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.”
If you ask a Google AI bot, “What is one thing mankind is seeking?” the answer is “happiness and contentment.” It is true that one thing all our hearts are seeking, the search of all mankind for ages, is a state of contentment. But this world has turned that search into a business and has taught us to seek contentment in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways. The result is that we are becoming more and more discontent. We live in an utterly discontent culture. It is like a plague that has infected everyone. We are discontent with what we have. We are discontent with what we look like. We are discontent with whom we are married to. We are discontent with our lot in life. Whatever we may have, this discontent in our hearts has made our lives like a desert.
For such people, there cannot be a greater lesson than learning contentment. We are learning from this great man, Paul. He is not like so many false teachers or yogis who acquire hundreds of acres of land and millions of rupees, yet claim to teach the art of living, peace of mind, and contentment to poor people. The fact is that these teachers themselves do not have these things. But here, we see a man who is not just preaching in words but is demonstrating contentment in the most difficult situation of his life. In terrible jail conditions, we see him as a man full of satisfaction, contentment, rejoicing always, and free of worry. See the genius of the Holy Spirit. Paul is just finishing the letter with a few scratchings of a thank-you note. Where else in all of literature would you find such a staggering gold mine of truths in the last throwaway remarks at the end of some writing?
As he ends his letter, he thanks the Philippians for their gifts, saying, “I greatly rejoice in the Lord.” He explains that he didn’t just see the ordinary physical gifts, but the love of Jesus Christ expressed in the common union of the Philippians and Paul with the Lord. Then he says, “I am not talking about needs, because I have learned a marvelous divine lesson of divine contentment.”
Paul, what are the secrets of contentment? We saw the first one last week: total confidence in the providence of God who is ordering every circumstance in your life for your good and His glory. It is learning to see that the providence of God is behind everything that happens in our lives. It is this faith that makes Paul say those words in verses 11-12. This trust, no matter where the providence of God places us, creates a contentment with whether we have little or more. This trust makes our contentment unaffected by changing circumstances. It is independent of circumstances. Verse 12 says, “In whatsoever circumstances I am, I’ve learned to be content.”
“Okay, Pastor, all that is very nice and very encouraging. We heard and rejoiced, but when we went and tried to practice, we realized a truth: that it is so difficult to be content.” When we try to practice this, 101 things come like a mighty wave and disturb us. Where do I get the strength to experience contentment against all this? We don’t seem to have strength inside us to accept that everything around us is by the providence of God. Maybe Paul was able to experience this because he was an apostle, made of different stuff. We can never be like him. It is so difficult, Pastor; it’s impossible. Before you come to that conclusion, please hear today’s sermon, because today we are going to learn the next secret of contentment, which teaches us from where we get the strength for contentment.
Broadly, there are only two secrets for contentment. If you learn these two, they can be like two wings that can help you fly above any difficult situation and live a life of contentment. Remember PS—Providence of God outside and the Strength of Christ inside. This matter of contentment comes not only from confidence that all that works outside is in the control of God’s sovereign providence, but from the experience of Christ’s powerful, sufficient strength inside us. Notice the grand, marvelous verse 13:
13. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Paul says, “Don’t be amazed at my contentment and think I am some alien. No, I am exactly a human being like you with 101 weaknesses. I also struggle with doubts and struggles. The only reason I can be content is that I have not only learned this first lesson of trusting in the providence of God, but I have also learned to receive and experience inner strength to be content. That strength is available for all true believers.”
This is a marvelous promise. Verse 13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Hear me, brothers! God has gathered us here today to tell us this: You, yes, you, can do all things through the Christ who gives you strength. You are meant to leave this meeting today with these words ringing, edifying, cheering, and inspiring you so that you say, “Whatever my situation, wherever providence has placed me, with Christ’s strength, yes, I can cope with it. I can manage it. I can be more than a conqueror of my weakness, sadness, and frustration. I can learn to be content and live in a way that glorifies God. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”
Let us understand this marvelous secret. We’ll look at three headings: The Extent of this strength, the Source of this strength, and the Object of this strength.
