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[0:00] And at verse 19, verse 19, that my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

[0:22] What a chapter of God's word this fourth chapter of the epistle to the Philippians is. It is a jewel casket, brimful of the most priceless gems.

[0:38] Which of those gems sparkles with the greatest brilliance, who can tell? One man takes verse 4, rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.

[0:53] That troubled believer comes across those words and he realizes that the Christian life is meant to be a life of abounding joy.

[1:03] And this jewel here seems to him to shine with a luster more brilliant than any other. Another man takes verses 6 and 7.

[1:16] It means so much to him.

[1:50] Then some other man will take verse 8. His thinking is troubling him. And he reads those wonderful words. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honorable, whatsoever things are lovely, and so on.

[2:06] And that jewel seems to him to sparkle more brilliantly than any of the others. Another will take verse 11.

[2:18] He's feeling somewhat discontented. He's being tempted to discontent. And then he comes across these words. He seems like a man who has stumbled upon unexpected and untold treasure.

[2:48] Then someone else takes verse 13. This man is so conscious of his own inadequacy. And he reads those tremendous words.

[2:59] I can do all things. In Christ who strengthens me. That jewel seems to be to him the most brilliant of them all.

[3:11] But who can say that any of them exceeds in brilliance the jewel that we look at this morning. My God shall supply all your need.

[3:24] According to his riches in glory. By Christ Jesus. The richest diamond in the world's greatest tiara is dull compared with this priceless gem.

[3:42] One almost feels that one has to shield one's eyes before its sparkling brilliance. The apostle Paul was greatly touched by the generosity of the little church at Philippi.

[3:58] He was in prison in Rome. And that church had sent him a generous gift. He writes this letter to thank them for that gift. As he put it in the second epistle to the Corinthians.

[4:12] Their extreme poverty welled up in great generosity. He thanks them. He tells them that he has all and he abounds.

[4:25] Thanks to them. But he knows his God. And he says to them this is what my God will do for you. My God shall supply all your need.

[4:37] According to his riches in glory. By Christ Jesus. God dispauls God. And he knows how he will supply all the needs of all the members of that little church in Macedonia.

[4:55] Let us notice then first of all the needs he supplies. The needs he supplies. Paul is confident that God will supply all the needs of the Philippian Christians.

[5:10] And my friends he is the same God still. Our needs are without number. If I were to catalogue my own particular needs this morning.

[5:23] I would require page after page after page. But my God supplies them all. Not only are there the needs that each day brings.

[5:39] The recurring needs of each day. But each day brings with it new needs. My God supplies them all. He supplies first of all our material needs.

[5:52] Our material needs. In his general providence. He supplies the needs of the very plants. And the birds. And the animals. We know that he clothes the lilies of the field.

[6:06] More gorgeously. More gloriously. Than that great king. Fabulously wealthy King Solomon himself. In robes more glorious than King Solomon wore.

[6:19] We know that he provides for the very ravens. He hears the young ravens when they cry.

[6:31] He as we were singing in the 104th Psalm. Provides the mountains as a refuge for the wild goats. And the rocks for the conies.

[6:42] He makes the grass to grow upon the mountains. For the cattle to provide food for the cattle. For the cattle on a thousand hills are his.

[6:56] In his special providence he provides for the needs of men and women. For believers and for unbelievers as well. For the wicked as well as for the righteous.

[7:08] Jesus said that God causes his sun to shine. Upon the evil and upon the good. And his rain to fall upon the just and upon the unjust as well.

[7:23] But there is a very special providence. Of which his own people are the objects. Isn't it altogether reasonable that it should be so?

[7:36] Isn't there an irrefutable logic about this? If God provides for the plants and the birds and the animals. If he provides for the needs of men in general.

[7:49] Do you think that he'll fail to supply the needs of his own dear children? Away with such a thought. Those that honor me he says.

[8:00] I will honor. I have been young and now am old. Yet have I never seen the just man left. Or that his seed for bread of beggars be.

[8:13] You can bring to him all your material needs. Confident that he will supply them. You can bring to him all your physical needs. You can bring to him all your business concerns.

[8:25] The student facing difficulties can bring to him those difficulties that he faces in his studies. Confident that God will help. Many of you I know will have read the story of that great man of God of the last century.

[8:41] George Muller. He supplied the needs of so many orphans there in his orphan homes in Bristol. He built those homes and cared for those orphans.

