If Only
TCF Sermon
January 12, 2003
As a rule, Man’s a fool
When it’s hot, He wants it cool.
And when it’s cool, He wants it hot,
Always wanting What is not.
Now isn’t that so true? When we have the hot summer weather here in Tulsa, we complain about how dreadfully hot it is.
When it gets cold like it is now, we gripe because it’s too cold.
Gee, if only it were a little warmer, or a little cooler. That’s the title of this morning’s message: If Only – and we’ll travel down that road a little bit more later.
But for now, we’ll use that little ditty and this story to introduce our theme this morning:
There’s the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat. “Why aren’t you out there fishing?” he asked.
“Because I’ve caught enough fish for today,” said the fisherman.
“Why don’t you catch more fish than you need?’ the rich man asked.
“What would I do with them?”
“You could earn more money,” came the impatient reply, “and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish. You could purchase nylon nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. Soon you’d have a fleet of boats and be rich like me.”
The fisherman asked, “Then what would I do?”
“You could sit down and enjoy life,” said the industrialist.
“What do you think I’m doing now?” the fisherman replied as he looked placidly out to sea.
Both our opening poem and this story illustrate in different ways what the apostle Paul wrote about in our scripture text this morning. Paul wrote, beginning in the middle of verse 11 this morning,
Philip. 4:11-13 I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13I can do everything through him who gives me strength.
With this as our theme, we want to explore several aspects of this very familiar passage of scripture this morning. Paul started by noting that he had “learned” to be content. It’s important to note that the “I” in the Greek here is emphatic...
in other words, Paul, if he were speaking, would not have said, I have learned, but rather, I have learned.
One commentary said that it’s as if Paul was saying,
“I leave it to others if they will, to be discontented, however, I, for my part, have learned, by the teachings of the Holy Spirit, and the dealings of Providence, to be content in every state...”
Paul said he had learned, he’d learned through circumstances, and the Holy Spirit had illuminated those circumstances, to the point that Paul was able to see them as from the hand of God, for his benefit, so he could learn, most likely learn among other things, contentment.
Paul could learn, we can learn. Note, too, that Paul repeats the phrase “I know,” and “I’ve learned” twice each in the space of three verses. That says to me that Paul is indicating that the years He has known God have given him ample opportunities, in many different circumstances, both good and bad, to learn contentment. Paul’s voice is the voice of experience.
Paul says that he’s learned from these experiences not only how to cope with both good and bad in life, but how to triumph, how to live with what Jim and Joel have referred to in sermons, and what Sue Wright referred to in her exhortation to this body last Sunday, about having a Christus Victor mentality....about having the mindset that Jesus is Lord over our circumstances, He rules and reigns in our lives, and we can rest content in that, and rest victorious in the knowledge that Christ has already won the victory.
So, because Paul first says that he’s learned contentment, that says to me that contentment doesn’t come only because we decide to be content. It doesn’t come primarily as an act of our will, though, of course, when we learn something,
we must decide to use what we’ve learned.
It comes as a result of what we’ll see a few verses later – it comes as a gift, a gift we can learn to use in our lives.
As we move on, we also see that contentment doesn’t come because of circumstances. Paul said he learned to be content ...regardless of what the circumstances in his life were.
Now, it’s important to note that the immediate context of this passage is clearly material provision... and money. In a few weeks, we’ll look a little more closely at that aspect of this passage and others, but it’s not stretching scripture at all to note that this contentment that Paul learned, goes beyond just contentment with material things.
That’s why it says: “whatever circumstances,” “whatever state.”
And later in verse 12, it says “in any and every situation,” or “everywhere and in all things.” I don’t believe Paul meant to confine this contentment to material things, even though that’s the context and the primary meaning....and there’s the abundant witness of scripture in other places that confirm Paul’s lesson here about contentment applies to all of life.
In fact, the very Greek word he used for content makes it clear that it includes any and every circumstance. The word here means independent of external circumstances, and applies both to material and non-material things. Here’s one commentary’s explanation of this word for content:
“the Greek literally expresses “independent of others, and having sufficiency in one’s self.” It’s a word that the Stoics used, but Christianity has raised the term above the haughty self-sufficiency of the heathen Stoic, to the contentment of the Christian, whose sufficiency is not in self, but in God.”
If we’re honest with ourselves, and honest with God, we’d all have to admit that there’s discontent in at least some areas of our lives.
About 10 years ago, there was a story in U.S. News and World Report. Some of the information in this story is probably just as relevant today, ten years later, as it was then.
The story was about the so-called “American Dream.” I guess that would include owning your own home, and having all your needs met for sure, but also having enough to do all the things you really wanted to do, and have all the things you really wanted to have.
The story said that for Americans with household incomes of under $25,000,
polls showed these people believed it would take $54,000 to fulfill the American dream in their lives. The same survey also showed that for those who make $100,000, they’d like to make about $192,000 for their version of the American dream.
In other words, the American Dream usually lies nearly twice the distance away,
at least financially.
