the Spirit of grace

Phil. 4: 13-23

Before I get into this passage this morning, I just want to share my heart with you about a couple of things that have been on my mind lately.  About 30 years ago I was living in California in a kind of prodigal son type of existence.  I had been raised in the church, I believe I was a child of God, my father was a pastor, and the environment that I had grown up in was very strict,  conservative Baptist background.  But I had reached a point in my early 20’s when I rebelled against all of that and basically ran as far away from the Lord as I could.  The end result was after several years of heavy partying and living in the world, I reached a point where I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore.  To make it worse, I had been dating a girl who was a Seventh Day Adventist, and she had all these books about keeping the law, which really confused me and caused me to question why I believed what I did.

Bottom line was, I found out I wasn’t really sure what I believed anymore.  But through a sequence of divine appointments, one day after walking the beach all day wrestling with conviction, I locked myself in my garage that evening and called out to God for forgiveness and reconciliation.  And one of the things that I very specifically prayed for was that no matter if it meant that everything I had grown up accepting as true was proven to be false, I wanted to know the truth. I prayed to God that He would give me the truth.

Afterwards, I went upstairs and realized the first sense of peace and joy that I had known for several years, and I found a little New Testament and began to read the gospel of John.  I believe I read the whole book that night.  The scripture just seemed to come alive.  But one verse in particular stood out to me and seemed to be in answer to my prayer.  It was in  John 16:13 "But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”

This verse and others like it became a guiding factor in my life.  I began a lifelong quest for the truth which I believed that the Holy Spirit would disclose it to me through the Word of God.  And so I have been on a journey for the last 30 years to understand as much as possible the truth of God’s word. For quite a number of years in my studies, I took the approach of the sufficiency of scripture; that is that if I was stranded on a desert island without anyone or anything other than a copy of the Bible, then by the help of the Holy Spirit I could  learn all essential doctrine necessary if I faithfully studied only the Word.  To that end I avoided reading even the notes at the bottom of the page of my Bible, because I did not want to jeopardize the sole authority of the Holy Spirit speaking through the written word of God.  I was encouraged by other verses such as John 14:26 which says, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”  Likewise what it says in 1John 2:27 “As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.”  And John 8:31 "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

Now I say all of that not so that you will think I’m some sort of guru, but because I want you to know why I believe the way I do, and why I preach the way I preach.  I put an absolute premium upon the Word of God as the sole authority, sufficient for all doctrine. As 2Tim. 3:16 says,  “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Therefore, I preach in a style known as expositional teaching.  I go through the Bible, word for word, line by line, verse by verse, chapter by chapter.  I believe that God’s Word should be the primary emphasis of the church.  I don’t study current events or cultural issues to determine according to what is trending right now in the culture what I should speak on, and then try to find some verses or some illustration from scripture that supports my view.  I don’t particularly care what the culture believes, or what is politically correct, or what is currently the hot topic this week.  I want to know the truth, and I want to teach you the truth – eternal truth, not just my take or other’s take on things.

This culturally relevant, topically based theology that is being taught and widely accepted today in the church is very disconcerting.  As I look around on the internet, on TV, on Christian websites and listening to sermons by many pastors and teachers out there, I hear so many times a type of common worldly knowledge from these teachers which is presented as watered down truth and yet they have very little real Biblical scholarship to back up what they are espousing.  As a result this same type of attitude has filtered down to the people in the congregations as well.  We don’t have Bible studies so much anymore, as much as we have “sharing” times.  We talk about what this means to me.  What experiences we have had and how we have interpreted them.  We hear how people see symbols and find truth in cloud shapes, or hear how the wind changed at just a certain moment which must be divine confirmation of some random thought they had.   We have all sorts of weird, ecstatic experiences that we attribute as the confirmation of the Holy Spirit of some truth.  We find a verse that strikes our fancy in the Bible and pluck it out of context and paste it on facebook and hang our whole theology for the time being on this one verse.  Until, of course, the wind blows us in another direction. And I could go on, but hopefully you are getting the point.  There is a critical lack of scriptural scholarship in the church today. I said Wednesday night the 21st century church instead of as Peter called us “a spiritual house for a holy priesthood offering up acceptable offerings to God,” instead has created a race of spiritual dwarfs.  Our congregations have doctrine which is a mile wide and an half inch thick.  We believe everything, yet can validate nothing and as Ephesians said, we’re “tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine.”

