Scripture: Philippians 4:10-23
Years ago, after reading too much non-fiction and church-related books, I decided I needed to read fiction books. And for the last five years or so, I’ve slowly been working my way through all of the novels of the prolific British author John le Carré, in chronological order. Le Carré was himself a former British spy, with MI6, who wrote realistic novels about the morally ambiguous world of espionage. I love him!
And when I say I’ve been reading these books “slowly,” I mean it… I only read, like, three or four pages a night until I can’t keep my eyes open and then turn out the lights. But I read a little every night, and I’ve finished about two dozen of his novels so far… with only, like, four more to go! Le Carré died a few years ago, so he can’t write anymore!
Anyway, perhaps it’s because I usually read him when I’m sleepy, but I don’t always pay close attention to the intricate details of the plot. And I miss some stuff, or I quickly forget some stuff! So usually, it’s not until I reach the end of the book that I make sense of all that has gone on before. Like, “Oh…! That’s why he visited that apartment! That’s why she made that phone call! That’s who that person was! Now it makes sense!”
So it’s not until I reach the end the novel that everything starts to fall into place.
And in a way, the same is true for Paul’s letter to the Philippians. It’s not until we reach the end of the letter—in chapter 4, verse 10—that we learn why Paul is writing the letter in the first place: to thank the Philippian church for a generous financial gift that they sent him while he was in prison in Rome. He writes, “I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity”—that is, you no opportunity to show your concern.
When Paul says that they “revived [their] concern” for him, he means that the Philippians once again provided financial support for Paul. In verses 15 and 16 we learn that, earlier in Paul’s ministry before prison, the Philippians had generously supported Paul. They were now doing so again.
But remember: Since Paul is in prison at this point, I would understand if you were confused: Why does Paul need moneywhile he’s in prison? Because… back then the prisoner himself—or his family and friends—had to pay for food, clothing, and other necessities like medical care, like a bed to sleep in, like blankets and pillows, like writing materials… and whatever else Paul needed to survive.
So Paul needed money. And the Philippians came through big time: Their financial gift must have been substantial; otherwise it wouldn’t have been worth the trouble of sending one of the church members, Epaphroditus, all the way from Philippi in northern Greece to Rome. They couldn’t simply drop off a care package with UPS back then!
So Paul is thankful for this money… He’s happy to have the money… He will make good use of the money… but… in verse 11 he says something surprising: he doesn’t need the Philippians’ generous gift: He writes, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.”
Not that I am speaking of being in need… In other words, Paul says, “You won’t hear me complaining!”
Paul wants the Philippians to know, in other words, that however much he appreciates this money and will make good use of it, and however much he needs money, in general, to survive, he was perfectly happy before he received their gift… He was content… He wasn’t complaining… He was’t grumbling.
Paul needs to stress this… Because earlier in the letter, back in chapter 2, verse 14, Paul warned the Philippians against “grumbling”: He writes, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing.”
Paul is no hypocrite. He’s not grumbling or complaining, even as he is facing possible execution in prison!
What about us…? Do we grumble? Do we complain? Do we easily lose our temper and get angry? If so, shouldn’t we want to know Paul’s secret to contentment? I sure do!
In chapter 2, I think Paul used that word “grumbling” quite deliberately. Because he wanted his readers to recall that most famous example of grumbling or complaining in history… certainly in the Bible. Which is what? That’s right… ancient Israel, wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.
They grumbled constantly…
I think grumbling, complaining, and even getting angry might seem harmless to us modern people—witness social media, where these vices run rampant! But they are a symptom of a deadly serious sin… We see how deadly this sin is with ancient Israel, for instance, in Numbers chapter 11. The Israelites were facing many hardships at the time, but their main complaint there was about their food. Verses 5 and 6: “We remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted. But now our appetites are gone. All we ever see is this manna!”
