“Take no thought for your life.”—Matthew vi. 25.
“Take no thought for the morrow.”—Matthew vi. 31.
Let us survey the entire passage of which the first of these texts is the commencement, and of which the second is the close. It brings before us a common evil, and for this evil it proposes a sovereign remedy.
The evil is secular anxiety. Perhaps we need not be greatly surprised at its prevalence, when we consider what the life-experience of most of us is. Think of the uncertainty of almost everything we know—life, health, friendship, domestic relationships and affections, riches, commerce. Life has many sad surprises and disappointments. Our own day is especially full of care. The age is mad with speculation—thousands making haste to be rich, and so bringing upon themselves many temptations. For many others, the time is full of hard necessities, and the outlook is one of possible or even probable poverty. The admonitions given by our Lord in the verses before us are needed now more than ever.
There are persons who, under the influence of pride and false notions of manliness, consider careworn Christians—Christians labouring and struggling amid the difficulties of the way—undeserving of sympathy. “After all,” they say, “what are the ills of life, that we should make so much ado? Be men!” Sometimes we meet with superficial Christians who profess that this life is really so insignificant, that it shows a low state of piety to be painfully affected by common ills. As to the first, nothing but stoicism, or the hard-heartedness which is sometimes the result of prosperity, can make the soul unsusceptible to the ordinary troubles of life, or independent of the antidote which the religion of Christ supplies. As to the second, do not let them talk in a way which implies that they are wiser than their Lord. He knew how heavily care pressed upon the hearts He loved, and condescended to offer them the appropriate and all-sufficient relief.
And how does the great Teacher speak to the careworn in these verses? Is it not unspiritual to take arguments for the comfort of our Christian life from lower things? Must we go to the irrational and inanimate creation for gospels of blessing for our spiritual need? Christ drew His arguments from the birds and the flowers; clearly showing that we should accustom ourselves to see God’s hand, His love, His teaching, in all things. Let Him not be excluded from the least part of His creation. Every part of it may subserve the purposes of His grace. “Consider” the fowls of the air and the flowers of the fields; make them objects of study. To the thoughtful they often suggest “thoughts that lie too deep for tears;” to the Christian they may well suggest thoughts which shall inspire thanksgiving and prayer.
Note the condescension, the simplicity, and the power of our Lord’s argument. His appeals are homely. He seeks no far-fetched reasonings or facts from antiquity. He points to birds and flowers; an argument for simple people, but equally effective for the learned and the refined. We have no need to go far for lessons of comfort.
We must not overlook the necessary limitations of our Lord’s teaching in these verses. Those limitations are found in the nature of things. Observe, then,
I. Christ does not forbid all anticipations of the future. He cannot mean so much as this when He says, “Take no thought for the morrow.” Man is an inhabitant of two worlds—one material, the other spiritual. This being so, two distinct sets or classes of wants press upon him—the wants of the body, and those of the soul. The wants of the soul point to a future state of existence, for which we must prepare. In relation to these, carelessness—the absence of forethought—would be fatal. According to the state of our souls, the thought of the future gives us terror or joy. To the Christian, the future is the scene of his perfected spiritual growth, and of his consummated happiness. Every aspiration of his soul bounds joyfully towards it, and he instinctively leaves the things that are behind to press forward. In the words before us, Christ does not touch such matters as these. It is not fore-thought which is condemned, but fore-boding.
II. Nor does He discountenance earnest activity in the duties of the present. Work is God’s oldest law. It is only in wilful blindness or in unaccountable delusion that men can plead this teaching as an excuse for indolence. “If any man will not work, neither shall he eat.” Work is often spoken of as a curse; but it is a blessing. With a Christian spirit, it may be gloriously consecrated. It links us in our activity with God who “worketh hitherto,” and with Christ who worked His full day.
III. Christ does not even condemn a legitimate forethought in connection with secular interests. There is a legitimate forethought such as this. Nature teaches it. We must sow in order to reap. We must toil to-day for results which cannot come till to-morrow. “If any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.” The faith to live by is that which prompts not to sitting down and doing nothing, but to trustful and persevering enterprise. Keep in mind the distinction between forethought and foreboding. It is forethought in a man which leads him to sow for a future harvest; it is foreboding that would fill his heart with fears that the harvest will be a bad one. Forethought is the grand distinction between the civilized and the savage; foreboding is the weakness of distrust.