And as a shepherd, I am duly concerned about my flock in regards to these things as well.  I want you to know first of all that I don’t come by truth lazily.  I don’t receive messages in my mailbox written by some team in California that have come up with a whole series built around the theme of the latest television sitcom.  I have come about the truth the hard way, but I think the only reliable way, through studying the Bible and studying the whole gospel, and being shown by the Holy Spirit how it all works together.  By interpreting scripture by scripture, and not by the paradigm of either denominational distinctives or current cultural opinion.

But neither do I expect you to swallow everything I say hook, line and sinker.  Rather, I hope you would be like the Bereans, of whom it is said of in Act 17:11 “Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”  But what I hope you won’t do, is remark how appreciative you are of my preaching, and yet say, “but I don’t agree with him on everything, of course,” and thus casually dismiss those parts you don’t like.  I don’t expect anyone to agree with me on everything, but I would simply encourage you to be able to prove, at least to yourself, why you believe what you believe.  Be able to provide sufficient scripture to be able to back up what you believe.  And not just one verse, or one passage taken out of context, because you can prove anything you want with just one verse.  But be able to show from a complete Biblical perspective, why the Bible supports what you believe.  Not because it’s culturally accepted, or because it’s politically correct, or because you heard it somewhere, or even experienced something. But to take the same care that you would take in preparing a thesis for a master’s degree in college, or the same care in preparing evidence as if you had to go to the Supreme Court to argue your case.   Because, folks, what we are dealing with here is a case which one day will be heard before the  Supreme Court of the universe.  And one day  you will have to give an account for what you did with what you were given. “To him who has been given much, much shall be required.”

There is view today that is popular in the world and sadly has also found it’s way into Christian theology as well.  It’s “I believe, therefore it is true.”  I’m sorry, but that isn’t what the Bible teaches.  Proverbs 16:25 says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.”  But what we can say with all confidence, is that “The Bible says it, therefore I believe it.”  So I encourage you to become Bible scholars.  And my goal is not to necessarily teach you what to think, but to teach you how to think, by teaching you the truth of the  whole gospel.  So I urge you to become serious students of the Bible, that we may not be ashamed when we are called one day before God to give an account of our stewardship.  We have been entrusted with the oracles of God.  We will not be judged simply according to the  sincerity of our beliefs, but by whether or not we were obedient to the truth revealed in God’s word.

Now, that’s enough meddling, let’s get to today’s passage.  I have titled today’s message the Spirit of Grace.  We hear a lot about grace today in the church. It is foundational to our doctrine.  And yet what I would like to emphasize to you today is that grace does not stop at salvation.  The classic verse that helps us understand grace and defines grace is found in Eph. 2:8 “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; (9) not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”  This verse makes it clear that grace is simply a gift.  That is the  definition of grace;  it is a gift of God.  That is how we are declared righteous.  We believe God, and God declares us righteous on the basis of our faith, by His grace.  It is a gift.

But unfortunately, many of us want to stop right there.  Call out over our shoulder, “Thank you Jesus!”  and then scamper off about our business.  But look at the next verse following in verse 10 of Eph. 2. ”For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

Grace therefore is not a license to go on sinning, or so we can indulge ourselves in fleshly pursuits as Jude warns.  But rather it says we are created in Christ for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. So then, we that have been given grace, this great gift from God, have been created to be vessels of grace to be used in service to God.  Therefore, Eph. 4:8 says,  "WHEN HE ASCENDED ON HIGH, HE LED CAPTIVE A HOST OF CAPTIVES, AND HE GAVE GIFTS TO MEN."  Now these gifts that God has given us then are to equip us to be able to do the good works that He has created us through Christ to do.  We are not created to be merely self serving, but to be serving God by being obedient to what He wants us to do.  Gifts are given by God for you to use for Him, not for your own benefit.

