November 8, 2015
Series: “Money” 6 of 8
“Honoring God with Much”
Philippians 4:10-20
Introduction
When it comes to money in our relationship with God, some might think: Well, if I just had a little more money I could honor God more. But my reply to that is, How much more would you need? How much more money would it take to move the honor needle up a few ticks from a “less-acceptable” to a “more-acceptable” level of honor for God?
We err greatly when we apply our human notions of honor to God. No human has or ever will own everything; thus every human can always seek to attain more material or monetary ‘honor’ from others, and many indeed make this their life’s ambition. So, humanly-speaking AC/DC is right: money talks! Less money says (typically) we value something or someone less; more money says (again, typically) that we value something or someone more. But that’s not how it works with God. As Creator, God is also Owner of everything. And when you own everything, it doesn’t do that much for you when someone “gives” you something whether big or little—you already own it! What matters to you isn’t how much they give but how they give it. So if we want to understand how to honor God—whether we have much or little—while money may be involved, we’ll need to find a different measurement than money itself. And Paul’s words in Philippians 4:10-20 I believe are very helpful in this.
[READ Phil. 4:10-20].
I Have Learned the Secret…
In the first part of our text (vv. 10-13) Paul praises God and expresses his gratitude to the Philippians for their financial support. He says in v. 10, “you have ‘revived’ (or ‘renewed’) your concern for me.” Apparently they had supported him early on, but for an unspecified period of time (and for an unspecified reason) their support had stopped and now had begun again. In two weeks, my last message in the “Money” series called “Learning to be Thankful” will focus on this particular part of the text as we prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday. We can all learn some-thing from Paul’s tender and delicate words of thanks. But today and next Sunday I want to learn from Paul how we can honor God with much and with little in terms of money or material things. Today our focus is how to honor God with much.
So, after initially thanking the Philippians for their revived/renewed financial support, Paul, ever the teacher, ever the example of Christian faith, seizes the occasion to tell them about something important he’s learned in his faith journey –something he knows –a secret he’s discovered that will be of benefit to them. He says in vv. 11-12, “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.”
What a powerful lesson to learn! What a powerful realization that every Christian needs to make—that in our lives there are going to be seasons of abun-dance and seasons of need, seasons of plenty and seasons of hunger, whether phy-sically or spiritually or both. And what is this lesson, this knowledge, this secret to finding contentment in any and every situation that Paul so eagerly wants to pass on? It’s v. 13, “I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me.”
He doesn’t refer to it specifically, but I can almost see Paul as he writes, pausing for a moment and reflecting on what he’d shared earlier in his letter to the Corinthians about struggling with his ‘thorn in the flesh’—whatever it was—and how he pled with Christ three times to take it away, and Jesus’ reply: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power (my strength) is made perfect in weakness.” And I can see Paul, deeply concerned for the Philippians, recalling and maybe even reciting to himself the resolution he’d made at that earlier time: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
“I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” That’s how my mom taught me Philippians 4:13—in King James English. But, while I learned the verse as an eight or nine year-old boy, relatively secure and sheltered in the comforts and confines of blue-collar, heartland, Bible-belt America, I didn’t begin to live Philippians 4:13 until later. I’ve never gone hungry or been homeless, but I have experienced leaner times.
I learned Philippians 4:13 before I lived it, but Paul learned it while he was living it. When I think of Paul’s life and ministry, I don’t think of him as wealthy; I think about his hardships: shackled in prison, suffering persecutions, starving, shipwrecked. But according to his writings he wasn’t utterly destitute. He was a hard-working tentmaker, an industrious tradesman, a highly educated man; he’d experienced times of plenty and abundance; and he says that even in those times—not just in the lean times—he’d learned to be content through the strength of Christ; and that’s what I want us to think about today.
It’s not universally true, but I suspect that some of the most discontented Christians are not those who have little but those who have plenty. If you’ve tasted a bit of prosperity in your life, you know how strong the urge is to want just a little bit more. Think about it, who has to be more intentional about leaning on Christ’s strength, a poor Christian or a prosperous Christian? The question isn’t who needs Christ’s strength more—the poor and the prosperous need His strength equally. But while poorer Christians know they have less material wealth, prosperous Christians have the added distraction (we might even say disadvantage) of what they do have constantly whispering to them either “You’ve got enough; just keep what you have,” or “You’ve got enough, but a little more would be better.” Either way, because every human culture sees prosperity as a position of strength, prosperous Christians need to be more intentional in relying on God’s strength than poorer Christians. Jesus never said it’s hard for a poor person to enter the kingdom of God. But when the rich young ruler walked away grieved that he couldn’t follow Jesus unless he sold everything and gave the money to the poor, Jesus said to his disciples in Luke 18, “How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! [It’s] easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.”
None of us would rank among the wealthiest of Americans, but on a global spectrum we would all be toward the higher end. Likewise, while Paul was far from being among the richest Romans, he wasn’t at the bottom of the economic spectrum either. But he had learned a secret that Christians in every generation need to learn: that true contentment isn’t found in poverty or prosperity but in the Person of Jesus Christ, and in seeking to honor Him with one’s whole being. This raises a really important question about the nature of true Christian contentment.
An Active Contentment
What kind of contentment is Paul talking about when he says he’s learned to be ‘content’ in every situation? When I think of contentment, I tend to think of a more passive state of mind, a degree of settledness that gives a person a calm confidence in their present situation. This is what we might expect Paul to mean, especially when he’s thanking the Philippians for a financial gift and telling them how he’s learned to be content with whatever level of material or monetary wealth he currently has. But look again at v. 13. If, to Paul, Christian contentment meant a static satisfaction with whatever the Lord provides, wouldn’t he have said, “I can have all things through him who supplies me”? To me that statement fits the context a little better. He even says down in v. 18, “I’ve received full payment, and more. I’m well supplied.” And he says in v. 19, “And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ.” But “supply” is not what he says in v. 13, because to Paul, Christian contentment isn’t ultimately based on having a supply of material or money; it’s based on having strength for ministry and mission! It’s not “I can have all things through Him who supplies me;” it’s “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” To Paul, Christian content-ment is active not passive; it’s not a passive state of having; it’s an active state of doing something with what you have.
