©1999 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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7/25/99
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All your needs Pt. 1
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Philippians 4:13-20
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7/25/99 All Your Needs Pt. 1
I spent a full day
staring at a blank computer screen,
brooding over how best to approach the
passage we have for today.
It is one of those awkward passages,
a passage most of us have heard quoted
numerous times,
a passage we know we are suppose to
believe,
and yet a passage we don't.
We have a special place in our minds for such
passages.
I think it's called "A special place in my mind for
verses I accept without believing."
It's not that we don't want to believe it.
It's not even that we don't try to believe it.
It's just that we believe we face far too much hard
cold evidence to the contrary.
To accept the verse
would seem to be
to deny the reality of the world as we know
it.
We have come up against other such verses at times.
One of the big ones
is the way in which God
repeatedly calls us His "Holy Ones".
We translate it as "saints" in the New Testament,
but the literal translation is "Holy Ones".
And to complicate it even more,
the word "Holy" used to describe us
is the same word "Holy" used to describe
God Himself.
More than 60 times He calls us His "Holy Ones".
For many of us
to accept those verses as being literally true
would seem impossible.
We think we should be holy.
We think we will be holy in heaven.
But we believe we know ourselves too well
to call ourselves Holy here and now.
And so we choose to accept the verses
without really believing them.
And because we don't believe them,
the power of those verses
to transform our lives
never becomes a living reality within us.
I'm getting off track already,
and I haven't even started yet,
but do you want to hear an interesting
statement
Paul made to the Thessalonian
Christians,
a statement that has a remarkable revelation
imbedded in it?
It's found in I Thess. 2:13. Paul says,
1 Thess. 2:13 ¶ And for this reason we
also constantly thank God that when you
received from us the word of God's
message, you accepted it not as the word
of men, but for what it really is, the word
of God, which also performs its work in
you who believe.
Paul tells the Thessalonians
that the message he has offered them
truly is the word of God.
But then he goes on to tell them
that, even though it is absolute truth,
it only has the power to transform their lives
as they choose to accept it
and believe it for the absolute truth it
is.
It is certainly that way with God's affirmations
that we are His Holy Ones.
If we are trying to become holy,
believing we really should be holy,
but certain we are not yet holy,
the best we will ever accomplish
when it comes to changed lives
is a pasted-on external facade,
a religious imitation of true righteousness.
Only when we begin to accept the living truth
that through Christ we have been
absolutely and totally and eternally
cleansed,
and purified,
and transformed
at the deepest level of our being,
and that we are now
and will forevermore remain
HOLY and RIGHTEOUS,
in other words,
only when we recognize the truth
of the absolute righteousness of our spirits,
will we begin to experience
the reality of that truth
bringing about practical transformations
in our behavior and actions.
We will not begin to live out Holiness
until we first come to grips
with the reality of our true new identity in
Christ.
Because we do not yet understand
and believe the truth
of what our God tells us about ourselves
we do not yet experience
the transforming power of that truth
in our practical daily lives.
And I think we are going to run up against a very
similar problem
with the passage we will look at
in this final passage of Philippians.
If you're a regular around here
you know we are studying the book of
Philippians.
We are near the end of our study of this book,
having made it to the end of chapter 4
in just a little over three years.
We are studying the final major section of this
remarkable book,
a passage that begins in Phil. 4:10
and runs through verse 20.
We studied the first half of that passage
during the past two weeks,
and this morning we'll move on to the rest of
it,
and especially to verse 19.
I want to read the entire passage for us
before we get back into our study of it
just so that we can see it as a unit.
Paul writes:
Phil. 4:10 ¶ But I rejoiced in the Lord
greatly, that now at last you have revived
your concern for me; indeed, you were
concerned before, but you lacked
opportunity.
Phil. 4:11 Not that I speak from want; for
I have learned to be content in whatever
circumstances I am.
Phil. 4:12 I know how to get along with
humble means, and I also know how to
live in prosperity; in any and every
circumstance I have learned the secret of
being filled and going hungry, both of
having abundance and suffering need.
Phil. 4:13 I can do all things through Him
who strengthens me.
Phil. 4:14 Nevertheless, you have done
well to share with me in my affliction.
Phil. 4:15 And you yourselves also know,
Philippians, that at the first preaching of
the gospel, after I departed from
Macedonia, no church shared with me in
the matter of giving and receiving but you
alone;
Phil. 4:16 for even in Thessalonica you
sent a gift more than once for my needs.
