Learning to lean on Jesus and His strength and not our own

If you will be patient with me, I’d like us to read the entire section beginning with verse 10.

“I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at the last, your care of me has flourished again wherein you were also careful, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” And that’s the word Al Tarka we talked about this morning. It’s a very specific word, borrowed from the Greek mystical concept, stoicism particularly, talking about a place of total self-sufficiency only used in a whole different way than the Greek philosophers used it. A God’s sufficiency, as Paul would define it here. And then verse 12, “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” Notwithstanding, you have well done that ye communicated with my affliction. Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my necessity. Not because I desire a gift, but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. For I have all and abound: I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Now unto God and our Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen. Salute every saint in Christ Jesus. The brethren which are with me greet you. All the saints salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar’s household. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.”

There are so many facets of understanding this tremendous passage, and I hope that in our calling attention to it now, these really three services because just briefly, we summarize some things from here last evening, last Sunday evening, and then of course, the entire message this morning from this passage on what contentment is in the Christian message.

Some of you have read, I’m sure, the famous book “Andersonville” by McKinley Cantor, which is a grim story of the Civil War and of the Andersonville Prison and the dehumanization of men. And the process is traced in one life after another. And of course, the basic concept that Cantor seems to be saying in the book “Andersonville” – and you may want to take issue with it – is that most people go to pieces and they sink into bestiality when they are treated as beasts or when the circumstances seem to dehumanize them.

But we would state that basic premise in another way. Most people of any time and anywhere seem to only be decent when their circumstances favor their decency. That’s the world’s standard. The world’s standard says, if the circumstances of my life are not pleasant, I’m not going to be pleasant. If the circumstances of my life are not what I want them to be, I’m not going to be happy, and I’m going to define my happiness in changing my circumstances.

But this is the tremendous testimony of how God can make us adequate. Remember, Paul had been in prison for four years, and the church itself was also in a period of suffering. Paul is bearing tremendous and evident faith to the fact that whatever circumstances we must face, God gives us poise, power, and a plentiful supply of everything we need.

As we face circumstances in life, let me carry it a step further, and oftentimes, the difficult circumstances we are asked to bear are an evidence of God’s confidence in us and the specific work that he is working out within us to glorify his name. Paul is continually lifting up whatever circumstance he faces, be it misunderstanding brethren, the inhumanity of people in the prisons in which he is submitted to beatings and torture, all that we’ve talked about in sharing some of the scriptures.

When we look this morning at the particular scripture in which Paul says, concerning the apostles in general, it seems like we’re the very last ones as though God has appointed us. Let me read it again for you: “We’re doomed to death, a spectacle to the world in the present hour. We are hungry and thirsty and naked and buffeted and have no certain dwelling place. And we toil working with our own hands being reviled. We bless being persecuted. We endure being defamed. We treat, we are made the filth of the world, the offs scouring of all things unto this day.”

In spite of all the circumstances that surround him, Paul lifts them to the Lord, and they become, as it were, a tremendous vehicle of God’s unique and special blessing. Now today, I feel like the Holy Spirit has uniquely wanted to say something to us about this fact. If you feel that changing your circumstance is the preeminent priority of the Christian life, I have news for you.

First of all, God will allow that. He may play with your kind of childish games for a while, just like we give into a child. Sometimes a child throws a fit in a church service or in a restaurant. That isn’t the time to beat them and make a big scene. We may give in and give them something we normally wouldn’t give.

And there’s definitely a place in the Christian life where the pouting Christian, stamping his feet and saying, “I want out of this,” and God the Father responds. But in the words of Bob Mumford, when that transpires, the Father has to say to us, “I’ll get you out of it, but you’ve gotta go around the mountain again.”

There’s a whole group of Christians that constantly experience spiritual deja vu. They’re constantly going around the mountain, saying, “I think I’ve been here before. Boy, this looks familiar. It looks just like something I’ve seen before,” and it is something you’ve seen before. You’ve probably been there two or three hundred times, or thirty or forty times, and each time, a kind of childish fit is thrown, and we say, “God, get me out,” and He’ll get you out.

But the principle still has to be learned in your life. What Paul is teaching in this passage is a kind of Christian faith that is totally, totally irrespective of circumstance. It is independent of circumstance, and that’s why he takes this route, this word autarkes. He says, “The stoics say that the way you get independent of control of circumstances and people is you lose desire. You root out love; you make your heart a desert.”

But Paul says there’s another way to do the same thing. There’s another way to get the same freedom so that no circumstance or person will control the way you feel at a given moment. And that is not to eliminate desire but to invite in the sufficiency of God so that every circumstance, however dastardly it is, becomes a source of blessing.

And every person, however obnoxious they are, becomes a means of God’s dealing with your life. So rather, he takes this wonderful, stoic word and says, “You can have that kind of sufficiency, you can have that contentment that says, no circumstance and no person is going to rob me of the joy of my experience.”

And I don’t have to get there by eliminating desire. I can get there by recognizing God. And of course, those ten words, “I can do all things.” Remember, “I can do all things through Christ.” That isn’t what it really says. That says, “I can do all things with the Christ power within me.” It’s recognizing it for the strength of doing that.

And as we said, the emphasis isn’t undoing, but it’s on living. What kind of Christian does God want to build? According to Philippians chapter four, you know, I have a whole bunch of Christians, and if I was a little strong this morning, I wasn’t nearly as strong as I wanted to be about somebody who would say, “If I could’ve gotten to the Apostle Paul and given him my teaching, he would’ve never written and said he asked the Lord to deliver him three times, and the Lord said, ‘My grace is sufficient for you.'”

That kind of, well, let me pass it for just a moment at least and come back to it later. That kind of concept, that kind of which would suggest that God’s highest is to get you out, and that if you would just know how to use the right words, or the right confessions, or the right promises, you could be delivered out of every circumstance produces a cotton candy style Christian whose value in the kingdom of God and to himself is very limited.

What’s the kind of Christian that’s the opposite? Is this a depressed, is this a dejected Christian that Paul is speaking of? Why is the book of Philippians called the Epistle of Joy, written after four years of imprisonment, written after all of these circumstances?

