02-23-14 All Your Needs Pt. 3

We stopped last week

in the middle of a study

of a fascinating statement Paul makes

in the last part

of the last chapter of Philippians.

The section we have been studying

is Philippians 4:10-20,

and the specific verse

that has been our focus for the past several weeks

is Philippians 4:19.

The passage as a whole

contains Paul’s expression of appreciation to the Philippians

for the way in which they reached out to him while he was in prison in Rome

and sent him supplies

to make his time in prison a little easier.

He has assured the Philippians

that their gift meant a great deal to him

and that he now had all that he needed and more.

Then, following his expression of gratitude

for the way in which they have helped him,

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

And as we started to wrestle with this statement last week

we saw that Paul was offering them

a simple statement of truth

about God’s commitment to the Christian.

Paul wasn’t just saying that he was HOPING God would meet their needs.

He wasn’t saying that he was PRAYING God would meet their needs.

He wasn’t even saying that

because they met HIS needs

God would now respond to their kindness

by meeting THEIR needs.

He was simply saying

that part of what we receive

when we receive Christ

is a Father-child relationship

with God Himself,

a relationship in which God, as our Father,

commits Himself to meeting our needs

as His children.

This commitment on God’s part

is not something we earn.

It is not linked to our performance

or our obedience

or our level of maturity.

It is linked, rather, to the nature of the relationship we now share with God

through Christ.

Through Christ

we have become His people,

His sons and daughters,

and as such He assumes a special,

personal oversight in our lives.

Sometimes it’s easier

when we look at a concept like this

from the human perspective.

As human parents

we do not meet the needs of our children

because their performance justifies it.

We don’t feed them

and clothe them

and shelter them only on the days

when they behave

or perform to our expectations.

If that were true

there would be an awful lot of cold,

hungry,

homeless 3 year (or 16 year old) children in the world.

We care for them,

and provide for their needs

simply because they are our children.

In fact, I find it interesting that

one of the stronger statements of condemnation found in Scripture

is directed at fathers

who refuse to meet the needs of their children.

In 1 Tim. 5:8 Paul tells Timothy,

‟But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith, and is worse than an unbeliever.”

And it really should not surprise us

to hear Paul telling us here in Phil. 4:19

that our perfect heavenly Father

commits Himself to parenting us perfectly.

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

But as we began to study this verse last week

we recognized that we bring with us

into this Father-child relationship with God

some baggage that makes it very difficult for us to understand this statement

in Phil. 4:19 correctly.

I mentioned last week

that at least five issues came to mind to me

that make it difficult for us

to correctly relate to this verse.

And last week we looked at the first of those five.

If you were here

you’ll remember that the first one we looked at

was the realization that

when we come to Christ

we bring with us a need framework

based upon our flesh-trained

mental and emotional operating systems.

Now, if you weren’t here last week

that is not going to mean a whole lot to you.

So by way of review

I’ll just say that we enter this world

with three major forces working against us.

Because we are separated from our Creator,

and both unable and unwilling

to hear His voice speaking the truth to us,

we don’t know what are needs really are,

we don’t know how our needs can truly be met effectively,

and third, we are totally dependent upon ourselves

and our own limited resources

in meeting those needs.

We look at the society around us,

or our own utterly unreliable feelings

to tell us what will make us happy

or fulfilled,

and then we frantically attempt

to pursue whatever goals

our society or our feelings have thrust upon us.

And the end result is disastrous.

We spend all of our efforts

chasing the wrong needs,

and even if we finally achieve them

they don’t satisfy.

We still feel empty,

and aching,

and pain-filled,

and we don’t know why.

So, the first reason we run into problems

understanding 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 because when we come to Christ

we bring with us a need framework

based upon our flesh-trained

mental and emotional operating systems.

The second problem I want to mention

that I see us running into

when we come to this statement

in Philppians 4:19

is that when we come to Christ

we also bring with us

a basic distrust of God,

and it is a distrust that is sometimes intensified

by our distorted concepts

of what we really need.

Our mistrust of our Creator

begins, of course, long before we come to Him.

In fact, it is at the heart of all of our sin against Him.

When Adam and Eve

first chose to disobey God in the Garden of Eden,

why did they do it?

They did it because

they didn’t really believe

God had their best interests in mind.

They believed that when God told them

not to eat of that tree

He was depriving them of something really good.

In fact, it might be worth our taking

just a couple of minutes

to review those events in the Garden of Eden

because the same pattern of deception

and mistrust of God

is repeated countless times in our own lives.

This is from Genesis chapter 3.

Satan appears to Eve

in the form of a serpent...

Gen. 3:1 ... And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

Now right there in that single statement

is the hook.

He appears to be asking a simple question,

but imbedded in that question

is a calculated vicious attack

against the character of God.

Satan asks Eve,

“Did God really tell you

that he has forbidden you to eat

any fruit

off of any tree in the Garden?”

And implied in that question

is the statement, “Can you really trust a God

who would intentionally design you

with a daily need for food

and place within you

a keen sense of smell

and ability to taste and enjoy food

and surround you with all of these

incredible fruit trees

and then...

and then make such unreasonable demands of you as to forbid you

to eat from any of them?

Can you really trust such a God?

I don’t think so!”

Now Eve knows Satan has just misstated

what God really said,

but she accepted the implied suspicion

of God’s trustworthiness.

Listen to her response:

Gen. 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;...

She grudgingly acknowledges

that God actually has given them permission

to eat from all of the other trees.

The real truth, of course,

is that not only did God give them permission to eat from them,

but He created them exclusively

and specially for them.

But Eve has already bought the lie.