Phil. 4:17 Not that I seek the gift itself,
but I seek for the profit which increases to
your account.
Phil. 4:18 But I have received everything
in full, and have an abundance; I am amply
supplied, having received from
Epaphroditus what you have sent, a
fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice,
well-pleasing to God.
Phil. 4:19 And my God shall supply all
your needs according to His riches in
glory in Christ Jesus.
Phil. 4:20 Now to our God and Father be
the glory forever and ever. Amen.
If you have been with us the past two weeks
you have wrestled with us
through Paul's revelation
of the secret he has learned
about knowing contentment
in whatever circumstance he
finds himself.
Without succumbing to the urge to reteach the
passage again,
I'll just say that his contentment came
from going through those circumstances in
the presence and love
of his Lord Jesus Christ.
Then, after affirming that he can do all things in His
Lord Jesus Christ
whose presence with Him gives Him strength,
Paul then goes on to say,
Phil. 4:14 Nevertheless, you have done
well to share with me in my affliction.
In effect Paul says,
"My wonderful friends,
I know that if I did not have you in my life,
my Lord would find other ways
of supplying my needs,
but I want you to know, too,
that I am so grateful that He has chosen to do
this through you."
Paul wants them to know
that it felt really good
knowing they cared,
knowing they were with him
during a very difficult time in his life.
And without getting way off track here,
I just want to say that is a very healthy place to
be
in our relationships with one another.
Our security,
our rock-solid place of refuge
is in knowing that whatever we encounter in
life
we will encounter in the presence of our
Lord,
and it is His presence
and His commitment to us
that is our great security.
And yet, every one of us will have those people in
our lives
through whom God has chosen
to meet so many of our needs.
I'll just state what I want to say here
in a single sentence
and hope I'm not misunderstood.
The truly healthy love relationship for the Christian
is the one in which he can say,
"I know I don't need you,
but I am so very thankful,
so incredibly grateful that I have you next to
me, with me in life."
And that's what I see Paul saying
when he puts those two statements back to
back:
Phil. 4:13 I can do all things through Him
who strengthens me.
Phil. 4:14 Nevertheless, you have done
well to share with me in my affliction.
I see Him saying,
"If I didn't have you with me in this
because I have my Lord
I would still make it through,
but I want you to know
I'm so deeply grateful
that you are the ones God has chosen
to meet these needs in me."
That's a healthy relationship.
Paul then goes on to remind his friends in Philippi
of the history they share together,
of the other times when they served this
same role in his life,
times when they were used by God
to meet his physical and emotional needs.
And here again, even in these final verses of this
little letter,
we have Paul offering us
yet another powerful survival tool
for the hard times in our lives.
When we hurt
one of the most valuable things we can do is to
say to those
who are going through our pain with us,
"REMEMBER WHEN..."
"Remember that other time
when we saw God's love
and God's faithfulness
and God's kindness through one
another?"
And to be honest,
I should not have worded it that way,
or you may miss the power
of what's going on with this principle.
It would be far better for me to say,
"Remember that wonderful vacation we shared
together?
Remember that time when we were so keenly
aware
of how good our God is to us?"
"Remember that time when we saw God's
faithfulness to us in such wonderful ways..."
Remember when...
Remember when...
What do you use for book-marks in your Bible?
I use "Remember When's".
I use photographs
of favorite times in my life.
Here's one.
It's a picture of my wife, Sandee,
standing on Main Street USA in Disneyland.
Every time I look at this picture
I remember that day.
It wasn't Disneyland.
Disneyland can be a hideous place for a vacation
if it isn't handled correctly.
It was just being together,
and being so filled with the wonder
of how good our God is to us.
Here's another one of my book-marks.
This is a picture of me
with my arm around my daughter
standing on a walkway
at the San Diego Zoo.
I remember being there,
being family,
and being so filled with the awareness
of the great kindness of my God to me.
When we hurt,
ESPECIALLY when we hurt,
when we find ourselves feeling imprisoned,
it helps to remember when.
Phil. 4:15 And you yourselves also know,
Philippians, that at the first preaching of
the gospel, after I departed from
Macedonia, no church shared with me in
the matter of giving and receiving but you
alone;
Phil. 4:16 for even in Thessalonica you
sent a gift more than once for my needs.
