Little Sparrow

Transcript

Alright thank you very much friends, and hello again dear radio friends. How in the world are you? Everything going Alright for you? Well, I trust so, bless your heart and I’m glad to be back with you to share a little something from God’s Word.

We’ve come now to Philippians 4:19 he says, “But my God shall supply all your need”, see now they’d been giving to Him, they sent an offering twice when he was in Thessalonica, and other times as well, in the beginning of the gospel, “When I departed from Macedonia nobody followed me up with any kind of encouragement, but you only”, he said to the folk at Philippi, “Even when I was in Thessalonica you sent two offerings” and he said, Epaphras brought all these nice things that you sent. I imagine there was a, there was a fruitcake and I don’t know, what all, something that would keep you know, because it was a journey, they didn’t have refrigeration, so it was something they would have to keep, (dried fruits maybe or something), plus some money to help him.

So, he said, that’s wonderful I’m full and have everything and I’m just so grateful and God is pleased. That’s where we stopped the last time we got together. Now he says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus”. I got to thinking about that, that phrase, “your need”, and I related it to the rest of chapter 4, and it broke open for me so well. I preached it different times. Your needs break down into people needs. Euodia and Syntyche were crosswise of each other in purpose and feeling and they needed to be reconciled. People needs. The way to meet people needs is to bring the Lord Jesus into the relationship, be of the same mind in the Lord. You pray together. You may disagree on what color to paint the boiler room of the church, but you can be together in heart.

And the also for the minister, Pastors, where you find people that are at odds with each other, it always represents a need on their part. They need something, they may not know it, but they need something and so he said, “Help those women. They labored with me in the gospel with Clement and others. Their names are in the book of life. Help them”. Now you don’t make a federal case of it and come up to someone and say, “I’m going to be of help to you, my brother”. No, you don’t that. People give you up for Lent. Don’t do it. Instead, you’ve, you just quietly study the situation and see where the area of need is and then you pray and let the Holy Spirit of God lead you in meeting people’s needs. You’ll find that, that, that God uses you to be a fulfillment, Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply all your need”. God uses the minister, the Christian worker, or just John Q. Citizen who believes on Jesus, God uses people to meet needs, people needs.

And then there’s the need of, of release from worry, “Be worried for nothing”. How do you do that? You bring God into the situation, “In everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God,” and then “the peace of God that passes all understanding shall keep you”, like a garrison of soldiers around your heart. I could get scared to death if I start to think about what might happen, even in my own life and ministry. The same thing is true of you, isn’t it? You send those kids out to school, mother, on a morning and sit down and think of what might happen. They, they might be involved in an accident on the bus. They might be struck by a car as they get off the bus. They might be attacked by the school bully and injured in the school yard during recess. They might be exposed to some infection that somebody else has and come home sick. They might be guilty of some misconduct and get into trouble and you might have a telephone call from the principal to come down and, and talk to the, the principle about your naughty child. These things might happen, and somebody might kidnap the youngest on his or her way home from school.

You sit there and you could be shaking with terror in ten minutes. Isn’t that true? Well see, what’s the answer to worry? The answer to worry is not more worry, and the answer to worry is not more turning it over in your mind, thinking about it, the answer to worry is to verbalize it to Jesus, “Everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving”. “My God shall supply all your need”. You have a need to be released from worry. The way to do it is to bring it to Jesus, He meets that need.

The way for a programmed mind– think on these things. Your mind is a great computer and it needs to be programmed, and so Paul says in Philippians 4:8, “Whatsoever things are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtue, phrase, think on these things”. To have a programmed mind, how do you, how do you meet that need? Well Isaiah 26:3, “Thou would keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee”. You turn your mind to the Lord Jesus, “Wherewithall a young man change his way? By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word”. Get into the Word of God, saturate your day with prayer, walk closely with your Lord, have Him on your mind over and above everything else.

Now, you can’t go around being officially religious, that’s not what I’m saying. I know that, I know there’s work to be done, decisions to be made and people to be met and all that, but you can have, you can have an overriding, over arching concern for the will of God at any given moment. You know you can. “Think”, he said, “on those things”. Let the Lord Jesus Christ program your computer. You people who are computer programmers you have that familiar acronym G.I.G.O. which stands for garbage in garbage out. If you program it wrong it’s going to, it’s going to crank out the wrong things when you press the button, and so is true of your mind. If you, if you pull all the junk of the world, of your mind, that’s was going to come out under pressure.

