Rev. David Holwick
First Baptist Church
West Lafayette, Ohio
September 9, 1984
Contentment In All Circumstances
Philippians 4:10-13, KJV
We live in a discontented age and it's especially evident in the United States. Every three years the average American picks up roots and moves. Within seven years the average marriage breaks up. As a nation we pile up billions of dollars in personal debt. We change our jobs, our homes and our relationships but we're still not satisfied.
There are several ways you can deal with discontentment. Some people figure it cannot be solved so they shuffle around their lives to keep their minds off it. Others give up control by letting someone else make decisions for them. Joining a cult is a popular way to fulfill this.
Perhaps the most common way to deal with discontentment is to take the approach of the Stoics. Stoicism was a popular religious philosophy in ancient Greece. Their main goal in life was contentment, which they thought came from being totally self-sufficient. Being a Stoic required a certain mindset. First, you had to eliminate all desire. They said contentment consists not in possessing a lot but rather in wanting little. They had a saying that "If you want to make a man happy, don't add to his possessions but take away from his desires." There's a lot of wisdom in this; however, Stoics took it to the extreme where nothing and no one were essential to them. They just cut themselves off from life.
A second thing Stoics did was to eliminate all emotion. Their aim was to be so unfeeling they didn't care what happened to themselves or anyone else. Stoics trained themselves to be unemotional. One of their philosophers said you have to start with simple things. If you drop a plate and it breaks, say, "I don't care." After you get good at that move up to an animal. Maybe something has happened to your pet dog. Say, "I don't care." At this point you move up to the big leagues. If you yourself are hurt or injured in any way, shrug it off as if nothing has happened. If you train yourself long enough and hard enough you will come to a stage where your whole family dies in an accident and you don't even raise an eyebrow. The Stoic aim was to abolish every feeling in the human heart.
A third emphasis of the Stoics was that everything in life is predetermined. You did not control what happened in your life, fate did. No matter how bad things got it was useless to struggle against it because fate could never be changed. All a Stoic could do was to steel himself into accepting whatever came his way.
In order to achieve contentment the Stoics abolished all desires and eliminated all emotions. Love was rooted out of life and caring for people was forbidden. Any strength a Stoic possessed had to come from within themselves. They couldn't rely on anyone else. [This and above, follows William Barclay]
Stoicism is alive and well in the United States today. Modern stoics may not realize they are following an ancient system but they are. Instead of calling them stoics we would probably say they are thick-skinned. These people respond to problems by shutting out other people from their lives. Their world may be caving in around them but they numb themselves so they don't feel it. If you don't think about the problem and isolate yourself from other people you won't experience any pain. Modern stoics are the ones who end up having nervous breakdowns.
Many people think of the Apostle Paul as a Stoic. He does use some of their phrases but his approach to contentment is much different. Here in the fourth chapter of Philippians, Paul is thanking the church for a contribution they sent to him. In verse 10 he says:
"I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last your care (we would say "concern") for me has flourished again, wherein you were concerned, but you lacked opportunity."
In verse 11 Paul guards against a possible misinterpretation. He was afraid some Philippians might think he was only happy when he got a handout, so he adds:
"Not that I'm saying this because I need something: for I have learned, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content."
When you consider what Paul went through in life this is quite a statement. According to 2 Corinthians 11: five times Paul was whipped with thirty-nine lashes, three times he was beaten with rods, once he was stoned and three times he was shipwrecked. In his journeys he was robbed by bandits, thrown in prison, chased from town to town and even opposed by other Christians. Paul did not have a soft life. Despite his hardships, Paul was not a bitter man. I like the way the NIV translates verses 12 and 13:
"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength."
Whatever your circumstances are in life they can be overcome. Maybe not outwardly but inwardly. Often it takes a terrible situation to bring this out. Whenever I think of horrible circumstances, the Nazi concentration camps in World War II come to mind. In those camps Hitler murdered more than six million people, mostly Jews. They weren't just killed outright. Many of them starved to death or were so weak they died from common illnesses. One of the few survivors was a psychologist named Victor Frankl. After the war he wrote a book called "Man's Search For Meaning." In one passage he says: "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last pieces of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing cannot - the last of human freedom to choose your attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose your own way."
Paul had this approach to life. You could beat him up but you couldn't touch his soul. This gave him a tremendous ability to cope with life's problems. He wasn't a stoic. Paul didn't try to shut off his emotions or tackle his problems through overwhelming will power. Paul's secret was that he had a source of power that was beyond his own abilities - God.
There are two ways of handling pressure according to Jay Kesler. One is illustrated by the +which is a miniature submarine. It is used to explore the ocean in places so deep that the water pressure would crush a regular submarine like an aluminum can. Bathyspheres compensate for the pressure with a steel hull that's several inches thick. This keeps out the water but also makes them heavy and hard to maneuver. Inside they're very cramped. When bathyspheres reach the ocean floor, however, they find they're not alone. When the outside lights are turned on and you look out the thick windows, you see fish. These fish cope with extreme pressure in an entirely different way. They don't build thick skins; instead, they remain elastic and free. They compensate for the outside pressure through equal and opposite pressure inside themselves.
In the same way, Christians don't have to be hard and thick-skinned and stoical. We can have God's power within to equal the pressure outside. Godly contentment is based on the belief that God loves us and that he is in control of our lives. It's not a passive acceptance of fate like a Buddhist has but is a positive assurance. This is the peace of God which Paul mentions so often. It's knowing that through thick and thin, God is working in our lives.
However, Christian contentment doesn't necessarily mean the difficult situations will get better. Some believers have the habit of saying, "I am contented because I know God will turn the problem around in a week or so." This is basing contentment on the situation and not on God.
As a realist I know that some situations may never improve. Severe illness, crummy jobs or unfulfilling marriages don't' tend to change for the better overnight. Christians need to learn how to be contented right now, whether the situation changes or not. Christian contentment does not mean we are forced to stay in every miserable situation. Paul makes this clear in 1 Corinthians 7:21. If a Christian happens to be a slave, Paul says don't worry about it. Be contented in your situation. Then Paul adds - but if you have an opportunity to gain your freedom, by all means do so.
Contentment doesn't mean we have to turn our backs on misery and social injustice. We can use God's power to change situations. This is one of the things I think is dynamic about the Christian faith. God can show us how to be happy in any situation. At the same time there is always the possibility the situation can be changed for the better. This gives us the best of all possible worlds.
Christian contentment is not an automatic thing. Believers can be miserable and many are. The secret lies in our spiritual life with God. A while back the devotional "Our Daily Bread" told the story about a woman who had a mentally handicapped child. She wrote: "We would have called our daughter's handicap the greatest tragedy of our lives if it were not for the fact that through it we came to know the Lord much better. Words cannot fully express our keen disappointment when our little girl failed to experience normal mental development. Yet her condition made us understand just a bit how our dear Savior must feel when his children do not mature spiritually.... We have come through our trials bigger and better Christians and with a new and brighter testimony."
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Typed on November 9, 2005, by Sharon Lesko of Ledgewood Baptist Church, New Jersey
Copyright © 2024 by Rev. David Holwick
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