When Life Makes You Discontented - Philippians 4:10-13 (May 12) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

So good to be back with you.

The uh guys who serve think it's gonna be a long sermon, so they give me two bottles of water, and I appreciate that.

It's very dry in here.

If you have your Bibles, you can open them up to Philippians chapter 4.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Uh they say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I want to let you know that that's true.

Uh Amber and I got into the car last Sunday afternoon.

We were so blessed to spend some time with uh Sovereign Grace Church, and I know you guys were blessed here by Pastor Josh preaching God's word.

Um, and we were blessed both weeks, but we got into our van and we said we can't wait to be home with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

So it truly is good to be with you.

1990 was a great year, not only for myself, that's when I was born, but also for one Brazilian farmer.

He traveled down to the Bizinho River to get what he thought would be a simple bucket of water, but as he stepped down and looked into the water, he saw something shining.

It was a stone.

No one knows how long it had been there covered by dirt and muck, but for centuries and centuries, this stone, under immense pressure and temperature, had been formed into a beautiful and large red diamond.

Now, diamonds are rare, but red diamonds are the rarest of them all.

And this particular red diamond was the biggest that's ever been found.

It was 13.9 carats in its rough form.

And it was whittled down to 5.11 karats.

Now I apologize to all the husbands in the room because now all of a sudden your wedding ring is not big enough.

There's bigger in the world.

It was named the Messiah Red Diamond after the collector who bought it, and we don't know what the price was, but estimates are around$20 million today for this diamond.

Now, this rare diamond is exceedingly precious, but before us this morning we have a jewel that's even more precious, and that is Christian contentment.

Why do I call this a jewel?

Well, in the 1600s, a Puritan by the name of Jeremiah Burroughs wrote an amazingly helpful resource called the Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment.

And I think that's an apt name because Burroughs believed what Paul believes this morning, that if you have Christian contentment, you have something in eternity that far outvalues and outweighs the worth of any sort of earthly jewel you could have.

I think you would probably agree with me that contentment, that to be content is to be the richest that you could possibly be.

Maybe I could sort of give you a hypothetical scenario to illustrate that point of the richness of contentment.

Imagine for a moment that you and I were offered a free two-week vacation.

That sounds pretty wonderful.

And imagine it's not just any vacation, like this is the best vacation of your life, all expenses paid, it's a trip around the world, you'll get to stay at the nicest hotels, you get to see the most beautiful sites, eat the highest quality food, you look at the itinerary, and every single minute is crafted for your delight.

Like this is the vacation of vacations.

You're never going to forget about it.

But imagine it came with a stipulation, and the stipulation was that you have to, as as honestly, as possibly as you can feel it, you have to be discontent with every single moment of that vacation.

Now, no matter how nice the vacation is, what you and I would come to terms with is like you can ruin a really good thing by being discontent about it.

In fact, haven't you had that in your life?

Like you're you're in a scenario where you just know it should be really good, but there's something like nagging at the back of your mind, and you're discontent, and it that can ruin the best of times.

In fact, likely right now, even as we talk about discontentment, there's probably someone that comes up in your mind.

Maybe it's a coworker at your office.

If it's someone in your family, don't look at them right now.

Maybe it's it's just this person who's always discontent, and you start to not really like to be around them because no matter what you're doing, they just have things to complain about, and it kind of ruins the experience for you.

Discontentment can ruin everything.

But we've probably experienced the opposite of that as well.

On the other hand, contentment can make the smallest gifts amazing.

So that you could probably look back on your time to on your life to a time where maybe you had a little, but because you were content with what you had, you were so happy.

And I'm sure you've heard stories of countries of far less wealth than us and yet filled with such joy because there's a sense of contentment with what they have, even though they don't have much.

Now, ours and our Western culture, sadly, our reality is much more closer to the first.

We have plenty.

We've we're the richest we've ever been.

We have more than we've ever had.

And that hypothetical reality that I put before you, many people are chasing.

We hear day in and day out of popular figures, of athletes who have all the money they could possibly need and are buying all the things that they could possibly buy, and yet they are increasingly unhappy.

That's why one journalist named Greg Easterbrook wrote a book on this conundrum.

He called it the per the progress the progress paradox.

How life gets better while people feel worse.

And in that book, he catalogs two realities.

One that we have more than we've ever, any society has ever had in the history of humanity, but also that at the same time, rates of depression, of psychosis, of anxiety, all these things are rising.

