Trusting In God's Provision

Philippians 4:19 as a Prayer and a Promise

Now please turn to Philippians chapter 4, verses 19 to 23, the last five verses of the Apostle Paul's letter to the Philippians. Philippians 4, 19 to 23, and here Paul closes his letter to the Philippians, and God willing with this message, we close this series in Philippians.

So read along with me in Philippians 4, please stand in honor of God's word if you are able. And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. To our God and Father be glory forever and ever.

Amen. Greet every saint in Christ Jesus. The brothers who are with me greet you. All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Please be seated. In Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Willy Wonka is the owner of the world renowned candy factory which makes the best candy in the world. And the best candy that the Willy Wonka chocolate factory makes is chocolate.

And the favorite candy throughout this candy obsessed world in this novel and this world that the author put together is the Wonka bar. Chocolate. What Willy Wonka does is decides to give five people, plus whatever chaperone they would choose to bring with them, five lucky people a tour of this world renowned factory.

And along with that a lifetime supply of what in that world everybody needed most. Chocolate. Chocolate was what it was all about there and of course I see the smiles. You know the story. This poor poverty ridden youth named Charlie spends his last nickel or whatever the currency was there in that place to buy a Wonka bar.

He goes outside of his Wonka bar sending up prayers, trembling with hope and anticipation, unwraps it to see if it might have one of the five golden tickets that would allow him entrance with a chaperone to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory.

There's five of these in the entire universe and the whole world fairly quivering with anticipation knows that four of them have been found. There's only one left and you know the story. You can tell by the smiles.

He had it. He got the last ticket. He's going to get the tour of the factory and a lifetime supply of what he and everybody else in this world that was here constructed needed most. Chocolate. A lifetime supply of chocolate.

Everything he needed would now be supplied for the rest of his life. Well of course that's a fantasy. That's a fantasy and again I love the smiles. I like that movie a lot and you know where this was going.

I haven't read that book. I do like the movie. I have nothing against Johnny Depp but Gene Wilder was a better Willy Wonka than he was. You can have your opinion about that. That's just mine. Would you like to be like Charlie?

Would you like to have found that fifth and final ticket in the whole universe? It will supply everything you need for the rest of your life. The Philippians chapter 4 verse 19 which is where we're going to spend most of our time this morning is no golden ticket hidden in a wrapper of a chocolate bar and sent throughout the world to see if you might stumble across it.

Philippians chapter 4 verse 19 is a prayer of blessing from the apostle to the Philippian church. It's a prayer of blessing and it is a promise of God to them and to you this morning. It is both a prayer and a promise.

As a prayer it is something like may God supply your need as you Philippians have supplied mine. As the Philippians check the 2nd Corinthians 8 -2 it tells us about their poverty supplied to Paul while he was in prison.

Paul is now saying may God supply to you. In that sense it's a prayer but we can't miss the fact, the point that this is also a promise. It is a promise of God by inspiration through the apostle to the Philippians and a promise of God to you here this morning.

To you wherever you are who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ this verse applies to you. The promise assured the Philippians that their sacrifices for the gospel, note the word, the sacrifices for the gospel were noticed with pleasure by God.

The last verse from last week chapter 4 verse 18 calls their sacrifice in support of Paul a fragrant offering, a sacrifice pleasing and acceptable to God. And here Paul promises it will be recompensed to them from the stores of God's riches according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus.

No less a promise to you today. So I ask you this morning, are your needs being met? Are your needs being met here this day by and through your faith in Jesus Christ by God and you seeing it by faith in Him?

Are your needs being met? Some of you even with the nods I'm seeing in your spirit need to answer and say well not fully or maybe even not at all. I don't want to challenge you this morning. If you have any fault like that, if you have any reservation about your need to be met if you are in Christ Jesus and we'll come to that in a little while, the necessity to be in Christ Jesus.

Then I would suggest to you that the blockage in the pipeline of supply is you and not God. Can we agree with that? It is not God who has failed. Not God who has failed to keep His word. All of His promises are yes and amen in Christ Jesus.

