Learning to Be Content

The text

But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again; wherein ye were also careful, but ye lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

Philippians 4:10–12 KJV

At a glance

Summary of the sermon

Thanking the Philippians for their gift, Paul is careful to say two things at once: he is truly grateful, and yet he had not been in want, for he has learned to be content in whatever state he is. The word means self-sufficient — independent of circumstances — and Lloyd-Jones is at pains to say what it does not mean. It is not stoic indifference, and it is certainly not a religious excuse for accepting injustice or poverty as divinely fixed; he rejects that misuse outright.

What it does mean is not being controlled by conditions, whether abased or abounding, hungry or full. Paul's claim is total: every circumstance, and all of them together. Lloyd-Jones observes how hard modern life makes this. People depend on entertainment, on news, on constant company — and believers can become just as dependent on Christian externals, even on meetings and fellowship, as unbelievers are on worldly props. Religion, he says, is what a man does with his solitude.

Paul did not arrive at contentment in a moment; he learned it. He learned it through experience, including the thorn in the flesh that was never removed. He learned it by reasoning: circumstances change, but the soul's relationship to God does not, and God's will is always for our good. And he learned it above all through a deepening personal knowledge of Christ, following the One who endured the cross for the joy set before Him. Contentment rests on knowing Christ so well that our dependence shifts from everything else to Him.

Key points

• 'Content' means self-sufficient in Christ, not passive resignation to injustice.
• True contentment covers abundance as well as want.
• Modern dependence on entertainment, news and even Christian activity mirrors worldly dependence.
• Paul learned contentment through experience, reasoned argument and intimacy with Christ.
• Circumstances change constantly; only our relationship with God is a stable foundation.
• What a man does with his solitude reveals what his faith really rests on.

Illustrations the preacher uses

• Paul and Silas singing in the Philippian prison with their feet in the stocks.
• The hymn line about the rich man in his castle and the poor man at his gate, misused to justify social injustice.
• The boredom of the wartime blackout, when people could not cope once their entertainments were removed.

Related Scripture

• Acts 16:25
• 2 Corinthians 12:7–10
• 1 Timothy 6:6–8
• 2 Corinthians 4:17–18
• John 16:32
• Hebrews 12:2

For reflection and discussion

1. Where have you become dependent on externals — entertainment, routine, even church activity — rather than on Christ Himself?
2. Which is harder for you: contentment in scarcity, or humble dependence on God in abundance?
3. What steps could deepen your personal knowledge of Christ so that, like Paul, you could be content in whatever state?