And so the question is, how can how come we have more?

Like, like as we think about the pursuit of contentment, we have more than we've ever had as a human race, and yet, in many ways, we're more discontent than we've ever been.

Regardless of what the answer to that is, we can agree that contentment is of great value, that there is a state of inner being that can find joy in the midst of even the darkest of circumstances.

And if that state of inner being, this contentment, if that's possible, then what you and I need most is not more stuff or better people around us.

What we need most is to pursue this inner state of contentment.

And this morning that's exactly what God wants to speak to us about.

And really what he wants to do through his word in Philippians chapter 4 is offer us this rare jewel, especially rare in our day and age, and to show us how to live a life of contentment.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Now he's going to do this through his servant Paul, and these are such hopeful words for you and I that we truly can receive this gift from God.

Because twice in these verses, I want you to notice before we read this, Paul is going to say that contentment is something that he's learned.

That he has not always been like this, but he's discovered a secret to Christian contentment, and it is that secret that he wants to share with us this morning.

So let's read this before we enter into a time of prayer.

Look what Paul says in Philippians 4, verse 10.

Philippians 4:10

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've 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.

Let's pray together.

Father, we bow in your presence, and God, we have spent such an awesome time together this morning worshiping and adoring you.

And God, we have um declared words that are so significant.

Lord, things that like we'll bless you when we have plenty, and we will bless you in the valley.

And God, these things are in some ways easy to say but hard to live out.

And God, this morning you want to offer us a prize possession, an internal quality, a contentment that the world is chasing after but cannot find because it does not know you.

And God, I pray that as you speak to us this morning through your servant Paul, Lord, that you would find here your children who are eager to hear your word and eager to be even rebuked in the areas of life that we might be discontent where we should be content.

God, speak to us, Lord.

Your servants are listening.

Thank you for your word.

Thank you that you are a God who loves to speak.

We pray this all in the name of your son.

Amen.

Now, as we consider contentment from Paul's lessons, I want us just to take a moment to consider who we are hearing this from.

We're hearing this from the Apostle Paul, and I don't know if there has been a person apart from Christ who has suffered as much as Paul has.

That kind of changes the way that you listen to a lesson on contentment, doesn't it?

When the person has suffered immensely.

I remember years ago I was sitting with someone, we were talking about contentment, and this was a businessman.

He was very well off.

He had the sort of money that he could get really whatever he wanted.

And he was talking about contentment, and he was saying, well, you know, I don't I don't really struggle with discontentment, I'm pretty content.

And even as you hear this story, I'm sure you could sympathize with what was going on inside of my head.

Uh what was going on inside of my head was, of course you're content.

You have everything you could ever want.

You have a big home, you have a nice car, you can buy whatever you want.

Like in this Western culture where materialism really equals contentment, of course you have achieved contentment.

Well, Paul is not in that position.

In fact, if you wanted to find contentment, I think that Paul's life would probably be the last place that you'd expect to find it.

When Paul was saved, it was Jesus who looked at, who spoke about Paul, and he said these words, I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.

Paul's life would really be a fulfillment of these words.

And in 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he lists his credentials as a sufferer.

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Look what he says in 2 Corinthians chapter 11.

2 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

He says that he endured greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings and often near death.

Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes, less one.

Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I was adrift at sea, on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure, and apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

That is a list of suffering, if I have ever seen one.

You know a list of suffering is bad where you kinda like when you kind of like skip over the fact that Paul says that for a night and a day he was adrift at sea.

Could you imagine the terror of that?

Like that is my worst nightmare, being in the middle of the ocean with things swimming around you, and you are there for a whole night in the pitch black darkness of the ocean, not knowing what's underneath you.

You're there for a whole day, and Paul just kind of throws it in his list as though, like, that's just a small little thing.

That would be like a whole biography for me.

I'd be writing a book, putting it on shelves.

That's a terrible thing.

This isn't even a comprehensive list of Paul's sufferings.

We know that there are other imprisonments and afflictions that he doesn't mention.

And his life would be capped off with the ultimate suffering of execution by Nero.

Likely his head was chopped off.

Needless to say, Paul's life was a life of suffering.

This is what drew the Philippians to Paul.

This is why the Philippians had such a deep love for Paul because they had really experienced Paul's suffering firsthand.