The Extent of This Strength
Paul says, “I can do all things.” What does he mean by “all things”? Can he do everything? Then we may humorously ask, “Why don’t you break the chains and escape from the Roman prison?” There are many things Paul couldn’t do, like getting out of jail or stopping the Jews from spreading false teaching. People wrongly use this promise by taking it out of context for every impossible thing. “Oh, I can do all things through Christ.” No, no. Paul is not making a claim to omnipotence. This is given in the context of contentment. We should not take the verse out of context. What Paul is saying is, “I can do everything that God commands me to do in every situation of my life where providence places me.” I can do “all things” that God has called me to do in His service for His kingdom, within the will of God.
In this difficult situation in jail, God’s will for me is to be content, and I am able to live in contentment as a child of God, in peace and fellowship with God, pleasing God because of this strength. Not only now, but also as seen in verse 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.” In all these things—in God’s providence, even prosperity and success, or whatever the difficulty, temptations, trials, afflictions, or pressures of body or mind—I have learned to be content through this strength.
Though he specifically talks about contentment in this context, we can include all Christian duties in God’s will. This means, “I can do everything God commands me to do in whatever situation I am in because of this strength.” It includes all Christian duties: “I can rejoice in the Lord always, be gentle to all, live worry-free, I can love God with all my heart and my neighbor as myself, I can love my wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. I can submit to my husband as to the Lord. I can obey my parents. I can pray without ceasing. I can become mighty in the Scriptures. I can be filled with the Spirit. I can present my body a living sacrifice to God. I can run the race to the end and finish the course. I can die daily to sin and live to Jesus Christ. Everything God asks of me in the Bible, I can do. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” All these and everything God commands in His word as His will, I can do in all circumstances providence places me. This is really what he was saying. “But Paul, we struggle in these very things. Where do you get the strength for this?”
The Source and Object of This Strength
Verse 13: “through Christ who strengthens me.” This is the source of his strength. He says “Christ.” You know, when Paul says “Christ,” he does not use it like we do. He thinks of all the mediatorial roles and glory of Christ. Remember he said in chapter 2:9, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.” In Colossians, he says this Christ is the firstborn from the dead. Colossians 1:19: “For it has pleased the Father, that in Christ should all fullness dwell.” Colossians 2:9: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Why? So that “out of his fullness all his people should receive grace upon grace.” He is a powerhouse of strength. In Ephesians, it is He who “strengthens us with all might by his Spirit in the inner man.” This is the Christ who said, “Without me you can do nothing.” It is only when you abide in me as a branch abides in the vine that you will experience life and fruit. He is the source of strength.
The object of this strength is also in verse 13: “through Christ who strengthens me.” Whom does He strengthen? He doesn’t strengthen angels, plans, programs, or preaching. The object of this strengthening work of this exalted person is “me.” “Who strengthens me,” little me. The verb is in the amazing present tense, meaning it is a continual, second-by-second, hour-by-hour, day-by-day infusion of strength as I serve Him.
Oh, if we can just learn this wonderful secret. One of the reasons a Christian life for many people becomes boring and only a “Sunday life” is because they never learned who Christ is and how connected He is to every second of our lives. Many people’s Christian lives are all about what Christ did for them in the past and what he will do in the future. What about His work now? Do we experience that by faith daily? It is a marvelous lesson we should regularly study. Paul has learned that Christ is so connected to his daily life that He strengthens him every minute to do all things.
How do we experience this strength practically? We learned in Leviticus about the colossal value of Christ’s High Priestly ministry to us. What is our great problem? See, whatever we may pretend to be on the outside, we are all people with 101 weaknesses, which we express every minute of our lives. Weakness, weakness, weakness. Our morning prayer is weak, our Scripture knowledge is weak, our obedience is weak, our worship is weak, our love for our family is weak. We are weak in doing good, weak in overcoming sin, struggling with faith, and murmuring. We are broken and profoundly weak people inside and outside. We face temptations daily and feel so weak and so tired, as if we are in a wilderness.