An active state of doing what? you ask. Doing what Jesus has called and commanded us to do: taking the good news of salvation through Him to all peoples, calling them to repentance and faith, making disciples of them, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to do likewise until He returns; that’s what.
Brothers and sisters, you can have all the supply in the world, but until you’re doing what only Jesus can strengthen you to do, you’ll never find true contentment—you’ll never honor God with the much (or little for that matter) that He gives you.
Turn with me to 1 Timothy 6. (This passage begins with another verse I memorized before I really understood how to live it.) Paul says to Timothy beginning in v. 6,
[READ 1 Tim 6:6-19].
In Philippians we find the principle: Find contentment in any and every circumstance—whether little or much—by relying on the strength of Christ and doing what He commands. Here in Timothy we find some practical applications. “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” That’s basically a restatement of the principle. Godliness is not a static state of satisfaction; it’s an obedient state of action. “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money (not money itself) is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” Here we have some warnings about the perils of pursuing prosperity for mere prosperity’s sake.
The practical instructions begin in v. 11 where Paul instructs Timothy (and by the way, just because Paul’s instructing Timothy as a spiritual leader doesn’t mean these things apply only to Timothy; it means Paul wants him to set an example to the church of how to honor God). First of all, Paul says, “Flee these things…” But fleeing temptation is pointless if we aren’t pursuing something else. Fleeing is the first instruction; pursuing is the second. And what are we to pursue? “Righteousness, godliness, faith, love steadfastness, gentleness.” Sounds like the fruit of the Spirit to me. How do we pursue the fruits of the Spirit? Are they just going to fall into our laps? If they did why would Paul say to “pursue” them? So it’s a chase, but not an aimless one. To the things the Spirit wants to give us, He guides us. He guides us in the Word. He guides us in prayer. He guides us through the godly influence of our Spirit-filled brothers and sisters to set aside our worldly cravings for much or more in order to honor God with whatever material or monetary wealth we have.
Flee. Pursue. The third instruction is to Fight. New believers often breathe a sigh of relief when they come to faith in Jesus. They feel the burden of sin lifted and assume the fight is over. And while Jesus has indeed paid the penalty of sin, the presence of sin and temptation remains. The fight for your soul has been won by Christ, but the fight for your sanctification has only begun. Our life in sin isn’t preparation for the Christian life; the Christian life is a Spirit-guided fleeing, pursuing, fight preparing us for the presence of Christ. The fight is called sanctification—it means cleaning up; it means taking on more and more the character of Christ. And like any fight worth fighting, it’s hard, and it can’t be won in isolation. Temptation is too strong; worldly wealth is too appealing to resist on our own.
Flee. Pursue. Fight. Take hold. Paul says, “Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” We could lump taking hold in with fighting. When you’re in a real fight you’re not just launching missiles; you’re up close scuffling and scratching for what you want and not letting go. This reminds me of Jacob wrestling with the pre-incarnate Christ back in Genesis. He said to the Lord, “I won’t let you go ‘til you bless me.” The blessing came, but it came at a cost. The Lord struck Jacob with a limp that lasted the rest of his life. You and I may be struck with some “limp” as we fight the good fight of faith. We mustn’t expect to walk through the Christian life unscathed by the Lord who, while blessing us with eternal life, doesn’t want us to forget where it came from and the cost at which it came. Honoring God with much means never forgetting that no matter how much we have, no amount of money or material wealth could pay for our redemption. Thus it all must be surrendered. Taking hold of something means letting go of something else. If you want eternal life, you’ve got to be willing to let go of—to surrender—your earthly life, including your earthly wealth.
Flee. Pursue. Fight. Take hold. Those are Paul’s instructions to Timothy so that Timothy can be an example to the church.
In vv. 17-19 he gives a few more instructions to be passed on directly to the church. “As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty.” There’s one—makes sense. Your wealth can be taken from you in an instant. Don’t be proud of it.
Two: “Charge them…[not to] set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.” If everything you have today were taken from you tomorrow, would you despair? Would all hope be lost with it; or would God be enough? The things we enjoy in this life we enjoy so briefly. It’s foolish to bank on such fleeting pleasures.
Three (v. 18): “They are to do good, to be rich in good works.” Believe it or not, good works are the things God has richly provided for us to enjoy. Again, if Christian contentment isn’t found in a passive state of having, but in an active state of doing, this makes perfect sense. What good works to you have planned for this week? You may say, Well, I hadn’t really thought about it. God has. Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, “He has prepared good works for you and I that we should walk in them.” So maybe spend part of this Lord’s day planning some good works in His name for the week ahead.
Fourth (end of v. 18): “be generous and ready to share.” Here you go—who needs your generosity this week? I got an email from one of you this week asking me for information on a family with several kids who attended our church a while back, wanting to know how she could be a blessing to them this Thanksgiving and Christmas season. We have information on Christmas Shoeboxes for needy children around the world. You have people in your life, and I have people in mine who need our generosity, who need not only to hear but to see the gospel through our generousity.
These, Paul says in v. 19, are the ways we store up treasure for ourselves as a good foundation for the future. This is how we take hold of real life—by letting go of the material things that tie us to this world. This is how we honor God with the much He’s given all of us.