Learned contentment:
The very power of god in the soul of man
Philippians 4:10-13 ~ Ted Phillips
June 10, 2018
This morning as we start our time together God's word, I want to ask a question: are you content? Are you content, hour by hour, day by day? Are you satisfied with who you are? Are you satisfied with what you have? Are you satisfied with where you are in life? This very basic question is relevant to everyone and certainly is relevant to each one of us here. It's a basic thing. But if you think about it, this is one of the greatest issues that people struggle with in life. In fact, contentment was or has been a struggle since Genesis 3 with Adam and Eve and is one of the underlying ploys that Satan used when he tempted Eve.
There are many reasons for why contentment is such a struggle with people, and I just want to name a few. One of them is that the society that we live in literally breeds discontentment. I think you have to look no further than the marketplace, the companies who make their living from providing goods and services. The competition is very intense and so there's this ever-increasing emphasis on something new, something improved and companies that are progressive work years ahead on the next generation of products to meet not just the needs but the wants of people. They literally flood the shelves with a number of choices that we have in any product category, and is overwhelming at times. In fact, that's one of things that really struck me a number years ago when Renée had I had the opportunity to visit Tom and Lisa in Mongolia. You walk into their stores and there was not much to choose from. Kind of interesting, very different. The ironic thing is, the more people have to choose from, the more that is available to meet their wants, the more dissatisfied they actually ar, the more they struggle with contentment.
The second reason that I would point out is that the world cannot provide true, lasting contentment. To begin with, people are not able to acquire everything that they want. For the average person, obviously that's not possible, but if you add to that the things that people do acquire, the things that are able to acquire, the fulfillment that those things provide is fleeting at best. It does not last. Everything that the world has to offer, the pleasure that it provides has a diminishing return. I think what is truer yet is it there's nothing that man has come up with that meets the deepest need that man actually has. The greatest reason though that people struggle with contentment is because of the human condition. Because of the human condition by nature all men are sinful. They have fallen from the perfect place of fellowship with the One who has created them. In their pride men have gone their own way there now at enmity with God. Men we are told in God's word, do not desire God, they do not desire after righteousness. They only seek after their own desires and wants, their own pleasures and yet their desires and their pleasures can never be fully satisfied. Many years ago there was a study that determined that the average American had approximately 70 different things that he wanted, 70 different wants. A number of years after that and they did a similar study of the next generation and it was found that the average American then had 400 things they wanted and if that obviously is a picture of a great discontentment. There's no end. There's no end into the desires and the wants that people have whether it's a car, a house, or any other kind of possession -- a better job a better position, more prominence, you can go on and on and on. There is actually no end. But the moment one thing is tried and consumed its attractiveness doesn't last very long. So men crave after something else, something new because their ultimate need has not been met.
Someone once asked John Rockefeller how much money is enough, and his answer was just a little more than you already have. I think he was being very honest. There is no such thing as enough to the natural man. Men have an insatiable desire to have more, to have something different, never being satisfied with what they have. That is the consequence of sin, the result of a broken relationship with God. Men were never meant to be an end in themselves, they were not created to live for themselves. Men were created to have a fellowship with God and to glorify Him. There's nothing else that will satisfy.
The apostle Paul was very familiar with the subject of contentment. He addresses this fundamental issue in the book of Philippians. In chapter 4 verses 10 through 13 Paul of all people I think had a right to exhort the saints about contentment. If you consider his life -- the imprisonments the hardships the persecutions the hatred that was directed at him by the Jewish leaders, if anyone had been tempted to be discontent would've been Paul, but his life was an example of really just the opposite. It was an example of genuine contentment. I wanted to just read these four verses in Philippians for us this morning. Chapter 4 verses 10 through 13. We’re going to be focusing on these four verses this morning. He says,
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. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 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. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me..
As you notice in verse 10, Paul expresses his gratefulness for the concern of the Philippian saints had for him, the ways in which they shared with him and then in verse 11, Paul makes really an amazing statement. He says not that I am referring to any unrealized want. He says I don't lack and then he gives us the reason for that. He says, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am. Those are words that you and I need to press upon our hearts. This is something that each one of us needs to literally take hold of to meditate upon, and to ponder. What does it mean to be content in whatever circumstances I’m in? I want to look at this and to make sure that we understand what Paul is referring to, because this is literally a life altering statement.
