Introduction

There are times in life when you know that what is about to happen is right and best. Yet, you are not contented with it. The Mensonides leaving to be part of another church is one of those things. It is right and best that they go to a church close to their home. I have even encouraged them to do so. However, emotionally it doesn't feel good. So, I am happy for them, but I am sad for us. I am having a hard time being content. So, perhaps it may be selfish of me, but I wanted to consider what it means to be content for my own sake. I do hope that it will be helpful to you as well.

I. Digging a Little Deeper: Textual Comments

A. Verse 10 provides the last rejoicing of book full of joy.

1. The second clause corrects any possible misunderstanding of the first.

2. Paul is not irritated that their gift had not come sooner.

3. He knows that they tried, but were providentially kept from sending it.

B. Verse 11 introduces an explanation to another possible misunderstanding: that Paul was anxious for some help to arrive.

1. He had just commanded the Philippians not to be anxious for anything and he didn't want them to think he was a hypocrite.

2. It is interesting that Paul uses a word here to describe his attitude that had a meaning contrary to what he means.

a. The word translated "content" was a philosophical word of the time and meant self-sufficient, not needing anything outside of self.

b. It was the favorite word of the Stoic philosophers who prided themselves in not needing anybody.

c. But Paul grabs their favorite word and changes the meaning from self-sufficient to Christ-sufficient as evidenced by verse 13.

d. By doing that, he helps us understand what Christian contentment is.

C. A better way to translate verse 12 is the ESV's "I know how to be brought low, and I know to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need."

1. The word translated I have learnedin the NKVJ and I have learned the secretin the ESV is an interesting word because its use in Paul's time.

a. Used by masses who were involved in mystery religions.

b. Used as reference to secret knowledge that only the enlightened could attain.

2. So, by using this word, Paul is saying, "Do you really want to know a secret that is worth knowing, that will actually enlighten you? Have Christ as your all sufficient contentment." See v. 13.

D.It is in and through our union with Christ that strength is found for a life of peace and contentment in a world full of difficulties of every kind, 13.

1. This verse has been completely taken out of context by some prosperity preachers and made into a promise that the Christian can have and accomplish whatever he wants by virtue of his faith in Jesus Christ.

2. But the context shows that Paul is saying that he finds strength in Christ to handle the things he mentioned in verse 12.

3. This is all the more obvious in Paul's Greek because the all thingsof v. 13 is the same word as the everywhereand all thingsof verse 12.

E. Paul wants to make sure that the Philippians haven't taken his previous comments to mean that he didn't appreciate their kindness – he really did, 14.

II. The Christian Has Every Reason to Be a Contented Person, 11-12

A. As we saw earlier, Paul uses this unusual word in verse 12 to say that he learned the "secret" of contentment.

1. A secret is, of course, something that many, if not most, people don't know.

2. In regard to the secret of contentment, many of us will do well to admit that we have not yet learned it.

B. Certainly no one can deny that true contentment is not what drives our world.

1. The exact opposite of contentment is covetousness and greed.

2. Yet, these are the two things that drive our economy and our society.

3. Everyone wants more than he has or wants something other than she has.

a. They want to be happier, prettier, wealthier, skinnier, stronger, etc.

b. Lives are wasted pursuing contentment by means of greed and covetousness for no avail.

4. The prophet Habakkuk described today's man to a "T" when he said,

Hab. 2:5– … indeed, wine betrays him; he is arrogant and never at rest. Because he is as greedy as the grave and like death is never satisfied, he gathers to himself all the nations and takes captive all the peoples.

C. Sadly, however, what is true of the world is often true of the Christian.

1. In 1648, the English Puritan pastor Jeremiah Burroughs wrote the book he is best known by, "The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment."

2. It was a rare jewel in 1648 and it continues to be a rare jewel today.

D.So, let me ask you this morning, are you content?

1. Can you say with Paul that you have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation?

2. Is Christ sufficient for you?

E. In order to answer these questions, let's define what contentment is and is not.

1. It is interesting that Paul doesn't define contentment in our passage.

2. He expects us to know what it is.

3. But do we?

a. Contentment is not the lack of problems – Paul was in prison facing an uncertain future when he wrote about being content.

b. Contentment is not the denial of reality.

1) Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, taught that everyone should be content because man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death; these things are merely figments of the imagination.

2) This is a denial of reality, or an ignoring of reality.

3) Paul was a man who felt keenly his own sorrows – "Oh wretched man that I am…"

4) The contentment Paul speaks here is not insensitive to pain, evil, or sorrow.

5) Thus, contentment is not ignoring a problem hoping it will go away.

c. Contentment is not complacency.

1) Paul was content, but we know from Acts and his letters that he was a man of intense desire, almost unbelievable drive, and purposeful action.

2) He worked all of his Christian life to change things, to leave the world a different place than he found it.

3) He worked hard to change things in his own sinful heart.

4) He worked hard in the church to make it strong, healthy, and influential.

