Well, hey, good morning church. If you would grab your Bible, let’s go to Philippians chapter 4. Sad to say, this is the last one in Philippians. It’s been a great series. It’s been fun to teach some of this and walk through this, hear our team walk through this. But we’ll come back, okay? In 10 years, we’ll do it again. So mark your calendars. 2036, we’ll be back in Philippians for Press On round two. 

Okay? But there’s still some work to do in chapter 4. So, let’s get to work if y’all are good. Everybody all right? Yeah. Okay, two of you. Okay, let’s go. 

Chapter 4, verse 10. If you’re new in church and you’re new to the Bible, the big number is the chapter, small numbers the verse. So, chapter 4, verse 10. Paul’s closing the letter like a good preacher, very slowly. Okay? So, he says “finally” a few times. So, he’s going to close this out, but he gives us one last concept to wrestle with, and it’s massive. If you learn this and bring this into your life, I am convinced it will utterly change your entire life. How you view your life, how you view success, how you view suffering, failure, loss. And what Paul’s talking about is this issue of contentment, of being content in all things. 

So here’s how Paul talks about this. Chapter 4:10. “I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me.” So, he’s talking to the church that is concerned about him in prison. They’re sending Paul gift baskets with gift cards and chocolate turtles and things in them. And Paul says, “Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I’m not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content.” There’s our word. “Whatever the circumstances, I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” 

A guy named Michael Easter wrote a book some years ago called The Comfort Crisis. I would recommend that book if you need some weekend reading. He’s not a Christian, but he makes this case, and I’ve heard this before, that right now in the Western world we are more advanced than ever. You just pick your category, pick your field, there’s no disputing this. We have more technology, more information, in communication, in medicine, in food, in all of our devices. We have more knowledge, more information, more stuff than ever, and it’s more accessible than ever. So right now my watch can tell me my heart rate and give me Snoopy updates. He’s tanning right now with his glasses on, currently, is what he’s doing. That’s where we are. We have cars that can fly now. Apparently, it’s a real thing right now. We’re more advanced. We have more gadgets, more trinkets, more technology than ever in the history of humanity, is what Michael Easter says. 

And at the same time, he says we’re more anxious, more restless, more lonely, more distracted, and more afraid than we’ve ever been in the history of humanity. So, on the one hand, we’ve advanced more than at any time in human history, and we’re more anxious and more discontent as a society than we have ever been. What Easter says is that the more advanced we become, we don’t actually get happier. To his book’s point, the more comforts you bring into your life, they don’t actually make you happier. It’s actually the opposite. They make you less content. Now you redefine what a problem is. You lower the bar as to what stresses you out. 

He says our ancestors’ stress was a bear attack or an invading army or a famine breaking out. Our stress is our flight was delayed. We’re flying thousands of miles in a few hours and we’re angry about that slow Wi-Fi. We forgot our password. Why am I always logged out? Traffic’s backed up. Drive-thru slow. That’s what stresses us now. He says we don’t get more content. We just find more ways to become less content. So the point is, by nature we’re not content people. We’re restless by nature. We’re unsatisfied by nature. That’s why Paul said he had to learn to be content. And I have to learn to be content in all things. One Christian author called this, hundreds of years ago, the rare jewel of Christian contentment. This is rare. This is precious. But once you find this, once you bring this into your life and learn this, you hit the sweet spot of what it means to be a Christian. You find that sweet spot to your life and to Christianity, and you see this is what it means to walk with Jesus faithfully. 

So I want to show you how this plays out this morning. Contentment: what is it? How does it work? And then where do you get it? What is it? What are we talking about here? How does it work in your life? And then where do you get this? We’ll work through all that and then we’ll get you off to your restaurant of choice. 