The word means sufficient to oneself in secular writing. This word was used to describe a country that supplied itself and did not did not need to export anything. In other words, they were independent they had no need of outside assistance, and when Paul says that he was sufficient to himself, He is saying that he is independent of of external circumstances and not only that but he is independent of not just circumstances but people as well. When it comes to being satisfied in this life he needed nothing other than what actually resided within him, and that is the Holy Spirit of God. He resided in Paul, Christ was in him. He had the hope of glory because of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Paul is self-contained, we can say it that way, that's literally what it means. Every one of them are satisfied from within. He needs nothing from any kind of external source to satisfy him. He is content from within. I want you to consider this for a moment because this is completely the thought here. This is completely foreign to those of this world. The natural man obtains his contentment in just the opposite way. It all comes from what is outside of himself. It's a dependent on how his day goes, is dependent on what he owns, in the comfort that it brings, is dependent on how people treat him, is dependent on how people think of them. And these are things that he has very little control of, if any, it is no wonder that the struggle is so great, the natural man can only feel good about himself based on what happens outside of himself. Contentment that is described for us is indeed the potential of every believer. It's an inner condition of the heart, and is completely independent of all that is outward, those things that the world struggles after.
This is the very thing that we see in second Corinthians chapter 4. In this passage Paul is describing what he has gone through in his ministry. He's describing this to the Corinthian saints and I want you to just listen to some of the things that Paul endured:
7But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12So death works in us, but life in you.
What Paul endured for the sake of Christ, what he endured for the sake of the saints is remarkable. I want you to listen then to how he concludes this in verse 16 he says we do not lose heart. In other words, he says we are fully content and he gives a reason for this. He says, but though our outer man is decaying, yet the inner man is being renewed day by day. The contentment that Paul is describing, it resides in the inner man and is not the old man that we once were. It's the new man created in Christ Jesus, it is the man who has been regenerated, that is the redeemed man. As Paul's body under undergoes abuse and decay, at the same time, at the very same time this inner man he says is being continually revived and is being strengthened and invigorated. I think the idea Paul is getting across is the more abuse that his body endured, the more his soul was raised above the things of this world, the more he was filled with the peace and the joy of the gospel, the more he was made content. If you look back at our passage and in Phillipians chapter 4, this independence from outward conditions is put really in no uncertain terms. Paul lays out the full scope of this inner contentment. Verse 11 says that he had learned to be content in whatever circumstance. In verse 12 he says, in any and every circumstance he has learned to be content. There may be somebody who says man you don't know my situation and perhaps we don't but we are not given any exceptions here in this verse, Paul puts no exceptions in this verse.
There is no special cases where contentment is not possible. He says in any and every circumstance. We’ve got to take God at His word when He tells us this. Right? To the one whose heart is right with God, there are no limitations on the contentment found in Christ. There are no limitations. If you look here, Paul takes us from one end of the spectrum to another, from humble means to prosperity, from abundance to suffering need. The scope of contentment in Christ has been underscored I think many times in God's word. Let me just read a few passages here that really support what Paul is saying here. Second Corinthians chapter 12 in verse 10 says
Therefore 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.
Romans chapter 8 starting verse 35. He says who will separate us from the love of Christ will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Jumping down to verse 37, he says, but in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us for I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present for things to come for powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is all inclusive. There's nothing over which we cannot be conquerors through Christ. There's nothing that can disconnect us or cut us off from God's love and because that is true there is no circumstance in which we cannot be content in and through Christ, and that is the power of God's sovereign love.
