The Secret of Being Content

The Secret of Being Content

 

Phil. 4:10-13

 

In January 2002, while a junior in high school, Britney Gallivan folded a piece of paper 12 times. When I first read that I was surprised that that was a world record. Folding a piece of paper 12 times just didn't seem like that big a deal. So that article caught my eye and as I read on, I learned a few things about folding paper in half. I learned that, until Brittany's achievement, conventional wisdom held that the maximum number of times a piece of paper could be folded by a person is 7 times. The reason it is so difficult is because of exponential growth. If you fold a piece of paper 10 times, the thickness will roughly be the width of your hand. So you might think that if you folded that same paper 20 times it'd be twice the thickness of your hand, but you'd be off by a little. That same piece of paper folded 20 times would be higher than Mount Everest. Fold it 42 times and it would reach the moon. Here's where exponential growth gets crazy. 51 times would reach to the sun and 103 times it would measure the diameter of the observable universe, or 93 billion light years.

 

Here's the take home for me: an easy thing, done often enough, can become an impossibly hard thing to do. Contentment can kind of be like that. Paul says that he has learned the secret of being content…and at first we might wonder what the big deal is with that. Being content at first doesn't seem like that big a deal, that hard a thing to achieve, especially if life is going reasonably well for you. We just celebrated Thanksgiving and there is so much that all of us have to be thankful for. And probably most or all of us do feel thankful for all that God has blessed us with.

 

But are we content the way that Paul is content? Paul isn't saying here that life is going pretty good so he is content. He's folding the paper way more times than that.

 

• 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 any and every circumstance

• I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

 

Paul has learned the secret of being content in every. single. situation. When he has a lot, and when he has very little. When he is riding high, and when life brings him very low. When things are going good…and when things are going bad. Paul's contentment is folded into every circumstance he finds himself in. That isn't easy, that is impossibly hard and we need the help and grace of God to learn this lesson in our lives.

 

Let's take a moment to consider a little of the backdrop here. The letter to the Philippians is what's called a friendship letter. That was a form of letter from a close friend to close friends. Paul loved all the churches he founded and wrote to, but he had a special bond with and a warm affection for the Philippian church. So as he comes to end of letter, he comes to the practical reason for writing this letter: he wants to thank them for a financial gift they have sent to him through Epaphroditus. The Philippians had a track record of being sacrificial givers to Paul’s ministry, but for some reason they had not been able to give for some time, and this gift sent through Epaphroditus communicates a revival of their concern for Paul, not because they didn't care up to then, but because they “had no opportunity” to show that concern before this point.

 

So what means the most to Paul is the renewed concern for him their gift expresses. Paul is quick to emphasize that his joy isn’t motivated by need. Essentially he is saying, "Not that I really needed your gift…" That seems very strange to us today. When we receive a gift, it is considered gracious to connect that gift with a need (or desire) we had. Have you ever gotten a gift that you have no idea what you're going to do with it? You're thinking "regift" the minute you open it? But you're not going to say that. You're going to figure out a way to make it sound like it was just what you wanted/needed.

 

You'd never write, hey thanks for the gift, I really didn't need it but I appreciate the thought. But that's pretty much what Paul writes: Not that I am speaking of being in need. I'm not thanking you for your gift because I needed it. Paul isn't dissing their gift. In those days (and this is still true) friendship based on need and usefulness were considered the lowest form of friendship. Deep friendships weren't and still aren’t based on what you get out of them: they're based on mutual concern and care for one another. So when Paul says that what means the most to him is the love and concern their gift expresses, he is affirming the value of their friendship.

 

But he's also making a statement about the power of Christ in his life. He's not speaking from being in need, not because he has no need, but because he has "learned in whatever situation I am to be content."

 

Let me ask you, are you content this morning? If the answer is yes, why are you content? Are you content because you had a warm and blessed Thanksgiving holiday, because things are going pretty good, because all your basic needs are being met, because you just got some good news, or because there's something you are really looking forward to? Or, if the honest answer is, no, I'm not content, why? Why are you discontent? Is there something you wish were different? Is there something you want but don't have? Is there a situation in your life that you want to see changed? What do you think it would take to make you content?

 

If we see contentment as something that comes when things go the way we want them to, we don't understand contentment the way Paul does. We're folding the paper two or three times but Paul takes us to the 13th fold, the one that's beyond our ability, the one that's impossible for us to do apart from the power of God in our lives. Share from this passage 3 ways that Paul folds contentment in his life, 3 ways that are impossible for us to do in our own strength, we need God's help.

