The Secret to Knowing, Having, and Doing Everything
Some secrets are secrets because they're buried deep from the general public and only a few privileged discoverers know them. The Secret to Knowing, Having, and Doing Everything is not one of those secrets. Paul learned it and lived it, and tells us the secret of content living in Philippians 4:10-13. July 11, 2010.
It’s hard talking to someone who knows everything, buying a gift for someone who has everything, or working with someone who is busy doing everything. People who act as if they’re superhuman frustrate the rest of us, don’t they? Nobody knows everything, has everything, and can do everything except God. So those who think they’re God just aren’t dealing with reality. Then how do we explain these words of Jesus? “Everything is possible for anyone who believes” (Mark 9:23)? And how about the words of Paul we heard today, explaining to us a secret he learned, knowing “in any and every situation” how to be content, blessed richly by a God who “will meet all [our] needs,” and boldly claiming “I can do everything through him who gives me strength”? Paul obviously believes he has The Secret to Knowing, Having, and Doing Everything. And he’s not out of touch with reality. Paul is speaking on God’s behalf to expand exponentially our self-imposed boundaries for what we know, have, and do.
The key to blowing apart those boundaries is contentment, but we need to stop associating contentment with poverty. “Just be content,” is often taken to mean, “you haven’t got very much and that’s just what you’re stuck with.” But contentment is not a level of poverty. Contentment is not a circumstance. Paul writes, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances … whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.” Contentment is independence from circumstances; it is seeing ourselves as sufficiently supplied regardless of the situation. Contentment lands at the airport without luggage and says, “I’m still here on vacation and I’ll have a good time.” Contentment loses a cell phone loaded with contacts and pictures and says, “I still have real friends and real memories.” Discontentment is anxiety that quickly complains, “I can’t have a fulfilling vacation without my plaid shorts,” or needlessly worries, “My friends are going to forget about me if I can’t text them today.”
The Bible paints a colorful picture of anxious, busy, worried discontentment in the book of Ecclesiastes. The author admits that he thought he just couldn’t make it in life without the right circumstances. If he was going to enjoy life he just had to indulge in pleasure with nightly entertainment, sexual activity with different partners, and parties galore, but that didn’t help him find contentment. So he filled his garage with toys and packed his closets with fashions, but that didn’t help him find contentment. So he worked 60 hours a week, got a few more college degrees and landed that promotion, but that didn’t help him find contentment. So he saved every penny and simultaneously spent every penny and retired, but that didn’t help him find contentment. The Bible says, “There was no end to his toil” (Ecclesiastes 4:8); his efforts to find satisfaction and meaning by his own doing circled, and circled, and circled to nowhere. His life became meaningless. So when we think that we just can’t be happy without our security blanket, or we just can’t have a good day without our secret sin, or we just can’t continue in our career or compete in the business world if we don’t play the same unethical games as everyone else does, we are trying to create circumstances that will make us content. Then there is no end to our toil. Our lives become meaningless. “Do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you,” Jesus warned his disciples who returned beaming with joy that they had hunted down Satan himself, because the day would come when the disciples wouldn’t be able to cast out demons (and their value as disciples and as redeemed people of God didn’t depend on their ability to cast out demons), “But rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20). Being content isn’t just a good piece of advice from Oprah. Being content is an expression of a faith that trusts these words of Jesus and keeps us from living without God and everything he has for us as people of heaven. People of Jesus – who lived contently to save us.
Content even when his family and friends left him behind, Jesus fulfilled his Father’s will discussing the Scriptures at the temple. Content even without food in the wilderness for 40 days, Jesus defeated Satan. Content even on a boat during a storm at sea, Jesus slept peacefully. Content even when his enemies persecuted him, Jesus mercifully forgave them. Content even when the sick doubted him, Jesus helped and healed them. Content even on the cross, Jesus refused his torture’s cries to come down from the cross and take the emperor’s throne. Content even at his ascension into heaven, Jesus promised he’d return some day soon to take us back with him.
Paul’s found his contentment in this saving grace of Jesus; not in circumstances. One commentator reminds us, “It may help to recall at this point that Paul’s letter to the Philippians was written from a prison cell. His greatest desire, to continue traveling and preaching the gospel in new and distant places, was apparently a lost cause. He sat old and ill in a jail, only able to write letters of encouragement and counsel to those he had already reached. The Philippian community itself was not exactly experiencing the ‘best of times’ … Paul mentioned the ‘opponents’ the faithful encountered every day. A series of ‘bewares’ … further reveal the tensions and threats facing the Philippians … Paul is certainly no naive well-wisher then” when he says, “I rejoice greatly in the Lord” (“The Apostolic Formula for Peace of Mind and Heart,” www.homileticsonline.com, December 11, 1994).
The reason for Paul rejoicing? “The Lord.” In Hebrews the Bible puts it this way, “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ‘Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you’” (Hebrews 13:5). We will not love money more than God because money does not make such promises to never leave us. God can and does make that promise. He made it when you were baptized. He makes it in his own body and blood. “I am here. I am yours. Take me. Believe me. Live in me.” And God not only gives us himself, but in the words of the father in the parable Jesus told, God says to you, “Everything I have is yours” (Luke 15:31). That is content living.
Knowing everything is the secret to content living. Do you know everything? “Grace and peace be yours through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him” (2 Peter 1:2,3). God gives us everything we need through our knowledge of everything he is and does. It’s a faith knowledge that computes beyond our cognitive ability, like an aging woman with Alzheimer’s who doesn’t know her own name but can say the Lord’s Prayer. She knows everything. She is content. She lives by the promise Jesus once made to his believers, “Everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15). There is nothing about God you don’t know that you need to know when you believe in Jesus. That’s the secret of being content.
Having everything is the secret to content living. Do you have everything? With Paul, “having nothing yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10), we understand that the labels on all our money, possessions, and relationships doesn’t say our name but, “Made and given by God.” David wrote in Psalm 37, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread. They are always generous and lend freely” (vv. 25,26). Believers right with God through Jesus never lack anything we need, so we have everything. We can give to church and charity generously and still have everything because God keeps supplying it. “God … richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment” (1 Timothy 6:17). You can’t out-give God. That’s the secret of being content.
Doing everything is the secret to content living. Can you do everything? “Turn from evil and do good” David writes (Psalm 37:27). The good that God places in your path each day you can do, even when it seems too much, too confusing, too fearful, too new, too overwhelming. God promises to “equip you with everything good for doing his will” (Hebrews13:21). Jesus told his disciples that if he’d give them the command, they could move mountains. In what place in life do you find yourself now called by God? Business professional, caregiver, forgiving friend, resented relative, nurse, patient, parent, single, spouse, unemployed, widow, volunteer here at church? Everything God wants you to do, you can do. That’s the secret of being content.
Some secrets are secrets because they’re buried way deep from the general public and only a few privileged discoverers know them. The Secret to Knowing, Having, and Doing Everything is not one of those secrets. Rather, it is more like Hints from Heloise or ask.com, a proven piece of information many have found helpful but most people have either ignored or underutilized. Paul learned it and lived it, and tells us the secret of content living, “My God will meet all your needs … I can do everything through [Christ] who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:19,13). Amen.
Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on July 11, 2010
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