Because in this man’s life has been produced, not happy, but joy, and there’s a difference. I’ve told you already, one of my unfavorite Christian songs is “Happy, happy, happy are the people whose God is the Lord.” I said that up at the Canadian Bible College this past September, where I spoke. I didn’t know it was their favorite song.

And just in the process of the opening comments, I said, “How asinine.” I thought that kind of, you know, happy, happy, happy kind of thing is so just out of contempt. Every night when I would walk on the platform, the kids would break out singing “Happy, happy, happy are the people whose God is the Lord.” Quite a marvelous time, needless to say.

There’s not anything particularly wrong with the course, but the concept. Happy is a worldly word. Happy is “I really feel good because everything’s right.” Joy says, “I don’t care what the circumstances are, there is a presence in my life.” Many of you know the little book, and I think I’ve mentioned it already in this series, perhaps even last Sunday night.

I’ve forgotten whether I used this illustration or not, but many of you know the little book, Practicing the Presence of God. If you don’t, you need to know it. Brother Lawrence was a monk who wasn’t considered talented enough or important enough to direct the seminary or lead Bible studies. Instead, he was given the menial task of doing pots and pans, not even doing the dishes, but doing the pots and pans.

And yet, that little monk recognized that it wasn’t circumstances or people, it was the presence of life. He wrote his own little devotions about how, in the pots and pans, he practiced the presence of Christ. That menial work became a lifting experience for God’s elevation. And there isn’t a Christian I know of who knows who the head of the monastery was or who was doing all the great, important jobs like teaching, but there aren’t many Christians in the world who don’t know the name of Brother Lawrence.

And that little devotional book, Practicing the Presence of God, is such a dynamic illustration of how the believer doesn’t say, “Lord, change my circumstances.” Instead, he says, “Change me.” And a part of that changing is to recognize His presence. Is there an ultimate in all of this? Yeah, there is an ultimate.

There’s an ultimate that says, “I don’t have to persuade God what to do. He knows where I am. He knows what’s going on in my life. Nothing has come to me except His past through Him.” I find many Christians who don’t understand the concept of the door of the sheepfold. There weren’t doors or gates in the sheepfolds in Palestine. The sheepfolds were little rock walls, and there was an opening through which the sheep went in and out. Well, what was the gate? What was the door? The door was the shepherd. And after all the sheep were in, the shepherd himself laid across that opening.

So that nothing could come into the sheep, and the sheep could not go out without passing through him. And when Jesus said, “I am the door of the sheepfold,” he wasn’t talking about a gate or a hinge door. He was talking about laying across the circumstances of our life so that nothing comes into us, and we do not go out without it going through Him.

So what is the ultimate of the Christian life? It doesn’t say, “I like everything that happens in my life.” It doesn’t say, “I’m just kind of a laid-back, hang-loose” person. For example, I’ve been invited to go to Hawaii for a month to minister, and I’ll let you know what God tells me about it. It’s in a marvelous month in August, and whether I’m supposed to go or not, don’t pray too hard about that one way or the other, friends.

But there’s a kind of neat, hang-loose attitude in Hawaii. I’m not talking about that, sir. I’m not saying the Christian life is lazy. I’m not saying the Christian doesn’t use discipline. I’m not saying the Christian doesn’t discern whether this is an attack of the enemy and know when to stand and resist.

I’m saying the Christian is in an ultimate place of saying, “My life is in God’s hands. My circumstances are designed for the edification of my body and my work before the Lord. And thereby, I’m not going to be carrying these circumstances demanding change. Instead, I’m going to be saying, ‘Lord, what are You saying to me? What are You teaching me? What is this to produce in me?'”

There’s an amazing story out of missions, and I’ve used so many illustrations in missions. I hope you’re not bored. It’s probably one of the most eminent parts of my experience before the Lord, and I use them for another reason. It isn’t to try to set up a superior attitude.

Here are these great, wonderful missionaries, and here are the rest of us. Um, people on the other side of the Christian experience, it’s to say to you, sir, there is a place in God where life begins to be productive and blessed. And it’s on that line; it’s reaching that place. Sir Wilfred Grenfell was a fantastic missionary, a medical missionary in Labrador, and one particular experience.

He seemed to have lost his life. In fact, he lived, and obviously, or we wouldn’t know about it, but he had set out with his dog team on a sick call and he went over the frozen waters of an ocean bay. And suddenly, as it can happen, the ice broke up and he suddenly found himself with his team and the sled on a floating island of ice that was drifting slowly out to sea.

He mercifully put his dogs to death. He fashioned a coat for himself from the hides of the animals. He contrived a distress flag the best that he could, and he laid himself down and he slept. Mercifully, miraculously, and improbably, he was rescued. And when he was rescued later, someone asked him this question: how did you endure this awful, frightening circumstance?

Most of us would die of pure shock and panic within the first half-hour of realizing what was happening. How could you lay down and sleep? How could you have the presence of mind? And he answered with these words: “There was nothing to fear. I had done all I could. Certainly, I had done everything humanly possible.

The rest was in God’s hands. What then was there to be afraid of?” That’s the bounds. It doesn’t say the Christian doesn’t do anything. The Christian just lays there and is rolled over by the circumstances of life. But what it does say is when the Christian has done all that he can find feasible to do in reference to discipline or change or seeking counsel.

When he is done, all that he knows to do in the circumstances, then he lays himself down knowing he’s in God’s hands. There is, for example, and I’ve mentioned it to you on any number of occasions, an absolute, irreverent fear of death among evangelicals. In fact, some of this same crowd that I’ve mentioned already is teaching that if you die before you’re 70 years of age, you’re out of the will of God.

In other words, the Lord has given you three score and 10 years, and thereby anybody who dies before that is somehow in sin. I don’t know what that does with Jesus. I don’t know what it does with Paul. I don’t know what it does with half of the Bible characters that we talk about, but that’s what is being taught.

