To Live is Christ

In this message from Philippians 1:19–26, Justin shares what it truly means to say, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Paul’s hope wasn’t that everything would work out the way he wanted. His hope was that Jesus would be made much of, no matter what happened.

When our hope is in Jesus, it changes the way we face our fears, our future, and whatever life brings our way.

harbourcc.org 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Good morning, everybody. If you guys have your Bibles with you, you can go ahead and get those out or turn to this on your devices. We are going to be working our way through Philippians chapter one, still as part of our series, a work in progress. And we're going to be picking up in verse 19 today and making our way through verse 26. So if you're you're scrolling in the Bible app, you can kind of make your way down there near verse 19. If you weren't here last week or you didn't get a chance to listen to Matt's message, which you can do now, by the way, it is uh officially up and out on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, things like that. So if you miss a week and you do want to follow along with us, you can always go and find the messages there. Now we'll try to get those up uh as quickly as possible after Sunday from now on. I would encourage you this week, if you weren't uh around last week to catch that message, to go back and listen to it because other than some jabs at me, Matt actually preached a pretty decent message. So uh, you know, you should uh you should go back and check that one out. He really did uh he did a great job. He was in verses 12 through 18, which is where Paul talks a little bit about his situation to the church in Philippi, and he explains to them that what had happened to him, which was that he had been placed under house arrest in Rome. He'd been shackled to a guard, and that while he was in prison, these these other people were stepping in, they were kind of trying to advance their own position, they were kind of stepping in and preaching as well, and really advocating for their own popularity or their own kingdom uh in some ways. But while they were doing that, they were still preaching Jesus. They were still advancing the gospel. And so Paul's response to all these things that were going on in his life was basically to say, look, who cares? Jesus is being proclaimed, the gospel is advancing, and so because of that, he actually was able to rejoice while he was under arrest. That's what he says in verse 18, where he says, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. And so that was kind of the ending of the section that we were in last week, and we're picking up today, kind of right after this, in verse 19. And so I wanted you to kind of have that context as we begin this today. So follow along with me in verses 19 through 26. Paul says, Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and through the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I'm hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. Now, I want you to take a moment and consider the oddness of what we just read. This is a fairly famous Bible passage, and so a lot of us in the room are probably familiar with this, and I think when we we read it, it it kind of we're just used to it. Maybe for some of you, if you haven't been around church or much, this did stand out a little bit more to you, but we literally just read some some very interesting words, right? Most of us facing possible execution wouldn't be sitting around deliberating about which way we wanted that to go. Right. I I think most of us kind of have a particular direction that we'd be advocating for in that. And yet Paul is under house arrest. He's awaiting trial that may possibly end up in his execution for doing nothing other than preaching the gospel and being faithful to God. And he says, I'm rejoicing. I'm good. I don't think most people in Paul's situation would see it the way that he did. Most people sitting in prison aren't rejoicing. And yet that was Paul in this moment, right? I don't know that I would react that way. And I and I assume most of you might not as well. Especially if we were there in prison, kind of in that same sense that we felt like we were innocent. We we probably wouldn't have that attitude. Most Americans and most American Christians in that situation would probably be first tempted rather than to rejoice, to rail against the injustice of the situation that they were in. And yet that's not what Paul does. Right? Paul is focused on the gospel and God's kingdom. And I and I would say most of us are for God's kingdom. We're for the gospel being advanced. But I think if we were honest and we found ourselves in Paul's situation, we would hate it. We wouldn't be rejoicing the way that he was. We would want out of it. Right? We we live in a culture, we've kind of been formed and shaped or grown up in a culture, for most of us in the room, I assume, that really trains us to believe that we should be comfortable, we should be happy and well taken care of and provided for. And so we kind of feel entitled to God's help when those things aren't present in our life. We feel like they need to be fixed. And I want you to think about that as we read through this and we see Paul's perspective in the midst of the situation he was in. Take a look again at verse 19 where he says, Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. Now, here's here's what I think can happen. That ingrained entitlement that we often have in us for comfort or assuming that everything in life should go right can make us assume that what Paul is saying here is that I'm gonna be delivered. I'm going to get out of prison. Right? We we assume that the answer is that God is going to fix things. And we might be prone to believe that that's why Paul is confident here. That's why Paul is okay, even as his circumstances are fairly dire, right? And he's in prison awaiting execution, he can rejoice because he's just confident that God's gonna fix it. God's gonna show up and take care of