Philippians 4:10-20
True Satisfaction
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10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
14 Nevertheless you have done well that you shared in my distress. 15 Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only. 16 For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. 17 Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account. 18 Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. 19 And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. 20 Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Php 4:10–20.
Transcript
Welcome to God’s Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today, and we pray that you would be blessed by both hearing God’s Word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart.
Please open in your Bibles with me to Philippians chapter four. Philippians chapter four and we’ll be looking at verses ten through twenty. You can find Philippians chapter four verses ten through twenty on page 1045 of your provided Pew Bibles. Philippians chapter four, beginning at verse ten. This is the Word of God; pay careful attention.
“But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens me.
“Nevertheless you have done well that you shared in my distress. Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only. For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account. Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.” The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Well, here’s what is on my heart for you today. How do you find contentment? In our world, the world that you live in, how do you find satisfaction? In the dark world that we live in that is marred by sin, by the heaviness of the realities, of the atrocities that happen around us, the corruption and the bribery that happens, families split up and broken, where do you find joy? Where do you go to find your rock? In the darkest and deepest parts of your life, where do you find a wellspring of joy?
Well, Christian, that satisfaction, that contentment is only found in the Lord. So your call this morning is to rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord! The first place we go on that walk is rejoicing in Christian concern. Rejoicing in Christian concern. Look with me at verses ten, fourteen, seventeen, and eighteen. Verse ten, “But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity.” And then verse fourteen, “Nevertheless you have done well that you shared in my distress.” And then in verse seventeen and eighteen, Paul continues in what this looks like for Christian concern, “Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account. Indeed I have all and abound. I am full, receiving from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.”
See, Paul is rejoicing that the Philippians have shown their care and their concern for him. The pastor of the church in Philippi is encouraged, because the people there love their pastor. They love him and they’re concerned about him. But Paul’s joy is not in whatever the gift was that they sent through Epaphroditus. Did you notice how Paul qualifies again and again this gift? Paul, yes, the gift is helpful and he’s thankful for it, but he’s not thankful, or finds satisfaction in the gift, but he finds satisfaction and joy that the people of God love him.
There’s a joy that comes from Christians who have concern for one another. Paul rejoices because their concern for him has flourished in verse ten. Paul has joy because they participated in his tribulation, verse fourteen. And Paul has joy because their gifts weren’t desired by themselves, but the fruit that shows because of those gifts was there.
Gifts are an interesting thing, aren’t they? How many of you have bought gifts for your siblings, for your children, for your grandchildren, for your great grandchildren? And you thought a lot about this gift, and you thought a lot about how they would receive it and you anticipate it in your mind, “Okay, at birthday time they’re going to open this gift. And they are going to, “Wow! This is the best gift!!!” and they are going to give you a hug and say, “You are the best, Grandma!”” And they open it and it is like, “Eh, this is cool.” Or they’re more excited about the box. What were you longing for when you bought that gift for them? It wasn’t because you wanted them to find satisfaction in the gift, you wanted them to know that you love them. And the gift was a fruit of your love towards them. That’s why we buy gifts for our children, our grandchildren, our siblings, our parents, because we love them, and we want them to know that we’re thinking about them and we love them. And that’s how Paul is saying it here, “Not that I needed the gift, but I sought the fruit that the gift showed.”
There’s a story that we’re pretty well familiar with. We tell our children this story. Remember the story where there is a woman who has beautiful, long, flowing hair, and her husband who has a gold pocket watch? And these are their two most valued possessions is her beautiful hair and his pocket watch. But they are dirt poor. And at Christmas time, the wife wants to give her husband something special, so what does she do? She goes and she gets her hair cut off and she sells it to a wigmaker so she could take the money and buy a gold chain for her husband’s pocket watch. But on that same day, he had gone and he had sold his gold pocket watch so he could buy her ribbon so she could tie up her hair. And the beauty of the story is both of them loved the other person so much that they would give up anything, their most valuable possession to show their love for the other person.
This is what is going on here. The Philippians are under persecution. And yet they are concerned about Paul and his imprisonment. The Philippians are concerned about, “how is our brother doing? How can we care for him? How can we love him?” This is a source of joy that you can have in your life. Rejoice when we care for one another. Paul calls these gifts in verse eighteen that they are, “a sweet-smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God.”
