It's Life No.13 The Secret of Contentment

Thank you for joining us today, and I hope that you will enjoy the rest of the lecture. Thank you for joining us today. Now, shall we turn to our reading? Chapter 4, verse 10 of Philippians.

I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content, 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 everything through him who gives me strength.

Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles. Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only. For even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent me aid again and again when I was in need.

Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account. I have received full payment and even more. I am amply supplied now that I have received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent.

They are a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice pleasing to God. And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever.

Amen. Greet all the saints in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send 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. Amen.

Thank you. Keep your Bibles open at that passage, please. Good to have Dave and Irene and their lovely family back from Pakistan, from Karachi, safely.

We're not deliberately giving them any public exposure right now because they need just to rest and relax, but later on we're looking forward to having lengthy reports from them as to the way that God has blessed and used them of this last period of service for him within to serve. And they'll go across to our Maybridge family, too, and they'll enjoy the fellowship there, having a look around the new building and meeting new faces. Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for our friends. We thank you that the greatest friend is our beloved Lord Jesus. But we praise you that from his friendship has devolved many, many other friendships within the body of Christ.

We thank you for the faithfulness of our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia, though we do not know them in the flesh, we acknowledge our identity with them in the spirit. And now as we come to look at this remarkable letter in its closing verses, help us to come to grips with what the Apostle Paul was, with what he taught, and may the quality of his friendship, a reflection of yours, be something that beams into our hearts so that we, too, might discover that being friendly and knowing friendship is part of the secret behind being content. Amen.

Well, do have your Bible open at that passage which Brian read. I was reading just a little while ago before I came into the church this definition regarding friendship. It says, a real friend warms you by his presence, trusts you with his secrets, and remembers you in his prayers.

He warms you by his presence, he trusts you with his secrets, and he remembers you in his prayers. Now, the title that we have given for this passage as I try to unpack it before you this morning is the secret of contentment, but it could have a writer, it could have a subtitle. Paul says, thank you.

You see, the letter that he has written is just about being completed. The manuscript will soon be placed into the luggage of Epaphroditus, one of the leaders, one of the pastors of the church in Philippi. And that brave and wonderful man will take the reverse journey, the return journey from Rome where Paul is back to the fellowship in Philippi.

And there they will, doubtlessly with great eagerness, pour through what Paul has to say to them. And in these final verses, actually all that he needed to do was just dash off a few lines and say, incidentally, the gift that you sent me, I'm very grateful, very kind, very useful, God bless you. But he doesn't.

He has a wonderful way of taking the most ordinary thing, the courtesy of an acknowledgement, and turning it into spiritual significance. You see, one of the things about friendship, and maybe one of the manifestations of a person with a contented heart, is that he, she, does not take things for granted. Not once, not twice, not three times, not four times, five times.

In these verses, the apostle expresses his indebtedness to the Philippians. And in putting on this PS of a thank you, he gives us such princely gems of scripture as, I have learned the secret of being content in every situation. I can do everything through him, through Christ, who gives me strength.

My God will meet all your needs, according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. So as we look at Paul's PS, this rather lengthy postscript that he puts at the end of this glorious letter, we break it open, conveniently to help ourselves, though in no ways are the compartments mutually exclusive, into considering, first of all, Paul, or the writer, and his circumstance, and then, finally, his readers and their benevolence. Paul, the writer, and his circumstance.

He's a chained man. Did you see the funeral to which I made reference last Sunday week, when I had the privilege of speaking here? The funeral of one of the Cray brothers, how the surviving brother was allowed out of jail, and by the grave you saw him handcuffed to the water. Now, in circumstances very different in terms of the reason for the lack of liberty, you find that the apostle Paul was chained.

Don't rush through that and take it of being of little consequence, an incidental comment. He tells us in the 17th verse of the opening chapter that I am in chains, and in a plaintive comment when he writes to Timothy, and he makes reference to a friend of his, Onesiphorus, he singles Onesiphorus out because, well, he wasn't afraid, he wasn't ashamed of my chains. This letter and this postscript that you're reading with me this morning, it's dashed off from the free hand of a man whose other hand and legs are in chains.

That's his circumstance, chained, but not disconsolate. I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances, chained but not discontent. A loss of physical liberty, but free spiritually as a bird.

He'll tell you something. You see, we moderns are often deprived of being able to say we are in a spirit of contentment. And sometimes, as Brian intimated in his brief synopsis from Ethiopia, we come to the conclusion that our contentment depends upon our circumstances.

What we have are possessions, or what we don't have are dispossessions. That is what has been taken from us. But listen to this pastor.