While they’re busy feeling nostalgic for Egypt, do they also remember Pharaoh having their baby boys thrown into the Nile? Never mind that…
When they refer to manna, you may recall that it was this miraculous bread from heaven with which God sustained the lives of Israelites for 40 years—manna was free of charge, free of much effort on their part to collect it, and perfectly nutritious… and the people were complaining about it! I mean, sure, it’s the same food every day, but good grief! My dog and two cats eat the exact same food every day, yet you’ll never hear them complain about a lack of variety in their diet. They scarf it down and keep on wanting more!
But make no mistake: complaining was a deadly serious sin! We’re told in verse 1 of Numbers 11 that “the Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord’s anger blazed against them, and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some of the people in the outskirts of the camp.”[1]
Why is God so angry about this sin of grumbling?
Because at its heart, this sin of grumbling… of complaining… of murmuring—and the anger underneath it—says something like this to God—or about God… It says, “God shouldn’t have put us in this situation! God is not treating us right! He’s doing us a great injustice! We can’t trust him to take care of us. We know better than God what’s good for us!”
And you might say, “They weren’t grumbling against God; they were grumbling against Moses and Aaron.” Well, that’s what they thought they were doing. But Moses set them straight on another occasion of grumbling, in Exodus 16:8: “the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we?”
What are we, meaning, “God is the One who’s brought you here, this wasn’t our idea. If God wanted you to be somewhere else, you would be.”
Then Moses says, “Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”
God is sovereign over everything, after all. And when I say “sovereign,” I mean, God is in control of everything. Yet grumbling is often our way of saying, “I know how to run the universe better than God!”
That’s what Job’s wife surely thought, for instance, after she and her husband lost all their wealth, lost all their children—and of course Job himself even lost his good health. Job’s wife had had enough of God. She finally says to her husband, “Curse God and die.” And Job responds, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”[2]
Job doesn’t yet understand what’s happening to him—the way we readers do—but he understands this truth perfectly well: even if God isn’t causing these evil things to happen to Job—and God isn’t; it’s the devil—then the fact remains that God is certainly allowing them to happen… that God could stop them from happening if he wanted to!
Job knows that, so he says, “Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?”
That’s actually a perfect statement of trust in God and his sovereignty…
Now, Paul understands much more about God than Job… Because Paul knows Jesus… who is God… who reveals God perfectly… But Paul would hardly disagree with Job when it comes to God’s sovereignty. For instance, listen to what Paul writes at the beginning of 2 Corinthians, chapter 1, verses 8 and 9, when he describes the way he and his fellow missionaries were “afflicted” when they were in Ephesus: “For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death.” That sounds like an intense amount of suffering! Now listen to verse 9: “But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”
That’s God’s sovereignty in action! God is not causing the rulers in Ephesus to harm Paul and his fellow missionaries. They are using their sinful free will to do that… But God is not wasting that experience, either. Rather, God is using it change Paul for the better… to make him more faithful… to make him more like Jesus.
Through experiences like the one he had in Ephesus, God is teaching him the “secret of contentment.”
One more example from Paul’s personal experience: in 2 Corinthians 12, Paul describes some awesome, “mountain-top” spiritual experience that he had 14 years earlier. He said that he was “caught up to the third heaven”—to Paradise. Whether this was literally an “out of body” experience or not, Paul says he doesn’t know… But it was amazing. Now listen to verse 7:
So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.
The exact nature of this “thorn in the flesh” remains a mystery to us today. But the Corinthians likely knew what Paul was talking about. There’s speculation, for instance, that Paul suffered from some eye disease—what today we might call Graves Disease—which caused his eyes to bulge out and his vision to be blurred. There’s treatment for it today; there wasn’t back then. But scholars suspect that whatever it was, it was noticeable. Perhaps some kind of physical disfigurement.
Whatever it was, let’s notice a couple of things about this “thorn”: First, it comes from the devil himself: Notice Paul calls it “a messenger of Satan” sent “to harass” Paul. God didn’t cause the thorn… But let’s notice something else: Paul says the thorn “was given.” Remember from English grammar: “was given” is the passive voice. And Bible scholars call this “the divine passive,” i.e., God himself, in allowing it to happen, is using the thorn for Paul’s good. And we know what that good is; Paul tells us: the thorn is being used by God to keep Paul from becoming conceited… from getting a big head!
