My text this evening is taken
from Philippians chapter 4 and verse 19. Philippians chapter
4 and verse 19. And we read there, the Apostle
Paul is writing to his friends at Philippi and he says, but
my God, shall supply all your need according to his riches
and glory by Christ Jesus. I wonder if you've ever asked
yourself the question, what do I need in life? What do I need in life? It is
a different question to what do I want in life? or what makes me happy in life? And I think sometimes we are
prone, even as believers, to get muddled and confused about
these questions. What do I need in life? What
do I want in life? What makes me happy in life? And we need to be aware, I think,
of the ways and the purposes of God in our life's experience
and the providences that he brings to us and the experiences that
he brings upon us. And we need to see all of these
in the context of the Lord's overruling purpose, both for
his church and for us individually as his people. It is thought that the book of
Job is one of the earliest written books in the Bible. And in it,
we see the inspired writer carefully setting the scene for the testing
of God's servant, Job. And it's a wonderful account
of the experience of this man, testing as it does for us many
of the assumptions that we make about what living is and what
life's experiences ought to be for us as the people of God. I say it's wonderful, but it's
also very painful. because we cannot but read the
account, the narrative of Job and wonder about the circumstances
that prevailed in that man's life. There are questions that
we ask about the access of Satan into the presence of God, the
willingness of God to allow Satan to act upon Job as he did. The reaction of Job, the friends
that came to him, the way in which his closest friends seemed
to challenge him and undermine his faith. And then those majestic
chapters towards the end of the book where God, as it were, spreads
forth his purpose and shows Job what true humility ought to be
as we stand before God's power and majesty. And it is very clear
that the history of this man's experience is designed to lead
God's people through the understanding of outward hardship, the surrounding circumstances
of the trials of our life, in order to see the sovereign grace
of God and his love to his people and to have that grace and love
exercised in them. So we're speaking about Job and
we're speaking about him in the context of what do I need in
life and what makes me happy in life. in six verses at the
beginning of Job. Let's just turn to the book of
Job and read a few verses together. These six verses that we encounter
here from verse 13 of chapter one
of the book of Job. And I don't want to enumerate
the trials and the problems that people have that we know about,
because all of us in our lives have issues that arise, sadnesses
that have to be borne, hardships that sometimes shake our assumptions
and cause us real questions. But in the book of Job and in
chapter one and in verse 13, we read these words concerning
this man. And there was a day when his
sons and daughters, that's six sons and, sorry, four sons and
three daughters. There was a day when his sons
and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest
brother's house. And there came a messenger unto
Job, and said, The oxen were ploughing, and the asses feeding
beside them. And the Sabaeans fell upon them,
and took them away. Yea, they have slain the servants
with the edge of the sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell
thee. While he was yet speaking, there
came also another and said, The fire of God is fallen from heaven
and hath burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed
them. And I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he was yet
speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made
out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried
them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the
sword, and I only am escaped alone to tell thee. While he
was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, thy sons
and thy daughters were eating and drinking wine in their eldest
brother's house and behold there came a great wind from the wilderness
and smote the four corners of the house and it fell upon the
young men and they are dead and I only am escaped alone to tell
thee. In six verses we discover that
this man loses just about everything of value that he possessed. And what must it be like to follow
a cortege where all your sons and daughters are being buried
at one time? And I thought about that, and
perhaps it isn't so very unusual in this world. Because often
people live together, close by one another, and if suddenly
somewhere is attacked by an enemy, it might be that all the members
of one family or many of the members of one family would be
taken in that attack. It might be that a family is
travelling together. and an accident takes place and
suddenly multiple members of that family are taken at one
time. It may be that there is an accident
or an explosion somewhere where a family is gathered, a wedding
or a funeral and many people there at one time and something
happens. and suddenly multiple members of one family might be
taken. Whatever the circumstances, here
it was some sort of natural phenomena, a wind that came out of the desert
and it hit the houses, four corners of the house it hit. How does
that work? And it collapsed that house and
it collapsed that roof and it slew all that were in it. And in six verses, Job loses
all of value that he possesses. Devastating loss. Devastating
loss. He loses his property, he loses
his wealth, he loses his family. And all of these things are related
