The Life Christ Is Forming | Chad Lewis | Philippians 4:10-23

Thank you for joining us for a sermon from Sojourn North.

I love books.

I love fiction, uh, and I love getting to the end of a good book, and then the ending is so good it puts everything else in light.

Someone invited me to read Theo of Gold and and uh got to the end of that, and I was like, oh, it does shed.

I knew something was brewing, but I didn't know exactly what was brewing.

But you see it, and if you get to the end of a good book, it'll put in light some of the details that you've missed, and you're like, oh yeah, that makes sense.

Sometimes themes that kept appearing just come to the surface in a new strong way.

Sometimes conversations that you read that seemed ordinary weren't ordinary at all.

And as Paul gets to the end of Philippians, as we look at the final passage today, we're gonna see that Paul's not introducing anything new.

He's putting a beautiful bow on the end of this amazing letter.

And he's saying the same thing that he said the whole time.

And it puts it, and you look back to all these previous conversations when he's been talking about Epaphroditus or about gifts, about anything, and he's saying this simple statement: Christ is enough.

Christ is enough.

And as we look at today's passage, I did have a sense in my heart, and it was my prayer this week, that God would drive something home deeper in our souls today, and that you would be able to hear the invitation that I heard this week when it comes to what does it look like for Christ to become more for me in my life, for your life.

And when Christ becomes enough, this passage is going to show us that we grow in contentment, we grow in generosity, and we grow in grace.

And who wouldn't want more of that in your life?

Do you want to be a more generous person?

Do you want to be more grace-filled, more gracious?

Here's the biggest one, I think, for us in our society today.

Do you want to be content?

Contentment is so hard because it's like if, if, if I can just have this, if this would just happen, if we can if our lives away, or when, when this takes place, when this takes place.

But what about today?

What about this moment?

And if you're here today and you have so much discontentment in your heart and it swirls around like a bitter storm, the message is for you.

You're in a good place.

May not feel good, but the invitation is beautiful.

So Paul is taking us all these places, and he's saying Christ is the center, and when Christ is in the center, it reshapes everything.

And all throughout the book, we said that Christ is the center, it reshapes our circumstances, how we view our circumstances.

It reshapes our identity, how we see ourselves.

It reshapes our relationship to time, how we view past, present, and future.

It reshapes the atmosphere of our hearts.

We saw that last week with anxiety and other things.

And this week we're going to see that as our hearts are reshaped, we grow in contentment, generosity, and in grace.

So if you wish, you may stand for the reading of God's Word.

We're going to read Philippians 4, verses 10, all the way to the end of the book, verse 23.

Philippians 4:10

Paul says this.

In any circumstances I have learned the secret of being content, whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or need.

I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.

Still, you did well by partnering with me in my hardship.

And you, Philippians, know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone.

For even in Thessalonica you sent gifts for me for my for for my needs several times.

Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that is increasing to your account.

But I have received everything in full, and I have an abundance.

I am fully supplied, having received from Apaphroditus what you provided, a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.

And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

Now to God our Father, be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Greet every saint in Christ Jesus.

The brothers who are with me send you greetings.

All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

This is the word of the Lord.

Well, three points for us today as we conclude this journey through Philippians.

And I want to just kind of camp out on the first one and then we'll hit two and three.

But I believe this is the biggest point for us here today that Christ teaches us contentment.

Christ teaches us contentment.

We live in such a discontent world.

Paul begins his final section by expressing his gratitude to the Philippian church because they're the ones who gave to him several times when others weren't giving.

They did over and over again.

But he says this, he says, I don't say this out of need.

Why does he say that?

Because he wants to drive home the point, this point that my joy, my contentment is not based on my circumstances, by what I have or by what I don't have.

So in the gospel, if we say the gospel is true, and we do, we say that our contentment is not based on what we have or what we don't have.

That's a tough statement.

Let's look a little further.

The phrase that kept jumping out to me this week as I looked at this passage afresh and anew is that Paul says this.

He's probably five to seven years from his death, but he's in prison.

He has learned.

What does that mean?

It means that this is a process of formation.

You don't by natural inclination, inclination?

Inclination.

Thanks, Genture.

I don't even know what an inclination is.

You don't by natural inclination find yourself just being like, ah, I'm content.

This is great.

Someone pulls in front of you while you're driving.

Ah, that's that's cool.

It gives me the opportunity to slow down and test my brakes.

This is great.

Paul's not saying that this is something that's natural.

Look at the in verse 11 and 12, he says, I don't say this out of need, for I have learned.

I have learned.

That's a progression.

And it's truth.

