©1999 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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9/19/99
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All Your Needs Pt. 8
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Philippians 4:19
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9/19/99 All Your Needs Pt. 8
For seven weeks we have been looking
at a single statement made by Paul
in the 4th chapter of his letter
to his friends at Philippi.
We find that statement in Philippians 4:19:
And my God will supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus.
Along the way
we have seen a number of the reasons why it is
difficult for us to hear correctly
what God is saying to us
in this statement.
We have talked about they way in which
we begin our relationship with our Lord
with a twisted and distorted concept
both of what our needs are
and of how those needs can be met.
We also bring our fears and distrust of God.
We know we need Him,
but we are not at all sure we can trust Him
or trust His intentions toward us.
We have all developed
a number of favorite hiding places,
tools we use to help us cope with the pain in
life,
and we are not at all sure
what God would do with us
or with those hiding places
if He were allowed to have full reign
in our lives.
Having spent our whole lives
running away from Him,
hiding from Him,
fearing Him,
blinded to His love,
we are now very skittish about
letting Him get too close
or giving Him
too much control.
And we have also talked about
the way in which each of us comes to God
bringing our NON-NEGOTIABLES -
those places where we have drawn
our own mental line,
declaring to ourselves
and to our Lord
that His involvement in this area or
that area is simply not an option.
To be honest,
I believe that
for the Christian
our non-negotiables
are rooted most of all in our fears.
It isn't that we don't want to trust our Lord.
It isn't that we don't want to rest
in His love
and His leadership.
It's that the thought of letting go
of our non-negotiables
generates terror within us.
Having never seen His alternative
we simply cannot imagine
how we could survive
if we let go of whatever it is
we are clinging to.
And as we talked about those areas in this study
we saw that sometimes
the most loving thing God can ever do
is to remove whatever it is
that we think we cannot live without
so that we can finally discover
the true security
and freedom
He seeks to bring into our lives
a security rooted in God Himself,
His presence with us,
His love for us,
and His perfect understanding
of the deepest needs in our lives.
I don't want to spend the morning
reteaching what we've already studied,
but I will just say that
some of the most difficult,
doubt-filled times in our lives
come at those times
when God's love for us
motivates Him to reach into our lives
and wrench from our grips
some addictive
or destructive false foundation
that we just knew we could not
live without
so that He can then rebuild
strong, solid footing under our feet.
It is at those times,
perhaps more than any others,
when we hear Paul say:
And my God will supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus...
and we say inside, "I don't see it!"
Only when the skillful hand of our God
has first removed
and then rebuilt that part of our lives
can we look back and say to ourselves,
and to our Lord,
"Now I understand.
Now I see.
Thank you, my King, for removing and
rebuilding
what I could never have changed myself."
All of these factors
and a number of others as well
exert tremendous pressure
on the needs agenda
we bring with us into our
relationship with Christ.
And Paul's assurance that
... my God will supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus...
will only make sense to us
when we understand that
God has not committed Himself
to supplying what we think we need,
He has committed Himself to supplying
what He knows we truly do need.
And right there that statement
once again triggered within some of you THE
FEAR.
You just know that God's concept
of what you really need
is limited to bread and water,
and stale bread at that.
We've been here before, of course.
And we'll be back again and again.
For now let me just say
that Christ Himself is the one who said:
John 10:10...I came that they may have
life, and have it abundantly.
And Paul picked up the same theme
when he says in Rom. 8:32
He who did not spare His own Son, but
delivered Him over for us all, how will He
not also with Him freely give us all
things?
In fact, in I Timothy 6:17
Paul sets up a fascinating contrast.
He is offering Timothy
some special instructions
he wants Timothy to pass on
to the wealthy members in his church.
He says,
1 Tim. 6:17 ¶ Instruct those who are rich
in this present world not to be conceited or
to fix their hope on the uncertainty of
riches, but on God, who richly supplies us
with all things to enjoy.
His message is obvious -
the kind of richness of life we long for
cannot be bought at any price,
and those who believe it can
are setting themselves up
for deep disappointment.
The richness of life we long for
can only come to us
through the loving hands of our God.