I know, 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 every and any situation. When a period of affluence comes, when materialism baptizes me, it does not rob me of my inner peace.

When the materialism I enjoyed is no longer there, that inner peace still remains because the contentment of which I speak has nothing to do with circumstances or happenings. It's not what I possess. It is what possesses me.

And he says it's a secret. My American friends will enjoy this. We really do love you and glad that you come to us and acknowledge what you're doing with AWM and others of you who come from other, who work with other missions from the States.

Here's a sign on the desk in the Pentagon. The Pentagon, let me remind you, Brits is the place where the power is. Some think it's the White House, actually it's the Pentagon in the US.

Sign on the desk. The secrecy of my job does not permit me to know what I am doing. I have a feeling that President Clinton sent that to the British cabinet and they made it the motto text for this year.

I have learned the secret. Interesting word. But it's the only occasion when you get this in the New Testament.

The use of this word, it's daring. He plugs it straight from the mystery religions. You see, in Greece they reckon some of the spiritual elite that they had discovered the secrets of life and the depository of truth which was theirs, they sort of locked it up amongst a society and the entry into that society was as difficult to crack as getting into the Freemasons.

And Paul says, but I've learned the secret. The secret of inner contentment. And the thing about this secret is it's an open secret.

If you're not in on it, it's because you don't want to be. That wonderful man, Billy Graham, how much we should thank God for him. His best-selling book is still Peace with God.

And there he unpacks the secret. How are you content, Paul, in whatever circumstance? Well, I'm into the mystery. The mystery of the kingdom.

The mystery of a man being reconciled to God, a man who is a murderer. A man who, when he looks at his image in the mirror, would at the human level recoil. But I have found that the Christ of God has cleansed me from my sins and returned to me my self-respect.

And the most important thing in my life is not my possessions or going through a period of being dispossessed. The most important thing is the cultivation that I have of friendship with Him. And they can put chains around both my hands and both my feet.

But they cannot dispossess me of my knowledge of the mystery and the benefits that accrue to those who are initiated. For that, brothers and sisters, is what we are. We, the redeemed, are a society of those who have been granted an understanding of the mystery of being God's children.

And it's that that grants the contentment. Someone has in a jaundiced fashion said of the modern age, the amazing thing about a man being arrested for disturbing the peace is that he found any peace to be disturbed. The apostle Paul has found peace.

And he's found peace in the most difficult circumstances. I remember in earlier years when I used to read the Christian Herald, I still see it from time to time, but we used to have it regularly when I was a boy. And it's updated.

It's much more modern. It did seem to be a little bit of an overspill from the Victorian era 20 years or so ago. And there was always an advert.

There were several adverts that reminded me of Queen Victoria. But there was one particular one. And it heralded, and that's a good verb to use for that paper, it proclaimed the benefits of a charity called the Charity for the Assistance of Ladies in Reduced Circumstances.

I don't know if it was a slimming club in disguise. But the apostle Paul is here saying that these circumstances are so reduced, they're so narrow. All the things that you and I reckon are necessary to contentment, he doesn't have and yet he's got that.

He's got the contentment that you and I so desperately need. And how does it come? Well, verse 13 will tell you. It comes through abiding in Christ.

What does it mean to abide in Christ? I'm grateful to F.B. Meyer for this illustration. Do you remember when the Israelites were in Egypt and they were going to be released? The angel of death passes over the Egyptian homes and the firstborn of each Egyptian family is going to die. Why did the Israelites not suffer the same fate within their family circles? Well, I'll tell you.

They killed the lamb. And they took the blood of the lamb, you recall, and they daubed the blood on the lintels of the doorposts. And when the angel of death passed over, they were not affected by God's judgment.

Meyer says, they were in the cover of the lamb. Paul will tell you time and time again, he's in Christ, in Christo, in Christ, in Christ. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Well, if that's Paul and his circumstances, let's look in the latter part of the verses from the 14th about the readers and their benevolence. The writer and his circumstance, the reader and their benevolence. What they did.

Well, they seized an opportunity, didn't they? It was good of you to share in my troubles. One of the ways in which contentment is expressed is the fashion in which you enter into the difficulties of other people. You see, though the apostle Paul is a very spiritual man, he's also a very human man.

And what buttressed, what nourished the contentment, the inner contentment that he had, was the feeling that, well, in Philippi, there were a group of men and women who were in solidarity, who were in identity with him. And these people were the source of Paul's physical relief. What's more, in the early days, they had engaged in helping him time after time.

