Philippians 4:10-13 | Learning Contentment

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Take your Bibles with me to Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me has been printed on water bottles, stitched on athletic jerseys, and plastered across locker room walls.

I haven't seen one on a tie yet, but maybe that's out there and I just haven't seen it.

It shows up before playoff games.

It gets prayed before school exams.

It gets uttered as a thanks after career achievements.

It's sort of treated like a spiritual turbocharger or a magic wand sometimes.

Pointed at whatever you want to accomplish, and Christ will power you through.

That perspective of Philippians 4 13 is a complete reversal of what the Apostle Paul is saying.

Last Sunday we we traced the biblical story of contentment from the wilderness of Exodus to the shepherd's care in Psalm 23 to the book of Proverbs and a prayer for God's provision, all the way to Christ's statement to the Apostle Paul and his weakness that Christ's grace is always sufficient.

This morning we're in Philippians chapter 4, verses 10 through 13, where the Apostle Paul describes what trust in God's provision looks like, not from those outside perspectives, but from the inside.

Philippians 4:10–13

Through his own testimony of what his own life was like.

He tells us that the contentment that he possessed wasn't given to him all at once, just like that.

He sat in school.

He went through a kind of curriculum.

And he came out on the other side, having learned something that he did not have at the beginning.

And what we learn through Paul's experience here in this passage is that contentment is learned through the school of God's sufficient grace.

That's the claim that the Apostle Paul makes here.

Look at the text with me if you would follow along as I read again in Philippians chapter 4, beginning in verse 10.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

The Apostle Paul says, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me.

You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.

Not that I'm speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.

In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Amen.

We need to start really in verse 10, not simply because it's where we started reading, but because it's the very beginning part of the Apostle Paul's statement about contentment.

And it's a statement that really issues a kind of disclaimer.

It's a kind of statement that sets the tone for what comes.

And that disclaimer is that contentment doesn't have anything to do with indifference to situations or circumstances or feelings we might have in life.

Before he says a single word about contentment, he does something that reveals what contentment is not.

Notice what he does.

He says, he rejoices.

And not just a little bit of rejoicing.

A lot.

It's greatly rejoicing.

He's rejoicing because this church in the ancient city of Philippi has renewed its concern for him after some time where they didn't communicate support.

For whatever reason, he doesn't tell us he had not sensed their support.

And now he's genuinely glad that he does receive their support.

And he describes their renewal for him with a botanical image.

It's perfect for our season now.

The word he uses it means to bloom again.

Like over winter, and it grows again and blooms.

That's how he describes what happened when he received the Philippians' financial support from Epaphras that we learned about earlier in the book.

But he's careful to say he was not desperate.

He's rejoicing that their renewed care is there.

But he does not mean that their silence frustrated him.

He's not doing that.

He is content whether they sent him support or not.

And he extends grace to them when he says, You had no opportunity.

You didn't have a chance, really, to show kindness and grace and support for me.

So he doesn't rebuke their silence.

Instead, he interprets it charitably.

He thinks the best of them.

He believes that they really didn't have an opportunity.

So he doesn't question their level of concern.

He's just thankful.

And that matters because it corrects a very common misunderstanding about contentment.

We sometimes hear that word, content or contentment.

And for better or worse, we we imagine a sort of spiritual numbness.

Almost as if we've trained ourselves to not feel anything.

So whether we are discontent or content, we just we're the same.

We're level, right?

As if we've trained ourselves to not feel the difference between kindness that is received or kindness that's withheld.

Whether we have or we don't have.

Whether we have ups emotionally or downs emotionally, but that's not the Apostle Paul.

He feels the Philippians' care, he rejoices greatly.

He's not detached from circumstances, he's not numb.

Instead, he's deeply moved by his circumstances.

Contentment, friends, does not remove the emotional component of our humanity.

Contentment doesn't mean stop feeling.

You can grieve a loss and still be content.

You can receive an unexpected gift like the Apostle Paul and be content.

Contentment is not a flattening of your emotional life.

