Philippians chapter 4, beginning at verse 10, I rejoiced greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty in hunger, abundance in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. This is the word of the Lord. And you can be seated. Well, if you've been with us, you know that we've been considering Paul's very bold statement, which has become so popular among evangelicals today. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. But in our self-centered and self-obsessed society, this verse has been lifted out of context and tortured to no end. It's been hijacked by faulty exegesis to claim limitless human potential and the triumph of the human spirit. And oddly enough, however, exaggerating this verse is at the same time trivialized it. They've made it all about us and temporal vacuous victories, when in truth it's clearly all about Christ and eternal profound victories. And so I want you to think about the context in which Paul writes this. He's penning this letter from a Roman prison cell. He has few resources, if any, and he's chained to an elite Roman soldier. Listen, if Paul had intended for this verse to be used the way so many evangelicals have taken it today, he would have been saying something like, I can break these chains, and I can dispatch these soldiers, and I can escape this prison through Christ who strengthens me. But that's not what he says. And most importantly, that's not what he does. So what is Paul saying? He isn't saying if only I have enough faith, though if I have that trust in faith, through Christ I can do anything I want, anything I put my mind to do. He's not using the verse this way as if we could exploit Christ's power for our own personal agenda. And this is what offends me so much about the way this passage is used today. People are trying to exploit the power of Christ for their own personal agenda. That's a form of idolatry. No, what Paul is saying is, I can face any and every circumstance with contentment. I can be who God has made me to be. I can keep on doing what God has called me to do, but I can only do this in and through Christ who enables me. Paul is acknowledging that without Christ, he can do nothing that is righteous in God's sight, nothing that pleases God, nothing of significance in light of eternity. And if it's true for Paul, It's most assuredly true for us. This is an important principle of scripture, that God never calls us to do what we could do on our own, in and of ourselves. We were born into this world spiritually dead, and apart from Christ, therefore we can do nothing. We cannot please God in the flesh. But the God who calls us to himself, the Lord who assigns us our place in the body of Christ, he is the one who gives us the spiritual gifts that we have to have to fulfill our calling. He is the one who awakens the talents within us that he has given us through the presence of the Holy Spirit. And as Paul tells the Philippians then in chapter two, We can indeed work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, but only because God is at work in us, making us both willing and able to fulfill his good pleasure. Again, it is all about Christ and eternal profound victories for the kingdom of God. That's what this passage is about. And so the point isn't that Paul is invincible. The point is that the gospel is unstoppable. The point is not that the apostle can do all things, but it is Christ who is omnipotent, and He can do all things. And so Paul is saying that through Christ, in union with Him, he says, I can do all these things. I insert that because the translation is a little vague. The word this isn't actually there. It's I can do all. through Christ who strengthens me. But it's rightly supplied, but it's not just I can do all things, it's I can do all these things. These things, what things? The things he's been talking about. He can run his race. He can endure adversity. He can rejoice in tribulation. He can live free from personal anxiety and fulfill his ministry. In Christ, there is no famine he cannot endure. There is no prison that can silence him. In Christ, there is no peril that can thwart his gospel ministry. In Christ, there is no enemy that can dissuade him from faithfully serving Christ. Why? Because he can do all these things through Christ who strengthens him. And so the broader context of Paul's writing clearly sets limits on this rather bold declaration. And Paul puts himself forth, as we've seen, an example to follow. So the way he lived interprets what he means. It's true. Paul did some remarkable things in the time he had on this earth after his encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus. He did some things that were far beyond his own strength and his own competence. He lived through some impossible situations, circumstances that no human being should be able to survive. But Paul's declaration was not open-ended. He wasn't saying that he could do whatever he wanted. He's saying, I can do whatever God has called me to do. And there is nothing that can stand in my way if he has told me to go. Folks, that's as broad as it gets. But there is an immediate context here. And the next paragraph that we will get to, Lord willing, next week, gives us more insight into this very specific way in which Paul is referring to his ability to do all things through Christ who strengthens him. He does have a specific application in mind. And as I said, this next paragraph will make this even more clear. So what is this immediate context? Again, let me just remind you that it had been some time since the Philippians had been able to support Paul with their resources, with their gifts. And he wants them to know that he can do all things, all these things that he is called to do, whether or not the saints are able or whether or not they're even willing to give. That's what he wants them to know. In other words, he says, your gift or not gift