On Monday, as we start our same routine life, it is nothing but a story of our 101 weaknesses. How do we deal with that weakness? Okay, we learn contentment, but then we reveal our weakness. Something bad happens, someone says something, and we reveal our discontent by murmuring or speaking in bitterness. Then we think, “Oh, I have sinned.” Then we wallow in guilt. “God must be angry.” And we assume, “Oh, I can never be content,” so we stop trying. We go on a guilt trip for a day or for days together. “I can never walk pleasing to God.” Isn’t that a summary of the past history of our Christian lives? Isn’t it wonderful that Paul says He strengthens me? Why? Because we are very weak.
The writer to the Hebrews says, “Your problem is not weakness. The problem is you are always looking down.” “Please look up, lift up your eyes. You have a great High Priest.” He is completely pure and holy, surpassing. He is greater than Moses and Aaron. He is God with all the attributes of the Godhead; He is almighty. While all this might make us run from Him, Hebrews 4:15 tells us what He is not: “He is not a High Priest who cannot sympathize with your weaknesses.” He knows exactly how you failed and sinned. Because of your union with Him, He sympathizes. He feels what you feel, gets into your skin, and suffers with you. He feels your every feeling, sigh, disappointment, tiredness, and pain. He knows and cares so intimately with empathy. And it gets better: He can do something about this. He can meet you exactly where you are and can strengthen you. He is the almighty High Priest who can save you to the utmost.
How? When you realize you have such a High Priest who not only knows your weakness with sympathy but can also strengthen you, you keep coming to Him with confidence every time you experience weakness. Then what happens? He gives mercy. He says, “Okay, you failed in discontentment and murmured. Here is mercy to relieve your guilt. It is okay; I forgive that. Take mercy and, since you know better than that, I will give you helping grace—grace to help in time of need.” He gives you suitable grace and strength to help you in that situation where you grumbled and were discontented. If you are in the house, in the office, in a difficult trial, or even like Paul in jail, here is helping grace and strength to be content. This is how you experience His strength. Now, that weak history changes. Every time you face a failure, instead of going on a long guilt trip, every split second you go to the High Priest, receive mercy for the failure, and new strength to obey. You become strong when you face weakness.
When we have such a High Priest who strengthens and meets us at the point of our weakness, we can join with Paul and say, “Yes, I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” A little weak, helpless worm is strengthened by the almighty Christ. I am the object of His strengthening ministry, which happens every second of our lives now. Are you living with that experience? Oh, I am learning this art. What a thrill!
In my prayer, it is like lifting our eyes. In prayer, I see two things. I see my High Priest, a man like me in white linen. He is fully pure, not sinful like me. I see his sky-blue dress, all the attributes of God, and then I see my name engraved in his heart on his breastplate. He is always thinking about me, sympathizing with my failures and weakness. He not only knows but his sash shows he has almighty power. He is able to save me to the uttermost. Who wouldn’t want to run to such a High Priest? He not only cares, but He is able to do something about my weaknesses. It has become wonderfully practical in my life. I see my weakness; discontent raises in my heart; I lift my eyes and run to Him. Oh, what mercy and help we find! What supernatural strength we receive!
Paul says no matter what difficult situation I am in in the physical, material world, I have a spiritual undergirding. I am completely weak, but strength comes from being attached to the almighty, sufficient one. Our strength comes because we are linked to His life and linked to His power. I have a supernatural, divine strength for every situation because I’m connected to Christ.
Whenever weakness comes, I can go to Him and become strong. This is something Paul explains clearly how he learned in 2 Corinthians 12:8. He is talking about weakness. He had prayed to God to remove a thorn in the flesh. God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, “Most gladly I will rather boast in my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore, I am well content in weaknesses, insults, distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” He found his contentment in his weakness because that is the opportunity for the manifest strength of Christ in my life. Do you see the second secret? Contentment comes when you experience the sustaining power of Christ in those times when your weakness is revealed and you run to Him. He infuses His strength into me. The more weakness I see in my life, the more I run to Him and depend on Him. We might see His power explode in our lives.
