You probably know Philippians 4:13, the verse that says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We see those words on social media, on t-shirts, we hear it from athletes or see it in craft stores. Today, on Truth for Life, Alastair Begg explains that this verse is often quoted out of context and used in a way the author never intended.
So what does it really mean? Let's open our Bibles and take a closer look at the context for this well-known verse. The sensitivity of the servant of God is to move to the position where, if he has given up potential financial remuneration in the service of Christ, it is the responsibility of the servant to ensure that he is no longer ingratiating himself with people in order to receive gifts or to receive resources that will then float his boat. The flip side, of course, is that the people of God, we who have resources to disperse to those who are in peculiar need, that we who have resources do not respond in this perverse way. But rather, that we recognize that, as Singler Ferguson says, even if we cause embarrassment to those to whom we are generous.
We must respect their sensitivity. We must also be given the opportunity to discover that it is more blessed to give. Then to Receive. That's the body of Christ at work. That's exhorting, encouraging, and caring for one another.
That the abundance that one enjoys is not so that we may become smug and hard-hearted, but it is in order that we might be able to share with those who don't enjoy the same abundance.
Now that then is the setting. Let's go to the secret.
Well, verse 12 gives it to us. I know what it is to be in need. And I know what it is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether I'm well-fed or whether I'm hungry, whether I'm living in plenty or living in want. Not everybody is able to say that.
Not everyone has lived on both sides of the street. Not everyone knows, if you like, how the other half lives, but Paul did. Paul had known what it was to go down by the riverside in Philippi and, in the course of his ministry, discover that a wealthy woman who had a nice house and her own business and lived by the river was converted to Jesus Christ. Her immediate response was, Hey guys, you've got to come to my house. He goes to her house and presumably it's a nice house.
I mean, it has matching towels, it has different kinds of soap, everything is in position. They don't have to move newspapers from underneath anything. They don't have to rearrange the place. He simply goes in and there he is with a view of the river.
Now that was one day. Then another day he's got no house. He's got no towels. He has no soap. He has a tree, a river bank, and an old sleeping bag.
And he's thinking, man. Lydia's house is so nice. I hate it here. I wish I was there. Then he wants to taint himself in check and said, you know what?
That's not the issue. Indeed, if I think like that, then my life is going to be a roller coaster ride constantly. I'm either going to be intoxicated by wonderful things, or I am going to be overwhelmed by the absence of wonderful things. And either way, I'm going to be neutralized. I'll never be able to serve Christ.
Because on the one hand, I'll be so enamored with all this stuff that I won't be able to live without it. Or when I'm down here under the tree, I'll be so ticked off that I don't have it that I won't be able to get up and preach sermons anymore. Oh, he must have said to himself, I've got to find the middle ground here somewhere. I need to learn a secret. There must be a secret to this.
To be able to do this and to do this, and yet to have your contentment. Calibrated by something other than those two experiences. That's the challenge. Isn't it? When you're flying and you get bumped up?
You're going, man, this is nice here. And then on the return journey, you go where you were going to go, and you're going, hey. I should be up there. That's where I belong. That's the way I went out.
You walk past the people who are up there, you instinctively dislike them. Twelve of them. He'd gone. Look at this guy sitting there smugged with a tomato juice. Who does he think he is?
He's just a business guy going to his appointment. What's your problem? See? This is uncomfortable. This is challenging.
And we've baptized a lot of worldly mentalities into Christian orthodoxy, and frankly, we're as messed up on this as the world is. We can't talk to the world about contentment, most of us, because we are so jolly discontented.
Now, the word that Paul uses for contentment is a word that was used by pagan philosophers as well. The Stoics used this word, they regarded it as being synonymous with self-sufficiency. They bred in themselves a spirit of independence. They had nothing to do with their circumstances. They were above it and beyond it.
They were, if you like, summarized in Paul Simon's words in the early 70s: I am a rock, I am an island, and a rock can feel no pain, and an island never cries. That was the Stoics' approach to contentment. I divest myself of all of this stuff, it doesn't touch me.
