03-09-14 All Your Needs Pt. 5

Phil. 4:19 And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

We have spent the past four weeks

getting a running start at this single statement

made by Paul in his closing comments

in the letter he wrote

to his friends at Philippi.

Mostly what we’ve done so far

is to look at some of the reasons why

we have trouble understanding this statement correctly.

Throughout the past few weeks

I shared with you the first five difficulties

that occurred to me

as soon as I began preparing for our study of this verse together.

#1. When we come to Christ

we bring with us a need framework

based upon our flesh-trained

mental and emotional operating systems.

#2. We also bring with us

a basic distrust of God and His intentions toward us.

#3. We bring our fears

based upon all those areas

where we have seen other people fail us in the past.

#4. We all carry with us

a personal list of “nonnegotiables”,

things that we believe

God cannot be allowed to mess with

if we are to be truly happy.

#5. And then the last problem area I mentioned

in our attempts to understand this statement in Phil. 4:19

is the fact that when we come to Christ

we all bring with us

our external-based techniques

for establishing and maintaining our self-identity.

We have certain things in our lives

we are using to tell us who we are,

things that we use to make us feel significant,

important,

valuable.

Many of those voices are helpful tools

used by our Lord

to confirm the truth

He Himself is telling us about ourselves.

But some of those voices

are destructive hiding places

that our Lord must silence

before we can hear His voice.

Now, all five of those issues

exert tremendous pressure

on our needs agenda.

By that I mean that

when we hear Paul saying:

... my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus...

our concept of what those needs are

and what we believe

God is committing Himself to

is determined by all of those factors we have been looking at

during the past few weeks.

In that mix

we have some things

we are frantically clinging to,

absolutely convinced

that we MUST have them

in order for our lives to be livable at any level.

We also have goals we are pursuing,

believing that when we achieve them

we will find the kind and quality of life

that will bring us happiness

and security

and inner peace.

We rarely think about these things consciously,

but they are the unquestioned

fundamental assumptions of our lives.

Years ago I saw a cartoon somewhere

of a Boy Scout Master

preparing a young scout

for his first overnight hike.

The Scout Master was saying to the boy,

“When we hit the trail

we carry everything we need on our backs,

and we just take with us

the bare essentials for life.”

Then the cartoonist showed a picture

of the mental image that statement created in the boy’s mind.

And in his mind,

strapped to his back he saw

a refrigerator,

and a big screen TV,

and a computer,

and a telephone,

and all kinds of electronic games and food.

Now I am in no way suggesting

that God’s commitment to us

to meet our needs

is a commitment that limits itself

to the bare essentials of life.

Far from it.

He Himself is the one who said,

John 10:10 ‟...I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.”

It is impossible for Him

to love us perfectly as He does

without that love motivating Him

to seek for us the life

that He knows will bring about within us

a deep sense of fulfillment and satisfaction.

But I mention that cartoon

because I know that the same kind of mis-communication

takes place between us and our God

when He commits Himself

to meeting our needs.

The absolute,

bottom-line essentials for our happiness

that we come up with

are so far from what will truly bring us the life our spirits long for

that it’s like we and our Lord are talking different languages.

Now, to help us find some solid ground with this remarkable statement

here in Philippians 4:19

I want to offer you the conclusions I have reached at this point in my life

about what I believe God is saying.

And maybe it will help

if I number each statement

so that you can better keep track

of what I’m trying to say.

#1. The first thing I would mention

is to point out

that there are no qualifying limitations

placed on the word “needs” in this verse.

In other words,

it doesn’t matter why those needs

exist within our lives.

Some of the needs we face

are ours simply because we are human beings.

We have physical needs -

food, water, shelter, warmth.

We have emotional and psychological needs -

love,

friendship,

a sense of security, and so forth.

But we also have a whole bunch of needs

that exist within us

as a direct result of our own sins and wrong choices.

Every one of us have at times

made ourselves more needy

because our own wrong choices

have complicated our lives.

The source of our needs

is simply not an issue to God.

His commitment is to US,

just as we are.

He makes no distinction between

needs we brought on ourselves

because of our sinfulness,

and what we might consider “legitimate” needs

that are simply ours

because of our humanness.

The truth is

every single need we have

has in some way been affected,

and corrupted,

and distorted by our sinfulness

or the sinfulness of others.

The world God originally designed for us

met man’s needs perfectly and flawlessly.

It provided Adam and Eve

with everything they needed

for a perfect life.

Even the weather

was so perfectly regulated

that they didn’t even need clothing.

They had perfect love relationships

both with God

and with one another,

uncomplicated by sin.

But when man sinned

it affected not just the human race

but our entire world environment.

Part of the curse brought upon us

as a result of our sin

was a tension between us

and the physical world.

Thorns and thistles,

cold and heat,

hurricanes and tornados,

pain in childbirth,

fear,

anger,

and resentment in human relationships -

all of that and much more

are a direct result of man’s sin.

My point is simply this -

God’s commitment to us

assumes a heritage of sin

and all that comes with it,

and in fact

it is because of that sin

that Christ has done what He has done for us.

