©1999 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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9/12/99
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All Your Needs Pt. 7
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Philippians 4:19
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9/12/99 All Your Needs Pt. 7
Phil. 4:19 And my God shall supply all
your needs according to His riches in glory
in Christ Jesus.
Learning to think about ourselves
as God thinks about us
is the core of Christian growth.
This, by the way, happens to be
one of the most easily recognizable differences
between man-made religion
and true Christianity.
Man-made religion
focuses on changing external behavior
so that the adherent can then become
the person God wants him to become.
THE LIST is a crucial ingredient in this process.
There must be a written
or an implied list of duties
and behaviors to accomplish
or to avoid
that will then assure good standing
with God
and with the group.
The focus, however, is always centered upon
changing behavior
so that we can become
what we are suppose to become.
That, of course, is NOT the truth
offered to us through Christ.
That is NOT true Christianity.
In Christ
we are not called
to attempt to change ourselves
so that we can then be accepted by God.
Rather, we come to God openly acknowledging
our absolute inability
to make within ourselves
the changes that need to be made,
accepting our Creator's offer
to pay for our sin with His own death,
and to transform us into His new creations,
His saints,
His Holy Ones,
through His placing a new heart within
us.
And here is the crucial distinction -
religion seeks to change our outward behavior
so that we can become who we should be,
true Christianity seeks to reveal to us
who we already are in Christ
so that we will then
live consistent with our true identity.
Does that sound confusing?
Do you remember Clark Kent -
mild-mannered reporter for a great metropolitan
newspaper,
trying to look wimpy and passive
inside his reporter's clothing?
Who was Clark Kent, really?
Of course, Clark Kent was REALLY
SUPERMAN!!!
When Clark Kent
suddenly got caught in the cross-fire
of the nasty bank robbers
shooting it out with the police
when they were trying to make their
get-away,
why didn't Clark Kent
drop to the floor in sweat-soaking terror like
everyone else?
Because Clark Kent knew who he REALLY was.
Clark Kent knew that
bullets bounced right off of him.
Clark Kent knew he was really Superman.
The only concern Clark Kent ever had
was finding a phone booth
in which he could make his super-fast
clothing change
so that he could then save the day.
So what in the world is my point?
Simply this -
Clark Kent did not have to try to become brave
and super-strong
so that he could then be Superman.
All he had to do was to remember
who he really was
underneath his white shirt and PRESS
badge.
Religion would attempt to take the terrified teller
from behind the counter
and convince him to act brave and super-strong
so that he could then become Superman.
True Christianity
simply reminds Clark Kent
who he really is
under that external facade.
Perhaps you don't think my analogy is fair
because Clark Kent really WAS Superman,
and he knew it,
where as we, of course, aren't REALLY the Holy,
pure, sinless saints of God,
freed forever from the power of sin,
indwelt and empowered by the same Spirit
that raised Christ from the dead,
divinely designed and equipped
to serve as God's ambassadors here
on earth, are we?
I mean, we're just marginally effective,
failing but forgiven sinners,
trying our best to hang in there until the Lord
comes back...
at 12:00 midnight...
on January 1, 2000...aren't we?
Well, one thing I can tell you for sure -
we will always live consistent
with who we believe ourselves to be,
even if what we believe is no longer true.
And because of that
much of the work God seeks to accomplish
within us
centers in His commitment to reshape our
minds into a correct understanding
of who we have become through Christ.
Rom. 12:2 And do not be conformed to this
world, but be transformed by the renewing
of your mind, that you may prove what the
will of God is, that which is good and
acceptable and perfect.
God does not call us to become His children
through improving our behavior.
Through Christ
He makes us His children forevermore,
and then calls us to discover what that
means.
What does it mean
for us to be a child of God?
What does it mean
for us to have God Himself as our Father?
We are nearing the end of a study
of a statement Paul makes
in the 19th verse of Philippians 4.
It is a verse that says:
Phil. 4:19 And my God shall supply all
your needs according to His riches in
glory in Christ Jesus.
It is a truly remarkable statement,
but it is also a statement
we cannot correctly understand
without a great deal of relearning.
We spent our first four weeks in this study
looking at a whole bunch of barriers
we bring into our relationship with Christ,
barriers that complicate
and confuse
and corrupt our concept
of what we really need
for a truly fulfilling life.
These barriers are the residue
of our former life lived without Christ.
And when I say that
please don't think I'm simply referring to
all of those sinful acts and impulses from
our past.
The heart of the problem we face
stems from the fact that every one of us
trained ourselves to think
and feel
and operate on a daily basis
with the assumption that God wasn't there
or that if He was
He was Someone to be avoided at all costs.
