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Philippians 4:10-14, But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. 12 I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. 13 I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. 14 Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction.
On March 18, the Space X’s Dragon capsule brought several astronauts from the International Space Station back to earth. Their return was delayed about 9 months beyond schedule. Butch Wilmore was one of those astronauts. Butch is an elder at Providence Baptist Church in Pasadena, Texas. Sounding much like Paul, Butch has a great message on contentment.
Well, I can say this, I’m totally content…. I’m completely content in the Lord and the Lord’s plan and his purpose in our lives…. But content doesn’t mean happy. Content doesn’t mean easy…. Content means I’m satisfied with where the Lord has me, wherever that is, at whatever moment, whatever is taking place.
After some comments about the 9-month delay in space he adds:
Interruptions in life, things we aren’t expecting, are not easy. However, I’m content and at peace with everything God brings my way because I know who He is and I know He is with me…. I’m content with where God has me.
That’s exactly what Paul would have said – what he did say. “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.” Paul wasn’t ruled by circumstances. We saw last week that contented people are grateful people. Paul was grateful for the Philippians providing for him. Contented people are satisfied with little or much. Then last week we said contented people know God has ordained their days. Contented people see God’s sovereign providence in their place in this world, but we also said contentment doesn’t mean you don’t seek to improve your situation. Contentment for a Christian means your heart isn’t controlled by the stuff of this world. You aren’t living with the idols of “I want. I want more.”
Paul says in verse 12 he learned the secret of contentment. “What’s your secret, Paul?” Paul responds with ten simple words.
I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH HIM WHO STRENGTHENS ME.
This is an awesome, magnificent statement, or as Martyn Lloyd-Jones described it, a staggering statement. The last chapter in his book Spiritual Depression is titled, “The Final Cure,” focused on this one verse. Let’s unpack this ten-word affirmation.
First, who is the “I?” It’s Paul. It isn’t an unbeliever who practices positive or possibility thinking. This is Paul whose life Christ invaded years earlier on the Damascus Road, the Paul who confessed himself as the chief of sinners and who was saved by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ. This is Paul who has been serving Christ now for all these years and is currently chained to two guards in a prison in Rome, uncertain about his future. He’s not living in a posh 8-million-dollar mansion with gold-gilded bathroom fixtures and three private jets to whisk him around the world.
Paul doesn’t say I can do some things, or most things. No, he says I can do all things. Paul’s “all things” includes a lot of things. And note that Paul doesn’t say he can do all things by his own natural ingenuity, picking himself up by his own bootstraps, by his own determination and willpower. No, for Paul it’s always “through Him,” through a Person, through the One who saved him and is keeping him, his Lord Jesus Christ, the One of whom Paul said, “To live is Christ.” And what blessing, what help does Paul get through his Lord and Savior? He gets Christ’s strength to do everything God wants him to do.
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me and infuses His power into my life. The picture is like an infusion when you go to the hospital, only this is spiritual and continual. “Through Him who strengthens or empowers me” could easily read, “through Him who continually infuses His strength into me!” Paul has an invisible source of strength that is visible in his life. In Pilgrim’s Progress Christian visits the Interpreters House. In one room a fire is blazing against the wall and someone is pouring water on it but it keeps burning “higher and hotter.” The Interpreter then takes Christian behind the wall and there is a man continually pouring oil on the fire but does it secretly. Interpreter explains, “This is Christ who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart; by the means of which, notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still.”
God says to each of us, young or old, man or woman, this is true of you just like it was of Paul. This isn’t a command; this is a promise. You can do all things God wants you to do through Christ who keeps infusing His strength into your life. Paul describes it in Ephesians 3:16 and 20.
Ephesians 3:16, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
Ephesians 3:20, Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.
God has equipped every believer with all we need to be and all He wants us to be! In John 15:5 Jesus said, “Without Me you can do nothing.” Not one thing. You can do nothing; you can do all things. What makes the difference? The difference is the Person of Jesus Christ who is the source of all your spiritual strength and power, given to you through His Spirit who indwells every believer.
CHRIST’S POWER PERFECTED IN WEAKNESS.