She has already decided

that this God of theirs

is unreasonable in His demands.

And when she continues her response

to Satan’s question

listen to what she says.

Gen. 3:3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"

Did you see that?

She misquoted what God had said.

God never said anything to her

about touching the fruit.

He just said, “Don’t eat it.”

But Eve had already accepted

Satan’s suggestion that God was both

unreasonable in His demands

and not to be trusted.

And so she expands God’s command

to make it sound arbitrary,

illogical,

and unreasonable.

And as soon as Satan saw

Eve’s mistrust of God’s intentions

he knew he’d won the battle.

He responded immediately

with the confirmation

that indeed this is not a God

any sensible person would trust.

And now that the hook has been set Satan can blast through

with a full-blown lie,

attacking God’s love,

and His true heart intention for His creation.

Gen. 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die!

Gen. 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

‟God is out to cheat you!

So what if He’s created

this incredible world for you,

a world filled with more beauty

and goodness

and pleasure

than you could ever experience.

You can’t trust Him,

especially when it comes to His commandments.

He’s trying to cheat you

out of the really good stuff in life.”

And the human race has been reproducing that same little drama ever since.

With each of us

Satan seeks to cultivate that same tension and mistrust of God.

“Has God said sex is evil and you must have nothing to do with it under any circumstances?”

“Well, no, not exactly. But He did say it was only tolerated within marriage,

and He obviously doesn’t like it very much even there.”

“What kind of God

would create you with strong sexual needs

and then forbid you to meet those needs?

Can you really trust a God like that?

I don’t think so!

He’s just trying to cheat you

out of the best stuff in life.”

Never mind the fact

that God Himself created the whole concept of sex

and carefully designed

both it and us

in such a way that it fits perfectly

within the context

of a life-time marriage commitment,

and every time we attempt

to yank it out of that marriage context

and plug it into some other type of human relationship

those involved get hurt.

Now it is true

that when we come to Christ

we begin to discover God’s love

in a way that helps defuse the power

of some of Satan’s lies.

But it is healthy for us to remember

that we enter our relationship with God

with a huge backlog of Satan’s lies,

lies that continue to leave within us

a residue of distrust of our Creator.

And when we come up against

a statement like this one in Philippians 4:19

where Paul says,

And my God shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus...,

there is a voice inside us

that continues to say, “Yea, right! I’m not buying it until I see a little more proof!”

And there is one more point of tension

that can often intensify

our underlying distrust of God.

I just mentioned this in passing last week,

but there are points in every Christian’s life

where our distorted perceptions

of what we really need in order to be happy or fulfilled

collide with our trust in God

because there will be places

where He will seek to remove from our lives

something we are certain we need.

Remember my little dog, Pepper,

with his bag of garbage?

Remember how he would have growled at me and mistrusted me

if I would have attempted to take it away from him?

And there are times when what we think we need

and what we see our God providing

or what we hear Him asking of us

are in such sharp contrast

that it can create tremendous fear within us.

And that is the third issue that came to mind to me

when I saw some of the problems we have with Paul’s assurance that

our God shall supply all our needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

#3. We each bring our fears into this growing trust relationship

between us and our God.

They are often fears that come out of

our relationships with other human beings.

We are afraid God won’t truly understand us.

We are afraid He really doesn’t care.

We are afraid He may still be holding a little grudge against us for all those sins.

We are afraid His way of doing things

would be a hideous way to live.

We are afraid He might try to squeeze us into a life we hate,

or make us live in a place we don’t want to be,

with responsibilities we weren’t qualified to fulfill.

We are afraid He will demand of us

what we are not able to deliver.

We are afraid we will disappoint Him

and He will disappoint us.

We are afraid He will cheat us

out of the kind of life we just know we really need in order to be happy.

I felt some of those fears

from the first day I came to Christ.

I’ve told you in the past

about the fears I had

when it first occurred to me

that God might want me to preach.

I mean really!

How could I really trust a God

who would want me

to invest my life

in something like that?

The truth us,

learning to live in a Father/child relationship

with a God who knows us far better

than we will ever know ourselves,

and loves us far more deeply

than anyone else ever has

or ever will love us

is very hard stuff for us.

We hear our God assuring us

that He has committed Himself

to meeting all of our needs.

But then we look around

at what He appears to be doing

or what He appears to have done

in other people’s lives,

and then we see that big issue He’s dealing with in our life right now,

that big chunk of garbage

we’ve been clutching

and gnawing on frantically,

convinced we have to have it

in order to be happy,

and even though we haven’t dared

put it into words to ourselves,

we know our God is committed

to pulling it out of our lives,

and the truth is it scares us.

It scares us because even now,

even at this point in our lives,

we know enough about our God

to know that He deals only in truth

and only in reality.

Our distorted perceptions

of what we think we need

in order to be fulfilled

have no influence over Him.

And even without putting it into words

we know that the beginning

of God’s commitment to meet our needs

is His renewing our minds

in a way that restructures our whole perspective

on what our needs really are.

What our minds think we want

is a God who will take from us

our twisted,

inaccurate,

often even self-destructive little list of needs

and stamp it “APPROVED!”.

But what our spirits really long for

is what we truly have -

is a God who begins His commitment to us

to meet our needs

by leading us through the sometimes painful process

of reshaping our understanding

of what we truly need for a fulfilling life,

prying our fingers off the lies,

and opening our hearts

to hunger and thirst for the truth.

We are still just part way through this whole thing,

and so far we’ve just looked at 3

of the 5 barriers to the truth I want to suggest.

So,

#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.

and #3. We bring our fears

based upon all those areas

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

And rather than rushing through the last two on my list

I think we’ll save them until next week.