By removing from us

our personal liability for our sin

He made it possible for us to enter into the beginning of a recreation process

in which He will eventually

restore all things back to the perfection we lost when we sinned.

He doesn’t just forgive us,

He recreates us in Christ.

Let me make it clear and simple:

even the needs you have caused within yourself through your 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.

If we were not “in church” right now,

and we were not studying THE BIBLE!

and I were to ask you

what you thought you needed most right now

in order to be truly happy,

what would you say?

We would probably get as many different answers

as we have people here.

“I need to be popular in school.”

“I need to make the starting team this year.”

“I need a girlfriend.”

“I need a boyfriend.”

“I need a husband.”

“I need a wife.”

“I need a child.”

“I need to get these bills paid.”

“I need a job.”

“I need a different job.”

“I need to retire.”

“I need to win the lottery.”

“I need to conquer this addiction.”

“I need forgiveness.”

“I need freedom from this physical problem.”

“I need to be healed.”

What I am going to tell you right now

I believe to be the beginning

of all true understanding

both of this verse,

and of ourselves.

It doesn’t make any difference

how old you are,

whether you’re 12 years old

and in your first year of Jr. High School,

or 16 years old

and feeling lost and alone in High School,

or 18 and wondering

what in the world you’re going to do

with the future stretching out before you.

You can be male or female,

married or single,

25 or 45 or 65 or 80.

The one thing we need

more than anything else

for true fulfillment in life

is God Himself.

Did I lose you with what I just said?

Did a little voice inside you just say,

“Yea! That’s just the type of thing

some old, grey, balding preacher would say.

When I’m that near the grave

I’ll start looking for God too.”

Well, let me just say that

no matter what age you are,

if you don’t think Jesus Christ

is what you’re really looking for,

then you don’t know Jesus Christ.

And let me qualify this a little more

by saying that I’m not talking about

any religious system,

I’m talking about

the personal presence of Christ Himself.

Nor am I talking about

what Christ can do for us,

or what we think He might be able to do for us.

I’m not saying we need Christ

because He can heal us.

Or we need Christ

because He can deliver us

from this pain we’re in.

Or we need Christ

because He will then

fix what’s broken in our lives.

What I’m saying here

is the simple fact of human existence -

that what we long for the most,

and what our spirit truly hungers for

more than everything else combined

is the personal presence

and loving, living reality of our Creator in our lives

on a minute by minute basis.

The greatest need we will ever have

is our need for our Lord Jesus Christ.

And much of what God does

when He commits Himself to supplying all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus,

is to restructure

the lives of His people

is such a way as to bring us into that understanding.

There are times when it will appear as though

God is failing miserably

in His commitment to meet

what we believe to be our needs.

But He will be doing it

because of what He knows

will take place between us and Him

as a result.

I spent the summer of 1968

on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad

with an evangelistic team

made up mostly of college students.

At the time

I had been a Christian

for a little over a year and a half.

The eight weeks I spent in Trinidad that summer

were in many respects

the most difficult,

painful eight weeks

I’d ever lived up to that point in my life.

I existed in an almost total emotional isolation

during the whole time I was there.

Of the eight members on our team

I was the only one

who was not from a Pentecostal church background.

When my fellow teammates found this out

several of them took me on

as their supreme missions challenge for the summer,

fervently hoping to pray,

and debate,

and discuss me into their doctrinal bent.

But it’s very hard to be good friends

with someone you’re trying to conquer,

or someone

who’s trying to conquer you,

and the end result

was that I spent the entire two months as an emotional outcast.

Then the organization I went out with

failed to allow enough money

for sufficient food for us.

I lost nearly 20 pounds

in eight weeks

simply because I wasn’t getting enough to eat.

Have you ever seen those movies

about prisoners in isolation

who develop friendships

with the rats

and the insects in their cells?

At one place we stayed that summer

there was a huge cockroach

that lived behind the sink.

I can remember waiting for him to come out when I was shaving in the morning.

To my credit

I never actually viewed the roach as a friend,

but I never had any desire to kill him either.

Now tell me,

how could a God

who says that He will supply all my needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus

place me into that kind of situation?

No friends...

not enough food...

half sick from the heat and the water most of the time...

But, you know,

something else happened that summer too.

My God became real to me

in ways He had never been real before.

Each morning when I opened my eyes

I would plead with Him to give me the strength

to get up and go through another day.

And each day He did just exactly that.

And throughout the summer

He found ways

of communicating His deep personal love for me as His child.

He was with me

and He was enough.

Now, He did not leave me in that pain for long.

During most of my life since then

He has met both my physical and emotional needs

in tremendous abundance.

But I know with absolute certainty

that there was a time in my life

when God intentionally withheld

everything I thought I needed for happiness

so that I could discover

that what I needed most of all was Him,

and that if all I had was Him,

then it was enough.

The beginning of all true understanding

of God’s assurance that He will supply all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus

is understanding that

what we need more than everything else is God Himself.

Now, we aren’t done with this verse yet.

There are some more things we need to see.

But we’ll save that for next week.