“Come on, Apostle Paul! Are you serious?” That is an understandably frustrated response to Paul’s cryptic phrase, “I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Phil 4:12). Why is frustration to this verse so understandable? Because Paul does not share his secret! Before this sentence, he discusses the Philippians’ renewed concern for him. After this statement, he famously says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). But, he never tells us exactly how he can have much or nothing and yet still abound. This unspoken secret is partly why basketball players tattoo Phil 4:13 on their bodies—they think Paul was referring to things like games! But what was he referring to?
Paul is a master theologian and teacher. Though he frustrates the likes of me, that is for a purpose—Paul does not want to spell everything out for his students. He wants us to have to think. He does not want slaves to the letter of the law, which kills (2 Cor 3:6); he wants children who are capable of walking in the Spirit (Gal 5:16) and, like James says, people who follow the law of liberty, not slavery (Jas 2:12). All of this requires that we learn to think for ourselves! What does it mean to be satisfied in Christ no matter what circumstance? Paul does not need to answer that question in Philippians chapter 4 for us to know the answer. Like good students, we can use the rest of the Bible to answer the question. So, what is the secret to being happy when life stinks?
1. Christ Plus Nothing Equals Everything
If it is true that all the fullness of God dwells in Jesus Christ (Col 1:15-20) and we are united with Christ such that we are “seated with Him in the heavenly places” (note the present tense! Eph 2:6b), then it logically follows that we have everything we could ever want. Jesus is the Creator, Continuer, and Consummator of all things. Everything in the universe was created by Him, through Him, and for Him. Therefore, if we think we lack something but have Jesus dwelling within us, we are wrong. If that Jesus—not the “supplemental” Jesus but the Savior Jesus—dwells within us, we have access to every good thing in all creation. You may not have the job you want, the money you crave, the friends you would like, or the family you hoped for. Still, if you have Jesus, you have an eternal calling (1 Pet 2:9), incomprehensible riches (Eph 3:8), eternal fellowship (Heb 12:1), and a loving family that will never fail you (John 18:9; Rom 8:38-39). In other words, if we truly understand who Jesus is, we will know what we have in every situation, no matter how good or bad. Our problem, therefore, is not that we do not have what we want. It is that we do not appreciate What we have.
2. Our Future is an Eternal Weight of Glory
Though right now we have everything in Christ, even in our bad situations, we will have even more. That is right. We have everything now and will have more than everything in heaven. That is why these are the “incomprehensible,” “unfathomable,” or “unsearchable” riches of Christ (Eph 3:8, compare different translations). You get everything, but each morning you wake up with more. You are like a child on Christmas who got everything on their Christmas wish list, but every new day your parents surprise you with a toy you did not even know existed—that is heaven with Jesus. Though we get everything we need in Christ today, we will encounter setbacks, trials, and sufferings. But all those things are “working out for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Cor 4:17). So, we get everything we need in Jesus today, plus some suffering. In heaven, we will not even be able to compare our present heavenly joy with the sufferings of this life. Even if heaven were not real, we could be content and happy in Jesus. But heaven is our future promise on top of the Jesus we get today, which should, by comparison, dramatically diminish any setback or suffering in this life. Nobody would cry about a small paycheck when their lottery winnings were coming in the mail!
3. We Deserve Hell When We Die and Wrath Right Now
Though we get Jesus now and more Jesus later (which means we get everything now and more than everything later), we deserve nothing now and less than nothing later (Rom 3:9-18). That is, right now, we do not deserve Jesus, and after we die, we deserve His wrath. So, if we complain about our present circumstances, we have three problems: 1) We do not understand the Jesus we have now. 2) We do not understand the Jesus we will have in heaven. 3) We do not understand what Jesus should do to us now and later—condemn us. But He does not. We deserve God’s finite punishment now and His eternal punishment later. If we are disappointed with our lack of career, money, friends, or family, we fail to understand that whatever we have now is orders of magnitude better than we deserve. And it is not just that what we have now is better than we deserve; what we will have later is even “more better” than we deserve. Does it really make sense to pout about our present circumstances if that is true? That makes no more sense than a man complaining about his room in Motel 6 when he was just pardoned for murder and avoided a life sentence in jail! Sure, it is no Ritz Carlton, but would you rather have what you deserve?
4. Seek Jesus Before You Look to Your Crutches
Everyone has a crutch. For some, it is food. For others, alcohol or drugs. Still, for some, it is video games, movies, or even exercising. But for others, it is Jesus. Many of us fail to live out the three truths above because we turn to our worldly crutches when times are hard. The guy who turns to alcohol is having a worse time than the girl who turns to the gym, but they are both struggling (ever heard of exercise addiction?). Like the doctor hitting your knee, we reflexively run to one or two things to comfort ourselves when times get hard. The problem is that so long as we do this, we are negating the three truths above. We say, “Jesus is not enough right now; I need X. I will go to Jesus after.” This order of priorities means, “I need X + Jesus.” So long as we do this, we will not fully understand that Jesus is our everything. To the proportion that we nudge Christ out of our hearts with alcohol, video games, or the gym, we will have a diminished view of Him. The solution, therefore, is to slow down in our sadness. To take our sorrow to the Lord and ask Him to show us how He is everything we need. Rather than reflexively running to our crutch, we reflexively run to Christ. After that point, we might feel like we need to eat a meal, watch a movie, or go to the gym, but the key is that we went to Jesus first.
Imagine your boss yells at you and reads you the riot act for something you forgot to do at work. When the exchange is over, you could mutter under your breath and curse your boss as you get in your car to go to your favorite place for lunch for comfort. In this circumstance, you are treating the restaurant as your primary crutch. You might pray before your meal or even ask Jesus to be your everything after your meal has calmed you down. Jesus will help you in such circumstances—He is more than gracious. But you are failing to experience all He has to offer.
On the other hand, imagine the same situation with your boss, but this time you close your door, breathe deeply and slowly and pray quietly before the Lord. You wait for Him to slow down your heartbeat and to still your anxious mind. You tell Him that He means everything to you and that—since you have Him—you can be happy even when your boss is a jerk. Then, after feeling the peace of Christ, you decide you need to calmly get in your car and get some lunch at your favorite restaurant. Do you see how the second situation enables you to experience Christ as truly everything more than the first? This is because your reflex reaction was to go to Christ, not a restaurant. That does not mean you do not need to eat (or cannot watch a movie later after a hard day, etc.)! But, it does mean that you are giving Christ pride of place in your heart (this, by the way, is the point of fasting). Many people have never “tried Christ” in this way. They have left Christ two or three spots down in their hearts, under their primary crutches. So long as we leave Him down there, we will not truly know what Paul’s secret was. But, once we elevate Him to number one in our hearts, we will know how to face any situation with deep peace, love, and even joy.
No matter what you are going through, the truth is that you have less bad than you deserve and more good than you deserve. And, when it is all done, it will get much better.
-Rob Golding – Pastor, First Artesia CRC
The Fight of Faith 