This is the same power seen in that wonderful promise in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10. Paul was plagued by a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan. We don’t know what the thorn was, but it was a constant attack on Paul. It could have been a physical ailment or a spiritual attach from a false teacher. The attack kept tormenting or slapping Paul around. Three times Paul asked God to take it away. Three times without relief. However, Paul was given Christ’s assurance that whatever the thorn was, Paul would have sufficient power to handle it. Paul was content with that.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10, And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10 Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.
Question: Do you know anything of Christ’s power being infused into your life? It’s not a feeling. It’s inner strength that enables you to follow Christ and be content with whatever God brings into your life. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” What an amazing verse.
THIS IS A DANGEROUS VERSE.
This verse is very easy to misinterpret. Do not rip this verse out of the immediate context and the context of the gospel. Paul is not saying that God has put the seeds of greatness in our lives and we just need to learn how to unleash them to be all we want to be. The prosperity, health and wealth, name it and claim it crowd will take a verse like this and totally rip it out of context. This has nothing to do with getting your best life now.
And it isn’t a verse we can just use regardless of our walk with Christ. Folks will dig themselves into a big sin hole, mess their lives up by following their own ways, and then try to claim verses like this, saying “I tried it and it really didn’t work for me.” The first thing you need is full-fledged repentance and confession and dealing with sin in your life. You can’t get God’s blessing while you are playing with the stuff God curses.
This verse isn’t promising you can get whatever you want. It’s not promising that Jesus is going to solve all your problems, pay all your bills, fix your marriage, fix your kids, fix your job. Don’t treat this verse like a lucky rabbit’s foot. So many people have this pagan, superstitious view of God. Don’t be living a half-hearted, Laodicean-style lukewarm Christian life and expect God to do all these remarkable things for us! This verse is a dangerous verse and must be handled with care!
We also must be careful how we understand this power or strength. It isn’t like Popeye downing a can of spinach and suddenly he can whip Bluto and anything else in his path. What kind of strength is this? It definitely has nothing to do with feelings. Rather, it is strength of character, inner strength that motivates you and enables you to be content, to produce the fruit of the Spirit. It is strength to love your enemies, strength to repent and confess sins, strength to rejoice when things look bleak, strength to pursue peace and experience it when you’re worried. The power of this strength is really that inner desire and enablement to seek to honor Christ in every area of your life. It’s His strength, not yours!
THIS IS AN INSIGHTFUL VERSE.
Here you have the Christian life. Is it “I can do all things?” Or is it “through Christ who strengthens me?” The Christian life isn’t you doing all this stuff in your own strength. It’s not moralistic do-goodism. You can’t produce the fruit of the Spirit by your own efforts. It is the fruit of the Spirit! On the other hand, it isn’t Christ just doing it all through you without you being involved. It’s not let go and let God. You do it, but Christ is doing it through you. Philippians 2:13-14 puts it perfectly when it says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” But how? The verse continues, “It is God who is at work in you to will and do His good pleasure.”
Plus, never remove this promise from the gospel. We need the gospel. The prosperity boys don’t need the gospel. Name it and claim it. Conceive it and receive it. God wants to fill your wheelbarrow full of good stuff. God exists to make you happy. No, all those words are wrong. Know that your Christian life and doing all the things God is calling you to do is always because you are living out your relationship with Christ because of the gospel. This is a wonderful promise for those who have seen their sin in the light of God’s burning holiness. You were born in sin and are naturally under the wrath of God. God isn’t about making life happy or better for you. You have a sin problem. God sent His Son to rescue sinners, to bear God’s wrath in the place of sinners. As Nathan taught us last Sunday night, Christ’s work on that cross was the propitiation for our sins. Christ in taking our punishment satisfied the wrath of God against us. Your business is to repent and trust your eternal soul into Christ’s hands. Romans 10:9-10 says, “If you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” You may not know exactly when you came to Christ for salvation, but at some point there is a break from being lost and condemned to being saved and forgiven, from dead in sin to being born of God. Now you live a new life in Christ with a desire to obey Him. Christ continuously infuses His strength into you so that you can do all that God wants you to do.
THIS IS A POWERFUL VERSE.
