Adult Bible Study

Faith Baptist Church

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All right, Mike, come on ahead. We are in Philippians 4, verses 10 -13, and just as an introduction,

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I want to rewind the clock a little over 20 years to September of 2000.

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In September of 2000, my wife and I had just had our third child, and we were spending the evening at home in September, and the

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Olympics were on. And it wasn't like today, where you know the results instantaneously.

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There was still some tape delay, and we decided to watch the women's

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Olympic platform diving. And there were two

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Chinese women that were heavily favored to win the

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Olympic gold medal, and there was a U .S. diver by the name of Laura Wilkinson who had a couple of good dives, and then had a third good dive, and was leading, and the drama, and she had a fourth really good dive at the same difficulty level as the two

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Chinese divers were going to have. And she won the gold medal, and she came up out of the pool celebrating, and she said the words,

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I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And I thought at the time, and even now, good thing that she's giving glory to God for what she did, however,

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I'm not so certain that that's what that verse means, right? As Pastor has said, I can do all things through a verse taken out of context.

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So we're going to start kind of at the end and talk about Philippians 4 .13

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and what it doesn't mean before we go back through the rest of that passage.

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So most of these come from the book that we've been using for our study and Dr.

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Stephen Lawson. So let me give you six things that Philippians 4 .13

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does not mean. Number one, God does not empower you to sin.

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So when we say all things, we don't really mean all things. I don't know if you've ever heard someone say to you, all means all, and that's all that all means.

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Well, all doesn't always mean all. If I say, I can eat chocolate all the time, how do

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I do that when I sleep? What about when I'm sick and have the flu? I don't eat chocolate those times.

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Now, if you just catch me randomly, there's probably a pretty good chance I'll be eating chocolate.

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I got that from my mother. She's not eating anything but chocolate right now, so even at 94, she will still eat chocolate, but she won't eat her dinner.

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So God does not empower you to sin, all right?

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Paul addressed this in Romans when he said, shall we sin more that grace shall abound?

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Certainly not. So number one, God does not empower you to sin.

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Number two, God does not empower you to do supernatural feats of strength.

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He's not going to let you jump over the Atlantic Ocean. I would suggest that God's not empowering you to win athletic events either.

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However, every step you take, every breath, every swing, every throw, every shot is only by His grace at the same time.

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So what you do can be committed to the Lord, but that does not mean that God is giving you anything beyond common grace to get that done, all right?

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What if Laura Wilkinson had finished second? Was God still empowering her?

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In a sense, yes, right? By the way, just a quick update, when I was researching that,

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I was going off my memory and I said, I should look some things up. So she now has four children and just two years ago came out of retirement.

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She retired in 2008. She came out of retirement and qualified for the Olympic trials at 40 -something years of age in Olympic diving.

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That's pretty amazing. And also, before every dive, she tells herself, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

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I would suggest maybe she is taking it a bit out of context, but I'm grateful that she's looking to the

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Lord for her strength. Number three, God does not empower me to do things outside of His will.

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Now, I'm not talking about overt sin here. I'm regarding things that God may allow us to do, but then we find out that they are not a part of His plan.

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And for an example of that, I wanted to cite my wife and I. 20 years ago, a little over 20 years ago, we had decided to go into missionary training and we were fully committed.

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We had gotten married with the plan of being missionaries with what was then called

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New Tribes Mission. She was a full -fledged member of that mission. I was in training with that mission.

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We took a position in our church in Streeter, and then a few years later decided to go back into that training when we had three small children.

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And things did not work out very well. And it was very clear that God was not wanting us to be missionaries at that time.

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That door was closed to us. And so, could we have powered through and claimed that Christ was strengthening me for this?

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We could have, and it would have been even worse than it already was, all right? So God does not necessarily empower you to do things that are outside of His will.

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Number four, God does not empower you to thrive outside of His ordinary means of thriving.

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What I'm referring to is this, people who say, I'm saved, I'm a

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Christian, I can worship God in my boat while I'm out fishing on Sunday morning, all right?

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I can worship God by myself apart from the fellowship of other believers.

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Well, that's not how God is going to empower you, and to claim Philippians 4 .13 in that regard is absolutely wrong.

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Absolutely wrong. God does not empower you to thrive outside of fellowship with other believers through the ministry of the

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Word together, all right? He does not empower you to thrive in those contexts.

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Now, I'm obviously preaching to the choir in a sense here because you guys are here, and you're saying, no kidding,

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Mike, we got it, all right, so I'll move on. God does not empower you to enjoy fellowship without confession and repentance, all right?

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You cannot come into a right relationship with Christ unless you have confessed and repented of what you've done wrong.

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You cannot walk in known sin and be experiencing fellowship with God.

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First John, we're very familiar with this, very familiar with this passage.

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If you say that you have no sin, you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you.

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If we confess our sin, then He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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If we say that we have not sinned, then we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us.