him, right? The Philippians are gonna pray, God's gonna show up, the circumstances are gonna change, everything's gonna be better, and so Paul's good to go. He's just gotta have faith for it. And I think a lot of times we view our circumstances that same way. That, you know, even though it might not be prison for us, whatever we might be facing in life, we tend to develop this kind of thinking that we just need to have the same kind of big faith that Paul had or these early Christians had. And then God's gonna show up and he's gonna work out our circumstances. And here's the thing, church, that kind of thinking is rampant. And it sounds spiritual, it feels good, it feels like a faithful thing to trust God to show up in those circumstances and to fix it, but it can be so dangerous. And here's why it's not because it's egregiously wrong, it's because it's so close to being right, but not quite. You see, there's nothing wrong with big faith and hoping for God to show up and to show out in certain situations. It can be a great thing, but the question is what's the goal or what's the focus of our faith in those moments? You see, one of the things I think that we have to begin to understand as we mature in our faith is that God often has a different good than we do in mind. Right? God defines good differently than we do sometimes. Look at what Paul says in the next verse in verse 20. He says, This will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will get out of prison. Nope. He says that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with fur full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored. Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. You see, Paul's definition of deliverance, the object of his hope or the focus of his faith is a little bit different than I think most of us would have it. See, most of us sitting in that Roman prison awaiting trial and worried about what would happen to us, we'd be hoping and praying to get out. But what Paul cares about is that Christ would be honored. Even if he died. I mean, talk about a different mindset. It's a different mindset than what I have, and what I think most Christians have. See, Paul wasn't ultimately concerned with being rescued from prison. He he wasn't ultimately concerned with living a long and comfortable life, or his career succeeding, or making sure that you know he got to see his finances and his family do well. Paul was ultimately concerned with Christ and Christ being honored. That was what Paul cared about. That was what his deliverance was. You see, he was more concerned with dishonoring God than he was about death. He would rather be rescued from failing to honor Christ than he would be rescued from prison. And this wasn't a hypothetical thing for Paul. You see, church tradition tells us that in this particular instance where Paul was under house arrest in Rome, he did actually end up being released. But just a few years later, Paul found himself back in Rome, in prison again, this time not in house arrest, but in a true Roman dungeon. And according to church tradition, that time he was beheaded. It wasn't a hypothetical thing for Paul. But in both of those cases, whether in the case where he was released the first time or the case where he was killed the second time, Paul was delivered. Paul got the object of his faith because his faith wasn't in rescue from prison or rescue from death. His faith was in Christ and in honoring him, and in both instances he did. You see, the the goal or the focus of Paul's faith, again, wasn't on being released from prison or safety or comfort or health. The goal or the focus of Paul's faith was just Jesus. It was him. It was all him. Look back at verse 20 one more time. I want you to see what he said here. He says that no matter what happens, Christ will be honored in my body. We we don't necessarily talk about honor in our culture that much anymore. Other cultures, that's a bigger thing. And in your particular Bible translation, it might say exalted or Christ would be magnified in my body. The word in Greek there is actually a word megaluno, which I just think is a cool word. It sounds fun to say to me, but uh, it means to make large, to make great, or to cause something to be seen as great, to help somebody understand that and to view it as such. And I love this word because hopefully by now you've heard either Matt or I or you've seen one of our posts where we say this language that we want to make much of Jesus. And that's this word. That's what that's this idea that we want to see Christ be honored, magnified, exalted, made much of in our lives, in our church, in this island. And so hopefully you've heard us use that language by now because that's what Paul wanted too. That's what he wanted to see in his life, whether he lived or he died, that was his primary concern. And I think it's meant to be our primary concern too. That one way or another, his life and our lives would be used for God and for his kingdom. That's what our foot faith is meant to be focused on. That's what our lives are meant to be about. That's where we can find hope from. That's what allowed Paul to rejoice regardless of his circumstances, because nothing could derail that. You see, when we find ourselves in these places in our life of needing deliverance, like Paul did. Again, maybe it's not from prison, but we have our own situations in life. But I think what happens is that too often we find ourselves having the wrong understanding of what we really need. We have the wrong understanding of the deliverance that we need from God. Our faith can get focused on the wrong thing. You see, our culture, like I said earlier, it really trains us to focus on happiness and comfort and health and wealth and safety. And so when we end up in circumstances in our life where those things aren't going the way that we want them to, or there's something detrimental to those things, we immediately jump to expecting God to show up and to fix it. And we think that is the need in the moment. And we love the stories of God showing up in those times and fixing it and