It's an incredible story in Acts 16 when Paul and Silas they come to Philippi and they find there, as soon as they find they get there, they start getting harassed by this little girl.

This little girl was possessed with a demon and she was a slave, and because of her demon possession, she was able to, through her so-called magic, get all sorts of money for her owners.

But as soon as Paul and Silas arrived there, and this demon sensed the presence of these Christ-filled followers, she was dead set on harassing them.

Finally, Paul had had enough and he commanded the demon to leave, and she was healed.

But you can imagine her owner's disappointment at that, that this sort of money pot had been ruined, had been taken from them.

And so Paul and Silas were violently stripped of their clothes, they were beaten.

Their wounds would have been immense, as we're told.

The next time they're in jail, they are with this jailer that they have converted, and the jailer is sort of as a first act of conversion, tending to their wounds.

They're in prison, they're awaiting their judgment, which could range from execution to imprisonment for the rest of their lives.

They had no idea what it would be, they had no idea where food would come from.

They could likely hear the other groans of prisoners who were dying in their midst, and yet were told in Acts chapter 16 that something incredible happened in that jail cell that despite all the suffering, they broke out into songs of praise at midnight.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

What God had done was given their contentment a platform, and I truly believe that God does this in our life as well.

God is willing to drag you through immense suffering at times, so that in that suffering you can proclaim to the world that everything can be taken from you, but if you have Christ, you have all that you need.

God's desire is to use your life as a platform to declare to the world the worth of Jesus Christ, of the reality that if you have him and him alone, you truly have enough.

Paul's life had become a platform to declare Jesus' worth.

And because of this, when Paul says I've learned contentment in these words, he has our ear.

We want to learn along with Paul.

I don't know about you, but this is my sense.

Like, spirit, move right now.

I want this contentment.

Well, Paul teaches us how to learn this contentment as well in three different ways.

And the first thing I want you to understand is this I learn contentment when I find freedom from things and people.

I learn contentment when I find freedom from things and people.

Now, the context here, Paul introduces us to in verse 10.

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

We're told later on, and also earlier on in Philippians, that Paul had received a gift from the church in Philippi.

It says in verse 16 of chapter 4, even in Thessalonica, you sent me help for my needs once and again.

Verse 18, he says, I have received full payment, and more, I am well supplied.

And so the context here is that Paul has just received a large gift from Philippi, and he even says, it's like, it's even more than I need.

And what you would expect here is that Paul would say, Thank you so much for this gift, right?

This is kind of the normal thing we do when we get gifts.

That's the polite thing to do if there are kids in here listening, is to be so thankful.

That's not what Paul does.

What Paul does is pretty striking.

He says, I rejoice that you revived your concern for me.

But then in verse 11, he says, Not that I'm speaking of being in need.

In other words, he says this to Philippi as soon as he gets the gift.

Listen, I don't need your gift.

I don't know about you, but I'd be pretty insulted if I were, you know, on Mother's Day to give my mother a gift and she opened it and she looked at me in the face.

She said, I don't need this.

I don't need this.

And yeah, that is what Paul does.

Now, certainly, this gift could have practically relieved Paul of many of his burdens.

Paul, as a missionary, sought to take no funds from the churches.

He sought to make all of the uh funds that he needed through his own business of tent making.

And so this gift, it surely could have alleviated what likely was a lot of you know practical anxiety for Paul in terms of how he was going to fund his missionary journeys.

And this is the reality of riches, isn't it?

This is the temptation of riches.

Any degree of riches are dangerous because they offer us temporary contentment, don't they?

Like you get that unexpected bonus, and there's this sense of like relief, like, oh, this is nice.

And yet, what Paul had come to understand is that even this gift, no matter how great or or large it was, it could not provide lasting contentment.

Paul understood the reality of riches, that they only offer temporary contentment, and maybe we could more aptly describe it as a distraction.

I truly believe this is why the gospel is so weak in the Western culture, is because we're richer than we ever have been before, and we have the means to pursue things that we believe will make us content.

And so we've got our eyes on a prize, and when we hear Jesus Christ, it's just like we don't need that because I'm just about to get this thing.

I'm just about to get this promotion.

I'm just about to get this new house, I'm just about to get this new car, I'm just about to fix this relationship.

We've got our eyes on all these things that we think will make us content, but Paul had come to see through the facade, to see that they never actually could make him content.