It is not God. But it must be you not seeing the supply, not perceiving the supply or more usually wanting or thinking you need things that God doesn't think you need. Or God doesn't say you need. Maybe you've wrongly defined what you need.

This is your most prevalent problem. Ever since the garden as read in chapter 3 of Genesis. Ever since the garden when Adam listened to the serpent, mankind has misdefined his needs. Ever since the garden when God cursed the ground and made it uncooperative to man's efforts, men have looked for their needs to be met by themselves or by something outside of themselves but not God.

They fail to see God's hands, fail to seek God's hands, misdefining what they really need. Do you think God has failed to meet your needs this morning? Then God willing this message will reshape your thinking.

Another possibility is that you've withheld yourself in terms of time and resources from gospel ministry and therefore you have nothing coming from the Lord's hand in accordance with Philippians 4 .19.

If this be the case, God willing this message will renew your faith and restore your zeal to work for and to contribute to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, if it's not that you have misdefined your needs or not that you have withheld yourself from gospel ministry, it could be that you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ.

I want to set these three possibilities before you before we even dig into this message this morning. Perhaps you don't even know the Lord Jesus Christ and we'll talk about this also as we go through the message.

But the upshot is that many people, perhaps even some of you here today, see their needs being met in a perfectly satisfactory way. Your job pays well, it's a solid job, your investments are strong, your future looks bright.

You may not have the golden ticket in one of the five Wonka bars in the world, but you're doing just fine. Your needs are being met. And in this particular case I want to suggest to you, you may have wrongly defined your needs.

You may be saying my needs are being met, but it's a need that is outside what God says your needs are. If that be the case, then God willing by the time this message is done, God will have shown you your real need, which is salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what I need is hopefully a 30 second intermission. James, my microphone has fallen off. I didn't move, it just fell. Thank you. I said 30 seconds, he did it in five. Our verse is sometimes taken as a kind of a golden ticket in a Wonka bar.

Or that proverbial man who trips over his own feet in the sidewalk and his nose lands on the sidewalk. Between his nose and the sidewalk is maybe a lottery ticket that somebody dropped. It turns out to be the winning ticket.

Our verse is sometimes taken like that. My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus. We say hallelujah, believe it and have it, name it and claim it. Or as we in Reformed circles might say, blab it and grab it.

Every need of mine from the riches of God Himself is now satisfied, now I've got it all. One influential man, I won't give him the noble title of preacher. Perhaps a good speaker, but I will not call him a preacher.

But on this verse he says this, and listen carefully to how he says this because this is prevalent. Many people take it this way. He's on this very verse. The scripture says God will supply our needs according to His riches.

So often we look at our situation and think I'll never get ahead. I'm so far in debt I'll never get out. No, His blessing is not according to what you have, it's according to what He has. The good news is that God owns it all.

One touch of God's favor can blast you out of barely enough and put you into more than enough. God has ways to increase you beyond your normal income, beyond your salary, beyond what's predictable. Now quit telling yourself this is all I'll ever have.

I'll never make it. Let go of the past and choose to have an abundance mentality. Declare this is not where I'm staying. I'm blessed, I'm prosperous, I'm headed to overflow. I'm headed to the land of more than enough according to His riches in glory.

I doubt many of us sitting here in this church this morning would think that way. But I wouldn't doubt that many of us know people who think that way. And I wouldn't doubt that in some small way some of us feel like that.

If we take Philippians 4 .19 as a promise, we just stumbled onto a lottery ticket that won. We just got that one of five golden tickets and we're all set. Is this possibly what Paul could have meant for the Philippians to understand though?

Is that interpretation of Philippians 4 .19 possibly what the Holy Spirit meant when He had, by His inspiration, His direct inspiration of the Apostle Paul, write it for us? John Calvin, the 16th century father of Reformed theology, he says here, the necessities of this present life is what is in need.