One thing I want to make clear after saying all of this is that to be content in the way that is put forth in God's word, this does not mean that we enjoy or are happy about the difficult circumstances that we sometimes go through. Some of the situations that we are allowed to face are not pleasant; they can be downright miserable. Sometimes they defy understanding. Look at the person of Job, look at God's servant Job, what he went through. It does not mean that we will be walking around laughing and being giddy during these trials. There is a suffering and there's a hardship at times. There is a discouragement. There are times we will cry out to God that we simply do not understand why You’re allowing us to go through what we’re going through. But it does mean that our hearts and souls in the inner man can be at rest. The inner man can be content and satisfied, having an abiding confidence that what God has promised to those who love Him is true. We can all say with the apostle Paul for I know whom I have believed and am convinced that He is able to guard that which I have entrusted to Him again until that day. That has the very foundation of contentment, and is the very foundation of our faith. Paul was content. He was satisfied in Christ to the point where he was not disturbed and he was not distraught in whatever state he was in.
We want to turn our attention to a very important element of contentment that we have been looking at. And it’s this: contentment is something that must be learned. In verse 11, he says I speak not that I speak from want says, for I have learned to be content. In verse 12 he says it again in any and every circumstance I have learned to be content. If you think about it, learning is so much of the Christian life, is something that is ongoing, is something that will continue until we see the Lord face-to-face. We must learn to trust in the Lord and not ourselves. We learn to know Him. We learn to know His will. We learn to die to self. We learn to flee from sin, to flee from temptation, and we must also learn to be content. I think one of the things that we must understand about contentment is that it does not come naturally. This is something that does not come naturally and I'm speaking about us as believers as well. It's not a natural attainment. What was natural for us was discontentment in our fallen condition, that was the norm but the contentment that we have been looking at, this is a supernatural work of God. It's a work that He accomplishes within the hearts of those who have been redeemed. As those who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God, we have been given the capacity to be content, but it is a learning process. The words that are used here ‘have learned’ are really better translated ‘I have come to learn’. I think really the implication is that contentment in the midst of any and all difficulty was something new to Paul. He did not start his Christian life knowing a great deal about it. It is something that he came to learn, he learned how to be content in Christ. I think this is important for us to understand because it implies that we bear a responsibility in this. We bear responsibility in this even though it's a supernatural work of God within us. It requires effort on our part. In fact it even demands not just that we desire it, but also that we discipline ourselves. When Paul says I have come to learn, the ‘I’ here is emphatic. Paul is saying that I for my part, have learned to be content. The thrust is that we need to be teachable before the Lord, you and I need to be teachable when it comes to contentment. We need to be willing students. We are to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and be taught and to be changed.
I think an important question to ask, then, is where did Paul learn to be content for this learning to take place? We’re given the answer again verse 11. I think this is one of the more difficult things about the learning process. He says not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. It's not just that our contentment is in the midst of whatever circumstances. The learning of that contentment takes place in those same circumstances. Much of the learning takes place in the field and not in the classroom and has to be that way. This is a learning by experience. How else can we learn to be content in any and all circumstances, if we do not come to experience the difficulties and hardships, the very things that threaten contentment? As I already mentioned, this is a difficult thing. The difficult thing about the learning process that results in contentment is that we must endure hardship and suffering. But at the same time, it really is most enlightening. This is because we learn the authentic nature of the truths of God's word. In God’s word, He reveals to us the eternal truths about Himself, the truths about His nature, the truths about His character. He reveals to us many precious promises that He has given to us. In all of these truths, we are then able to put into practice, we’re literally able to put them to the test and what we see, firsthand, is the reality of His saving and sanctifying power. We come to know it not just in our heads. The truths and doctrines and the precepts of God are meant to be experiential. They're not intended to be just a base of knowledge that resides in our minds. They’re meant to be acted upon and tested and proven. They’re meant to encourage, to strengthen and to enable the people of God in any and all circumstances, and in doing so we come to know the faithfulness of our God. The apostle Paul does not say here ‘I have heard that in any and all circumstances I should be content.’ That's not what Paul says. He emphatically states that he had learned to be content. He had learned to be independent of any and all circumstances. You and I know how easy it is for the things of this world to take hold of our attention, to take a more important place in our lives than they should. If we’re not watchful, those things become the very source of our contentment. The teaching process that the Lord put Paul through, the teaching process that He is putting you and I through, this teaching process is meant to wean us from the dependence on things in this world. Have you ever thought about that? God in His sanctifying process, in His sanctifying work in our lives, He's in the process of weaning us from being dependent upon the things of this world. We need to be willing students, receptive students.
