A Secret Identity | Philippians 4:10-14

Philippians 4:10-14  |  Cody Hale

Transcript

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Amen. If you have your Bibles, would you turn with me to Philippians chapter 4? Philippians chapter 4. We're going to be reading this morning, perhaps the most quoted and most misunderstood passage in the book of Philippians, chapter 4, verses 10 through 14. Let's read God's word together. I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I'm speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble. Let's pray to the Lord together. Heavenly Father, this morning, the temptation of my heart is to want to perform for your people so that they will be impressed by the winsomeness of my words or the cleverness of my insight. My temptation, Lord, is to come to them and to ask them to give me something that I need, which is their approval or their acceptance or their applause. Lord, I come this morning recognizing that if I need to impress them, I cannot love them. So, Father, this morning, I remind myself and all of us who are gathered here together that we are on a firmer foundation than the approval of one another. We are on a firmer foundation than the circumstances and situations of our lives. We are on a firmer foundation than our performance reviews. We are standing, preaching, receiving, singing, proclaiming from a foundation on Christ. So, Holy Spirit, would you fill me? Give to your people exactly what they need? Would you till the soil of their hearts so that it is soft and tender and rich and deep that the seed of the gospel might be planted deeply and bear great fruit? Lord, would you just set us free in Christ to have contentment and joy that is durable? We ask these things in Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Reminiscing is uniquely human, isn't it? That we love to tell the good old stories about the good old days. And while we do this, what we're usually thinking is, I would love to go back. I would love to go back to when my kids were little. I would love to go back and go inside of my grandmother's or my parents' house one more time. I would love to go back and realize what I know now to be able to fully appreciate all that I was experiencing. That typically, as we reminisce, we think, what? Those were the happiest days of my life. It makes me think of what the great theologian Andy Bernard said once. He said, I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them. The strange thing is that by most measurements, your life would appear today to be better, wouldn't it? You probably have more money now than you had then. It's likely that you live in a better house now than you had then. You probably have a better job now than you had then. You probably have more opportunities now than you had then. But even though you seem to have more of everything else, very often the case seems to be that you still have less joy. Why is that? I think the reason is because we keep buying the same lie that Adam and Eve bought way back in the garden. That the more you can have, the happier that you'll ultimately be. But experience ends up teaching us that very often the exact opposite is true. That the more you need to be happy, the less happy you'll actually be. That we'll spend years building and achieving and accumulating because we think that it will add peace to our lives, but what it actually adds to our lives is more to maintain, more to protect, and more to worry about. So many people arrive at a crisis. Many of you this morning may be in a crisis. You look around at the life that you've spent decades building and you wonder, why am I still restless? Why can't I enjoy this? What's wrong with me? It's an identity crisis, isn't it? We stand upon the lives that we've built over the course of decades and we realize that despite of all that we've done and all that we've accomplished and all that we've accumulated, that we just aren't very happy. And so we turn inward introspectively and we begin to ask, why don't I have the ability to be happy? Why don't I have the ability to be at peace? What's wrong with me that I can't even enjoy what ought to be the best times and the best years in my life? Well, Paul is writing this morning specifically to say that he has discovered the secret to this identity crisis. And the good news is that in the gospel, it is an open secret that all of us can know, that all of us can be let in on. And so to get there this morning, I want us to make two, find two realizations about the life in Christ. First, I want you to see that you are not your situation. You are not your situation. You know, most of what determines the shape of your life, you had no decision in. It was decided for you. You didn't decide who your parents would be, did you? That had a profound impact and influence on the life that you have and the experiences that you have and even your outlook on life. You didn't choose what country you'd be born into. You didn't choose the socioeconomic level of your family. You didn't choose what your gender would be or what your size would be or what your IQ would be or what your capacity would be or what your giftedness would be. You didn't choose how healthy you would be or you wouldn't be. You didn't choose whether or not your children would be born with special