will not keep me from doing what I'm called to do. On the other hand, it is what you ought to do. And this comes, as I said, even into sharper focus in the next paragraph. But Lord willing, as I said, we'll get there next week. But in preparation for moving to that paragraph, there is an important biblical principle that will help us to understand what Paul is saying in this more narrow context, and the context here is giving and receiving. You know, as Steve is fond of saying, you mentioned it again this morning, there's a ditch on either side of the path of righteousness. These ditches are extremes that distort the truth that, that sometimes will strand us in error, even into outright heresy. So clearly, these are extremes that we should be careful to avoid. Perhaps one of the things that makes the road to eternal life so difficult is the fact that there are ditches on either side. As Jesus said, the gate through which you must pass to enter that way to eternal life. That gate is narrow, he says. In other words, there's not a lot of wiggle room. In fact, we should say there's no wiggle room at all. The road that that gate leads to also we are told is hard. And so the path doesn't get broadened after you pass through that narrow gate. In the Greek, basically it's saying that this is a very narrow gate and once you get in there, this difficult path is very narrow as well. It's very compressed all the way to eternal life. It's the road to destruction that has that wide gate that opens up into an easy and accommodating highway. And it's as if the sign above the wide gate says, anything goes. Anything goes. It's a wide gate. You can get through there with anything. And it's as if, therefore, as we travel that road that leads to destruction, we don't have to worry about ditches on either side because this is a superhighway that was paved in the deepest ditch that there is. You're already in the ditch if you're on the superhighway that leads to hell. It's a broad path and a ditch that ends with you finding yourself at a cliff and you can't stop yourself from plunging over into the abyss of hell itself. I mean, this is Jesus and his analogy of all of this. And so whenever it comes to navigating this path of righteousness, There are ditches, however, on either side, and those ditches involve how we walk that path. We have to be careful to avoid them. And so even walking the path of righteousness, we must be careful. Yes, the gate is narrow. But Christ is that gate. He's what makes the gate narrow, right? He is the way to eternal life. There is no other way. There is no other gate. No one comes to the Father except through Him. And so on the one hand, we are commanded to come. We are commanded to enter. That is a command Jesus gives. Enter by that narrow gate. But on the other hand, We could never find that gate on our own to enter into it. The Father has to call us to Christ. And it is Christ is the only one who can take us through that narrow gate we can't fit otherwise. It's a gate we could never enter on our own. And so it's Christ who guarantees our entrance into that gate that leads to eternal life. And so on the one hand, you have this narrow gate that we are commanded to enter, but we can't even find it. So a ditch is you're out there looking in your own strength to find that narrow gate. You'll never find it. That's a ditch you need to avoid. On the other hand, we find that Christ is the only one who can pass us through that gate. However, once the Father draws you, you come. Do you see? We have to be careful, again, as Steve was referring to earlier. Don't put everything off on the sovereignty of God so that you're lazy and you don't do anything at all. On the other side of that, we have to realize that you're not going to do this in your own strength. And if it were up to you, you would be on that superhighway leading to that abyss. Well, the same thing is true with the road itself. On the one hand, the path of righteousness is narrow, it's hard, it's difficult to diverse, but yet we're commanded to walk it. So what are we gonna do? Give your best effort, you're gonna walk this, you're gonna do it. Read what it says you have to do to walk that path and do it. This is a Nike slogan, right? Just do it. That's a ditch and you will fail every time. Because on the other hand, We can only walk that path if we are yoked to Christ. His yoke is easy. It makes his burden light. So you see, as the Son of Man, Christ has already walked that path perfectly. He's stayed in the very center of that path through his whole life, never sinning, always tempted. but never giving in, remaining pure and sinless. And so he knows all the obstacles on that path. He knows all of the hazards, all of the pitfalls and that narrow and difficult path. It's a path that is hard because this is a world that is corrupted by sin. It's a path we could never walk on our own. Yet when we are yoked to Christ, the impossible becomes possible. When we take on His burden, He carries the bulk of the weight. The crushing weight of God's holiness is borne by our Savior. So you see, there's a ditch on either side there, that we are commanded to walk this path. If we try to do it in our own strength, we're gonna end up in the ditch. But on the other side, we are yoked to Christ, which means that we are not being carried down the path, we are walking with Christ down that path, yoked to Him. So we are active in what we do. So we have to be aware of the ditches, right? And if we focus too much then on the difficulty of the path, what happens to us? We easily become discouraged, don't we? We easily become discouraged. We allow that difficulty to rob us of the joy that is ours in Christ. We have to remember that although we will continue to struggle with sin until we lay aside this mortal frame, victory is ours. Until that day, however, our feeble efforts, and this is all to the praise of the