Okay. So number one, what is contentment? I think that we have a sense of what this is. Paul doesn’t really define this for us, but he says in verse 11, “I’m not saying this because I am in need.” The word “need” there parallels this issue of content. “For I have learned to be content.” Paul likes to make up words on his own. He combines two words for what he says in the Greek. It’s the word “self” and the word “enough.” That’s what the word “content” means for Paul in the Greek language. So Paul’s saying, “I have enough. I’m at rest. I’m sufficient. In me there is enough.” Now Paul is not saying that he meets his own needs or that he has no needs or that he has power in himself. Paul’s not affirming himself. Paul’s not looking in the mirror and saying, “I’m good enough and I’m smart enough and dog on it, people like me.” This is not self-help. It’s not self-affirmation or self-love. It’s far deeper than that. 

What Paul is saying is that what is in me, or rather, who is in me is enough for me. And Christ is in Paul. And Paul’s saying, I’m satisfied. I’m at rest. He’s enough for me. I have enough because I have him. That’s what Paul’s talking about. And I love the little phrase there. He says, “Whatever the circumstances.” Did you catch that? Whatever. Just bring it on. Paul says, “In this prison, in this situation, in this mysterious place that God has me in right now, I’m low. I’m high. It doesn’t matter. I can be content in all of these things.” 

We’ve already seen Paul talk like this. Philippians 1, Paul says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” So Paul says, “If I get to live, it’s Christ, and if I die, it’s gain because I get more of him.” This is all that mattered for Paul. This is why Paul can be content in all of these circumstances. In life, in death, in being brought low, in abounding, it doesn’t matter. He has enough because he has Jesus. 

So, you might define contentment this way. This is my definition. Contentment is a quiet rest in Jesus alone. That’s what it is. You just relax in him and you find this inner quiet, this inner joy, this inner resting in him. This peace in him is, by the way, not defined by your circumstances. If you have this kind of rest in him, you can unhitch your joy from your situation. You can detach your joy from your circumstance and from whatever you’re going through in your life. So your peace and your joy and your life do not depend on how well things are going for you. I just think there’s so much of our joy that depends on how well things go for us. It just does. We find so much joy in how well our life is going. And it’s good for our life to go well. But you need a kind of joy that remains when your circumstances don’t. A kind of joy that lasts when everything around you is crumbling and falling through and you still have this quiet rest and contentment. That is what you need. That’s why Paul said he had to learn this. 

So for me, years ago, I saw this maybe for the first time in the most vivid way. I went to this family’s house and I was a young pastor, a younger pastor. This was maybe the nicest house I’ve ever seen in my entire life. I didn’t know they made baseboards that tall. This thing is custom. Everything is luxury. Everything is brand new. He’s got a Sub-Zero fridge, Viking range oven. This place is immaculate. It’s massive. Then there was the fireplace that had these huge stones that were, I think, flown in from Scotland at some castle that Braveheart grew up in. It was just an immaculate house. I go there and spend a few hours and then I go home to my very, very average house with my white Kenmore fridge. No offense to Kenmore fridges. There’s no Viking range oven. There’s just a fire in a gas insert and tiny baseboards. And I remember distinctly feeling low. I felt so weak. I felt so in fear. And I thought, I’ve got to make more and I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to buy one of these. And what did I need in that moment? Well, a Viking range is what I needed. A Sub-Zero, that’s what I needed. No, I needed the contentment and the rest that only Jesus gives. That’s what I needed and that’s what you need. 

So what this means is that right now, where you are in this season of life, the age that you are right now, the health that you have right now, the family that you’re in, the house that you’re in, the car that you’re driving, the school that you’re in, the program that you’re in, all these things that you’re in right now, you can have contentment right in the midst of that. You may not love it, that’s okay, but you can be content in the midst of that. Your inner joy and this life in you does not have to depend on your situation. No matter how bad it is, and you can’t miss this, no matter how good it is, your joy is not grounded in your circumstance. It’s grounded in your life in Jesus and your resting in him. That’s what you’re after here. This is what contentment looks like. 

