty mouth, some of them seem discontent with where they're at in life. And I wonder if you see that in your hallmates or what you notice in your family members. What do you notice in your church? Family is contentment hard to come by, but even more personally, what about your own life? What about your heart? What does it reveal about contentment? Is it easy to attain or is it rather hard?

Over 350 years earlier than Greg Easterbrook wrote his book, there was another book published and this one was, uh, a book published by an English pastor named Jeremiah Burrows. Jeremiah Burrows entitled his book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. What a great title. He compares contentment to a rare jewel. A a possession of great Worth and much to be desired is a contented life, but it's rare. Oh, so rare. And both of these men writing centuries apart

come to that same conclusion. It is rare in every age. And so you might wonder, is contentment even possible? Can we be content? Can I attain a life of contentment? Can I, do I have to be some super person or super Christian to live a contented life this morning? What we want to learn from the Holy Spirit through Paul is that Christians can live contented lives. We can live contentedly. And in light of verse nine, which we didn't read,

but you can just glance up there one verse prior, what, what we wanna do this morning is we want to heed the instruction that Paul gives to this church in Philippi. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me practice these things and the God of peace will be with you. We want to learn this morning from the Holy Spirit through Paul, how to be content, why we should strive after living a contented life and how we can do so.

So we have a four part lesson this morning from this passage, a four part lesson. And here's the the four part. The first part is this, I can be content. The second part is I must learn contentment. The third part is I can be content in every circumstance. And then the fourth part is I should look to God for contentment. So those are the four points that we'll be following this morning. And just to give you a heads up,

they're gonna go from shorter to longer. So keep the stamina, keep the perseverance. So first, the first lesson that we, first part of the lesson that we learned this morning is that contentment is actually attainable. And we know this because Paul himself tells us that he is content. We find here in this self testimony a man who is content. He possesses what Jeremiah Burrows calls that rare and precious jewel, a contented life.

But if you know anything about Paul, if you know anything about the circumstances of his life when he's writing this particular letter, it would seem that it wouldn't be. So it may surprise you. You see, Paul was writing this letter to the Philippian church from a jail cell. He was imprisoned and the prison sentence was such that he did not know whether it would conclude in freedom in living more life outside of prison,

or if the sentence might conclude in death. You know, those famous words from Paul, probably in Philippians chapter one, for me to live is Christ and to die his gain. He's writing this because he's unsure. He's unsure whether or not he will be set free, whether the Lord will give him more life or not.

Would you expect a man or a woman in our present day in that circumstance to be able to say in a letter written to you, I am content. I have learned it, whatever situation, Probably not. But here we have that self testimony. And so we know brothers and sisters that if Paul himself can be content in this situation, if he's commending contentment to us, Then it must be attainable and it must be attainable for you. And so that's the first part of our lesson, just very basic.

I can be content, contentment is possible. But we see the second part of our lesson here in these verses that contentment is learned, contentment is learned twice. In these verses, Paul says that he had to learn to be content. So you see in verse 11, he writes, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. And then he says again in verse 12, in any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty in hunger, abundance, and need.

So just to make a obvious observation here, if Paul had to learn how to be content, then there was a time when Paul was not content like he is at this point in his life.

Living with young children in my home has taught me something I, i should have already known. I didn't need them to teach me. But uh, they have reminded me and it has taught me that discontent comes naturally.

It's our default position. I think our disposition that it just comes naturally to us. And that can be incredibly frustrating And it can be rather discouraging as well. But you see, discontentment is not just in my kids, it's in me and it's in you. It comes to all of us naturally by nature. Listen to another English minister who I was writing, uh, to young men over 100 years ago, speaking about two things that are very rare sights in the world.

One he says, is a young man humble and the other is an old man content.