See, discontentment for us, it's like a gash in our arm.

We understand we're discontent, we're understand, we understand we don't have contentment, but we we think that we can grab band-aids from the world and put it on this large open wound, and and you can put a band-aid on an open wound and it'll cover the blood for a little bit, but the blood starts to seep through and you need a new band-aid.

And the gospel becomes like a doctor who comes to us and says, Hey, I can offer you full healing, I can stitch that up for you, and we say, No, we're good, the the band-aid's good.

And we are unwilling to hear of the hope of the gospel.

And we're willing to place our hope in maybe the next vacation or the next promotion.

Maybe we say, Well, we'll we'll be happy when our kids just get a bit older.

When our kids get a bit older, and you say, Well, we'll be happy when our kids just leave the house.

That's when we'll be happy.

And so the hope of the gospel, it's meaningless because we are already pursuing satisfaction in the hope that the world offers.

The problem is that Paul had come to see that the hope that the world offers is a fading hope.

It's like trying to grab onto sand.

Paul had received this gift, and he and he understanded, is understood that no matter how great the gift was, that it was like a mist.

It was eventually going to go away.

And this is first and vitally the most important thing that you need to understand about contentment, that we will not find it in the fleeting pleasures of things and people.

You need to recognize what in your life cannot give you contentment.

Paul looks at his life and he says, like the things of this world, they're amist.

This is why Moses would say in Psalm 90, he says, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Because true perspective can only come when we see that our days are numbered.

When we see that the things that we're trying to hold on to for contentment, they're vanishing, they're resting, they are fading away, decomposing in our very hands.

This is why I truly believe that there are many here who you will not hear what Christ has to offer you.

Even even Christians here who are so filled with the pursuits of the world that they cannot worship Christ because they're too distracted with things that they believe will give more pleasure.

And until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the absurdity of the things that we Pursuing, we just you cannot hear of the gospel grace.

And I truly believe some some there are some Christians here who your faith is dull and you have no idea why, you have no idea why you cannot stir up this sort of affection for the Lord.

You feel like you remember a time where you were so on fire for him, but now everything's hard, you can't open up the Bible, and the reason is because you're just so full with the things of the world, you're pursuing so many other things that you have no taste left for Christ.

And until the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the absurdity of placing our hope in things that are vanishing from our midst, we'll never be content.

I think this is why Paul, as he opens up this gift, he is so quick to say that his contentment is not in it.

Because Paul had learned the temptation that comes with a gift like this.

The temptation is to place your hopes in it, to say, okay, now that I have this gift, I'm gonna be happy.

And Paul very quickly, it's almost awkward that he has to do it, but very quickly he has to say, Listen, I don't need this gift.

I don't need it.

There's a temptation to try to find his contentment in this.

So he constantly needed to remind himself what was actually making him content.

And in verse 11, he shows us exactly this.

He says, Not that I'm speaking of being in need.

Look what he says at the end of verse 11.

For I have learned in whatever situation to be content.

Now the word here for content, it comes from two Greek words.

First word means self.

Second word means sufficiency or sufficient.

And by Paul saying that he's content, what he he really is saying here is that he's self-sufficient, in a sense that his sufficiency is not rooted in this gift that he has received.

It's rooted in something that the gift cannot affect.

He's self-sufficient, he's content from this gift.

Now, when it comes truly to self-sufficiency, there's really only one who is self-sufficient, and in the truest sense, that is God.

This is what theologians call the asciety of God.

It means that God is from himself.

God exists from himself.

God owes his existence and completeness as God to nothing outside himself.

God's act of creation was not constrained by anything outside of him, nor was the inner impulse to create owing uh to create owing to any deficiency or defect.

God does not need us or anything else outside himself to be God or to be happy.

Creation does not complete God.

And here's a news flash, an encouraging word for you on a Sunday morning.

God does not need you.

God did not need to create the world because he was lonely.

God did not need to save us because he was needed anything from us.

He's self-sufficient.

He could have existed for all of eternity in and of himself and been perfectly happy.

Now, when it comes to self-sufficiency like that, you and I are not like that.

Paul certainly doesn't mean that he's self-sufficient like God is.

You were created in in some ways to be self-sufficient, but not to be self-sufficient like we've just described God to be.

But what Paul is pointing out here is that our contentment, our sufficiency, is not based on any material thing, just like God.