Instead, it is the steady relational trust in the God who holds you underneath the surface while the circumstances of life shift.

I am not a drummer.

I can't do two things of trying to go up and down circumstances and steadiness of life.

I can't do that.

Good job, Joe.

And all others of you that drum, I can't do that.

God holds us steady.

And we trust in that steady provision, even while life has its ups and downs.

That's the disclaimer that he begins this section with.

Don't think that contentment means no feelings, no responses to the circumstances of life.

Instead, it means you trust in the God who always provides enough.

Now, in verse 11, he shifts and he tells us his own claim.

He says, I've learned contentment.

This whole passage hinges on one verb, I have learned.

Notice that he is not still learning.

Yes, there is an end to school, but it's only once you've learned.

The Apostle Paul has already learned.

He has arrived at the place of contentment.

He's saying, I didn't always have this, but I have it now.

And the path between not having it and having it is a kind of school.

In fact, the word he uses here for learning shares its root with the word disciple.

He's describing a part of discipleship.

The Apostle Paul sat under a teacher.

He was taught and he came through that school, and on the other side, he was different than when he began.

That means that contentment is not a personality trait that some of us have and some of us don't.

It's not a disciplined mind, it's a learned trust formed through the experience of trusting the God who provides the faithful teacher through the ups and downs of life.

Notice that he says that.

He says, in whatever state I am, in whatever state.

He doesn't say in most circumstances, or in some circumstances, or in better ones, or after things settle down, whatever state he finds himself in, whether it's supported by people and churches, or whether it's chained to a prison a soldier in a Roman prison, or whether it's in a ship breaking apart on the Mediterranean Sea or being stoned by stones almost to death, his claim is that wherever he is, whatever his situation, his contentment holds.

It's incredible.

Really incredible.

But he leaves one thing unstated at this point.

He doesn't name the teacher.

He doesn't name the teacher.

He says he's learned contentment.

He's gone through school, but he doesn't say who he's learned it from.

Now that's that's not an oversight, it's a setup.

He will get to the teacher, but for now, he wants that claim to stand on its own.

I learned it.

It was formed in him.

And friends, what we need to grasp is that that school of contentment is still open.

The curriculum is still being taught.

The teacher hasn't retired.

And that should be an encouragement to all of us.

You are not disqualified from this school if you are discontent.

In fact, if you find yourself discontent, you are encouraged to go to school.

You are encouraged to seek out the teacher.

It can still be learned, and the Lord will gladly teach you.

I think Sinclair Ferguson nails it when he says, contentment is taught by God, and we need to be schooled in it.

He says it's not the series of, the product of a series of actions, but of a renewed and transformed character.

God changes who you are.

And it's kind of like the growing of a tree that produces good fruit.

And there's a crucial distinction in there, I think.

You cannot do contentment.

You can't manufacture it.

You can't produce it in yourself through discipline or willpower or the right combination of daily habits.

You go to school and you learn and it grows.

Because it's cultivated in you by God.

Not something that is constructed by you.

It's the ordinary pressures of life where contentment is learned.

So for example, the classroom is that delayed answer to the prayer that you've been praying for weeks and months and years.

It's the unexpected gift that tempts you to love the gift more than the giver.

It's the wanting.

It's the season that refuses to end.

It's the constant pressure of not having enough.

Or the temptation to trust what you have too much.

God uses these ordinary circumstances to teach us to trust that He has provided enough for today.

Which is why Ferguson can also write: if I insist on knowing exactly what God is doing and what he plans to do with my future, I can never be content until I am equal with God.

That's a critical observation.

That's on par with the Garden of Eden, friends.

That's the serpent saying, God doesn't really love you.

Because He's holding back on you.

Take what only you can take.

He's withholding it, so you have to take it.

Friends, discontentment isn't merely a restless feeling within us.

At its root, it is a failure to believe that your divine provider knows what you need and is trustworthy.

It says, I can't trust the God who has kept this from me.

So I need to find a way to take it myself.

This is the school.

And the Apostle Paul's claim is kind of astounding.