doing what we asked for, you know, of getting what we hoped for or the answer to our prayer. And those moments are great, right? There's nothing wrong in and of itself in asking for those things and seeing God show up. But I think inadvertently, what can happen in us, in our culture, and in this kind of way of thinking, is that we make the miracle or the answer to the prayer the main attraction. But church, this is a principle or a concept that's so important for us to understand is that faith in those situations is the real miracle. Regardless of what happens. You see, we are quick to celebrate the answered prayer or the miracle, but God celebrates faith. Faith that's there, whether the miracle happens or not. Whether our circumstances change the way we want them to or not. And I think God calls us to have a faith that shifts from a focus on the answered prayer or the miracle or getting the circumstance that we want, to a faith that shifts to focusing on making much of Jesus regardless of the circumstances. A faith that's focused on him no matter what happens. That's the kind of faith that I can say with Paul in verse 21 for to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. You see, the outcome in those moments isn't the focus for Paul. He was. Paul's purpose and his prize was Jesus. Everything about his life was for Christ, knowing him, serving him, loving him, becoming like him. Paul placed Christ at the top of his priorities, and everything else in his life was so secondary to that, or so eclipsed by that, that Paul even saw his death as another tool for God to use towards his kingdom. You see, everything in his life was an opportunity for the gospel. That was the driving force in him. And so prison and death, they may not have been great for Paul's personal prospects or his pride or his career or his kingdom, but they did nothing to stop the advance of God's kingdom. And so, because of that, because Paul still had the ability to serve Christ and others, that's how he saw his circumstances. That's how he could rejoice in the moment. He saw his life as being all for Jesus. And church, I'll be honest with you, I think this is one of the hardest passages that I've ever had to prepare to teach. Because here's the thing: I my my speaking style, I like to be a teacher. I like to walk through and explain these things, but I don't know that there's any way to explain this kind of attitude for us. I mean, we can walk through these verses, we can see what Paul had to say, but there's no way of explaining how to orient your life towards Christ this way. Right? To have this kind of, you know, faith in us is really something that the Holy Spirit has to bring about in us. It's a work of God to develop that kind of fortitude and that kind of dedication and just all-encompassing surrender to Christ is something that has to happen in us through the work of God. And I don't mean to beat us up about this, but I think the reality is most of us as American Christians are living a faith that's a far cry from Paul's perspective here. We don't necessarily walk the same kind or the same way that Paul walked in this kind of dedication to God. You know, we might understand the dying is gain part if we've been around church and we understand heaven, and we think, okay, yeah, if we die, I go to heaven, that's great. But I think if all of us were to really sit and reflect and to answer that question or to fill in the blank for me to live is I don't know that we can all answer Christ without hesitation, or at least with the same kind of conviction that Paul could. I certainly know I can't. I mean, maybe sometimes there are times in my life where I get close to it or I feel particularly fired up about what God is doing, and I'm passionate about my relationship with Jesus. But in my own life, most of the time I would say the closest I probably get to this is that for me to live is Christ plus. For me to live is Christ plus being comfortable and doing all right. For me to live is Christ plus my finances being in a place where I don't have to worry about much in life. For me to live is Christ plus my family, my kids being healthy, everybody doing pretty well. And here's the thing, church, it's not that there's anything wrong with those things. All right, I'll talk about that more in a second, but I want you to think for a moment about your own life. If you were to fill in the blank, for me to live is what are you living for? What's your purpose? What's the driving force behind what you do? What motivates you in life? You know, as you sit and think about it, it might be one of those things that I mentioned, or one of these things, your career. Your family, your children, financial success, or freedom, comfort, pleasure, relaxation, excitement. Right? Maybe if you're one of our students in high school for you, maybe right now it's it's friends having fun or football and some other sport. You see, the scary thing is that by a lot of standards, those aren't bad answers, right? They're good answers. A lot of those are good things. But when we understand what Paul is saying here and the kind of perspective that he had, then we have to understand that anything other than Christ isn't the best answer. And church, there are more options for us to fill in that blank today than ever. There are a lot of things that can pull us away or distract us from Christ or be added to Christ to take us away from the kind of devotion and faith that Paul had and that God calls us to. See, there was an evangelist in the 1800s by the name D. Al Moody, I think Matt has probably uh quoted him before too. But he said this: he said that our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things that don't really matter. And church, there are a lot of American Christians today living lives succeeding at things that don't really matter. And that doesn't mean we throw our jobs out or that financial success isn't a good thing or anything like that, but we have to make sure that we keep the main thing the main thing. And for Paul, it was so clear, right? It was so obvious. He had this purpose