I love this – Jesus Christ is your sufficiency. You have in Christ all you need to be all God wants you to be. Christ is the strength of your life. Really, the whole divine enterprise from Genesis 1 into eternity future is a display of the power and strength of God for His people. He gets all the glory. Moses and the Red Sea, David and Goliath, Elijah and Mount Carmel all displayed God’s power. We have nothing to boast of. It’s always the battle is the Lord’s. It’s always, “My strength is your sufficiency.” It’s always, “Without Me you can do nothing.” It’s always, “Be strong in the Lord, never in yourself.” It’s always, “You don’t have what it takes but I’ve got all you need so start obeying Me.” Isaiah 40:31 says you may be weary and tired, but those who wait on the Lord shall gain new strength and mount up like eagles, and run and not get tired, and walk and not become weary. It’s the power of God from Genesis to Revelation with the peak display of that power in the resurrection of Christ. Paul says in Romans 6:4, “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.” In union with Christ we walk in the power of Christ’s resurrection.
You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. When you don’t think you have what it takes and you say, “I just can’t do it,” Paul would say, “Yes you can.” “No I can’t.” “Yes you can.” “Can’t.” “Can.” “How?” Through Christ who empowers you to do all the things God calls you to do. Through Christ you can handle every situation God allows you to face and any temptation or sinful habit you’ve developed. Don’t forget 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man, but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will with the temptation, provide a way of escape.”
Spurgeon surprises us with, “I don’t believe there exists anywhere under heaven a more lazy man than myself naturally; I would scarce stir if I had my will…. I have to struggle with my sloth, but through Christ who strengthens me, I overcome.”
This is called the sufficiency of Christ. Jesus is all I need to be all God wants me to be! The sufficiency of God’s Word is stated in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for those in Christ to be adequate, equipped for every good deed! You might say, “I’m not experiencing it.” Maybe you are and don’t know it. Are you drawing near to God even though you’re struggling? Why? Christ is pouring on the oil behind the wall! He’s keeping God’s Spirit working in you.
So here in Philippians 4:13 Jesus says, “I am your sufficiency.” You can handle it. Be content. Trust me. I’m living my life in you and moment by moment pumping spiritual strength into you to keep your heart fixed on me, your will determining to obey me, and your desires delighting in me. Lonely? Sick? Deserted? Disappointed? Depressed? Confused? Doubting? Lost hope? Suicidal? Addicted to pornography or alcohol? Fix your heart on Me. I’m your sufficiency. Trust Me. Say with Paul, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
THIS IS A CHRIST-EXALTING VERSE.
Paul isn’t saying, “Look at me. I’m a giant of the faith.” Remember, he said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.” Paul is saying, “Without Christ I’m one big nothing. But in and through Christ I am strengthened to be content. I can handle whatever trial comes my way. Christ has never left me to myself. I’m in union with Him. He dwells in me with His Spirit and His strength and grace are sufficient for anything that comes me way.”
Rather than nurse a bitter spirit for all the negative stuff and trouble that came to him as a Christian, Paul declares, “I rejoice in God, and by doing so I have learned to be content.” And he had plenty of trouble. He tells us about them in 2 Corinthians 11:23-28. Have you ever been falsely accused and imprisoned? Had 39 lashes five times? Been beaten with rods? Stoned and left for dead? Shipwrecked…three times? In the sea for 24 hours? Have many sleepless nights? Cold and exposed? Dangers of thieves? Dangers of false brethren? Have you? What would you say? Friends deserted him. People spread rumors about him. What did he say? “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!”
SO WHAT?
So how do you live this out? How do you get this power? First, you’ve got it if you’re a genuine believer. Like Paul, you glory in the cross. You abide in Christ. You understand the gospel. You rejoice and praise and pray and you tell God all about it. You draw near to God. You obey Christ even when you don’t feel like it. You confess your sin. You thank God for all the blessings, for all the trials, and you tell Him every day, “You are sufficient for me! You are all I need.” You are content to know that Christ loves you and is infusing His power and overcoming strength in you as you live for His glory! You remind yourself, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Speaking of Philippians 4:13, consider Arthur Pink’s words on that verse, “Turn that statement into believing, fervent, persistent prayer. Count upon God making it good.”