What the Lord bids us guard against, then, is conjectural brooding over the possible necessities of the future, and our possible lack of the resources required for their supply. “Taking thought” means giving way to anxiety—the constant occupation and worry of the heart in looking forward, gazing into, and dreading the possibilities of the days and years yet to come. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Be warned against forebodings of evil to-morrow. The lesson is, “Do the day’s work as it is appointed by God; accept the day’s mercy, bear the day’s evil; and be not anxious about the evil which to-morrow may bring.”
How common a weakness—nay, rather let us say, how common a sin—this taking anxious thought for the morrow is! We see the lines of care in thousands of faces every day. Anxiety has marked its furrows round lips which every morning say, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is a calamity as well as a sin. It disturbs the heart, so that there can be no enjoyment of present mercies. It adds to the present the weight of an unknown but dreaded future. It paralyses religious feeling, and checks religious activity. It defeats its end by shortening the life it would fain prolong.
Now Christ shows that this kind of anxiety reckons falsely, because it is founded on a false estimate of life; and He further shows that to gauge our position aright we must reckon according to the Divine thought respecting it. The whole of the teaching before us on this subject is perfectly plain, consisting of a few simple and obvious points. We cannot hope, indeed, to bring it within the understanding of the mere worldling. The man who has no filial confidence in God has no antidote for care. Anxiety can only be subdued in the heart of him who can look upward, and say, “Father, I trust in Thee!”
What, then, is the first point? It is this, that God—the Author of our life, the Creator of our bodies—will surely give that which, however necessary, is yet less important and less valuable. In bringing us into existence, He has done more than He can do in giving to us any secular blessing which we can need. “Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?” We have our life from Him; our bodies are His handiwork. Why should we suspect that He will be indisposed to give us whatever may be needful for the existence thus created? Will He, by neglect, frustrate His own purpose? The greater gift can only be sustained and made valid by the lesser ones. Without food and raiment the body must decay, and its life must perish. God does not give imperfectly.
Another point is this, that anxious care answers no good purpose. It is useless. If we could by means of it gain an exemption from future evil, common prudence would dictate it as a wise expedient. But it is not so. Christ puts this consideration very strongly. No amount of foreboding can add a single moment to our life, for the boundaries of our life have been fixed by God. The future is utterly unknown to us; and foreboding will not help us in the least degree to forecast its difficulties and its trials, though it may unfit us for the endurance of them. Whether we are cognizant of it or not, God will take His plan with us, and will carry it out. If we could not believe in the love that He hath towards us, the thought of this would be a dark sorrow; but, assured of His love as we may be, we can also be assured that He will do all things well. At any rate, no over-anxiety of ours will facilitate the order of life we long for. “The morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.” It will have anxieties enough of its own in spite of every effort of ours to set it free from them. Every day, to the end, will have its own “evil,” and the “evil” of each day will require all our strength for coping with it. So that anxiety for the morrow will not remove care from the morrow; it will only take strength and joy from to-day. Trust in God, and all that He gives you of trouble for to-day will be accompanied by the gift of the strength necessary to enable you to bear it. But do not expect Him to give you strength to bear unnecessary sorrows—sorrows of your own making—the sorrows which spring from worldliness and unbelief. “As thy day”—the day that now is—“so thy strength shall be.”
A third point is, that, reasoning from analogy, we may be sure that God will provide for us. He feeds the birds, and He clothes the lilies. They can do nothing for themselves; yet how well are they provided for! “Are not ye much better than they?” A wonderfully simple, beautiful, and effective argument this! How grand the view it gives us of God’s position in His universe! What knowledge must be His! What power! What vastness—what variety of resource! What minuteness of kindly, loving interest! Who would not gladly entertain such a conception of God and of His Providence as this, in preference to the atheism and the materialism which have intruded so grievously into the science of our times? “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?... Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” Thus, God is not content with giving what is simply necessary for life; He gives for beauty also. Showing His goodness in such a manner to objects inferior to man, why should man suspect that the same goodness will be denied to him? Observe, that Christ does not teach that birds and flowers are better than men because of their immunity from toil. His meaning is, that creatures which do not and cannot toil—creatures which do not and cannot forecast the future—are clothed and fed; will God neglect the nobler creatures to whom He has given the power of thought, and whom He has put under the obligation to labour? Even with these higher powers, man is still as dependent as any of the inferior creatures around him. Will his needs be overlooked, while theirs are supplied? Such a question is all the more pertinent when we remember, that whilst they live for a day, he was created for eternity, and needs the special gifts which can shape his present life into a preparation and a discipline.
