God Wants Me To Be Healthy and Wealthy (Faithful and Content)

Key Elements

In Philippians 4:10-13, the Apostle Paul proclaimed that his joy and strength came from Jesus Christ in every circumstance, not from guaranteed health and wealth. Paul found contentment in all things because his contentment was found in Jesus and not his circumstances.

Main Idea: God’s desire is not our comfort but our contentment in Jesus Christ whether we find ourselves in times of abundance or times of need.

I want my audience to let go of the misconception that “God wants them to be healthy and wealthy” because that is not His primary goal for their lives. And embrace the truth that God calls them to be content no matter their circumstances because their contentment is based on their relationship with Him through Jesus Christ.

Intro

Here where we live we contend with power outages all the time. In our neighborhood, there for a while it seemed like every time the wind blew the power would go out. And it got to the point where we would just brace ourselves during even the smallest of storms because we knew that we were going to lose power. And isn’t it amazing that when that happens how it just ruins everything. It can be so frustrating because it’s always going to happen at the most inconvenient time: it’s going to be in the middle of the summer when it’s the hottest it’s ever been, or it’s going to be in the middle of the winter when it’s the coldest; it’s going to happen when you are streaming that show you love and you are at the part when they are about to reveal that key piece of information you’ve been waiting 12 episodes to find out; or, and this is the worst, it’s going to happen in the middle of college football season, like during the Iron Bowl. Ultimately, what power outages do is expose something really crazy about all of us and that is how dependent we are on external sources for happiness in our lives. Think about it, the power goes out and immediately life is over for us. But then something interesting happens, we notice that things actually aren’t that bad. Because it forces us to actually interact with one another. You light candles and use other sources of light, you play games, you actually communicate with other members of your family. You realize that in the midst of a situation that has drastically changed in your life, you can still be content because your contentment is not actually based on those external sources.

And this morning as we continue our sermon series entitled The Bible Doesn’t Say That, contentment is what we are exploring. Today we are debunking the misconception that we all drift towards sometimes in life that “God wants me to be healthy and wealthy.” That God wants the happiness and the contentment of my life to be based on my external circumstances, specifically when it comes to finances and prosperity. That I’m only going to be happy and content when things are going well for me and my family, when my bank account has plenty of money in it, when I’m not sick or facing some health crisis in my life.

But the truth and the reality is this, life doesn’t work that way. Life is not always going to be smooth, more times than not, life is going to present things that cause us discomfort and will cut off our sources of control; and it’s in those moments, actually it’s before those moments come into our lives, that we have to embrace the truth we find in Scripture that true contentment is not found in the ever changing things going on around us. True contentment is found in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And when we come to that realization and we embrace that realization then what happens is we pivot our lives from the belief that God wants us to be healthy and wealthy to God wants us to be faithful and content. And that is possible because our contentment and faithfulness to God is not based on what surrounds us but on Christ Jesus who never fails us.

History behind the statement: During the early 20th century, the American church began to see a rise in the teaching that God wants to bless his faithful believers with health and wealth. This became known and is still known as the “Prosperity Gospel.” It maintains a distinct view of how faith in God operates. Basically, faith came to be seen as something that guaranteed believers who spoke positive truths aloud the blessings of health and happiness, promoting the false truth that if you have enough faith in God, He will bless you with health and wealth. And also communicating the opposite of that, the false truth that if you’re not experiencing constant financial blessing and health in your life, that you lack faith.

Message

So as we explore this misconception this morning and look to the truth of God’s Word, here’s our main idea for the message today: God’s desire is not our comfort but our contentment in Jesus Christ whether we find ourselves in times of abundance or times of need.

You see, many people believe that happiness and security come from circumstances, wealth, and health; but God, through the Apostle Paul, shows us something radically different in Philippians 4. True contentment is far deeper than the surface things of this life, and is not influenced by what we have or what changes around us. True contentment is found in Jesus Christ and the way He shapes our hearts. This morning as we walk through Philippians 4, we see four truths that show us how true contentment transforms the way we live every day.

