-Life in a broken world unfortunately comes with no guarantees. The secret to contentment does not lie in where you are, and it’s not about what you have. It’s Who.
-I have the strength to overcome all things. All things, Paul says. All things. It is the first word in the sentence, thus putting it in a place of emphasis. Paul is stressing that there is not even one thing that he (and we) cannot overcome, not one thing he can’t get through or endure. No matter how humble his means, what hunger he is feeling or what need he is experiencing, he not only knows how to get through it, he can OVERCOME it. That word is ischuo, which describes an extraordinary strength and force of body which allows someone to prevail and conquer that which is opposing (cf Acts 19.16, Acts 19.20). In other words, we’re not just talking about scraping by or merely surviving. We’re talking about victory, vanquishing the opposition, overcoming and overpowering what ever stands in our way (or better, whatever might be standing in the way of the progress of the Gospel).
-This power to prevail comes from the One Who is the Source of all power in the universe. We refer to Him as the Omnipotent One - God Almighty, All-powerful. power that is so far beyond description or compare as to be unfathomable. Power to create every blazing star in the cosmos with a word, power to hold together every single atom in the universe, more than enough power to sustain every living creature on this planet (Colossians 1.17, Hebrews 1.3). Inexhaustible. Unimaginable. He is the One empowering Paul and you and me, and we know that nothing is impossible for Him, nothing is too difficult for this One Who LIVES IN ME. So,
“Do not fear, for I am with you;
Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, surely I will help you,
Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.” Isaiah 41:10
-Yes, God, the God of peace was WITH Paul. Not just His presence, but His POWER. We just saw in Philippians 4.9 that the fact of God’s presence in the lives of His people equates to a supernatural difference in their lives which shows off His breathtaking goodness. Surely we are living in the suburbs of hypocrisy when we overcome and prevail against so little, when there is so little victory and such a dearth of the supernatural in my own life. ALL THINGS! Not one thing is excepted! We cave and capitulate so easily. We profess that God is with us, that Christ lives in me, and yet how differently do I look and live than happy pagan living next to me, really? Our lives and our marriages and our spending and our struggles often look exactly the same. Paul is talking about a glorious victorious life that advances the cause of Christ and shows of His breathtaking goodness and spreads His message of hope and forgiveness and eternal life to those around us and to the ends of the earth. Instead, we are timid. We compromise and shrink back. We do not boldly engage the lost souls around us. We are fleshy, not walking in the fulness and supernatural power of God’s Spirit Who in fact LIVES INSIDE EACH ONE OF US. We are worldly, too enamored with the baubles and trinkets and pasttimes with which the world so easily distracts and captures our hearts. We are largely trying to merely survive the brokenness and the chaos and raise some nice kids (who hopefully know Jesus) and then make it to ‘retirement’ with enough money in the bank to live out our days in comfort and maybe even be able to travel a bit and play some golf. We somehow have missed the full force of the all-encompassing reality that Jesus is the Way and the Truth and the Life and have missed the brunt of the urgency and the majesty of the call to go and make disciples of all the nations (what a monumental mission, this!). We are prayerless, not availing ourselves of the otherworldly resources which have been placed at our disposal, barely striving against the forces of darkness (Ephesians 6.10), hardly wrestling with the Lord until He opens up the heavens and pours out His blessing (Genesis 32.26)(no doubt the God-Who-blesses - cf Genesis 1.22, Genesis 1.28, Genesis 2.3, Genesis 5.2 et al - wants to bless His people far more than we want to ask Him to do so - cf Genesis 12.2-3, Malachi 3.10). We are spiritual paupers, laying up treasure on earth while leaving the storehouses of heaven largely empty. Where is the relentless pursuit of the heavenly pearl, that magnificent obsession? Where is the unmistakable fragrance of the Rose of Sharon, that aroma of life and death? Where is the joy inexpressible, that rises above all that is temporal? Where are the inexplicable fingerprints of the Almighty, the greater works Christ promised to those Who follow Him? Where is the destruction of strongholds and the doing of all things for the sake of the Gospel? Where are the incidents of undeniable supernatural fruit, with no other explanation than that, God did it? We in the west live in a culture that has so dumbed down the Gospel, lowered the bar so far as to make it almost impossible to distinguish a Christ-follower from one who is not, other than a subset of head knowledge, what they do on a Sunday morning and perhaps a marginal difference in politeness. In Christ I have strength to overcome all things, in the One Who gives me His power - but why does it even matter? It matters for the sake of being able to present all that I am and have been entrusted with to my heavenly King, the One Who gave Himself for me, in order to live in such a way as to contribute to the forward progress of the Good News in my life and in the lives of my family and neighbors and among every nation, tribe, and tongue to the ends of the earth until the end of time. It is to run the race in such as way as to win and one day receive a victor’s crown from the Victorious King of Kings Himself which I will subsequently lay at His feet in worship because in truth He alone is responsible for all that I am and have and am able to do and He alone is worthy to receive all honor and glory and blessing and praise. May we find the grace and tenacity of soul to live all the way into this reality in pursuit of laying hold of that for which Christ laid hold us, of making Him famous unto the ends of the earth and forever.
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