Philippians 4:12-13 “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

Jack Whitaker won 315 million dollars in the West Virginia lottery in 2002. Less than a year later he was robbed of over a half million of that money at gunpoint. The money enabled his daughter and granddaughter to become addicted to drugs, and both of them died of overdoses. Though he was the president of a construction company when he won the money, four years later he was broke. Both he had his wife wish that he had torn the ticket up and never collected the money.

Sports Illustrated estimates that nearly 80 percent of NFL players are broke within three years of retiring from football. Few of them know how to manage their riches, or have a plan for supporting themselves after they stop playing.

The Apostle Paul never knew riches like the people just mentioned. He knew what it was to have “plenty.” Plenty is enough to cover your needs, and maybe enough more to enjoy life a little. Maybe that is all we ever wanted. We aren’t asking God for a life of luxury. We just want to be able to pay the bills.

Do you notice that Paul does not say the secret to being content lies in super riches, or having plenty, or even just enough? “I know what it is to be in need.” He had experienced hunger, cold, lack of decent shelter. He had been shipwrecked and spent a night and a day in the open sea. He had been falsely imprisoned with no one to come to his defense. He was writing this very letter from just that position. Still, he was content. He had learned the secret. He wants us to know it, too.

Our day of Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday season. These weeks leading up to Christmas can aggravate our materialism. There are so many shiny things to captivate our eyes. The commercials pushing us to purchase depend on our discontent to have their way with you and me.

Sometimes this season makes us more charitable. We may volunteer to feed people at a homeless shelter. We may buy Christmas presents for poor families that can’t afford them. These are all fine things to do. But don’t be surprised if those who receive your gifts aren’t filled with immediate happiness, and even leaves you a little empty. The secret to being content does not lie in how much you or anyone has.

What, then, is the secret? Paul continues, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

We are content when we depend upon God for everything in every way. He has rehearsed us in this kind of trust in the way he worked out our salvation, hasn’t he? We were naturally inclined to think that salvation was not about having more. It was about doing more. We had sins to make up for, so we tried to pay off the sin-debt with better living. If we worked hard enough, we supposed, maybe we could even bank our good deeds for a bad day, and we could begin to feel good about ourselves and our future.

But that approach always leaves one with an uneasy feeling, doesn’t it? I am trying hard to live right and do good, but why don’t I feel content?

It is because that way doesn’t work. Doing more, doing better, is not the secret to salvation. His strength, not ours, secures our souls. He has always intended to give salvation as his gift. So he gave us his Son. He loved and lived the way we were supposed to do. He served the sentence we deserved for our sins. He died the death that erases them. He even gave us the faith that makes these gifts our own! His strength saves us, not our own. My soul finds peace in his love.

If this God has done so much to settle my accounts with him, can’t I trust him to take care of everything else I need? In his letter to the Romans Paul put it this way: “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave himself up for his all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”  

The secret to being content is not in the possessions. It is faith in the one who has already given us a kingdom. It is the strength we find in having him as our very own, and with him everything else we truly need as well.