Think of people you know, of maybe you fit into this category, who are sometimes, or maybe often, looking to the circumstances of their lives and saying “if only.”
If only I were older. If only I were younger.
If only I were taller. If only I were better looking. If only I had a boyfriend. If only I had a girlfriend, If only I had a husband, If only I had a wife.
If only I made more money. If only I had a bigger house. If only I had such and such a car. If only they’d do this at church. If only Bill preached more often.
If only Bill preached a lot less often.
If only my parents did that. If only my kids did this. If only I had a different job.
We could go on and on with examples, but you get the idea. We think, if only this or that, Then, I’d be content. Then, I’d be at peace. Then, I’d be happy. Then, I’d be able to serve the Lord with no distractions.
I remember two men, both of whom used to attend TCF years ago, who were well practiced with the “if onlies”.
Neither of them were ever happy, or content, because of the “if onlies”.
One of these guys always wanted a job with a particular company in town. He went through a series of jobs, but always applied to this one company, because he thought, and even said to me, “if only I could get a job at this company....” and the implication was clearly - “then I’d be content.”
A few years after he left TCF, he actually landed a job at this dream company. But guess what...I saw him a year or so after he started his dream job, and he had already come up with another “if only.” He didn’t like the job that he’d pined for for years, and wanted out.
I have to confess that, with my hard head, I’ve had to learn, with experience, over time, (like Paul – so I guess that puts me in good company) some of these same life lessons about contentment. Let me tell you one arena in which the Lord had to deal with me twice before I finally learned.
That’s my career, and how it relates to my service in the Kingdom of God. Many of you know that my background is radio and TV. After I graduated college, I was in radio in Texas and then Tennessee. While working for a radio station in Tennessee, I got very restless with what really wasn’t a very good job there, and began to apply for jobs elsewhere.
I had two opportunities in Oklahoma, and since I had many friends here, old college buddies and such, that was appealing to me. One was at a radio station in Tulsa, and another was in Okmulgee.
The Tulsa job was more appealing to me, but rather than wait on God, I impulsively took the job in Okmulgee, because I wasn’t content to wait, and I was in the mode of thinking, “if only I could get a job back in Oklahoma...”
So Barb and I rented a Uhaul and moved all our worldly possessions to Okmulgee. I went to work there in October of 1979, and two days after Christmas I was fired from that job. That’s another long story I won’t go into, but suffice it to say my inability to wait on God, to be content until it was clear He was moving us to a new place, meant I was unemployed for three months, and got to learn some other lessons about trusting God for provision in our lives.
Now, let me be quick to add that God redeemed that mistake, and moved me in a different career direction that ended up being a good one. But I often wonder what might have been different if I was content to wait on God.
To utilize the analogy of Jim’s sermon last Sunday, could my furrow have been plowed straighter if I had been content to do what God had for me? After Jim’s sermon last week, I wondered briefly if I had missed God’s word for this Sunday...partly because I believe God almost always brings a thread to our pulpit ministry here, even though we have different men bringing these messages, and don’t compare notes usually until after we’ve decided what we’ll preach.
I’d already begun to work on this message on contentment. Then Jim preaches about keeping our resolve, keeping our hands on the plow, and I was getting ready to preach contentment and wondered how those two could go together.
But it occurred to me that even if we have our hands on the plow, discontent can cause us to be distracted... discontent can cause us to lose our resolve.
And if you’re plowing and you’re distracted, your furrows are going to meander all over the place.
Well, several years after my radio career ended, after I’d worked for a cable TV network and then started my own media business, I began to get restless again.
Now, on the surface, this was a godly restlessness. Because the reason for my restlessness was my growing desire to be useful to God in His Kingdom. I was doing free-lance writing and photography, and was making most of my income from public relations consulting, nothing wrong with that....
But I was restless because I wanted more. I wanted badly to do something that counted for eternity, something that mattered in God’s Kingdom.
At that time in my life, though I probably didn’t realize it and would have denied it, I probably had that idea of hierarchy of service in the Kingdom:
you know...
at the top, you have missionaries, then people involved in full time ministry of some sort... followed by people involved in part-time ministry of some sort.
That’s followed by the rest of us grunts who worked regular jobs and maybe helped with the occasional task at church. I saw what I was doing as far down the list in terms of usefulness to God, so, I began looking for work more suitable to God’s Kingdom.
Through my years at TCF, and God’s lessons to me on the job, I’ve completely abandoned that hierarchy of ministry, because we’re all God’s instruments, if we’re Christians, we’re all in “fulltime” ministry, or should be.
We just fill different roles.
But, back then, when I still bought into this ranking of ministries, I thought, hey, I’m a media guy, I’ll get a media job in some sort of ministry. I also felt this strong calling to Colorado, so I applied to Focus on the Family, Compassion International, and a handful of other places that produced some sort of media, magazine, radio, TV, etc.
I really had excellent qualifications for everything I applied for, and got absolutely nowhere.
