How many of you enjoy riding roller coasters? Now let me ask a related question—how many of you are invested in the stock market? Emotionally, that can feel like the same thing, right? We watch our investments go up and down and sideways, and then every so often one of them goes upside down! The stock market is well-described by the old children’s rhyme: “Round and round it goes; where it stops, nobody knows!”
My wife told me the other day about a story her grandfather likes to tell about a time where he had the opportunity to invest in one of two fried chicken restaurants. He chose to invest in the one that was sure to take off—Daniel Boone Chicken. After all, it was named after a national hero; how it could fail to do well? And who would choose to eat at the other place, anyway, with a boring name like Kentucky Fried Chicken? Well, you probably know how that investment turned out!
He’s able to laugh about that story today, but there are few things in life that can wipe a smile off our face the way that our finances can. Who doesn’t cringe when you hear the words, “payment due?” I don’t care how much money you have—there’s always reason to worry about it, isn’t there? If you don’t have much, it’s easy to worry about how you’ll pay the bills. If you have a lot, it’s easy to worry about losing it, or about who might be trying to take it from you.
Many years ago the Beatles sang that “money can’t buy me love.” Well, it turns out that it can’t buy contentment either. We can wind up facing anxiety in any financial situation that we might endure. So is there any hope of finding contentment with respect to our cash? Can we find a contentment that will last through all of the financial ups and downs of life? And how about when we see others hit with financial hardship—how should we respond? In our study of Philippians today, we’re going to learn that…
We should be content through Christ in our own financial circumstances and concerned for others who are facing financial hardships.
Why don’t you turn with me to Philippians 4:10–14? You may remember that this letter to the Philippians was intended to serve as a thank you note from Paul for the financial gift that the church in Philippi had sent to him. At the time that Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison in Rome awaiting trial on some trumped up charges that the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem had brought against him. Now the Roman government didn’t feel that it was their responsibility to take care of their prisoners; in fact, they didn’t even provide food for them, so if a prisoner was going to survive he had to rely on friends and family to bring him meals. Well, the Philippians couldn’t be there to bring him food themselves, but their gift of money would allow Paul to make some arrangements to receive food, so it was a very helpful and thoughtful gesture on the part of the Philippians. So Paul wanted to thank them for their gift, and as he does so he lets them in on a little secret that he had learned about contentment. Let’s read these verses [READ 4:10–14].
Let’s look first of all at what we can learn about being content.
I. Be content through Christ in your own financial circumstances
Some people have seriously misread what Paul was saying in these verses. They’ve thought he was basically saying, “Well, I’m glad you all finally got around to sending me some money. Not that I really needed it anyway because I was content. So, thanks for thinking of me, I guess.”
That’s really not what Paul was trying to say at all! We can see how thankful he was from v. 10 [READ v. 10]. Paul knew that they hadn’t sent him a gift because they simply hadn’t had the opportunity. As we’ll see when we get to vv. 15–16, the Philippians had sent financial gifts to Paul on a regular basis before, but for awhile now they hadn’t had the opportunity—which would seem to mean that they either didn’t have the money, or they had no way of sending it to him.
But now the Philippians had once again sent a gift to him, and Paul wanted them to know how thankful he was to receive it even though he had not given in to despair about his financial situation. In fact, it was quite the opposite—he was actually content, and he describes this in the next few verses [READ vv. 11–12].
Now notice that Paul says he had to learn how to be content BOTH in poverty AND in prosperity. We might think that its easier to be content in a state of prosperity, but in reality both conditions provide their own challenges to our contentment. If we’re in poverty, it may be difficult to be content because we may always be tempted to want more. Jealousy may also tempt us when we see other people who have more than we do. Or, we may not be content because we may desire the peace of mind that seems to come when we have some extra cash in the bank.
But prosperity doesn’t automatically usher in contentment, either. A very wealthy man was once asked, “How much money is enough money?” His answer was very telling—he said, “A little bit more.” Isn’t that so true? No matter how much we have, its easy to think, “You know, if I just had a little bit more, then I would be content.”
If we’re in a state of prosperity, greed may kick in and compel us to want still more and more. Or, we may start to look to our money for a feeling of security in life, and when that happens, we will never have enough money to feel content! We will always be worried about that one bad day on the stock market that could wipe us out, or that one failed bank or failed business. Money almost always goes easier than it comes, so if we base our sense of security upon it, contentment will be impossible to find.