And I want to show you how it works. That’s number two. How does this play out in our life? Paul shows us his circumstances in verse 12. He says, “I know what it is to be in need.” The word “need” there is the idea of being brought low, of being humbled. “I know what it is to be in need. I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” So, you’ve got some categories here. You’ve got Paul saying he’s in need or plenty. So he’s low, or abounding, you might say. Any and every situation. Well-fed: steaks. Hungry: ramen. Plenty and want. In all of these things contentment plays, is what Paul’s saying here. In any situation you find yourself in, you can have the same level of contentment. That’s the case he’s making here. And notice it’s not just the losses, it’s also the wins. It’s the lows and the highs. It’s failure and success. At the bottom and at the top, Paul can cut through all these things with contentment. 

So Paul says that he can get fired or he can be promoted. Paul can be at the Hyatt or he can be at the, I don’t know, the Red Roof Inn. Paul can drive a Maybach. You ever seen a Maybach? I saw a Maybach in Hattiesburg a few weeks ago. That’s a $200,000 car. Somebody’s driving that around here. Paul said, “I can drive that or I can drive a hooptie that backfires in school zones. It doesn’t matter. I can do all of this.” So whether you’re well-fed, whether you’re hungry, my joy does not depend on my circumstances, is what Paul’s saying here. 

So let’s unpack this a bit. Let’s consider being in need, or again being brought low. This is when you get bad news. You take a hit. Something happens. Something falls through. An injury, a sickness, a job loss, a pay cut. You’re brought low and it just rattles you on the inside and you feel insecure and you feel scared because of your situation. Paul is saying in the midst of that, as hard as it is, you can find this quiet rest in Jesus. In that, not once it’s over and once you’re through it, but right now in the midst. And you can want it to change. You can pray that God would change it. But the point is you can be content in the midst of that. Some of you are there right now and you’re thinking, once I get out of this, then I’ll be happy. I’ll be at rest. I’ll be quiet on the inside. No, you can have it right now, Paul says. 

And then there’s the other one. The other side of this is that you’re abounding or you have plenty. This is the big one. I think we missed this. Paul is saying when you crush it, when you win, when you reach your goal and you hit your mark and whatever you’re aiming at, you arrive at that. In those moments, Paul says, you need to be content. Now, I am not certain that we understand this or that we even believe this. No one gets a promotion and says, “I can do all things through Christ.” We don’t think about this. But Paul says in success, you need to be content. And so no matter how high it is, how low it is, I think in low times, we might say, “I need Jesus and the life he gives.” But in higher times when we’re soaring, we think, “Oh, I got this.” And you don’t. You don’t have it when it comes to success. 

Because here’s what happens. Your heart has fingers. Your heart wants to wrap around that success and that achievement and find joy in those things. And this is where we need contentment, because it’s so deceptive to us. We reach the point where we think we’ve got something and it’s success. It’s achievement and we think this is it. And it’s not. Paul says you need to learn how to be content. You need to learn how to abound. So can you abound? Can you be successful and have success but not have it have you? Can you find this quiet rest in Jesus even when you’re crushing? Can you have this loose grip on all these things that God gives you and still rest in him? So success, plenty, it’s such a blessing to us and to those around us, but it’s also so deceptive, because here’s what happens. Every time you get that next thing, you move up to that next stage of life, you get that upgrade, there’s a part of it that just lets you down a bit, maybe even severely. Your heart just feels a bit of letdown. 

I can prove this. There’s a website you might have heard of called Amazon.com. You can buy happiness on there. You can buy anything you want in two days, even in Purvis. It’s here. Okay? You can buy anything you want. So here’s how this happens. You find that thing. You find that new device. You find that new pair of shoes. You find that dress. You find that coffee maker. That new toothbrush, whatever it is. And here’s what often happens. It’ll be $1,000 in the stores. It’s $45 on here. You have to have it. And so, here’s what happens to me. I think once I get this, I’ve arrived. If I get this, this is it. My life is complete now. If I can get this coffee maker, this new one with all these new features. The old ones, they’re trash. They’re terrible. But this one’s going to do it for me. And obviously the price is great. So, I buy it. And then I get to track it. “Your order has shipped. Your order is in Mobile. Your order is in Moselle. Your order is out for delivery. It’s eight stops away, six stops away, three stops, oh, made a wrong turn. Two stops. Your order has arrived.” And you get this box with a big smiley face on it. And you open it up and every single time you think, “Oh, this is great.” But a part of you thinks, “Is this it? Oh, man. The picture showed that, but now this. Oh, I see what they did.” And guess what happens? Back to Amazon. Hide that box from your spouse. Back to Amazon and the whole thing starts over again. Some of you are like, “I think Greg needs help.” Yes, I do need help. All of us need it. 