That is why he can say, “I can do all things.” The word means “I am overpowered, filled with prevailing power, infused with strength to do God’s will in all circumstances.” “I have the ability to deal with any kind of material circumstance because of my spiritual strength.” I can endure all of that on the outside because I am so strengthened on the inside. The battery from which power comes is the inexhaustible reservoir of spiritual power in Christ, that moves into action when we become weak. Boy, what a great promise! And that’s the promise to every believer. You will experience contentment only when you learn to tap into this divine power available for you, for all your weaknesses and needs. This verse affirms the sufficiency of Christ for the believer’s every need. The living Christ and His Word are powerful to strengthen you for every situation.
So, brothers, we have learned two great secrets for contentment: the providence of God outside and the strength of Christ inside. Sometimes you cannot change the circumstances. You can’t resolve your problems, you can’t resolve your financial situation, you can’t eliminate the conflict, you can’t solve the marriage, you can’t do anything about the disease that’s wracking your body, and you come to the point where you don’t have the strength to bear this and you’re out of resources. Like Paul, you must learn to depend on Christ’s strength in your weakness. In those valleys, deserts, and on those brinks, you will see Christ’s power exploding in your life and filling your heart with a divine, unexplainable contentment. You will find the strength to go through this situation with divine contentment.
Trusting in the providence of God, which orders all things outside, is one wing, and depending on Christ’s strength in all weakness is the second. These two wings will make you fly above all situations and live in contentment. It’s so beautiful!
As an application to this topic, I want to give a negative and a positive message to encourage you to seek contentment.
The Dangers of Discontent
First, the negative message. For some, a negative message works better than a positive one. After hearing so much, if you are still going to allow discontent to grow in your heart, with excuses like, “Ah, it is all natural, born with us, who is not discontent in the world?” I want us to realize the dangers of discontent. Watson makes us realize it so terribly; I was shocked and felt like it is the worst, dirtiest disease in the world, worse than any leprosy, and we should immediately get rid of this disease from our heart.
The dangers of discontent generally and how unworthy discontent is in a believer’s life. It is the worst evil sin, the worst plague. We will see the causes of discontent and the consequences of discontent.
What causes discontent in our heart? Three things: pride, envy, and covetousness.
- Pride. The first cause of discontent is great pride. He who vainly thinks highly of his deserts is usually discontented with his condition. A discontented man is a proud man. He thinks himself better than others, therefore he finds fault with the wisdom of God. His arrogance is so great that he thinks he is wiser than God. Paul rebukes the man: “Should the thing that was created say to the One who made it—’Why have you made me like this?'” (Romans 9:20). Ten times more proud is the man who says, “Why am I not in better circumstances?” Discontent is nothing else but the boiling over of pride! We know God always humbles such a proud, discontented man.
- Envy. The second cause of discontent is envy, which Augustine calls the sin of the devil. Think of it: why has discontent grown in your heart? The cause is always envying others, what others have that you don’t have. But that is how Satan prepares you to destroy your life. He who envies what his neighbor has is never contented with that portion which God’s providence parcels out to him. Such an envious man looks so much upon the blessings which another enjoys that he cannot see his own mercies and so continually vexes and tortures himself. This is how Satan enters a man’s heart and makes him do terrible sins against God. Like Cain, who envied that his brother’s sacrifice was accepted and his was rejected. So, discontent led to hatred and murder, and then God’s cursed seal for all his life. So many people’s lives begin with the curse of envy.
- Covetousness. The third cause of discontent is covetousness. Covetousness and contentedness cannot dwell in the same heart. If contentment is heaven on earth, covetousness is hell on earth. As it grows in the heart, it creates a constant craving for more, leading to a state of perpetual unhappiness, never satisfied. They want more, more, more. Inside, they are burning and boiling with jealousy, with no peace and with depression. This craving destroys all good moral qualities. It creates a hatred for self and others, fostering resentment and spoiling all relationships in life. It gives opportunity for dishonesty, theft, and even violence in an attempt to acquire what is desired. The root cause for most crime, robbery, and fraud is a covetous person.
Discontent is evil in its consequences.
