This is the fifth article in a series on Christian contentment. The contented Christian is a believer who is constantly seeking to know God better. Philippians 3:12-21 describes Christians as those who press on toward knowing and serving God better, keeping their eyes focused on a heavenly goal.

2009. 7 pages. Transcribed by Diana Bouwman. Transcription started at 4:22 and stopped at 33:20.

The Contentment of the Discontented Christian The Mystery of Contentment Series: Part 5

Read Philippians 3:12-21

If I were to stand before you this morning and I were to use language like, “I have not attained yet…I am pressing on…I am moving forward,” you would (perhaps justifiably) say, “He sounds to me like a restless, discontented person.” But that is exactly the language that the Apostle Paul uses here in Philippians 3:12ff: “Pressing on…not yet attained…moving forward.” And yet, a chapter later in Philippians 4:11, Paul says, “I have learned the secret of being content.” Is there a disconnect there? Does the Apostle Paul, as we might perhaps say in our age, not really know himself or understand himself? He says he is content when really he isn't. Or is Paul later telling us something that isn't true?

I do not think either of those things are the case. In fact, I think these two themes fit perfectly together. On the one hand, Paul is perfectly content. He has learned to be content in any and every circumstance that he faces in life, and yet he presses on. To put it differently, there is a godly discontent in the soul of every contented Christian. And in fact, we have to go through Philippians 3, I believe, to get to Philippians 4. The contented Christian must know this kind of godly discontent—pressing on. If we do not know this godly discontent, we will never get to the contentment of Philippians 4. We must press on; we must strain forward.

Now this, of course, in some ways is a mystery, because the world would say and the natural man says that contentment means simply quiet and rest. Contentment means “Let go and let God,” or so the saying goes. But no, the Bible says to achieve contentment, and a contented Christian is going to be someone who presses on, who moves forward, who has this proper godly discontent. We have talked about an improper discontent, and what I am going to lay out for you this morning is a proper, or a godly, discontent that should mark every Christian. I want us to see a few things that Paul says and teaches us in this passage.

The Contented Christian Seeks to Know God Better🔗

The first is this: The contented Christian is both the most contented person in the world and the most dissatisfied person in the world. Look at what Paul says in verse 12-13: “Not that I have already obtained this or I am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own.” He says in verse 12, “I have not obtained this.”

Well, what is the “this”? To understand the “this” we have to look back into the previous section. Look with me at verses 8-11. Paul is referring to his previous life and his previous accomplishments.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Philippians 3:8-11, ESV

What is Paul's desire? “That I may know him”—that I may know Christ. This is what he presses on to attain: Better knowledge, more intimate knowledge of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is depicted for us so beautifully in so many of the Psalms:

As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? Psalm 42:1-2, ESV

What do you thirst for? What do you seek after? What are the desires of your heart? Is it for God, or is it for the things of this world? Or again in Psalm 73:

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. Psalm 73:25-26, ESV

“There is nothing on earth I desire besides you.” These are the cries of a contented believer who knows God, and yet longs to know him more. Do you understand that? Someone who does not know God cannot say, “Whom have I in heaven but you?” Someone who does not know God cannot say, “My soul pants for you.” Only a believer can say that. And yet the believer pants, longs, desires to know God better. Jeremiah Burroughs, in that classic work The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment (2010), puts it this way: “A soul that is capable of God can be filled with nothing else but God.” A soul made able to know God can be filled with nothing else but God. So the Christian longs for more of God and longs to be filled with God.

And yet, we fill our lives with such junk. So much of the things of the world we let fill us, we put in our minds and we put in our hearts. The Christian longs for God. Augustine once wrote, “I have seen the depths but I cannot find the bottom.” I have seen the depths of who God is, but I cannot find the bottom. His majesty and his greatness is so infinite, I cannot find it. I cannot see it. I have seen the depths of who He is, but there is so much more to know. There is so much more to find out. There is so much more to love.

I have been married to my wife for almost twenty years. I know her better than I know any other human being. And the thing that I have learned over the years is: the more I know her, the less I know her. The more I know her, the more I realize there is to know and to learn. And I want to pursue that! But even more important is the desire to know God better. To know Christ better. And that needs to be the primary pursuit of the Christian.

As Paul was writing here to the Philippians, Paul is an old man. Paul is drawing near to the end of his life. He has been a Christian for a good 30 years or thereabouts. Paul has been involved in ministry, he has written the Word of God and he has seen the risen Christ. We would say that certainly if there is anybody who really would know Christ by now, it is Paul. And Paul says, “I press on. I want to know him better.” Brother and sister in Christ, if Paul says he is pressing on to know Christ better, then so do you and so do I. We need to press on.