1. Contentment is fueled by our gratitude for others. (vs. 10)

Now, I love the book of Philippians. If you’ve ever been a part of a study of the book of Philippians, that study always leads you to one main word that characterizes the book and that word is JOY. The Apostle Paul centers on a lot of themes in the Book of Philippians but the one main thing that he leads all of us back to is JOY. Because in many of the churches he had started throughout his missionary journeys, false teachers had crept in and corrupted the believers in those churches with false theology. And a main false theology that Paul was constantly contending with was this “prosperity gospel.” A false teaching, that again, said that faith and joy and contentment was based on how much God was blessing you in your life and if you found yourself in a position where you weren’t prospering in your life, it meant you didn’t have enough faith. In fact, in 1 Timothy 6, this is what Paul is writing to the young pastor Timothy about. Because this is what the church he is pastoring is contending with. And Paul writes to Timothy saying that those who preach this kind of gospel are “people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.” And he warns Timothy to stand against such theology and to guard the people of his church against this heretical teaching. You see, what the Apostle Paul is always pushing and contending for is the Biblical truth that joy and contentment have nothing to do with our external circumstances, but have everything to do with our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. And that joy and contentment can be constant no matter what is going on in our lives.

And as he comes to the end of his letter to the believers in the Philippian church, this is where he goes back to again. He says in vs. 10...

Paul begins the final part of this letter by pointing them again to joy. What does he say? “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly...” Why? “because of your care for me...” He says “I’m grateful for your continued love and support of the work that God is doing not only in your church but in all the churches.” The church in Philippi were great supporters of Paul’s ministry. They were major contributors to the work of the Gospel going all over the areas of his missionary journeys. There was a period of time, for some reason, they were not able to give but at some point they had renewed that commitment of support. And the Apostle Paul expresses gratitude for all the Lord is doing in and through them. And that’s a major characteristic we see in the Apostle Paul’s life and what an example it is for us. One of the major reasons he is able to live his life content in all circumstances is gratitude because contentment is fueled by gratitude. Here’s what gratitude does,...

a. Gratitude shifts our focus off of circumstances.

So many times in life, we focus on the circumstances. To the point that that’s all we can see. We develop this tunnel vision that gives us blinders to everything else in life and funnels us down to focus on nothing but what’s going on right in front of us, the external circumstances of our lives. And that’s who the Apostle Paul used to be. When we look at all the Books of the NT that he wrote, the letters to all of the churches he had started, we see that he talks a lot about the person he was before he met Christ and who he had become because of Jesus. Prior to meeting Jesus, Paul was a man who had it all. He was a high ranking official in the Jewish religious system, had the highest educational training, and believed his position in society set him religiously and socially above everyone else. That this was proof of his spiritual and moral authority to others. But all of that changed one day when he met Jesus. And after he submitted his life to Christ, he considered all of that worthless compared to knowing Jesus. And from that point on, his life became one that was marked by gratitude for all God had done and was doing in him. Which led him, for the rest of his life, to focus not on what was going on around him but to focus on the One who had saved him. Gratitude shifts our focus off of circumstances and...

b. Gratitude shifts our focus to contentment.

And that’s where Paul had settled in his life. He had come to the point where he was grateful in all circumstances and that gratitude kept him in a place of contentment in his life. That’s why the Apostle Paul could say in vs. 10, “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly....” No matter what was happening in his life, gratitude had shifted his focus from his circumstances to his Savior which led to contentment every time.

And what a hard but valuable lesson that is for us to learn. To be grateful no matter what’s going on. To allow gratitude to shift our focus off of our circumstances and to contentment in our lives. Gratitude is the door to Godly contentment in our lives. You see, if we are never grateful for anything but live in entitlement, we will never find the contentment God wants us to live in; but if gratitude is the undercurrent of our lives and we live grateful for everything, rejecting that attitude of entitlement, then we will find contentment in all things. And that will also help us when we are tempted to get frustrated with one another. Think about it, if I’m grateful for you and I spend my time focused on that, then that leaves little room for me to be frustrated with you.