There might be some confusion here, because this is sacrifice language. “Hold on. Aren’t we in the New Testament? What’s up with this sacrifice stuff?” But what Paul is getting at here is what we read earlier in Leviticus chapter seven. This is a thanksgiving offering. It is as if they’d taken their sacrifice up to the temple to thank God for something. This is what they’ve done when they’ve shown their concern for their brother. And when we show our love and concern for one another, we show each other the love and concern that Jesus Christ has for you. Paul’s joy abounds in Christ. His joy is rooted at its very foundation in Christ, just like yours is. But it’s like icing on the cake when your brothers and sisters shower you with love, isn’t it? You’ve seen that before in the church, haven’t you, when people have just been over the top kind to you and you think, “Why are they being so nice to me?!”
Rejoice in the concern that we have for one another. And this is closely tied to your next point and that’s we need to rejoice in Christian fellowship. Rejoice in Christian fellowship. Look with me at verses fourteen through sixteen, “Nevertheless you have done well that you shared in my distress. Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only. For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities.”
Verse fourteen, there’s a unique word. It’s only used a few times in the New Testament and it’s the idea of “together fellowship”. In verse fourteen the translation just says, “Shared in my distress”, but it’s more than that. It’s that the Philippians have seen their brother Paul and they’re empathizing with him. By sending their gift, they’re saying, “We love you, Paul, and we’re going to stand next to you.” It’s more than just sharing, it’s uniting their hearts to him.
We use a lot of “Christianese” terms. Fellowship is one of them. “Let’s go down to the fellowship hall.” “Oh, that was great fellowship.” What does that mean? It’s a deeply Biblical word, “koinonias” is a Biblical word for “fellowship”, but at the heart of it is communion. It’s interconnectedness. It’s that we share one another’s afflictions. When one of our brothers and sisters hurt, we hurt with them. When someone’s in need, we care for that need. When someone is mourning, we mourn. When someone is rejoicing, we rejoice with them. For many of you, there are some relatives in this congregation, but others who aren’t. And yet, you call one another brother and sister, because we have fellowship with one another. And that’s a source of joy that God gives us. This is why we can rejoice in fellowship.
See, the Philippians have shown in sending this gift to Paul through Epaphroditus that they still are with him. Even though he might be across a land, even though he’s in Rome. There’s a sea that separates them, all the way across Macedonia, and over the Adriatic Sea, and finally to Rome, but he’s there. And they love him. There’s a history of this caring for Paul. It wasn’t when he was just in Rome, but also when he was in Thessalonica. If this was a different time, I would put up a map and show you that Philippi is here and down the Via Egnatia, you would dip down and keep going west and eventually you would get to Thessalonica. And even while he was there, where he was stoned, they still cared for him. They still loved him.
And this isn’t something uncommon to this congregation. I was amazed when I was reading through the history of this congregation in its early days, and finding out that your first pastor, James McDonald, when he died, the congregation was concerned for his widow, and so bought the widow a farmstead. They bought her land, gave her a house and set it up. So that way the widow of the beloved pastor would be cared for. You showed it again and again when you mourn with one another, when you love one another. You’ve shown it to our family, week in and week out as you have cared for even my own children.
That’s a deep joy we should have in fellowship, but there is yet still a deeper joy than just fellowshipping with one another, and that’s rejoicing in Christ. Rejoice in Christ. Look with me at verses eleven through thirteen, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Now, this is a verse that you should bury into your memory. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13. Get it in there, it should be part of the foundation of the fabric of your faith and of your life. But, it can also be taken out of context. How many children are taught during my generation, during the generation now, “you can be whatever you want to be.” And I grew up with the slogan, “Be like Mike.” Well, God didn’t give me an extra foot, and I can’t jump. I can’t be like Mike. This isn’t saying you’re going to be able to do anything that you possibly want. There are some of you who are brilliant, that some of us will never be as smart as. There are some of us who have gifts that are amazing that we can’t touch. Because God has made us uniquely and individually.