Paul brings this subject of contentment to a conclusion in verse 13. It says I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. This is a verse that I have no doubt has comforted God's people for the last 2000 years, and it reveals to us the secret that Paul mentions in the previous verse. Paul had said in the previous verse he had learned the secret of being content. He had learned not just a secret, but he had learned the secret. A one-of-a-kind secret. That secret was the power of God that He inwardly supplies to each one of His children. We’re given a very clear explanation of this power in Ephesians chapter 3 in verse 16. I want you to listen to what Paul prays for the Ephesian saints as he prays that the Lord would grant to you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. The power that God infuses into the inner man to bring about contentment, this is not just any power that we’re talking about here. It's the power that is according to the riches of His glory. There is no power like that. There's no way you can even measure that kind of power. It's infinite, it is the very power that raised Christ from the dead, the very power that will raise you and I from the dead, and that has raised us from the dead and here we find this one-of-a-kind secret it is that the Holy Spirit of God imparts to us in the inner man a one-of-a-kind power. I think what this says about the contentment that is available to you and I is that that contentment is the very power of God in the soul of man. Can you think of anything more powerful than genuine contentment in the face of any and all circumstances? I want to share with you one example, we looked at this passages briefly this last Wednesday night. This is the account of Stephen's death in acts chapter 7 verse 54 through 63. Remember because of Stephen's boldness in declaring the truth. Notice what we find here. It says
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”57At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
I don't know of a better example of a man whose contentment was completely independent of the circumstances that he was facing. Stephen is facing certain death at the hands of unrighteous men and he's been enabled to look into heaven to see the very glory of God and not only that, but he's empowered by the Holy Spirit to forgive the very ones who were at that moment putting him to death. That's the power of contentment. That's the power of contentment that Paul exhorted the Philipian believers with and is exhorting us as well. This is the power of God worked out in the very heart and soul of man. If this was true of speed of Stephen and most certainly we know it was, there's no situation that you and I will ever have to face were the indwelling power of God will fail.
I want you to listen to what the psalmist says about this in Psalm 73 verse 25-26. He says whom have I whom have I in heaven, but Thee, and besides Thee I desire nothing on earth. My flesh in my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. These certainly are the words of a man who is content in the Lord. As we close our time this morning in God's word, I ask you once again, are you content? Perhaps we get a little better idea what Paul is talking about. Are you content? Is the description of the contentment with which we have just been reminded, is that familiar to you, something that you experience?
These last few days I've been asking myself that very question, and it occurred to me that there are indications of contentment that I think are obvious, things that accompany contentment and I want to mention two of them I think they both go hand in hand. I think the first thing that accompanies contentment is his thankfulness. Think about over and over again in Scripture we are exhorted to be thankful. Colossians chapter 3 verse 13 it says Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. In other words he's saying let the contentment that comes from God reign and triumph in your hearts. Are you and I genuinely thankful to the Lord in all that He gives us everything, both times of peace and rest as well as the hardships, are we thankful?
A second sign of contentment from a negative perspective, is the absence of complaining. I would have to admit to you as I thought about this on my own, I have to confess this is an area that I struggle and greatly -- complaining. I don't know about you, but the amount of complaining that I find myself doing at times, and even the things that I complain about, what they reveal in my heart is it’s not is not as content as it should be. Some of the complaining that we do although we would not say it and maybe not even realize it, but we’re grumbling against the Lord. That's really what it boils down to. We’re complaining because things aren't right, things are not the way we want and we don't have what we want, or this person said something to me that I don't like. ‘Lord change that’. That's really what we’re saying. We’re expressing our displeasure for what He's allowed. We have not learned to be content. Another way of putting this is we have not learned to die to self, and when you think about it, that really is the bottom line with contentment. A person who is truly content is the one who has been freed. He's been freed from sin, is being freed from his own selfish desires.
In the book of Matthew we've been given a wonderful invitation. The Lord himself invites us to take My yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. You shall be content. Just a couple minutes ago we saw that learning to be content takes place in those times of difficulty and what we see here in this invitation the Lord gives us is that while we are in those times of difficulty, we’re not alone. We are there in those times of difficulty learning at the feet of Jesus. I would ask you not to take this question and just put it put aside as you leave this morning. If you think about it, being content is one of the things that separates God's people from those in the world, is one of the things that causes us to bear witness of who Christ is and what He has accomplished within us. Let’s be a people who are content.