needs or not. And yet all of these have a tremendous impact on the shape of your life and the experience of your life. So it's easy for us, having all of these decisions made for us, to believe that our situation and our circumstances are ultimately what define us. That who you are is ultimately determined by what's happening around you or by what's happened to you. So if life goes well, you might be one of the lucky ones. You can be secure, you can be at peace, you can feel happy, you can be content, but if your life has fallen apart, or maybe your life's been on a tough road since you were born. Well, man, good luck to you because you don't have much hope, right? See, underneath this way of thinking is a deeper assumption. It's this assumption that I fundamentally am a person, I am fundamentally a person of unmet needs. So my life becomes about the pursuit of having all of these needs met. I need to make sure that I'm in some way trying to get filled full of love, full of approval, full of success, full of acceptance, full of achievement, full of meaning. But Paul's here, and Paul's writing to say something radically different to all of us. He wants us to see that our needs don't have to define us. Remember again that Paul's writing these words from prison. So he's not exactly writing from a stellar situation. And he's penniless, he's really at the mercy of his captors as to whether he's gonna get his next meal or even a glass of water. And so it's interesting what he writes there in verse 11. He says, Not that I am speaking of being a person in need. Now, Paul is not saying that he has no basic human needs. He actually says the exact opposite. He says that he knows what it means to live a life that's been brought low, that is, to live a life of deprivation, being deprived of basic things that you need. He knows what it's like to be hungry. He knows what it's like to, he actually says, to have needs. So what does he mean when he uses the word in verse 11, speaking of not being in need? What he's saying is that his circumstances do not determine his identity, his security, or his joy. That Paul may experience need, but he does not regard himself fundamentally as being a person of need, and that's a massive distinction. His joy, in other words, is not rising and falling with his circumstances. His peace is not attached to comfort, his identity is not attached to achievement and success. His situation does not define him. He doesn't fundamentally regard himself as being a needy person. Now, for a lot of us, this is the opposite of the way that we've been trained to think of ourselves. Most of us, and I introduced this concept to you uh last fall, I want to expound upon that. We've been trained to think of ourselves as really being empty cups. And so we're constantly going to all of these different sources, like fuel pumps, hoping that in some way or another our cup might be filled. Maybe the most primary place that we go would be in our relationships. We go to our husband or to our wife, we go to our kids, we go to our friends, we go to our colleagues. And our hope is that they'll recognize the value that we have, that they'll reciprocate the way that we respond to them, that they'll express to us some measure of appreciation, approval, acceptance, and affection. And if they do that, then what happens? In our minds, it begins to fill up our cups. But of course, the opposite's true too, isn't it? That if they don't reciprocate in the way that we believe that they should, if they don't respect us the way that we believe that they should, if they don't appreciate us or approve of us or accept us on the terms that we lay out for them, then what happens is the fill level of our cup ebbs and flows with how well we believe those relationships are going. It's not just relationships, though, it's also accomplishment or achievement. That we, this can be especially true, by the way, if you really don't feel like the love relationship part of your life is going very well. That if you grew up in a home in which the way you primarily got affection was when you succeeded or when you did really well, it hardwires something in our brains to think I've got to accomplish, I've got to achieve, if the fill level of my cup is gonna be okay. That is a need that I have in my life. And so winning, however we define it, becomes a mean by which we fill our cup. It might be that you're performing well at your job. It might mean that you're doing well as a mom. It might mean that you're winning as a little league coach. It's whatever it is, whether it's a pay raise or kids that are well-rounded or a bookcase filled with trophies. You're getting your fill or your depletion by how well you're achieving, by how effectively you are accomplishing. There's also a place here for religion. Running out of space here. Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in our hearts. So there's something about us that recognizes that we have spiritual needs. There's something about us that recognizes that very often, if we are untethered to eternity, that we are untethered altogether, that we are in pursuit of transcendent truth. And so for you, it might be yoga and meditation, or it might be that you're gonna go to every church service that you possibly can. But very often our religion becomes a means by which what we're trying to do is to be filled over and again. Well, what happens? Your fill level is determined by the devotion and the piety in your religion, by your religious performance. If you're on a week where, man, you're reading your Bible really well and you're super dialed into church and you're, you know, praising the Lord to uh the Christian music on the way to work, man, you you feel like you're being filled up. But if you're on a week where maybe you aren't performing quite as well and you bit the head off of your wife, and you were irritable with your kids, and you've neglected your scripture time, well then you feel empty. Well, what happens is when the relationships don't fill us up and the accomplishment doesn't fill us up and our religion doesn't fill us up, then very often what we do is we turn to rebellion. Rebellion is always an attempt to self-medicate, it's an attempt to be able to try the opposite of everything else that you've tried, everything else that seems right, because nothing seems to be working. It may be alcohol and drugs, it might be a mistress, it might be pornography, it might be working more hours, it might be taking on a second job, it might be a thousand different things, abandoning your family's values, but it's typically an attempt to be filled when nothing else has worked, or at least it's an attempt to not feel empty even when you know that you're empty. So because we see ourselves very often fundamentally as need cups, dependent on all of these external sources to fill us, our sense of being full and satisfied becomes very dependent upon our situation and our circumstances. My levels go up and down with my marriage, my levels ebb and flow with the behavior of my kids. My levels go up and down with my performance at work. They go up and down based on my performance in my relationship with God. Because guess what? You're a human being, you're not a robot, you're not AI, you don't have even performance. And if it's all banked on those circumstances and those situations, well, you have no security in your fill level. All of it's very fragile. Whenever our sense of self and satisfaction are dependent upon our situation, it is the opposite of durable joy. It's a very fragile happiness. We can lose it at any moment. When things are going well, you can't even really relax because why? You're terrified about them going poorly. You're you can't even enjoy what you have because you're worried you're gonna lose what you have. I think that's why so many, this isn't this isn't universal, it's it's a it's a a trend. So many highly successful people are miserable. Why? Because they finally got what they thought would satisfy them and they still felt empty. I think one of the deepest experiences of human despair and hopelessness that you can have is to be able to attain all of your goals and to get everything that you thought would satisfy you and still feel empty. Because you start thinking, where else do I go? What else can I do? There's something broken in me. And so Paul is using his situation in prison to make the point that his situation does not define him, and it does not define his sense of security. He wants them to know that whatever deprivation he may know, it isn't what's driving him ultimately to serve them, to pursue them, and to love them. You see, your needs don't have to define you, and that means that your needs don't have to drive you. They don't have to drive you. Why does Paul go to such great lengths to explain that he really isn't as needy as his circumstances may indicate that he is? I think it's because he wants the Philippians to know that he actually really does love them. He isn't loving them so that he might be able to get something from them. He isn't dependent on them. He doesn't need them, he isn't in need at all. He's loving them for the simple fact that he loves them. It's a pure and unadulterated love. You see, a need cup understanding of yourself actually disables pure and proper love. That if I need you to fill my cup constantly, then I can't properly and actually love you. I can't properly prioritize or appreciate my joy. I can't properly serve my church with a completely pure heart. Why? Because there's always an ulterior motive. I'm coming to you like you're a fuel pump and I'm an empty container. Like I'm always needing something from you. So I'm serving you and I'm loving you, but I'm serving you and I'm loving you because I'm wanting to get something in return. So what the actual reality is, is that I'm not loving you. I'm loving who? I'm loving me. I'm loving myself. But the gospel, the gospel takes this understanding and flips it on its head. The gospel says that our identity has been assigned to us by our God, and it has been purchased for us by his son. So it is not the result of my situation, it is not the result of my circumstances, it is the result of what Christ has done, and what Christ has promised is that he would send his spirit to fill us to the brim with the reality of what he has purchased and God has assigned. And so, as a result, you are not your situation, you cannot be emptied. You cannot be emptied. Most people believe that Stoic philosophy, which was very prominent in Rome and Philippi, really forms the context for what Paul is writing here. I think