glory of God, until that day we lay aside this mortal frame, our feeble efforts are strengthened by Christ's power and they are sanctified by his righteousness. God is at work in us and he will surely complete that good work. He will bring us into glory. On the other hand, we must never take Christ's work for granted. and simply resign ourselves to sin, right? Yes, it is true that it's not by righteousness which we have done. It is his mercy that has saved us. Yes, it is Christ's righteousness in which we stand before the face of God. Yes, he has perfected forever those he is now sanctifying, but he is now sanctifying us. On the one hand, where sin abounds, grace much more abounds. On the other hand, we must never say, let us continue in sin that grace may abound. Do you see? There are ditches on either side. And Paul is a master at navigating the way and avoiding the ditches. Okay, so that sets us up for understanding what Paul is doing here. Because as best I can tell, what the Apostle Paul is doing in this particular context is as he commends the Philippian church, he commends them for their support on the one hand, and he insists on the other hand that he didn't need it. He wants to help them avoid the ditches here. What Paul is wanting them to know is that his ministry would have continued on with or without their gift. They have to know that. The one hand, he rejoiced at the reception of their generous gift. On the other hand, he wants them to know that their gift didn't rescue him from some deep, dark moment of discontent and depression. Paul can do all things, not because of their gift. He can do all things through Christ who strengthens him, you see? Paul's contentment then, doesn't depend on the saint's generosity. You know, some of our problem is that we rest our content on what other people do. We should be content in Christ. This is what Paul had learned. And so that's our problem. We are discontent, we grumble and we complain because others aren't doing what we think they ought to do. Paul was way beyond that. He was content in every situation because God is sufficient. And so indeed, Paul's contentment doesn't depend on the saint's generosity. It also doesn't depend on whether he's hungry or whether he's full, whether he's being humbled or whether he's being respected, whether he has little or whether he has far more than he needs. He is content regardless of his situation because he has learned that God's grace is always sufficient. At the same time, Again, we avoid the ditches. At the same time, we mustn't forget who inspired such generosity in the hearts of these Philippians, right? And it is their gift that did supply Paul with some resources he clearly could use. These saints became an instrument through whom God bestowed a moment of abundance upon the apostle. The apostle says, I know how to be abound and I know how to be humbled. I know how to be full, to be hungry. I know how to have plenty and to not have anything at all. And so this was a moment of Paul having plenty that God bestowed upon him. But Paul wants them to know that his ability to face every situation depends solely on Christ. He can do all things through Christ who strengthens him. So here's the tension. Paul is content whether he's well supplied or whether he's poorly supplied. Whether he's with or without makes no difference. He's able to face every situation through the power of Christ. Even when he is weak, or especially when he is weak, That's when Christ is strong in him. And so Paul is saying something to the effect of, I didn't need your gift in order to keep fulfilling my calling. Yes, I have often been in need, he admits, but I've learned to be content no matter my situation. I have learned that regardless of whether I am well supplied or I'm doing without, I can do what I am called to do through Christ who strengthens me. Paul's words may seem confusing. Was he in need or wasn't he? Well, I'll put it this way. He was in prison and the Romans provided nothing. You had to come up with your own food, your own clothes, your own supplies if you were in a Roman prison. They'd just soon see you starve to death, freeze to death. They didn't care. So what is Paul saying? He wants them to know that he wasn't, however, sitting in jail thinking, well, I guess that's it for now. I'm running low on food. My clothes aren't adequate for this situation. I'm hampered by my need. What else can I do, right? The gospel is just going to have to wait until some of these selfish and immature saints get with it and send me some help. Now, that isn't Paul. He's saying, listen, if this help, if this gift hadn't arrived, it wouldn't have mattered, for I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Do you see the context here? Still, Paul receives their gift and rejoices over the generosity of these saints. Why? Because it was right for them to send the gift. This is what they ought to have done. Do you remember what we read in 1 Timothy 6 a couple of weeks ago? We're to be willing to give out of what we have been given, to share what we have. And we are to honor our God with the resources he has entrusted to us. So again, we need to be careful to stay out of the ditches here. On the one hand, Paul will get by with or without gifts from the saints. On the other hand, this is no excuse for them failing to do what is right by sending Paul resources that will assist him in the fulfillment of his ministry. Paul is helping them, I could say he's helping us, stay out of the ditches. As I said, this will be even clearer in the next paragraph. And seeing these situations through Paul's eyes will bring the message into sharper focus. Though Paul was often in need, often hungry, often thirsty, he had a right to eat and drink from provisions that ought to have been supplied through God's people. I'm not making that up. That's what Paul himself says in 1 Corinthians 9. He says, do we