Being Full
- Details
- Sunday Morning Service
- Pastor Jeremy Richards
- Copalis Community Church
- 04 January 2026
- Philippians 4:18-19
- Hebrews 10:5-10
Philippians 4, 1819. Philippians 4, 1819. I'm going to read it. Indeed I have all and abound. I am full having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you.
I a sweet smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. There's a scripture in Isaiah, it talks about individuals having clothes but cannot get warm, individuals having food but not able to get full. We, if any society has ever suffered from this dilemma, it is our current United States of America. Individuals have as much food as we can possibly eat and yet can't seem to get full.
So many clothes the western culture has that we are sending shiploads to Africa where they are piling them in huge dumps and still people don't have enough clothes and have to buy more. We suffer tremendously. We have more food and more clothes, but are the least full and clothed people that there may have ever been. The more naked and desolate. He counsels them to buy from him food and clothing that do not wear out.
I'm always amazed having been in Honduras for a little bit and existing on not enough food to keep your weight at maybe where it should be. And everyone just seemed to just get skinnier and skinnier and skinnier. But I was always amazed at missionaries from the United States and they would go thinking they're going to offer so much to these people overseas and they come back and you know, I went there to minister to these people, but they were ministering to me. I was just amazed. Here they had nothing and yet they were so much happier than Americans are.
They had nothing and they come up with a bright idea, let's get a truckload, a container of stuff and send it down to them.
There is issue an area of biblical Christianity that has to deal with being full. Paul had just been sent a gift by the individuals in Thessalonica or no, from Macedonia, sent through the individual named Epaphroditus. Remember, Epaphroditus had risked his life to bring the gift that that the church had set aside for Paul's need. He had become sick almost to the point of death and Paul therefore had sent him or was planning on sending him back. So Paul now has received this gift from Epaphroditus.
He is grateful for the gift, but he says in verse 16 or in verse 17, he is not seeking. His gratefulness is not for the gift itself, but the fruit that would abound to the individuals who gave the gift. This has brought Paul to a situation where in verse 18, he says, I have all and abound. I am full, having received from Aphroditus the things sent from you. There is a difference between being full, being stuffed, everyone tracking there.
There's a difference between being satisfied and having an excess. We probably coming out of holiday season, have at least have had some temptation to overeat anyone, maybe. And it might have been that some of us have fallen victim to a type of carnality leads us to eat more than we need, and we're left feeling that's not the biblical full we're talking about here. That's not Paul sitting in his easy chair in jail. Oh, my.
It's a turkey coma.
Everyone here, can someone get the remote? I can't even get up. This type of foal he's talking about is not the American foal. It's a different foal he's talking about. It is a satisfied foal.
It is one that leaves him feeling amazingly content in the situation that he's in, not so stuffed that he cannot move. He feels, I'm sure, that he may not have as much clothes and as you and I have, but he's content with what he has. I've been amazed at being in Honduras for a season, how the removal of things actually leads to a place of being more content, more satisfied in this fullness. There is no question that even on a physical level, that eating continually does not lead to satisfaction, that periods of hunger lead to a person being more satisfied than an individual who eats continually here. There is a way in which Paul is going to talk about his fullness that I believe is scripturally relevant for you and I, he says in verse 18, indeed, I have all and abound.
I am full. Look at just a couple little ideas in Psalms. In Psalms.
Oops, that's what we're reading. Psalm 16, it says, O Lord, you are the portion of my inheritance and my cup. You maintain my lot. My lines have fallen to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance.
In Psalm 23, that famous scripture, it says, yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my. My cup runs over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. In Psalm 1, again talking about the Godly person, it says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on that law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in due season whose leaf also shall not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper. There is absolutely in the life of Paul a learning to depend upon the provision of God that leads to satisfaction that a rich person cannot obtain.
There is something available to the Christian that is not obtainable to any individual. Though they have unlimited physical resources. It is a satisfaction, a deep desire fulfilled, a satisfaction in their soul that is not purchasable by any amount of finances. It is a condition that leaves a soul completely satisfied and at ease in every circumstance. It is a position where no matter what, if this is something that comes from the Lord, they can never be found in any position that is beyond the reach of the resources that God has for them.
People die and never get to experience this. They have put their trust in untrustworthy resources. Their resources are corroded, they're moth eaten. They are going to fade quickly like a shadow, like the mist, right before the sun hits it. They glory is for a season, but after that it is destroyed.
There is the possibility for you and I to enter into a soul filled satisfaction by learning to trust in God. Paul says, I have all and abound. I am full. It is obed. Can you bring me that water down there?
Jesus says, be anxious for nothing. You and I, if we've lived on this life and had to deal with any anxieties, maybe have at times struggled with this kind of soul cancer that eats us up from the inside. Has anyone experienced that before? It's no way to live your life. But there is a spirit filled satisfaction that comes to individuals in any kind of situation they might find themselves in.