There are many reasons for why contentment is such a struggle with people, and I just want to name a few. One of them is that the society that we live in literally breeds discontentment. I think you have to look no further than the marketplace, the companies who make their living from providing goods and services. The competition is very intense and so there's this ever-increasing emphasis on something new, something improved and companies that are progressive work years ahead on the next generation of products to meet not just the needs but the wants of people. They literally flood the shelves with a number of choices that we have in any product category, and is overwhelming at times. In fact, that's one of things that really struck me a number years ago when Renée had I had the opportunity to visit Tom and Lisa in Mongolia. You walk into their stores and there was not much to choose from. Kind of interesting, very different. The ironic thing is, the more people have to choose from, the more that is available to meet their wants, the more dissatisfied they actually ar, the more they struggle with contentment.
The second reason that I would point out is that the world cannot provide true, lasting contentment. To begin with, people are not able to acquire everything that they want. For the average person, obviously that's not possible, but if you add to that the things that people do acquire, the things that are able to acquire, the fulfillment that those things provide is fleeting at best. It does not last. Everything that the world has to offer, the pleasure that it provides has a diminishing return. I think what is truer yet is it there's nothing that man has come up with that meets the deepest need that man actually has. The greatest reason though that people struggle with contentment is because of the human condition. Because of the human condition by nature all men are sinful. They have fallen from the perfect place of fellowship with the One who has created them. In their pride men have gone their own way there now at enmity with God. Men we are told in God's word, do not desire God, they do not desire after righteousness. They only seek after their own desires and wants, their own pleasures and yet their desires and their pleasures can never be fully satisfied. Many years ago there was a study that determined that the average American had approximately 70 different things that he wanted, 70 different wants. A number of years after that and they did a similar study of the next generation and it was found that the average American then had 400 things they wanted and if that obviously is a picture of a great discontentment. There's no end. There's no end into the desires and the wants that people have whether it's a car, a house, or any other kind of possession -- a better job a better position, more prominence, you can go on and on and on. There is actually no end. But the moment one thing is tried and consumed its attractiveness doesn't last very long. So men crave after something else, something new because their ultimate need has not been met.
Someone once asked John Rockefeller how much money is enough, and his answer was just a little more than you already have. I think he was being very honest. There is no such thing as enough to the natural man. Men have an insatiable desire to have more, to have something different, never being satisfied with what they have. That is the consequence of sin, the result of a broken relationship with God. Men were never meant to be an end in themselves, they were not created to live for themselves. Men were created to have a fellowship with God and to glorify Him. There's nothing else that will satisfy.
The apostle Paul was very familiar with the subject of contentment. He addresses this fundamental issue in the book of Philippians. In chapter 4 verses 10 through 13 Paul of all people I think had a right to exhort the saints about contentment. If you consider his life -- the imprisonments the hardships the persecutions the hatred that was directed at him by the Jewish leaders, if anyone had been tempted to be discontent would've been Paul, but his life was an example of really just the opposite. It was an example of genuine contentment. I wanted to just read these four verses in Philippians for us this morning. Chapter 4 verses 10 through 13. We’re going to be focusing on these four verses this morning. He says,
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. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 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. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me..
As you notice in verse 10, Paul expresses his gratefulness for the concern of the Philippian saints had for him, the ways in which they shared with him and then in verse 11, Paul makes really an amazing statement. He says not that I am referring to any unrealized want. He says I don't lack and then he gives us the reason for that. He says, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am. Those are words that you and I need to press upon our hearts. This is something that each one of us needs to literally take hold of to meditate upon, and to ponder. What does it mean to be content in whatever circumstances I’m in? I want to look at this and to make sure that we understand what Paul is referring to, because this is literally a life altering statement.