Contentment begins and is fueled by our gratitude for others.

Truth #2...

2. Contentment is found in Christ not changing conditions. (vs. 11)

How many of you check your weather app in the mornings before you get your day started? For most of us that’s probably part of our daily routine. And the reason we do that is to be prepared for the day-do we need an umbrella or not. Now lately, the weather has been so unpredictable, there’s no telling what it’s going to do. Weather conditions are always changing, sometimes moment by moment. And our lives, more times than not, are just like that-constantly changing. And if we base our contentment on those changing situations life brings, we will constantly find ourselves going from one extreme to the other.

Which is why the Apostle Paul was able to say in vs. 11...

What’s he saying? That because of Jesus, he has the ability to conquer circumstances and situations and be content in spite of them rather than allowing the changing conditions of life to conquer him. Paul is proclaiming a truth that sets all of us free if we will learn to live by it and that truth is that contentment is not connected to our circumstances.

You see, our tendency is for our contentment, our joy, our happiness to increase or decrease based on how God provides for us or how things are going in our lives. We think “if I just had a bigger house or a better car or a different place to live. If I just made more money.” Many times we think if my conditions would change, then I’d be happier, then I’d be content. But what the Apostle Paul communicates here over and over again in these four powerful verses is that contentment has nothing to do with our circumstances. You see...

a. Contentment is learned not given.

He says in vs. 11, “for I have learned to be content...”

That word “learned” means “to gain knowledge by experience.” Contentment was not the Apostle Paul’s default. Just like us, that is not where he naturally went. It took him experiencing over and over again God working through him and meeting his needs in the midst of hardship and difficult situations. He knew abundance and he knew need. He had been hosted by some of the wealthiest most powerful people on the planet. He himself had been wealthy once as well. And he had been imprisoned and shipwrecked and marooned on an island and snakebit and beaten. And all of that had taught him that contentment in Jesus Christ was the only constant in his life. Which leads us to the fact that...

b. Contentment is found because of Who is within us.

He says, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I find myself.” Wow! I wish I was there in my life. To be content no matter what. And the only reason the Apostle Paul is there is because Jesus lives in him. You see Paul had come to the point in his life where his contentment did not depend on what changed around him but upon his Savior who lived inside him. Because his life had been radically transformed by Jesus, it did not matter what he experienced, Paul’s contentment was found in Christ.

So, just a thought this morning for all of us. Could this learning to be content be why God allows us to experience the things we experience in this life? The abundance and the hardship? Not that God enjoys watching us suffer; but that He is using even the hardest things we experience to help us to “learn” to be content? And we might be thinking, “Ok God, enough. I’ve learned my lesson.”

But as one pastor says, “We might wish that a certain crisis would break us from our love affair with this world, but contentment isn’t learned in a single crisis. It’s learned through exposure to times of need and times of plenty. It involves a regular struggle to believe that Christ is enough. It involves us going through the school of need and the school of plenty.” (Tony Merida)

And in the midst of all of it, we get to the place where, like the Apostle Paul, we come to realize that it has nothing to do with our external conditions and everything to do Jesus.

Contentment is found in Christ not changing conditions...

Truth #3...

3. Contentment trusts God’s provision in every circumstance. (vs. 12)

Now, it would be easy for the Apostle Paul to say what he’s saying if he had not experienced hardship in his life. Just like when someone who has never really experienced true difficulty stands there and tells us to “trust God and God will provide.” It’s easy to say that if you have never really been put in a situation where that is actually what you had to do. But when a person has actually been through it, that’s the person we are drawn to. That’s the person we listen to. Because that person has the scars to prove the struggle they’ve experienced.

When Paul says what he says here, he has the experience to back it up. He has the actual scars to prove it. He says in vs. 11 “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself” and then he goes a little deeper in vs. 12...

