Good morning. How are you guys doing this morning?
Alright, so my name is Jordan and today's scripture reading is from Philippians 4, 11 through 13.
It is page 667 in the Bibles on the back of the pews.
I'll give you guys a second to find that.
667.
I don't say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself.
I know how to make do with little and I know how to make do with a lot.
In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being content.
Whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need, I'm able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
This is God's word.
I think that's the first time I've followed my son into the pulpit.
I can't recall another time.
A couple of words of introduction.
One, man, it's good to be home.
I've been on the road a lot and am blessed to do that.
I feel so blessed to be called to do that.
But, you know, I'm, oh thank you, I'm fighting a cold so that he's bringing my Kleenex and taking good care of me.
Two, I really want to say this, how grateful I am to have John as my pastor.
And I'm humbled to stand in this pulpit this morning because I'm not the teacher John is.
So I appreciate being here this morning.
I also want to recognize, obviously I've got a cold, I sound more like Joe Cocker than I usually do.
But I'm fighting a cold and fighting some other things.
And my wife really helped put together this message and kind of edited and reworked it and said, you know, you don't need to say that.
You should say this.
Let's pray. Jesus, you know it's my heart that people be blessed by you and not in any way impressed by me this morning.
That we would hear the pure word that your spirit wants to lay on our hearts as only he can.
So that we walk out with truth and conviction and freedom and joy and love, peace and grace. The gifts that you so want to give to us, we pray. Amen.
Well, as Jordan read the scripture, I have this morning kind of the dubious task of opening the word and teaching from Philippians 4, 10 through 13.
And let me explain.
Paul, in closing this letter to the Philippians, talks about contentment. And we live in a culture, don't we, that's driven by discontentment, by entitlement.
Our lives are polluted with envy and I want what I want and selfishness.
Let me give you a few examples.
We get on a plane. I get on a plane and I walk through the 12 passengers sitting in first class.
I don't even know them, but I don't like them immediately.
How did you get in first class as you drink your tomato juices and you're, you know, reading the New York Times and all of those things while I'm crammed into a, and I'm a little guy, but I'm still crammed into economy.
Or we get upset when somebody takes our parking spot.
Yeah. All of a sudden, what are they doing in my parking spot?
Didn't they see me wait? Don't they know? You know?
Or as we're parking our broke down junker, we envy that person driving into the parking lot with that brand new Tesla.
And we wonder why them and not us?
What's the deal?
We get angry at someone else who gets the job we believe we deserve. What are they, how did they get my job? Right?
And we become envious and discontented.
We envy vacations, abilities and talents, you name it, and it can take on for us an idol and an altar of envy and discontentment.
That's the culture that we live in. It's the culture Paul lived in.
It's one of those tools the enemy would love to use. So you get the picture of what I'm up against as the communicator this morning.
But Paul has this incredible lesson he wants us to learn out of this passage.
So let's reread what Jordan read to us.
Let's go back to the tenth verse of chapter four.
And now I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me.
Again, I know you have always been concerned for me, but you didn't have the chance to help me.
Not that I was ever in need, for I've learned how to be content with whatever I have.
I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.
I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little,
for I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.
Wow. That's a lot, isn't it?
Let's unpack that passage a little bit.
First of all, let me define what, again, the Oxford Language Dictionary, which again is kind of a worldly source, says is the definition of contentment.
It's a state of happiness or satisfaction.
The synonyms include enjoyment, happiness, satisfaction, or pleasure.
Even that appeals to my flesh an awful lot, doesn't it?
It sort of states the underlying problem that we have in our world is that we don't really understand the source and the power of contentment.
Let's dig in a little bit.
First, to the setting.
Paul's writing to the church in Philippi.
It's one of the gems in his ministry.
It's not been a church that he's had to write to like Corinth that had all of these problems.
But he's in prison, and it's been some time since he's heard from the church in Philippi.
Maybe they didn't know where he was any longer.
But they've found out, and they send, in the second chapter of this letter, it tells us that they sent Epaphroditus with a gift that they had gathered up and collected.
And isn't it a joy? It's a joy.
That church was enjoying sending Epaphroditus with this gift to give to Paul in his ministry, to partner with him.