This isn’t saying that you can do whatever you want, so what does it mean? What’s the context by which Paul is writing? Where is Paul? He’s in prison. He’s in an underground cell where there’s no light. And he’s writing this verse in the first person. He’s talking about himself. He says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” What does he mean by that? He’s in jail! Does that mean he can get out of jail? No, it means he can do everything the Lord gives him to do. Because it’s the Lord who strengthens his hand.
If it is a trial that you are going through, you can rely on the Lord because it is the Lord who strengthens you. If there is a temptation that you are seeking to overcome, you can overcome it because you are in the Lord and the Lord is in you. This is the promise of Jesus in John chapter fifteen verse five. That He is the vine and we are the branches. And as we are in Him, He will cause us to bear good fruit.
We can do all things that He gives us through Christ, because we are in Christ. Because Christ is in us. Paul knows what it is like to be rich and to be poor. Paul knows what it’s like to have his belly full and to ache at the pit of his stomach with hunger. Paul knows what it’s like to be rejoiced by in a congregation who he loves and they receive him as an angel, and then the next time he’s talking to them, for them to completely reject him. Paul knows what it is like to be welcomed into a city, only to then be stoned to death outside of its walls. Paul knows what it’s like to breathe in the fresh air of the sea, only also to be stranded day and night in the sea. Paul knows what it’s like to be lifted up into the third heavens, and to have forty lashes minus one applied to his back. Paul knows what it is to be abounding and to be abased.
How? How is it that Christians can go into prison and still have joy? How is it that our forefathers who died in Scotland at the hands of the kings for worshiping Jesus Christ could still stand up each Sunday with joy? Because they knew that Jesus Christ was their strength.
There’s a real danger today. There’s a real danger today, in that, our culture and the very air that you breathe in will try to make you satisfied, content, in anything but God. We breathe it in all around us. Every time you turn on your TV, every time you open a newspaper, every time you surf Facebook and look at Instagram, every time you drive down the road and see billboards, you want more, don’t you? You gotta have this. I just saw a cologne commercial that made me laugh like crazy of a guy running through the desert in a suit and stomping on the ground and fire erupting, like, “Give me a break man, I don’t need that!” But they want you to think they need that. That’s what’s going to make you cool. That’s what’s going to give you satisfaction. That’s what’s going to make you happy. But we’ll always want more if we are trying to be satisfied here.
You’ll always want more if you’re trying to be satisfied here. The glutton’s belly will always cry out for more food. The covetous person will always want another promotion. The person addicted to pornography will always want to open the next page. The person who is addicted to methamphetamines will always want the next fix. The alcoholic will always want one more sip. Because this world will never satisfy and they bought into a lie that somehow that’s where they will find joy and pleasure.
Christian, that’s not how God has designed the world. He didn’t design you to be satisfied in anything here. He didn’t design you to be satisfied in your family. He didn’t design you to be satisfied in your car. He didn’t design you to be satisfied in your job. He didn’t design you to be satisfied in the size of your bank account. He didn’t design this world to satisfy you. He designed this world to display His power and His glory. He designed this world to get on our knees and want to worship Him.
How will you find satisfaction? How will you find joy in this life? Where will you find a wellspring of hope that will give you something to last until your dying breath and into eternity? The only answer to that is the God who formed you in your mother’s womb and who sent His own son to die for you. That you might be an heir of all of His good gifts. Christian, that is what God calls you, because He loves you. He has adopted you. He has brought you into His family. He has wanted you and has paid the price for you to enjoy Him forever.
Don’t be satisfied in the things of this world. It’s a trap. Where will you go when the market crashes? Where will you run to when your 401k is drained? Where will you run to for contentment when the doctor walks in the room and tells you it is cancer? Where will you go and run to for hope when your children die? Where will you run to in the deepest and darkest hours of your life when you are struggling with sin and temptation? Where will you run to when your mind fades and your loved ones pass away?
Where do you find comfort? It is in Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ alone and when we run to Him, we have a joy that wells up in our hearts unto eternal life. It is in Jesus Christ that you will find satisfaction. It is in the only begotten son who is the only redeemer of God’s elect that you will find peace for your soul. Run to Him, Christian. Because when we run to Him, the reason God gave us Jesus Christ, is that we might rejoice in God’s glory.