An additional point is, that unholy anxiety is essentially ungodly, irreligious, unworthy of the position and the professions of a Christian man. “Take no thought,” no anxious thought, “saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek.” Anxious thought, therefore, is the characteristic of heathenism, and must be excluded from the religion which is true. It is the spirit of the world, not the spirit which is of God. We see this clearly enough when we compare the amount of thought and care which we bestow upon our earthly interests with that which we devote to the interests which are spiritual and eternal. What anxiety we give ourselves about the future of our health, the future of our business, the future of our worldly position, the future of our children’s secular education, the future of their rank in society! Is it not ten times as great as that which we bestow upon our Christian consistency, our religious usefulness, our growth in grace? If we could hold the balance steadily, which would prove to be the preponderating scale? Our Lord puts the case in an indirect manner, no doubt; nevertheless, it is impossible to avoid the implied conclusion. That conclusion is this: “If you suffer yourself to be anxiously absorbed in earthly things, you rank yourself with ‘the Gentiles,’ to whom this world is all.”—Besides, such anxiety is ungodly because it is untrustful. Heathens, who cannot blind themselves to the fact that their gods leave them for the most part, if not entirely, to themselves, may be excused if they feel that there is room, yea even necessity, for anxious foreboding. But how different should it be with those who know the one living and true God, and who can recognize Him as their Father! Surely He may be trusted as knowing His children, recognizing their needs, loving them, and tenderly caring for them. Taking anxious thought implies the weakness, if not the extinction, of faith.—Moreover, its impiety is seen in the fact that it is a practical subordination of the spiritual to the secular. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Let the most important things have the first attention. Give due scope to the higher aspirations of the soul, and the lower ones will shrink into their due proportions, and will take their proper place. God will give the earthly as it is needed to those who first seek the heavenly, and the true spirit of religion will make us rich by making us content.
To Christians this teaching, taking it as a whole, covers the entire ground of their secular life, and much more than that. Look at two or three samples of the cases to which it applies.
1. To personal secular positions. “What will the future be? Shall I live to be old? When I am old, shall I be provided for? Will health and strength be continued to me according to my years?” Leave that! Do your work to-day. For this you may have the needful strength from God. Do not trouble about anything further. Use prudently the means which God has put into your hands for providing for the future, and then commit their safe keeping to Him. If you have no such means, still trust. There are many promises on which you may implicitly and calmly rely.
2. “How about my children? Will they grow up to be manful, good, godly; a seed to serve the Lord, and a generation to call Him blessed; my comfort, my pride? Or will they take evil ways; prove, like so many more, vicious, ungodly, and bring down my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave?” Leave that! Do your duty to your children to-day. Train them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Use a wise and godly forethought on their behalf. Pray for them. Instruct them. Set before them a Christian example. You may trust the rest with God, calmly and thankfully expecting the fulfilment of the words: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
3. “What about my religious future? If I make a Christian profession, shall I be able to live consistently with it? Shall I have strength to resist temptation? What if I should fall? Can I so live as not to dishonour the Church and the cause of Christ?” Leave that! Nurse your Christian graces to-day. Lay up spiritual strength in reserve. That is required by a wise forethought. But having done so, leave the rest. God will take care of it all. You may stedfastly trust that He will gloriously complete the work which He has graciously begun.
