Are you content? If you’re rarely content and you’re always chasing the next fun thing or the next whatever, and you’re finding no joy in this world, it may be that sign that you’re not fully surrendered to that joy-filled relationship with Jesus that allows you to be content.
Contentment is internal happiness and satisfaction. We live in a society where we draw so much from external distractions, like making money and politics and media. Contentment comes from the personal relationship that you have with Jesus, not from external factors.
Philippians 4:12-17
12I 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.
13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
14Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.
15 And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only.
16Even in Thessalonica you sent me help for my needs once and again.
17Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that increases to your credit.
The application of this text goes beyond physical acts of strength. This application is spiritual and works its way into your emotional life and mental state.
Contentment is flexible (4:10-11)
Contentment can be translated as self-sufficiency or satisfaction. Christ should be our source of satisfaction. Paul was content whether he was rich or poor. Flexibility and patience are important to achieving the mission in the military. In your own life, if you don’t have contentment and flexibility, you would experience stress and resistance. You never know what God will ask you to do or where He may ask you to go. Flexibility is a key part of contentment.
Contentment is a learned behavior.
Paul learned to be content through situations where he had been humbled and been prosperous. He learned the secret of surviving times of hunger or need. He goes through the details of the circumstances in 2 Corinthians 11 – he’d been stoned, shipwrecked, beaten and imprisoned. So often in life, we look at the good times as more valuable than the bad time. The bad times are more important than the good times because God is using your struggle to refine you through the process to learn contentment. This process however takes intentionality. We must learn to trust God’s plans above our own plans.
The secret to contentment is trusting in Christ (4:13)
Paul has learned the power of v. 13 of doing all things through Christ that strengthens. Paul was content to do all things, be flexible, and adapt to wherever God led him. Paul believed that his contentment rested in Christ and Christ alone.
What is the thing that motivates you to do great things in life? Can you honestly say, the reason you can do great things is because of Jesus Christ? Do you acknowledge Christ as the source of your strength?
Discontentment doesn’t care what color skin you have. Discontentment doesn’t care what car you drive. Discontentment is irrespective of anything that may separate us in our society. Discontentment is irrespective of your socioeconomic status.
The quickest way to discontentment is to look at what you don’t have and wish you had more. The Bible calls it covetousness. Adam and Eve were bit by discontentment in the Garden of Eden. They had everything someone could ever want, but they were deceived by Satan, in the form of a serpent, to believe that they need more.
In the first part of the 20th century, there was a lot of financial upheaval in that season of our nation. Many people saw their rise and their fall in the same lifetime because they were chasing more.
It has been well documented that about six of the most famous and wealthiest men of their day reached the pinnacle. They controlled most of the money and yet fell the hardest. Collectively, these six men had more money than the United States Treasury, newspapers and magazines were printing their success stories. And they were urging the youth of our nation to follow their example.
These men were living the American dream and they were crazy rich. All three of those men committed suicide. They knew how to make money but didn’t know how to find contentment. Content people do not commit suicide. Suicide is the ultimate act of discontentment and hopelessness.
If Christ is in you, He can get you through any situation. If you’re constantly struggling with contentment in your life, are you in Christ? Stop trusting the things outside of yourself. Turn to Jesus for salvation and He will give you for free satisfaction.
The benefits of contentment (4:14-19)
When you’re not worried about chasing the American dream and you’re not worried about yourself much at all, you become focused more on Him, which releases you to give your money or your time or your gifts away. Whereas if you’re discontent, this breeds feelings of fear and it leads to you hoarding money and things for yourself.
The second benefit is God’s increase if you’re content. Paul says the increase will be given back to you because of your faithfulness. God blesses someone with resources or gifts who is a conduit and they start pouring those gifts back out. Many times the gifts continue and even increase because God can trust them to give it outside of themselves.
If you are seeking true contentment, I urge you that this can only be found in living for Jesus Christ. As you take your focus away from the external and focus on the internal joy you have in Jesus Christ, you can experience true contentment.