that was obvious and definite and so profound that it permeated everything that he said and did in his life. And it gave him hope in the darkest moments of his life, even when he was in prison and about to die. And like I said earlier, we may not be in fear of prison, but we so often live in fear of these other areas of our life, of losing some of those things that I talked about earlier that become the place. Pluses in our answer, right? The Christ plus finances or health or relationships or the million other things. And Paul lived a life that was set free from those fears, not because he was certain they wouldn't come to pass, but because he was so focused on the only thing that mattered was whether Christ was magnified in his life or not, that those things faded away. And here's why this is so powerful. You see, when everything about your life becomes oriented towards Christ, when it becomes about him, then anything and everything in your life is an opportunity for Jesus to be exalted and for the gospel to be advanced. You see, the diagnosis that you would never have wanted for you or a loved one. It becomes an opportunity to share your hope in Jesus with the doctors and the nurses, the way that Paul shared his hope in Jesus with the guard he was chapeled to. Your prayers in those moments for healing aren't just for healing, but they become God, I want you to change this, of course. But more than anything, would you make much of Jesus through me in it? You know, the financial struggle or the job loss that we might go through. Of course, it's hard, but it it becomes an opportunity to forge your trust and your dependence on God's provision. You know, the suffering through pain, whether that's physical or emotional or whatever hardships we might go through, if we keep our faith and our trust and our love for God in that, it becomes an opportunity to build our reward and eternity in the new heaven and the new earth. And unfortunately for most people though, to live, right, is something other than Christ. It's ourselves. It's one of those million other answers, and to die is to lose. It's game over. But for the Christian, the amazing thing is that everything in life, even the worst things that we can imagine, are redeemed towards our ultimate focus and our goal. If we're living the kind of faith that Paul has here, and dying just seals the deal. It gets us the things that we have believed for and longed for. And I want you to hear this morning that some of you have walked through some incredibly hard things or some hard seasons in life. And even if those things didn't work out the way that you hoped they would, if God didn't show up and answer the prayer, provide the miracle that you hoped for, it wasn't worthless. Even Jesus prayed for God to show up and didn't see him answer the way he hoped for. We just need the kind of faith that lives in light of that, that sees everything in our lives for Jesus. The way that Paul did. And so as we get ready to wrap up, I I want to ask this question of really how do we get there? You know, like I said earlier, I don't think this is something that can just be conjured up or that I can explain, you know, give you three steps, and here you go. You you're gonna live this kind of life that Paul had. Ultimately, it's something that the Holy Spirit has to bring about in us. But I do think there are some important things that we can learn in in these uh these final verses in 22 through 26 as we kind of look at what Paul has to say here. He says, if I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I'm hard pressed between the two, which again, just take a moment. He's talking about whether he wants to live or die here. All right, he's pretty serious about this stuff. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. Now, these few things that I want to pull out of here, honestly, I think each of them could be their own message about how Paul was able to make everything in his life about Jesus, but we don't exactly have time for that. So I'm gonna hit these fairly quickly. But I think as we look through these verses, one of the things that stands out to me is this it's that Paul loved Jesus. Right? He says, My desire is to go and be with Jesus because that's the best thing that could happen. Right? There's nothing better than that. Paul had encountered Jesus in a way that he had seen his glory and it had changed him. Right? He experienced Jesus' love in a way that it eclipsed everything else in his life. It was that big, it was that incredible to Paul. You know, the second thing I see here is that Paul loved people. Right? He loved the Philippians. Even sitting in prison writing this letter, he viewed his life as an opportunity to serve them for this fruitful labor for their progress and their joy in the faith. Right? That's what Paul was thinking about. As he's sitting in prison, he's thinking about the Philippians. Last but not least, I think Paul understood eternity. All right, if you're a note taker, I know those weren't on the screens, but Paul loved Jesus. He loved people and he understood eternity. You see, if Paul lived, he saw it as an opportunity to continue working and serving the Philippians and building his reward for eternity. That's the fruitful labor there. And if he died, he got to get the reward he was working towards. And I want to be clear here, though the the reward there is it wasn't that he was earning his salvation, as we've talked earlier, uh, you know, before the gospel is that we are saved as a grace or as a gift through faith, by God's grace, right? But that out of that God has good works prepared for us that he wants to reward us for. And so Paul understood that he was working towards it, he was pressing forward for the prize. You know, another man who kind of understood this and who understood eternity was a guy named Jim Elliott, which uh hopefully some of you have heard of before. He was uh a missionary in the 1950s, and when he was 28, he went to Ecuador to to go and to share the gospel with a tribe in the Amazon rainforest of uh again, Ecuador. I think I said that