Sermon for CATM – November 9, 2008 – Philippians 4:10-23 – A Life for God
Today we finish up our course on Philippians. This has been a nine-week journey through a fascinating book, and we’ve had opportunity to reflect on this book and to worship, and for those who chose to take the course based on this series, I hope that you found some value in writing your observations and reflections.
We may well do more such courses…so if you did enjoy this opportunity, let us know. On December 7, as you’ve heard, the course completion certificates will be given out to those who fulfilled the requirements for the course.
The book of Philippians has an intimate tone throughout. You get the feeling that Paul is taking some real joy in sharing important truths with that church.
They had been through much together, and here, in the closing verses, near the end of his mortal life, Paul gives his final encouragement to them.
In the midst of celebrating their generosity and support of his apostolic ministry, his ministry of travelling and planting churches and encouraging those churches, Paul provides two last glimpses into his experience of the grace of God.
Let’s read our verses today [Readers: Philippians 4:10-23]
Now first, Paul paints a picture that really expands on his discussion of God’s peace that he started in the first part of chapter 4. Recapping briefly from last week, at the start of this chapter Paul talks about the peace of God that transcends human understanding. He then gives a pretty explicit prescription for those needing peace. You’ll remember he says that the peace of God will be experienced by us as we “guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.
The way to do that is to dwell on, to meditate on and think about “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things”.
So that’s what precedes our verses today. And then Paul starts talking about his own experiences with God. The Paul at the end of his life was a different man than the young Saul (his birth-name), who zealously persecuted the church as a Pharisee or the slightly older Paul who began, after his powerful conversion, to preach the gospel and who went around establishing churches by the dozen. This was a Paul who had learned contentment, had learned to be at peace inside no matter what was going on outside.
And Paul’s contentment wasn’t connected to his abundant wealth (he had given up everything in pursuit of serving his risen King Jesus). It wasn’t connected to his social situation. He was loved by many to whom he had been sent to preach the gospel, to be sure. But he had also been rejected wholesale by the social circle he had as a youth (other Pharisees-in-training). He was in constant fear for his life, rarely knowing who to trust.
Paul’s contentment wasn’t connected to his housing (at this point he’s living pretty much exclusively in prisons). His peace wasn’t connected to his state of wealth or want. He says, in fact, that he knows what it is to be I need and he knows the opposite feeling of having more than enough.
The key to contentment, Paul tells us, is the fact that he knows that the source of his strength is Christ Jesus. Paul says “I can do everything through him who gives me strength”. Can we say that, together: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength”? Now, that is a powerfully true statement.
Profoundly true. But there is perhaps a bit of a gap between proclaiming that as an objective truth or reality, and being able to say, with a similar passion to Paul, the same thing. That’s just because we’re learning.
We’re discovering how true that statement is, so whereas for Paul it was a plain statement of fact based on a long life with thousands of experiences to back it up, for some of us this may be a bit more of an aspirational statement.
So that’s perhaps the first thing to keep in mind here: Contentment is an acquired characteristic or a learned state-of-heart.
It’s possible for a young Christian or a more experienced believer to read theses verses and feel: “What’s wrong with me?!? I’m not content and rarely have been!” Now we can learn and be encouraged from Paul’s example, but we need to give our own lives time to breathe, as it were.
In the book of second Corinthians Paul gives a limited list of some of his experiences, experiences that taught him to trust profoundly in Christ.
He says: “Five times I received…forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 2 Cor 11:24-27
That’s a bit of a window into Paul’s journey. A vantage point that we perhaps don’t have, at least to this extent.
But if known Christ for even a short time and you’ve served God for even a short time, you have your own story of God’s faithfulness. Your own stories of God’s provision.
Your own perils from which God has rescued you. You see, the key to being able to profess: “I can do everything through Him who strengthens me”, is to, like Paul, reflect and reflect deeply on your journey of faith.
That’s one of the reasons we run as many courses as we do…so that we can all learn together to reflect and grow in our understanding of who God is and who we are as His children. So we can grow to see our lives as God seems them. So we can acquire the kind of confidence and passion that we see in Paul’s example.
Those first verses of our reading today suggest that true contentment comes when we rely on Christ for the strength to overcome our circumstances and when we rely on Jesus to strengthen us by the Holy Spirit for the work he has called us to do.
It’s important to note that Paul’s goal was not contentment. His life’s purpose wasn’t to achieve detachment. His aim was not his own inner peace. Rather, his motivation was to bring glory and honour to God through Jesus Christ.
Because he sought God’s glory, because he figured out how to put God first in his life, and because he was able to see and appreciate the fruit of his labours, he ALSO found a place of contentment.
It was that determination to serve God above everything else that characterizes Paul’s life.
The various situations that Paul found himself in at different times…being in need, being hungry, being shipwrecked, being beaten even…none of those was something he or anyone in their right mind would seek after…but for Paul, those were the scars he was willing to bear for serving the risen Christ.
Badges of honour, perhaps, to one who had been called into service for his king. Paul’s contentment was rooted in the Lordship of Jesus in his life. Paul’s contentment was a side-effect of a life fully committed to Christ.