We'll never, true, we'll never learn it fully, but we grow in depth.

That's spiritual formation.

We grow in depths and layers.

Grow in depth of loving God.

Grow in depth of knowing who He is.

Grow in depth of commitment, contentment.

We'll never plumb the depths, but we can grow in that.

Have you ever met a deep-souled person and you're like, I want to be around that person?

They have a depth of wisdom that I don't have.

There are depths that we haven't even dreamed about.

One illustration I love to use is the depths of the ocean.

My stats will get messed up because I use stats from like 1980, but uh I believe 85 to 90% of the ocean has not been explored.

Can you say that's probably pretty true?

Y'all can Google, check me on that.

A lot of the ocean hasn't been explored.

There is stuff all down there that we don't know about.

That's just a small but real example of plumbing the depths of these beautiful truths.

Verse 12, he says this, I know how to.

So he's learned.

He knows how to, and then again he says, I've learned the secret of being content.

And that word secret is very fascinating too.

It shows you that it's not just right there in front of you.

It's something that has to be revealed to you.

And Paul is revealing it to us.

Contentment wasn't automatic for Paul.

It's not automatic for us.

It's not instantaneous.

Part of growing in contentment is realizing your discontentment.

This is one of the things we hate about growth sometimes.

We don't know that we need to grow sometimes until we find out how weak we are.

If you're lifting weights and you're like, you haven't lifted weights since college, and maybe you're my age and you're like, I was bad back in the day, and you pick up a dumbbell and you're like, okay, I didn't realize quite how weak I was.

That is really discouraging.

But from that point, step down.

Like for me, I have to step down to the 75-pound barbell to curl before I go back up to the 120.

Or 7.5.

I got the decimal wrong.

I don't know.

But when we think about finding out how discontent we are, it's uncomfortable to sit with that.

But what is, is, what is, is the teacher.

You're discontent?

Sit with it.

It should encourage each of us that Paul, the Apostle Paul, writer of so much of the New Testament, as a 60-year-old, is saying, I've learned this.

It took time.

What is contentment?

Contentment isn't pretending life is easy.

That's not contentment.

It's like anything bad that happens, you're just like, ah, well, it's not that bad.

It's like, no, bad things happen.

Paul isn't saying prison's enjoyable.

He's riding from prison.

He's not saying I can't get alone because I have a guard chained to me for these couple years that I'm in prison.

He isn't saying hunger doesn't hurt.

He's not saying abundance is bad either when his tummy is full.

He's been whipped.

He's been beat.

He's had rocks thrown at him so much, crushing his body, that they carried him out of the city thinking he was dead.

And he gets up and walks away.

I can imagine from all the scar tissue on Paul's back that he probably couldn't even straighten up.

Because he had been whipped so many times, thrashed over and over again.

And that every time that scar tissue heals up.

So he knows pain.

He has his thorn in the flesh that we don't even know exactly what it was, but it was awful.

He cries out to Jesus three times take this from me.

And what does Jesus say?

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.

What is contentment?

Contentment is the settled confidence that Christ is enough, whatever my circumstances may be.

Contentment is the settled confidence that Christ is enough, whatever my circumstances may be.

And to say that, you may find yourself in the midst of the most tumultuous circumstances of your life, and sitting and saying, Lord, I don't believe this, but I do help me believe, help my unbelief.

That is a prayer that blesses the heart of God.

Notice the extremes Paul mentions.

He says, I have learned in need and abundance, in hunger and in plenty.

He hasn't just learned it in hardship, he's learned it in abundance.

Sometimes contentment is difficult when we are in abundance, when we're in an abundant season.

Because what do we do?

Need can tempt us to doubt God's goodness, but abundance tempts us to forget our dependence upon Him.

So we got a lot working against us.

And remember the Galatians, we talked about, like we all will naturally drift.

But we come back, and that's why the Christian life is daily.

We come back and we're re-anchored daily.

And here's my personal application for you this week for this point.

I wonder how you would finish this sentence.

I'll be content when.

Blank.

I'll be content when what is that blank right there?

I listed out some things.

And once again, this isn't to shame any of us.

I want us to be a church.

I'm building a new pulpit, so I can't slam this one.

I don't know if it's going to be nice or not, but it's going to be sturdy.

It will be sturdy.

It's going to be kind of heavy.

But I want to shake something right now.

I want us to be a people that can declare our need and be real about it.

And be I'm so tired of us thinking that we need to be something we're not.

I thank that I thank God for this church that we don't feel that way.

But there's there's growth in that to be able to say, like, ah, I'm not doing well.

And to be able to say, I am doing well.