It is sad, but always a delight for me to go and to visit saints who are nearing death. The delight comes in hearing so many of them saying, “I am ready to go. I want to go. I want to meet the Lord.” And they say that not in the sense that “I just want to be done with the suffering,” though certainly there is some of that there, but they want to go because they have known Christ, they have walked with Christ in this life, and now they look forward to going and seeing him face to face. What a joy and what a delight it is to be in the presence of those saints. The first key to contentment, brothers and sisters in Christ, is a longing after God and a dissatisfied pursuit of knowing Christ better. 

The Contented Christian Is Single-Minded in this Pursuit🔗

But secondly, we see in our passage that a contented Christian is single-minded in this pursuit. Look again at verse 13. Paul says, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do…” One thing I do! Don't you wish, in the midst of your harried life, you could say “One thing I do”? Because it so often feels like “a thousand things I do.” But the contented Christian says “one thing I do”—single-minded in this pursuit. And of course, there are other places in Scripture where we read of this “one thing.” David writes in Psalm 27:

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to enquire in his temple. Psalm 27:4, ESV

One thing! To dwell in his house; to gaze on his beauty; to seek him in his temple.

Or consider the story during the life of Jesus in Luke 10 of Mary and Martha. Jesus was at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus, and Martha was busy getting all the preparations ready for the meal, running around here and there, getting the meal ready, setting things up, getting the table set, and all those things to get ready for this meal. What was Mary doing? Sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening as He spoke and as He taught! What did Martha say? She complained to Jesus and she said, “Lord, tell my sister to help me.” Does it sound like some of the sibling squabbles we have had in our lives? But what did Jesus say to her?

Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Luke 10:41b-42, ESV

One thing is necessary: To commune with Christ; to learn from him; to sit at his feet. It is interesting to reflect. What was Martha doing? She was serving the Lord! She was serving. That was a good thing. But you know, so often we choose the good over the better. This is especially a warning for us who are in ministry. We can get so involved with serving the Lord that we do not seek the Lord and spend time in fellowship with him. 

Let's consider the context of each of these statements. Psalm 27 is in the context of worship: Being in God's presence; worshiping him; gazing on his beauty. Luke 10 is in the context of learning: Sitting at the feet of Jesus. But what is the larger context of Philippians 3? It is actually the context of Paul's ministry. Pressing on to serve, pressing on to minister for Christ. Oftentimes when we think of contentment and communing with the Lord, we think of it only in terms of “quietism.” But here Paul's one thing is in the context of activism. Now, are these three different “one things”? No. The “one thing” remains the same. But there are different ways that God's people pursue and attain this. Worship, study, prayer: But faithful serving of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must know Christ in a life lived for him, especially in ministry. As Paul said, “that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10). How and when do God's people suffer? It is when they live for Christ. It is when they seek to serve Him in the world. And that is what we are called to do: To know him, not only the power of his resurrection (we love that part), but when it comes to sharing in his sufferings, we do not want that. But that is part of what it means to know Christ: To take up our cross and to follow him. To walk faithfully. That is going to mean that we bear the scorn and the persecution of the world.

Raymond Lull was a 13th-century missionary to the Muslims in North Africa. At one point, after serving there in a small church that had started there, he was driven out. He was originally from an island off the coast of Spain, and he returned to Europe and spent several years of his life teaching Arabic in Europe. But he longed to go back to North Africa. He longed to go back to see this group of believers, this small church that was there. And he longed to go back to proclaim Christ once again. At the age of 79, when his friends and colleagues were encouraging him just to retire and to fade off into the sunset, Raymond Lull at 79 went back to North Africa. We actually read in some things that Lull wrote:

Men are wont to die, O Lord, from old age, the failure of natural warmth and excess of cold; but thus, if it be Thy will, Thy servant would not wish to die; he would prefer to die in the glow of love, even as Thou wast willing to die for him.Samuel Zwemer, Raymond Lull: First Missionary to the Moslems, 2007

To die in the glow of love—love for Christ, love for those who do not know him, love for Christ's people. That is how he wanted to go out! In a blaze of glory! Raymond Lull went back to North Africa, and he spent a year under the radar, ministering and meeting with the church there. But finally Raymond Lull went out into the public square and he began publicly to boldly proclaim Christ, to announce to these Muslims that there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved and to warn them of the wrath to come for not trusting in Jesus Christ and Christ alone for salvation. And the inevitable happened. They took him and they stoned him. They put him to death. At 80 years old, Raymond Lull died a martyr for Jesus Christ. There was one who desired to know both the power of Christ's resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. There is no retirement in the kingdom of God! But God calls us to press on in ministry, to know Christ more and to make him known, even if that means suffering for the name of Jesus. 