 

1. Contentment is not found in our circumstances

 

Paul disconnects contentment from his circumstances: In any and every circumstance…For Paul, contentment wasn't derived from his situation, and that is an important truth to understand about contentment. Last week I mentioned that for many of us thankfulness is a moving target because contentment is a moving target. We think we'd be content if this circumstance were different or that situation was different. And yet, even when circumstances change, contentment eludes us. Contentment, when it's based on circumstances, is a moving target.

 

There's a story of an airline pilot who was flying over Tennessee Mountains when he spotted a small lake. Pointing it out to his co-pilot he said, “See that little lake? When I was a kid I used to sit fishing in a rowboat on that lake, and every time a plane would fly overhead I’d look up and wish I was flying it. Now every time I fly over that lake I look down and wish I was in a rowboat, fishing.”

 

If contentment is found in our circumstances, contentment will always seem to be just beyond where our lives actually are.

 

• If I had a little more money…I would be content.

• If I had a job I enjoyed … I would be content.

• If I was married…I would be content.

• If we owned our own home… I would be content.

• If my husband was more sensitive…or a better leader…or home more…I would be content.

• If my wife nagged less… or appreciated me more … or was a better cook …I would be content.

• If our kids were better behaved... or if they didn’t argue with each other so much…or if they were doing better in school…I would be content.

 

A reporter once asked John D. Rockefeller, who was at that point the richest man in the world, “How much money is enough?” He responded, "Just a little bit more." We can live our lives like that: contentment is always just out of reach. We don’t need much to be content: just a little bit more than we have. When in a rowboat, our hearts tell us we’d be content if we were in the plane. When in a plane, our hearts tell us we’d be happy if we were in the rowboat. Result is that we can live in a state of discontentment and find ourselves blaming that discontentment on our circumstances, and thinking that contentment is just a situation change away. But Paul says he has learned that contentment is not found in our circumstances.

 

It's hard to disconnect our contentment from our circumstances. It's not wrong to want a bad situation to get better, or a need to be filled. That's not Paul's point. But there is a way to be content (that is, a deep sense that we have enough to be satisfied) no matter what life throws at us. And it's not hard, it's impossible. That brings us to the second fold.

 

2. Contentment is found in the sufficiency of Christ

 

Paul's secret isn't surprising, it’s just one sentence long: “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” If you spend time in Philippians it will come as no surprise that Christ is at the center of Paul’s contentment. Christ is at the center of everything for Paul. But there is more packed into this sentence then first meets the eye. The language Paul uses is language commonly used by the Greek Stoics of his day. Stoics believed that emotions often led to poor judgment and so they sought to develop self control and fortitude in order to overcome those destructive emotions. The Stoic wanted to be immune to misfortune and so to be content in every circumstance was their goal. The Spanish Stoic philosopher Seneca wrote:

 

“The happy man is content with his present lot, no matter what it is, and is reconciled to his circumstances.” ¹

 

That sounds a lot like Paul. But what is completely different is where they believed that contentment was to be found. Seneca writes again:

 

“The wise man is sufficient unto himself for a happy existence.”²

 

The Stoic mentality looks to their own strength in every circumstance to find contentment. Paul turns Stoic language into gospel language. He rejects self-sufficiency and looks to Christ’s sufficiency in every circumstance to find his contentment. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” This is the secret: Christ is enough in every circumstance. Christ is his contentment in every circumstance. Christ is enough for you and for me to be content in every circumstance. Because he is good enough to make life full and abundant even in the midst of the hardest trials. But at this point, this could lead us to feel pretty discouraged. You might be thinking, "I'm just not there". Neither am I. So it's encouraging that Paul said he had learned this lesson. The Lord is teaching us this lesson. Maybe you're not at 12 folds, maybe you're working on 3 or 4 folds. But our Lord Jesus is patiently and lovingly working in our hearts and through our circumstances to teach us contentment. Here's a beautiful truth that can help us in this:

 

Christ is not only sovereign over our circumstances, he is our strength in our circumstances

 

Paul is contrasting two extremes: abundance and need. Plenty and hunger. It might seem that

contentment is only difficult when we are in need, but contentment can actually be more elusive in abundance than in need. John Calvin wrote that learning to abound is “an excellent and rare virtue, and much greater than the endurance of poverty.”