There is an inordinate understanding in that precept that says, this life is it. Isn’t that what that says to you? This is it. Oh boy. If you can get an extension on your term of duty here, you know, this is really it. And if you get sick, you sure need to do some bargaining with God because you want to get an extension here and make sure you get the maximum number of years on this Earth, brother.

If that’s your concept of eternity, if that’s your concept of the purpose of God, that this earth somehow is it, and that any extension possible in this earth somehow is to be viewed as great success, I think you’ve missed a great and imminent point before the Lord. Here then is a life in the fourth chapter, a life that understands and moves forward.

Paul was not a negative person, nor was he a person who let life roll over him. In fact, his favorite word in the Greek is MK fortitude – take life by the throat, put him in present, and he wrote half the books of the New Testament and led all of the soldiers to Christ. Why is this phrase here at the end of Philippians, “They who are of Caesar’s household salute you”? How? How Caesar’s household? Because in the first chapter, he tells you he was stationed with the elite imperial guard, and as quickly as they could change the soldiers, he led them to Christ. Here’s not a man who’s letting life roll over him, but dynamically realizing that the circumstances of his life are meant to be the means through which God is to be praised.

Now, in this passage and in the closing comments I want to make on this, is a very critical understanding. Will you turn with me to the 13th verse? I want you to read it with me, at least read it in your own version. It may be slightly different, so you can kind of mumble the words where you are, and if your version’s a little bit different, that’s all right.

Verse 12 and verse 13: “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” There’s that word “instructed” again. Remember, that’s the word “initiated.” It’s borrowed from the mystic cultures. “I’ve been initiated. I’ve learned the secret; God has shown me. I’ve been instructed. I’ve passed through a series of experiences in which I’ve grown and I’ve learned something.”

Now look at that verse moment. That verse is either the worst example of double talk in the Bible, or it’s a secret that literally locks life in a dimension that very few people understand. Paul says, “There’s come an instruction in my life in which in one state I am immediately held in a balance with its alternative. When I am abounding, I am suffering need. When I am full, I am hungry. There is this absolute perspective in my life.” He says that there, that I embrace both. And particularly, he ends by saying that I learn when I’m abounding to suffering need.

And that’s the phrase I want to call your special attention to in the closing moments of tonight, in the closing moments of this series. “Aniad” is a very important word. It speaks about an attitude, and I want to call your attention to several passages of scripture. Turn with me first to Revelation 3.

You know this passage backwards and forwards. Some of you know verses 13-22, it’s the Laodicea in Church Passage. Many of you again know it, the Laodicea in church. Many Bible scholars believe it represents the church of this day and age, the last day before Jesus comes. And in Revelations 3, concerning that church, there is an interesting thing.

Jesus says to the church, “You say that you are rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing,” and yet, He describes them as wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked. He counsels them to buy gold tried in the fire, representing the purity of salvation, and white linen, speaking of sanctification, of holiness, of light. “I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.” This speaks of the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit in their life.

But the thing I want you to note about them is this: they felt they were beyond need, and the very almost vitriolic statements of the Lord concerning that they felt they were without need. That’s the way they perceived themselves. They weren’t being blasphemous or unholy. That’s the way they saw themselves without any need in their life.

In fact, if you studied the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, and most of you know them, have you ever wondered why so many of those Beatitudes describe the blessedness or happiness or joy of a person who has a need? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” And I think verse six of Matthew five is the one that’s the most difficult for me to understand.

I know you and I spiritualize this, but how about a word like, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled?” The interesting thing, but Paul seems to be saying in Philippians four, is that when there is recognition of need, there is the embracing of the opposite, which is fulfillment.

That when I’m really in God, when I really understand my need, there is the joy of embracing His fulfillment. Mark chapter seven tells the story of the Syrophoenician woman. Some of you have studied that. I’m sure it’s, uh, I identify with her because she was a Gentile coming to Jesus like me, and this is, by the way, in verses 24 through 30 in case you’re interested in writing down that note.

You remember she had a daughter who was very ill, and she came to Jesus asking Jesus to heal her. And what was His response? He said, “I can’t take the bread from the children and give it to dogs.” Boy, I tell you, if Jesus said something like that to you, most of you would end up pouting for the next six years.

You know, if Jesus said, “Hey, look, I’m doing this, these are the people I’m working with, and I can’t respond and give that to dogs,” do you know what her response was? Do you remember what her response was? She said, “Oh, Lord, I know what You’re saying. I understand Your first and preeminent ministry is to come to Your own.”

But she said, “Isn’t it true, Jesus, that the dogs get the privilege of eating the bread that’s left, the crumbs under the table?” What was she really saying? She had a perception that when there was an imminent need, that was a provision of God. Jesus turned to her and said, “I have not seen that kind of faith in all Israel.”

“Go home and find your daughter to be well.” Out of the sense of preeminent need in her life, there was a response that brought an answer from the Lord. Then, again in the 11th chapter of Luke, the story of the opportunity of a friend, as it’s called in verses 5-14.

To recall, it hit the headlines. The Bible says, “A man came to a friend who had no bread and he went to his friend and knocked on the door and said, ‘It was night, friend arise and give me bread, for one has come to me in the night. I have no bread to set before him.'”

Jesus said, “I say the man from inside will answer and say, ‘Hey, it’s night. My children are with me in bed. I cannot rise and give to thee.'” Then Jesus said, “But I say unto thee, though he will not arise and give him because he is his friend, yet because of his opportunity, he will arise and give him.” In other words, opportunity means the desperateness of his need.

In Paul’s words, “Blessed is that man who has an import sit situation, because there’ll be a satisfaction of that. Blessed is the man who is put in that circumstance where he is literally forced to the edge of the precedent, because he will have a manifestation of God.”

I told you the story, and I think it was in the Philippian series. I told it several weeks ago. If it was in the Philippian series, it must have been in the first Sunday of the little 12-year-old boy in Korea. When I read that story some months ago, my heart was deeply moved.

During the Japanese Korean War, the Korean people were under a tremendous tyranny and bondage. Someone assassinated the Japanese governor, and all hell broke loose. A particular little mission school run by an American missionary was targeted by Japanese soldiers. They tortured each of the children in turn, trying to get them to confess to this assassination.