[8:55] Sometimes after breakfast was cleared away he didn't know where the lunch was to come from. Where the money was going to come from to provide lunch for those hundreds and hundreds of children.

[9:08] But it always came. Indeed on one occasion the children were sitting around the breakfast table and there was no food for them. But God saw to it that it was provided.

[9:21] Over the years he supplied the needs or rather should I say God through him supplied the needs of some two and a half thousand orphan children in those famous homes in the city of Bristol.

[9:34] God supplies our material needs. But then secondly he supplies our spiritual needs. And our spiritual needs are legion.

[9:46] Let me just mention one or two of them. There is the need for forgiveness. If you're a Christian here this morning you are a forgiven person.

[9:57] Your sins have been put away. Their guilt has been put away. Yet it is true that each one of us sins daily. But the word of God comes to us with this assurance.

[10:11] If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father. Jesus Christ the righteous. If we're Christians and we commit sin that causes us great heartbreak and misery.

[10:26] But we rejoice to know that the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son goes on cleansing us from all sin. There is also the need for knowledge.

[10:41] The further we go in the Christian life the more aware we become of our ignorance. In the word of God, God's revelation. We find not only truths that are simple enough for a child to understand.

[10:57] But we find the deep and difficult mysteries of divine revelation also. How can we ever probe them? If we're Christian believers, God's people.

[11:10] God has given to us his own Holy Spirit. He guides our minds. He leads us into all the truth. He enlightens our minds. So that we are given understanding of the truth of God.

[11:24] It is not to the brilliant intellect that the mysteries of the divine revelation are opened up. But to the humble believer.

[11:35] Dependent upon the leading of the Spirit of God. Then too there is the need for boldness. So many of us discover, don't we, that we frequently allow ourselves to be intimidated by the arrogance of the ungodly.

[11:54] They're not afraid to parade their worldliness and their hostility to Christ and to his cause. Where can we find needed boldness to bear an unashamed testimony publicly for the Lord Jesus Christ and to identify ourselves with his people?

[12:14] The apostles, Peter and John, after being threatened by the Jewish authorities, joined the other apostles.

[12:25] And they prayed that God would grant to them boldness. God would grant that they would speak with boldness the word of God.

[12:37] And what was the sequel? We are told there in Acts chapter 4, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with great boldness.

[12:48] Mary Slessor was so timid. That Dundee mill girl last century was so timid that she would stand paralysed with fear if she heard a dog bark on Dundee streets.

[13:07] Yet after she went to Africa as a missionary, she would stand unperturbed as the fierce Nigerian warriors did their war dance around her.

[13:18] Then she would calm them and tell them the story, tell to those fierce warlike men, the story of Jesus and his love.

[13:28] God can so strengthen us, so supply our need for boldness and witnessing for him, that we can bear an unashamed testimony for him, and live for him, and if necessary speak for him, in whatever company we ever find ourselves.

[13:50] Then too there is the need for power over sin. Power over sin. Many are the corruptions remaining within us. Even after we are renewed by the Spirit of God.

[14:07] So often there are besetting sins that are constantly trying to defeat us. The Word of God comes to us and assures us, sin shall not have dominion over you.

[14:20] By the power of the indwelling Spirit of God. We are enabled to mortify the deeds of the sinful nature.

[14:31] We can go out and face our Goliath and return in triumph carrying the Philistines' head with us. Then too there is the need for strength to fight with Satan.

[14:44] We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual hosts of wickedness. Against the devil and all his demons.

[14:57] If we are Christian believers, he makes of us his special target. Yet we can be strong. Strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.

[15:08] God has provided all the armor that we need to stand and fight. You find those pieces of equipment listed for you in Ephesians chapter 6.

[15:22] Clad in those, you can stand your ground and fight. Fight and win. We need wisdom too. So often if we simply apply natural wisdom, we will make the wrong decisions and behave wrongly.

[15:39] But the Bible says, if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all men liberally and does not abrade. We have but to ask and we shall receive.

[15:52] I've mentioned one or two of our spiritual needs. There are myriads more. As we become conscious of our needs, let us delight to bring those needs to our God.

[16:05] The more we bring them, the more we will know of his supply. And the more God will be honored. He supplies our needs.

[16:18] The needs he supplies. But then secondly, we notice here the manner of his working. The manner of his working. He supplies our needs.