The necessities in this life here and now. Ligonier Ministries has a short lesson on this verse. God will supply all our needs, but we must not take that to mean that He will give us everything we want or that we might think that we need.

Which rightly tells us that what we think we need may not be what we need at all. God, His wisdom, gives what we truly need. So we're going to spend our time on verse 4 .19, or most of our time. We'll spend a little time on verse 4 .20, the final benediction.

And virtually no time on the last few verses, I'll just let them hang by themselves as they were read a little while ago. And my God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Do you believe this? Do you know this? Can this morning's message get you to think carefully about what you think you need? So that you might see that what you have, what you've been supplied, is truly what you need.

The Personal God Who Supplies Every Need

My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus. Now who is doing this? Who is in view here? Well, it's God. It is my God. This God that is being spoken of here, Paul says, is my God.

It reminds me of Galatians 2 verse 20 where he speaks of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself up for me. This is a personal God. This is the Lord who is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. This is the God who sent the Lord Jesus Christ in whom God became flesh.

A personal God. And we need to really camp here for just a moment. As we talk about your need to be met, and your need to be met by this one. Not by your own efforts. Not by the government. Not by anything outside of...

Not by any of those other means. But by this one, true, only, living, and personal God. Paul calls Him my God. You need to understand that it is this God who is supplying your needs. As we see as we're going through the message, it is this God who is defining your needs.

But for now, I want you to see Him as a personal God. A personal God. Psalm 34 verse 10 says,. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Seeking the Lord can be taken a couple of ways.

Seeking the Lord can be taken as God's people seeking after His will as they go through this life, proving what is His good and perfect and acceptable will. Romans chapter 12 would tell us. Seeking the Lord, and so lacking no good thing.

What good thing do you lack? Do you lack a good thing? Do you seek the Lord? It says here, if you seek the Lord, you lack no good thing. And so often, the descriptive good thing requires us to look at those things that we're seeking and say, well, I still have to seek more because I'm lacking this other good thing.

Again, we may have to redefine what we think we need. Seeking the Lord can also be spoken of those for whom God is not your one true personal God. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the Lord.

Jeremiah promises, you will seek me and you will find me. When what? When you seek me with all your heart. Those who seek the Lord will find Him. It is the promise of God. That is a promise no less than Philippians 4 .19, which we're going through in this message.

So before I even bring to you how it is that God meets every need of yours, I need to challenge you to secure yourself with God by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you come to God? We speak of repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Have you made yourself secure in that way? Have you made yourself secure in that way? Because if not, then this verse doesn't even begin for you. Because it says, my God. You have to be able to say with the apostle, my God will supply my needs.

Secure yourself first with the Lord Jesus Christ. Psalm 84 .11, for the Lord God is a sun and shield. The Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. No good thing does he withhold.

This personal, true God. What is it to walk uprightly? I love how Conley worked the catechism for us this morning. It doesn't mean that we walk perfectly. It means that we see where we haven't and we repent of our sin when we don't.

It means that Jesus Christ is the one who walked uprightly in His perfect life before God. His perfect holiness, His perfect obedience to God's will with every breath. He walked uprightly. And by faith in Him, you're seen in that light.

So this is the very first thing we have to come to here. We have to come into grips with in this passage, this verse that gives us so much promise. It's for those who can say, my God. Can the church say that this morning?

That He is my God. I would have you say it this way this morning. I don't mean call it out to me. I'm talking about in your own spirit. And you who do not know the Lord Jesus Christ. Seek Him. He's promised to be found by you if you seek Him with all your heart.

Because we can't go on to the supply unless it is my God who makes that supply. And what is the supply? Well, the Apostle Paul says, every need of yours. The 23rd Psalm says, I shall not want. Psalm 34, Psalm 84.

Both say, no good thing does He withhold. God gives only what is good and what is right. And so we have to think in terms of if I don't have it or if I don't see it, if I don't perceive it. We need to admit, we need to confess, we need to repent of the fact that the error, the problem is with me.