This 12-year-old boy was tortured into the night, trying to get him to confess. They would give him no food or water, beat him, and hang him until his body was racked with pain. Finally, at about 12 o’clock, as it reached midnight, and they were eating and carousing in front of him, coming back time and time again asking him to give the information.

At 12 o’clock, he cried out to the Lord not to be delivered. But he cried out and said, “Lord, help me somehow to hang on. Help me not to deny you.”

Suddenly, his thirst was quenched, and his hunger was satiated, and he felt the presence of the Lord in a very literal sense. Immediately after, a matter of minutes after they cut him down and sent him back to his bedroom and never again subjected him to torture.

But when that little boy was asked to testify, there was a radiance in his testimony. You see, you and I want the testimony; we want the “I can do all things through Christ,” “My God shall supply all your need,” “I have learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content.” We want the testimony. Most Christians I know today want to write the book. In fact, they don’t want to walk through the experience.

Why did the presence of the Lord become so real in that little boy’s experience? Because he was pressed to the precipice. That was an opportunity. There was a need. When there’s desperateness in the need, the believer starts looking around and saying, “How is God going to glorify himself in this? What’s the exciting revelation that God has in mind in this process?”

But I want you to notice one other word about Luke, Luke 11. I’m just hitting some highlights on this to get to a couple of very specific points tonight. You see, how many of you really understand what’s said when it says, “He does not rise and give him because he is his friend”? How many times are our prayers something like this: “Lord, heal Sister So-and-So. You know what a servant of yours she is and how long she’s served you, and she’s a wonderful Christian. Lord, heal her.” Do you really think that’s how God responds? It isn’t. It’s out of the desperate, imminent sense of need that comes in that person’s life right now, right through this crowd.

If we could take time tonight in this service, and we would just take a few moments and ask you to share the points at which you really came to grips with the presence reality of God, I guarantee you, in 80% of every case, it would be in really desperate, trying moments in which you were pushed right to that point and wondered what was going to happen, and in the moment of that need, became the opportunity of God’s revelation.

You see, if you demand that all the experiences be ended before you get to the point of the cry, in fact, isn’t that what Romans 7 is about? It’s to bring us to that cry: “Oh wretched man that I am.” And a lot of us want to cop out with something kind of a premature spiritual experience. “Lay hands on me, give me this gift, do this for me somehow,” rather than reaching the point where we come to the end of ourselves and cry out in desperation, “Oh God, what’s the answer? Deliver me from this!” And in that moment comes a tremendous spiritual revelation.

Turn with me to Mark chapter 8 just for a few moments. In Mark chapter 8 is an incredible story, and I’ve used it here on a couple of occasions. Beginning with verse 14, it follows one of the great miraculous breaking of breads. It says in verse 14, “Because Jesus had commanded them to get a ship and go to the other side, the disciples had forgotten to take bread, and they only had in the ship with them one loaf.” And verse 15 says, “Jesus was teaching them, saying, ‘Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod.'”

Look at verse 16. They reasoned among themselves, saying, “It is because we have no bread.” That’s an amazing thing to me. And here’s Jesus dealing with a great doctrinal issue, and they think it’s because they only have bread. And he’s just subtly doing that. You know how many times I’ve heard people say, “Well, no other pastor preached on that, you know, he’s getting even with me.” Or “He was saying that because he wants to use the pulpit to do this and that and the other thing.” I remember a marvelous time with a group of Christians. I’ll not name the location, but it was a marvelous move of God, such as I have hardly been in in my life.

And though I was very uncomfortable, I was kind of a guest in the circle. The Lord projected me into a leadership place, and there was an opportunity for forgiveness, restoration, and repentance between brothers who were talking about brothers in the body of Christ who had been offended and so forth.

And shortly thereafter, I heard the rumor around that community that it was all a setup. It was all a political means to get people to do something. And something in my spirit just caved in. And I said to myself, “What a terrible, awful thing it would be to be so impregnated by bitterness that you genuinely do not hear the voice of God.”

To be so impregnated by selfishness that when God speaks, you think it would be a man or an opinion, or you rationalize it away. Look at these disciples, Jesus dealing with them, and they say, “Oh, I know why it is. He’s bawling us out because we only brought one loaf of bread.” And Jesus heard them, and he said this when he knew it, verse 17.

He said, “Why do you reason about bread? Don’t you perceive or understand having ears? Do you not see and having eyes? Do you not, or rather having eyes, do you not see, and having ears, do you not hear, and do you not remember?” Verse 19, “When I broke five loaves among 5,000, how many basketfuls of fragments took you up?” And they said, “12.” And he said, “When we had seven loaves among 4,000, how many basketfuls of fragments took you up?” And they said, “Seven.” And Jesus said to them, “How is it that you don’t understand?” I marvel at that scripture. I know I’ve a couple of times quoted it in various messages that I’ve ministered in this body.

Because what Jesus is saying, you look at the figures yourself, five loaves fed 5,000, and there were seven basketfuls left over. When you multiply, when you add two additional loaves, there was a thousand less people fed and fewer basketfuls of fragments taken up. What Jesus seems to be saying about that is the least or the less that you give to me in a circumstance so that the greater the need is, the greater the opportunity for God’s revelation and glory to be manifested.

When Paul says, “I have learned, I’ve been initiated into the fact that even if I were abounding, I would want to suffer need if…if.” If everything were going right, if I was full, the discipline of my spirit would be to sense hunger and to recognize need. In other words, I would never allow my Christian life to come to a place where I set back and where I am not involved in that kind of forward desire before the Lord. Look with me to Mark 10 for just a moment as well.

Mark chapter 10 is the story of Bartimaeus, a blind beggar sitting at the side of the highway. His name meant corruption; incidentally, “son of corruption” (bar means “son of”) or honored, either one, but Bar Timaeus, a beggar with a beggar’s robe.

Notice, if you read the story in the latter portion of Mark 10, it says he called out to Jesus and the people tried to restrain him and said, “Be quiet, hold your peace.” And it says he cried out the more a great deal. Jesus stopped because of the desperateness of his need and asked him to come forward.