to him in moments. It almost seems as if that the
Holy Spirit in setting this narrative before us wants us to as Job
undoubtedly must have been, be knocked back like the boxer in
the ring that gets hit by blow after blow after blow and is
knocked back and knocked back and knocked back. All that seems to have been left
to him was the servants, the individual servants who came
and narrated the incidents to him. Later in the narrative, we discover
that Job's health is also taken. He is afflicted, bone and flesh. And even his friends that come
from afar to sit with him and provide some degree of comfort,
and his wife, seem more intent to aggravate his woes than to
bring any solace to that man's spirit or to his soul. And all of these things, it seems,
permitted by God purely on Job's account. For we're told that
it was for the trial of his faith, his patience, his sincerity,
and his integrity. For the trial of his faith, his
patience, his sincerity, and his integrity. And there are
two statements that stand out in these opening verses of the
book of Job, which I want to draw your attention to. The first
is in verse 21, and it says this, and he, Job, said, naked came
I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath
taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. And in chapter two, verse 10,
he is speaking to his wife and he says, what? Shall we receive
good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil? In all this
did not Job sin with his lips. I mention these things because
I want us to be reminded that none of us have anything that
we haven't received from God. Everything that we have, everything
that we hold dear has been given to us by the Lord. Those precious
things, whether it be individuals, whether it be the experiences
that we have, whether it be the security that we enjoy in this
life, whether it be the benefits of health and the time that we've
had in this world, the education that we've had, the relationships,
the networking of people that we've had, all of these things,
all of these things that help us get through our life, help
us get through our day, allow us and enable us to work in this
world in order to satisfy the basic needs that we have. These
things are all given to us from the Lord. They are good and perfect
gifts which come down from His presence. come to us from heaven. There's nothing that hasn't been
given to us because we came into this world naked. We could have
come into this world anywhere in the world. Perhaps one of those impoverished
country areas of India or one of those dangerous desert places
in Africa. or amidst those tempestuous social
issues that seem to afflict the countries of the Middle East,
and to have been born there and to have been surrounded by foreign
gods and idolatrous practices and raised in these things. And
yet God has placed us here. in this advanced society with
the best of services, with good education and with plenty of
opportunity for those things which give us happiness and which
give us pleasure. Everything that we have has been
given to us. There's nothing that we haven't
received and there's nothing that can't be taken away. We have no grounds for boasting
in anything. We have no justification for
pride in ourselves. We have no personal right to
peace or happiness or health or well-being. And we all can
look around and see people that we know who have not these things. and we have no immunity from
the harsh, bitter, crushing experiences of life. Now, I wish to make a claim here
that I am no historian, but the small amount of reading that
I have done concerning the lives and times of the Lord's people,
his little flock, has led me to the view that they, in the
midst of this world, have invariably suffered certainly as much, if
not considerably more, than most men and women, that the Lord's
people have suffered. And when you look at history
and when you trace that people of faith down through the years,
we find that it is not without cause that the Lord Jesus Christ
declares to his church and people, fear not little flock, for it
is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. It seems
as if he goes out of his way to comfort and encourage and
embolden his people, and to give them something to lay hold upon
in the midst of their trials, that they might be sustained
and upheld as they go through those trials with that knowledge
that God's pleasure is to bless them and to give them that kingdom
that he has stored up for them. But the Lord does say, fear not,
And that would suggest to us that there's plenty around about
us which would justify our trepidation. And from the times of the apostles
to the present time, the true church of Jesus Christ has been
subject not only to outward trials, trials of the flesh, trials in
this world, but also inward attacks. Inward attacks against it as
a body, as the flock of Christ. Inwards attacks against it as
individuals in their own souls. Not only have there been examples
of the theft of the wealth and possessions of the Lord's little
flock, by those grasping secular powers that have always been
in this world as men exert their power over one another. But there
has been the theft of their peace, the theft of their freedom by
religious powers bent on the destruction of the Church of
Jesus Christ. It doesn't matter what portion
of history you look at, you will always find that there have been
a few, there have been a remnant. those who were the people of
faith, those who were genuine, evangelically-minded individuals,
seeking little of this world's benefits or blessings, but to
worship God with a sense of freedom, with a sense of liberty, to follow
their own understanding of Scripture. And there have always been those.
