Sermons: Selected from the Papers of the Late Rev. Clement Bailhache

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:

I will not cloud the present with the past,
Nor borrow shadows from a future sky:
’Tis in the present that my lot is cast,
And ever will be through eternity.

“Sufficient to the day the present ill,”
Was kindly utter’d by a heavenly Voice,
And one inspired to tell his Master’s will
Hath bid us alway in the Lord rejoice.

XII.

JOY

“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?

Eternal Source of Life and Light,
From whom my every blessing flows,
How shall my lips extol aright
The bounty that no measure knows?

Sweet are the gifts Thou dost accord;
Still best when best we love Thy ways:
But one yet add, all bounteous Lord,
And teach me as I would to praise.