Taking on supernatural provisions

This issue we struggle with in life is a personal one, and it’s also a very confrontational one because it brings into accountability the fact that for most of life we aren’t very content.

For most of life, we’re much more discontent than we are content. We’re much more into the idea of gaining and getting and striving and pushing in life, rather than being just in a condition of peace, says Richard Jordan in a study of Philippians 1:

[21] For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
[22] But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.
[23] For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
[24] Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
[25] And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith;
[26] That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.
[27] Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
[28] And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
[29] For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
[30] Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

Contentment is that emotional stability. Philippians is a tremendously emotional passage. There’s rejoicing, there’s peace, there’s confidence and there’s contentment. To define it scripturally, it’s not being up one minute and down another in your heart, but it’s to be able to have that stability that comes from that relaxed mental attitude—faith—of dependence on the supernatural provisions God has given you already in Christ.

It's not trying to gain your peace of mind and heart from the circumstances out there (good or bad, positive or negative) but rather it’s living from a life, and a confidence, inside. That’s where peace has to be.

The peace of God that passeth all understanding that the passage talks about is something internal. It isn’t conditioned upon what’s happening in life. It isn’t conditioned upon the circumstances you find yourself in.

It’s the capacity inside to have this relaxed mental attitude; just being able to relax in who God has made you in Christ and understand that the supernatural provisions that are yours in Him have made you capable, and able to live in whatever circumstances, in a way that is for His glory and your own good.

When life comes it will carry you up or it will carry you down in your reactions to them. It’s about letting the supernatural provisions be the things that work in you and control your life.

Paul makes it clear there are four things needed to be content. First, you need to be grateful; you need to be rejoicing. Contentment is not tied to your circumstances. That's that verse in I Thessalonians 5: [18] In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Not FOR everything, because there are all kinds of things that come in life that you can’t be grateful for in the sense that they’re wonderful, exciting things. When Paul’s in poverty, suffering need, hungry—you don’t look at an empty plate and say, “Well, bless God,” the same way you do if you’ve got a big 24-ounce porterhouse in front of you and you say, “Whew, bless God I’ve got food.”

This is not tomfoolery we’re talking about. It’s not just blind, stoic, stiff upper lip kind of stuff that says, “Whatever happens it really doesn’t matter,” so you become so emotionally detached from life that you can’t be touched with life.

That’s not the issue; it’s to be right there in it and to understand there’s some resources that allow you live in it in a different way and it starts with gratitude.

If you can’t find something in the circumstances to be grateful for, you can at least thank God that in the circumstances, you’re blessing Him. If you can’t do anything else, you can at least go back and say, “Oh, how I love Jesus.” You can sing that song:

1.  
• Oh, how I love Jesus,
  Because He first loved me!
2. It tells me of a Savior’s love,
   Who died to set me free;
   It tells me of His precious blood,
   The sinner’s perfect plea.
3. It tells me of a Father’s smile
   Beaming upon His child;
   It cheers me through this little while,
   Through desert, waste, and wild.
4. It tells me what my Father hath
   In store for every day,
   And though I tread a darksome path,
   Yields sunshine all the way.
5. It tells of One whose loving heart
   Can feel my deepest woe;
   Who in each sorrow bears a part
   That none can bear below.
6. It bids my trembling heart rejoice;
   It dries each rising tear;
   It tells me, in a “still small voice,”
   To trust and never fear.

Or you can say, "When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

You sing that song to yourself. That song, by the way was written by a man who had lost his family. You know the story. He’d lost his family in a sea voyage and he later made a voyage across the same area and the captain of the ship had made an arrangement with him that when they got to the place where his family’s ship had sunk in a storm they’d have a little memorial.

He wrote that song, having lost his wife and two daughters, to memorialize that event. “Sorrows like sea billows roll”—they literally rolled in his life. And yet he had a peace and contentment that wasn’t tied to that—it was something supernatural inside, and it started with being grateful to God for the provisions that He’s made.

To be continued…