The word means sufficient to oneself in secular writing. This word was used to describe a country that supplied itself and did not did not need to export anything. In other words, they were independent they had no need of outside assistance, and when Paul says that he was sufficient to himself, He is saying that he is independent of of external circumstances and not only that but he is independent of not just circumstances but people as well. When it comes to being satisfied in this life he needed nothing other than what actually resided within him, and that is the Holy Spirit of God. He resided in Paul, Christ was in him. He had the hope of glory because of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Paul is self-contained, we can say it that way, that's literally what it means. Every one of them are satisfied from within. He needs nothing from any kind of external source to satisfy him. He is content from within. I want you to consider this for a moment because this is completely the thought here. This is completely foreign to those of this world. The natural man obtains his contentment in just the opposite way. It all comes from what is outside of himself. It's a dependent on how his day goes, is dependent on what he owns, in the comfort that it brings, is dependent on how people treat him, is dependent on how people think of them. And these are things that he has very little control of, if any, it is no wonder that the struggle is so great, the natural man can only feel good about himself based on what happens outside of himself. Contentment that is described for us is indeed the potential of every believer. It's an inner condition of the heart, and is completely independent of all that is outward, those things that the world struggles after.
This is the very thing that we see in second Corinthians chapter 4. In this passage Paul is describing what he has gone through in his ministry. He's describing this to the Corinthian saints and I want you to just listen to some of the things that Paul endured:
7But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. 11For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12So death works in us, but life in you.
What Paul endured for the sake of Christ, what he endured for the sake of the saints is remarkable. I want you to listen then to how he concludes this in verse 16 he says we do not lose heart. In other words, he says we are fully content and he gives a reason for this. He says, but though our outer man is decaying, yet the inner man is being renewed day by day. The contentment that Paul is describing, it resides in the inner man and is not the old man that we once were. It's the new man created in Christ Jesus, it is the man who has been regenerated, that is the redeemed man. As Paul's body under undergoes abuse and decay, at the same time, at the very same time this inner man he says is being continually revived and is being strengthened and invigorated. I think the idea Paul is getting across is the more abuse that his body endured, the more his soul was raised above the things of this world, the more he was filled with the peace and the joy of the gospel, the more he was made content. If you look back at our passage and in Phillipians chapter 4, this independence from outward conditions is put really in no uncertain terms. Paul lays out the full scope of this inner contentment. Verse 11 says that he had learned to be content in whatever circumstance. In verse 12 he says, in any and every circumstance he has learned to be content. There may be somebody who says man you don't know my situation and perhaps we don't but we are not given any exceptions here in this verse, Paul puts no exceptions in this verse.
There is no special cases where contentment is not possible. He says in any and every circumstance. We’ve got to take God at His word when He tells us this. Right? To the one whose heart is right with God, there are no limitations on the contentment found in Christ. There are no limitations. If you look here, Paul takes us from one end of the spectrum to another, from humble means to prosperity, from abundance to suffering need. The scope of contentment in Christ has been underscored I think many times in God's word. Let me just read a few passages here that really support what Paul is saying here. Second Corinthians chapter 12 in verse 10 says
Therefore 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.
Romans chapter 8 starting verse 35. He says who will separate us from the love of Christ will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Jumping down to verse 37, he says, but in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us for I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present for things to come for powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. This is all inclusive. There's nothing over which we cannot be conquerors through Christ. There's nothing that can disconnect us or cut us off from God's love and because that is true there is no circumstance in which we cannot be content in and through Christ, and that is the power of God's sovereign love.
One thing I want to make clear after saying all of this is that to be content in the way that is put forth in God's word, this does not mean that we enjoy or are happy about the difficult circumstances that we sometimes go through. Some of the situations that we are allowed to face are not pleasant; they can be downright miserable. Sometimes they defy understanding. Look at the person of Job, look at God's servant Job, what he went through. It does not mean that we will be walking around laughing and being giddy during these trials. There is a suffering and there's a hardship at times. There is a discouragement. There are times we will cry out to God that we simply do not understand why You’re allowing us to go through what we’re going through. But it does mean that our hearts and souls in the inner man can be at rest. The inner man can be content and satisfied, having an abiding confidence that what God has promised to those who love Him is true. We can all say with the apostle Paul for I know whom I have believed and am convinced that He is able to guard that which I have entrusted to Him again until that day. That has the very foundation of contentment, and is the very foundation of our faith. Paul was content. He was satisfied in Christ to the point where he was not disturbed and he was not distraught in whatever state he was in.