God's not dependent on a created thing, and so those human beings he creates are also not dependent on any created thing.

Your dependency is a human God, your sufficiency, it's rooted in God.

Just like God, you are self-sufficient in the sense that you don't need anything in creation to make you a whole person, but unlike God, you cannot exist apart from Him.

Another way to say this is that you are God-dependent, or that your life ought to be God sufficient.

You need Him.

This is why Paul says in Acts chapter 17, he says, In him we live and move and have our being.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

And so this is the question we must ask.

Do we really believe that our life and being is actually in God and not in physical and material matter?

You know, as 21st century men and women and living in a materialistic age, the very first question that you and I ask is, well, okay, listen, Paul says, in him we live and move and have our being.

But don't we also live like by breathing air?

I don't know how much science they knew there, but like if you want to live, you're gonna have to breathe, and you're gonna need some other basics as well.

You're gonna have to drink water, you know, you're not gonna make it very far without water, you're gonna have to eat food, you're not gonna make it very far without food.

But what if God is pointing to our physical life and saying that there's nothing really in this world that you actually need when it comes to eternity?

That the only thing you need is Him.

It's hard for us to understand.

We we live in the and swim in the waters of materialism in our day and age.

You know, the pop most popular secular worldview is that of materialism, this idea that nothing exists that is not made up of physical matter.

And for God to come down and say that none of this in the grand scheme of eternity really matters, that all of the physical matter that you know now is gonna be burnt up.

It's hard for us to really hear that and comprehend that because we think about everything material, materially.

But what if God this morning were coming to give us this message that the greatest anchor of your life and being is not actually things, it's not actually people, that it's not actually material stuff, but it is a spiritual reality, and it is the reality of God Himself.

Well, you'd say that's fine, but you know, what about Paul?

Here's Paul, you know, he's so grand saying in him we live and move and have our being.

He's so grand and saying, you know, I've learned to be content even if I have nothing.

But at this point, you know, Paul, maybe he's in jail, maybe he doesn't have much, but at least he's still breathing.

And maybe we need to draw this out.

Like, what if what if God were even to take away breath from Paul?

What would Paul do in that moment?

Then, like, how would this doctrine of Christian contentment then live up to that moment when he's to everything's taken away from him, even his breath, and you know what Paul would say?

He's already said it in Philippians 1.

You remember what he said?

He said, To live is Christ, to die is gain.

So that even in that moment where if his like breath were to be taken from him, the very thing you need the most, what Paul would say is, This is gain, because I'm going to meet my great, rich spiritual reality, Jesus Christ Himself.

He looks at material possession, he looks at things, he looks at people, he says, I don't need any of this.

My sufficiency is not in things or people, but in Christ.

And it begs us to ask this question: what's the thing that you think if you got it would solve your problem?

Who's the person that you look to to make you happy?

This is the first and perhaps the most important lesson about learning this.

We we can't move on to the other lessons that things and people that we believe will free us to contentment, they actually can't.

They don't have the power to.

Only God can.

Well, here's the good news then.

The good news then is that everything we actually need as human beings to be content is actually offered to us already in Christ.

This leads to our second point.

The second point is this I learn contentment when I find joy outside my circumstance.

Look what Paul says here in verse 12.

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

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

Paul in this verse, he lists a number of opposite positions in life, positions that you and I have experienced in varying degrees.

And in Christ, Paul has found something that cannot be affected by his circumstance.

He says, Even if I'm brought low, I know how to abound.

In every and any circumstance, I've learned the secret of how to face whatever circumstance will come my way.

And so, Paul now, he finds himself in a time in an era in his life when he's lacking material possession.

He gets this large and abundant, overly abundant gift, and he looks at it and he says, My joy is not affected by that thing.

Because joy is rooted in something other than circumstance.

And I want you to understand that this is what the gospel does to us.

The gospel it roots our joys deeply into something that cannot be taken from us no matter what circumstances we face.

The gospel offers us a hope that is beyond our material accomplishments.

It's an eternal hope.

And what the gospel offers us is salvation from hell itself.

See, listen, this is why what Jesus did 2,000 years ago is so significant today.

This is why what Jesus did can change everything about the way that you interact with the world today, because what Jesus did was save you from the worst possible situation you ever could be in.

We look at our lives and we try to categorize like, what's the worst possible thing that could ever happen to me?

But the problem is that we're so material, we only think of this life.