He says, I learned it.

He doesn't say I am learning it or I still need to learn it.

He says, I have learned it.

I've gone through the school, I've endured the curriculum, I've learned it.

I've learned it in whatever situation I am.

So let's dig in a little bit more in verse 12 to what the curriculum actually is.

He says it's plenty and want.

He names it, right?

He uses the phrase interestingly in verse 12.

I know.

Twice.

Not I have heard, not I have imagined, not I hope to, but I know.

And he knows it from personal experience.

Okay, what does he know?

Glad you asked.

He knows.

I know how to be brought low.

I know how to be brought low.

It doesn't take too long living as a human being to feel some of that, right?

This is the language of humiliation.

Not just an inconvenience.

Not just you have to wait for payday to pay the bills.

This is being knocked lower than that.

Paul's curriculum is described elsewhere in his letters.

He says he was beaten with rods on multiple times.

He was imprisoned.

He was shipwrecked three times.

He says he was hungry at times.

He was thirsty at times.

He was cold and exposed.

He was in danger from rivers and robbers and his own countrymen and false believers.

That kind of humiliation is one side of the curriculum.

That's the being brought low.

That's the wanting side.

The other side is I know how to abound.

We don't talk enough about this side of the curriculum, or at least not as much as we probably should.

Because abundance has its own kind of danger, doesn't it?

We saw that last time in Deuteronomy chapter 8, when Israel had wandered through the desert for 40 years and they arrive at the border of the promised land, and Moses is recounting everything for them in the book of Deuteronomy, and he gave them a warning before they crossed over the Jordan.

Deuteronomy 8 · chapter mention

He said, When you go over there and you eat and you drink and your hearts are full, and your silver and gold multiplies, be careful lest your heart be lifted up and you forget Yahweh your God.

We remember in Proverbs chapter 30 that Agur prayed not to be rich.

Proverbs 30 · chapter mention

How many of you prayed that prayer?

Some of you after last week, maybe.

He prayed not to be rich.

Because too much would tempt him to say, Who's Yahweh?

Who's my God?

Friends, the school of contentment runs in both directions.

Because both scarcity and plenty, want and fullness, can threaten our trust in God's daily provision.

That's why he says next, in any circumstance.

And in every circumstance.

So he goes very broad first.

He says, in any, doesn't matter what circumstance it is.

And then he goes and says, it's like daily progression, in every circumstance.

Doesn't matter what kind, but also as I go through life, whatever I encounter, I have learned.

I know how to be content.

There's no circumstance that falls outside of the scope of what the Apostle Paul has learned, because he went through God's school of contentment and he's graduated.

He's learned to trust that the divine giver of all good things gives enough.

And he can be trusted.

Now, before we come to the teacher in verse 13, I want to pause to direct our minds to an account from the Old Testament.

Because the Apostle Paul is not the first person to discover that God provides enough.

Mentioned this very briefly last week.

In 1 Kings chapter 19, Elijah the prophet goes up on the top of Mount Carmel and defeats the prophets of Baal.

1 Kings 19 · chapter mention

And then he runs because the queen is after his life.

She wants his head on a platter.

Elijah runs and runs and runs until he gets to the wilderness.

And then he collapses.

And as he collapses, he says, Enough of this life.

God just take me.

And I think by that statement, he revealed that he had not yet learned what the Apostle Paul.

Had learned.

Because Elijah was saying, I've had enough of running.

I've had enough of this world.

I've had enough of suffering.

I've had enough of ministry.

I've had enough of this life.

But Elijah still needed to learn that God always gives what is needed.

And what is enough.

And interestingly, God did not rebuke Elijah.

And if you find yourself at that same place where you just feel like I've had enough, I just want to be done.

Put yourself in Elijah's shoes.

God doesn't rebuke that.

But it is interesting what God does do.

He didn't rebuke the prophet.

He didn't say, you don't have enough faith.

God fed him and made him rest.

It's fascinating.

He fed him bread and water, and after eating and sleeping, an angel woke him up.