We need contentment. This is the problem. This is what success and achievement and plenty can do to you. If you don’t find contentment in this, we just keep going to the next thing thinking this will do it for me, and it won’t. Tom Brady once said his favorite ring, you know what it was? The next one. And this is the problem. There’s this chase of going after and pursuing certain things and possessions and success and popularity or whatever it is. And once you get it, you feel this sense of, is this it? And it keeps us discontent. It keeps us delaying our joy until we find that thing. And once you find that thing, it doesn’t do what you thought it was going to do for you. 

So listen, if you’re a young person right now, if you’re getting into your career or moving in that direction, there’s a little phrase I think you might intuitively think. I’m on the way up. I’m getting my career, getting my education, getting into my field or whatever it is. You think, I’m on the way up. And you are. And that’s good and right and godly for you to pursue your dreams and chase your goals. But be careful you don’t also think this: once I get there, once I get this lifestyle, this car, this house or these friends, once I get into this thing, then I’ll be happy and have joy. And Paul would say, “Why wait? If you keep delaying your joy, you’ll never have it.” So, you need to fight for contentment right now in the midst of whatever success you’re in, whatever low point you’re in. This is how this works for us. 

Listen, I missed this for years. For some reason, I thought that what Paul’s saying here is that if you want to be content, there’s a secret. He uses the word “secret.” That if you want to be content in all things, you must learn this mystery, this secret, and then you can be content in all these things. And to be fair, the NIV, which is a translation that we use a lot here, makes it sound like that. But I think they miss it here. I’m going to email these guys later and tell them that I think they missed it here, and I’m sure they’ll make corrections in the years to come. But I think it’s a bad rendering of what Paul says here. 

Here’s how the NIV says this. Paul says, “I have learned the secret” of being content. Okay, so it sounds like Paul is saying that there is a secret to being content. The problem is they smooth this out to make it readable. This little phrase right here is not actually in the original that Paul wrote. And here’s why they did that. There’s no conspiracy. Verse 11 says it like this: “I have learned to be content.” So Paul already said, “I’ve learned.” So it must make sense that Paul is saying he’s learned the secret of being content. That’s not what Paul says. This is how translations work, though. By the way, I have an article on this that might help you. Just scan your chair back thing there, a little code, and it’ll pull it up. But just do it later, not now, okay? Unless you’re super bored. Totally fine. 

Here’s a better rendering, I think, of verse 12. This is the ESV. It says, “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.” That’s different. So I thought Paul was saying, for years, this hit me last Sunday at 2:31 at Starbucks, I almost yelled. I thought Paul was saying there’s a secret to being content. That’s not what Paul says. Paul’s saying contentment is the secret. This is what your life is missing. This is the ingredient that you’re missing in your life in order to be content in all things. This is what you need. This plays in all circumstances, in all situations. Contentment plays in all of life. 

And I want to show you how this works. This works in that now you can actually go after your dreams and pray big prayers and those things not derail you. Contentment is what frees us up to chase our dreams, to be ambitious, to strive to be the best, to want to win. And if you don’t, that doesn’t crush you any longer. That’s why you need contentment in all of these things. So now you can run and strive and want to be all that you desire to be. And if you don’t get it, Christ is still enough. He’s still enough to give you rest and give you joy in the midst of that. So if I aim for something, if I’m praying prayers, God, do this. God, let me achieve this. I want to go after this and abound in this, go after it. And if you get it, if God answers just like you want, if God lays it out for you and you hit your mark and you reach your goal, your joy is still in him, not in those things, not in the money or the achievement or the influence or the status. It’s in him. And if you don’t get it, if you’re injured, your dreams fail, the rug is pulled out from under you, even if that happens, it all falls through, he’s still enough for you, you still have life and joy in him. That’s how this plays out in all of life. 