He says, indeed, I have all and abound. I am full in looking at this and just adding just a little bit to it. If we look at physical hunger and cold and the benefit that comes from eating, we have to recognize that we look through scripture, that Christ brings us to areas or times in which it feels like we are developing a hunger. Right? What's the scripture said that better is a little where love is than a fatted calf with hatred.
At times Christ brings us to situations that might be lean so that we might experience the fullness of his provision. We have to look. Paul says here that he has learned both to be full and to and to be hungry. That both are necessary parts of a spiritual experience. That the Fullness is important, yes, but also the lack is also important.
We see Jesus ministry started off with a period of 40 days of fasting.
In those time he learned to be content resting upon God's word and obedience to God. We see that there are also times where he enjoyed the fullness of food. He was called a friend of wine beggars, gluttons and tax collectors and sinners that he enjoyed food. There were times where he was learned to be content with excess and times with little. When he met the Samaritan woman by the well when he was hungry and thirsty, his disciples came back and told him when they asked if he wanted food, he told them that I have food that you don't know about.
My food is to do the will of him who sent me. That our satisfaction comes from participating in God in his ministry here at times he leads us to times of want. But if we trust him as a person, we have to recognize that those periods of want are designed for satisfaction. If we let our kids snack all day long, it's amazing, you know, being around my family and other families and you know, people come to eat or see our kids at times and you try to get them to eat dinner, eat your vegetables, eat your meat, why won't you eat? Stuff it in your face myself then, you know, why won't you eat?
Well, if we just didn't give them so many snacks, they might be hungry at dinner time, right? They might eat those that nourishing food rather than all the junk we stuff in them between meals. In a similar way, Christ leads us to a place sometimes of lack what appears to be want that he might satisfy us by his provision that he reaches us in those places. I would just like to say that the full person who never trusts in God can never fully have the satisfaction of those individuals who will wait on the Lord for their sustenance. I hope in this that we can recognize that Paul had something that was better than what just normal Americans have.
Learning to trust in the Lord and wait. In his provision it says, indeed I have all and abound, I am full having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you. I'm going to go to the next verse, the next part of the verse. It says, a sweet smelling aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. This gift that Epaphroditus was able to bring from the people in Thessalonica, this was a sweet smelling offering to the Lord.
If you remember in Leviticus, these offerings were brought to the altar and they're Burned on the altar. They were oil and flour and certain parts of animals, mostly the fat, the fatty portions of that animal. And these things were put together onto the flaming fire and burned. We raise cows and sometimes those cows are fatty and we love the rib steaks. And so we put those things on the barbecue and the fat begins to drip down onto the barbecue and lights the whole thing on fire and then they burn up real fast, right?
And so this is a picture of this altar, these fatty pieces, the fat that covers the kidney. Has anyone ever seen that? It's like three or in a cow it's like three or four pounds of fat. And when you heat that fat up, it becomes oil. And when the oil catches fire, it burns with heat.
And so you have this fat and oil and flour and incense and the drink offerings all coming up before the Lord and a pleasing smell to God. There was a sacrifice associated with that, that you took an animal and if it were a sin offering, you placed your hand upon that head and they would cut the throat of that and pour the lifeblood at the base of the altar and then anoint the, the altar with that blood is a horrendously moving experience. To see an animal that was so worthwhile just slaughtered and then burnt in that way. So this is that sacrifice. Well, there is a way to look at sacrifice.
So there is a type of sacrifice which is just a loss, that it hurts just because you lose something, just because something of yours was killed or something, a loss. But there's a different, that is the Old Testament view of sacrifice just a loss, God, your loss is God's gain. But there's a different kind of New Testament sacrifice. In Hebrews chapter 10. We're going to look at that just for a minute.
What is the kind of sacrifice that God is pleased with? Is he pleased with your sacrifice just because you lost something, just because you gave it up? Or is there something else associated with this sacrifice and it being a sweet smelling savor aroma to God? If you make a sacrifice, my hope is that God would be pleased with your sacrifice.
In the prophets we see that God was not pleased with the sacrifice of Israel. They became a stench to him. He said, I despise your meetings. Your sacrifices are abhorrent to me. We want, if we're to make a sacrifice, if it's our goal, to bring something to God whereby it offers up to him a sweet smelling savor.
We need to understand, understand this idea here. So in chapter 10 of Hebrews verse 5, therefore, when he came into the world he said, sacrifice and offering. You did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. So this idea of just losing something, of something just hurting you, of just a pain being caused to you, this is not what God desires. He doesn't want to just suck blood out of you.
He just doesn't want to make it painful to you. He doesn't just want to hurt you or make you poor. That's not what pleases God. He's looking for a body. A body, okay?