4. “My Christian work—what about that? Shall I be permitted to go on with it for a few years longer, and thus to have some opportunity of realizing my ambition as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ? Or shall I be called away comparatively early? And if so, what will become of all the plans and projects upon which I have expended so much thought and prayer and toil?” Leave that! Do your work to-day, and be not anxious about the rest. When to-day merges into to-morrow let the new to-day bring its own work with it, to be done in the day. Nothing more of solicitude than that is needful. You are not indispensable to God; nor are you essential to the work which by His will you are doing. If it be worth doing, and you be separated from it, He will find a suitable successor, or as many successors as the accomplishment of the work may require.
5. “How about the prosperity of the cause of Christ in the world? Will it go steadily forward, or will new and fiercer foes rise up against it?” Leave that! Do all you can for it whilst you are here, and entrust the rest, as you entrust your own work, to God. Do not hinder it by wasting time in forebodings which ought to be spent in service.
6. “What of death—my own death? Shall I have grace enough to support me when the time comes?” Leave that! No doubt you will; but do not be anxious about it. To-day you are “the living;” be “the living to praise the Lord,” and trust the needs of your dying hour to Him.
The words of Christ recorded in these verses must have startled His hearers. They taught new truth concerning life, and, beautiful as they were, the truth they taught was strange. It would have been so strange as to be without weight, if He had not first taught equally new and equally beautiful truth concerning God. How does Christ here speak of God? “Your heavenly Father.” The heathen instructors had not taught that! Pharisees and Sadducees had not taught that! But Christ was now in the world; He had come forth from the Father, and He could say to men: “Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.” Thus the whole teaching of these verses on the subject of Providence and of Faith becomes plain and demonstrative. The great requirement is for us to love Him filially as He loves us paternally; and then, from that point, all is clear. We are dependent, but He will provide. There are present difficulties, and probably there will be future trials; but all takes the form of wise and holy discipline under His guiding and beneficent hand.
How do we arrive at the conviction of the Fatherhood of God? Sin stands in the way, and conscience craves something more than a mere authoritative announcement. Sin is the forfeiture of all claim to the Divine favour. What right have we to expect that His providence will be to us a providence of love? There is but one answer: to trust a God of providence, we must believe in a God of grace. Paul puts the whole philosophy of this in a single sentence: “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” Our present subject, therefore, calls for the gospel, and cannot be completed without it. “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” And, “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?” But let us ever remember that we have higher wants than those of the body. The soul needs food, and God has supplied “the bread of life”; it needs raiment, and God has given to us the robe of righteousness wrought by Christ; it needs a home, and we have “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” With these provisions, then, shall we forecast the future with fear, or with hope? Which shall it be?
“Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.”—Philippians iv. 11-14.
My purpose is to define and to recommend the Christian virtue of contentment. I shall endeavour to show that its acquirement is a duty, and that its possession is a joy; but I shall also have to show that as a duty it is not practicable, and that as a joy it is not attainable, except on Christian grounds. I trust that all this will be made abundantly clear by the following observations.
I. Let us glance at the character of the man whose words are now before us. There is in the words the ring of a high moral tone which is irresistibly attractive. Yet the effect they produce upon us must depend very much upon the kind of man who wrote them, and the condition or conditions of life through which he had to pass.
We should be pained by such words as these if they came from the lips of a man whom the world would consider prosperous. When the conditions of a man’s life are easy and comfortable, to make a profession of contentment would be an abuse both of language and of sentiment. Such a case is not one for content, but for devout and hearty gratitude mingled with a sense of humiliation under the thought, which ought to be present to every such man, that he deserves no more than others, though God gives him more than many others possess.
We should think sadly of these words if they came from a stoical man. Contentment is not the listlessness of indifference. It is self-conscious, and finds in itself its own joy. Indifference is loss—deterioration. It implies the blunting of sensibility. The heart that is callous to grief is closed against gladness also.
We should pity the man who uttered these words from mere weakness of character, devoid of aspiration, enthusiasm, or resolve. In his case, content would be mere good-for-nothingness. The world is full of uncomplaining men and women who do not cry, not because they are content, but because they are spiritless, and consequently because they are crushed down and hopeless.
There are other circumstances which would disparage contentment. We will not mention them now; they will be suggested as we proceed.
