Philippians 4:10-13 | The Resilient Life

Sunday Morning | December 7, 2025 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

On Sunday, Pastor John continued our journey through Philippians by showing how Paul invites believers into a resilient or even “anti-fragile” life—one that grows stronger in the face of pressure instead of being crushed by it. Building on Paul’s earlier teaching about handling anxiety and guarding our thoughts, he pointed to three practices that shape this kind of resilience. First, Paul celebrates the Philippians’ renewed concern for him, reminding us that generosity forms a heart that looks outward rather than inward. Second, Paul testifies that he has learned contentment in every circumstance, calling us to reject the constant chase for “more” and rest in the sufficiency of Christ rather than our possessions or comfort. Finally, Pastor John emphasized that true strength isn’t found in self-reliance but Christ-reliance, as Paul proclaims, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me”—not as a slogan for personal achievement, but a declaration that Christ Himself is our endurance, our provision, and our life.

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Transcript

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My prayer for each of us this morning has been that we would come expecting to hear from the Lord today. I don't know that we always come with that expectation and hope. That's been my prayer that you would be anticipating to hear a word from him for you in your life today. He does still speak. He will speak to you specifically. We have to be open to hearing that. So I've been praying for soft hearts, tender hearts that are open to hearing from him. And we do that by opening His word. That is the main way he speaks to us, not just from some mystical maybe feeling or sound. And that does happen. But his word is the main way we hear from him. And so we come to His Word expecting to hear from him. We've been in the book of Philippians. We're just one more week in the book of Philippians. We've spent the fall working through Philippians, and the last couple of weeks we've really slowed down and just taken it in a couple of chunks, a few verses at a time because of how important these sections are, we looked at the issue of anxiety. Our civilization, our world, our age is riddled with anxiety. How do you deal with anxiety? We looked at that. Colby walked us through. How do you deal with the thoughts that come out to you? How do you renew your mind? How do you take every thought captive? How do you bring those thoughts before the Lord? And of course, we review those verses this morning and make sure to dwell on the right things. Now, today we want to look at a couple of verses that I think give us an even more foundational approach to how we approach life. If you've seen any of the videos of a racecar driver, there's a bunch of different versions of this. Often. Maybe it's an F1 race car driver, and somehow he ends up in a situation with his spouse, with him in the car and I say him. I'm sure there are female drivers as well. Just go with it. He's in the car, she's with him. They're in a nice, fancy sports car on a race track, so he's not in a full blown race car, but she knows we're here for you to drive fast. We're here together, and it's interesting to observe the different reactions both of them have to that experience because he is used to driving the car fast and so he remains calm, cool, collected, focused. No big deal. I'm not even driving as fast as I normally would. She is a nervous wreck, flipping out screaming stop! Slow down! What are you about to do? You're about to kill me. Even though she knows he's a professional car driver, he loves me. I think right now I can trust him. Even with all that is true, she's flipping out. You got the same situation. Two very different reactions. Part of it is one person is prepared and one person is not. One person has extensive training and experience and millions of hours doing the very thing the other person has not. And I think the word we want to look at today is one person is ready. In fact, I would use the word resilient, prepared. They're ready to take what comes out and be able to bounce back, face it and be ready to move on. How do we develop? And that's the word I want to unpack today. I think that's the word we want to grasp that becomes more foundational than dealing with what's already in our life. How do we become resilient so that when new things come, we're ready, we want to become-- the phrase I've heard is antifragile. So many are so fragile emotionally, the smallest thing hits us. And by the way, there's days that I'm quite fragile emotionally. You know, the coffee order is wrong and oh, the whole day is unraveled. We don't want to be fragile like that. We want to be able to handle the thing that comes at us and be able to weather the storm and bounce back quickly and move on. We want to be known as resilient people. So Philippians chapter four, I think Paul gives us three ways to grow the resilient life, to develop the resilient life. Turn your Bibles to Philippians chapter four. If you don't have a Bible, we have those out in the lobby. We'd love to put those in your hand so you can follow along. As I read, you can be in God's Word, turning there, reading His Word on your own. You can take that home with you. That's free for you. Philippians chapter four. We're going to start with verse ten. That's going to give us the first way. I'm going to read the verse, and then we'll talk about what that first aspect is of developing the resilient life. Verse ten. This is Paul speaking. 