And 1 Kings 19 says, verse 7, the angel says, Get up and eat, Elijah, for the journey is too great for you.

So Elijah got up and he ate and drank, and he went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Now notice what God did not do.

God didn't give him a month's worth of food.

You can't eat a month's worth of food in one sitting.

And he can't carry it.

He gave him enough for the moment, put him to sleep, woke him up, gave him another meal, and God sustained him.

God gave him enough energy for the journey ahead.

The journey required 40 days, and the food was sufficient for 40 days, not more, not less, but enough.

And that's what the Apostle Paul has been through.

It doesn't matter whether it's being beaten or shipwrecked or in prison or having sufficient supply for all of his needs.

God has taken him one day at a time, enough for the moment.

Season after season of want and abundance.

And he's learned that God's supply always held.

When he was brought low, there was enough.

When he abounded, there was enough grace there to hold it loosely.

In any and every circumstance, he kept discovering the same thing.

The provider's provision is always enough for the moment.

For the day, for the circumstance.

Jason's paraphrase is God always provides for what he requires.

In every moment, the Apostle Paul could be satisfied.

Friends, the school of contentment is the school of discovering again and again that our giver always provides enough.

Not in general, but for the moment.

In this hunger, in this abundance, in this humiliation, in this season of plenty.

And because he was faithful last time and the time before that, and the time before that, the apostle Paul can confidently say, I have learned.

And I know.

Now we can hear the teacher say the things that we need to hear, and we can receive every part of the curriculum and still not learn, right?

Learning is evidenced by what follows the hearing, what follows the instruction.

Can I put it into practice?

Can I show it?

And sometimes we need to repeat the classes, don't we?

Sometimes we need to experience the want or the abundance.

And experience what that's like until we know and learn again and again and can say with the apostle Paul, I know it.

I have learned it.

And now I can apply it.

Why can he do that?

It's because of the teacher.

Good verse 13.

The teacher is the one who continuously strengthens.

Now Paul finally names the teacher.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

He doesn't even name him, just gives him a pronoun.

Friends, the teacher is not a principal.

He's not a philosophy professor.

He's not a framework for managing your expectations.

He's a person.

He's the risen Christ, present and active in your life.

He's the same one who appeared to the Apostle Paul to remind him, my grace is enough for you.

Yeah, but Lord, your grace doesn't make me feel full.

No, that's not what I said.

My grace is enough.

Because the shepherd always provides enough, doesn't he?

And it's as we trust the shepherd that we can say with David, I don't need to want.

That declaration, My grace is sufficient, was not spoken by some distant God who is unconcerned with the details of your life.

You need to understand that.

The one who says that he will strengthen you and provide enough is not separated from the experiences that you endure.

It's spoken by the one who was himself hungry.

It's spoken by the one who himself shed tears and grieved.

It was spoken by the one who himself was humiliated, who has endured circumstances far worse than you or I or Paul will ever face.

He's the teacher because he's been through the curriculum, not simply because he created it.

He made the curriculum, he wrote it, and then he lived it.

And he's the supplier of all your needs because he is the beginning and the end, the Lord of all, who is your good shepherd.

So let's be precise about what the Apostle Paul is saying.

Because this verse has been pulled so far from its context that it requires some very significant restoration.

I can do what?

All things.

Now, this is one of those times when all does not mean all.

The all things means the circumstances of verse twelve.

I can be brought low and I can abound.

I can be hungry and have more than enough.

In whatever state I am, I can be content because of the one who supplies my needs.

Paul can endure contentedly in every circumstance through Christ's strengthening.

Strengthens here is continuous.

It's an ongoing kind of action.

It's not a one-time infusion of energy or strength when you trust Christ.

It's a continuous supply that you learn to trust and live on actively, that is there with you always because it upholds you in every circumstance that the curriculum brings.

It's not the strength to win a game.

It's not the strength to remember everything you've studied or to work harder or longer.

It's the strength to trust your shepherd's provision and his knowledge of you and your life and to be satisfied and content that he has provided enough.