ministers not have the right to eat and drink? As the law of Moses says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain. And then Paul asks, that law about the ox, it's from Deuteronomy 25 verse four by the way, is that truly about oxen? Is God really concerned with the animal here or is he giving this command to illustrate a greater principle? Well, Paul says, yes, God is giving it to illustrate a better principle, a more important principle. God is telling us that those who plow and thresh should partake of the harvest. The apostle understands that the original command then was not simply about how you treat animals. You see, in that day, and this is important to remember, back in Old Testament times, and the same was true still in Paul's day, that there were people who were farming who didn't have enough livestock on their own. And so if you didn't, you would often borrow or even rent an ox to thresh out your grain. The oxen would trample the grain and that loosened or separated the edible part of the grain from the husk and the straw. The husk and the straw are worthless. They need to be discarded. But that edible part of the grain, you needed to get that separated from that which was worthless. That's what the ox did for you. As the ox trudged along, however, he would help himself to some of the grain he was threshing. And whatever the ox managed to eat diminished the amount of grain you were left with to sell. So to preserve as much of the grain as possible, you could just muzzle the ox so he couldn't eat. But if you did that, that would mean that you were returning the ox to its owner in a poorer state than when you employed it. In other words, this command was given to protect the owner of the ox, not the ox himself. It's a law of economic justice. It was given to keep people from taking advantage of others. It's not right, then, to muzzle an ox that's providing you with edible grain. That's what's being said. Well, Paul compares this threshing with the preaching of the gospel, the teaching of God's word. And it's more applicable than it might at first appear. As Paul says in Ephesians chapter 4, God has appointed pastors and teachers to equip the body of Christ for the work of the ministry. We are charged with rightly dividing the word of truth, with expounding and explaining scripture. Now, I hope and pray that you read the scripture for yourself regularly on a daily basis. But there is still the need for preachers and teachers in the body of Christ. Otherwise, God would not have given them. And this is what Stephen was doing when he was ministering to the Ethiopian eunuch. The man, if you'll remember, was reading from the book of Isaiah. And Stephen says, do you understand what you're reading? And the eunuch replied, how can I unless I have someone to guide me? I need a teacher. I need a preacher. So Philip began teaching him, making the scripture clear to him, giving him the kernel of the grain, the essence of the message that was there. And the man was converted. Well, this is what Paul is referring to as sowing spiritual things among you. And he says, listen, if we have sown spiritual things among you, should we not reap material things from you? That's what Paul says. So Paul is making the case that he and those who minister the gospel should have at least the right to receive from those that they feed in return the necessities of life, you see? Those who minister the gospel should at least be supplied with the necessities of life by those who receive the teaching. But now that's a minimum. The Apostle Paul in 1 Timothy chapter five verses 17 through 18 goes back to Deuteronomy again. He uses the same phrase. And I want to read that one to you this morning. You can get a little bit fuller context. He says, let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching. For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain and the laborer deserves his wages. Now, this is an important passage because Paul isn't just talking about himself or apostles and their co-laborers. The context of Timothy, and of Titus is Paul instructing them in setting up churches and putting those churches in order. This is a universal principle then that he lays out for the people of God, that the overseers appointed to shepherd the people of God should live from the material things that the body of Christ is able to provide them. And here's what Paul says. Elders who do a good job at directing the affairs of the church then are worthy of double honor. That doesn't mean lauding him with praise. It doesn't mean pats on the back. Listen, we appreciate the encouragement when we get it, but our preaching, the most thing that we're concerned about when we preach and teach the word of God is if at the end of it, the Lord can say amen. That's what's most important. But what the word means here, this is the word honor from which we get our word honorarium. Do you know what an honorarium is? It refers to compensation, all right? And so Paul says if they lead well, especially when it comes to preaching and teaching, they are not only worthy of compensation, they're worthy of double compensation. Now, of course, Paul isn't giving a formula for calculating a pastor's salary. He isn't saying, sit down, figure out a reasonable wage, and then double it. That's not what he's saying. He's simply saying that the compensation given to them shouldn't be miserly. It should be generous. It should be abundant. And to support this principle, Paul again cites that law from Deuteronomy chapter 25, verse 4. You shouldn't muzzle the ox who provide you with your food, right? And then he adds Christ's words to this. It was Jesus who said, the laborer is worthy of his wages. He deserves his wages. So that's the biblical principle. As a minister of the gospel, Paul should never have been in need because God's people were negligent in supporting him. He might have been in