Now Paul was every way the kind of man to give the noblest meaning to the words we are considering. His whole constitution, make, rendered him susceptible of the highest earthly enjoyment. Mentally, morally, and socially, he was prepared to accept and to appreciate the best that this world could offer to him. He had great powers of thought, reflection, imagination, and will. He had great tenderness and generosity of heart. Proofs abound that his social instincts were full of life and strength. He was pre-eminently a man to be touched by kindness or unkindness, by gratitude or ingratitude, by love or hatred.
And what was his experience? It was not the one-sided experience of a man who has known only one condition in life. On the contrary, he had been familiar with almost the highest and the lowest. On the one hand, he had enjoyed the love, and the tender, fervent gratitude, of many of his converts; and on the other hand, he could speak of the bad conduct, the ingratitude, and the vexatious opposition of others. He had the manifold sorrows of a martyr’s life of bonds, imprisonments, scourgings, and stonings, to which must be added the prospect of a martyr’s death. He was not a man of one kind of experience only, to which habit had accustomed him. He had known the terrible alternations of life, and had learned to be content under them all. “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.”
Moreover, Paul was a man of prodigious activity. Contentment is easy to a sluggish nature, but it must have been a difficult acquirement to one in whom brain, heart, hands, and all the powers of life were continually on the move. Couple with this incessancy of action the loftiness and ardour of his aspirations. He was not only capable of an intense enthusiasm in any work which he took in hand, but his whole impulse was an energetic straining forward and upward.
These considerations give something of marvellousness to the contentment which the apostle here avows for himself; and they suggest that it must have rested on some underlying conviction—some established condition of soul which it is desirable for us to discover and identify.
The language he uses is in the utmost degree significant. There is no haste about it, nor is there any exaggeration. It is the expression of the result of a severe and protracted mental and moral training, under the influence of the Spirit of God. “I have learned.” The lesson has been a difficult one, but I have mastered it. “I have learned.” The “I” is emphatic. “Whether others have learned the lesson or not, I have learned it.” The apostle does not speak either hesitatingly or slightingly of his attainment. Thus, when he says, “I know both how to be abased, and how to abound,” he goes on to use a word which means, literally, “I have been taught the secret,” “I have been initiated into the mysteries”—both of satisfaction and of hunger, both of plenty and of want. Such language implies that his contentment was one which had not been easily acquired. He had not passed into it by a single step only. I do not suppose the process was a very slow one, but it was a process. The lesson had to be spelt out, word by word, often syllable by syllable, perhaps sometimes with tearful eyes and a bleeding heart. And so these words are a record of attainment such as this world cannot snatch. The man who could so speak of himself was in possession of the best knowledge. He had graduated and taken honours in the highest university.
II. The practical importance of this lesson of contentment must be obvious to all. Two considerations will enable us to see its importance clearly.
1. Our earthly life is a scene of change. No position is secured to any of us in this world, nor is it in the power of any of us to remain always, and safe from molestation, in a coveted state of action, or of existence, or of enjoyment. Some men never get into a state of positive happiness, and, in the experience of many, the transitions from high to low positions are startling, romantic, painful, mysterious. Events which men call accidents are constantly changing the aspects of things, and certainly the most marked characteristic of our life is vicissitude. This is a truth which is known and recognized by all, and possibly it is one which is felt acutely by not a few who are here at this time.
2. The changes to which we are exposed are temptations to disquietude of heart, and consequently to discontent. This is true in a peculiar sense of those who look only to the present world for satisfaction, but it is also true to a certain extent of the Christian. And why? Partly because he is seldom perfectly free from unworldliness of desire and of hope; partly because he does not always read aright the meaning of his discipline, and keep in mind the truth that because it is Divine it must be always wise and good; and partly because he looks too much to “second causes,” not only in disappointment and sorrow, but also in success and joy, forgetting the hand and the purpose of God.