- Discontent is always joined with a chronic, bitter depression. You will be the most unhappy person. Discontent has a mixture of grief and anger in it, and both of these must necessarily raise a storm in the soul. Discontent is inseparable from depression and sadness, even when God blesses us with many things. But because we do not have what we desire, God shall not have a good work or a good look from us. This is like a bird in a cage: because she is penned up and cannot fly in the open air, she beats herself against the cage and is ready to kill herself.
- Discontent is always accompanied with unthankfulness. Because we do not have all we desire, discontent blinds us to the mercies which we do have. “God does not bless me with what I want, so I will not give him thanks.” We saw that when we don’t thank God, we don’t glorify him, and we face many spiritual punishments immediately. Again, an unthankful person can never be happy. The discontented person thinks everything he does for God is too much, and everything God does for him is too little. Oh, what a sin is unthankfulness!
Think of a man full of pride, envy, and covetousness, always depressed and unthankful for anything in life. Do you see any sign of God’s image in such a person’s character? They are the complete opposite of God and his children. The final consequence or product of this is the making of a child of the devil. A discontented man doesn’t realize he is prepared to become a temple of the devil. He is being transformed into the image of evil, who is filled with the poison of pride, is envious, always sad, and unthankful.
Do you know the devil makes such a heart a weapon to fight God? We have heard stories and seen experiments where villains take a hero’s children and turn them against them. So, the devil works a devilish destruction chemistry in this discontented heart lab, making the discontented man a fool who turns all his God-given pure gold into ashes, teaches him to dishonor and insult God with God’s own mercies, and makes him kick the breast that feeds him. Like a snake who drinks milk from God’s breast of providence but spits poison, he enters Judas’s heart and takes full control, so much so that he embitters his heart and makes him kiss the Son of God and sell him. Judas receives curse upon curse by living unthankfully when God keeps multiplying his blessings. Finally, the devil kills him with a short life and takes him to the worst hell, so horrible is his life and end that God pities him and says it would have been better if he was not born. The man never realized the devil was trapping him daily by increasing his discontent.
Oh, brothers, sisters, and children, dread a discontented heart. It is the worst disease. It is an accumulative sin. There are many sins bound up in this one sin. It is a voluminous wickedness! How full of sin is discontent!
Think how unworthy discontent is in a Christian life. Discontent will make you live a life unworthy of the gospel. Remember the first gospel command: “Rejoice in the Lord.” How can you rejoice with a discontented heart? You dishonor God’s name and slight all his great salvation blessings, saying these don’t make me content. Discontent will make you completely unfit for any duty or for growing in any graces. You cannot pray a true prayer, enjoy the comfort of God’s word, or truly worship or thank God.
It reveals you don’t have faith at all or a very, very weak faith. Faith is a grace which gives substance to things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). Faith looks beyond the present; it feeds upon promises. When you are discontented because you don’t visibly have some things you want, you reveal you don’t have faith at all in God or his providence or his promises.
Discontent will not even allow us to think properly. We are filled with emotions of sadness, anger, and disappointment. Jonah, in a passion of discontent, spoke no better than blasphemy and nonsense: “I do well to be angry—even unto death!” (Jonah 4:9). What? To be angry with God! And to die for anger! Surely he did not know what he said! What was Cain thinking? What was Judas thinking when he betrayed Christ? See how discontent made them fools. When discontent rules, we cannot even speak properly. Our words are so filled with confusion, fear, and hesitation. They are unclear. Can I say it is because of a discontented heart? The words of a contented heart are so clear, pure, gentle, and wonderful. If we cannot think or speak properly, I don’t have to tell you we cannot do anything properly with a discontented heart.
A discontented person makes himself a fool and destroys not only his soul but even his body. Discontent is a heart-breaker. It takes away the comfort of life. How foolish: because we do not have all we desire, we lose the comfort of that which we already have. Jonah, having his gourd smitten, a withering vanity, was so discontented that he never thought of his miraculous deliverance out of the whale’s belly. He takes no comfort in his life but wishes that he might die. What folly is this! “We must have all or none.” Herein we are like children that throw away the cake piece which is cut for them because they may have no bigger. Discontent eats out the comfort of life!