5) He worked hard to change things in the world bringing the knowledge of Christ and salvation to those who had not heard the gospel.

d. The contentment that Paul is talking about here goes hand in hand with a holy dissatisfaction, even with a frustration with things as they are.

4. If contentment is not all these things, what is it?

5. I like the definitions that two giants of the faith have given.

"Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition." Jeremiah Burroughs

"[The Christian] knows he has no right to complain of anything, because he is a sinner; and he has no reason, because he is sure the Lord does all things well. Therefore, his submission is not forced, but is an act of trust." John Newton

F. Now I want you to notice that Paul "learned" this contentment.

1. This suggests that his contentment was the application of the truth he had come to know as a Christian.

a. The reason he tells the Philippians of his contentment is obviously because he expects them to seek it and find it also.

b. And the reason he doesn't give a long explanation of this contentment and how it comes to a believing heart is because he expects them to know what he is talking about.

c. This secret contentment is the inevitable result of believing – reallybelieving to be true – what Christians, all Christians, believe.

d. It's a secret not because the argument is hard to follow, but because it is hard to put into practice.

2. Paul's contentment rests on a seven-step argument that goes something like this.

a. Conditions are always changing, so obviously we must not be dependent upon conditions – there can be no true contentment if the reason for our contentment may disappear tomorrow.

b. What matters first and foremost in our lives is our souls, our relationship to God – that is the first thing and, ultimately, that is the only thing, our salvation.

Mk. 8:36– For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

c. In Christ, our have found peace with God, the forgiveness of our sins, and a place in God's family and the promise of eternal life – as Augustine put it in a famous sentence: "He has everything, who has the one who has everything."

d. God's will and God's ways are a great mystery – we may not understand what he is doing but we know, because he has told us and Christ has shown us, that whatever he wills for us is for our ultimate good.

e. Everything that happens to us, therefore, is some manifestation of God's love for us and goodness to us no matter how difficult to understand – even if we can't tell just how God is loving us in some trouble or trial through which we must pass, we will see it someday.

f. God is, in any case, after a greater holiness in us, greater Christ-likeness, and as Jesus grew in grace through his trials, so must we – if these troubles are necessary to make us holy, to deepen our faith, to soften our hearts, to make us less enamored of this world, then we would rather have them than not.

g. And, finally, whatever our conditions may be at this moment, they are only temporary, both good or bad circumstances – nothing in this world can rob us of the joy and the glory that await us because Christ has gone ahead to prepare a place for us.

"While you are alive, you should not be much troubled about that which you cannot enjoy when you are dead." Thomas Manton

3. This is a simple argument and there is no part of it that any true Christian can object to or deny.

a. When Jesus Christ is the foundation of your life, when he – the conqueror of sin and death – is the object of your faith, your hope, and your highest love, then the true contentment of which Paul speaks can be a problem only for one reason: our sins and the weakness of our faith have kept us from seeing Christ and living as consistently as Christians as we ought to.

b. The more faithful to Christ and to the truth that is in Christ we are, the more content we will be.

c. So long as Christ is clear to our sight, the Gospel is a living power in our hearts, and the truth of God's Word is present to our minds the argument of the Scriptures for contentment will stand.

Conclusion

Let me finish with a story that illustrates what I have been saying.

James Wodrow, a 17^thcentury Scottish covenanter, was a man who suffered for his faith during a time when the Scottish Kirk was greatly persecuted by the English crown. He was a faithful Christian man and very faithful father of very worthy sons, one of whom became an important theologian and church historian, but the other, Sandie – short for Alexander – died while still a young man. It was a loss very intensely felt by a loving father. One day, not long after Sandie's death, some friends came to visit and found Mr. Wodrow sitting alone by his son's grave.

They asked him what he was doing and he replied, "I have been adoring holy, spotless and absolute sovereignty… and I was thanking God for 31 years' loan of Sandie, my dear son." No indifference or complacency here. His heart was broken. But he knew some things. He knew his son's death was God's perfect will and plan. Sandie's death was no accident, no meaningless misfortune. He knew he couldn't begin to fathom the infinite wisdom of God's decree, but he knew that his heavenly Father loved him and would never bring heartbreak for no good reason. He knew that as much as he grieved for his son and missed him, his son, a faithful Christian himself, was in a world of everlasting joy and, even if he could, he would not ask for him back. And he knew that he would be with his son someday to love and be loved again.

That is Paul's secret of contentment, the effect of placing our faith in Christ and looking up to our heavenly Father, confident of his love, of his perfect care of us and for us in all things.

We know that an all-wise God makes some of his children rich and some poor; makes some strong and others weak; some handsome or beautiful and some plain; some intelligent and others less so; some confident and self-assertive, some shy and reticent. He orders a comparatively easy road for some of his children to walk and for others an uphill and rocky and slippery way. But God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, always provides perfectly for the needs of his children. Whatever the shape of their lives, he has chosen it for them precisely because he loves them as much as he does and has their ultimate welfare and happiness in view.

This is true for every one of you who are a Christian. If you are not a Christian, what are you waiting for? You crave this contentment. The contentment that can only be found in one name: Jesus Christ our Lord.

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