This period of restlessness in my life went on for five or six years, until the Lord finally got through my thick skull that I needed to be content where I was, because I was exactly where he wanted me.
He began to reveal to me how I was the only real Christian influence in the lives of many of the executives of my clients’ companies. And that I was involved in their lives for a genuine purpose, His purpose, and that since He was God, after all, why couldn’t He use me right where I was?
So, in that area of my life, at least, I did learn contentment. And those last four or five years of self-employment prior to coming to work here at TCF, were the most financially rewarding, and spiritually rewarding years I’d ever had to that point in my life.
And then, ironically, once I was content to stay in that business for the rest of my career, if that’s what God would have, the elders asked me to join them in leadership here.
So, almost ten years after I had this strong desire to be in some sort of fulltime ministry, and had my thinking challenged and adjusted, I joined the TCF leadership, and just months later, went to work here. But first, before He could use me in this way, He taught me contentment.
He taught me that He’s my source of strength, He taught me that without Him, I can do nothing of Kingdom value.
John 15:5 "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
First, I needed to learn to be content where I was, and to serve Him exactly where He’d planted me. And not impose my “if onlies” on His plan for my life.
Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, I can see that I wasn’t ready for the kind of service in the Kingdom that God wanted from me. In 1990, when I really wanted to be in some kind of fulltime ministry, the truth is, God had more training for me, more for me to learn.
So there was a real value in waiting that I couldn’t see then. And there’s the reality that if I had been able to push past God’s barriers, like I did in the move from Memphis to Oklahoma, I might have somehow disrupted or delayed what God really had in store for my future service of Him, which is now my role here at TCF.
I, like Paul, took years to learn that secret of how to gain contentment, at least in this area....though I’m guessing Paul learned it faster than I did.
And I have to be honest and note that there are other areas of my life where I still haven’t quite learned contentment. I guess my head is still thick, because I already know the secret. Paul said in verse 12, that he’s learned the secret of being content, in any and every situation.
The words, “I have learned the secret” translate a word that occurs only here in the entire NT. In the mystery religions of the day, it was a technical term, and it meant “to initiate (into the mysteries).”
Paul’s use of the words here suggest a kind of initiation, by his experiences, into the secret of contentment. Of course, Paul’s initiations included the prison, from which he wrote this letter to the Philippians. It included beatings, it included shipwreck.
I had an initiation, too, and I thank God I didn’t have to be initiated in a prison.
The experiences Paul had, and the experiences I had, and the experiences you have, are part of what God uses in our lives to get to that big secret, which really isn’t much of secret anymore, since Paul wrote it down for us to share in.
The last verse of this passage we’re focusing on this morning, is certainly among the top five most-abused passages of scripture in the Bible.
A couple of others might be:
Judge not, lest you be judged.
Love one another.
God is love.
And God will meet all our needs according to His riches in glory.
Verse 13 of Philippians 4 says: “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”
Of course, most abuse of scripture comes because we apply verses not just incorrectly, but selfishly. And vs 13 here is no exception. So, we must consider the context here, and that context is just what we’ve been looking at here this morning – contentment.
The Life Application Bible has a good comment on this verse:
“Can we really do everything? The power we receive in union with Christ is sufficient to do his will and to face the challenges that arise from our commitment to doing it. He does not grant us superhuman ability to accomplish anything we can imagine without regard to his interests. As we contend for the faith we will face troubles, pressures, and trials. As they come, ask Christ to strengthen you.”
So, a quick lesson in scripture interpretation here. Just as we can make the assumption that this passage teaches about contentment in life beyond just material things, we can say that this verse would apply to God giving us strength beyond just being content. But we really miss the point when we pervert this verse, as surely some of you have heard it perverted, to say that we can do anything we want, including meeting not just our needs but our greeds, apart from Gods’ will for us.
A more literal translation of this would be: “I have strength for all things.”
And how? Through Christ! He’s our source of power to be content! He’s our source of power for anything in life!
By virtue of our relationship with Him, because of our living union with Jesus, and our identification with Him, we have the power to do something we wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. We can be content when things are bad. We can be content when things are good. The good, the bad and the ugly are all under His authority.
We can rest in Him, because He pours into us the power to do it. Paul was saying that changing circumstances do not affect my contentment. Don’t you wish you could really say that?
Our problem is not that we want contentment, but that we look for it in the wrong places. What does discontentment say about us? What does it say about our faith? What does it say about our God? We pursue prosperity, fame, significance...we seek power & position, we pursue belonging, identity, affirmation...
In all these things we pursue, we hope to find contentment, but it’s fleeting, and it’s not really in these things.
Unless we find our contentment in Christ Jesus, we never really had it...
Contentment is secured not through our efforts, or by our circumstances, or by others, or by things.
Rather, contentment is already available in Christ, and only through Christ, in the strength He gives us to do all things.
Let me close with this prayer from Colossians:
Col. 1:10-12 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully 12giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.