Remember his statement in verse 13: “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength”. What was that ‘everything’ for Paul? It was all that he was called to be and to do for Jesus.
Remember what Paul says elsewhere:
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do”. [Eph 2:10].
Paul’s ‘everything’ or ‘everything that he could do through Christ’ was to preach the gospel to those who had never heard it, it was to risk going to people he did not know and to establish churches filled with gospel Christians.
His ‘everything’ was to strengthen those churches through his writings (a great many of his writings were done while he was in jail for his faith…talk about turning a bad situation into a good one).
We know that now.
But at the beginning of his life in Christ, at his conversion, what might Paul have said was his purpose? What were the ‘good works’ that God had prepared for him? Well, of course, Paul wouldn’t have known. Not even a bit.
In place of knowing, Paul had simply this, and it’s the same thing that you and I have access to: loving, trusting and obeying. A desire to trust God with his whole life, a desire to obey God’s call on his life, and his over-arching motivation was his love for Jesus, who had rescued him from a life of futility.
Some of you have heard this story, but when I first came to Yonge Street Mission in May of 1985 because I believed that God was calling me to missions. For me at the time that meant to go overseas.
I was headed for Liberia and Ivory Coast in Africa, maybe to teach music, maybe to run errands for some local missionary. I had no idea.
After a summer at the mission in Toronto where I realized that God was bringing the nations to Toronto and after a summer where I grew to love the people on the streets, I felt that call refocus to Toronto.
So I started volunteering, and eventually to work as a drop—in staff, doing street work, doing administrative work and leading worship for the church back then. I had no clue I would be given the opportunity to serve as a pastor. I just kept focused on the question: “Jesus, what would you have me do?”
“How can I serve you? How can I serve your church?” While I was asking those questions and doing whatever I could find to put my hand to, God sent Barbara into my life.
She was responding to a similar desire to serve God with a full heart. And the rest is history. And, truth be told, I feel like I’m barely out of the starting gate. I hope most of my story is yet to be written.
But we all have a story. And we all have an important question to consider today. That is “What is the ‘everything’ that God is calling you to do?
You may, like me, have no clue. You may, like me 20-odd years ago, have nothing more than a strong desire to serve your Saviour. You may have a good idea on the other hand of how you are suppose to serve, what you are to do with your life, but you’re not sure where it will all lead.
That’s great. Of course none of us knows the future…that’s God’s alone to know.
Why don’t we pause for a second right now, and let’s each ask God in the quiet of our own hearts, “God, what would you have me do for you? What are the good works that you prepared in advance for me to do? Let’s pray for a moment in quiet. [Silent prayer]
But God has called you, be sure of that. God has created you in Christ Jesus to do good works. Be sure of that. God is faithful to fulfill his purposes in you. Be sure of that.
But how do I know what I should do? Where do I start? How do I get to there from here? The answer is the same now as it has always been. What is that thing that you find at your hand to do?
What is that small need you are aware of and haven’t yet acted upon? What is that need you see right now, or that you saw this past week, or that you’ll see as you leave here today?
Ecclesiastes 9:10 says: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might”.
God always starts with where we are, and He gives us opportunity to grow in our service to Him right where we are. It doesn’t matter how small that act of service or that act of simply obeying God is. In fact, to start out, the smaller the better.
Jesus said in Luke chapter 16:10:"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much”. So the key is to start where you are, serve there with all your might, and be faithful and trustworthy in your service. That’s God’s way. Always has been.
And…and here’s one of the most important and most liberating passages in all of Scripture for those who worry about the cost of being a disciple of Jesus, or who worry about somehow losing themselves in their service to God: “19 And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus”.
Who will take care of you? God! Which of your needs will be met? All! What is the source of this provision? Where does this promise come from? What is it grounded on? The glorious riches of God in Christ Jesus.
None of us needs to worry about what we will lose. Remember Paul considered everything he gave up for Jesus to be refuse. Dung. What we need to be prepared for, however, is the blessing of giving, the joy that will come as we yield our lives to His call, the fulfillment and, yes, contentment we will know as Jesus Christ, by his Holy Spirit at work in us, does all that He has intended to do in us before time even began.
I want to close with a prayer that is really a blessing, and it’s from another of Paul’s letters, but I hope you will take this very personally
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. “
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!” Amen. (Eph 3:16-21)
Church…you are His Body. His purposes for this earth will most perfectly be accomplished in you, as you intentionally position Christ front and centre in your life and give Him the authority to direct your paths.
And the one response, the best response, we can give to Jesus as He calls us is actually a line from a song we love to sing: “Yes, Lord, Yes, Lord, Yes, yes, Lord”.
We are the recipients of this great challenge and this great honour. It comes down to this: In Christ is the freedom, the motivation and the power to fulfill every good purpose of God in our lives, and those purposes will lead to his Kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven.
Let’s pray. God, you have given us everything we need in Jesus Christ. You have saved us from our sins. You have brought us from darkness and into your marvelous light. Cause us to turn to you, O God, in every way. Cause us to choose this day to live for you alone. Help us God as we each make our choices for you and we resolve to be a Kingdom people, serving the one and only majestic and awesome God, revealed to us flawlessly in Jesus Christ. In His name we pray. Amen