it's really relevant. Actually, Stoic philosophy has had a resurgence, a renaissance, even in Western thought. You can get on Substack right now and you'll find tons of uh articles on how you can become more stoic in your life. And so the Stoic philosophers, they really prized self-sufficiency. That they believed that by the rationality of their minds and by the resolve of their wills, that they could develop an iron jaw so that no matter what life threw at them, they could be content. That if life was really, really great, they wouldn't get really high with it. If life was really, really terrible, they wouldn't get really low with it. They developed a sense of resolve, or their attempt was to develop a sense of resolve that they would be able to withstand anything without being emotionally affected. So in their minds, contentment was the greatest treasure that a person would be able to attain. Because if I don't need, or if I if I don't need what you have to offer me, or what can be taken away from me, then I don't worry so much about losing it. So they really weren't all that different from us. If you read the Stoic philosophers, what you discover is that they were always in pursuit of what they called the secret. The secret. They wanted to be able to discover the secret to contentment, the secret to being able to have something really hard happen in your life and you not being sad about it. The secret of being frustrated with something and you not becoming really angry about it. They were always in pursuit of the secret. And so here is Paul, and what Paul is doing is saying, I know the secret. Like, I know the secret. And it's an open secret because Jesus has come to secure this very reality for us. Here's the secret: you aren't enough. Doesn't matter what self-help person tells you you are, doesn't matter how many times you repeat it to yourself, you already know you aren't enough. But Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough. When Paul uses the word contentment, you'll see it there at the end of verse 11. He's borrowing the Stoic's most favorite word in order to make his own point. It was a word that was intended to describe one's ability to tap into internal personal resources of strength that would prevent you from being impacted by external circumstances. And this is where Paul parts from the Stoics. They believe that the resources for contentment were found within, within this internal strength that they were trying to muster. And Paul agrees that it's found internally if internally you find the presence of Christ. If you are in Christ and Christ is in you, then you have the strength that is found there. See, contentment doesn't come from you tapping an inner personal resource that you have. If you're trying to figure out what's broken in you, if you're trying to figure out why you can't seem to figure it out, what everybody else is trying to figure out, it's because it's not in there. You were wired from the beginning without it. No, they believed that this was inside of you, but it doesn't come from this internal personal resource. You're not enough. You were designed from the factory to need additional assistance from the Lord. You are meant to be dependent upon him. And contentment comes from realizing that Jesus is within his people and that he is enough. That's the point that Paul is making. That the secret here isn't self sufficiency. The secret is Christ's sufficiency. So before, you couldn't face your life and be content. You couldn't deal with all the things that you were gonna be dealing with and not be completely unraveled by them. You couldn't face deprivation that an unloving marriage produces and still be able to thrive. You couldn't go to work every day to a job that you hate and not live a life that was defined and filled with resentment. But now you can. Because now you have a resource that is beyond you. How can you do this? Well, he says, through him. Through him. Through him, you can face it all. Through him, you can have your ultimate needs met. Through him, you can find a strength that is sufficient for a life that is foreign to the natural man. See, the glory of the gospel is that through the Holy Spirit, Jesus ultimately fills you. He fills you. That through him, you are constantly being strengthened. That's his point. You're constantly finding the strength that comes from outside of you, that is placed within you by what God has done, by what Christ has accomplished. You're being made strong enough to endure whatever circumstance or situation you might ultimately find yourself in. This is the verse that very often is abused and stripped of its context. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Let me tell you what he's not saying there. He is not saying that this is the power that you need to be able to make the game-winning shot. What he's saying here is that this is the strength that you need to be able to be content and at peace if you hit the shot or if you airball in front of the whole school. This is not the power to help you nail the job interview. This is the power to be able to be secure when you have to go home to your wife and tell her that you didn't get the job again. This is not the power to help you speak in front of a crowd. This is the ability to be at peace with who God has made you to be, even if you get booed off the stage. That this is the strength of Christ in you to have contentment regardless of what you have, joy regardless of what you experience, and hope regardless of what you face. You see, there's a different cup. This is what happens when we come to know Christ. That when we come to know Christ, he fills us to the brim himself. You'll notice the word strengthen again. It's in the what we call the present active tense. So, Greek scholar A.T. Robertson, he says that the picture here is something that is having strength and power continuously, presently, always being poured into them. In other words, Paul is saying, I can face anything and everything, so long as the power of Jesus, as the strength of Jesus, as the grace of Jesus is always being poured into me and filling me up. That is his confidence and his security, his secret to not being in need, is that Jesus didn't just fill me up yesterday, and Jesus won't just fill me up today, but that Jesus will actually keep me full forever. That Jesus is not running low on grace, and Jesus is not running low on strength. And so there is no place for his people to have a scarcity mindset where they are concerned in fear that they're gonna run out of what they most need. No, we can say with Paul, I am not in need. I am not in need because I have the abundance of Christ. He is always filling my cup, he filled my cup, has filled my cup, will fill my cup always. He is always strengthening you. I want you this morning to feel the security of that. I want you to feel the security of that. That's Paul's intention for both Philippi and for you and for me. Your cup cannot be emptied. I want you to preach that to yourself. So when you go and have a hard meeting where someone's opinion of you may be lowered, what's the secret there? What's the secret? My cup is full and it cannot be emptied. When you have a test and it feels like it's gonna define your future, it feels like your whole life is hanging in the balance as to whether or not you passed or fell, what's the secret? My cup is full and it cannot be emptied. When you have a presentation where you're prone to worry about the opinions of others, when you can't buy what you want, or when you are passed over for the promotion that you believe that you deserve, what is the secret to your contentment? My cup has been filled and it cannot be emptied. You see, in this way, Jesus releases you. He releases you, he sets you free. Earlier, I mentioned, I'll go back to that image, earlier I mentioned that we go to all these different other areas and we're looking to them like fuel pumps to fill us up. Going to our husband, going to our wife, going to our jobs, going to our children, going to our hobbies, going to our faith, maybe even going to rebellion. Well, here's what happens: when you begin to recognize that you are attached to Christ, that you are in Christ and Christ is in you, that he is presently, actively, always filling your cup. Do you know what happens? It actually begins to reverse the arrows. Your life does not become one of depletion, your life becomes one of overflow. Notice what Paul is doing here. He didn't say that the Philippian, that he needed the Philippians to provide for him. Paul certainly needed food. But he trusted that God was gonna provide for him. He used the Philippians to do that. But Paul knows that even if the Philippians don't come through, even if they don't deliver, he's gonna be able, he knows that the Lord is gonna deliver for him one way or the other. So he even says that he takes the greatest joy, and this is what he goes on to say in verse 10, verse 14 through the end of the chapter. He goes on to say that my greatest joy is not that I have received a check from you. My greatest joy is not that you have provided for me some financial benefit or material resource. My greatest joy is that I realize that all of the fruit that I see in your lives toward me is storing up for you a reward in heaven. See, Jesus so fills you that now you have more than enough. And you begin to overflow the glory and the grace of Jesus everywhere that you go. It begins to release you so that now you're actually able to love others in a pure and unadulterated way. You're able to love others in a way that is proper. Now I can really love you, not because I need your acceptance, not because I crave your approval, I can love you because I love you. Now I can go and I don't have to withhold difficult words from you. If those words are what's best for you, I can say that difficult thing to you, even if it lowers your opinion of me, because what matters to me most is that you're okay, because now my cup is full. I am secure. I am not in danger of having that taken away from me. I'm not taking from my spouse or my kids or my job or my church. I don't need anything. I'm actually full. And so now I'm overflowing so that the others in my life can receive life through me. Orchard, that's the starting line for durable joy. That's the starting line for durable joy. Not only does this release me to really love, but it also begins to release me to be able to enjoy all of the good gifts that God has given to me. Again, this is his point when he's saying I can most fully enjoy this because I didn't need it. Like I didn't have to have it. And now