Verse 15, The early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me. Let me tell you a story, and I apologize if it seems to be self-serving, but most of you know me well enough to appreciate that that's not the objective. Besides the commendable projects that we engage in here at the TAB in terms of mission support, I've got my own little schemes with which I run and have down the years.

A man who I met in India some while ago sent me a letter which arrived last week, and he tells me about the pioneer work in which he's involved. And he said, When I think of you, tears come to my eyes, because when I was in need, I use my language, at the cutting edge of pioneer work, you were the only one who ever sent me any money. Here is the Apostle Paul, and he's reflecting upon the fellowship he has with these Philippians, and he's saying, the contentment that I have, I remember that part of that contentment is derived from the fellowship of you good folk.

Ten years have elapsed, and there wasn't opportunity for you to minister to me, but I remember the source of support I had in Macedonia, and the sequence of that support, not once, twice, but many, many times. And the Apostle warms the hearts of his readers as he goes down memory lane, what they did, how he saw it. Forgive me, but sometimes I get very offended by some methods used by some individuals for obtaining money for support of ministries in these days.

There's a way in which you can make your needs known, and there is an attitude that must be yours in governing your desire to raise finances. Now the Apostle Paul is not a man who you can throw a few dollars, a few pounds at as a sap to him. Not that I was looking for a gift, he says in verse 17, but what I'm looking at or what I'm looking for is that credited to your account in heaven may be the responsible fashion in which you applied your finances.

You see, what Paul wants is judgment day praise for his people. Isn't that wonderful? I mean, when you think in terms of judgment day, you probably conceive of the wrath of God and so on and so forth, and in one sense you're right, but we who are Christians, we've passed from condemnation. Our sins have been forgiven, and there is the possibility of judgment day praise.

How might it come? By the fidelity with which you should support for the ministry in practical ways. And the man who has a generous heart and the church who is regular in exercising its generosity is an individual, is a church that will know something of the contentment to which the apostle refers so frequently. What was this gifting? It wasn't just money.

No, no, no, no. When we come together, when so many of you dear friends invest your time, and on occasions I'm amazed at the way that some people in this tabernacle will give time to the cause of God. It humbles me.

But God doesn't see it in terms of just the time or the finance or even the volume of intercessory prayer. When Paul sort of transmutes this into the way that God recognizes these things, then he has to use this sort of language, a fragrant offering. Here is Noah.

He's released from being in the ark with his family and the animals for 40 days. There's a sacrifice that is offered to the Lord, and it comes before the Lord as a sweet-smelling savor. And that's how Paul looked upon the faithfulness of the Philippians towards him.

It wasn't the basis of Paul's contentment, but it was supportive as he realizes that these Christians in Philippi are reflecting his attitude, for that marks his lifestyle. He's a man who does not hold on tenaciously to things, realizing that peace is not what you possess, but what, as I said, possesses you. What they did, how he saw it, God's reaction.

Look at verse 19 and how intimately the apostle incorporates this into his thank-you note. My God. Have you noticed how the apostle used that expression at the beginning of the letter? My God.

You see, there is a sense in which this is the God and Father of us all, but there is also a sense in which he's my God. It's my gospel. He's my Savior.

My God. What will he do? Well, he's used you to be a fragrant offering in what you've directed to me, but, you know, this God, his repost to, his reaction to your kindliness is that he will meet all your needs in proportion to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. The apostle says, verse 14, just backtracking, it was good of you.

Did you ever say that? It's kind of you. How kind? I mean, these are colloquial expressions, and they're very nice if they're sincerely meant. Well, the apostle Paul meant this, didn't he? It was good of you.

Here's the Lord Jesus, and there's an old, maybe bent little woman in the temple, and she goes near the offering, and she takes boxes, and she takes out her farthings and puts them in, and Jesus registers. And then later the scene changes, but it's the same principle. It's another lady, younger in years.

She brings her perfume, the most expensive stuff she could get at the body shop, and she's kept it for years. She breaks it open. She anoints the feet, and indeed, if you read the synoptics, with all the information about this action, she anoints the head of our Lord Jesus, and what's he say? She's done a good thing.

It's good of you. It's good of you. Hey, Paul, it's good of you to write to us.

Paul, it's good of you to say thank you. Paul, it's good of you to say thank you in the way that you do say thank you, because it shows that that inner contentment that you have got causes you to have more concern for us and our well-being than that wretched chain which imprisons you. And you're a man, Paul, who likes the fresh air.

You've been on camel after camel. You've gone mile after mile. You know the open spaces.

You're a man who was in Arabia for three years. You, Paul, incarcerated in a Roman jail with a chain on you. And yet, you think of us.