I fear this saying is only too true that they are very rare sites in the world. You see, it's not just kids that struggle with contentment or have to fight against discontent. It's it's all of us from the young to the old. And that can be rather discouraging. I've made it this far in life and it hasn't just come to me. I still have to work at this, but I think we can look at it from another way and see it as encouraging what Paul has to say here,

that he himself had to learn contentment. It gives me hope. It gives me hope that my kids can learn this lesson too. It gives me hope that you also can learn to grow in contentment and myself included, sometimes you hear debates, especially in, uh, psychology, psychological world about whether we should attribute X, y, or Z to nature or to nurture where, where does that come from in somebody. And so for example, some might say

that our personality is really more inherited by nature. While others might say that our personality, who we are, what we're like comes more from nurture from our family, from our friends, from our teachers.

When we talk about Christian contentment, we might say, dear friends, that we should attribute Christian contentment both to nature and nurture. It's a both. And, and here's what I mean. When one is born again by the power of the Holy Spirit, what happens is that you inherit a new spiritual nature. And that new spiritual nature comes with all the pre-wiring necessary for you to be able to be content.

And yet, when one is regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit and becomes a Christian, he has not learned everything there is to be known or to be experienced in contentment. You still have to learn it. And this all comes through life experience. And that's what Paul is telling us. When he met Jesus on the Damascus Road, he had not learned everything there was to know about living a contented life. But thankfully, Paul had a wonderful instructor,

the Holy Spirit and that same Holy Spirit, dear friends, lives in you. You have the same instructor, the same teacher to help you learn how to be content. And we find in these verses the the method of the Holy Spirit's instruction in living a contented life, verse 12, in any and every circumstance by facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need those, that is the method which the Holy Spirit uses to teach Paul how to be content.

And it's how he teaches us how to be content. We learn contentment through our life experiences, not independently of our life circumstances. So you see, Paul did not learn contentment because he faced those circumstances. Third, we see that he learned how to be content in the midst of those various circumstances. He didn't just learn contentment from going through those circumstances. He learned how to be content in them.

Verse 11, he says, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. And then in verse 12, in, in any in every circumstance, I have learned the secret of being content in varied circumstances, which which range from one extreme to another,

plenty in hunger, abundance, and need. Paul has learned the secret of being content in those very circumstances. Now he has a secret, he has a secret that he wants to share with us about how that is. And that's gonna be our fourth lesson. So hang tight. It's, it's the key. It's the, it's the most important part of the whole passage. But before we get there, I want to ask you if you have this mindset, if you have this category,

if it, it exists for you, that contentment in any and every circumstance is possible, is that a category you have?

How often have you heard or how often have you said yourself? If only I had, I would be content.

If only I didn't have, I would be content. If only this thing wasn't happening to me, then I would be content.

You see, this is not the sort of contentment that Paul is talking about, a contentment that comes and goes with the circumstances of life. He's talking about a contentment in any and every circumstance. And you see, we, we have much to learn still because we fill those blanks with all sorts of things. If we're being honest, people, places things. If I had more friends, if I had a boyfriend or girlfriend, if I was more popular, if,

if others loved me more, If I had more freedom or newer clothes or a better body or more vacation time, more sleep, different job opportunities, more sex, more time. If I had any of these things, if I had this one thing, then then I could be happy, then I could be content. Now, if I had less homework, fewer rules, less car problems, less chronic pain, less debt, less responsibility, then then I could be content.

Brothers and sisters, it's not necessarily wrong to desire some of these things. It's not, it's not wrong to work hard to improve your circumstances, your law in life. And it's not wrong and especially not wrong to even pray that your circumstances would change. We see Paul actually encouraging that just earlier in chapter four in verse six. He says, we should in everything by prayer and supplication, let our request be made known to God.

But we see that it's with thanksgiving, all of it. And Paul in fact hopes that circumstances would be different for him and for one of his dear friends. If you flip back to chapter two, the end of chapter two, he, he's telling the Philippians about his friend, his brother, his fellow worker, ROIs Verse 25. He, he's been a dear friend to him, but ROIs had fallen ill. And verse 27 says that he was close to death. Paul himself was distressed

and he sought that God would have mercy on him and mercy on himself. He did not want a ROIs to die. He was praying, asking, seeking the Lord to change the circumstance and the Lord did.

So it's not wrong to desire some of these things or to ask that they would be different. But the point that I'm trying to make to you here and that the scriptures are making to you to today is that in no circumstance, there's not a a single change of circumstance that can come into your life that will change you from a discontent person to a content person. No circumstances will automatically and necessarily yield and produce contentment in your life.