Verse 50 says something very unique. It says he, leaving his cloth or his robe, forsaking his robe, came to Jesus. A very specific word there, because that’s the beggar’s robe that was the permission to beg. What would you do if you really understood this principle that Paul’s talking about? You would disassociate yourself with your own means of sufficiency to be found totally dependent upon God. That’s what you need when the need becomes great. When it comes to a moment we call a kind of chips down place, Paul says, “I would find the greatest place of need. I would put myself in the greatest place of need because that is the moment of God’s sufficiency in my experience.”

When we look biblically now, we find a lot of needs being spelled out. First of all, the need for spiritual growth (Hebrews 5:10-14). “For the opportunity you have need to be teachers. Many of you,” he says, “have need rather for the milk, and you have become such as of need of milk and not of strong meat. For strong meat belongs to them who are full age, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.” I think that’s one of the most tragic passages in the Bible. How many of you have seen a child indiscriminately stuffing anything it finds into its mouth? In this tragic moment, Paul is saying that’s the way he sees many Christians who have not come to that place of spiritual growth.

There is a desperate need that they understand that place of growth in the Lord – the need of the Spirit-filled life. Ephesians 5:18 says, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit.” We were talking tonight in the elders’ meeting for a few moments – a time of decision and prayer together as brothers and leaders of this body – about the need to be filled with the Spirit, really filled with the Spirit.

And that’s not just an experience. That’s not saying, “Well, you know, four years ago I spoke in tongues, and thereby I know I’m filled with the Spirit.” What he says here in Ephesians 5:18 is that you are to be continually being filled with the Spirit. And the Greek word “filled” there means controlled, influenced under the influence of. That’s why he uses the comparison – don’t be drunk with wine, that’s excess. But be controlled by the Spirit. Continually drink and receive of the Holy Spirit. Is that a need in your life? I mean, I’m talking about need like the edge of a blade. I’m not talking about need that says, “You know, kind of twiddling your thumbs and saying, ‘Oh, that would really be nice.'”

You know, be really neat if God would give me a new experience in the Holy Spirit and anytime he wants to do it. In fact, a person told me that not long ago, “Anytime God wants to fill me with the Spirit, right, that’d be really great. I’m a candidate.” That’s not the way it works. It comes out of a sense of need. And is that need as keen in your life tonight? Some of you have been around a long time. Is it as keen in your life tonight as it was when you were seeking to be filled and inundated with the power of the Holy Spirit?

Again, Paul would say, “Oh, how blessed is the person who has a need.” In fact, in a sense, would you understand it if I say that the experience of the need and seeking is almost more exciting than filling and being on the other side? In fact, that’s why he turns around and says it’s to be daily, to be continually thirsting.

I mean, you know, it would be pretty weird if someone said, “Did you have dinner today?” and the person replied, “Oh, no, I ate four months, three days, and 13 hours ago. I had a really wonderful meal.” That’s why there is to be a continual sense. Is the edge there of that need? Another need that’s mentioned in the scriptures is watchfulness. Another issue the elders were dealing with tonight is the command before the elders that Paul gives in the 20th chapter of Acts – tending sheep, watching for any issue that comes in. That’s their responsibility before God to make sure that the sheep are protected and cared for before the Lord.

But what about watchfulness in your life? Do you know the difference between, uh, anybody here who has had the experience, the difference between being careless, leaving doors and windows open, and then having the experience of walking into your home someday and finding someone who wasn’t supposed to be there? Like us coming home one time from a trip several years ago from Hawaii and immediately sensing that something was wrong because the window was broken in the back, missing a television set, and so forth.

What happens after that? You double-check every door. In fact, I remember within three days, I had double locks on every door in the house and locked myself out once and couldn’t get in shortly thereafter because I wasn’t used to that kind of experience. Is there that holy sense of watchfulness in your life? Do you sense it as a need? Is there something in your experience that is the edge of understanding how quickly the joy and provision of God in your life could be lost by carelessness? Are you watchful? Is there a sense of perception about what your weaknesses and temptations are, a sense of perception about certain arenas, and the Lord draws them to your attention and you understand the necessity of being watchful in that area?

For example, one of our brothers prayed tonight, “God, set a watch on my mouth,” and I thought when that word was prayed for all of us, of course, not just for him, I wondered if maybe that is an imminent sense of need. Some of us need to understand a watch on our thoughts, a watch on our mouth, and then a need for witness.

I was very conscious of this this week. Colossians 4:5 says, “Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.” In other words, buy up the opportunity. “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man.”

There’s a school annual that I have in my office to this day. It’s a big brown one. As many of you know, I graduated from my undergraduate school in three years, and that was a very unfortunate thing in many ways. I was one of those evangelicals who felt Jesus was coming tomorrow and I needed to get out of school as quickly as I could. And of course, I was pastoring a church at 19, going to freshman in college, and then crammed all the subjects together and got through in three years. And the unfortunate thing was it put me in a class I didn’t belong to. I graduated a year later than the class I had started school with, and a lot of important relationships were missed in my life.

But if I were to open that particular brown annual, there is a double-page picture. You know how sometimes in an annual there’s always a theme and they take certain pictures and blow them up and make them the theme picture of a whole section. And this was the picture to illustrate activities. It’s a picture of four kids dressed in clown outfits on the stage at one of our theaters.

And we had a couple of theaters in the school. I attended the undergraduate school, and the third clown from the right is a boy by the name of Gary McNall. Gary was a really interesting person. He bugged me most of my freshman year. We happened to be freshmen together and went through a lot of experiences together.

Gary was a big man on campus. I mean, everything that I was not in terms of the realm of the people I was with, Gary was with the exact opposite crowd. All of the society people, all the things went. And yet, for some reason, Gary would come to see me. And I soon came to understand that he had some spiritual perception and God was doing a work in his life.

Gary came several times by night, like Nicodemus. Nobody in their right mind wanted to be seen going to Rick Howard’s room with a testimony I had on the campus. I mean nobody from Gary’s group. And Gary would come at night, and we’d sit and talk. The first night, I was shocked that he even knew who I was.