So that's the answer to the question that this whole passage is building toward.

How can the apostle learn contentment?

Well, it's not by gritting his teeth.

It's not by developing some sort of superior mental discipline.

It's not by training himself to not want things.

It's not by squashing all of the feelings that come in life.

No, he learned it because Christ's curriculum takes you through circumstances that are humiliating, that bring you low, takes you through circumstances where it feels like you're in abundance.

He takes you through hunger and fullness.

He takes you through all of those kinds of things, both feeling need and satisfied, so that you know Christ, and through knowing Christ, you learn to be content.

And over time, Paul came to know, not merely to believe in his heart, but to know and to know from experience that Christ's gracious supply is always sufficient.

And that helps us get a key distinction here.

Enough is not from our perspective.

Enough is from the teacher's perspective.

Oh, that's different, isn't it?

Because it's when we look at enough from our perspective that we start to feel the discontent.

But when we look at enough from the teacher's perspective, we begin to see that he knows what he's doing, whether I feel it or not.

So I can know Christ, my Lord.

And I can know his curriculum is training me, is teaching me to know that he is trustworthy in every and any situation.

This is the God who measured out enough manna for the day.

This is the shepherd who provided enough in the valley of deep, dark shadows.

This is the shepherd who prepared a table in the midst of his enemies.

This is Agur's daily appointed bread.

This is Christ teaching his disciples to pray, give us this day, our not tomorrow's bread, today's bread.

This is the God who said to Paul, My grace is enough for you.

It's all of that covenant faithfulness to his people, all of that measured out provision, and it's all now gloriously concentrated in that continuously strengthening presence of the risen Christ.

Every morning, every circumstance, every new situation the curriculum introduces.

Are you surprised by your day getting interrupted?

The teacher can do what he wants, can't he?

Every morning.

The manna doesn't stop.

It keeps coming.

Just enough for the day.

The strengthening does not stop.

And most importantly, the contentment is not something that is held by your strength of will.

It's not held by you.

Because the strength is not yours.

The strength is Christ's.

And not trust in what we feel or what we experience, but in who we know to be strong.

Paul says he endured the instruction that took him in both directions, of plenty and in want.

He trusted the experience of his teacher whose supply had never failed him.

And his experience should humble us, shouldn't it?

If you are not yet content, if you feel that restlessness in you, if you feel that grasping for things in life, that sort of constant hum underneath everything that makes you want things.

The honest response is not self-condemnation.

It's the recognition you're still in school.

And to start tuning in to the teacher.

Not getting distracted by your own feelings or your own thoughts, but actually listening to what the teacher is saying and teaching you and trusting that the teacher knows what he's talking about.

The curriculum is still in progress.

The teacher is not finished with you.

And that should give us some hope, shouldn't it?

If contentment is learned, then it is learnable.

We can learn it.

What Paul arrived at on the other side of those beatings and shipwrecks and hunger and abundance is still available to us.

On the other side of whatever curriculum we're enduring.

The teacher is the same, the supply is the same, his grace is still sufficient, he is still the one who continuously strengthens.

So get up.

Yes, the journey is too great for you, but not for your provider and shepherd.

Your learning will take you through the great valleys of testing.

But contentment is learn in exactly those kinds of situations.

It's learning in the places where life is too great for you, where the darkness is oppressive, where you've lost sight of the shepherd, where the pain is too intense, where the only thing that holds you is the continuously strengthening supply of Christ, who in his covenant relationship with you is enough.

Remember, he was in the desert himself, hungry for forty days and forty nights.

God feeds enough.

Because the state you're in is just part of his teaching.

So return to trust, the giver of all good things, whose grace is always sufficient in every moment.

Would you pray with me?

Lord Jesus, we confess our sin of discontent, but even before that of not trusting.

Redirect our hearts and minds beginning this moment to see every event in life, every circumstance, every every pain, anxiety, whatever may come, is from your gracious hand to teach us, to disciple us to become more like you, so that we in the end might be able to say with Paul, I've learned, Lord.

I've learned.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.