So that a Christian who has passed through the numerous and various vicissitudes of life, and whose faith, like a tree in successive storms, has gained strength from every blast—whose hopes have brightened while the clouds of life were lowering, and whose experience by discipline has become enlightened, rich, and mature—is one of the noblest, though, alas! one of the rarest, sights in the world. Such a man was Paul in a pre-eminent degree. Reverses did not sour him. He had often to contend against the hostile hand of his fellow man, but persecution did not embitter him. He could retain through all his absorbing interest in the salvation of human souls and in the glory of God. His troubles did not shut him up in himself. He did not always talk about them, as though he wanted everybody to pity and help him; on the contrary, he was a peculiarly brave and joyful man. He looked upon joy not simply as a possibility, nor simply as a privilege, but as a duty, the neglect of which by a Christian was shameful. He knew that whatever of earthly good might slip away from him, or be snatched away, there was something immeasurably better which was his for ever—God, Christ, immortality, heaven. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
III. What has been said will help us to form a true idea of the state of mind which the apostle here avows for himself, and in doing so to avoid some mistakes. We have seen that contentment is neither stoicism, nor want of interest in life nor sluggishness of temperament, nor weakness of character. We further say, that Paul does not mean that he considers all conditions in life alike desirable, that there is nothing to choose between them, that it is altogether immaterial whether men be well or ill, strong or weak, rich or poor, high or low, masters or slaves. Paul was not insensible to the advantages of outward comfort, or to the disadvantages of poverty. Nor does he mean to teach that a Christian may not use all means which are intrinsically legitimate and right for improving his condition, in so far as he has those means at his command, or the possibility of obtaining them. What he means is that his happiness is not essentially dependent on external circumstances. An illustration of Solomon’s words, “A good man is satisfied from himself,” he carries within him everywhere the elements of his own well-being. So that being the man he is, being the man God has made him to be, being the man whom the Holy Spirit is fashioning by His grace, through the instrumentality of the discipline of life, with a hope that does not make him ashamed, because he has the love of God shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost given unto him—he is happy enough even in the midst of privations and difficulties. His contentment is not indifference to his work, but industrious fidelity. It is not the narcotizing of aspiration; for a man may ardently aspire, and yet be content until it is time to rise. Still less is it complacency with his own moral and spiritual condition, or with that of the world around him; for he says that he “forgets the things that are behind, and reaches forth to the things that are before,” and he “greatly longs after men in the bowels of Jesus Christ.” But with all his appreciation of life’s comforts, with all his aspirations after personal perfection, and with all his longings to be useful in his day, he is not disconcerted by difficulties and disadvantages;—he has learned in whatsoever state he is, therewith to be content.
We must guard ourselves, however, from applying this example of contentment to troubles of our own making. God entrusts every man, more or less, with the means of blessing himself, and of maintaining his own honour among his fellow men. But by sin, or by mistakes of conduct arising from a culpable carelessness, we may lose our position of advantage; and when we do so, we are not entitled to the comfort arising from the thought that, as all events are in God’s hands, we must just take things as they come, and be satisfied! The sin which has brought mischief must be deplored; its consequences must be accepted as a Divine correction, and Divine help must be sought so that the chastisement may be sanctified. And if on the lower ground we become less worldly, holier, and more Christ-like, God will have the greater glory and will give the deeper peace.
IV. And now for the secret of the apostle’s contentment, and the lessons that we are to learn therefrom for ourselves. Paul says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me.” The language is peculiar; what does it mean? It means that, in whatsoever condition he might be, he had Christ for a Helper and a Friend; that Christ’s companionship with him was constant, full, tender; that His sympathy was great, minute, comprehensive, cheering, exalting, all-sufficient. So complete was his identification with Christ that he tells these Philippians that living or dying he was Christ’s. But how did this come about? Once he persecuted the Christ whom he now glorifies. And even now his happiness has nothing of the miraculous in it. It does not belong to him merely as an apostle, or in the same way as his “inspiration” or other special, supernatural gifts with which he is endowed. It is the work of God’s grace—grace imparted to him through the same channels along which it may come to us. The secret is this: Paul was a Christian—a converted, regenerated man, a believer in Christ, under the influence of the Holy Ghost; and the result was accomplished by such simple means as faith and hope and prayer.