And from there, that kind of thing dropped away. And we just shared, and numbers of times Gary would be that close to involvement in a witness for Jesus Christ and into receiving Christ. I think I was faithful, as faithful as I could be. I admit I was kind of under a, uh, like a lot of us, he was in a different category.

I kind of felt inadequate and who was he coming to me and so forth. And I think a lot of Christians play that game. But to the best of my knowledge, I was true to witness. Gary was a terrible student. Of course, he spent most of his time socializing and not being much of a student. He dropped out one semester, came back to school the next, and we picked up our relationship somewhat.

And then finally, they informed him he was going to flunk again, and he either had to drop out, or if he flunked this semester, he could never come back to school. I’ll never forget it. He decided to take incompletes and leave so he could return the next year. And for some reason, Gary came to see me.

I was on the third floor of what was called Memorial Hall, the oldest dorm on campus. It was late afternoon, and I was doing some studying when Gary called to me from downstairs, not wanting to make the trip. “Hey Howard, are you up there?” I said, “Yeah,” and he came up. I hadn’t seen him for several months, and he said, “I just want to tell you I’m leaving campus.”

It was kind of a dumb thing. Why was he coming to me? I didn’t have anything to do with his life in that regard. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of months on campus. He said, “I just want to say goodbye.” And I said, “Okay.” And boy, something inside me was going, you know, I’ve had that experience, but I was kind of disgusted over all the times I’d witnessed and prayed for him and the lack of response. And he started down the hall.

And the Spirit was just, I mean, if I had been silent, I would have blown up. And I said, “Gary, one minute.” And I walked out and looked over the rail. He was down about the second level, and he looked up, he knew what I was going to say. I said, “Man, before you go, wouldn’t this be a good time to receive Christ, to get things straight with God?”

“You’re going to be leaving all the Flint friends and influence. You won’t be with them for a few months. Wouldn’t this be the time to do it?” He kind of dropped his head, and then he looked up at me and said, “Hey Rick, if I’m not man enough to live for Christ of my friends and in school, I’m not going to take the cop-out. But I’ll tell you this thing, Rick.” And he pointed his finger up. “I’ll tell you this. I’m going to go home and do a lot of thinking about what we’ve talked about, and you’ll be the first guy I see when I get back on campus, and I’ll make it right then.” And he put his head down and headed down the next staircase.

And that was the last I saw of Gary. He was working on a construction gang. He was driving an asphalt truck for the state of New York. Something happened. I never understood what, and the asphalt truck blew up, and Gary went into eternity. Now you don’t have to have many of those experiences, and there’s not many Christians who have lived many years in this building who have not had a similar story.

You don’t have to have many of those experiences until you understand the need that comes with witness. It is incidental in most people’s lives. God seldom brings us consistently into the same person’s life without there being a reason. And when it’s happened two or three times, and the Spirit is very clear, and brings us God saying something very unique and very special.

I don’t know. I’m not trying to make a big story and suggest, I don’t know, maybe Gary had found Christ. He had said he would pray about it. I don’t know the story. All I know is every time I see that picture, when I turn, turn that annual open, I recognize what Colossians says. Walking in wisdom, buying up the time, buying up the opportunity, cuz God has given us an extremely important place before the Lord in that regard.

And then last, the need to be faithful. Luke 12:42-48 tells the story of the servant. 1 Corinthians 4:2 says, it’s required of stewards that a man be found faithful. Let me ask you something. If you could construct a list tonight, most of you are kind of sitting here already, typical Sunday afternoon.

Many of you had a lunch about one o’clock or two o’clock, and you don’t eat supper and you’re waiting for service to get over, and you’re gonna go home and probably head for the television and the, and the refrigerator about the same time, and coordinate those two great final Sunday night activities before the week begins.

Right? And some of you, if I were to ask you this question, I’m sure you would answer it in a, if you were really honest and a unique, what do you need? What is the sharp point of need in your life tonight? What is the thing that’s desperate enough to give God an access into your life? What is the cry in your heart?

What is the cry in your heart about? I mentioned Floyd McClung this morning. Floyd McClung. Two years ago at, at the Mount Hermann Spiritual Leadership Conference preached a sermon on Jonah that drove most of us to our knees and many of us to our faces because in that sermon he talked about what God had done in his heart about the cities of the world, the fact that evangelicals have fled from the cities and build our little pristine chapels out in nice little white, middle class America and the cities have become ghettos and potholes of sins influence, and we fled from our responsibility as that young man spoke, you could see the towering effect of a vision, and that vision had put a knife edge need in his life, a need to be involved.

And it’s not surprising that he moved his family into a little two or three bedroom or two or three room apartment in the back of an old reconstructive hotel with a male brothel on one side and a female brothel on the other in, in the red light district in Amsterdam because he was connected to need.

But let me tell you something else. It is not surprising is it that many multitudes of people in the city of Amsterdam have come to know Christ in the last two or three years. There’s been a tremendous move. One of the things they do is they carry a coffin. They have a coffin that they’ve constructed, and it represents the death of that city.

They have never carried that coffin into a square or at any point in which people have not come to know Jesus Christ. What I’m saying to you is, what do you really need tonight? See, if there’s not a crying need, there can’t be a filling. If you’re not hungry, there can’t be a filling. If there’s not a thirst, there can’t be a satiation of thirst.

There’s nothing more wonderful than when you are really thirsty. I’m not talking about our kind of saying, “I’m thirsty,” and heading for the ritual. I mean really knowing thirst. Nothing more wonderful than that cool water. I mean, it’s marvelous, but do you see the connection? That marvelous experience of being filled with water comes because of the depth of the need.

If you had all the water pouring over you all the time, there wouldn’t be that keen sense of joy and fulfillment. Let me ask you to list something as we close tonight. What are those needs in your life? What are the things that are the crying out places in which God, the Holy Spirit has brought you to a point where there is like the man banging on the door and saying, “Look, I know you won’t give it to me because I’m a friend, but I’ve got a need. It’s real.”