Be where you are.

But I am content, I'll be content when the diagnosis changes.

That's a tough one.

And I'm going to caveat, I'm going to come over here.

A lot of times when we imagine something difficult taking place, it's like, there's no way I could do that.

But remember, God's grace is sufficient in the time of need.

And you may not imagine it, but the grace comes when you need it, not when you're just thinking about it.

But part of us growing in faith is to say, Lord, if that circumstance takes place, you will be here with me, and the community will be here with me.

I'll be content when the kids are older.

I'll be content when work slows down.

I'll be content when the finances improve.

I'll be content when I retire.

I'll be content when this difficult season ends.

I'll be content when, when, when.

And we can say, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me except this.

We all have an accept this until we come to God and say, Lord, even in this, I come.

And He meets us where we are.

Contentment grows as we learn that Christ is enough in every circumstance.

And as we grow in contentment and all things, the natural outflows become more like Christ.

And that leads us to our second point, is that Christ creates generous people.

As we learn contentment, doesn't it make sense that we're not going to be a clingy people, but we'll have open hands?

And this doesn't have to do just with finances, it does have to do with that.

But it has to do with every aspect of life.

Look again in verses 14 and following.

Notice some of the language of this section.

He says, shared.

That's generosity.

Partnered, it's us together.

There's giving and there's receiving.

That is community.

And then there's fruit that comes forth from that.

And Paul literally says, he says, You did well by partnering with me in my hardship.

And here's the truth is that they got to partake.

And in my view of the new heavens and new earth, I have this vision of our eyes being fully opened, and that we'll get to see how God used us in millions of ways that we never saw.

The smallest act of kindness that God took and used, and we'll give glory to God because He's the one that's doing the work.

But when a friend across the country calls me and encourages me, and then from that encouragement, I step into the pulpit and preach, and the Holy Spirit sparks something in your heart from the message that I prepared that you take to someone across the country that you're taught.

Think about all the tendrils that just connect.

God is doing crazy, amazing things that we'll never see in this life.

But that's why we want to be a generous people.

Even the money that you give, we have ministries for here near and far.

The first thing is we have this building, we have this property.

You actually give me a salary.

I'm up here a lot working, that this church exists because of your financial gifts.

And then we give to ministries in the city, we give to church planning around the nation through Harbor Network and the KBC.

And then we have other missionaries in France and Africa that we support personally.

And so there's a lot that we do.

And you may never go over to France and preach the gospel, but some of your funds have gone there to help those that church plant that's been there over a decade.

It's just all these things take place.

So generosity.

As we're generous, God does something in our hearts.

And Paul says it like this: He said, Not that I seek the gift, I seek the fruit that is increasing to your account.

Because he knows that when we become a people who are not tight-fisted, that we give, that's God does something in our hearts.

He loosens something up that that when we're just clenched fisted, we just like this is mine, mine.

Have you ever read the children's book, Minour?

It's a good one, man.

It's a page turner.

It's like there's a dinosaur that's a minosaur.

He says, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

I just told you the whole book, but he has to learn how to share.

But as adults, man, we're minosaurs.

It's mine, mine, mine, mine, mine.

And then he uses this beautiful phrase.

He says, it's a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God.

This is temple language when the fragrant aroma of a sacrifice would go up to the Lord.

And it's something others may never see.

You giving an anonymous gift to someone who's in need.

They may never know.

It is a fragrant offering to the Lord.

Does it matter?

Yes.

Of course it does.

And here's an application for us.

I want us to see generosity, especially as we step into next week and the next three weeks, and we're trying to say, okay, we hit reset at this time last year.

We've got our Sunday gathering.

We got this beautiful space refurbished through a gift.

We got a lot of beauty going on here.

And now we're inserting a new intentionality into community, relationships with each other.

Is that we want to be a generous people?

Generous with encouragement.

Generous with hospitality.

Here's one that's hard.

Generous with forgiveness.

Generous with your time, generous with attention, generous with prayer.

Add some other things to the list.

We are like Christ when we are generous.

Because what did Christ do?

Go back to Philippians 2.

He poured himself out and came as a humble servant, humbled himself even to the point of death, death on a cross.

He became The curse for us so that we could become the righteousness of God.

Open hands, clench fists.

So much of our discontentment.

I'm concerned.

I know is because we we just clench our fists.

And sometimes it makes so much sense with our story because you've been hurt so much, and it's like I know with me, uh one of the hardest things for me uh is to be generous with myself in the sense that I find safety in seclusion.

It's like, well, why did you pick a profession where you're speaking in front of people?

It's like, I don't know.

