Paul closes the letter to the Philippians by thanking them for their financial support. Through his thanks, he also reveals the secret to contentment: learning to rely on Christ’s strength whether in scarcity or abundance, since both extremes can tempt us to put our trust in money rather than God.

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A few weeks ago during a house church gathering, I made some kind of crack about how seldom I talked about money, or giving. But this time, I am going to talk about it, because the text for this time is about that topic. The text sets the topic, not me. This will also be our last sermon on the book of Philippians. So, here’s the text:

¹⁰ I rejoiced in the Lord greatly because once again you renewed your care for me. You were, in fact, concerned about me but lacked the opportunity to show it. ¹¹ I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. ¹² I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content ​— ​whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. ¹³ I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me. ¹⁴ Still, you did well by partnering with me in my hardship.
¹⁵ And you Philippians know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone. ¹⁶ For even in Thessalonica you sent gifts for my need several times. ¹⁷ Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that is increasing to your account. ¹⁸ But I have received everything in full, and I have an abundance. I am fully supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you provided ​— ​a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. ¹⁹ And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. ²⁰ Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.
²¹ Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send you greetings. ²² All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household. ²³ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Philippians 4:10-23

Paul’s main purpose with verses 10-19 is to thank the Philippians for their financial support. Along the way, the Holy Spirit inspired him to write some very encouraging and helpful things about money.

Paul begins by saying, not so much thank you to the Philippians, but rejoicing in the Lord, because of the gift sent by the Philippians. This sets up an important point that he will reinforce in verse 14, and verses 17-19.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Paul says he rejoices in the Lord for the gift, but that even so, he was not in some desperate need. Why not? Was someone else supporting Paul financially? That’s possible. But Paul’s real point is that he is not “in need,” because he learned to be content in any and all circumstances, whether he has “enough” or not. One of the most inspiring things here for me is this:

¹¹ Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. ¹² 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 and hunger, abundance and need. ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13, ESV)

I want to make sure we notice something here. This is almost the opposite of “If you follow God he will fulfill all our dreams,” or, “If you follow God he will always take care of you financially.” No, the concept here is that if you belong to Jesus Christ, you can be OK, even when you don’t have basic necessities.

Really, this section is a continuation of the verses just before it, where Paul talks about praying with thanksgiving, thinking on excellent qualities, and allowing the peace of God to reign in our hearts. This is more of the same. You can be at peace even if you don’t have what you feel like you need at the moment.

For those of you who see me on a regular basis, it’s obvious that it has been a long time since I have been in so much need that I’ve skipped a meal or two. But most weeks, at some point, I feel like I am not getting the relief from pain that I need. Maybe you aren’t getting the love from your spouse that you need. Maybe you feel a lack of opportunity for your future, or you need some kind of help or necessary thing that you aren’t getting. Paul did not take difficult circumstances to mean that something was wrong in his relationship with the Lord. No, instead, Paul found that he could lean on the Lord, and his heart could be at peace even when he didn’t get enough to eat that day. Being in need was not a warning sign, as if he didn’t have enough faith. Instead, being in need was an opportunity for his faith to lean on Jesus Christ even more fully. Paul describes some of the ways he’s been in need in 2 Corinthians 11:24-27:

²⁴ Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. ²⁵ Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; ²⁶ on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; ²⁷ in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. (2 Corinthians 11:24-27, ESV)

Paul says something else that I think is filled with wisdom from the Holy Spirit. He says that he knows not only how to be at peace when he is in need, but he also knows how to handle abundance and plenty. If we stop and think about it, I bet most people assume that of course they could handle abundance. That’s what everyone wants, right? What’s so hard about abundance? Proverbs 30:7-9 sheds some light on this:

⁷ O God, I beg two favors from you;
let me have them before I die.
⁸ First, help me never to tell a lie.
Second, give me neither poverty nor riches!
Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.
⁹ For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?”
And if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name. (Proverbs 30:7-9, NLT)

Have you ever prayed to the Lord that he would not make you wealthy? Why not? Jesus had some words about wealth, also:

¹⁹ “Don’t collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. ²⁰ But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don’t break in and steal. ²¹ For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19-21, HCSB)
²⁴ “No one can be a slave of two masters, since either he will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot be slaves of God and of money. Matthew 6:24, HCSB)

The more we have, the easier it is to become enslaved by money. We start to devote more and more energy to acquiring and saving money, and eventually we don’t own our wealth; instead our wealth owns us. Paul warned Timothy about this as well:

⁶ But godliness with contentment is great gain. ⁷ For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. ⁸ If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. ⁹ But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. ¹⁰ For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. (1 Timothy 6:6-10, CSB)

And again:

Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy. ¹⁸ Instruct them to do what is good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, willing to share, ¹⁹ storing up for themselves a good reserve for the age to come, so that they may take hold of life that is real. (1 Timothy 6:17-19, HCSB)

So, if we have a measure of wealth, it’s easy to start making decisions apart from Jesus. We can, to some extent, control our own destinies. When we have hardly anything, it is easy to start worrying about money. But the reverse is also true. When we have plenty of money, we begin to focus on that, to worry about losing it, to think that we need just a little more.

Just as it can be difficult to have little, having more than enough can start to corrupt us as well. Paul learned to not put his hope in money, either when he had nothing, or when he had much. I think one is just as hard as the other. I’ve known a few wealthy people, and they seem to worry about money as much, or even more, than anyone else.