If you seriously think, you will see how harmful this is, even to our health. Discontent crushes and distorts the mind. It fills our mind with depression and weakens our vital organs, creates fatigue, low energy, insomnia or oversleeping, and digestive problems. The cancer of discontent harms both the body and the mind, and is not this folly?
Discontent does not only trouble a person’s self, but those who are near him. This evil spirit troubles families and churches. A discontented husband, wife, or child is a curse in that house. His words and actions always bring grief to that house. This is like Cain in a family or the prodigal son to a good father. Why did Absalom raise a war against his father and trouble the whole nation? Was it not his discontent? Why did Ahab stone Naboth? Was it not discontent about the vineyard? Why are churches destroyed today? So many problems in churches—oh, this devil of discontent!
Discontent does not ease us of our burden, but it makes it heavier. A contented spirit goes cheerfully under its affliction. Discontent makes our grief tenfold, as unsupportable as it is unreasonable. Discontent troubles us more than the trouble itself! It steeps the affliction in wormwood. This is worse than the affliction itself. Is it not folly for a person to embitter his own affliction?
Discontent prolongs our troubles. Discontent delays and postpones our mercies. God deals with us in this, as we do with our children. When they are quiet and cheerful, they shall have anything, but if we see them cry and fret, then we withhold from them. Just so, we get nothing from God by our discontent, but blows! The more the child struggles, the more it is beaten. When we struggle with God by our sinful passions, he doubles his strokes. God will tame our peevish hearts. What did Israel get by their discontent and grumbling? They were within an eleven-day journey to Canaan, and now they were discontented and began to murmur, so God led them on a march of forty years long in the wilderness. Is it not folly for us to postpone our own mercies? Thus, you have seen the evil of discontent.
Oh, brothers and children, listen to me: if there is one disease and curse God should give us and leave us in it, it would be discontent, where we are never happy whatever we have. How much ever they eat, they do not have enough. How much ever they have money and gold, they are never content, it is never enough. They never have enough but still cry, “give, give!” This is a sad judgment! It is a secret curse upon a covetous person. He shall thirst, and thirst, and never be satisfied! Haggai says God punishes people like that. Oh, let us take heed of this plague! It is sad that our hearts should be dead to heavenly things, that they are a sponge to suck in earthly vanities!
So, believers, I hope you can see what a horrible plague and disease discontent is. Just as God is very angry with a displeased person, God is very pleased with a contented Christian. You will never be a loser, but you will be blessed more and more by God because of your contentment.
Some of you sitting here this morning are not true Christians. The Bible says a sinner’s heart is a sea, constantly restless waves dashing against one another, and finally the result of all that is useless foam on the shore. You will find no true contentment outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it comes by uniting yourself in faith, and he strengthening you inside through that faith. You can never experience this divine, sweet contentment until you see yourself as a sinner and see God’s infinite mercy shown to you through Jesus Christ. And you will not experience it until you put your full faith and throw yourself in the Lord Jesus Christ, who died and rose again on behalf of sinners, and repent from sin, turn to God, your creator, and submit to him as the God of providence. What is the hindrance? Put your faith in Christ today. May God deliver you from restlessness and bless you with contentment.
The Blessings of Christ
End with a positive message. In Christ, we have everything to be content.
- Has not God given you Christ? In him there are “unsearchable riches!” (Ephesians 3:8). He is such a golden mine of wisdom and grace that all the saints and angels can never dig to the bottom! As Seneca said to his friend Polybius, “Never complain of your hard fortune as long as Caesar is your friend.” So I say to a believer, “Never complain of your troubles as long as Christ is your friend!” He is an enriching pearl, a sparkling diamond. The infinite luster of his merits makes us shine in God’s eyes (Ephesians 1:7). In him there is both fullness and sweetness; he is unspeakably good. Pitch your thoughts to the highest pinnacle, stretch them to the utmost bound, let them expand to their full latitude and extent, yet they fall infinitely short of these ineffable and inexhaustible treasures which are locked up in Jesus Christ! Is not this enough to give the soul contentment? A Christian who lacks necessities, yet having Christ, has the “one thing needful.”