And what Jesus came to do is to solve your greatest problem, the problem of hell itself.

Problem of eternal separation from God.

This is what God has done through Jesus.

We were in the worst possible situation because we had sinned against God.

And sin was cosmic.

Sin is an attack against God's kingdom, it's an attack against his rule.

And by sinning against him, we deserve the punishment of cosmic treason, which is eternal punishment.

And there are many who say, now, well, that's not fair.

It's not fair that because I've sinned against God, I get eternal condemnation.

But I want you to understand that on that day where you face God and you see his holiness, you see his beauty, and you see his glory, there will be no one who's saying this is not fair.

Instead, when you see how great and glorious God is, you will be looking at your life and you'll be saying, This is the reward for how I've lived.

This truly is the penalty of sin.

There will be great clarity on judgment day.

Same clarity that the criminal had on the cross.

You remember the criminal was on the cross, and he, in rebuke to the other criminal, he said, Listen, we're on the cross as a reward for what we have done.

And if your faith is not in Christ, I want you to understand that for eternity you will have to make a payment, and it will not be for someone else's sin, it will be for your sin, and you will understand for all of eternity that this is only fair, that for all of eternity you'll pay for your sin, and you will not even begin to scratch the surface of how great of a payment is required from you.

And so the question we need to ask is this is there any worse news than that?

Like, doesn't that, as you consider eternal condemnation, doesn't that kind of like shrink the problems of this life?

Like this life is a speck of sand that is washed away by the ocean in comparison to eternity.

And there is nothing on this life that can like like imagine your worst suffering, imagine poverty, imagine famine, imagine family crisis, whatever it is, imagine your worst suffering.

There is no suffering that even become comes close to the weight of eternal suffering that those who are outside of Christ will experience.

And what Jesus has come, maybe that's you this morning.

Jesus has come to say, I've delivered you from your greatest problem, that I've made the payment myself.

You don't have to pay that, I'll pay it.

On the cross, he delivered us from our worst possible situation by his life and his death.

Now, if you really believe that, you know what happens?

All the problems in your life, they start to become smaller problems.

You've been delivered from your greatest eternal problem.

This is why, you know, a person who's who's saved from a life of poverty and saved from a life of maybe slavery, they don't complain when they, you know, get freed and they're not eating on fine china.

They're just happy to be free.

And this is what the gospel has done for you.

Do you understand that at the worst moment of your life, even like if your worst nightmare were to come true, you still would not have it as bad as you were to have it if you were outside of Christ.

See, in the gospel, there is nothing you can face that will be worse than the reality of what you have been saved from.

This is why the gospel cultivates this attitude of constant and resilient joy in the believer because at any given moment you are always doing better than you deserve.

This is why, for believers, it's essential that we're constantly reminded of our gospel reality.

Day in and day out, you need to pursue a reminder to yourself of what has happened for you in the gospel.

The gospel is not just the beginning, the news that gets you saved and into the kingdom.

The gospel is like your life and blood every day because without the gospel, you start to grow discontent.

You have this spiritual amnesia, you forget the good things that God has done for you, and you start complaining about these things that just don't matter.

We understand this as we compare cultures, don't we?

As we look at like first world and second world and third world, don't we often look at our problems and we say, man, these are really first world problems that we're experiencing?

Like these are problems that, you know, people in poverty, they're just not thinking about the fact that they accidentally bought half-fat mayo at the grocery store instead of full fat, and now they're having to eat this disgusting paste.

That's just not a problem for them.

And you know what the gospel does is if there are third world problems and there's second world problems and there's first world problems, what the gospel does is add another tier.

So that any problem you have, in light of what Jesus has done for you and saved you from, you look at any problem in your life and you're like, it's just it's not a huge deal.

And Paul, you know, he had looked at the the lack that he had had because he didn't have he hadn't received this gift yet.

And in light of eternity, he just said, this is not a big deal, so that when he gets the gift, his hopes aren't set on it.

His hopes are already on Jesus Christ.

We're saved from the greatest possible situation we could ever be in.

But I want you to understand that the gospel doesn't just deliver us from our worst nightmare, it also delivers us to our greatest possible position.

A person who's placed their faith in Jesus Christ is they're heaven-bound.

And so there's no thing that they could receive in this world that would make their position as someone who's about to inherit heaven any better.

Could you imagine for a moment?