I mean, I can paint a picture of it. That’s what the need is.

I remember in my own experience in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and I’ve shared that with you, and I’m not going to bore you by sharing it again, except to just summarize in a couple of statements. I grew up in a church in which everybody talked about the baptism in the spirit. It was the merit badge. You had to have it to be a board member, to be a member of the church or to be a minister, or whatever else.

And that never impressed me. I could have cared less. I went through youth camps in which they pulled you out of bed in the middle of the night and took you into the chapel. Some of you don’t know about those youth camps, but those were the youth camps in which everybody had to be saved and baptized in the spirit, or the evangelists didn’t feel satisfied.

And if it came to about Thursday night and everybody wasn’t saved and filled with the spirit, they literally dragged you out of bed. And I was always a prime candidate being dragged down to the chapel Thursday night to make sure that I wasn’t going to be the holdout. And I went through that for years, and I could have cared less.

I said, “It never impressed me. I saw a lot of phoniness. I saw a lot of emptiness. I saw a lot of stuff that didn’t make a lot of sense.” Until at the age of 15 and 1500 miles away from home in a very strange environment, and forced into a situation in which my own dreams had crumbled, there was suddenly a very vulnerable personal arena in Rick, in which Rick Howard’s dad or mom or church or doctrine or religion.

It was the necessity, the need, the cry of a personal involvement with the Holy Spirit, the comforter of God.

On that night, when I moved the chairs around in that English room one floor below my own dormitory, there wasn’t anyone there. Nobody had to tell me to hold on or let go, and nobody had to explain to me what I had to do to be in the rapture. The need was already in my spirit. I needed God in that revelation, and the manifestation was real, incredibly real. Even now, standing here more than 20 years later, the presence of the Holy Spirit is the most tangible, understandable, and personal relationship in my life. It’s often more real to me than human fellowship or interaction.

What Paul is trying to communicate to us in the fourth chapter is to look at our circumstances and recognize the needs in them. When we do, we can rejoice because those needs are the avenues through which God provides us with great supply. They’re the means of miraculous intervention and involvement in our spirits and lives.

Can you thank God for your needs tonight? Can you reach a place with the Lord where you can genuinely say, “Lord, I thank you for this moment, for this desperation and need that I feel, for this need that seems to surface in my life?” Now, I ask you to stand with me where you are in your pew for a moment.

The greatest tragedy I see in the church world, and I don’t know how to change it, is that the more we’re exposed to the things of God, the more common they become. Church begins as a miracle, then becomes a movement, erects a monument, and eventually becomes a mausoleum. It’s the trend of church history, but it’s also the trend of personal experience. We become rich and think we have all we need, but we’re really wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.

As we pray tonight, I ask you to bow your head and bring to the forefront of your mind for a moment, is there a spiritual need or cry in your life, not necessarily financial or material but in the area of spiritual growth and witness?

In the area of filling of the Spirit, the continual drawing of the Spirit, and I’m not talking about saying, “Oh yeah, well, we are all that way. We all have something we, you know, I’m sure I’m not all everything I should be.” I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about a need. I mean, it surfaces right there in the middle of your forehead.

And it’s something that says, “I need God in this dimension.” If it has to do with habit, if it has to do with sin, with deliverance, if it has to do with some other arena in your own experience, but it’s a need, would you just raise your hand and say, “it’s there and I understand what it is, and God knows, and I know it’s an edge.”

It’s a biting, it’s like hunger. It’s a little bit like hunger and thirst. Okay, you can put it down again. I want you to just reach out and take the hand of the person beside you. If my calculations are right, about 50% of you say, “Yes, there is such a need, real, real need.” And another 50% say, “I don’t experience that. There isn’t anything I feel that desperate about.” I want to pray with you first.

I want to say, “Lord, I ask you in the name of Jesus to help us come to grips, not with a whole lot of needs, but one thing, Father, that you want to speak to us about so that we can learn to be abased and to abound, to be hungry and full, to abound and to suffer need.”

And right now, Lord, I ask that in the name of Jesus, the spirit of content with the desperateness of a need will be grasped in our spirit, a great rejoicing thing. Lord, I thank you for this problem, this hunger, this thirst, this opportunity, this circumstance because it gives you, Father, an arena to do something miraculous in my life.

And for my friends who don’t experience that tonight, I ask you, Lord, in the next day or so, to start a wheel turning in their life. May their satisfaction be pulled away and may a deep-seated spiritual dissatisfaction take its place. Then, Lord, I want to pray for my brothers and sisters who raised their hand.

You know the area that you’re dealing with, Lord, deepen that sense of hunger, that sense of thirst until it becomes such a point that like the Cian woman, we won’t be discouraged or distraught, but we’ll come before you and give you the opportunity to move in our experience and in our life.

Lord, I thank you for that, and I thank you that you are the God who fulfills needs. Hallelujah! Where there is hunger, you delight to give food. Where there’s thirst, you delight to open the rivers of living water. Where there’s a desire for the Holy Spirit, you delight, Father, to fill us to overflowing with the presence of the Lord.

Lord, you delight to move into those arenas and to manifest your glory in the circumstances of our experience. I’ll praise you, Lord. I praise you. And then, Lord, I feel specifically that there are some here tonight who are in a real financial need, and they’re struggling with saying, “Can I really thank God for this? I mean, it’s desperate.”

Lord, I thank you for that need in that friend’s life because it’s going to be a means through which you’re going to prove yourself faithful and eliminate some fears and anxieties that this person has lived with for many years, wondering what would happen under certain circumstances. They’ve reached that point, Lord, and you are going to miraculously supply. Help them to rejoice in that moment and to say, “Lord, I thank you for the depth of the need because it’s going to be a great moment for you to supply.” And I praise you in advance for that. Oh, thank you, Lord. Thank you for your revelation in that area.