Rejoice in God’s glory. Look with me at verses nineteen and twenty, “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever.” This is specifically tied into what we looked at in verse six, “Be anxious about nothing, but in all things, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving in your heart, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” You can put verse nineteen right under that, “And my God shall supply all your needs through Christ Jesus.”
God will supply your needs. God will supply. God loves you. Because in His love for you He wants you to worship Him and to have your face shine upon Him that He might make His face to shine upon you. The story of Christianity is not that you are just saved and it is a “get out of Hell free card”, but the story of Christianity is that you get to bask in the glow of your Father’s glory for eternity. God’s going to supply every need of yours because every need you have points to your need for Him. Your need to be loved by Him. Your need to be cared for by Him. Your need to bask in His glory forever.
And yes, this includes our physical needs. Please, don’t get all spiritualized here and think that God doesn’t care about your belly and God doesn’t care about you being cold and God doesn’t care about that you need a job and God doesn’t care about that you don’t know how you’re going to make it to your death because your retirement is going too quickly. God does care that the soy markets are down. God does care that He needs to provide for you.
So how do we approach the needs of this life? We know that they’re not supposed to satisfy us, so what do you do? You go to the good God who loves you and provides for those needs.
I was reminded just a few weeks ago of the amazing missionary and orphanage runner, George Muller. And the story in the 1800s when he was running an orphanage and there was no more food. There were hundreds of kids and no more food in the pantries. And the workers came to him and said, “There’s no food.” So he said, “Okay, let’s sit down and give thanks.” Not, “Let’s pray for it.” He said, “Let’s give thanks.” Some people might call that crazy. He gives thanks and he starts to pray, thanking God for the food that he knows He is going to provide for these hungry orphan children, because God loves the fatherless and the widow. And sure enough, a baker comes by and says, “Hey, I wasn’t able to sleep. So this morning I got up and I made 3 batches of bread, here you go.” And they gave thanks. And a few minutes later, a milker came by and he said, “Hey, the wagon wheel on my cart broke down and by the time it gets fixed, all our milk is going to be spoiled. Can you use this?” And they gave thanks.
Do you believe it? Do you believe it is true that God will provide for every one of your needs? Don’t lack faith. He’s loved your soul. He’s gonna love you to make sure you’re cared for. Now that might not always look like having the biggest house. That might not always look like having the best car; you might drive around a real junker of a car. That might mean that you’re not having a perfect family, but you’re having the family that God has designed for you. And He’s gonna care for you. He’s gonna love you because you are His heir. Do you know what an heir is? This is what God calls you, an heir. An heir is someone who receives all the good blessings from their Father. God is your good Heavenly Father and He is going to shower you with every gift that He knows is for your good that’s going to cause you to glorify Him.
Rejoice in God’s glory, because what He’s doing in your life right now by giving you the strength of Jesus Christ is meant to put you on your knees to thank Him. That every day you might say, “Lord, you gave me my daily bread yesterday. Thank you Father.” That you might know that when the benediction is pronounced to you that it really isn’t a prayer, but that it is a pronouncing of God’s blessing to you. That God has lifted up His favor upon you and has been gracious to you. God is giving you peace. And that God is with you. Bask in the glorious light of your Father shining upon you with all of His glory. Bask and rejoice in Jesus Christ. Go there for your satisfaction. Go to God for your hope. Go to the fortress. Go to the stronghold. Go to your Rock. That is where you find the contentment that we find here in Philippians.
Let’s pray. “Oh God, you are gracious to us and you love us. Father, who are we that you should be so kind to us? Father, we pray that your Holy Spirit would apply these truths to our hearts and to our minds, Lord, and to the very ways we live our lives. Lord, we pray that we would rejoice in you always. Father, we pray that we would seek your glory and that we would bask in it. Father, please let us go from here, filled with the assurance of your love and satisfied in your goodness. In Jesus’s name, amen.”
Thank you for listening to God’s Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP Church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His Word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week, God bless you.