Paul had felt, as we all feel, that there is in man a soul as well as a body, an eternal life as well as a temporal. He had also felt, as we all feel, that he was a sinner, condemned and hopeless before that holy law which he had broken, and the judgment of which he must one day meet. But, in obedience to the message of the gospel, he had accepted Christ as his Saviour, through whom he had received the forgiveness of sins, Divine sonship, and sanctifying grace. So that he had to regard himself as henceforth under training for heaven, the training administered by a Divine hand. He knew that the present life, with all its changes, was the thing that was wanted for his spiritual education, that nothing was accidental, that no changes were chances, and that all changes made up one great organized system of discipline, in which “all things were working together for good.” Thus he could cherish in his heart a contentment which would cover all his experiences. There are ills which certain men can bear patiently, but a Christian contentment learns to bear all ills cheerfully; unmurmuring and acquiescent when sorrows multiply, and when mercies one by one are taken away.
This contentment under Christian conditions is a duty, not perhaps of very easy attainment—Paul himself does not say that it is that—but it is a duty, as being the natural fruit of faith and trust. Every Christian should be able to say:
“Rejoice in the Lord alway; and again I say rejoice.”—Philippians iv. 4.
Whatever may be the impression produced by these words, no one can read them attentively, and be indifferent to the admonition they convey. They speak to our most real life, a life of mingled sunshine and shadow; and they speak in the name of a religion which is divinely holy and solemn. They have a marvellous power in awakening feeling, and if we could but know the emotion they excite in each of us, we should find them to constitute a perfect test of our actual experiences, as well as of our religious condition. In any religious assembly, there must of necessity be two widely different states of feeling. Some souls are happy, and others are depressed. To the first class, the words before us come with sweetness, adding joy to joy; to the second, they come with pain, the pain of contrast and of longing. Hence the question might be asked, “To whom are they addressed? Are they spoken to the happy alone? Must they be suppressed when we speak to the sad or to the miserable?” They are addressed neither to the one class alone, nor to the other alone. They were spoken to all hearts in the Philippian church, without distinction of condition; and without distinction they are also spoken to us. If there be any special stress in them at all, it is when they are addressed to the sorrowing, as we shall see by-and-by. The words themselves supply a hint as to how this may be. The joy that is recommended is “joy in the Lord.” It is therefore a Christian joy; and those to whom the apostle recommends it, whatever may be the diversity of their circumstances, are first of all, last of all, anyhow, under any condition, Christians. Paul knows that joy is an inevitable consequence of the possession of true Christianity in the heart, that it is the natural outcome of Christian faith, that it ought to be a pervading experience of the Christian soul through all the forms and circumstances of its life. And so he offers the same exhortation to all. Nor is it a recommendation merely: it is a command, and it strikingly takes its place among the great Pauline precepts. For the proof of this, turn to these precepts as we have them at the close of his first epistle to the Thessalonians. (See chap. v. 14-22.)
No one will suppose for a moment that the exhortation to rejoice can be applied in any sense to unbelieving men, to men of the world, to the ungodly. Granting that they have a joy peculiarly their own, it is of such a nature, and is so conditioned by the life of every day, that it would be cruel to bid them “rejoice evermore.” The worldling has too many disappointments, struggles, and cares, for a permanent and unbroken joy such as that. He may think himself fortunate for rejoicings that come now and then! Besides, how could Paul recommend a rejoicing which is not “in the Lord,” which is the only rejoicing possible to the unbeliever? Paul’s joy is consistent with every duty of the religion he preached; but to that religion the unbeliever is opposed. His rejoicing cannot be acceptable to the Lord. It is spurious. It has no true, substantial source. To such a man the apostle might rather have said, “Weep!” Christian joy is an inheritance closely fenced around; and hard as it seems to enjoy any good things in which others cannot share, we must say, “Unbelieving men and women, it is not for you.” The way here is through the strait gate, and along the narrow road.
No joy can be “joy in the Lord” which does not contain the following elements—
1. Purity. The objects that excite it must be pure. It must be free from all carnality and from all sin; it must spring from the soul’s sympathy with God, with His truth, with His goodness. Holy in its objects, it becomes a sanctifying power.
2. Calmness. It is freedom from turmoil of heart, from disquietude of life. It suffuses our feeling and our conduct with peace—peace that “flows like a river.” Hence, it is the condition of a quiet, steady Christian experience.
3. Seriousness. It does not depend on self-forgetfulness, or on a forced thoughtlessness. It is deepest in the most reflective, and is strengthened in all by an honest and habitual self-examination.