I’ve said before that spiritual gifts are not a toy box, but a tool box.  God equips you with spiritual gifts to be used for the good works that we were created for according to Eph. 2.  In 1 Cor. 12, Paul says, “concerning spiritual gifts,” “that to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”   Gifts are given not for our good, but for the good of Christ’s body. He goes on to give an illustration of a body, and says all the parts of the body are necessary, because all benefit the other and depend upon one another.  And of course, the church is being pictured as a body, the head of which is Christ, and we are individually members of it, each with our work, our part to perform, so that there will be no lack, that all may benefit.

Now in  our passage today we see couched within the immediate message to the Philippians,  five principles of gifts which are presented by Paul. Five principles of gifts that we can apply to our lives today. Five ways that God’s grace to us results in our grace to others.  Number one, the strength of the gift, 2, the sharing of the gift, 3, the surplus of the gift, 4, the sacrifice of the gift, and 5, the supply for the gift.

So number one, the strength of the gift is found in verse 13 of our text;  “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.”  Obviously, this verse has to be taken in context.  Otherwise, I could take that to mean that I can go to the gym and bench press 500 pounds.  I can assure you, that’s not going to happen, no matter how much faith I have.  This verse does not give me license to do anything I want and find the supernatural resource to do it.  However, it does give me the strength to do anything God asks me to do and have Him supply the supernatural resource necessary.

So it’s important to see what Paul is talking about here.  He just said in the prior verses that he had learned the secret of being filled and being hungry, of having abundance and suffering need.  No matter what the circumstances then he found himself in, he is saying that God will provide the strength to get through it.  Paul makes this principle clear in 2Cor. 12:9 when God said to him, "’My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” Principle #1,the strength for giving is found in the spirit, not in the flesh.

Number two, as the Holy Spirit shares with us, so we are to share with Christ. So #2 is the sharing of the gift.  Vs. 14 he says, “Nevertheless, you have done well to share with me in my affliction.  You yourselves also know, Philippians, that at the first preaching of the gospel, after I left Macedonia, no church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving but you alone; for even in Thessalonica you sent a gift more than once for my needs.”

This word sharing is so important to understand in reference to the purpose of gifts.  They are given to equip us to serve the needs of others. The word sharing in the Greek means to partner with someone, to have fellowship with someone.  To partner means that you are going to shoulder part of the burden.  Sharing is a way to invest in the kingdom of heaven, to lay up treasure in heaven.  Consider what it says  in 2Cor. 8:12 “For if the readiness is present, it is acceptable according to what a person has, not according to what he does not have. For this is not for the ease of others and for your affliction, but by way of equality—at this present time your abundance being a supply for their need, so that their abundance also may become a supply for your need, that there may be equality; as it is written, "HE WHO gathered MUCH DID NOT HAVE TOO MUCH, AND HE WHO gathered LITTLE HAD NO LACK."

James said in chapter 2 of his letter, “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.” In other words, grace is not just for your personal benefit. “If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you are doing well.”  So principle #2, we are given gifts to share with one another according to their needs.

And thirdly, such sharing produces a surplus.  Number 3, the surplus of the gift.  Vs. 17 Paul says, “Not that I seek the gift itself, but I seek for the profit which increases to your account.”  The surplus is the profit that comes as a result of employing your gift in the Lord’s work.  Now we need to understand that our profit is in heaven.  If we are spiritual people, then we should be investing in spiritual things and reaping a spiritual profit.  There is a lot of false teaching out there which claims that godliness is a means of financial gain here on earth.  The snake oil salesmen on television tell you that if you send them money, God will multiply it in your bank account 10 fold.  And so they rob pour people desperate for earthly profit.