 

Both want and wealth can consume us – both can eat away at our lives and make us think that life is found in what we have or what we want to have. Spiritually what is happening is that we are making functional gods out of that thing. Colossians 3:5 says that covetousness (wanting what others have) is idolatry. Why? Because we are functionally saying we need that thing to be content. God isn’t enough, but that thing will be enough to make us content.

 

The reason why prosperity can be so much harder on us spiritually is that it has a stronger pull away from God on our hearts – although abundance doesn't fill us, doesn't make us happy (content), it creates the illusion that it could, and that we'd be unhappy if we didn't have a lot. So we can feel empty holding onto a lot of stuff, but grip all the tighter because we buy into the lie that life would be unhappier if we didn't have all that stuff.

 

God is sovereign over both abundance and need. Sometimes God in His providence opens floodgates of heaven and pours out the provision we need in abundance. Other times He withholds and we experience need, hunger, and humiliation (what Paul calls being brought low). But whatever God in His sovereignty allows into our lives, God will supply strength for us to face it. That's where the deep contentment comes from: Christ becomes our strength and we experience fellowship with him deep within our hearts. We aren't trying to stoically endure all things, we are humbly relying on Christ to give us strength to endure all things…and be content with his strength.

 

The One who is sovereign over our circumstances is our strength in our circumstances. Roots of faith grow deeper as we realize He has sovereignly chosen every detail of my situation, and He is my strength in that situation and that’s enough. He is sufficient. I don’t need my circumstance to change, I need Christ. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Christ is my sufficiency.

 

3. The deepest contentment comes from doing God's will in God's strength

 

Paul's train of thought takes an unexpected twist. After describing seasons of plenty and want, we might expect him to say something like, I can be content in all seasons through Christ. That would be a perfectly good thing to say, and it would feel more natural to the flow of his thoughts. Basically, I can feel satisfied no matter what because it is Christ who fulfills me.

 

But instead he says, “I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me.” Paul's passion in life wasn't to have enough to feel satisfied, it was having enough strength to do God's will. Jesus made a similar statement when the disciples were urging him to eat after his encounter with the woman at the well, and he said "I have food to eat that you do not know about." As they wondered if someone brought him food, he answered, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work." Paul is thanking the Philippians for their partnership with him in the gospel, their contribution to help him continue doing the work God had called him to do.

 

We just celebrated Thanksgiving, and many of us celebrated by having a huge meal with turkey and potatoes and stuffing and all the fixings, topped off by pumpkin pie. And we got up from that meal feeling stuffed (and maybe in need of some alka seltzer). That's a wonderful way to celebrate a special day, but we can fall into the deception of thinking that that's what makes a contented life: living 70 or 80 years satisfying all our longings and desires until we draw our last breath. Thinking that contentment comes from consuming. When we live just to satisfy our appetites, contentment isn't the result, deep dissatisfaction is the result. Boredom is the result. Restlessness and emptiness is the result. Because

satisfying our desires isn't a big enough reason for living.

 

Paul saw contentment coming more from giving than getting. From ministering, serving, doing God's will, fulfilling God's call on his life. The deepest contentment doesn't come so much from what we have, but from what by God's grace we are able to give.

 

I want to close by sharing a challenge that I believe the Holy Spirit put on my heart this morning. Don't seek your contentment by getting things. Or by seeking to be comfortable. Make it your passion to live for God's will for your life, to serve the Lord in the strength that He gives, with the gifts and talents and resources that He has given you. Through Christ's strength we can do God's will for our lives, in seasons of need and seasons of abundance, in times of blessing, and in times of hardship. Whether we have much or little – talents, money, opportunity – we can be confident that we can do all the things that God has called us to do through him who strengthens us.

 

Three questions to ask of God and ourselves:

 

1. Am I trusting in God’s sovereignty in the circumstances I am currently in?

2. How is God seeking to draw me closer to Christ for strength in this season?

3. What has God called me to do for the glory of Christ in this season?

 

The deepest contentment isn't something we get by seeking it, it's a by-product of the life lived for Christ. Let's close this morning, not by asking God to give us a deeper contentment, but by asking God to stir up a greater passion for Christ and his will in our hearts. Because the secret of the deepest contentment comes from doing God's will in God's strength.

 

If you're not a Christian, God isn't asking you to do some work to get right with Him. He's only asking one thing: Jesus said, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." John 6:29 (NIV) Will you believe in the work of Christ on your behalf? Will you believe that Jesus died on the cross to save you from your sins? That Jesus is calling you to turn from sin, trust in him and follow him for the rest of your life? If that is the desire of your heart this morning, pray with me.