[16:30] But how does he do so? What is the manner of his working? There are two phrases in our text which tell us the manner of his working. The first is according to his riches.

[16:44] And the second, in glory. Let me take the second one first. My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory.

[16:58] In glory. Now there are various interpretations of this particular phrase in verse 19. Does that phrase go with according to his riches?

[17:13] He will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory. If that is so, then the meaning will be he will supply all your need according to his glorious riches.

[17:30] That may be the meaning. But more probably the words in glory modify the verb shall supply.

[17:41] My God shall supply in glory according to his riches all your needs. Is Paul saying here that it is in the glory land at the last that our needs will be supplied?

[17:56] That thought may not be absent from his thinking. Yet without any question, Paul is thinking of the needs that those Philippians have and that God will supply as they live for Christ in first century Philippi.

[18:12] This is applicable to us as we seek to live for God in those closing years of the 20th century. My God shall supply in glorious fashion all your needs according to his riches by Christ Jesus.

[18:35] That, it would seem to me, is what the Apostle is saying here. The second phrase is according to his riches. And there is no doubt at all, but that is what that phrase means.

[18:49] My God shall supply in glorious fashion according to his riches all your needs. He does not supply our needs according to our need.

[19:02] It is not even out of his riches that he supplies our needs. The text is sometimes misquoted in that way. He supplies our needs according to his riches.

[19:18] A charity appeals for a donation. You send in a cheque for ten pounds. The millionaire down the road also sends in a cheque for ten pounds.

[19:31] You have both given out of your riches such as they are. But that millionaire has most certainly not given according to his riches.

[19:44] When God supplies our needs, he supplies them according to his riches. And those riches are inexhaustible. That is the style of his giving.

[19:58] That is the scale of his working. According to his riches. I remember reading of a water purification plant in a large American city.

[20:11] It was a showpiece. When the visitor entered the impressive vestibule, he was invited to drink from the pure, clear water flowing from the fountain there.

[20:22] Nearby was a sign and written on it were these words. Drink to your heart's content. There is a notion where this came from.

[20:34] You can draw and draw and draw upon those resources that God makes available. They are inexhaustible. He supplies our needs fully and provides so much more.

[20:50] You ask for unmarceled to banish the hunger pangs and he provides a feast. You ask for a coat and he clothes you in royal robes. You ask for silver and he gives you gold.

[21:04] Our Lord fed thousands. There were the five thousand there that day. Five thousand men and the women and the children besides. Only five small loaves and two small fish were brought to him.

[21:19] But he so multiplied such scanty fare that all those in that vast crowd were fed. Not only did they have enough to eat, but they were filled.

[21:31] They'd been away all day. They were famished. They were fainting, some of them for lack of food. But they were all filled. And when the fragments were gathered up, there were twelve baskets of fragments left over.

[21:44] You remember the story of the widow woman in the Old Testament whose sums were to be sold to pay her debts. All she had was a little olive oil in a cruise and a few empty jars.

[22:02] Elisha said to her, Set those jars in order. Go to your neighbours and borrow jars, empty jars, not a few.

[22:12] She did so. She set them all in order in the room. Then the prophet told her, Pour out the oil from the cruise. She poured it out into the first jar.

[22:25] And to her great surprise, the jar was filled with oil. So was the second and the third and the thirtieth and the fortieth and all the other jars. Not until there were no more empty jars did the supply of oil fail.

[22:40] Not until you have no more needs, Christian believer, and that shall never be, will God's supply fail. My God shall supply all your need.

[22:57] According to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus, he is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think.

[23:10] Of course God will supply our needs. He who spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

[23:25] If he spared not his own beloved son, heaven's dearest treasure, but gave him up to the unthinkable agonies of Calvary, is there anything else that you need that he'll fail to supply?

[23:41] What encouragement there is here for us. Never despair, Christian believer. However many your needs may be, however enormous they may be, ask God to supply them.

[23:56] Ask great things from him. Reverently put him to the test. Prove me now herewith, he says. As you go into his presence, plead his promises before him.

[24:09] Say to him, Thou hast promised. Remind him of his promise. It's a grand way to pray, to come before God, filling our mouths with arguments taken from the very word of God himself.

[24:23] As you do so, you will find that God will supply all your needs far beyond your imagining, the manner of his working, the needs he supplies, the manner of his working, and thirdly, we have here the channel of the blessing, the channel of the blessing.