Again, we're in the hypothetical, and I hope this is, you know, bringing some joy into your life, but just know that this is not real at all.

But imagine for a moment that, like, in a week, you are gonna get an inheritance, you know, someone in your family, they're they're far off, you don't really know them too well, but they're super rich and they've died.

And you're gonna get an inheritance of 10 million dollars.

Next Sunday.

If you go into work and you know, your bonus, your your boss pulls you in the office and says, Listen, you've been doing so good, I got a bonus for you.

It's a$50 keg card.

Well, you know, knowing that this inheritance is coming, what are you gonna look at this gift and say, Well, I mean, thanks, I guess.

Like, doesn't really matter in light of what's coming.

Like this, I'm uh let me tell you, I'm gonna be eating at a lot nicer places than the keg when this$10 million comes in, okay?

And do you understand, Christian?

This is your position.

You have an inheritance in heaven that is far greater than anything you could ever, like your wildest dreams possibly achieved on earth, they compare nothing to what you have in heaven.

So why are we so obsessed with them?

Because we don't spend enough time meditating on the reality of what is coming to us in heaven.

And instead of looking forward to heaven, what we try to do is sort of turn this life, turn our life into a sort of heaven that we can experience here and now.

Tim Keller, one of my heroes of the faith, he recognized this near the end of his life.

He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and he was given a certain diagnosis of death.

One of the things that the diagnosis did was give him this eternal perspective.

He he has this amazing quote near the end of his life.

He says, I'm not battling cancer, I'm battling my sin.

And even to the very last days of his life, he was in this wrestling match with his sin, and he saw it all too clearly.

Well, one of the things the diagnosis did was give him this sort of eternal perspective because he he recognized he was just on the brink of the end of his life.

And with great clarity, he looked at his life and he saw that he and his wife that they had valued the world too much, and it's this amazing honesty he has to recognize that they had valued the world so much that for much of their life it had kept them from seeing the next life.

And so he points out that his wife, you know, her value was really in vacations and places that they had visited, or his value was in ministry accomplishments.

He was just always thinking about accomplishing the next thing.

But near the end of his life, he confessed this, and I'll read this as a quote for you.

He says, This the other night, he's talking to his wife.

We said, We really try to turn this world into heaven.

And as a result of that, we were always unhappy because you can't stay in England.

You have to come home.

You can't stay in South Carolina.

Meanwhile, I was never enjoying my day because I was always thinking about tomorrow and all the stuff I have to get done and how I'm behind.

We can't make a heaven out of this earth because it's going to be taken away from us.

When you actually make heaven heaven, the joys of earth are more poignant than they used to be.

That's what's so strange.

We enjoy our day more than we ever did.

And it begs us to ask this question in what ways are you trying to make your life heaven right now?

What hope have you set on that would make this earth more enjoyable?

That you think if you could just have this thing, you would be happy.

Each of us have something.

Each of us wrestle and struggle with some way that we are trying to make this world into heaven.

And the requirement for you is to turn to the Holy Spirit right now and say, Spirit, what is it?

Like, reveal this thing to me now so that I can battle with it now, so that I can overcome this sin now.

And unless you overcome that, you will never experience the contentment that comes when you fix your gaze on heaven's reality.

Call for us is to make heaven heaven.

And then we will have contentment, no matter what happens on earth, because our contentment, like Paul, our joy is rooted in something outside of earthly circumstance.

It's unaffected by this world.

Which leads to our third and last point.

Third thing I want you to recognize is this I learn contentment when I find strength to face the unknown.

As we come to verse 13 of Philippians chapter 4, we are perhaps uh stumbling upon the most misquoted verse in the entire Bible.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

I'm sure that you've heard of athletes that have this tattooed on their arm, maybe written on their basketball shoes.

Maybe it's written on a mug you have at home for your encouragement.

It says this, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

The challenge here is understanding what Paul means as all things.

Some have taken this to mean like whatever I put my mind to, it's literally everything I can do, whatever I want.

That's why many athletes have taken this up.

And they when they think of all things, they think of winning the championship, and so they get it tattooed on their arms.

I can do all things for Christ, I'm gonna go out play this football game, and I'm gonna win the Super Bowl.

Now, the thing I don't understand is what happens if someone on the other team also has that tattooed on their arm.

How do we get over this promise?

