Philippians 4:10–13

Bringing the sermon home:

Though often taken out of context, verse 13 is not about achieving every dream, or satisfying every desire. Paul’s “secret” is about being content, even with dreadful circumstances, including imprisonments leading to execution. The glorious, peace-giving, soul-satisfying promise of Philippians 4:13 is that “I can do all things” that God sets before me, no matter how trying the circumstances may be, for God will work through me, “both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (2:13).

God delights to achieve His good purposes through what looks like failure. At the cross, He proved that His ways are not our ways, and thus, at the cross, He proved that we can trust Him, even when we don’t understand what He’s doing. Contentment can be found “in any and every circumstance” when:

1. we trust that God is at work in every circumstance (1:12),
2. we look to God for soul-satisfaction, rather than looking to our circumstances (3:8), and
3. we diligently seek for the supernatural strength to glorify Him in any circumstance (4:13).

We brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. (1 Timothy 6:7-8)

(See follow-up article here.)