And so with others, Lord, just that moment, that place, that emptiness. Oh God, thank you for it, Lord. There are some friends in this auditorium who don’t really feel you moving in their life in the way that they want to. Lord, I ask that you’ll give them a sense of rejoicing in that and say, “Lord, thank you that there’s an emptiness because you’re going to fill it. Thank you that there’s a hunger because you’re going to supply. Thank you that there’s a thirst because you’re going to meet that need.” Oh, happy are we Lord, happy are we before you when we hunger, when we thirst, when we need because then, Lord, there’s that whole wonderful provision. You’re a God who loves to move into that place in your children’s lives.

Oh, I rejoice, Lord, I rejoice because I see the answer on the way for friends. And like that little boy whose life would never be the same because he was pushed right to the edge, and in that moment, Christ manifested his presence. Lord, I delight that you are doing that in some of our lives. You’re bringing us to the point where the reality of Christ’s presence will be manifested and will move from secondhand church experience to personal revelation, hallelujah, in which you’ll manifest yourself.

And the word will come from you, and the revelation will come from you, and the knowledge will come from you. Oh, praise you, Lord. Praise you. And I thank you for that one here tonight, Lord, who has a real issue of guidance in their life that absolutely must be settled. And probably for the first time in this lady’s life, there’s a sense in which she’s not going to be content unless it’s an absolute answer from you, Lord.

And there’s been that unique sense of desperateness. And I thank you, Lord, because you’re going to be so clear in guidance that it’s not only going to settle this moment, but it’s going to give a resource of confidence in you for the rest of this life. You are going to supply the answer, Lord, and you’re allowing her to reach that desperate point in which she says, “No other way, no human counsel. I want to know.” And Lord, in that moment, there’s going to be a marvelous supply. Oh, it’s going to be wonderful. I praise you for that, Lord, the revelation of yourself.

Father, some of us are like the disciples out in a storm. We started for the shore and we thought it was going to be all right, but the boat swamped. But it’s your way of revealing yourself to us in a way we’ve never seen before. Because you’re going to come walking on the water right to our boat. Oh, I thank you, Lord, that we needed the storm in order to have the manifestation. We needed the circumstance in order for it to happen in that dimension of grandeur for your glory to be revealed.

Oh, praise you, Father. Oh, I thank you for this sense of excitement, Lord, that you have given me tonight. I know it’s going to be true of us collectively as a body. I thank you, Lord, that you will cause us to walk into that needy place. And as we experience it, we know by faith that it is the vacuum that you’re going to fill with your glory, power, and manifest presence.

Now, Lord, give us the discipline to turn down human provision. Lord, help us not to rely on our own strength. Oh God, it would be so easy in a moment of delay like Abraham to foster unbelief. We don’t want that to happen, Lord. We believe we’ve heard from you, and in desperateness, we’re going to hold on until you provide, and it’s your supernatural answer to our situation.

Oh, hallelujah. Hallelujah. I praise you, Lord. I praise you, Lord. And some may go even to the point of the scaffold, but there will be a miraculous revelation of your provision. You are the Lord who heals, and you commission the answer, Lord, and we trust you. Hallelujah. You are the door of the sheepfold.

Nothing comes to us or goes forth from our life, but that it has passed through you, and we receive that sense of faith. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Lord, I pray. Hallelujah. Lord, I’m quickened to speak to someone here tonight who has an inordinate fear. You are a believer, but there’s an inordinate fear for your own safety, and I’m getting some very specific word about that in reference to even tonight. Just our little humor and illustration has quickened a fear in you, and it’s an inordinate fear.

There are some good fears, but this is an inordinate fear, and the enemy has used it as torment. That’s the word I keep getting, is torment. And I want you to know something, and I believe this is a lady that God is speaking to. That place can become in you, if you surrender it right now, that desperate fear and anxiety that is meant to become a place of practicing the Lord’s presence in the most real way that you’ve ever known.

And the Lord wants you to know his presence, to be so aware of it that it’s literal in your experience tonight. And he wants you to walk through the rooms of that place and acknowledge that he is there, acknowledge his presence, that his angels are centered around you. And the Lord wants to speak to you that even the circumstance of fear is going to be to His glory as you surrender it to him.

Lord, I pray for this person right now in a sense of really hearing from you that you’re going to manifest your glory to this person in a way that could never be before because the fear has given an opportunity for you to manifest your glory.

Not that you ordained the fear, this inordinate fear, but Lord, that need in that person’s life is going to become a means through which your glory is going to be manifested uniquely. And really, I praise you for that. Hallelujah. Oh, thank you Lord. Thank you Lord. Hallelujah. Now, Lord, as we come to separate one from another in this service tonight, I feel such an urgency, Father, in Your Spirit that this word, this understanding somehow become part of our experience.

But Lord, in the circumstance and in the need, we begin to rejoice and say, “Lord, thank You. I’m hungry. I am thirsting. I have a need.” But like the Son, Jesus, in the wilderness temptation, we know the Father’s already got the angels making bread. He has suffered us to hunger, but He will feed us with bread.

And we walk in that deliberate sense of waiting for His provision. Oh, hallelujah. And in that unique moment, to have Your glory manifest. And Lord, I thank You that that word can be assured in each of our experiences. Now go with us to our homes. Lord, You have quickened us. Tomorrow is a day some of our brothers and sisters face job situations that are so discouraging, Lord.

But we pray that in the midst of the need of that circumstance, there will be a revelation of Your glory. Lord, some of these young people face school situations of great trial, but Lord, that’s a place for You to greatly show Your arm. Bear Your arm, Lord, on behalf of Your people. And Lord, when we come to the Red Sea and the Egyptians are hot on our trail, help us to realize that that’s the greater place for You to manifest Your victory, Lord. The horses and the chariots of the enemy shall be drowned, and we shall march across dry shot.

And on the other side, we’ll sing a song of victory like we’ve never had before. Because Father, You have brought us to that place, and You are the God who is going to deliver, and the glory will be Yours. Lord, we praise You for that, and we glory in You, Lord. So bless this week. Give us a sense of that Lord, a sense of the presence of God walking with us in those areas and arenas of our lives.

We thank You in Jesus’ name, amen. If you turn around and just love somebody before you go and say, “God bless you, amen.”