All of a sudden both teams can do all things, and I've never seen a Super Bowl end with both teams winning.

And so I want you to understand that beyond just the logic of that not making sense, I want you to understand.

Here, that all things does not refer to anything you want to, okay?

So nobody go to the you know their roof at the after lunch today and say I can do all things through Christ and jump off and hope that you can fly after.

It's just not gonna happen.

The all things here is is referring to the context of what Paul has just talked about.

What Paul is saying is that I can face every circumstance if my faith is rooted in something greater, if it's rooted in Jesus Christ.

And so let me be absolutely clear.

I want I want to be so clear.

All things here does not refer to achieving anything.

This verse is not about you achieving your wildest dreams, it's not about you achieving your gr accomplishing your greatest goals or being able to do anything that you want, as long as you have Jesus and faith in him.

In fact, what this verse is, it's almost the opposite.

This verse is about you having strength to face the day, no matter what comes today.

Your worst possible nightmare could be but could be realized today.

Like the thing that absolutely terrifies you could come true today.

And what Jesus is saying is that if your life and faith is firmly fixed on him, you will have strength to face it.

The all things here refers to the abundance and the poverty, the plenty and the need.

And the question for us then is this how does how does Christ strengthen us?

David had learned the secret, and we read this all throughout the Psalms, but especially in Psalm 77, verse 4, he says this delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Psalms 77:4

And I remember reading this verse as a young man, it's saying, Oh, this is a great promise.

You know, if you delight yourself in the Lord, you can have whatever you want.

And so, you know, you say, well, today I'm gonna delight myself in the Lord, and you know, hopefully tomorrow there's a Lamborghini in my driveway.

That would be great.

And yeah, that is not at all what David has his hopes set on.

It's very interesting when we ask this question.

When David says, delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

What is the difference between delighting and the desires of your heart?

They really are, there's no difference, is there?

And you see, what happens is when you seek the Lord and you place your greatest affections on him, when the thing that you love the most in this world is Jesus Christ, you know what starts to happen?

The desires of your heart start to become God Himself.

And in the gospel, you you come to realize you have everything you need in God.

This is how it works.

Like when we love things, we want more of that.

This is why, like, if you hate golf here, you know, you hate that your spouse golfs, you don't care if you get the nicest set of golf clubs for Mother's Day.

You don't care about golf.

This is why so many of us think we don't care about God.

Because that's not where our heart is.

What happens is when you seek the Lord with the greatest of your strength, he gives you the desires of your heart.

Because you he gives you all that you need in himself.

So, Christian, you know you have everything that you need.

It says C.S.

Lewis says, I love what he says, it says, He who has God and everything else has no more than he who has God alone.

If you were to truly believe that, imagine how it might change your life that God in his faithfulness has given you everything you need.

I mean, everything you need for peace and joy for every single moment of your life has been given to you in Jesus Christ.

That changes everything.

Doesn't it change your relationships?

Like no longer are you allowed to be clingy in relationships.

No longer are you allowed to think that relationships might satisfy you ultimately if that person just changes the way that they, you know, live, then I'll be happy.

This would destroy anxiety, knowing that we're already provided everything we need, that nothing can be taken from us except the things that we do not need.

We'd have this assurance that even if our worst nightmares were to come true in Christ, everything we have we need, we have.

Because we have everything we need in Christ.

The only way we can find contentment is when we realize that through the gospel, through what Jesus Christ has done, you already are given everything that you need for perfect contentment.

That all this other stuff that we are pursuing is just distraction.

That God has already been faithful to you and He's faithfully provided everything that you need.

Let's turn to the Lord in prayer.

Father, we thank you, God.

And confess that, Lord, for our whole lives, we've in Jesus have had everything we need.

And yet, Lord, we have lived much of our lives pursuing things as though they could really add value to us, Lord, add eternal value to us.

Lord, we've spent much of our lives living as though what we have is not sufficient, and that we need something else, something greater than what you've already given us in Jesus Christ.

And I pray, Lord, right now, in a moment of clarity that can only come through the Holy Spirit, you would show us the nature of people and things and possessions, Lord, that they are fading away like a mist.

And the value of knowing Jesus for all of eternity, that nothing in this world can affect what we have been given in Him, that our inheritance is in heaven.

God, we give you all the praise.

We thank you, Lord, for all that you have given us.

And we praise your name.

It's the name of your Son, we pray.

Amen.