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. The key idea here that we're going to see unpacked with this verse, and that has already shown up prior to this, is if you want to develop a resilient life, one step is to make sure you're growing in generosity. You want to be growing in generosity. And by the way, the notes I think that we have up there might be from a previous week. So let's just maybe not put them up and I'll just try to deliver the content out as we go. Grow a heart of generosity. If you have a copy of the notes that word generosity will be the blank for you there to fill out. Paul is very generous- generous here with them. He's generous with his gratitude. And by the way, if you go back to chapter one, verse three, he starts that way very at the very beginning of the book of Philippians. He's saying how grateful he is for them. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer, making prayers for you all the time. We have a partnership in the gospel. He starts the book just be overflowing with gratitude for them, generous in his praise of them. And of course, we know the reason the book was written. Likely the occasion that caused Paul to write was the fact that the Philippians had sent a gift to him through Epaphroditus. who delivered it to him. He says, I know at first you were concerned about me in verse ten, but you weren't able to help out at first. But now they have been able to they have been able to send a gift and be generous. And so there's generosity happening both directions. And there's something about generosity, I think, that acts kind of like of a, an immune system against the temptations of this world. If you're a generous person, well, let's look at it the opposite. If you're not, if money is everything to you, if that is your main means of security, your main means of significance, if one level you can say if it is your God, it's going to be really hard to ever let go of it. To ever share that with anyone else, that you'll be too full of fear to do that. But instead, if it's not, if money is just a means of living life, of accomplishing things, if it's just one aspect of life, if it's just a tool, if you see it in its proper perspective, it won't control you. In fact, you'll take great delight in being able to share it with others and being generous with others. But it's not just about money. It's true of your possessions. It's true of your personhood. Being generous and in spirit, being generous in praise, building up others. We in fact, I think the main idea is we want to be known as generous, gracious people. Valley View, I want Valley View to be known, and I think we are very generous financially, possessions wise, personality wise. Giving of time. We want to be known as a church that's like that. That acts as a bit of a barrier against the temptation to be fragile. It gives us resilience because here's why. If you're in a state of need and you've been generous and you've been a part of helping others in their time of need, you already know that God can do that. He used you to do that. And in the same way he used you to help others. You know he's going to raise up others to help you. You don't have to worry. You don't have to become anxious. You don't have to flip out. You've been a part of the solution before, and you know he can use others to do the same for you. That's a shield against anxiety. The fact that you've been generous yourself. Also, there's, I tell you, one of the more powerful things about being generous. There's something about that that just get your focus off yourself and the times you're most fragile. The the times you're least resilient is the times you're most inwardly focused, most worried about me, most worried about what's going to happen to me, most self-absorbed, generosity acts as a shield. It's a factor in how we become resilient and able to withstand what comes our way. So that's the first area I think he addresses here in verse ten. But now look at how he starts to tell us another layer of how we become resilient. Look at verse 12. I know, I'm sorry. Verse 11. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. So the second way you develop resilience and the big word here is cultivate an attitude of contentment. Grow, develop, cultivate an attitude of contentment. We want to grow in contentment. Now the the hard part of this verse is the way he starts out. Not that I'm speaking of being in need, so it seems a little bit like, so are you grateful or not Paul? I mean, if someone gives you a gift and you go, look, I don't really need it, but thanks, but that doesn't seem like they're really grateful, does it? And he's saying, look, I'm, I'm not saying I was in need, but thanks for the gift anyway. Now it's hard to know a couple of things here. First of all, he's already expressed a lot of gratitude up to this point. So this isn't the first time he's saying, thanks for your gift in the book. But also, it's hard to put yourself back in a context in in the culture and know what were some of their social conventions or obligations or how did they approach something. There may have been this kind of you got to act ungrateful to really be grateful. We