The Contented Christian Strains Forward in Pursuit of Heavenly Goals🔗

Third, we see in our passage that the contented Christian strains forward in pursuit of heavenly goals.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on towards the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13-14, ESV

Forgetting what is behind; straining forward to what is ahead: The language here is the language that carries the idea of pain, of struggle, of effort, of discipline. One Greek dictionary translates the Greek verb used here as “to exert oneself to the uttermost, to stretch out.” Exert oneself to the uttermost and to stretch out for the sake of Christ. The image, perhaps, is that of a runner coming down the homestretch and coming to the finish line. You know the way they do it: Stretching out to be the first to cross the line, giving it his/her all. That is the language here. Paul says, “That is what I do. I press on. I strain forward for the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” There is pain, there is effort, especially as we serve Christ and share his sufferings. If we are going to serve Christ, there is risk. There is the pain of sacrifice. There is the pain of persecution that God's people face when they faithfully follow Christ. And that is what we need to do.

You may not be called to be a missionary in North Africa or Iraq or somewhere in the Middle East or Honduras or in Germany or wherever it might be. Your call may simply be to pursue the vocation that God has laid on you. And yet, we need to be straining forward in that work as a work to glorify Christ and finding ways to make Christ known to those around us. Pressing on. Straining forward.

In the 1992 Summer Olympics, there was a British runner by the name of Derek Redmond. Derek Redmond was the favourite to win the gold medal in the 400m race, one time around the track. He was a great runner, a champion runner. When the race started, Derek Redmond was running well. He went down the first stretch, and around the first turn, and around the second turn, running strong. But as he was on the backstretch, he ripped a hamstring in his leg, and he fell to the ground in great pain and great agony. He lay there for several moments as the rest of the runners went around and finished the race. And then he got up as best he could and he began to run, hobbling, alternating between jumping on one foot and running on two, as best he could on his painful leg. As he came up to round the third turn, the crowd began to see what was happening and they began to stand and to cheer him on. As he came around the fourth turn, the entire stadium was standing, cheering him on. At that point, his father actually came out of the stands and came out, and father and son embraced on the track. And together, father and son walked the rest of the way to the finish line. Derek Redmond did not win the race that day; he came in dead last. But he was a champion because he had come to run and to finish the race, and that is exactly what he did. In strain, in struggle, and in agony, Derek Redmond finished the race.

The Apostle Paul says here that we, God's people, are to be straining forward. Derek Redmond was running for an earthly goal; we have a heavenly goal. And we are to exert ourselves, with heaven in mind, working on earth for God's purposes and God's plans in the world. Eyes fixed on heaven, and yet on earth pursuing heavenly goals. A contented Christian strains forward in pursuit of those goals. John Piper has said it before me: Do not waste your life. What are you living for? How are you living? In the young stage of your life or in the old stage of your life, are you pressing forward, straining forward, in the service of the Lord Jesus Christ? That is the way we find peace and contentment. 

Christ Has Taken Hold of Us🔗

Then one final thing. The apostle Paul says in verse 12:

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Philippians 3:12, ESV

Christ has made me his own! Christ has taken hold of me and made me his! And that is the consistent biblical picture. I was having a conversation recently with some people who were talking about the way change happens in the lives of people and how God brings that about. I said, ‘Well, God must come and God must take hold of them and God must change them.” And they said, “No, no. God does that, but we have to first prepare ourselves. We have things that we have to do to get ready for that.” But that is not the biblical picture. The biblical picture says that we are dead and we can do nothing to help ourselves. There is free will in the dead man, but it is only to remain dead. God must come and take hold of us. God must come and change us. God must come by his Spirit and make us a new creature before we can even call out to him in faith.

But when we have this biblical perspective that Christ has taken a hold of me—we recognize that God is the Initiator; God has me in his hands—that gives us then the peace to pursue Christ with single-minded contentment, recognizing that we need to continue the pursuit with a dissatisfied spirit as we want to know him more. Here is the great biblical truth: If you are a believer, if you are trusting in Christ, Christ has already taken hold of you. Now pursue him. Seek to know him more.

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