Not God. John Newton put it very well here. Everything is necessary that God sends our way. Nothing can be necessary that He withholds. Oh, I wish I had that talent with words. Everything is necessary that God sends our way.

If He sent it, you need it. You may have to redefine what you think you need. But let's at least begin with the premise that God is right and I'm not. It's necessary. If God sent it, it was necessary.

And nothing can be necessary that He withholds. If He didn't give it, you don't need it. You know, George Mueller once set the table for his orphans. I know I've used this illustration before. But it's a good one because it's a true account.

He had a full table of plates and forks and cups and napkins and everything. He had all the children, all the orphans set around it. Do you know what was missing from the table? Food. He had no food. He sits the boys down and he prays to God, thanks for God's provision.

And at that very moment, at that very moment, a dairyman's wagon outside on the street broke down and so he couldn't make his delivery. And rather than let all of the dairy products and all the food that he had in that wagon spoil, he went to see if somebody could use it.

This wagon full of food. And you know how the story goes. He knocks on Mueller's door and says, Hey, could you use the wagon full of food? The food that Mueller had just blessed and thanked God for. Now, in that building there could have been other families that gave blessings for food that the father had provided through his hard work, through his labors.

But which of the two cases do you think bring glory to God? Which of the two cases fortify the faith of the believer that God provides what is necessary? And that God provides in time? And that God is a good God who withholds no good thing?

The answer's pretty obvious. The question is not whether God will supply your needs. The question is not whether He has resources enough for you or anyone else. He owns the Catalan a thousand hills. He is sovereign over everything.

There's nothing in all the universe that He didn't make and He doesn't own and that He doesn't control and that His decree won't be utilized the way He wants it to be. So it's not whether He has enough.

And if He called it all into being, He the Creator, it's not a question of whether He is able. The question is whether you have put anything at risk. The question is whether you have put anything at all into this gospel that is the one qualification that will come to in this verse 419 of Philippians.

Anything at all. Resources, time, effort. Not what you can afford. Not the time you can slip into your day planner. The time, the resources, the effort, the risk that believes God will supply. Do you trust God?

Do you know that He supplies your needs? Most of us, all of us I would argue, have to daily, at some level, some of us more than others, redefine what we think we need. And especially if you're a Christian here today and you're dissatisfied with what you have and your needs being met, I very strongly urge you to think carefully about this.

That God has supply. You need to thank Him for it. You need to believe the promise. Not that you got a blank check. Not that everything you want is going to be supplied. But that a wise and good and holy God will give you what you need.

It's your thinking that needs to be realigned to His. This is one of the few areas where you can actually put God to the test. Malachi 3 .10 is a very famous verse in this regard. He says, and put me to the test in this.

You can test me in this. He says to Israel, bring the tithes and offerings into the temple. In other words, put something at risk. Obey the Word of God. Honor God. And at the temple then, at that time, that is how they did it.

By supporting the temple where the sacrifices were made, where sin was atoned, where all those things that pushed forward and looked forward to the Lord Jesus Christ occurred. God looks at this people who had returned from exile in Babylon and they are taking care of themselves.

They're saying, what I need is to plant my crops. What I need is to do my job. What I need is more free time. What I need is, what I need is, what I need is. As all of us do. What's God say? No. That's not what you need.

What you need is to honor Me. So bring the tithes, bring the offerings and see if I do not pour down from heaven enough that your lap will not be able to contain it. And it's one of the areas He says you can test me in this.

Bring the full tithe. That there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts. It's not the only time that we have something like this. You don't have to turn there.

I'm going to tell you very quickly about a king of Judah named Amaziah. In 2 Chronicles 25. And beginning at verse 5. He's going to go to war against, and now I can't remember the name of the nation, but one of the nations.

He's going to go to war. And he hires the Israelites to come and fight for him. And he gives them a hundred talents of silver to come and be his mercenaries. And a prophet stands before the army and says, O king Amaziah, do not go to war with the Israelites because God is not with Ephraim.