You see, dear friends, if there's one significant difference between the way the world thinks about contentment and the way that the Bible speaks about contentment, it's this, it's about the circumstances of our lives.

True Christian contentment does not come and go with the circumstances of life because contentment, true Christian contentment is fixated. It's fixated on an unchanging God

who is your loving heavenly Father.

Circumstances don't for the Christian determine whether or not they are content or not. The circumstances merely become an opportunity to learn from God how to be content wherever God has you.

So listen to how one Puritan writer describes contentment. He first def gives a definition. He says Contentment is a willing submission of ours to God's will in all conditions. And then he elaborates on that last part. He says, in all conditions, patient in adversity, humble, in prosperity, thankful in both looking neither above our estates with the ambitious man to have it higher nor beyond our estates with the covetous man to spread it broader nor

besides the estate with the envious man repining at the estate of others. But contentment focuses directly on the portion God has given us and contentment is being fully satisfied with the same,

focusing on what God has for us, not others on us. God has given to us and we are satisfied. We are seeking to make ourselves satisfied with what God has given to us. So What is that portion, that most lasting portion that God has given to you? Dear Christian, is it not God Himself Has not God given you himself in the person of His son and his spirit?

That's how Paul can be content with God's will no matter the circumstances because in those very circumstances he has God.

And that's how and why you too can learn to be content in any and every circumstance, God is With you.

Before we move on to that key and that the fourth part of our lesson, I just want to say one, one more clarifying word about contentment in our circumstances because some of you in this room are facing incredibly difficult things, maybe now where you have in the recent past. And for some of you, there is no one else in this room who can relate to what you are going through. They will never know.

I want you to know contentment does not equal happiness.

I think we often think that way. Contentment just means being happy no matter what, no matter how awful things are. Contentment doesn't equal happiness. Cont contentment doesn't mean that you have to be happy about sad things. Cont contentment doesn't mean that you can't be sad about sad things.

But what cont contentment is, is a, a disposition, a frame of reference in our lives that no matter the circumstances, no matter the condition, I, I can be content so I I can be content and happy. I can even be content and sad. And Paul himself exemplifies this when he's speaking about Epaphroditus in at the end of chapter two, which we just referenced. He said that in verse at the end of verse 27, the way that God had mercy on him was by sparing ROIs less.

He should have sorrow upon sorrow.

He was sad about this condition. It would've made him even more sad. And yet he's the man who is saying, I am content when he's thinking about death. For me to live is Christ and to die as game no matter what, I'm content, whatever my condition. And we want to strive to be like Paul. We want to be able to sing those words from our heart of that beloved hymn when peace like a river,

when peace like a river attends my way or when sorrows like sea billows roll, they keep coming, coming, coming. Whatever. My lot you have taught me to say, to hear Paul's language, you have taught me whatever my lot it is. Well, it is well with my soul. How can it be well with your soul in prosperity, in poverty, in success and in failure, in good times and in bad times. There's one way. There's one way. And so then we come to the final part of our lesson,

the fourth part, and it's the key to this whole passage. Paul points us to Christ. He points us to Christ and we need to look to God for our contentment. Dear Christians, Paul was an apostle, but he was not a super Christian. Unlike you unrelatable his circumstances. Unlike yours, Paul was able to be content, not in his own strength, not in his own might, but because he was strengthened by another. He says in verse 13, I can do all things through him

who strengthens me.

It's a great verse and we all love it. I think it's one of the most famous verses in all the Bible filled with hope, power, and strength. It's also the verse probably taken out of the context of the Bible. Most often by by it some believe that there is nothing they cannot do becomes sort of a a self-help motivational mantra. You flex, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

But we need to read this verse in context. You should recognize that when Paul says, I can do all things, he's not saying that he can literally do anything and everything that comes to his mind

like he could drive a stick shift car or that Paul could land an airplane. Paul's not saying that. What is he saying? Well, what he's saying is that he can do all things and he's referring back to verse 12.

Paul could be content in any and every circumstance because Christ strengthened him.