that have come down upon them hard, that have sought to dominate
them and to crush out of them any freedom of spiritual life
and spiritual liberty. The people of God have been told
in scripture many times that they are not of this world, and
it's something that we do well to remember. The world is not
our home, and we ought to be careful when we become too much
at ease in this world. You, brother and sister, are
an alien in this world. I'm an alien in this country,
but we're all aliens in this world. We're strangers and we're
pilgrims and we are mistrusted and we are misunderstood. You
remember that the Apostle Paul went to that little town of Lystra
and he was preaching and the Jews came upon him and
they stoned him for preaching the Lord Jesus Christ because
he ran against their teaching and their Judaistic principles. The apostle was stoned, stoned
to death. it would appear, certainly by
those who were doing the stoning, so he must have been pretty close
to death. They then dragged him through
the streets like a dead body and dumped him outside of the
town. We're told that the saints stood
around him, and as they stood around him, Paul revived and
stood up. And the next day he left that
town and he went into the surrounding towns, preaching the gospel of
Jesus Christ and exhorting the believers to listen, to continue
in the faith and that we must, through much tribulation, enter
into the kingdom of God. Paul was speaking from direct
experience. I guess as he preached that message
about the tribulation that we must experience, he still had
the bruises and the gashes on his body from the stoning that
had taken place just a few days earlier. That was Paul. Peter, another of the Lord's
apostles, says in 1 Peter 4, verse 12, Beloved, think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some
strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice inasmuch as ye are
partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his glory shall be
revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. Think it not strange concerning
the fiery trial which is to try you as though some strange thing
happened unto you. And that's been the experience
of the church down through the history of the church. And we
need to be aware of this and we need to be considering the
fact that these challenges will always be the true Church of
Christ's portion in this world. What would you say if the sheriff
came and said that you could join another church in the town, but if you keep attending here,
then your children would be taken away and put into care and that
you could go to jail? What would you say if somebody
came along and said that? Well, think yourself fortunate
that you live in America today and not in some other part of
the world where that exactly could be the case. And let us
not be presumptuous that the day might not yet come upon us
where these liberties that we take so much for granted are
not removed from the Church of Christ. I guess we really don't know
how much Satan hates this gospel that we preach. So here's my
verse for us this evening. My God shall supply all your
need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. What do we need out of life?
What do we need out of life? The Apostle Paul is saying to
the Philippians here, I think it's interesting the way
the Apostle uses the phrase, my God. There's not too many times that
that phrase is used, my God. It might be our God or the Lord,
my God. The Lord Jesus Christ used it
a lot. He used it on the cross when he cried, my God, my God.