Let me give you an example of this. Let’s just use our health. I think it’s one we all think about a good bit. Let’s say you’re not in a healthy spot and you want to get healthier. You either want to gain 10 pounds of muscle, or you want to lose 20 pounds of nonmuscle. Contentment says, “I’m going after it. I’m doing the diet. I’m exercising. I’m getting up. There’s no more Swiss cake rolls in my house. I’m going after this with all of my mind. I’m tracking this, tracking macros. I’m doing this.” And if you get it, great. It’s icing on the cake. If you don’t get it, great. It doesn’t matter. The scales, the mirror doesn’t define you. Jesus now defines you. So you don’t have to freak out if you don’t get it. You don’t have to panic or hate others who are more in shape than you. You can be okay with that. You can be content in the midst of that. This is the secret that I think many of us are missing in all of life: we’re trying to find our joy in our circumstances and things going well for us. And again, it’s awesome when things go well. You need joy that, when they don’t, you’re not shaken by that. 

And so, where do you get it? That’s number three. Well, it’s one verse. And I think this verse is quoted a lot. I don’t want to say misquoted, just maybe one-sidedly quoted. Just quote it correctly. NIV, I think, is great here. Paul says, “I can do all this” — what? Be content in all things. “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” So Paul is saying I can win and I can lose. That’s what the verse means. I can be brought low or I can achieve my dreams. I can fail and I can crush it or I can be crushed. I can do all of this. I can still be content in the midst of all of this through him that gives me. And I love that Paul says strength here. Not hope, not grace, not love, even though all those things are there, but he emphasizes the strength. You need to be strong to be content. It takes your heart wrapping around the strength of Jesus and trusting in him to be content in all of these things. So, not your circumstances, not your situation, not your highs, not your lows, but his strength, his might that he’s working in you if you know him. It’s coursing through your veins and it’s available to you. You can lean into that and trust him. 

So Paul says he has to have strength to do this. And you want to know why Jesus is enough for you? By the way, because no one abounded the way he did. He is in heaven at God’s right hand, radiating in light and surrounded by glory and angels worshiping him. He has everything. No one is that high and that lofty and that lifted up. But he was brought low. He comes into the world in utter poverty and utter obscurity, suffers for us, lives the perfect life for us, dies in our place. He’s brought low, brought to nothing for you. So, he was rich, Paul says, but he was made poor for our sakes. And what Paul’s saying is that he came to satisfy our hearts that are so insatiable, that are so unsatisfied. He came to give us this kind of rest. 

So if you want this, it’s available. You have to learn this. And what you learn is you run to him. You go to him and you trust in him and you treasure him and you fall into his arms. You want this quiet rest. You want this kind of life in you. Then you go to him and you learn to walk with him and you immerse yourself in his word. And you learn to sit quietly in his presence and just be with him. And you will find that he moves you through all these circumstances and that he’s always enough for you. 

Augustine, a theologian writing in the 300s, had this great famous prayer. He says, “God, you have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” If you’re not a Christian this morning, you’re not really sure or you’re just trying to figure out where you are with God and spirituality and the Bible, you know what it is to be discontent. And you might think the next thing will do it, the next promotion, the next job, the next relationship. You think it will do it. It won’t. But you go to him. You immerse yourself in him. You trust in him. You will find a rest that no circumstance can provide for you. 

What a great letter. What a great series it’s been. Thank you for leaning into this. What a great Savior that we have that works in all of life in this way. So let’s keep pressing on toward him. We pray for us. 

Father, would you heal our discontentment? God, you know how prone we are, how prone our hearts are to wander and to find other things to give us joy and give us life. So, Father, would you help us to run to you, to trust that you are enough for us, that you provide what no success, no achievement can provide us? You satisfy us in a way that nothing in this life can. God, help us to believe that and trust that and to run to you and rejoice and find our delight and joy in you. Jesus, thank you that you died for us, that you rose again for us, that you are strong for us. You know how weak we are and so we look to you. Help us to sing and worship you now. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.