Have you ever heard somebody say something that actually amazed you that came out of their lips? There was a pressure situation and all of a sudden something was said. Now, why is that? Because it was in the computer. I, I once heard a very dignified person who was under a deal of pressure that in an academic situation, a very dignified person left the meeting very frustrated, and on the way out used an expletive, which is are normally not used in polite society. I was aghast. Then, I understood what came out, it must have been in the computer. You know, under pressure, what you put in the computer is going to come out.

Put God’s Word in, put God’s truth in, have your mind stayed on God. Your need for a programmed computer is found in the Word of God and the indwelling Holy Spirit of God, who Jesus said, “Will bring all things to your remembrance. You put the Scripture into your mind and the Holy Spirit of God will crank it out of the computer when it’s needed. “My God shall supply all your needs.”

And then of course you have a need for, for confidence and assurance. Many a person lacks success because he or she doesn’t really believe it can be achieved. “I couldn’t do that”. “Yes, you could with God”. “Oh, I could never teach a Sunday school class. I could never stand up and talk to people. I could never speak with someone, one-on-one. about my faith. I’m too shy”. Is that so? Well, Jesus can make the difference.

I told this story, I guess some years ago, let me use it again. I asked my father one day, I said, “Pop, you are normally a very shy individual”, and that he was. He was so bashful that when we had strangers coming into the home where he lived with us for some years, he would just disappear. He’d rather than meet new people, he’d disappear, go up in his room, or go out on his bicycle and be gone. And so I said, “I know that you’re bashful and yet when you get to talking with people about the Lord, you’re as bold and charming as can be. How is that”? He smiled and said, “Well, my boy”, he said, “I, I was shy”, said, “as a little boy I used to run away from our farm home whenever company was coming because I didn’t want to meet new people”. He told me some other things that had happened in his childhood, very cruel things that were done to him to try to break him of that trait.

Then the years went by and then he said, “I met your darling mother”. He said, “The two of us were so happy together and we heard that there was an evangelistic crusade coming to our area, and that they needed personal workers”, that’s what they called them in those days, call them counselors now, said, “They needed personal workers and, and there were training classes that were set up and so your mother and I”, he said, “your mother and I enrolled in those classes and began to learn how to win souls to Christ”. He said, “I got my first taste of soul winning”, and so he said, “It’s never been the same”. He said, “If I, if I lose my shyness it’s because I learned the joy of winning souls”. Bless him. He’s been gone since 1954, but I remember him so clearly and I am thankful for the training that he gave me, my good father. So, there is the illustration, very shy person, very bashful, but Jesus can overcome your bashfulness if you’re willing to let Him share Himself through you with other people. You need assurance? “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me”. You know He can do it. He can make the difference in your life. He can change your personality if you let Him. I can, through Christ, I can, through Christ. Not on your own but through Him. He’ll supply all your needs.

The need for assurance and reinforcement, then it’s the need of a person. “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus”. The greatest need in anybody’s life is a need for somebody to belong to somebody that, that needs you, somebody that you’re connected with in a loving and trustful relationship. The greatest loneliness is experienced by people who don’t have anybody like that. He said, “My God shall supply all your need by Christ Jesus”.

Let me talk to somebody who is humanly very lonesome today. You may be in a retirement facility, you may be living alone in a rented room or wherever and nobody seems to care. Nobody comes to see you, nobody calls up, nobody send you any letters. You’re lonesome, lonesome, lonesome. Would you look up and let the Lord Jesus be the personal supply of your need? A wonderful, loving person who’ll wrap His arms around you and whisper to your heart, “Having loved His own, He loved them unto the end”. Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so. The greatest need of your heart is a need of somebody to belong to, and that need is abundantly supplied beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, to feel His presence, to know His wonderful touch upon my life, to have Him speak with me through the Word of through the blessed indwelling Holy Spirit, to have Him guide me, sovereignly, how often. I can look back, just in recent days, as well as through the years of walking with the Lord. How often I’ve had the experience of being sovereignly guided to the extent that God would, in spite of me, change things around so that I was, I was a guided by Him. Jesus, a person, is the supply of your greatest need, let Him be that today.

Dear Father today. Oh we’re thankful that Jesus is the supply of our need, every need, all our need, Himself. Fill our lives blessed Lord, with Thyself, so that we may share Thee with others, I ask in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!