Of course, you probably noticed verse 13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” That’s a very popular verse. But here we have it in context. What is Paul doing through Christ who strengthens him? Not worrying about how much or how little he has. This verse is not about “overcoming,” or being victorious, or anything like that. It is about trusting in God alone in every circumstance. It is about being content even when it is tempting to not be.

Paul has been talking about his own attitudes. Now he moves on to talk about the actions of the Philippians. He says:

¹⁴ Still, you did well by partnering with me in my hardship.¹⁵ And you Philippians know that in the early days of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving except you alone. (Philippians 4:14-15, CSB).

Here is something important. Paul sees financial giving to those in ministry as a very real partnership in that ministry. The word “partnering” and  “shared” in the verses above have the common Greek root word that we usually translate fellowship. The Philippians fellowshipped with Paul and his ministry, by sending him financial help. Though they were not there with him as he traveled and ministered, they were his ministry partners. Paul isn’t just trying to make them feel good. If the Philippians had not been generous, Paul might have had to spend a lot more time working to meet his needs. As it was, their partnership freed him up to teach the Word of God.

Now, some people might be scratching their heads at this point, because there are people who claim that the apostle Paul always worked to support himself, and never received money for doing ministry. That is obviously untrue, or this entire scripture passage we are studying right now would have to be thrown out. The Philippians gave Paul money. In fact, they did so several times, as he says in these verses, and the one that follows.

There were only two places where we know for sure that Paul worked to support himself with his own hands: Corinth, and Ephesus. When he said his final goodbyes to the leaders of the churches at Ephesus, he said this:

³⁴ You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. ³⁵ In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” (Acts 20:34-35, ESV)

So, in Ephesus, (and Ephesus alone), Paul worked to support himself, even while he preached and taught. But it’s important to understand the reason Paul did it: to be an example to them of hard work, and of generosity. In other words, Paul was not teaching them that church leaders shouldn’t be paid. In fact, later on he wrote to Timothy, who was in Ephesus at the time:

¹⁷ Elders who do their work well should be respected and paid well, especially those who work hard at both preaching and teaching. ¹⁸ For the Scripture says, “You must not muzzle an ox to keep it from eating as it treads out the grain.” And in another place, “Those who work deserve their pay!” (1 Timothy 5:17-18, NLT)

In Corinth, when Paul first arrived, alone, without his companions, he worked as a leatherworker, a profession in which he was trained. But later, Timothy and Silas arrived from Macedonia, apparently bringing financial support from the churches there, and at that point, Paul devoted himself full time to teaching and preaching the word (Acts 18:1-5). Paul later confirms that point. He makes a big deal out of the fact that he never asked the Corinthians themselves for money, but the reason it was a big deal is that they should have given him support.

³ My defense to those who examine me is this: ⁴ Don’t we have the right to eat and drink? ⁵ Don’t we have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife like the other apostles, the Lord’s brothers, and Cephas? ⁶ Or do only Barnabas and I have no right to refrain from working? ⁷ Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat its fruit? Or who shepherds a flock and does not drink the milk from the flock?
⁸ Am I saying this from a human perspective? Doesn’t the law also say the same thing? ⁹ For it is written in the law of Moses, Do not muzzle an ox while it treads out grain. Is God really concerned about oxen? ¹⁰ Isn’t he really saying it for our sake? Yes, this is written for our sake, because he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes should thresh in hope of sharing the crop. ¹¹ If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it too much if we reap material benefits from you? ¹² If others have this right to receive benefits from you, don’t we even more? Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right; instead, we endure everything so that we will not hinder the gospel of Christ.
¹³ Don’t you know that those who perform the temple services eat the food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in the offerings of the altar? ¹⁴ In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should earn their living by the gospel. (1 Corinthians 9:3-14, CSB)

In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul makes it even more clear that other churches (not the Corinthians) were supporting Paul, even though the Corinthians weren’t:

⁸ I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. ⁹ And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for the brothers who came from Macedonia supplied my need. So I refrained and will refrain from burdening you in any way. (2 Corinthians 11:8-9, CSB)

And guess who was one of the Macedonian churches that supported Paul at that time? That’s right: the Philippians. In our text , Paul continues:

¹⁷ Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the profit that is increasing to your account. ¹⁸ But I have received everything in full, and I have an abundance. I am fully supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you provided ​— ​a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. ¹⁹ And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. ²⁰ Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.

So, here again Paul is telling us something about giving: it not only blesses the one who receives, but it also blesses the ones who give. Paul says their gift is “profit that is increasing to your account.” He’s trying to make it clear that he’s not asking for anything more, but also wants to praise their giving, and make sure that they know that through giving, they are counted as his ministry partners, and that there is blessing for them. Paul ends the letter:

²¹ Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me send you greetings. ²² All the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar’s household. ²³ The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

So, what is the Lord saying to you right now? Do you need to be reminded of the dangers of wealth? Are you tempted by the thought that if you just had enough money then everything would be fine? Do you need to learn, with Paul, to be content whether you have little or much? Do you believe that you could learn that—to handle anything—through Christ who strengthens you?

Maybe you’ve been a faithful giver, giving as much as you feel you can afford. Perhaps you need to hear that you are partners in ministry with those to whom you give. You share in the good things that result from the ministries you support. Some of you support this ministry of ClearBible. I won’t promise you health and wealth for your gift of x amount, but I can promise that you have a part in making these messages happen, and sharing them with the world. The Lord knows your heart, and he knows the credit that is increasing to your account.

Maybe it’s just something from the very end that you need to hear: that the Lord will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus. Or maybe you simply need to hear this: “The Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.”

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you right now.