Good of you, Paul. No, he would say, not good of me, good of the Lord. Good of the Lord to give me a possession of which I can never be dispossessed.

Good of the Lord. Good of the Lord to the extent that the only thing I can say is to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Myers says a Christian is a man who's always breathing out doxologies.

He's always praising the Lord. A wonderful man in Los Angeles, the church by the open door, who wrote the doxology we sometimes sing in praise of our Lord Jesus' majesty, glorious majesty. Unto Jesus be glory, honor, and power.

I was listening to him the other day, and he says that the Christian's life should be one of constant worship, constant bringing praise to the Lord. Do you know why we sing some of these songs? Not because they're emotionally moving. They are, and there's nothing wrong in that.

We sing them because one has to. There is a sense in which, when you think of the goodness of Jesus and all that he's done for me, my soul cries out, hallelujah, praise God for saving me. Doxologies are natural to Christians.

Here is Paul, and he's in jail, and yet he's praising the Lord. Here is Paul. He could have gone inwardly, looking at himself, always bemoaning his Lord.

Lord, it's not fair. It's not this. It's not the other.

But not Paul, because he has distinguished between what is precious and what is spurious and passing. The preciousness is that he is in Jesus, and he loves the Lord Jesus, and therefore everything else is in place. When my eyes were fixed on Jesus, I lost sight of all beside.

Whatever you do, my brother and sister, don't allow your eyes to be taken off him. Whatever relationship goes sour, don't let this one ever be robbed of your time, robbed of your concern to tend it and nourish it. So the apostle Paul, whose ministry has impacted the saints of Caesar's household, can you believe it? Maybe slaves of Caesar, they've come to him, they've seen a difference, and as a result, they've been converted too.

They've entered into this spirit of contentment. Hey, Paul, when you write to the Philippians, I've got a mate called Jim. Will you send him my greetings? Greet all the saints in Jesus Christ, the brothers who are with me, send greetings.

All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household. Oh, incidentally, fellas, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. You can't keep him down, can you? He's even got the amens.

I didn't quite get what Brian Chilvers said about John Macquarie, but I think that the apostle Paul would have agreed with whatever Brian was saying. Amen, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah. Thank God for what he has done for me.

He has given me a spirit of contentment. I'm anchored in his son. Let's stand.

Let's pause a moment in his presence. We're going to sing a song, a love song to the Lord, which talks about the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ, how we love him, how we long just to be in his company and to feel his presence. Just a moment for you to make your personal response to what I've tried to share.

Oh, Lord, you're beautiful. Your face is all I seek. For when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me.

I want to take your word and shine it all around, but first help me just to live it, Lord, and when I'm doing well, help me to never seek a crown, for my reward is giving glory to you. 513. If those girls who helped me later earlier in the service could just sing by the mic, it will give a little bit of body to our singing.

513 Missions Praise. Sing this because you mean it, not just because I've asked you to sing it. Oh, Lord, you're beautiful.

Your face is all I seek. For when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me. Oh, Lord, you're beautiful.

Your face is all I seek. For when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me. Oh, Lord, you're beautiful.

Your face is all I seek. Oh, Lord, you're beautiful. Your face is all I seek.

For when your eyes are on this child, That verse again, but unaccompanied. His face on you. Can you take that in? That he loves you, gave himself for you.

My God, my Lord, my Savior, the secret of contentment is being anchored in him. Oh, Lord, you're beautiful. Your face is all I seek.

For when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me. Verse two. Oh, Lord, these eyes are mine, and once my heart is empty, replace the lamp of my heart's love and let it holy be.

Now we pray and come in with majesty, worship his majesty. Father, we ask for each one of us that to the degree we have lost the secret of contentment, that you will return us to our first mooring. So often we've been tempted into thinking that things, and even personal relationships, are the basis of peace.

And we know in our heart of hearts that peace comes through our walk with you, a walk that no one else can take, that no one else can nourish for us. Help us, Lord, to do business with you, to realize that Christianity is an I-You relationship. And as that old, esteemed apostle spoke out his thank-you letter in written form and disclosed again the mystery, help us to enter into it afresh, embrace you more, and be able to go out of this place rejoicing, because the foundation has been secured afresh in our lives.

And we, too, will bring honor and praise to our Lord Jesus. We honor your majesty. We worship and adore you.

Kingdom of glory be Firstborn is born He's at the ready Soul and soul Filled up on high In the name of Jesus And he'll find How glory, glory For Jesus to be And he'll sing For Jesus to die In the holy city I sing to you my everything Knowing you have