Verse 6. In burnt offering and sacrifices for sin, you had no pleasure. These things, just the killing of pleasure. Hundreds of thousands of animals whereby the blood became so thick in the temple that it had to run out a special channel down through the Temple Mount and exit out in a gush into the Kidron Valley into a. I can't remember. The creek that goes down that creek became blood.
That creek dried up and people scraped up that blood and sold it to farmers. There was so much blood. He said, I was not satisfied. I had no pleasure in just the death of stuff. There's something else he says in verse seven.
Then I said, behold, I have come in the volume of the book. It is written to do your will, O God. It is not the loss of things that is an acceptable sacrifice. The acceptable sacrifice is joining with the Lord in what he is doing. It's not enough just to throw your money in a pit and think that God is accepted.
No, he wants you to join with him and that joining with him is an acceptable sacrifice to him. Verse 8. Previously saying, sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings and offerings for sin. You did not desire nor had pleasure in them which are offered according. According to the law.
Verse 9. Then he said, behold, I have come to do your will, O God. He takes away the first that he may establish the second. By that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.
My feeling is, if you're anything like in me, there is a temptation to view God's acceptance of our sacrifice based on how much we lost. We see that that is untrue in the areas where God shows us what he is pleased in. He was pleased with the widow giving one pence rather than the great gifts of the many. They lost a lot, but she joined with God in his purposes. We're going to go back to Philippians.
Finish off here, Okay? In the same verse, chapter four, verse 18. Having received from Epaphroditus the things sent from you, a sweet smelling aroma, acceptable sacrifice, well pleasing to God. Before we move on my hope for you as an individual is number one to recognize that God provides for your needs. That if you are a child of God, if you have been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ and have been adopted into God's family by the deposit of the Holy Spirit, he has welcomed you into his family.
He has put his seal upon you and purposes in your heart. Never to let anything overcome you, to always provide for you, to take you as his child and treat you as such. In that manner you are able as an individual to rest in those promises, to wait for them. Though it seems like the the ground is dry. It may be like those 17 year flowers or the ones that only come up here and then.
But his purposes cannot be delayed. They will come out, it will happen, he will provide and then that if you want to join with God, that sacrifice comes about by recognizing his plans for people and to take part in it. So oftentimes, like we talked about in Sunday school this morning, it is presented to us as a need that we encounter that we as Christians are called to meet urgent needs. That Jesus says that what we did for the least of them were done for Himself. That we are to take those opportunities to express Christ's love to join with God by by meeting the needs of the people around us.
That is a real sacrifice. It may be small, it may not be as much as what other people give, but that is the thing which pleases the Heavenly Father when you have compassion on individuals that he is having compassion on. If we join in that ministry. The promise to us in verse 19 this is not necessarily saying that God will provide for all of your wants. This is saying that those individuals who purposely join with Christ in His ministry have an absolute rock solid foundation that they can depend on.
And my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. There is an absolute, unequivocally pointed promise to believers who will trust in the Father and join with Jesus in His work. It is saying that there is no physical limitations that can prevent God's purposes in your life. Absolutely. There is no need to reach down and scrounge from the resources of the world when the Heavenly Father is waiting to provide for your needs.
There is no need to go places and do things when the Holy Spirit through the will of God is going to provide for your needs. Verse 19 One more time and my God shall supply all of your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. That when that happens, is the fullness that Paul was talking about in jail. Maligned hurt, beaten and still able to thank God because God's hand reaches him even there and he is full. He is satisfied.
He is absolutely content.
We're going to, I'm going to close. I would like to encourage everyone in this that God is going to present opportunities this week to you. He's going to open doors for ministry. Your carnal nature is going to reject them, it's going to hate them, it's going to fight against them, it's going to run from them. But it is an open door to join in a ministry, to take part in a sacrifice that is pleasing to God.
And my hope and my prayer is that the reason you are here is because you want to join with God, because that your purpose, that you have found that the things of this world have really no lasting value and you're wanting something more. Then take courage, man up, they hurt. Open the door and provide for the need of somebody. Take a different route, go a different way. There's enough unsatisfied people in America already.
There's enough people who can't get full. There's enough people still clothed. It's time to open the doors of your heart and reach out to people who God brings your way, saying, walk with me in this path. I'm going to provide everything you need. I'm going to be your resources, I'm going to be your hope.
I'm going to be all there is to be. And some of us, God willing, this week will say yes, Lord. All we've got to do is say yes. You are not responsible for anything else than to look up your eyes to that place where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God and say yes. That's it.
Nothing more. Just yes. Let's pray, Father. Thank youk, Lord. Though we're such rebellious children, Lord, though we're such carnal people, Lord, though we want just to sit and be at ease and at rest, though we're looking for the path of Sodom, though we want to head that place in our carnality, Father, give us courage this week to say yes, Lord.
To offer up to heaven a sweet smelling incense, a beauty and a benefit, Lord. One that resembles that ministry of Jesus Christ to undeserving creatures like you and I, Lord, we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.