Everything he has told us about being content is now brought to bear for us. Paul says, “I can tell you these things because I have lived them out. Before I might have known them in my mind but now I can say I’ve actually experienced everything I’m talking about.” He’s bringing two realities to the surface. It’s that...

a. God’s care is not proven by how much we have.

He says “I’ve dined with rich and powerful people but I’ve also been hungry. I’ve slept in the nicest of homes but I’ve also been marooned on an island. I’ve made do with a little and I’ve made do with a lot. And in all of those situations, I’ve trusted in God’s provision.” Because God’s care for us is not proven by how much we have. Which goes totally against how we think. Again, we tend to base how much we think God cares about us on what we have. But the amount we have has nothing to do with that. How life is going has nothing to do with that. Because...

b. God’s care is proven by His presence.

Here’s Paul’s attitude: If God brings wealth, I will faithfully serve Him and be content and I’ll use it to advance the Gospel; If God brings struggle and poverty, I will faithfully serve Him and be content and I’ll trust Him to provide everything I need to be all that He’s created me to be. Either way, I know God is with me and I’m good.

And that’s the point we need to get to. Realizing that in every circumstance, God’s presence with us is proof He loves us and cares for us. And He promises to always be with us. That’s greater than any amount of money we can have in our bank accounts. The promise of the presence of God.

You see, when our faith is fixed on the manifestations of “blessings and healings” in our lives, it becomes focused on the gift rather than the Giver. When the gift doesn’t come, we open ourselves to fear, doubt, self-condemnation, and potentially the judgment of others who are also walking in this misconception. This can lead us to question whether God really cares for us the way the Scriptures say he does, causing us to miss out on the greater blessing of a deep and abiding relationship with our heavenly Father.

So we rest in that promise and we find contentment in the reality that no matter what comes our way, God will provide.

Which leads us to the final truth...

4. Contentment draws strength from Christ in every situation. (vs. 13)

Paul says in vs. 12, “I’ve learned the secret of being content,...” And then in vs. 13 he tells us,...

Now this is probably the most misused verse in the Bible. What happens is, we read this verse and think “with Jesus on my side, I’ll be successful in anything I do.” Athletes quote it all the time. It’s on coffee cups and t-shirts. And don’t get me wrong, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But what we have to avoid is reading this verse in and of itself and applying to every situation we face. I would love to be able to dunk a basketball on a 10 foot goal but quoting Phil. 4:13 is not going to make that possible. That’s not a question of belief or unbelief; it’s a problem with my height and ability.

You see, to really get the meaning of what Paul is saying, we have to read it in connection with vs. 12… (read vs. 12-13)

Here’s what Paul is saying that he is able to be content in every situation because his strength to do that comes from His relationship with Jesus.

So,...

a. It’s not “Jesus plus something.”

It’s not Jesus plus money in my bank account. It’s not Jesus plus that person that I really want to be with. It’s not Jesus plus a bigger house, a better car, a better job. It’s just Jesus. The secret is not becoming preoccupied with our situation, but becoming focusing on Jesus and growing in our relationship with Him daily. Our strength comes from Him and Him alone.

So, it’s not “Jesus plus something,...”

b. It’s “Christ is enough.”

What did Jesus say in John 15:5 “ you can do nothing without me.” And Paul is living this out. He’s shouting this from the rooftops, not just with his words but by the way he lived his life. Paul’s ability to be content in all things came directly from the strength he found in his relationship with Christ. For him, Christ was enough.

The question for us today is “do we need Jesus plus something or is Christ enough?” And only you can answer that, only I can answer that. For us to be content in this life no matter the situation, for us to be faithful to God throughout every season, we have to come to the point where we believe that Christ is enough.

Closing

It’s not “God wants me to be healthy and wealthy,” it’s “God wants me to be faithful and content.” In times of abundance and times of need, resting in our relationship with Jesus, drawing our strength from Him, living out the story of our lives showing others “Christ is enough.”