The end result is that we have each created for
ourselves
all sorts of life patterns
that we think will meet our needs
and make us happy.
With every need we have encountered
we have looked through what we have seen as
our available options for meeting that need
and then pounced on the solution
that seemed best to us.
I mentioned two weeks ago
that the beginning of all correct understanding
of what Paul is saying
when he says ...And my God shall
supply all your needs according to His
riches in glory in Christ Jesus...
is understanding that what we need
more than anything else
is God Himself.
Much of what we frantically attempt to cram into our
lives,
in a desperate attempt to fill the emptiness,
or quiet the fears,
or bolster our egos,
we do so in order to meet the hunger within us
that only God Himself can fill.
I also mentioned
that one of the things God will do
in the lives of His children
is to place us in a situation
where many of the things
we think we must have in order to
be happy
are suddenly removed,
and all we have is HIM.
Only then can we sometimes discover
that if we have Him,
then we have all we need.
But that isn't the whole picture.
And to help us take the next step
in our understanding of this verse
I need to share with you again
an illustration some of you will recognize
from The Grace Exchange.
It is the best way I know of
to quickly explain
why we sometimes run into
such confusion in this whole area.
Let me tell you a story about a very good king.
This king loves his people deeply and does his best
to rule his subjects with wisdom and compassion.
He is troubled, though, because he is growing old
and has no son of his own to rule in his place after
he dies.
He wants the one who rules after him to share
his heart of compassion for the people he rules. He
wants a man who can understand the problems,
concerns, and needs of even the most lowly of his
subjects. So one day the king devises a plan. He
will go to the poorest part of his great capitol city.
There, he will find a boy, perhaps 11 or 12 years
old, who has no mother or father, a boy who has
been forced to live by his wits on the streets. He
will then legally adopt this child and raise him as his
son, teaching him the skills he will need to one day
rule in his place. The boy's deprived heritage will
give him a strong identification with the people he
will one day rule, and his careful training under the
king's guidance will equip him for the great work.
The king commissions certain trusted members
of his staff to find a boy who meets the
qualifications he has outlined and tells them to
report back when they have found a suitable child.
When the selection is finally made, the king enters
his royal limousine and instructs his chauffeur to
drive to a certain poor part of town. He finds the
boy loitering on the street. The king has the
chauffeur stop and orders his guards to bring the
child to him.
The boy is terrified. He has been arrested by
the police for petty theft on a number of occasions,
but now the king himself has come after him.
Certainly he will be executed. The king tells the boy
to step inside the limousine. He assures him that he
is not in trouble, not being arrested, and that he has
nothing whatsoever to fear.
The two of them sit and talk-the king in his
royal robes and the orphan in his rags. The longer
they talk, the more they begin to relax and the more
they find themselves enjoying one another. After
some time, the king is confident that this boy is
indeed a good choice for his plan. He tells the child
he has a proposition for him. The king explains in
careful detail all that he has in mind and concludes
by saying, "I want to be sure you clearly understand
what I am offering you. If you agree to my terms,
you will become my legal son forever. You will live
in the palace with me. I will personally take
responsibility for meeting all of your needs. I will
feed and clothe you, train and educate you, and
prepare you for the day when I die and you will rule
in my place as king of this great nation. Will you
accept my offer?"
The boy gives the proposition a full 30 seconds'
consideration and then says, "You've got yourself a
new son!"
They return to the palace and, at first,
everything goes well. The boy spends hours just
wandering around the palace and the grounds,
overwhelmed by more wealth and luxury than he has
ever seen in his life. He begins his schooling, and
the king is pleased because his new son has a sharp
mind and learns quickly. The plan seems to be
working out well.
But then the king begins to observe some
strange behavior in his son. At the dinner table,
when the boy thinks no one is looking, he takes a
piece of meat or a roll and some cheese and slips it
into his pocket. When he walks down a hallway, his
little hand quickly reaches out and grabs some shiny
object sitting on a table and slides it under his coat.
The boy then stashes his treasures under his bed.
At first the king is puzzled by the boy's
behavior. The child's every need is being met in
abundance. The king has withheld none of his
treasures from his son, and yet the boy seems
compelled to hoard a small pile of these items in his
room. Then the king finally realizes what is
happening. His son has the clothes, the food, and
the legal position of a prince and a future king, but
he still has the mind and emotions of a street urchin.
He was told that the king is now his father and that
he will never again want for anything, but in his
mind he still sees himself as a boy who must live by
his wits-a boy who has no one to rely on but
himself. Through an amazing series of events, he
has ended up in a king's palace for a while, but
certainly something will go wrong and he will be
back on the street. All of his life he has survived by
taking what he can get when he can get it and, in his
mind, nothing has really changed.