Send them home and God will give you victory by your own forces from Judah. From your own land. Your own people. And you know what Amaziah says to him? Sort of like this. I'm not going to quote him exactly.

You can look it up when you go home. He says something like, Okay, if I have to. What about the gold? I just paid them a hundred talents of gold.

And the prophet says, The Lord is able to give you much more than this. Test me in this. Test me in this. What you think you need and what God says you need may be two different things. The promise for the Philippians was as much for Paul himself who wrote this as it is for you today.

Can I ask you something? What did Paul need? Paul needed to be imprisoned. Paul needed to suffer for the sake of the gospel. Paul needed to depend upon God to move the Philippians to take care of his needs.

Think of Peter. Think of the apostle Peter. What did Peter need? The promise was for Peter as much as it was for the Philippians or for Paul or for the Thessalonians or for you today. What did Peter need?

He needed to stand before the Sanhedrin with his life in the balance in Acts chapter 4. He needed to die for the gospel by following the Lord Jesus Christ in His crucifixion. That's John chapter 21 verses 18 -19.

Do you remember Peter on the beach? And the Lord Jesus Christ shows him how he's going to glorify God by the death he's going to die. He's going to follow the Lord Jesus Christ in crucifixion. That's what he needed.

You see, if God is glorified by it, then whatever it is, then that's what you need. If you define what you need wrongly, then you're never going to see God's fullness and His supply to you. You're never going to say God has supplied my needs.

If you don't define your needs in accordance with that, God defines what you need. What I'm saying here is it's not always good. Excuse me, it is always good. It's not always easy. Sometimes it can be very hard providence.

If God gave it, it's what you need. If He didn't give it, you don't need it. You guys like the old story about the man in the storm? I know I've used this one before, but it's quick, so bear with me. The man in the storm and the floodwaters are beginning to rise, and the National Guard comes by in a truck and they honk the horn.

They knock on the door and say, come on, we're going to rescue you. He's got it in the truck. He says, no, no, God will save me. He'll give me what I need. The floodwaters keep coming up, keep coming up, and finally he's up in the second story of his house and looks out the window and there's the Coast Guard in a boat.

They say, come on, get in the boat. We're going to rescue you. He says, no, I don't need the boat. God's going to give me what I need. He's going to rescue me. Again, it's like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.

I can tell you've heard this before. So I'll finish in just a couple of seconds. You know, he ends up on his rooftop and the helicopter comes by, drops down the rope, says, come on, climb aboard. We'll get you out of here.

We'll rescue you. I don't need this. God will take care of my needs. He drowns, of course. God, why'd you let me drown? I was counting on you to supply my needs. God says, what do you want? I said, you get the truck and the boat and the helicopter.

He says, it's our thinking that has to change. It's our thinking that has to realize that not everything's going to be easy. It wasn't easy for Paul. It wasn't easy for Peter. It wasn't easy for George Bueller.

Imagine how it was to pray over an empty table and thank God for the food that was coming. I speak to you this morning. Who do have your needs met? Or so you think. And you have your needs met outside of the Lord Jesus Christ, which means you don't have your needs met at all.

The Rich Young Ruler and Misdefined Needs

Turn, if you would, to Matthew chapter 19 and verse 27. I want to present to you a real figure in history who thought he had his needs met. It's the rich young rulers, we call him. And he comes to the Lord Jesus Christ and he asks him, good master, what do I need to do in order to inherit eternal life?

And he said to him, why do you ask me about what is good? There's only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments. He said to him, which ones? And Jesus said, you shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not bear false witness.

Honor your father and mother and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The young man said to him, all these have I kept, what do I still lack? Or, do we say, what do I still need? What do I need to be supplied?

What more do I have to have? Jesus said to him, if you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. And come, follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sorrowful for he had great possessions.

Don't we all know something like that? People we know in our family, in our workplace, in our neighborhood, and you practically beg them to lay hold of what they need in life. And what is that? The Lord Jesus Christ.