already, but uh he ultimately ended up being killed by the tribe as he went to share the gospel. And uh his journal was kind of shared years later, and uh before he had died, he'd written in his journal these words. He said, He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. You see, Jim Elliott understood eternity. Paul understood eternity. They were men that had a purpose. They were men who could say, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. And so, church, as a group and as individuals, what's our answer? What's your answer to that question today, to live is you know, hopefully you've you've heard by now or you've picked up on this that in some way, shape, or form, I think the answer should be to do these things. It's to love God and to love people and to lead other people to do that too. Right? It's relational discipleship. It's making disciples who make disciples who make much of Jesus. This is why you and I are alive. It's to give God glory, to give our heavenly Father glory by growing in our relationship with Jesus and helping other people to progress in their relationship with Jesus too. And I want you to hear this morning, if all of this sounds completely foreign to you, if you hear this idea of our our lives are meant to be all about Jesus, everything's for him, to live is Christ, and you find yourself just thinking that I don't know that I understand that. Why would I want my life to revive revolve around God that much? That seems maybe a little extreme. Or maybe you just think, I'm just not there, I don't have that kind of faith. And I want you to hear your next step isn't trying harder. It's not something that we're meant to go out and we're meant to manufacture this in our life, right? It's something that the Holy Spirit has to do. And I think if you find yourself in that situation, your next step might just be meeting the Jesus that Paul met or seeing him a little more clearly. Because when you start to understand or see who Jesus really is, when you start to get a glimpse of his glory and his majesty and how incredible God really is, and you understand his love and his grace and that glory, then Paul's perspective starts to make a little more sense. He is worthy of that kind of faith. He is worthy of our lives being lived for him. We just have to see him. And then he starts to do that work in us. You know, for those of us who do know him, right, we can so often get distracted or pulled away. Maybe we've seen those glimpses of God's glory. We've had those moments in our life where we've really felt the Holy Spirit stir us up with that kind of conviction and surrender to him. But then, you know, the cares of life come about and we kind of go back to our routines and things, and it's easy to drift from that. And so maybe the prayer today for most of us is just this is that Jesus, would you make this more true of us? Would you help us in our unbelief to have more belief, more faith in you, to grasp your glory better? And so would you just help us to take a step closer to you? Because I don't know about you, but I I don't want to just say these words to live as Christ. I I I don't want to just understand it. I want to live it. And I want you to live it. I want to see our church live it out in this community to be a people who live for Christ with all of our time, all of our resources, all of our energy and devotion directed towards him and to see what he might do with it. And I don't know what that looks like. I don't know how to do that day in and day out, but I do know that if we love Jesus, if we love each other, if we understand eternity and we press into him, praying for each other, sharpening one another to do that, then we'll hopefully take some steps closer to it. And that we might be able to say with Christ or with Paul, to live is Christ and to die is gain. So, Father, this morning I just ask that you would help us with that. Father, as we talk about this incredible faith that Paul had and that so many of your people before us have had, God, would you would you help bring that about in our lives, God? I I don't want anybody here to walk away with the the sense that their faith isn't good enough, God, because you can take faith as small as a mustard seed and you can work miracles from it, God. But would you just help us to make sure our the focus of our faith is on you? Father, in this world just full of distractions, would you help us to just keep our eyes fixed on you and on you alone? God, I pray for those of us that we love you and we're following you and we want you, but there are other areas of our hearts that have drifted to other places, the the places where there are pluses in our lives that have crept in alongside you, God. Would you would you help work those things out in our life, God? Would you give us the kind of focus that Paul had on you, that Jesus had as he went to the cross, that our one desire is to honor you, to obey you, to love you. And would we would we have the strength to do that, God? Would you walk alongside us and empower us for that? Father, I know there are going to be hard things that you call each and every one of us to individually here and as a church, God. And I just pray that we would have the willingness and the strength and the focus on you to press into those areas, God, to see you walk with us. And God, sometimes do what we expect and do amazing things, and other times show up in different ways, God. But we know that in all of it you are working for our good and for your glory. And God, that's what we want to see. I pray our hearts would be oriented towards wanting to see your glory and knowing that you don't waste anything in our lives if it's towards that aim. So, God, be with us. Meet us where we are, lead us towards you. Help us to just grasp a little more of you every single day. We ask that in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Stop playing a dog. Broken beautiful Where the shirt of the cat spring. Where the heart put it off! There's no way, shut the trash! Grace on Grace, good match. There's no way, shut the heart. No way, shut the heart.