Do you think this kind of humility… brought on by this thorn… by which Paul had to lean more and more on God, rely more and more on God, depend more and more on God… Do you think that it will serve Paul well the rest of his life… including now that he’s suffering in prison in Rome, facing execution? Do you think it will help Paul learn the secret of contentment?
You better believe it!
This “secret of contentment” that Paul describes is not self-sufficiency; it’s Christ-sufficiency… This is Paul’s point in 2 Corinthians 12:10 when Paul says something very similar to his words in Philippians 4… He says, “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Listen again to those five bad or evil things that Paul says that he is now “content with”: weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities… That runs the gamut of things from which we Christians will ever suffer in life! Right? That’s inclusive of all human suffering!
Yet Paul can say of it all: “I am content with it.” How can he say this?
Because he knows and trusts that God used his experience with the thorn in the flesh, and God used his experience with the affliction he faced in Ephesus—among many other potentially bad or evil things that Paul suffered… God used all these experiences to “teach him” this secret!
Look again at today’s scripture. Verse 11: “I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content.”
The secret of contentment means that we trust that God is allowing whatever bad or evil or destructive or painful or inconvenient thing to happen to us, and he’s doing so for his good purposes, for his glory, and for our ultimate good!
One of my Christian heroes—at least among Christians that I’ve known in real life—is a man named Tracy Fleming. He’s the owner-operator of the Chick-fil-A in Lovejoy, Georgia, down on the southside of Atlanta, not far from where I pastored a church for many years. I used to go to that Chick-fil-A every week to write my sermons. And I got to know Tracy. And I invited him to speak at our church on a couple of occasions.
Over the course of many years, Tracy made a couple of trips to China each year, spending his own money, in order to train and equip Chinese Christians in some of China’s many underground churches. It was risky and potentially even life-threatening, because when he went there, he knew that he and his fellow Christians were under surveillance by the Chinese government.
Tracy himself is half-Japanese—but that hardly endears him to the Chinese government! My point is, Tracy knew that when he went there, there was at least a small risk that he would never come back! But he went anyway! Because he loved Jesus that much!
Tracy told me about a conversation he had with a Chinese pastor there, who described to him the intense persecution that he and many of his fellow pastors and Christians were facing. Upon hearing of this suffering, Tracy told this pastor, “I’ll be praying that the Lord will put an end to the persecution and suffering of you and your fellow Christians.” And this pastor looked at Tracy with a flash of anger and indignation and said, “What makes you think that God wants to put an end to our persecution and suffering? God is using our persecution and suffering to do powerful things for God’s kingdom in China!”
Tracy said he was thoroughly humbled!
But that Chinese pastor had it exactly right… When pain and suffering come upon us, in whatever form they come, we who have been adopted into God’s family through faith in Christ can always, always, always be confident that God has a purpose for sending it our way, and God is transforming it and using it for our good.
May we at Five Forks Methodist always endure difficult trials, knowing that God is using them for our ultimate good…
Paul was well aware of a branch of philosophy popular in his day called Stoicism, which taught its adherents to passively accept suffering—to find the resources within themselves to endure it. That’s the way to find “contentment,” according to this philosophy.
But sorry… That is not the “secret of contentment” that Paul is teaching. We’re not passively accepting anything. As I said earlier, the secret of contentment is not self-sufficiency; it’s Christ-sufficiency. And when weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities come our way, what would Christ have us do first of all?
Paul has already told us—we talked about it last week… Christ wants us to pray, just like he did during his earthly ministry. Remember Philippians 4:6: “do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”
I said earlier that grumbling and complaining—along with the anger underneath the grumbling and complaining—were deadly serious sins. And they are! And the ancient Israelites were guilty of it repeatedly. And God punished them for it. The Israelites were grumbling and complaining to Moses and Aaron about God… which was a sin.
But you know what would have been perfectly okay for Israel to do? Not to grumble, complain, and express anger about God; rather, to grumble, complain, and express anger… to God!
Because you know what that’s called? That’s called prayer. And even angry prayer—according to scripture—is perfectly good prayer!