Faith in Him. And they decline. They say to our tears, I've got my house, I've got my cars, I've got my job, I have plenty of food, I take nice vacations, etc. And so on. We all know people like that.

We've lived with people like that, we've worked with people like that. It's heartbreaking. Here they are, this rich young ruler standing before the Lord Jesus Christ. What does he need? He needs Jesus, who is standing there before him.

What did he think he needs? To hang on to his wealth. To hang on to his money. He goes away sad. Jesus tells them, his disciples, truly I say to you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

And now look down at verse 27, this is where I had you look originally. Then Peter said in reply, See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have? Parenthetically, as compared to this rich guy.

He gets to keep his money, Jesus. What are we going to have? We've left everything. We put it all at risk. Truly I say to you, said Jesus, in the new world when the Son of Man will sit on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, let's stop for a second, everyone who has left what they think they need in this world, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.

But many who are first will be last, and the last first. We'll receive and we'll inherit. We'll receive is speaking of God's care for us in this life, in the here and now. We'll inherit speaks of the life to come after the Lord Jesus Christ returns and we follow in a resurrection like his.

Now with this rich young ruler who started this incident, when he meets God, like the man in my little parable in the floods, he not being real, this man being a historical figure, he really was there.

When he meets God, as he is herded to Jesus' left side with the goats about to be damned, would he ask the same thing as the man in my flood story? Would he say to God, why didn't you take care of me?

I did all the things.

That you wanted me to do. I followed the law as best I could.

If he said something like that, could we hear God saying that to him? Oh, I sent you my Son. He was right there in front of you. He told you what you needed. What did you need was Him. I'm so often so dangerous for you to get your needs wrong.

For you to look at the things that you have and the efforts that you've put in and the things that have come as a result from job, from savings, from investments, from whatever it is. When we get our needs wrong, we can't see God's supply of them.

I would argue to you this morning, if you misdefine your needs, you're never going to acknowledge God or at least not fully acknowledge God because you're starting from the wrong platform. The things we do when we get our needs wrong.

A man gambles away his family's future hoping for that marble to drop in that one hole, for that dial on the machine to line up with the other ones on either side of it, for that one necessary card to come up next, for the dice to come up with the right number.

He risks everything to get his needs met. I was struck with this. Of course, I'm speaking of people who gamble to get their needs met. We used to take our vacations up in Oregon. My family had on the coast there, just west of Salem, a nice little cabin.

And on the way from Salem to the coast, we'd come by this Indian casino, this Indian run casino, I should say. And they had a wonderful little restaurant where you could get these magnificent meals that cut the turkey right off the bone.

I mean, it's all fresh. For just a few bucks, of course, so they can afford it because it's a casino. And we used to see people there with these sacks of quarters, just put it, put it, put it, put it, put it, over and over, just staring, just sort of like zombies.

And then we noticed all the RVs were parked in a particular area with guards watching. Why were guards watching? Not to protect the RVs, to protect the children who were playing in the parking lot. Because the parents were inside, maybe gambling away their future.

This is the kind of thing that happens when we mystify our needs, when we look to self, or to the world, or to things like that, rather than God. A young girl might enter too quickly into marriage, ignoring her parents, her friends, her pastor's warning, because she needs to be married to this guy, because this guy will make a good living, and her needs will be met.

And that young man turns out to have a wayward finger on the mouse because he needs certain gratifications. Oh, when we mystify our needs, we come so far away from what the Bible says to you truly, which is to know God by faith in Christ, and to follow His ways.

The measures we take to secure what we think we need have no end. And so often, those things we strive for, things we put so much into, aren't needs at all. And we can define it that way, we can say it that way, because as John Newton so wisely says, and I think he reflects what the Scripture says, otherwise I won't repeat it again, and I'm going to paraphrase even Newton, if God gave it to you, it's necessary to you, and if God doesn't give it to you, it's not.