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That's my paraphrase of 1 John 1, verses 8 through 10.

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And finally, God does not, in number six, God does not empower us to put

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Him to the test, right? We know that as believers, our salvation is secure, our home in heaven is secure.

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That does not mean that if I climbed to the top of this roof,

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I don't know how I would ever get up there. But if I did and jumped off, that the Lord would just magically protect me from the law of gravity and I would be fine when

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I landed, right? And you think of Matthew chapter 4, verses 5 through 7 says, then the devil took him up into the holy city and him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down for it is written, he shall give his angels charge over you and in their hands, they shall bear you up lest you dash your foot against a stone.

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Jesus said to him, it is written again, you shall not tempt the

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Lord your God. It is not your place to put the Lord to the test in that regard, all right?

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So let's go ahead and read now that we've done all six of those things that Philippians chapter 4 and verse 13 does not say, let's go back and read verses 10 through 13 together.

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Philippians chapter 4, verse 10, but I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again, though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity.

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Not that I speak in regard to need for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.

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I know how to be abased and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things.

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I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

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I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. So before we get to the main point of this passage, which is found in verse 11, we need to address verse 10.

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At one point in time, the Philippians had been providing support to Paul, but there had been a long break of at least a decade in between their last support and now the support of him.

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And Paul is truly grateful for that support and he says so.

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And then it's almost like he catches himself. I don't know if you've been invited over to someone's home before and you said, oh,

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I'm so grateful to finally be in your home. And it kind of feels like you gave him a backhanded compliment in a way where you should have invited me sooner.

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And Paul, I think, catches himself as he's writing that and says, no, no, no, that's not what I mean.

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I'm not trying to make you feel guilty for doing the right thing here. All right.

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And then he goes on to explain from that. So the key, though, for this passage is found in verse 11.

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Let me reread that. It says, not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state

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I am to be content. And that word content stands like a pinnacle around which verses 10 through 13 all kind of revolve.

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And this is what this passage is about. It's about being content.

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So I read this week of a story of an airline pilot who was flying along and noticed the lake that he used to fish on when he was a small child or a young boy.

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And he turned to his copilot and says, do you see that lake down there? When I was a young boy,

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I used to look up at the planes that flew overhead and dream of one day being a pilot.

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And now here I am, a pilot. And I can tell you the only thing I dream of is I wish

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I were that boy back on that boat. Right? That is the picture of the exact opposite of being content.

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Wherever that pilot was in life, he was discontent with where he was.

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He was not satisfied being a young boy fishing. He was not satisfied being a pilot, thinking that that was going to give him fulfillment.

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And that is a danger for all of us when we are continually looking for something else besides the

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Lord to give us contentment. Nothing else will satisfy.

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It may satisfy for a day, a week, a month, maybe even a year. But in the end, you will be empty and broken.

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So that's the picture of the opposite of contentment is to be discontent.

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Let me give you a two -headed monster of what contentment is not, and what it sometimes comes off as.

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The two -headed monster is complacency and fatalism. The first one, complacency, all right?

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So question for you, have you settled for where you are in your sanctification?

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So you rest in Christ. This is good. Are you so rested in Christ, though, that you leave no room for the

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Lord to be at work in your life? Do you catch that difference? Because if that's you, that's a bad spot to be in.

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It's a bad spot. Remember Peter's words in this regard. Oftentimes when

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I was in training with new tribes, they would say, remember the last command of Christ in the book of Matthew?

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And then they would use that as, use the Great Commission and say, everybody. So what's the last command that Peter ever gave in 2

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Peter? It's this, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our

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Lord Jesus Christ. That's a continual command. None of us have arrived.

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Some of us may be inches closer, I guess, but we won't be perfect until we see

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Him face -to -face. So while we are on this planet walking around and fellowshipping with one another, it needs to be our goal to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.

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That's where we're to be. Monster of mistaken contendedness.

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Sovereignty that you think you have no reason to be living and no responsibility for sharing the gospel.

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Do you see there's a line there that you can cross over and you say, the

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Lord is sovereign, true. I live however I want. It doesn't matter what sin

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I've committed now because I'm in Christ. It does, true, but you still have a responsibility to live and act according to this contentment then.

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Contentment is a very appropriate. What then shall we say to these things?

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If God am persuaded that neither which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Did you get that?

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There's a little word in there that says no other created thing can separate you from God's love.

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There's only one who has doing what is right though. Contentment should be who are using the gospel or using the teaching and preaching

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TV at just about any time of day and you will find them on certain

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TV stations and I don't recommend you do so. So the question becomes how, how does

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Paul have such hand of a sovereign God?

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Everything that happened to him must be the case. When loved ones get sick and die, it's by seeing every circumstance as from the sovereign hand of God.

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I can't be forced. So anyway, there is a revival. This isn't a, this isn't direct under 50 years in an extra just because we ask him to.

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Is God free to do so? Yes. However, it ought to be.