Whatever happens, Christ is helping me to be content. And so if there's any doubt in your minds, dear Christians, whether or not you can be a content person, whether you can live a contented life, verse 13 casts it all away. You can be content in whatever situation with God's help. Paul needed God's help. You need God's help. And God gave it to Paul. He can give it to you. He will give it to you.

I want to say a word to those of you who may be trying in your life to live a life independent of God. You're Seeking to to find meaning and satisfaction and joy and prosperity and peace in life independently from the God who made all things the world. He made you the God who sent his son to save sinners. If you are finding it difficult in possible, even to find contentment in life,

you should not be surprised.

You should not be surprised if you are finding it impossible to be content. If you are seeking to find contentment independently from God, you can only find contentment in him because you were made to glorify and enjoy God. You were made with a purpose. You exist to serve God and to enjoy fellowship with God. And so if you are seeking satisfaction and contentment in in the circumstances of your life, it's gonna be a losing enterprise.

There's one place and it's God himself. So I invite you this morning If You've not sought God and you have not sought contentment in him to do so today, today's the day. But if you're a Christian here this morning, you too need to do the very same thing. You also need to look to God as you strive to live a life of contentment. You must look to him in faith. What is faith? Faith is trusting. Faith is believing. Faith is resting, resting

in God, resting in his purposes. And so you recognize this morning that God is sovereign and in his wise sovereign plan, he has put you where you are for a particular reason. And one of those reasons is so that you will learn how to be content in him. He intends to teach you how to be content with him in any and every circumstance. But God also has you in that circumstance so that you would glorify him. How can you bring glory to God in awful circumstances?

One very simple way is to keep trusting God because when you're trusting God, you are humbling yourself to say, oh Lord, you are sovereign. Whatever happens in this life comes not to me by chance, but from you. And I know that you are a good father who loves me and is working out all things for my good. And I will be content in whatever you see fit to bring to my life.

You can bring glory to God In your contentment by living the life of faith you are freely submitting to and delighting in the wise plan of the God who ordains all things.

I want to point you to one more example. In closing this morning, I wanna point you to the example of someone you all know well and that's your savior. I remind you of the circumstances that he endured to secure your salvation.

Remember that on the night before Jesus, on the the night, uh, before Jesus was crucified, on the night that he was betrayed, Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane.

And the Bible says that Jesus became sorrowful knowing what was ahead, what lied ahead for him. Jesus desired another way if possible, but if not he, he was going to submit to God's wise and fatherly plan for him, but also for you.

Jesus prayed these familiar words. My Father, if it'd be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will do you hear a contented savior?

Do you hear the contentment on your savior's lips

content to submit to his father's plan, commit, uh, content to to die on the cross for you and endure the cross and the misery and the shame for you to endure the wrath of God for you

See, Jesus was content in his lot in life, in whatever the Father sent to him because he knew it would bring glory to God's name because it meant salvation for you

in the cross, Jesus secured your salvation in his life and death. He made you secure in God forever. So you are justified forever. You've been adopted. There's no going back. You are his child. You are being sanctified. God is working in you, and he will not stop until he's carried out to completion what He's begun. And you will be glorified. You will see God.

There's no changing that your cir, your circumstances might go like this, that is a secure place to find contentment.

So with the help of Christ, the help of His Holy Spirit with the help of our brothers and sisters in the Lord, and we need that help, would you dear friends, learn what it means to be content in God, But you keep learning how to be content in every circumstance. Let's pray. We need God's help. So let's pray.

Oh Lord, we thank you so much for our savior. We thank you for what he endured for us. We thank you for his contentment in your wise, good fatherly plan for him and for us. We thank you a Lord that you have sent your Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to instruct us, to equip us and help us to live like Christ. We pray, oh Lord, for your divine help. Oh how we need it. We need your help to find our contentment in you. No matter the circumstance, whether we have much

or little, whether things are going well or things are seemingly going very poor. Oh Lord, would you minister to each and every one of us as we have need? Would you let your scriptures bear fruit in our lives that lead to glory for your name? Peace for us in this world, and peace for eternity. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.