Moses prayed angry prayers. Listen to this one, from Numbers chapter 11: “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me?… I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes.”[3]
Whoo! That’s harsh… Yet God was not bothered at all that Moses prayed like this!
The psalmists do the same! For instance, how about Psalm 44:23-24:
Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
Shouldn’t God be offended by an angry prayer like that? To accuse God of sleeping when he should be helping… to accuse him of not paying attention to people he loves… of forgetting? God doesn’t forget!
If God had any pride, he should be offended. In fact, God is not too proud to include in his Spirit-breathed Word of holy scripture instances in which his people accuse him of not being as faithful and loving as he should have been! Shouldn’t it embarrass God that his children in scripture so frequently think that he’s falling down on the job—that he’s failing them in some way?
It would embarrass me—because I’m a sinfully proud person. God isn’t like me. He wants us to know that while we cannot safely “take out our anger” on any human being, we can “take out our anger” on him. God can handle it! No one else can… but God can!
Personally speaking I do this a lot… I pray angry prayers sometimes… In Toccoa, for example, I would occasionally step out of the back door of the office, go down some steps into an adjacent empty parking lot, pace back and forth, and pray loud, angry prayers when I needed to. I would sometimes put AirPods in my ears so that, when cars passed by, they would simply think I was having an animated phone conversation!
But I wasn’t. I was praying. These prayers always helped! And God often answered my angry prayers with a resounding yes.
So… Good news: If you have a hard time not grumbling and complaining and getting angry, God is giving you permission to grumble and complain and get angry: except to grumble and complain to him; to get angry at him!
Don’t take your anger out on a mere human; go to the Source; go to the One who allowed you to experience that painful thing in the first place… God can handle it! God wants to handle it!
[pause]
Well, we’ve reached the end of our series in Philippians. But there’s one really cool thing I need to point out at the end of the letter… Because it gets right back to what I’ve been saying about God’s sovereignty…
Recall that Paul says at the beginning of this letter, in Philippians 1:13, that elite Roman soldiers, known as the Imperial Guard, who report directly to Caesar, are guarding Paul 24/7. Working in shifts, they are chained to him around the clock. And what do suppose Paul is doing while these soldiers are chained to him? He’s telling them about Jesus, of course. Paul the greatest evangelist ever! So of course some of them are getting converted. Becoming Christians!
Do you get the picture?
Okay… now turn to verses 21 and 22 of today’s scripture. Paul writes,
Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you [now pay attention] especially those of Caesar’s household.
Especially those of Caesar’s household? You mean, there are now Christians inside the household of the most powerful and important man the world had ever seen? The gospel of Jesus Christ has penetrated even there? These saints in Caesar’s household will now have the power to bear witness for Christ at the highest echelon of power and influence in the world! How is that possible?
Only because Nero Caesar himself made the “mistake” of putting Paul in prison, and chaining Paul to members of Rome’s most elite military force. These soldiers are getting saved and they are witnessing to members of Caesar’s own household, some of whom are also getting saved and witnessing to others!
And here we have an excellent example of God’s sovereignty in action all over again: Yes, it may look to the world as if Paul’s enemies have finally won, have finally put an end to Paul’s pesky missionary career, have finally put an end to this strange new Jewish cult about a resurrected Messiah, yet, if anything, the gospel is spreading even more quickly!
Paul is doing some of the best missionary work of his career simply by being chained and in prison and facing death.
Now consider this: one of the things, I’m sure, that appealed to these Roman soldiers—that made the gospel of Jesus Christ so credible to them, even though they were pagans by background—is Paul’s demeanor. It wasn’t just the words Paul said to them; it’s the way they saw him live. They saw the way Paul handled things like weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities… And they saw that these events did not have the power to take away Paul’s contentment in Christ… That they did not have the power to rob him of his joy…
Don’t you and I know people who need to see the way we handle weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities… and see the contentment and joy within us? Because you and I know the secret!
That is one important way that we’ll fulfill our mission to shine Christ’s light! Amen!
[1] Numbers 11:1-2
[2] Job 2:9-10 ESV
[3] Numbers 11:11, 14-15 ESV