So what is the secret to contentment that Paul refers to in v.12? It is his famous statement in v. 13—“I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Now I fear that I’m about to step on some toes here, but please hear me out for a moment. Perhaps more than any other verse in the Bible, we use and quote this verse with complete disregard for the context in which it was written. And so we see athletes writing this verse reference on their shoes, or on the eye black underneath their eyes, as if to say, “I can win this game through Him who strengthens me.” Now I appreciate their desire to publicly display their faith in Christ, but that’s not what this verse is talking about. Nor should I use this verse and say, “I can dunk a basketball through Him who strengthens me.” That would truly be a miracle if I dunked a basketball!
So what is this verse talking about? What does Paul mean when he says, “I can do all things?” I think we understand that he’s not talking about leaping over tall buildings in a single bound, but what is he saying? Remember that Paul is sharing this thought as the secret of remaining content in whatever circumstance he’s in, particularly in whatever financial circumstance he’s in. So a basic paraphrase of Paul’s point would be this—“I can overcome any obstacle to contentment through Him who strengthens me.” So if his situation tempts him to be jealous or greedy, he can overcome that through Christ. Or if his situation tempts him to be fearful and anxious, he can overcome that. He had learned to step off of the spiritual roller coaster that circumstances could put him on by drawing close to Jesus for strength.
As we saw a few weeks ago when we looked at vv. 6–7, our hearts and minds can be guarded by the peace of God in everything when we communicate with God in prayer with an attitude of thanksgiving. We really find the same idea here—we can overcome whatever temptation our circumstances might throw at us by drawing strength from Christ—whether its changing financial circumstances or anything else. Christ will give us the strength to handle our circumstances in a way that honors Him.
So in any circumstance—and in these verses in particular, in any financial circumstance—we can be content by drawing strength from Jesus. But Paul also communicates an important lesson here about helping others when they’re in tough financial circumstances.
II. Be concerned for others who are facing financial hardships
Now Paul didn’t want the Philippians to get the wrong idea here. He has just said that he has learned to be content in any circumstance, so presumably he also meant that he would have been content whether he had received their gift or not. But he wants to make sure that they know they’ve done a good thing, so he says in v. 14 [READ v. 14]. So even though on Paul’s part, he was content with or without their gift, they had done well by giving it to him.
His statement here reminds us of a very simple but important lesson—it is a good thing to give financial assistance to those who have had financial hardship thrust upon them. When we see a Christian brother or sister in need, that is not the time for us to say, “Wow! What a great chance for you to learn to trust in God! Oh, what an opportunity for you to learn how to be content! God is going to teach you some great spiritual lessons through this.”
Well, whatever God may want them to learn, that’s between them and God. On our part, we are supposed to take the good step of offering whatever assistance we can. 1 John 3:17–18 says, “Whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.”
So we are to give what we can, and notice how Paul describes it here—he describes it as sharing in another person’s affliction. This comes through very clearly in the NIV translation, which says, “Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.” Let’s think through this idea, because its very different than just giving someone a handout. Think about this, by way of analogy. Imagine that you came upon someone who was trying to lift something that was too heavy for them, so you said, “Here, I’ll give you a hand.” Now what happens is that you take on part of the weight, and they take on part of the weight, and the two of you lift it together.
Now think about that same idea in terms of helping someone who’s facing a financial hardship. When you help that person, its like saying, “Here, I’ll take on some financial hardship, too, and we can overcome this together,” because when you give them some of your financial resources, you’re making a sacrifice in order to help them. You’re introducing some financial hardship into your life in order to absorb some of the hardship that they are facing.
I think this picture helps us keep a healthy mindset about giving and receiving help from others, because this picture makes us partners rather than a donor and a recipient. It maintains the dignity of the person who is receiving help, because it can feel like a very humiliating thing to receive help from others. A great novelist once wrote, “It’s horribly painful for a man down on his luck when every person he meets looks at him as if he were his benefactor.”* As that quote suggests, it can also be very tempting for the person who is offering help to become proud and think himself as better than the person whom he is helping.
But the biblical picture keeps things in the proper perspective. If you help someone out financially, its just like you’re helping them pick up something that’s too heavy for them. You’re just joining in the struggle with them to help them overcome it. And if you receive financial help from someone, it’s the same thing. If someone helps you lift something, there’s nothing to be ashamed about—you’re just two people working together to accomplish something.
So I guess we can sum up what we’ve learned today like this—we should be content in our own financial circumstances, and discontent over the financial hardships of others, and that discontent should lead us to share that hardship with them. Money doesn’t have to master our lives. We don’t have to worry about it when we have very little, or obsess over it when we have a lot. We can get off the money merry-go-round that leaves us dizzy and unstable. Instead we can find strength in Jesus to overcome the temptations that threaten our contentment, and once again we can know that peace from God which surpasses all comprehension as it guards our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.
* Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, (New York: Random House, 2003) p. 286.
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