We want to turn our attention to a very important element of contentment that we have been looking at. And it’s this: contentment is something that must be learned. In verse 11, he says I speak not that I speak from want says, for I have learned to be content. In verse 12 he says it again in any and every circumstance I have learned to be content. If you think about it, learning is so much of the Christian life, is something that is ongoing, is something that will continue until we see the Lord face-to-face. We must learn to trust in the Lord and not ourselves. We learn to know Him. We learn to know His will. We learn to die to self. We learn to flee from sin, to flee from temptation, and we must also learn to be content. I think one of the things that we must understand about contentment is that it does not come naturally. This is something that does not come naturally and I'm speaking about us as believers as well. It's not a natural attainment. What was natural for us was discontentment in our fallen condition, that was the norm but the contentment that we have been looking at, this is a supernatural work of God. It's a work that He accomplishes within the hearts of those who have been redeemed. As those who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God, we have been given the capacity to be content, but it is a learning process. The words that are used here ‘have learned’ are really better translated ‘I have come to learn’. I think really the implication is that contentment in the midst of any and all difficulty was something new to Paul. He did not start his Christian life knowing a great deal about it. It is something that he came to learn, he learned how to be content in Christ. I think this is important for us to understand because it implies that we bear a responsibility in this. We bear responsibility in this even though it's a supernatural work of God within us. It requires effort on our part. In fact it even demands not just that we desire it, but also that we discipline ourselves. When Paul says I have come to learn, the ‘I’ here is emphatic. Paul is saying that I for my part, have learned to be content. The thrust is that we need to be teachable before the Lord, you and I need to be teachable when it comes to contentment. We need to be willing students. We are to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God and be taught and to be changed.
I think an important question to ask, then, is where did Paul learn to be content for this learning to take place? We’re given the answer again verse 11. I think this is one of the more difficult things about the learning process. He says not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. It's not just that our contentment is in the midst of whatever circumstances. The learning of that contentment takes place in those same circumstances. Much of the learning takes place in the field and not in the classroom and has to be that way. This is a learning by experience. How else can we learn to be content in any and all circumstances, if we do not come to experience the difficulties and hardships, the very things that threaten contentment? As I already mentioned, this is a difficult thing. The difficult thing about the learning process that results in contentment is that we must endure hardship and suffering. But at the same time, it really is most enlightening. This is because we learn the authentic nature of the truths of God's word. In God’s word, He reveals to us the eternal truths about Himself, the truths about His nature, the truths about His character. He reveals to us many precious promises that He has given to us. In all of these truths, we are then able to put into practice, we’re literally able to put them to the test and what we see, firsthand, is the reality of His saving and sanctifying power. We come to know it not just in our heads. The truths and doctrines and the precepts of God are meant to be experiential. They're not intended to be just a base of knowledge that resides in our minds. They’re meant to be acted upon and tested and proven. They’re meant to encourage, to strengthen and to enable the people of God in any and all circumstances, and in doing so we come to know the faithfulness of our God. The apostle Paul does not say here ‘I have heard that in any and all circumstances I should be content.’ That's not what Paul says. He emphatically states that he had learned to be content. He had learned to be independent of any and all circumstances. You and I know how easy it is for the things of this world to take hold of our attention, to take a more important place in our lives than they should. If we’re not watchful, those things become the very source of our contentment. The teaching process that the Lord put Paul through, the teaching process that He is putting you and I through, this teaching process is meant to wean us from the dependence on things in this world. Have you ever thought about that? God in His sanctifying process, in His sanctifying work in our lives, He's in the process of weaning us from being dependent upon the things of this world. We need to be willing students, receptive students.