[24:48] My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory by or in Christ Jesus.

[25:01] It is in Christ Jesus that all those needs are supplied. It has pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.

[25:11] In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and of knowledge. It is in Christ that those blessings we've been thinking of this morning reach us. And so I must ask you, first of all, are you in Christ?

[25:27] Are you this morning vitally united by faith to the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you seen your great need as a sinner? Have you seen that without Christ you have nothing?

[25:42] And that in him you have everything? You need forgiveness. You need to be put right with God. You need to be cleansed from your sin.

[25:54] You need eternal life. You need salvation. It is in Christ that those blessings are available. If you're not in him, then you're lost.

[26:06] You're perishing. The wrath of God rests upon you. And if you should live and die also in that condition, his wrath will rest upon you throughout the endless ages of eternity.

[26:22] But if you're in Christ this morning, then you can live for him. Life for you will be living for Christ.

[26:33] And death for you will be gain. Every spiritual blessing is yours. The Lord Jesus Christ died for sinners.

[26:47] His sacrifice is the only atonement there is for sin. No sinner of any race anywhere can be saved but by the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

[27:01] He is the propitiation. He is the wrath-removing sacrifice for our sins. And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.

[27:11] Only on the ground of Christ's finished work will God pardon you and receive you. But oh, my fellow sinner, listen, listen to this.

[27:23] You are urged to come to Christ that you might be saved. The Savior himself urges you, come unto me, he says, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

[27:35] He invites you. He commands you to come. Believe upon the Lord Jesus. Christ and you will be saved. The Spirit of God urges you to come.

[27:48] The Spirit says, come. The church, the whole church of Christ, the bride of Christ says, come. The Spirit and the bride say, come. God himself has no delight, he tells us, no pleasure in your condemnation.

[28:04] He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. Rather, he says, turn ye, turn ye from your wicked, why will ye die? God has provided in Christ an all-sufficient Savior.

[28:20] If you perish, it will be because you have refused the salvation which God has made available in his Son. Oh, my fellow sinner, come to Christ that you might be saved.

[28:34] trust in him, trust in him, rely upon him. But then I must ask you secondly, if you are a Christian believer, are you abiding in Christ?

[28:46] Are you cleaving to Christ? Are you obeying Christ? Are you communing with Christ? Are you out and out for Christ? Are you wholehearted and unreserved in your devotion to Christ?

[28:59] Christ. It is the abiding Christian who knows the fullness of the blessing that God provides. He that abides in me, says Jesus, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit.

[29:14] If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you. Keep close to Jesus, and you'll bring forth much fruit, the fruit of a holy life.

[29:29] Keep close to him, and you'll know much of the joy of answered prayer. Your needs will be supplied. Your requests will be granted. What does it mean?

[29:43] In or by Christ Jesus. He supplies our needs by Christ Jesus. It means he supplies them for his sake, for Christ's sake.

[29:56] You don't deserve to have your needs supplied. I don't deserve to have mine supplied. It is condemnation, it is judgment that we deserve. The worth, all the worth, all the merit, resides in him, God's beloved son.

[30:15] Make mention of him when you come to God in prayer. Make mention of him who lived a life of complete obedience to God's law, who died that sinners might be saved, who rose again the third day, who ascended to God's right hand, and who now makes continual intercession for his people.

[30:36] Make mention of him, quote his name at the bank of heaven, and unlimited funds will be released. See to it that it is in no formal sense that you end your prayers for Jesus' sake.

[30:57] Are you a Christian? If so, then you're wealthy. You're tremendously wealthy. All things are yours, the Bible says.

[31:10] Hold your head high. Walk tall. The multi-millionaire in his luxurious mansion is poor, poor compared with you, a child of God.

[31:27] My God shall supply all your needs, and that in glorious fashion, according to his riches, by or in.

[31:41] Christ Jesus. Let us pray. O Lord our God, we thank thee this morning for Christ Jesus, and for the unsearchable riches of his grace.

[32:01] We pray that thou teach us each one to draw by faith upon this, unlimited, this inexhaustible supply, and so to live always to thine honour.

[32:15] We pray that thou wilt bring home to us, to our minds, how inexhaustible are the resources available to us in him. And may our great concern ever be the honour of his name to live for God and to his honour.

[32:35]  For Jesus' sake. Amen.