“Pastor, what about the trials in my life?” The greatest purpose of your life as a believer is to grow in heavenly graces, not to live in luxurious, comfortable circumstances. These are graces that will make heaven a real heaven for you. Grace is of a divine birth! Grace is the flower garden of the heavenly paradise! It is the embroidery of the Spirit! Grace is the seed of God (1 John 3:9)! Grace is Christ’s portrait in the soul! Grace is the very foundation on which the superstructure of glory is laid! Oh, what infinite value is grace! What a jewel is faith! Well may it be called “precious faith” (2 Peter 1:1). What is love but a divine sparkle in the soul?
Just like they prepare a bride before a wedding, the Holy Spirit wants to decorate your soul with his jewels before you go to heaven’s marriage feast. The graces of love, peace, joy, patience, and holiness. These are the “true riches” (Luke 16:11)! It makes us rich toward God. God’s purpose in your life on this earth is to decorate you with these eternal riches of graces.
Earthly comfort and riches cannot enrich the soul. Oftentimes, under a well-fed body, there is a lean, dying, and threadbare sick soul. Under a body covered with gold, there is a beggarly, naked soul. Heaven is a place where gold and silver will not go. A believer has to become rich toward God with these graces (Luke 12:21)!
Why then are you discontented? Has not God given you that which is better than the world? What if he denies you temporal mercies if he gives you spiritual mercies? Are you not heir to all the promises? Have you not a guarantee of heavenly glory? When you let go of your hold on natural life, are you not sure of eternal life? Has not God given you the pledge and first fruits of glory? Is not this enough to work your heart to contentment?
How does he do the decorating? Through various situations in this life. So, however difficult temporary situations may be, through that, your soul is exercised and decorated with the graces of the Spirit.
So, when afflictions and trials come, James says rejoice. We need to learn to rejoice in contentment, knowing these are, firstly, to exercise and increase our grace.
Afflictions exercise our graces. Everything is most in its excellence when it is most in its exercise. Our grace, though it cannot be dead, may be asleep and needs to be awakened. What a dull thing is the fire when it is hidden in the embers, or the sun when it is masked behind a cloud! A sick man is living but not lively. Afflictions quicken and excite grace. God does not like to see grace in an eclipse. Now faith puts forth its purest and most noble acts in times of affliction.
Afflictions increase grace. As the wind serves to increase and blow up the flame, so do the windy blasts of affliction augment and blow up our graces. Grace is not consumed in the furnace. Shall we be discontented at that which makes us grow and fructify more?
If you are in Christ, everything in this world—not just the good things, but even evil things in this life—are working for your good. God makes our adversity our university. Afflictions teach us humility. Grace only grows in a humble heart. Afflictions teach us patience; precious faith is purified and grows under afflictions. Afflictions teach us to pray better. Never did David, the sweet singer of Israel, tune his harp more melodiously, and never did he pray better, than when he was in affliction. Shall we be discontented at that which is for our good?
Afflictions purify us. Gold is not the worse for being tried. These evils work for our good because they purge out sin. What if I have more trouble if I have less sin? The saints lose nothing in the furnace but what they can well spare—their impurity and dross. Is not this for our good? Why then should we murmur?
These afflictions do bring more of God’s gracious presence into the soul. When we are most assaulted, we shall be most assisted. “I will be with him in trouble” (Psalm 91:15). It cannot be bad with that man with whom God is, by his powerful presence in supporting and his gracious presence in sweetening the present trial. God will be with us in trouble, not only to behold us but to uphold us.
What if we have more trouble than others if we have more of God with us than others have? We never have sweeter smiles from God’s face than when the world begins to frown upon us. God is in the fire to sanctify, to support, and to sweeten. If God is with us, the furnace shall be turned into a festival, the prison into a paradise, and the earthquake into a joyful dance. Oh, why should I be discontented when I have more of God’s gracious presence!
So, my brothers, let us learn, whatever our circumstances, this great secret of contentment with Paul. May we help us use those two wings: trust in the Providence of God outside and in the Strength of Christ inside. May we fly and learn to live above the world in complete contentment.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 