need because he was in some place where they couldn't get to him, where the funds couldn't get to him. He could be in need and in situations where there was no possibility that they could help him. But what shouldn't have happened is that he was ever in a place where they could have provided and they didn't. But that's exactly what happened to Paul. And so as Paul admits, in some sense, this was his own doing. So Paul says, partly my fault, partly my fault, because as he says in Timothy, there are those who seek to profit financially from the gospel. So Paul determined that he himself would never ask for it. There are those I don't want to be clumped in with them, and so I'm just not going to ask for it. And he makes this point when he's writing to the Corinthians, because the Corinthians shamefully were freely giving to false apostles, those proud, impressive, eloquent orators who were taking advantage of them. They, in turn, were taking advantage of Paul. In any case, Paul labored while he was in Corinth as a tent maker so he could proclaim the gospel freely, without charge, so that no one could accuse him of being in it for the money. Nonetheless, this did not give them an excuse. It did not free them from their responsibility to give. They were giving to false apostles who were feeding them straw and husks while they were starving the apostle Paul who fed them with fine grain. That is to their shame. In fact, Paul says, in a sense, he said, I robbed the poor Macedonian congregations. That's where Philippi is, by the way. I robbed the poor Macedonian congregations because they sent gifts to support me while I preached to you wealthy Corinthians. So I want you to see, when Paul says, I can do all these things through Christ who strengthens me, what he's saying is I can preach with without the support of the churches. On the one hand, I can preach even if I am muzzled, even if I am deprived of the support that's rightfully mine. On the other hand, this is a shame to freeloading churches. They were being well-fed and They were given the finest grain. I don't imagine you could receive a better sermon, more in-depth sermon than that from the Apostle Paul, unless Jesus himself was giving it. They were being fed with the finest grain, but they neglected to feed the one feeding them. So yes, on the one hand, Paul doesn't need their support to continue the ministry because he can do all these things through Christ who strengthens him. But on the other hand, this was no excuse for depriving ministers of the gospel of their needs. This is why Paul rejoices over the gifts given by the Philippians. This was never solicited by Paul. The Philippians had that joy of the Lord in their hearts, this desire to give to the apostle Paul time and again, And we will look more specifically in detail, Lord willing, next week at the ways in which they had to do this. But the point is, he isn't rejoicing that now his stomach will be full. He isn't rejoicing that now he will be well supplied. He is rejoicing over what this says about these Philippian saints. That's why he's rejoicing. They were walking on the very crown of the path of righteousness. And in this respect, they were avoiding the ditches. As Paul will make even clearer in the next paragraph, he sees this as a wondrous and glorious testimony to the work of Christ in their hearts. So what can we learn as we close this morning from what Paul is saying to these saints? Well, those who faithfully preach God's word, those who faithfully feed the flock of God should not be taken for granted. The body of Christ ought not take advantage of them. And yet, and this is important, any faithful minister of the gospel, any minister of the gospel worth his salt, will continue to preach the gospel and do the work whether or not he receives that support. Why? God is his supply, just as he's your supply. And God's grace is sufficient. And so as the body of Christ, there is one ditch on one side that says, oh, I'm not going to give to him because if I do, he'll start depending on me and not on God. And so that means frees me up to use all of this for myself. Do you see what's wrong with that picture? It reminds me of sometimes missions boards who are figuring out what kind of support they're going to send to a missionary. We don't want to give him too much. We give him too much, then Who knows what he'll do, right? We need to keep him always on that edge of starvation and then you know he'll always be seeking God. And yet they go around driving a new car every year, living in a McMansion and doing what they please, right? You see what's wrong with the picture? And so indeed, all we can do is be responsible for what God says is our position. And this is what Paul was doing. Paul was saying, I can do all these things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do all of this, whether or not I receive any support from the churches. And yet at the same time, those churches have a responsibility to be sending to Paul, to be giving to him. And the Macedonian churches was one of the only ones to do so. And so it is amazing what Paul was able to accomplish in his time because it was Christ at work in him. And so my prayer is that we realize, all of us, no matter what our calling is, that God's grace is sufficient. And may he grant us that grace that we need to walk that path of righteousness and avoid those ditches on either side, that on that day when we stand before him, we might hear him say, well done. good and faithful servant. Won't that be the only reward we need, we would want, is to hear him say, well done. Because whatever crown we're given, be thrown back at his feet, isn't it? That's what Revelation says. Yes, we're earning crowns so that we'll have something to throw at his feet. And what a blessing it is to have been called by our God to his purpose and to do his will. and to Him be all glory forever and ever. Amen.