So it was a kind of mind over matter approach. But that's not what Paul is saying here. Paul's declaration is not the stiff upper lip of the Stoic. in his self-sufficiency. Rather, Paul's statement here is grounded in the sufficiency of the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's verse 13. I can do everything through him who gives me power. Strength. In other words, the secret of contentment wasn't, it isn't found in a spirit of detached apathy or cultified indifference. Contentment Is a result of bowing my heart and mind to the will of God.
No matter the conditions that I face. That's why, when you see contented people, they are so striking. Whether these people live in poverty or whether they live in the far reaches of prosperity. And all of us have known and know such individuals. And the thing that is so striking in meeting them is that this secret is at least in place and is being developed in their lives.
They're neither overwhelmed by poverty nor are they intoxicated by poverty. Prosperity. It's in this context, of course, that verse thirteen makes sense. Paul is not saying in verse 13 that he can do anything to which he puts his mind. But that's the way verse 13 is largely used, you know.
I am horrible at mathematics. There's no way in the world that I could get through certain pieces of the SAT. But Philippians 4:13 says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Therefore, here we go.
Well, there's always a chance that there may be a divine intervention in some dramatic way, but by and large, Philippians 4.13 is going to do nothing for you except give you the strength to deal with the sense of abject failure that you experience when your SAT mathematical section results come back. That's where it fits in. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. In other words, I can flunk and still get on with my life. Rather than, oh, I can do this, I can do that, I can do the next thing, I can do everything.
No, Philippians 4.13 is not saying I can do anything I put my mind to. Philippians 4.13 is saying by Christ's strength, I can be calm in adversity and I can be humble in prosperity. Because that's what's needed. Prosperous people need to learn how to be humble, and those of us who live in adverse circumstances need to learn how to be calm.
Now, notice that contentment is learned. Learned. I have learned to be content. What is it, Smith Barney? We make money the old-fashioned way we earn it.
This is power. We discover contentment the old fashioned way. We learn it. See, people want to go somewhere and have it hit them. I'm contented.
Thank you. I went to a meeting and a guy did this. And I was contented. Or I went somewhere else and he gave me this, and I'm contented. I keep it in my pocket, and hey, I'm contented.
Bologna. Let me come now finally to the significance then of this secret. The setting is Philippi in Rome. The secret is That detached from these external factors of want or plenty, Paul is discovering something. What is the significance for us?
Is there any way that we can summarize it?
Well, let me give you just one or two things that I haven't completely thought through. These are my homework things. And uh If I'm doing homework, Guess what? You're doing homework as well. That's the way it goes.
And I'm hoping you do it well so you can come and tell me some of the answers to my questions. We're in this together. What is the significance then of this secret? Number one. Christian contentment is clearly independent of my circumstances.
Christian contentment is clearly independent on my circumstances. We all know the older days that happiness depends on what happens. But joy is something that is independent of the chances and changes of our world. And until we understand that, then we will be riding on the high the high on the coaster and then we will be down in the depths and our lives will continue to go that way. It will not be in banishing this or in discovering that that we discover contentment, but it will be in realizing that whether I banish this or retain it, discover this or never discover it, that contentment is found somewhere else.
Indeed, and this is the second notion. Christian contentment is grounded In our Union with Jesus. It is a relationship with Jesus which establishes the basis for Christian contentment. In other words, Philippians 3.10 precedes Philippians 4.13. Paul says in 3.10, I want to know Christ.
And in 4.13 he says, I can do everything through Christ. But first I didn't want to know Christ. And in knowing him, then I will be able to do everything through him. We live in such a pragmatic environment as well that when you talk about things in Christian doctrine or give to people instruction and information, it's not unusual for them to come back at you and say, Well, we've been talking for a long time, but you haven't told me one thing I'm supposed to do. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do.
As if the doing of it made it. No, it is the knowing of Him that makes the doing of this possible. And unless we know Him, we can't do this.
So, what we need to do is know Him. Inside out and outside in. I want to know Christ. I can do everything through Christ. People want to truncate it.