But our profit is in heaven.  Our sowing here, produces a surplus in heaven.  Look at the well known statement by Jesus found in Mat 25:34 "Then the King will say to those on His right, 'Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me. Then the righteous will answer Him, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' "The King will answer and say to them, 'Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.' Principle #3, using your gifts for the kingdom produces a surplus in heaven.

Fourthly, you can’t have a surplus without a sacrifice.  Number 4, “the sacrifice of the gift.” Paul says in vs. 18, “But I have received everything in full and have an abundance; I am amply supplied, having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent, a fragrant aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God.”   What Paul understood was that these Philippians had given sacrificially out of their deep poverty.  Listen to how Paul describes their gift in 2 Cor. 8:1 “Now, brethren, we wish to make known to you the grace of God which has been given in the churches of Macedonia, that in a great ordeal of affliction their abundance of joy and their deep poverty overflowed in the wealth of their liberality. For I testify that according to their ability, and beyond their ability, they gave of their own accord, begging us with much urging for the favor of participation in the support of the saints.”

In 2 Samuel 24 there is the account of David who wanted to buy a threshing floor and oxen so he could offer up an offering unto God in order to stave off a plague.  And the man told David, listen, you’re the king. Why don’t I give you the oxen and the yokes and the threshing floor so that you can build an altar and offer up a sacrifice.  And David said, “"No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price, for I will not offer burnt offerings to the LORD my God which cost me nothing.”  There is a principle taught throughout scripture that sacrifice is costly.  That which really doesn’t cost you anything is not a sacrifice.  But we are encouraged as the church of Philippi showed us by example, to give sacrificially, to give beyond our ability.  See, when we give beyond our natural ability, then we are giving according to our spiritual ability, the spiritual gift which God supplies, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. Principle #4, spiritual gifts require sacrifice.

Finally, such sacrificial giving requires a supernatural supply.  Number 5, the supply from the giver of gifts.  Vs. 19, “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”  What needs is he talking about?  Well, it’s whatever the needs are that you are sharing in as you partner with the body of Christ.  And it’s whatever needs you have after giving sacrificially to the Lord.

Paul said in 2Cor. 9:8 that “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed; 10 Now He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness; you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.”  God supplies the seed for sowing, which will produce a harvest of your righteousness.  He doesn’t promise that if you give the church or someone in need 10 dollars he will multiply it to $100.  But what he does promise is that the God who supplies you with seed will multiply that seed as you sow it, and the harvest is righteousness.  Not a righteousness that saves, but the works of righteousness that is the result of sanctification, of being obedient to what God has called you to do.

Look back a couple of verses to 2Cor. 9:6 “Now this I say, he who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each one must do just as he has purposed in his heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed; as it is written, "HE SCATTERED ABROAD, HE GAVE TO THE POOR, HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS ENDURES FOREVER."  Principle #5, God is our supply in all things, in all circumstances, in all our needs, in all that He has called us to do.

Today we finish this mighty little book called Philippians.  2000 years ago a little band of people who were in deep poverty, sacrificially sent a gift to Paul for the ministry, not once, but over and over again over a ten year period.  And because of their continual sharing with him in his ministry, they left a legacy that has endured long after their homes turned to ruins, and their bones to dust.  Their partnership resulted in Paul, though in chains, being able to write this gospel which has brought millions of souls to salvation through the years.  They made a pretty good investment, don’t you think?  Though they sacrificed a little convenience here, they stored up a great treasure in heaven.  I hope that you are encouraged today to use your gifts that God has graced you with for the kingdom of heaven.  He will be your strength to give, and as you share your gifts, it will produce a surplus stored in heaven, and though it requires some sacrifice here, God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.  May “the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.” Let’s pray.