Thomas used it when he spoke to my Lord and my God when he
saw the nail prints. And the Apostle Paul uses it
a number of times, my God. And I think there's something
very intimate and something very personal about this usage. Paul, when he wrote this, was
in prison for the gospel's sake. He was in prison in Rome and
it appears as if the Philippians had sent him a gift. They had
been anxious for his well-being, perhaps it was a financial gift,
perhaps it was some warm clothes, perhaps it was some food that
he might be able to receive visitors and guests. He was in house arrest
while he was awaiting trial. and the Philippians had sent
him this gift. And he's thanking them in this
letter. And he writes, my God, not your
God or our God, but my God. And I don't think that he is
saying this simply in the sense that God is all our God. because he is the creator of
all things and we are created and therefore we are his people
and he is my God, our God. But Paul is speaking about something
more personal than that. He's speaking about his faithful
God. He's speaking about the Lord,
his God, in whom he has explicit trust and confidence. the one
who is my God, the one who has provided for me, the one who
has sustained and helped me, and of whom I can testify and
that I can speak with a sense of assurance and confidence and
certainty. He is speaking of my God who
has loved me, my God who has chosen me, my God who adopted
me into his family, who has sanctified me in Christ, who has justified
me in eternity, who has placed me in covenant relation and union
with his Son, my God who has redeemed me by the precious blood
of a suitable sacrifice. My God who has regenerated me
by that quickening power, that enlivening grace, which brought
me out of the deadness of my sins and that blind alley that
I was in in my own religious self-righteousness. My God who
called me by his grace and his mercy. My God who has glorified
me and caused me to sit in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. My God
who has done all things well. He is speaking about the God,
his God, with whom he has a personal knowledge and relationship. And
he says to these Philippians, my God, that God of whom I speak,
that God of whom I am a servant and a minister and a witness,
that God, my God, shall supply all your need to you. Paul says,
I have never found him wanting, nor will you. And that's a statement
of his personal trust and faith in God. So the apostle says to
these Philippians, my God shall supply all your need. We mentioned our needs at the
beginning of our thoughts. Our needs and our wants and the
things that make us happy. And I suspect that We have a
very poor grasp of any of those three things. I think we don't know what we
need. I think we don't know what we want. And I think that we don't know
what makes us happy. Now we might have some ideas. We might have some things that
we just know give us joy and enable us to get through the
difficulties and the trials that we have in this life. But in truth, with respect to
our needs, we need very little in this life. And we probably
have very much more than we do need. We want very much in this life,
and we probably want a lot more than would do us good. And I think that as we grow older,
we discover in life that the things that we think will make
us happy rarely do, even when we get them. Job 5 verse 17 says, Behold,
happy is the man whom God correcteth. Therefore despise not thou the
chastening of the Almighty. Imagine a man like Job having
that thought set before him. A man who had lost everything.
A man who had buried his whole family. A man who had seen all
that he had worked for just taken away from him instantaneously. A man who had seen those friends
that he thought he had, that network of support that he had
built up, that insurance that he had, just all taken away in
an instance. And here is the thought, happy
is the man whom God correcteth, despise not thou the chastening
of the Almighty. And counterintuitively, Peter
also speaks of happiness that flows from suffering and happiness
that flows from reproach. reproach for Christ's sake. And James, he speaks about those
who endure. Happy are those who endure. Psalm 144 verse 15 says, happy
is that people whose God is the Lord. Psalm 146 verse 5, happy
is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in
the Lord his God. Proverbs 3 verse 13 says, happy
is the man that findeth wisdom. and the man that getteth understanding. Wisdom and understanding are
not cheap to buy. They sometimes cost us a lot
and they sometimes cost us more than money. wisdom and understanding. And to be given these things,
to be given wisdom in spiritual things, to be given understanding
in the things of Christ and in the things of God and in the
ways and purposes of our Lord in this world, is a treasure
beyond worth, beyond value. To be given these things in the
midst of a dissolute and a rebellious people, a generation that is
almost without concern for spiritual things and the things of God,
is a privilege beyond measure that God has given to a very,
very few, a mere remnant in this world today. Let me return to
James and that point about enduring. This is what he says in 5 verse
11. He says, Behold, we count them
happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience
of Job. James is talking about Job too.
And have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful
and of tender mercy. Happiness in this life is to
be gained in submission to God. That's where we'll find true
happiness, in submission to God. The one who knows the end from
the beginning. The one who knows us. The one
who has all things under his power and all things in his control. Happiness is in the discovery
of his pity and of his tender mercy to us. We spent a little bit of time
in past occasion going through the Beatitudes and well, we're
speaking about recordings. They're all there on Sermon Audio.