They want to go ahead immediately to, yeah, fine, okay. And let me do everything through Christ. No. Do you know Christ? He said, Well, of course I know Christ.
I'm committed to Jesus Christ. He's my personal Savior, October the 4th, 1947.
Now, I know that you met Christ. I'm asking you if you know Christ. I've met a lot of people that I don't know. We trot this out as evangelical Christians.
Well, um, Uh Do you actually know Christ or do you just know about Christ? To which the pagan may turn around and say, Well, let me ask you the self-same question. Do you actually know Christ? Or do you just know about Christ? Is what you're doing on a Sunday simply a form of behaviour modification?
Exchanging one set of external circumstances for another with a kind of religious twist. Because I don't think that would be the same as knowing Christ. Is what you're doing simply going along because you believe that the external faithfulness to the demands of the routine of a church family, in this case namely Parkside, may be equated with knowing Christ. And the pagan says, that doesn't sound to me like knowing Christ. That sounds to me like doing what you're told.
So in other words, we can fulfil duties. We can get Our attendance card ticked. We can stand up and testify to an encounter in our past, but it may not be synonymous with knowing Christ. Why am I so discontented?
Now because I haven't found the five principles. Because I don't know Christ. If I knew Christ and how wonderful He is. If I really believed that he is my all-in-all, If he is more precious than silver, more costly than gold, more beautiful than diamonds. And nothing that I have compares to him.
You see, if I really, really, really believed that, then it would radically transform the way in which I view my circumstances. Therefore, I have to sadly conclude that I really, really, really don't know him in that way. And of course I may be different from you. We would just add to it by saying Christian contentment. Is the fruit of an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus.
It's the fruit of an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus. The more I know of Christ, the more contented I become. The more the things of earth lose their value, the more the significance of all this stuff, whether my name's on the office door, or whether it's a two-foot name or a one-foot name or no name, whether I'm in the floor seven, floor nine, floor two, whatever it is, all those things that float my boat and ring my bell and make me me, when I know Christ, then I don't have to go and bury myself in disappointment because I'm not on the quote right floor or because I don't have the right key or because I haven't attained the right status. And when Christians When we grovel after all that stuff, what we're seeing is we don't know Christ in an ever-deepening dimension because if we did, We would learn contentment along with that. Amongst the golden oldies in the hymn.
Catalog. You have that hymn that says, I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus since I found in him a friend so strong and true. We used to sing that in Scotland years ago. I never knew really very much about it. I certainly didn't know who wrote it.
I only discovered that it was written by an evangelist here in America, found this out two and a half weeks ago. The evangelist had been out preaching, he came back and his wife had left him. taking everything that she regarded as her own. And the musht. Left a note on the kitchen table which simply said, see you around.
In fact, see you never. Goodbye. And she never came back. And he was brokenhearted. And he tossed and turned.
And finally he sat down and he did what he'd never done. And he wrote a poem or he wrote a song. And that was the song he wrote. I would love to tell you what I think of Jesus. Since I found in him a friend so strong and true, I would tell you how he changed my life completely.
He did something that no other friend could do. No one ever cared for me like Jesus. There's no other friend so kind and true. No one else could take the sin and sadness from me. Oh, how much he cares for you.
And then he goes on and he writes, And every day he comes to me with new assurance. And more and more I understand his words of love. The tears presumably fell on his page as he recognized the regrets, as he recognized the failure, as he looked at all of that. Where is he going to go? To Christ.
Christian contentment then. is learned And is learned in the school of God's providence. And if you don't go to the school of God's providence, if we don't go there, we'll never learn to be content. When you go to the school of God's providence, you read Psalm 139, verse 13. and you realize that you were intricately wrought in your mother's womb.
In other words, your DNA is as per divine. Decree. The color of your eyes, even if you've got two different colors of eyes, are there by God's design. When you stand in front of the mirror and you look at yourself And you go, whoa, oh man. That is not nice.
