Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

“I’ve Got a Dream” song video clip from Tangled?

Contentment video

We’ve come to the last message in our Surprised by Joy message series, taking a journey through the book of Philippians, and today we end our journey in the same place where the Apostle Paul ended his letter to the church at Philippi: At the idea and experience of contentment.

Game?

I want to do a quick group exercise to get all thinking along the same track, ok?

I want you to tell me the answer to the following question:

“I dig out tiny caves, and store gold and silver in them.

I also build bridges of silver and make crowns of gold.

They are the smallest you could imagine.

Sooner or later everybody needs my help, yet many people are afraid to let me help them.

Who am I?”

Doesn’t it just drive you crazy when you really want something, and you just can’t get it?

Like when you are trying to remember someone’s name and you can think of everything about them EXCEPT their name?

Along the same idea, yet much more seriously, we find contentment to be just as frustratingly elusive, don’t we?

I want you to fill in the blank right here and now, and I want you to be brutally honest.

I won’t ask you to show this to anyone.

If you’re not taking notes physically, participate in your mind with us.

I would be content with my life if ___________________________________________

Contentment.

It might be the goal of just about everyone.

To get a good night’s sleep without worry.

To not have to have too much month left at the end of money.

To not have to wrestle with regret, or would’ve/should’ve/could’ve thoughts.

We want to know that our faith lives are pleasing to the Lord, we want to be a part of a true and biblical church family, yet, virtually every statistical survey on the American church shows that Christians are not content in this are either.

We just want to live our lives with a measure of comfort that is probably more psychological than it is physical.

In other words, even if we didn’t have much money, it would be such a freeing thing to know that we have enough money, and to not feel like we are constantly running on the hamster wheel of life.

Many of our prayers and petitions to God are concerning our contentment, or lack thereof.

And when it comes to God, what does He want me to do to be content in Him?

I’m trusting Him for the things I need, yet I am still restless and certainly not content.

The Apostle Paul teaches us what contentment really means as we continue our Surprised by Joy series walking through the book of Philippians.

As we come to God’s Word this morning, let’s pray.

To set up the scene, Paul is in prison and he is writing to the church at Philippi.

And in his closing remarks, he thanks them for their generous financial gift to him, and then tells them that they do not need to send any more money, because he has received a gift that supplies him with more than enough for his daily physical needs.

Amazingly, Paul, who I remind you is IN PRISON, is more concerned that the believers at Philippi grow in their maturity and generosity than he is about making bail.

In verse 17, Paul says:

While that point is made clear near the end of his letter, the main emphasis for this section comes at almost the beginning of our text for today.

Let’s read verses 10-13 one more time before we dive into some applicational specifics this morning.

The apostle hastens to make clear that though he undoubtedly had a need, it was not relief of this need that primarily concerned him.

He had learned to be content with what God provided, irrespective of circumstances.

It is significant that Paul had to “learn” this virtue.

Contentment is not natural to most of mankind.

In Stoic philosophy, autarkēs (“content”) described a person who accepted impassively whatever came.

Circumstances that he could not change were regarded as the will of God, and fretting was useless.

This philosophy fostered a self-sufficiency in which all the resources for coping with life were located within man himself.

In contrast, Paul locates his sufficiency in Christ who provides strength for believers.

12 Paul understood what it was to be in want as well as “to have plenty.”

The latter may refer to his earlier days as a rising figure in Judaism (Gal 1:14) or to the possibility that he had received a sum of money more recently.

On the other hand, the expression may be merely relative.

It may be that Paul considered the times he was not suffering privation to be times of plenty (e.g., Acts 9:19, 28; 16:15, 33, 34; 18:3; 21:8).

He had learned the secret of trusting God “in every [particular] situation” (en panti) and in all situations as a whole (en pasin).

13 His was no Stoic philosophy, however.

He did not trace his resources to some inner fortitude that would enable him to take with equanimity whatever life brought him.

Instead, his strength for “everything” lay in the One who continually empowered him.

The name “Christ,” to which we are accustomed through the KJV translation of v. 13, does not appear in the most reliable manuscripts, but surely Paul has Christ in mind.

The apostle was not desperately seeking a gift from the Philippians, because he knew that Christ would give him the strength for whatever circumstances were in God’s will for him.

Paul makes it clear that though he certainly has needs, it is not relief of this need that was his major concern.

Why?

Because, as Paul says, he has learned to be content with what God has provided him.

This gives us our first point for the day:

Contentment is not natural to mankind

Of course, we all know the areas in our lives wherein we are not content, but let’s look at this from a macro perspective.

Where in the world can you find or think of a group of people who are automatically content with their lives?

You don’t have to look around the world, just look at our culture.

We have a culture built on ideological discontent and coveting.

Our politicians plays this to the hilt, and advertisers constantly remind us that our lives would be so much better if we had their product.

Everyone on the planet knows that the world is messed up, yet no human being has been able to make everything better, and so the discontentment continues.

How do we know that contentment is not natural to mankind?

Paul admits that he had to learn to be content in any given circumstance.

This is such a critical admission by Paul because, not only does it tell us that contentment is not natural to us as human beings, but it also says that contentment is not given, inherited, captured, earned, acquired, or anything else other than learned.

And to learn something means that we must pursue something that the benefit of which occurs over a period of time.

Next, Paul gives examples of various kinds of circumstances, both good and bad, and then Paul tells us the secret:

Now, this is one of the most often quoted Scriptures by Christians in the Bible.

And what is remarkable about this verse is that, in most cases that I have seen this verse referenced, it has NOTHING to do with context of the verse, or thereby the meaning of the verse.

Most often, I see this verse used to describe athletic ability.

Next, I see this verse quoted as a kind of mantra for a person to get through one circumstance or another.

But I really don’t see this verse used in a context and meaning that is consistent with its presentation in Scripture.

This verse has nothing to do with physical feats of accomplishment.

And this verse really is not about seeing you through a tough time.

This verse is about how to be content all the time because of and in Christ.

This verse is about how contentment can be a steady heart attitude in our lives even when the winds of opposition blow against us.

How do we know this?

The “all this” that Paul speaks of is in reference to the following phrases:

being in need/having plenty

any and every situation

whether well fed/hungry

living in plenty/or in want

And Paul is saying that the secret to being content is relying on God’s strength in order to enjoy the Peace of Christ (i.e.

contentment) in any and every situation.

Well great.

If that’s the secret, how do I do it?

How can I be content in the way that the Apostle Paul describes?

First, let’s quickly identify some of the obstacles to contentment that we deal with.

If we are going to have an effective course of action, we need to be able to rightly identify our adversaries.

Obstacles to Contentment:

Comfort

Stuff makes us feel comfortable, and we have confused comfort with contentment.

How many people have everything and yet are still empty?

Billy Graham talking with Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees story

In everyday practical terms, what does it mean to do this?