Now, that is a flying survey of where we have
been.
But I don't want to leave this series
until I offer at least a few final comments
about those times in our lives
when it doesn't seem to us
that God is doing
what He promises to do in this
verse in Philippians.
Whether we recognize it or not,
every true Believer
is actively involved in a daily raging battle to
rediscover
and reaffirm the eternal love
and absolute integrity of our God.
We are surrounded by voices
challenging those truths,
telling us that our God either isn't there,
or doesn't care,
or is only interested in knocking us
around a bit
in a futile attempt to shape us up
and make us behave.
We have spent eight weeks
on this single statement in which Paul proclaims:
Phil. 4:19 And my God will supply all your
needs according to His riches in glory in
Christ Jesus...
because this verse goes to very heart
of the most crucial warfare we will every be
engaged in as Christians.
Let me read you something from the book of Acts.
For those of you who are new to the Bible,
the Book of Acts is the fifth book in the New
Testament.
The first four books,
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke,
and John
provide us with four separate accounts
of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
The fifth book, the book of Acts,
then picks up the historical account
from immediately following the resurrection
of Christ
and shares with us how God brought the
Church into being
in the years immediately following Christ's
departure.
The most dominant personality in the book of Acts
is the Apostle Paul,
the man used by God
to move the message of Christ out of the
Jewish world
and into the world of the Gentiles or non-Jews.
Now, I want to read you an incident
that took place in Philippi
the first time Paul visited the city.
Obviously many,
in fact probably most of those
reading this letter we are now studying
had first-hand knowledge of this
incident
because they were there,
they saw it happen.
This is from Acts 16:16-24
Acts 16:16 ¶ It happened that as we were
going to the place of prayer, a slave-girl
having a spirit of divination met us, who
was bringing her masters much profit by
fortune-telling.
Acts 16:17 Following after Paul and us,
she kept crying out, saying, "These men
are bond-servants of the Most High God,
who are proclaiming to you the way of
salvation."
Acts 16:18 She continued doing this for
many days. But Paul was greatly annoyed,
and turned and said to the spirit, "I
command you in the name of Jesus Christ
to come out of her!" And it came out at
that very moment.
Acts 16:19 ¶ But when her masters saw
that their hope of profit was gone, they
seized Paul and Silas and dragged them
into the market place before the
authorities,
Acts 16:20 and when they had brought
them to the chief magistrates, they said,
"These men are throwing our city into
confusion, being Jews,
Acts 16:21 and are proclaiming customs
which it is not lawful for us to accept or to
observe, being Romans. "
Acts 16:22 The crowd rose up together
against them, and the chief magistrates
tore their robes off them and proceeded to
order them to be beaten with rods.
Acts 16:23 When they had struck them
with many blows, they threw them into
prison, commanding the jailer to guard
them securely;
Acts 16:24 and he, having received such a
command, threw them into the inner prison
and fastened their feet in the stocks.
Now, take that incident
and place it next to Philippians 4:19
And my God will supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus.
Does anything trouble you about that?
Here is Paul,
doing exactly what God called Him to do,
empowered by the Spirit of God,
preaching the Word of God,
under the direct, personal, protective
hand of God,
and he ends up getting beaten with rods
and thrown in prison.
...and my God will supply all your needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus.
And the truth is
we don't even have to go that far back
to ask the same question.
All we have to do is look at our own lives.
If God will supply all your needs according
to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,
then why did that rock fly up
and hit your windshield yesterday,
causing that crack you now need to deal
with?
If God will supply all your needs according
to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,
then why did that friend that was so much a part
of your life
have to move away
and leave you feeling so alone?
If God will supply all your needs according
to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,
then why did you loose your job,
or why did that disease intrude into your
body,
or why did that person you love have to
die?
What our Lord is saying to us
when He says that He has committed Himself to
supplying all our needs through Christ
can only be correctly understood
when we recognize
that this promise is made
within the context of the real world in which we
live,
and within the context
of the redemptive work He is doing
within the lives of each of His children.
And let me try to explain.