Maybe in time we'll get the opportunity to listen to some of those again. But that tells us where true
blessedness is to be found. The Lord Jesus Christ says, Your
Father knows what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. Your Heavenly Father knoweth
that ye have need of all these things. And all these things,
says the Apostle Paul, are working together for your good. Therefore,
when Paul speaks to these Philippians about God supplying all our need,
he is speaking of the one who knows our need, our true need,
that which we need. And he knows furthermore in what
our happiness ultimately consists. And therefore he is one to whom
we can. submit and commit all things. We can commit to the Lord all
these things. all these things which seem to
go against our happiness, seem to go against our ease, seem
to go against our comfort, seem to be to our heart. We can commit
all these things to the Lord in the knowledge that He who
is wise, He who is all-powerful, He who is in control, knows exactly
what we need even before we ask Him. These words fell from the
lips of Christ himself. So let us, brothers and sisters,
let us endeavour to follow Christ's admonition to his disciples when
he says to them in Matthew chapter 6, seek ye first the kingdom
of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be
added unto you. All our need is, in the first
instance, spiritual. What we need is grace, and what
we need is peace. We need mercy instead of judgment. We need pardon for sin. We need reconciliation from a
state of nature, which is an enmity against God. We need holiness. We need a righteousness with
God that is equivalent to God's own holiness. And we need it to be freely granted
because we can't pay for it. We're bankrupt. And there's nothing
in us which in any way commends us to God or brings him into
any indebtedness to us. Everything needful must be freely
granted. Everything needful must be the
gift of God and it must be bestowed by him. Therefore we call it
grace. And that's what we need. We need
grace. So the Apostle Paul says to these
Philippians, my God shall supply all your need according to his
riches in glory. These riches are glorious riches. And we could think of them as
heavenly blessings. We could think of them as the
granting and the bestowing of heavenly blessings. Blessings
that are only in God's gift to give, freely granted and bestowed
to us on earth. And perhaps that's a good way
of thinking of them. Or perhaps we could think of
them also with respect to according to his riches and glory as the
riches themselves being glorious riches, bountiful goodness for
those earthly needs that we have. Well might we go to the Lord
and give him thanks. for the peace that he has given
us in our lives, for the health that he has bestowed upon us,
for those good experiences that we have been party to and that
we have enjoyed down through the years of our lives and his
faithfulness to us, his goodness and his kindness towards us.
They're glorious. And the Lord has been magnanimous
and gracious to his people and to his church. And he has granted
abundant grace for our spiritual needs. These are riches that
are beyond the gift of men to give. A man might give another
man out of his substance, might give him some material benefit,
might give him some prominence, some accolade, some fame, some
prestige. Men can do that for one another.
That's what celebrity is all about. That's what fame consists
of. But these things are fleeting.
These things are just material things for a moment and they're
gone. and the people that we have given
the greatest prominence and fame and accolades to. As Job says,
naked they came out of their mother's womb and naked they
shall return. And that's it, they're gone.