One of the things that the second chapter of Philippians tells us about Epaphroditus is kind of a side note, is that when Epaphroditus got to where Paul was, imprisoned, he got deathly ill.
Sick into death.
To the degree that Paul didn't think he would survive.
And then he says a couple of things that are incredible.
One, God healed him, and he wanted to relieve the stress he had off of himself by sending Epaphroditus back to Philippi.
I don't want to worry anymore about him. I'm sending him back to you.
I love Paul's humanity, don't you?
Sometimes we almost put Paul and others in scripture, but he's saying, I'm stressed out being responsible for Epaphroditus.
I'm sending him back.
So that's kind of the setting that we have.
And he says, you know, not that I needed this gift, but thank you for expressing your graciousness and your gift to me.
And that's the only way we can receive a gift. Amen?
The only way we can receive a gift is with gratitude and being grateful for it.
It's a gift. You didn't earn it.
That's the first thing that we see.
Paul expresses his gratitude. He thanks them for their concern.
He seems to be much more grateful for the connection with them, the partnership with them than actually the gift.
Thank you for being partnering.
And as Nick was sharing with us about how we can give, we partner together here at Village.
To work together.
And something has happened here at Village that I've never had happen before.
And I know it's strategic.
Every time that you give a gift or I give a gift, I get a postcard that says, thank you for your gift and your support.
You know what? That just reminds me I'm part of the team.
I'm part of this thing.
That's what Paul wanted the Philippians to know. You're part of the team.
We're in this together.
Then he shares the secret with us, doesn't he?
Because what he says is, I've not really needed your gifts because here's what I have learned.
I've learned the secret of being content.
Whether I be in great need or have plenty.
I've learned how to live on almost nothing.
How many of you as newlyweds know exactly what he's talking about?
Amen. Man, we lived on next to nothing.
Sometimes we'd get invited to a church dinner and we'd have to, I don't know if we can go.
We can't afford.
And somebody oftentimes would step up and say, we'll take care of it for you.
Not that we had complained about it.
Maybe we looked troubled on our faces, but they stepped up.
They teamed up with us.
And he's saying here, I've learned this incredible secret, how to thrive with nothing
and how to be content in the most posh of circumstances.
Learned. That's part of this, isn't it?
This isn't something that just happens.
It's a grace that we have to learn how to be content.
Again, I go back to most of us, very few of us, if any, have not been subject from very early on
to the idea of being discontent.
And so we need to go to the school of contentment, if you will.
We need to learn the secret that Paul is talking about here.
He's saying, I've been in Lydia's home, who was one of the founders of the church in Philippi,
believed to be probably one of the most prosperous women in Philippi.
She must have had a beautiful home.
He said, I've been in Lydia's home, been treated to the best of things,
and I've been shipwrecked and lost at sea.
I've slept on the ground. I've been bitten by snakes.
I mean, you know, he begins to list all of the terrible things that he's gone through.
But what he's saying is, whether I'm living high or whether I have nothing or am in prison,
I've learned the secret.
Contentment is a learning process.
Somebody say amen.
It just doesn't come natural.
It's a learning process.
It's understanding where all of our blessings come from.
It's putting into practice what we're learning from and of the Lord, who is our source of contentment.
We cannot be content without knowing where contentment comes from.
Paul says it comes from putting some things into practice.
One of the most misquoted scriptures is in this passage,
for I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
How many of you have heard that quoted for all sorts of things?
Going into take the MCAT, and you're not prepared for a certain section,
but I can do all things through Christ, who will strengthen me.
I know he's going to get me through this.
I didn't really prepare to run a half marathon, but I know he'll give me,
I'm just going to gut it out and get through it, and he's going to help me do that.
That's not what this is all about.
That's not what this verse is about at all, isn't it?
Because in the context, what is he saying?
He's saying I can do everything through him who's giving me strength.
I can be content in the most pitiful of circumstances.
I've sat in the homes of Mexican families who will feed a ministry team
with everything they've got in their home.
And if you've ever gone on a mission trip, you've probably done what I as an American do.
Can I pay for this?
And it's insulting to them. Why?
Because their contentment and their joy is in serving those around them.
Verse 13 is not about being able to do anything we set our minds to.
We cannot gut strength our way into contentment.