can't really know what that was like. It's important to be aware of those kind of things. If you go into a new culture or you can offend someone. When we lived in the South Pacific, we, one of the guys we ministered there with, he was a ministry leader in that area, well-respected. He had been the prime minister of the country at one point. He had been a successful rugby player. That was the sport of choice there, successful rugby player in his youth. He's in his 70s now and we show up to the country. We're getting to know them. We're going to partner together in ministry. We go out to eat to this nice restaurant and we're out enjoying the meal together. And I look at his name was Pete. I look over to Pete in us and it said, Peter up, I really like your shirt. That is a great looking shirt. And of course, you know, it had more of the tribal look. Lots of colors, very, very patterned. And soon as I said that, he immediately starts to unbutton it and he's looking at me right in the eyes and he's unbuttoning his shirt all the way down, and I'm getting nervous. I don't know what's going on. Right away, though, his wife starts scolding him in their in their tribal language. I couldn't understand a word of it, but there was lots of yelling, lots of back and forth, aggressive language and finally he calms down and starts button and his shirt back up, and she looks at me and she goes, just so you know, you need to be aware in our culture, if you compliment somebody's shirt or tie or hat, they are obligated to then give it to you. And I said, look, I didn't want his shirt. I just thought it looked nice. She said, let me tell you how many meals I've sat through with him shirtless because of this. I said, I don't want to do that again. And he didn't know. And he looked at me and he said, John, I'm letting you off this time. But next time. And I laughed when he said that and he was not laughing. Deadly serious. Don't tempt me. Don't test me again, okay? If you don't know those social obligations and we have those weird things in our culture too, right? Never return a casserole dish empty. And how does that ever end if you keep doing that? By the way, this Baptist casserole culture, there's these different obligations that, you know, if we do this, this has to happen. I've got to respond back this way. Something maybe that's what's going on here. Maybe that's what Paul is doing. I think his main point is just saying to them, helping them see contentment doesn't come through financial gifts. I wasn't dependent on that for contentment. And Scripture backs this up by the way. There's some other verses to look at and I've got these listed in your notes. We're going to turn over to first Timothy six. Just a few pages over from Philippians. These some of these are going to be well known. You're going to remember some of these verses. First Timothy six. All the t books are together in the New Testament by the way. If you ever run across one of them, they're all there lumped together. First Timothy six. This is important because I think in our culture, the word content is a bad word. That's a dirty word. If you call someone content, you rarely mean it positively. People are often they mean you're. They basically mean that person's lazy. They've grown content. They're no longer striving. They're no longer trying to get better. In American culture, there's almost no worse word to use to describe someone, but that's not what Scripture means here. That may be how we think about it. That's not what it means. In fact, I would often use the word godly contentment. Christian contentment. First Timothy six tells us a little bit more about what true godly contentment looks like. Godliness with contentment is great gain. So the combination, the connection is made between the two godliness and contentment. There is a godly contentment, not a sinful, lazy contentment. For we brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. Some of you parents like to quote that one. I know you like that one place yourself kind of in that situation, we brought nothing into the world. We can’t take anything out, but if we have food and clothing with these we will be content. Now take note of that. What is the base layer of contentment? Food and clothing. If my basic necessities are met, that's the starting place for contentment. And how many things do we let derail us? How many things do we let leave us feeling like we don't have enough? My phone is six months old and it won't update as fast as I thought. Oh no, life is terrible. It's falling apart. Hmm. Food and clothing should bring contentment. That's our baseline starting point. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. It's not wrong to want to have enough to both provide and care for yourself, and have stability, and to be able to pour into others and to provide. But if being rich becomes a god, that's a snare to your soul, and it has led many away. In fact, it says in verse ten, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. Jesus said, it's hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but it's hard because it's a lot easier to think I've got this covered. I don't need anything else. I'm self-sufficient. When you have more money than you need. But contentment starts with I have enough. Starting there. Look also at Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13. Flip over a few more verses, a few more pages.