Paul brings this subject of contentment to a conclusion in verse 13. It says I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. This is a verse that I have no doubt has comforted God's people for the last 2000 years, and it reveals to us the secret that Paul mentions in the previous verse. Paul had said in the previous verse he had learned the secret of being content. He had learned not just a secret, but he had learned the secret. A one-of-a-kind secret. That secret was the power of God that He inwardly supplies to each one of His children. We’re given a very clear explanation of this power in Ephesians chapter 3 in verse 16. I want you to listen to what Paul prays for the Ephesian saints as he prays that the Lord would grant to you according to the riches of His glory to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man. The power that God infuses into the inner man to bring about contentment, this is not just any power that we’re talking about here. It's the power that is according to the riches of His glory. There is no power like that. There's no way you can even measure that kind of power. It's infinite, it is the very power that raised Christ from the dead, the very power that will raise you and I from the dead, and that has raised us from the dead and here we find this one-of-a-kind secret it is that the Holy Spirit of God imparts to us in the inner man a one-of-a-kind power. I think what this says about the contentment that is available to you and I is that that contentment is the very power of God in the soul of man. Can you think of anything more powerful than genuine contentment in the face of any and all circumstances? I want to share with you one example, we looked at this passages briefly this last Wednesday night. This is the account of Stephen's death in acts chapter 7 verse 54 through 63. Remember because of Stephen's boldness in declaring the truth. Notice what we find here. It says
When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56“Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”57At this they covered their ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” 60Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep.
I don't know of a better example of a man whose contentment was completely independent of the circumstances that he was facing. Stephen is facing certain death at the hands of unrighteous men and he's been enabled to look into heaven to see the very glory of God and not only that, but he's empowered by the Holy Spirit to forgive the very ones who were at that moment putting him to death. That's the power of contentment. That's the power of contentment that Paul exhorted the Philipian believers with and is exhorting us as well. This is the power of God worked out in the very heart and soul of man. If this was true of speed of Stephen and most certainly we know it was, there's no situation that you and I will ever have to face were the indwelling power of God will fail.
I want you to listen to what the psalmist says about this in Psalm 73 verse 25-26. He says whom have I whom have I in heaven, but Thee, and besides Thee I desire nothing on earth. My flesh in my heart may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. These certainly are the words of a man who is content in the Lord. As we close our time this morning in God's word, I ask you once again, are you content? Perhaps we get a little better idea what Paul is talking about. Are you content? Is the description of the contentment with which we have just been reminded, is that familiar to you, something that you experience?
These last few days I've been asking myself that very question, and it occurred to me that there are indications of contentment that I think are obvious, things that accompany contentment and I want to mention two of them I think they both go hand in hand. I think the first thing that accompanies contentment is his thankfulness. Think about over and over again in Scripture we are exhorted to be thankful. Colossians chapter 3 verse 13 it says Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. In other words he's saying let the contentment that comes from God reign and triumph in your hearts. Are you and I genuinely thankful to the Lord in all that He gives us everything, both times of peace and rest as well as the hardships, are we thankful?
A second sign of contentment from a negative perspective, is the absence of complaining. I would have to admit to you as I thought about this on my own, I have to confess this is an area that I struggle and greatly -- complaining. I don't know about you, but the amount of complaining that I find myself doing at times, and even the things that I complain about, what they reveal in my heart is it’s not is not as content as it should be. Some of the complaining that we do although we would not say it and maybe not even realize it, but we’re grumbling against the Lord. That's really what it boils down to. We’re complaining because things aren't right, things are not the way we want and we don't have what we want, or this person said something to me that I don't like. ‘Lord change that’. That's really what we’re saying. We’re expressing our displeasure for what He's allowed. We have not learned to be content. Another way of putting this is we have not learned to die to self, and when you think about it, that really is the bottom line with contentment. A person who is truly content is the one who has been freed. He's been freed from sin, is being freed from his own selfish desires.
In the book of Matthew we've been given a wonderful invitation. The Lord himself invites us to take My yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you shall find rest for your souls. You shall be content. Just a couple minutes ago we saw that learning to be content takes place in those times of difficulty and what we see here in this invitation the Lord gives us is that while we are in those times of difficulty, we’re not alone. We are there in those times of difficulty learning at the feet of Jesus. I would ask you not to take this question and just put it put aside as you leave this morning. If you think about it, being content is one of the things that separates God's people from those in the world, is one of the things that causes us to bear witness of who Christ is and what He has accomplished within us. Let’s be a people who are content.