4. Humility. There is a sort of arrogance and self-sufficiency in worldly joy. Christianity puts man in his true place, and teaches him to refer all his peace to God.
5. Love. Love to man and to God; the latter as the natural effect of gratitude, the former from deep pity for his spiritual destitution, or from sympathy in a common experience of happiness.
6. Permanence. It is not a fitful, occasional, moody thing. Secondary sources of joy may fail, but God, the primary Source and Giver of all joy, remains; and the relationship between the believer and Him abides, so that the grounds of peace and of hope are everlasting.
Now it is clear that these are not the elements of a worldly joy. We do not care to reduce all that joy to a common level, and to say that it is invariably and equally destitute of all these qualities of purity, calmness, seriousness, humility, love, permanence. It is enough to say that it is not “joy in the Lord.” It does not consciously or actually spring from Him; it is not maintained by communion with Him; and it does not pay to Him its tribute of love, consecration, and praise.
This exhortation to Christian joy is one of the most common in the writings of Paul. Happy Christians may wonder why it is repeated so often. Why urge it at all? Is it not the first, the necessary, the constant result of faith? Why specially insist upon it as a duty? If faith be weak, give us reasons by which faith may be strengthened; but, once in the conscious possession of eternal life and of peace with God, let the results naturally follow. Are they not sure to come?
One would suppose so; but, alas! Paul knew, and we have reason to know, that we are very inconsistent! There is often a divorce between our professed beliefs and the results that should flow from them. Then, too, our faith is often unconsciously held. It is too merely traditional; it lacks freshness and vitality. We may well, therefore, be thankful that God, who has given us such motives for joy, should still recommend it to us. Even with a very sincere faith may circumstances arise which shall trouble our hearts. Our joy is constantly threatened, and almost unconsciously we sometimes come to feel that we have none. I know many Christians of whom the last thing we could affirm would be that they are joyful Christians. Hence the exhortation. It takes the form of a command. Why?
1. We owe it to the love and mercy of our God. Joy is the sign, the expression, and the ornament of gratitude. A faith without joy is an altar without perfume. God’s abounding grace realised in the heart demands this return. If we be not joyful, what does the fact mean? Do we lightly esteem His great love? Are we afraid it may fail?
2. Joy is a means of testifying our gratitude. Without joy, faith is barren and inefficient, or else its fruits are rare and without savour. The gospel represents good works as the fruits of faith, and fruits grow not on the trunk, but on the branches; and joy is one of these. A worldly joy gives vigour to the heart in the pursuit of worldly objects. Christian joy prompts the heart to devotedness to God.
3. The world is mightily influenced by our joy. The idea that religion is a sad, gloomy thing is widely spread, and is a hindrance in the way. Men know that our beliefs ought to produce joy, and, if they fail to do so, they become themselves discredited. A true Christian is really at the source of all true joy. The world yields him most because he is nearest heaven. Joy is a proselyting power.
4. True joy cannot be imitated. The world’s gaiety is the effect of temperament and circumstances, not of reflection; it repudiates and shrinks from thought. Christian joy deepens the more thoughtful men become. The grounds on which it rests are felt to be the surer the more they are examined.
Let us look at one or two more of the characteristics of Christian joy.
1. It does not avoid contact with men, but it can, if need be, live alone. It can flourish in the heart that is alone with itself and with God, and can find its food in meditation and prayer. It blossoms where other joys fade.
2. It is devout. It loves the places where its Author is worshipped, but it can sing its praises everywhere. The heart in which it resides is a temple. It sings even in the midst of cares and tribulations, like Paul and Silas in the midnight gloom of the prison at Philippi.
3. It is at the furthest remove from frivolity. It rejoices in serious things, even in such serious things as sorrow and death. It looks up and on with hope. It rests in God. It knows that Christ, its Source, can never be separated from it. It thinks itself rich enough in the possession of God’s great love.
4. It triumphs over the hindrances by which all other joy is thwarted. As to remembrances of the past, all that needed to be forgiven is forgiven. As to actual trouble, it can take hold of God. As to forecasts of the future, that, in its truest blessedness, is secure.
Who would not be a Christian? And who, being a Christian, can refuse to be glad?