We have to know and be connected to the very source of contentment,
the actual embodiment of contentment.
Christ alone, as we sang earlier this morning, in Christ alone,
I make my stand. I know he is my strength, my source, my shield.
In him I have everything I need so I can be what? Content.
I've been blessed, so blessed to have so many things.
And just like preachers of old told me, as soon as I have them,
I push them aside because they don't provide the contentment I thought they might,
the fulfillment I thought they might.
It's good to know how to be connected to strength, isn't it?
Our son Jordan, who stood here this morning, has this weird, brute strength.
He's had it since he was a little guy.
He was less than three years old when he could stretch his hands and his feet
across the hallway of our home and spider climb all the way up to the top of the hallway.
It totally freaked us out.
But whenever we had company come, we'd say, Jordan, do your trick.
Show them that you can climb up this thing. It was this freak thing.
We were so impressed by that.
As a man, we now try to keep him from wall scaling,
but occasionally, you know how parents are, we don't have much control anymore.
But we know if we have something we need moved, we know who we're going to ask to help us.
We have this connection to this source of strength.
Our older son is a weightlifter, and he can lift a man.
I mean, his arms are as big as my thighs. He's huge.
He can deadlift over 500 pounds.
But when they are both at home and we need something moved, we ask Jordan.
And now Jordan is a part of this body, and I've just given away his secret.
I mean, yesterday, yesterday, he and my wife went and helped move one of our good friends
from an apartment into a little home, and Jordan pretty much, by himself, moved a piano.
And, you know, he's just freakishly strong.
You see, we understand where there is a source of strength.
But if I'm truly going to be content, I need to understand where my real source of strength comes from.
That's what Paul gets at here.
In him, I can do all things that he would ask me to do.
As my wife and I were talking about this, she asked me this question.
Wouldn't you want to be connected to God's amazing strength?
The strength that created the heavens and the earth?
The strength that raised Christ from the dead?
And Paul says here, we have complete access to that very same strength.
So, quickly, let's answer this question.
How do we live connected to the source of contentment?
I don't think anyone in this room wants to stay discontented. Amen?
I don't think anyone here wants to be unfulfilled.
So how do we stay connected and live connected to the source of contentment?
And this is going to sound so simple, and it is, but it's also the truth.
One, get into the word and stay in the word.
You have to know what he says about himself.
And the scriptures from the beginning to the end are a story.
They're a story about God and about us.
They're a story about his sufficiency and my insufficiency.
They're about his provision and my lack.
But we won't know that unless we're really digging into the word
and listening to the word and allowing it to speak, allowing it to bend and shape us
rather than so often we try to bend and shape the word around how we live.
Stay there. You don't move away from it. You don't advance from there.
Second, you're probably already with me, ask God for his power to live a content life.
The enemy would love for you to stay discontented and to believe that something
or someone besides the Lord himself would give us fulfillment and contentment and purpose.
And we don't ask for it once, do we?
Lord, continue to empower me. Continue to remind me that you are my source.
You're all that I need. You're all that I want.
And third, to obey. There is no contentment in a disobedient life.
As a kid, did you ever tell a lie to one of your parents
and knew they were going to find out? You know, you still believe they had eyes in the back of their heads.
You just knew. And what? There was no peace. There was no contentment.
There was no, you just knew you're going to be found out.
Contentment eludes us if we continue to live disobediently.
If we hear what God wants us to do and yet we go the other way, like Jonah.
When God fills our lives with contentment and peace and joy, we have no other response but gratitude.
Our homology, you know, I was thinking through songs that we sing that have to do with that, right?
Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One.
We used to sing a song called Forever Grateful. I'm forever grateful for the cross.
I'm forever grateful under crouches. How can I say thanks for the things you've done for me?
Things so undeserved, but you gave to prove your love for me.
Voices of a million angels could not declare my gratitude.
Isn't it a good place to be able to lay your head on your pillow at the end of the day and go, I'm content.
I may not have everything the world says I need, but I have all that I need in you.
In my relationship with you.
If you're not connected to that source of commitment I would like to be today,
please take advantage of praying with one of the elders in just a moment as we close.
It would be great to know that someone here today connected to and is experiencing in a new way God's contentment.
The contentment that only he can give us through his grace and his mercy.