And then there is one more statement
I want us to look at
before we get to that difficult statement I
promised you when we began.
And with all of this background
and other issues along the way
you no doubt realize that
today we will get right up to that
difficult statement,
but we won't actually study it
until next week.
But I don't want us to miss
one other treasure along the way.
It's found in Paul's statement
in Philippians 4:17:
Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek
for the profit which increases to your
account.
Now I know that a statement like that
sounds like a televangelist's fund-raising
dream,
but I hope we can get past that.
And the first observation I would make here
is that Paul makes this comment to the
Philippians after they gave to his needs,
not before.
Unlike much of the greed-motivated,
flesh-based
fund-raising techniques
employed by some of those in the
church world,
Paul was not looking for leverage
with which to squeeze bigger gifts
out of his Philippian friends.
In fact, his next statement makes that absolutely
clear.
The next thing he says is,
Phil. 4:18 But I have received everything in
full, and have an abundance; I am amply
supplied, ...
In other words,
"Don't send any more! I have all I need. In fact
I have an abundance!"
When was the last time
you ever heard a Christian fund-raiser say that?
Could you imagine turning on the TV
and hearing one of those glittering,
polished,
powdered fellows saying,
"Please! Stop sending those checks. We have all
that we need, and more.
Indeed, by the grace of our great God, we have
an abundance."
That is exactly what Paul says in verse 18,
and this is also another one of those verses you
will never hear on TV or the radio.
But I want to back up
to what Paul said in verse 17.
He said he was grateful for the gift itself,
but he was also grateful
for "...the profit which increases to
your account.
Now I don't want to build an empire on this verse,
but at the same time
it is impossible to read that statement
without recognizing that Paul is telling us
that our acts of kindness to one
another,
here, now, in this world,
have consequences for us
far beyond the acts themselves.
Paul actually uses accountant language in this verse.
He talks about each of us having an "account",
and about "profit" "increasing" to that account.
This concept shouldn't surprise us.
In fact one of the central themes of the entire
Bible
is the understanding that the choices we make
in this life
have significance
and consequences throughout
eternity.
In fact, Paul goes so far as to say in 1 Cor. 15:19
"If we have hoped in Christ in this life
only, we are of all men most to be pitied."
He's saying that,
the Christian life only makes sense,
and can only be seen
as truly logical
and sensible
and reasonable
when we force ourselves
to break free from an 80 year perspective on
life.
If there is no unbroken link
between this life and the next,
or if our choices in this life
have no significance in the next
only a fool would be a Christian.
In fact,
in that same 15th chapter of I Corinthians
Paul comes right out and says
what every growing Christian has felt at
times in his life:
1 Cor. 15:32 If the dead are not raised, let us
eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.
If there is no eternal accountability,
and if there are no eternal benefits
to the right choices I make now,
then why fight these battles?
Why would we go through the agony
of choosing what is right
when it is sometimes so hard to do so,
or when it makes our life here and now
more difficult,
or more painful,
or more lonely.
But Paul makes it clear in this passage
that one of the many things God does best
is to balance the moral scales of the
universe.
No right choice,
no choice of kindness,
no choice of love,
no act of compassion
ever goes unnoticed
or unrewarded by our God for His children.
In fact, Paul gives a vivid mental image
of the way in which God balances those scales
for us in 2 Cor. 4:17. He says,
For momentary, light affliction is
producing for us an eternal weight of glory
far beyond all comparison...
He says that
if we were to take all of the pain,
and all of the inconvenience,
and all of the frustration,
and all of the hurt,
and all of the negative consequences
that enter into our lives here and now
because of the right choices we make in this
life,
and we put them on one side of a scale,
and then on the other side
God placed His response to those choices of
ours,
it would be like a feather on one side
and a massive, solid block of wealth on
the other...
momentary, light affliction... an eternal weight
of glory far beyond all comparison.
That knowledge in itself
is not the only reason we need
for making many of the hardest choices we
have to make in life,
but it helps,
and it sure is great to know, isn't it?
And that's why Paul says it:
Phil. 4:17 Not that I seek the gift itself, but
I seek for the profit which increases to your
account ... a fragrant aroma, an acceptable
sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.
And with all of that as foundation,
next week we'll look at Paul's final great
statement made to his Philippian friends:
Phil. 4:19 And my God shall supply all
your needs according to His riches in glory
in Christ Jesus.