that I have it, I just am filled with praise toward you. It was kind for you to share in my trouble. I'm so excited to see how this accumulates treasure for you. See, what happens is when we have the wrong perspective, we begin to place unnecessary pressure on all of the other institutions and people in our lives. But when we recognize that all of our joy is completely given to us through Jesus and that our cup is always filled and never empty, now we're able to see our wife as the sweetener of life that she's meant to be. Now we can see our kids with the right perspective. Now we see them not as a source of life, but instead we see them as a source of sweetness in our lives. You see, before, if I lost my wife and she was the source that I needed, do you know what happens? I lose my life. I lose my life. If I lost one of my children, if my children go away, do you know what I lose? I lose my life. I lose my life. But if my cup is filled, if my cup is filled, then they don't have to bear the pressure of my life. If my cup is filled, they don't have to bear the responsibility of making sure that I'm okay. They can't handle that anyway. Jesus has already bore that burden for them. And so, if I lose my wife, if I lose my kids, if I lose my job, we won't lose Jesus, but maybe the wrong understanding of Jesus. But if I lose these sweeteners in my life, is my life less sweet? Yes. As Christians, will we grieve profoundly? Of course we will. We experience those lives, those losses deeply. But what it means is that I haven't experienced annihilation. I haven't experienced the total loss, even though the sweetness of my life may be reduced, even though there may be more tears in that part of my in that season of my life, or maybe even for the remainder of my life, what I can recognize is that my cup is still full and my hope is still solid, so my joy can remain durable. See, once you recognize that your cup is filled, it changes the way that you see other people. I want to share with you something that's God's been stirring in my heart that I've been sharing, I've shared with a number of different people as the Lord's given me an opportunity, but a lot of them are staff people and elders. Earlier I said that one of the deepest forms of despair is to finally have everything that you thought would satisfy you, only to discover that you're still empty. And my heart is broken right now because we live in a place where despair can hide in plain sight. Man, the yards are perfectly manicured, the homes are pristine, the lives are polished, and it's so easy for us to drive past all of our neighbors and all of our friends and all of our coworkers. Maybe it's even easy for you to try to deceive yourself into believing that they don't have anything that we can offer them, they don't need anything that we can offer them, that their lives seem to be perfectly complete, and so we wonder how is it that we can reach them? How is it that we can offer something to them? We see Jesus. Jesus viewed wealth and affluence very differently than the way that we view it. Jesus said that it is it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven. Do you know what that means? That means that the most dangerous part of Memphis, spiritually speaking, from an eternal perspective, the most dangerous place to live in Memphis probably isn't the place that most of us are nervous to walk around at night. The most dangerous place to live in Memphis for our souls is probably the very places that everybody else wants to live. Probably Germantown, probably Collierville, probably where I live, and where you live. See, affluent people, affluent people are always used to everybody coming to them and seeking to have their needs filled. They're used to feeling like the fuel pump. Everybody has an agenda that approaches them. So they're used to feeling needed, but you know what they're not used to? They're not used to feeling loved, cared for, valued. They have no framework for what it means for somebody to come to them and to say, I don't need anything from you. In fact, I have a secret to offer to you. I have hope to offer to you, I have good news to offer to you. Orchard. That's why we're at 3690 Houston Levy Road. That's why we've been placed here. We've been placed here because we are surrounded by people, no matter how pristine and polished their lives, are living in need. And they are in need of Christ. And the good news of the gospel is that we have the secret, and it's an open secret. So we just have to love them. To love them. Let our hearts be so broken for them that we are moved toward action and love toward them. I wonder this morning. I wonder this morning where you were tempted to forget that your cup is filled. I wonder where you're tempted to run for significance, for purpose, for identity, for approval. I wonder where you're still asking your marriage and your kids and your job and your money to give you what only Christ can give you. Oh, the world tells you, the world tells you that you need to be self-sufficient. But the good news of the gospel is that Christ, and Christ alone, is sufficient. So there's a refrain. There's a refrain that you can preach and sing to yourself time and time again I am not my situation. My cup is filled, and I will never be empty. Can I pray for us? Let's pray.