I don't know.

But I have this vision, and it I would die in this vision, and I've told you about it before.

It's like I want to live in the woods, in a shack, I want to have my wood shop, and I just want to be away from people.

Would that fulfill my soul?

No, I'd I would slowly die.

I would have my family with me, so I have a few I'm not I'm not bailing on y'all, yeah.

But that's not my calling, but there's been pain and things in my life that just make me want to retreat from a relationship.

And so it takes intentionality to say, nah, I'll continue to show up, I'll continue to move forward.

But it is a daily choice.

Do I need times of retreat?

Absolutely.

But that's part of the balance of doing life in community.

All we have is a gift, and we don't desire to live with clenched fists, we desire to live with open hands.

So we grow in contentment, we grow in generosity, and then it leads us to our final point.

We remember that Christ gives grace for the journey.

Paul brings this letter to a beautiful close by mentioning relationships.

He begins with greetings.

He says, greet every saint.

So these are the relationships that Paul is in.

He's seeing people's faces as he's thinking about them as individuals.

They're named in his mind.

They're friends, they're brothers, they're sisters in Christ.

It's the church.

And it comes down to this reminder that we are a family, a people set apart who belong to God and to each other.

And I love this phrase.

I've mentioned it several times in the first weeks.

He says, especially those who belong to Caesar's household.

And just to remember this is that Paul didn't waste any of his time.

He's under house arrest for a couple of years.

He's chained to a guard, whether literally or metaphorically.

He's always with someone.

He's always under watch.

He has some freedom to move around the house and other things.

But he is always preaching the gospel.

And over that two-year time, I can imagine how many soldiers came to know Jesus.

Not because of just the message.

They watched Paul pray.

They watched Paul receive people and teach them.

They watched him, I can imagine, this is my holy imagination.

He's like, listen to this.

How does this phrase, as he's writing the letter to the Philippians?

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Don't you like that phrase?

What do you think?

All those from Caesar's household are excited because the movement of the gospel has taken place because Paul has been preaching the gospel wherever he is.

And then he says this.

He starts with grace, he ends with grace.

He says, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Let me read it slowly.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

He doesn't end this letter by saying, hey guys, now try really hard.

Strive.

Do it all in your own strength.

He's like, no, remember what we've said.

Make Christ enough, and he will guide you.

Make Christ the center, and these things will follow.

It sounds a lot like Jesus, doesn't it?

Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these things will be added unto you.

It is a daily seeking.

It is a daily submission.

It's a daily opening of hands.

And here's your sentence to carry for this week.

As we grow in Christ, He forms within us a life of contentment, generosity, and grace.

As we grow in Christ, He forms within us a life of contentment, generosity, and grace.

As I did with Galatians, I did it with this, is from your.

And see what jumps out.

Because this is the reality.

Same thing I said to the students.

God is with them.

God is with you.

He's speaking.

We got to slow down and get quiet enough to hear.

See what he's impressing on your heart.

And as we conclude our journey through Philippians, it's fitting to end where Paul ends with grace.

Throughout this letter, we've seen grace, grace, grace.

It is by grace that we have everything.

It's through the sacrifice of Christ that we have salvation.

And if you're a Christian here today, this is the sacred symbol that we invite you to.

Our tradition here at Sojourn is to come forward and you can take some juice and some bread back to your seat and just reflect.

Listen to the Lord.

There'll be a song that's being sung, and you can reflect on those words.

You can sing along, but just be present with the Lord.

And remember the grace that has been poured upon you.

And why was this grace poured upon you?

Because of his great love for you.

His love for you is so far beyond your imagination.

Sit in that love.

That is the reality in which we live.

Our feelings are real and they tell us something, but they're not the ultimate reality.

What God says is.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you so much for this beautiful book.

We thank you, Jesus, that we can do all things through you, Lord.

And even just thinking about you giving us strength to win the big game or to lose the big game, to be hungry or to be filled, to have very little or to have very much, Lord, that we can do all of these things through you because you strengthen us.

And I pray by your grace that we would make you more the center of our lives.

And as we do this, that we, like Paul, would learn and that we'd be patient with ourselves, but that there would be a trajectory that we see, that we are learning contentment in all things.

And Lord, may we have hope as we come and partake in communion today that you have not left us, you have not forgotten us.

You know us by name.

You knew where we would be today and the needs that we'd have today.

And you will supply all our riches, all that we need according to your riches in Christ Jesus.

And Lord, you define what our need is, Lord, and give us what we need.

You're our shepherd, Lord.

We have all that we need.

We ask all these things in Christ Jesus' name.

Amen.