We have seen throughout this entire study
that one of the greatest enemies we battle
in our efforts to gain
a correct understanding of this verse
is the belief that what we need for happiness,
and what we believe God should commit
Himself to
is providing us with a pain-free,
stress-free,
problem-free life,
a life in which all the influences
and the effects of evil have been removed.
And let me say first of all
that that day will come.
Do you want to hear it in His own words?
Rev. 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from
the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle
of God is among men, and He will dwell
among them, and they shall be His people,
and God Himself will be among them,
Rev. 21:4 and He will wipe away every
tear from their eyes; and there will no
longer be any death; there will no longer
be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the
first things have passed away."
Rev. 21:5 ¶ And He who sits on the throne
said, "Behold, I am making all things
new." And He said, "Write, for these
words are faithful and true."
Rev. 21:6 Then He said to me, " It is
done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning and the end. I will give to the
one who thirsts from the spring of the
water of life without cost.
Rev. 21:7 "He who overcomes will inherit
these things, and I will be his God and he
will be My son.
And I hope you heard the careful wording of those
verses.
God does not simply say
that we will not cry any more.
He says that He Himself
will wipe away every tear.
Our pain is always deeply personal to our God.
It isn't the existence of pain the troubles our God,
it is the fact that His child hurts.
It isn't that God is AGAINST evil,
it's that He is FOR us.
The time will come with every child of God
when we will feel the touch
of His nail-scared hand upon our cheek,
and He will call us by name
and tell us all our pain,
and all our hurt,
and all our suffering is now
over forever.
That day will come.
But it is not here yet.
And when our God commits Himself
to supplying all our needs
according to His riches in glory in Christ
Jesus,
that promise is made to us
within the context of our continued presence
in a world
and in a physical body
that have both been drenched in evil
and the accumulated consequences of
man's sin
since the rebellion of Adam and Eve.
When we enter the family of God
we do so with the understanding
that between the time of our submission to
Him
and the time when He pulls us out of this
world
we are assigned the crucial role
of serving as His ambassadors
in the heart of a world in pitched rebellion
against Him.
Entrance into Christ
is entrance into daily warfare
in a world system
that is rooted and grounded
at the deepest level in evil.
Maybe I could say it better this way -
when God commits Himself
to supplying all of our needs
according to His riches in glory in
Christ Jesus
He is not committing Himself
to supplying our monthly pension check for
retirement,
He is committing Himself
to supplying us with all we need
for effective warfare
on the front lines of the battle.
And whenever and wherever that battle
impacts our lives,
wherever evil touches us,
His commitment is twofold:
#1. He will be with us each step of the way,
and nothing and no one will ever be able to
separate us from His love.
Rom. 8:35 Who will separate us from the
love of Christ? Will tribulation, or
distress, or persecution, or famine, or
nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Rom. 8:36 Just as it is written, " For Your
sake we are being put to death all day
long; We were considered as sheep to be
slaughtered."
Rom. 8:37 But in all these things we
overwhelmingly conquer through Him who
loved us.
Rom. 8:38 For I am convinced that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor powers,
Rom. 8:39 nor height, nor depth, nor any
other created thing, will be able to separate
us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
And #2, not only will we discover
the reality of His love in that battle,
but we will see Him take the evil that has
intruded into our lives
and not only equip us to cope with it,
but to actually turn that evil
into good in our lives.
Rom. 8:28 ¶ And we know that God causes
all things to work together for good to
those who love God, to those who are
called according to His purpose.
God's commitment to supply our needs
is a commitment that is made to us
within the context of our continued presence
in this world.
And second,
it is a commitment that is made
within the context of our continued presence
in these bodies - these minds,
and emotions,
and memories,
that understand nothing about the true
nature of life in the Spirit.
Here it is in a single sentence:
He is not only in the process of equipping us for
battle,
He is also in the process of conforming us to the
image of Christ.
There will be times
when God does not supply
what we think we need
because what we think we need
is generated by lies rooted in
memories and emotions created within us
before we ever knew our Lord,
lies that must be removed
and replaced with the truth
before we can know the abundant life He
wants us to know.
And with that I believe we'll bring this series to a
close.