Philippians 4:1-23

Two of the qualities we most desire in life are peace and prosperity.  Unfortunately, those who experience prosperity seldom are able to find peace.  Paul was able to experience both peace and prosperity in his life because he realized that peace has very little to do with our circumstances and that prosperity had very little to do with the amount of possessions we are able to accumulate.  This final chapter teaches us how we can find this same peace and prosperity in our own lives.

THE PATH TO PEACE: If we truly want to find peace in our lives that is not dependent upon our circumstances, we must turn our hearts, heads and hands over to the Lord.  Paul starts with our hearts and tells us that we must have a glad heart and rejoice in every circumstance of life.  As believers we are able to rejoice all of the time because we recognize the Lord is in control of every part of our lives.  As believers, we have the assurance that our death results into going into eternity with the Lord in heaven.  This gives us the ability to have glad hearts.  We must also have gentle hearts before all men.  Even those people who are difficult to get along with we must treat with gentleness.  Finally Paul tells us that we must have grateful hearts that replace worry with prayer.  All of us have a tendency to complain, fight for our rights and worry about our circumstances but when we do that, we forfeit our right to the peace that God promises to us.  Paul also tells us that this unconditional peace depends on filling our heads with the Word of God.  We all have a tendency to allow our thoughts to focus on things that are not true and not pure.  When we fill our minds with things that are false and not pleasing to God, we lose the peace that God promises to us.  God wants us to focus on His Word and to fill our minds with the truth of Scripture, this is key to experiencing God’s peace.  Our peace is also dependent upon our dedication to being involved in God’s work.  He wants our hands to be busy about the work He has given us to do.  When we focus on others and the advancement of the Gospel as the ultimate goal of our lives, the peace of God is the natural result that we will experience.

THE PATH TO PROSPERITY: I think that the key to true prosperity is found in contentment and that the demonstration of contentment is contribution.  Paul did not depend on material things in order for him to be content.  He recognized that his true prosperity came from his relationship with Christ, so he was content whether he had little or much.  Contentment has very little to do with the amount that we own.  Those who have experienced great wealth know that they struggle to be content even with huge amounts of money and possessions.  There just always seems to be that drive to get just a little bit more.  God wants us to learn to be content with what He has given us.  “We must be content with what God has sent.”  Another means of attaining prosperity is through contribution.  I do not mean that if we give 100 God will bless us with 1,000, what I mean is that there will be eternal prosperity as a result of our earthly contributions.  Paul rejoiced in the contributions that the church made, not because he was blessed with more stuff, but because he knew that these gifts would reap eternal rewards for the Philippian believers.  The truth is that there really is no such thing as prosperity on earth.  All of the homes, cars and toys that we accumulate on earth are destined to become kenneling in the big bonfire that God is preparing for this earth.  None of us would consider ashes to be a sign of prosperity.  True prosperity is the eternal kind that comes from faithfully contributing that with which God has blessed us to other people and for the furtherance of the Gospel.  Contentment and contributing are the key steps that God has ordained for us to walk if we want to experience eternal and true prosperity.