Hebrews 13: 16:41

5. Keep your life free from the love of money, and be content with what you have. For he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. You see, what he's saying here is your contentment is rooted, not in your circumstances. Contentment is never rooted in your circumstances. Paul is in prison, probably in Rome. He was beaten and put in prison when he came to Philippi to begin with. But his contentment is not in his circumstances. In fact, Paul, if you turn over to Second Corinthians. He made this clear for them. Second Corinthians 12. Or 11. He's going to share with them the fact that you can't let your circumstances dictate your joy, dictate your contentment. And we know that Paul was a man of great faith who put himself in difficult situations. Look at verse 23. Make sure you're in Second Corinthians, not first Corinthians. Verse 23, are they servants of Christ? I am a better one. I'm talking like a madman, meaning it's crazy for me to say I'm better than someone else. But he also wants people to see, look, I've been through a lot. Let me just list out some of what I've been through. Far greater labors, far more imprisonments, countless beatings, often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews, 40 lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked a night and a day I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers. Danger from my own people. Danger from the Gentiles. Danger in the city. Danger in the wilderness, danger at sea. Danger from false brothers and toil and hardship through many a sleepless night. In hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure. He goes on and on, listing out a wide variety of reasons why. He faced hardship and yet verse ten, I rejoice. Philippians is known as the most joy filled book of the New Testament, full of joy. Each chapter has an emphasis on joy, joy, joy, joy. It's not your circumstances. In fact, I say this to parents of young kids all the time. Don't look past these years. Don't just wish for the next season to get past this. And it's hard. It is hard. There's no doubt. I'm not trying to minimize how challenging it is. You kind of want to go back to, when could I read a book on my own and not be interrupted? When could we finish a sentence? No matter what it was about, just finish one sentence. Could it ever happen again? I can't imagine. Don't look past those years. They’re so important. Be content in this season. Whatever season you're in, there's no guarantee the next season will be easier. I remember hearing a story the ministry we worked in, marriage and family ministry, we would have a weekly staff meeting and someone would give a devotional. One of the guys, Greg, got up to share the story and he had young kids at home. And he said, I got to tell you, I'm so frustrated. My kids keep leaving their wet, sweaty glasses on top of the TV cabinet. Back in the days where TVs weren't on walls, they were inside a wood cabinet and I come home and there's this wet wood ring. It's ruined on top of the TV cabinet. And so I'm so frustrated with my daughter and we're all kind of feeling it. Yeah, I feel that is frustrating. And one of the older guys in the room, well respected distinguished gentleman Harry, he speaks up and he goes, Greg, just wait till they start wrecking your cars. And everybody and Greg just hung his head and go, man, what am I doing? You know, we all focus in our season and and look that there are challenges. How do you pursue contentment? Here's what Paul says. Look at what he says. Here's how you gain contentment in fact, he use the word I have learned contentment. I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be content, meaning it has to be learned. It doesn't come naturally. We're born naturally discontented, never having enough, never happy enough. How do we learn it? Look at verse 12. Here's what he says. Here's how he learned it. I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. It's interesting that phrase there. I have learned the secret of facing seven words or translating one word in the original language, and it really meant something more like I have been initiated. So imagine if you've ever gone through an initiation process to join something. Maybe it's a club, maybe it's a fraternity, maybe it's to be an apprentice. Maybe it's just to try to get feels like get your driver's license or whatever. A long, drawn out process to get something, to join into something, to be a part of it. You've been initiated into it. And Paul said, the initiation process for me had two sides. One side. He said, I know how to be brought low. We already saw that. I know how to go through the hard times. I know how to be hungry. I know how to face need. That's how you partly develop contentment as you go through those things. You know how to get through them. You learn how to endure them. It's really interesting, though, that Paul doesn't only talk about the hard times. This is fascinating. Yeah, I developed contentment because of the hard times. But he also said, I know how to be brought low. I know how to abound. I know how to face hunger. I know how to face plenty. I think some of us go. I'd like to try to face some plenty. I think that would be all right. Lord, if you want to test me with that, I'm