But these riches that God gives, they are beyond the dreams and
the power of men. Ephesians 2 verse 4 says, But
God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved
us even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together
with Christ. By grace ye are saved. and hath raised us up together,
and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that
in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of
his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus. And these riches are given to
us in a glorious manner. They show the glory of God to
his people and they make his people glorious in their giving. He gives with glory. He gives with glory. That's an equally valid rendering
of the phrase. He gives with eternal glory. He gives grace here and he gives
glory hereafter. and He gives as much as is necessary
and as much as is needful. And out of the abundance of His
goodness, He gives Himself, and He gives His Son, and He gives
us the promise of glory hereafter. Psalm 84 verse 11 says, the Lord
will give grace and glory and no good thing will he withhold
from them that walk uprightly. That is, who walk in the Lord
Jesus Christ and who walk in the spirit of liberty. I want you to notice in this
verse the personal pronouns that the apostle uses throughout the
verse. He says, my God, He says, your
need, and he speaks of his riches. And these are intimate promises
that we, his people, can lay hold upon. And now we come to the beautiful
climax of the Apostle's verse here. He says, my God shall supply
all your need according to his riches in glory. By Christ Jesus. By Christ Jesus. all these needs that he will
supply, all the things that we require, God has won them for
us. God has accomplished them for
us. He has secured them for us. He supplies them to us in and
through the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to Christ that we look
and everything that we have, everything that we possess, Christ
is the author and finisher of. He is the one who has obtained
these things for us. And our blessed saviour in his
covenant offices of prophet, priest and king. In these covenant
offices, he is the means and the method of God's grace to
his people and our blessedness in this world. We rightly think
about the Lord Jesus Christ as our mediator before God and maybe
with me you've got this picture of the Lord Jesus Christ entering
into the presence of his Father and representing us there before
his Father and interceding for us. there to his father, speaking
as it were on our behalf, standing as it were in the gap on our
behalf and representing us all good, all good evangelical theological
truth. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
God's mediator to us too. There is one God and one mediator
between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. And so those blessings
which come from God, those blessings, those rich, glorious blessings
which God has out of his love, in covenant purpose, granted
and gifted to His people in grace. They flow to us through the Lord
Jesus Christ. He mediates all of these rich
blessings to us. And rightly, therefore, does
the Lord Jesus Christ become the focus of the attention of
His church and people. We look to Christ as the one
through whom, as it were, this great funnel of the cornucopia
of God's blessedness flows to us. We shall never overstate the
wonder of our Saviour's grace to his people. Never shall we
overstate it. Suppose he gives us a hundred
years of Lord's days to come and share together in the gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we shall spend eternity praising
him for his wonderful works and his wonderful ways towards us. So here's my final thought for
tonight. We may anticipate, we should
anticipate that when we get to heaven, we will stand in the
presence of our God with the gathered church and with the
holy angels, and we will praise the Lord Jesus Christ, and we
will praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for eternity, for
all that he has done for us. here in this world. We should
be absolutely sure that that's what's going to happen. So if we know that's going to
happen, we should already be embarked upon that praise and
adoration now. Because we should be as sure
right now, present tense, that these things are so. And in the
midst of the difficulties and the darkness and the trial and
the trouble of this world, wherever it might be, God is accomplishing
his purpose and bringing about the grace and the glory, the
riches of his glory in the life's experience of his people that
we are going to be praising him for, for all eternity and wishing
we had two eternities to do it. So let's get started. Soon we shall see that today's
events, the events of today, today, were an evidence of the
grace and the mercy of God to us in Christ. We'll look back on today's events
and say, there you are, there, he did it again. He did it again. And it's wrong for us not to
be elated at these things, to take them for granted as it were,
and not to see them for what they are. This is grace and this is mercy
to us. And the ways of God to his church
and the ways of God to his people, if we could but see it, are all
the ways of his love and his wisdom, are all of blessing,
To you personally, to his church at large, to his people
that are in union with the Lord Jesus Christ and who are possessors
of every good and perfect gift. And were we not so slow and were
we not so dull, And were we not so preoccupied by the flesh and
by this world and by all of the other things that crowd in upon
us, we would see more clearly what God is doing for us and
what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished. The Saviour says,
Your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these
things. Paul says, my God shall supply
all your needs according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Let me just say those things
again. Christ said, your heavenly father knoweth that ye have need
of all these things. And Paul says, by the same inspired
spirit, my God shall supply all your needs according to his riches
in glory by Christ Jesus. May the Lord give us grace to
believe and to trust and to draw comfort from these wonderful
promises that are ours in Christ. Amen.