And this, of course,
is why we run into such huge problems
when we encounter a statement
such as this one in Phil. 4:19.
We, just like this street kid,
bring with us into our union with our Heavenly
Father,
a highly refined system of tricks
and techniques
through which we have been
attempting to meet our needs.
Many of them don't work very well,
but they are a part of who we are.
Our little adopted street kid
didn't need the food and trinkets
he crammed in his coat,
but he thought he did,
and his every survival instinct
told him he has to take and grab
whatever he can get his hands on.
When we come to Christ,
we are just like that boy.
We are told that God has "raised us up with
Christ, and seated us with Him in the
heavenly places"
We are told that our God "shall supply all our
needs according to His riches in glory in
Christ Jesus"
We are told clearly that
we now share an eternal Father-child
relationship
with the God of the universe,
and "He Himself has said, 'I will never
desert you, nor will I ever forsake you'"
We have heard the words,
and yet, like that boy,
we do not really believe it is true.
We have the legal standing of a prince,
but the mind of a street kid.
All of our lives we have believed
that we are responsible
for governing our own little world,
meeting our own needs,
taking care of ourselves
without the involvement of our
Creator.
Then, in an instant,
all of that is changed forever.
Our spirits know it has changed,
but our minds, emotions, and memories do
not.
When our King
begins His recreation process in our lives
there will be some areas
where we are locked into highly self
destructive behaviors
and some disciplinary measures will
be needed.
But He knows that
what we need most of all
is to learn to think like the children of the
King we really are.
The problem is not
that we continue to cling to
all our ineffective techniques
for meeting our needs.
The real problem is that
we believe we still need them.
Our King will find ways
of helping us understand
that we no longer have to take
and hide
and hoard to get our needs met.
Through our Father, we already possess
everything we need for the life our spirit longs
for.
Three weeks ago I started
to offer you a list of statements
to help us pull this study together.
So far I have offered you two statements.
#1.There are no qualifying limitations
placed on the word "needs" in this verse.
Even the needs we have caused within ourselves
through our own sin
are included in Philippians 4:19.
#2. The beginning of understanding
what God is saying when He says
"I will supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus..."
is understanding that what we need
most
is God Himself.
This morning I offer you #3 in that list.
#3. The second major step in our healing process,
then,
is allowing God to rebuild our understanding
both of what our needs are
and how those needs can be met.
In the terms of our illustration,
He seeks to replace our street kid mentality
with the mind of a true child of the King.
We are going to spend one final week in this series,
and we'll pick it up
right where we are leaving it off today,
but just so I don't leave this
totally hanging in mid air,
let me conclude with just one example
of the type of thing I'm talking about.
We'll do this in a before-and-after format.
EX.
OK, before we come to Christ,
we encounter someone who hurts us,
or attacks us,
or acts in an unkind way to us.
This encounter creates a need within us.
We need to respond somehow to this person.
Depending upon our personality,
and our relationship with the person,
and the way we saw conflicts handled in our
home background,
and a lot of other factors as well,
we have to decide
what we will do?
There are a number of options available.
1. We can run away from them.
2. We can beat them up.
3. We can find some way of manipulating them,
or humiliating them,
or avoiding them,
or conquering them.
Then, when we have selected the option that seems
best to us,
we implement our response
in the best way we can.
And we also reinforce within us
whatever technique we have selected
for dealing with such people when we
encounter them in the future.
Then we come to Christ.
As a Christian we encounter
another person,
or perhaps the same person
who again hurts us,
or attacks us,
or acts in a thoughtless or unkind way to us.
Once again, this encounter creates within us a need
to respond in some way.
But this need is complicated by the fact
that we already believe we know
how that need should be met
given our past experience.
"Of course, I need to run away."
"Of course, I need to get even."
"Of course, I need to hurt them back."
That's the street kid in us
instinctively cramming the silver ash tray into his
pocket.
Now, when God tells us
that He has committed Himself
to meeting all of our needs according to His
riches in glory in Christ Jesus,
the first step in his fulfillment of that commitment
is to help us reexamine
the technique we have selected
for responding to our enemy.
Maybe running away,
or hitting back
is not the response that will bring the result
we truly long for.
Maybe what we really need
is to discover how we can redeem that
relationship
through actively reaching back to them
in kindness.
Matt. 5:43-45 "You have heard that it was
said, 'You shall love your neighbor, and
hate your enemy.'
But I say to you, love your enemies, and
pray for those who persecute you in order
that you may be sons of your Father who
is in heaven..."
So, where have we gone so far?
When God assumes responsibility for meeting our
needs through Christ,
the first thing He seeks to do is to show us that
what we need more than anything else is Himself,
and then the second thing He does
is to help us rebuild our twisted perceptions
of what our needs really are.