up for that prayer right there. Are you? The statistics don't bode very well. Just look at the lottery. Most people aren't really ready to face abundance. How would you handle it? Would you be like the watch the family million dollar lottery ticket in in it unraveled them. It ruined them. It was the worst thing that could ever happen to them. And yet I've got a friend who's a successful businessman and all he does, and he just filters that money right back out to ministries to missionaries, over and over, dozens and dozens and dozens. Who knows, maybe even hundreds of missionaries. They're a part of sending all over the world. They're trustworthy. Paul realizes the challenges come in the hard things, but also the good things can be a challenge, too. I got to be able to endure and face both and know that whether in plenty-- In fact, what we have them still say at the wedding, whether in sickness or in health. Whether rich or poor. Some of them got to choke that one out. Really? I got to say that. Yes. Yeah. Because your promise and future love. It's great. It's easy to say I love you right now. We're looking ahead to the day you don't feel like it. In richer and in poorer. I'm going to be there. Why? Back in Hebrews he said that I will never leave you or forsake you. He is there for you. This is how we pursue contentment. We develop contentment, and we recognize happiness isn't rooted in our circumstances. This is how we become resilient. And then lastly, look here. The last way we develop resilience in this passage is to focus on the source of our strength. You know, it's really interesting that word. For contentment was a word. It's only used this one time in all of the New Testament, just this one time here alone. But it was a very popular word in Greek culture. In fact, it was a word commonly used of the Stoics. You've probably heard of them. Ancient group of philosophy, of an approach to life that was all about when you face hard things, how do you get through them? Their idea was to be content, which was often translated as self-sufficient. You need to look inward, find the strength within yourself to be able to get through it, to roll through it, to not let it derail you. But and this is number three in your notes, what we want to become is not self-sufficient. We want to become Christ sufficient. Verse 13 he says this, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Some translations I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It's implied with him. Christ is all over the passage. The passage in chapter ten or verse ten begins with, I rejoice in the Lord. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So it's not self-sufficiency. I'm not leaning more on myself to find my strength. In fact, if you need strength, you have to lean on something stronger than you. And when I turn inward and look inward, I don't see things that are stronger. That's who Christ is. That's why we turn to him. We lean on him. He's the source of our strength. Look, this is so critical. I can't emphasize this enough. He's got to be the one you turn to. He didn't come and save you to make you just. John 2.0. A little bit better version of you. Let me just give you a little bit. Well, we'll gold plate you here to make you look a little better to the world. That's all you really needed. No, he came to transform you. All the passages in the New Testament that talk about our state before Christ are not pretty. You were dead in your trespasses and sins, alienated from the covenant of God. Pursuing the prince of the power of the air, rejecting God. Leave me alone. Don't tell me what to do. That's not just a slight improvement. You need a transformed. And he came in. And if you know him, you know what I'm talking about. You look back at yourself and you go, I don't even recognize that person. He made me someone new. In him I'm a new creation. He did something I never could do. I tried, I couldn't do it myself. He did it. Listen, Jesus loves you. He wants you to follow him and live your life of joy and significance and fulfillment in him. Come to him. First

John 1: 28:27

9 says confess your sins. If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That's available to everyone. Don't spend another day trying to do things in your own strength. Instead, we want Christ centered resilience that helps us to face anything that comes our way. Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for today. We thank you that you speak to us through your word. Thank you that in you we can find contentment in whatever situation we're in, whether we're literally in prison, like Paul was. Or whether we're facing hardships at home. Or at work. Or at school. We can look to you and see you at work in that shaping us, growing us. I pray right now that each of us would sense your presence, and we would find true, godly contentment in you. I also pray that we would sense your power. Through you, through your power, we can do all things, especially the things that Paul faced of bringing the gospel to the world. We sing it all the time. Your name is power. Your name is healing. Your name is life. Will we walk in that power today? God give us the ability to walk in that power today. We love you. We ask all of these things in your powerful name. Amen.