And when you're, and when you're tempted, when you're tempted, to go around Commiserating with yourself about what a wretch you are and how pathetic you look, stand up and say, hey. Nice work, Father. Nice work, Father. I know you didn't do this, I added this, but thank you just the same. Thank you.
And if I were a butterfly, I'd thank you for my wings. And if I were a robin in the tree, I'd thank you that I can sing. And if I were a fuzzy wuzzy bear, I'd thank you for my fuzzy wuzzy hair. But I just thank you, Father, for making me me.
Some of you haven't got there yet. I talk to university students, they want to talk about their identity. I had a kid come to talk to me two weeks ago down there in Ohio. Further south, I'm. And he got in the room, and it's always a little awkward.
You know what the guy's going to say. He could ask you anything at all. And he goes, I'm here to talk to you about my identity.
So, I didn't have a clue what that meant.
So, I said, Well, tell me a little more about how you're feeling. And the further the guy went, I still didn't have a clue what he meant. I had not a clue what this kid was on about, because I had never once thought about what he was on about. It never once occurred to me. But I think that's maybe I'm weird, but I know people are out there and they're so discontented with their identity.
I don't like who I am. And I don't like where I was born. And I don't like my dad, and I hate when he shows up at the restaurant when I'm there, because he doesn't eat properly. He doesn't eat the way I've learned to eat since I became smart, and since I became au fait, and since I became prosperous. Cut it out.
Your dad's your dad by divine appointment. Your mom's your mum by divine appointment. The color of your hair is by divine appointment. Every aspect of your life is by divine appointment. Don't be discontented with this stuff.
You say, well, then it's an invitation to be devoid of ambition. No, it is absolutely not. But it is To embrace one significant life-transforming ambition. And it is this. Christian contentment.
is the direct fruit of having no higher ambition. Than to belong to the Lord. and to be entirely at his disposal. Christian contentment is the fruit of having no higher ambition. than to belong to the Lord and to be entirely at His disposal.
You think that out. Murray McShane. Died at the age of 29. He was a pastor, a Presbyterian minister in Dundee, Scotland. And addressing a gathering of His friends, on one occasion, he said this to them, It has always been my ambition.
To have no plans. As regards myself. Doesn't that just great? On our 20th century day timer plan-oriented five-year orientation scheme development process information system mentality of where we're going to be and what we're going to be and when we'll call it quits and when we have enough and what we're going to do then and where we'll live then and what we'll be able to do I put it to you. that the reason we are in that Is the reason that we know so little of Christian contentment.
And as alien as McShane's words may sound, it is when I am prepared to embrace them. That I will begin to learn the secret. of Christian Contentment. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is one of the most requested messages from Alastair Begg.
It's titled The Secret of Contentment. Here at Truth for Life, we are passionate about telling people about Jesus in our own community and around the world. It is by God's grace and your financial partnership that we've been able to expand our reach in many ways. For example, we now make Alistair's teaching library available worldwide on our website, and we offer devotionals and other books at our cost. We're translating some of Alistair's most popular books into more than thirty languages, and there's so much more going on.
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Now here's Alastair with a closing prayer. Father. Take out of all of these words that which is true and of yourself, and bring it to our recollection, drive it home to our hearts and minds. Help us to forget that which is extraneous. And to reject anything that isn't true.
Forgive us for our spirit of discontentedness. With who we are and where we are and what we have. Trainers are fresh. Step by step, Day by day in the school of your providence. We want to learn this secret.
We feel like saying with Paul, not that I have already attained all this or I've already been made perfect, we certainly know that. But we want to say only to be what he wants me to be every moment of every day. Yielded completely to Jesus alone every step of the pilgrim way. Just to be clay in the potter's hands. ready to do what his will commands?
Only to be what he wants me to be. every moment of every day. I may grace Narcy in peace. From the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Rest upon us and move us towards That wonderful discovery.
Today and forevermore. Amen. Thanks for joining us this week. Do you ever feel like Christians are so outnumbered in the world that defending the faith is an exercise in futility? Monday, we'll learn how God can use our inadequacy to demonstrate His sufficiency.
The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
