SPEAKER_00: Team and good morning.
SPEAKER_00: You are out there.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that I enjoy as we sit in front is we get to hear you singing behind us.
SPEAKER_00: It's even better when you're up here looking out.
SPEAKER_00: The people of God worshiping together is beautiful indeed.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me ask you to turn, if you would, please, to the book of Philippians, not the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: I have finished up the first three chapters in Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't finish Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: That would be require going all the way to chapter 50, and we don't have time for that.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, in a couple of months, we will be leaving this church, which has become incredibly dear to us, as God has brought Jason, Pastor Jason, and the end of June, the 25th of June, we're going to have an installation service for Jason.
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to be a significant time as we kind of put a mile marker there in the journey of the history of this church.
SPEAKER_00: Our purpose for coming here two years ago was to leave.
SPEAKER_00: In the sense of we came and we were trying to prepare the way for ended up being Jason, and it's been a great privilege.
SPEAKER_00: But that does mean that we will fade away as soon as Jason gets on scene.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll stay in touch, we'll stay in touch with many of you, we'll stay in touch with Jason.
SPEAKER_00: We'll leave part of our heart here.
SPEAKER_00: Not all of it, but part of our heart.
SPEAKER_00: So that means there's not a lot more time for me as I open the word.
SPEAKER_00: We've only got about seven weeks yet, or seven weekends.
SPEAKER_00: And one of those, I guess we have eight.
SPEAKER_00: One of those will be the installation service.
SPEAKER_00: The one before that will be a sharing service as we reflect on what God is teaching us and how we're trusting Him as we move forward.
SPEAKER_00: So I've only got about six more opportunities to have this great privilege of opening up God's Word with you.
SPEAKER_00: And I got thinking, what would I do with these weeks and these messages?
SPEAKER_00: And I thought seriously, and I came to the idea of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I were to really deal with Philippians the way I would like to, it would take about five and a half or six months, and that ain't going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: So what I've done is I've selected some of my favorite passages in the book of Philippians, assuming, of course, that my favorite passages would be your favorite passages as well.
SPEAKER_00: It's probably not a correct assumption, but so anyway, we're we're beginning today a series of favorites in Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you to turn to Philippians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be looking at verses 19 through 26.
SPEAKER_00: We'll probably only really get 19 to 24.
SPEAKER_00: But I want to put this in its context because we're jumping into the middle of something that Paul is saying that has to do with his own personal experience.
SPEAKER_00: So follow along as I read Philippians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: We'll begin at verse 12, and then in a moment jump to verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul speaking to us, and I believe this is page 980 in the Pew Bible.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't happen to have a Bible with you, grab one from the Pew.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's happened to Paul is that he's been imprisoned.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting thought.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Me being imprisoned is a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's advanced the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: Paul looks at his circumstances and he has a certain perspective on his current circumstances in light of what he knows about God and God's ways.
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to know that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So that it has become known, it, the gospel, has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest, that my chains are for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The word in the ESV is imprisonment.
SPEAKER_00: It's literally the word chains or fetters.
SPEAKER_00: My fetters, my chains, being chained to a praetorian guard, that these imprisonment, these chains are all about Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They're for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Again, same idea.
SPEAKER_00: He takes his situation, his experiences, and he puts it in the context of what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: So that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to all the rest that my chains are for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord, by my chains, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
SPEAKER_00: Now we'll jump then down to verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, the middle of verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Your Bible probably is broken up into paragraphs, and you'll find this is one of the classic examples of where the verse divisions in the scripture are, they're, first of all, not inspired, and some of them are downright bizarre.
SPEAKER_00: But this verse, verse 18, really begins with the second part of, I'm sorry, verse 19 begins with the second part of verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, and I will rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: Now he just has said in the first part of the verse, where Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, that this will turn out for my deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: And that this he's talking about is his imprisonment, these circumstances in his life, not good circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: And he's able to see the circumstances of his life in light of what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: That ought to be a clue for us.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: And 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.
SPEAKER_00: His confidence that Christ will be honored in his body, but look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul approaches things a little bit differently than the way we do.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: For to me to live is Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And to die is gain.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the way we think, my friends.
SPEAKER_00: But this is clearly what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_00: For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_00: If I am to live in the flesh, in other words, if I'm going to keep living in this life in this world, that means fruitful labor for me.
SPEAKER_00: Yet which I shall choose, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard-pressed between the two.
SPEAKER_00: My desire is to depart and be with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: My desire is what comes next after my death.
SPEAKER_00: That's my desire.
SPEAKER_00: This is not the way we tend to think.
SPEAKER_00: I think we need to begin to think this way.
SPEAKER_00: To remain in the flesh is more necessary.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard pressed between the two, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: My desire is to depart and to be with Christ, for that, departing and being with Christ, he says, is far better.
SPEAKER_00: But to remain in the flesh, to remain in this life, is more necessary on your account.
SPEAKER_00: Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, and he doesn't know that.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't know what tomorrow will bring.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a sense in which he's saying, okay, I kind of have a suspicion that God is going to do this or do that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: 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 because of my coming to you again.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we turn to the scriptures, and when I seek to open the word week after week after week, let me suggest to you what we're really trying to do.
SPEAKER_00: What we have here is God speaking through the human writers, telling us truth.
SPEAKER_00: Not just propositional truth.
SPEAKER_00: He's telling us the way things really are.
SPEAKER_00: God always deals with reality.
SPEAKER_00: And the truth of God is reality.
SPEAKER_00: It's the way it really is.
SPEAKER_00: Now, our goal is not just to learn facts about the Bible, although that's really important.
SPEAKER_00: Our goal is to understand the way the world really is, the way life really is, the way the universe really is, the way God really is, the things that are real.
SPEAKER_00: There's much of our life that we kind of live in a self-created la la land and we think that's real.
SPEAKER_00: What's real is what is revealed in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we open the scriptures, our goal needs to be more than simply getting more Bible data, but getting to understand the reality behind it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit like someone who knows a lot about Jesus but doesn't really know Jesus personally.
SPEAKER_00: It's important to gain information about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But the whole purpose of gaining information about Jesus is to get to know him personally and to entrust ourselves to him and to glorify him and to receive forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just enough to know about, but we need to know at a far deeper level.
SPEAKER_00: It's not enough to just know the truths of Scripture, the facts, but rather the reality that those facts are pointing to personally for you, for me.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what we find is that in this passage, he's making a very important point.
SPEAKER_00: He says it in a couple of different ways, and I've chosen this as a title, but I've held off the title until we read the passage.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying, he's talking about life and death.
SPEAKER_00: And we understand what he's saying generally about life, this life.
SPEAKER_00: But he's going beyond that and he's saying something about death.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, death, far better.
SPEAKER_00: Death, far better.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not an argument for euthanasia or for suicide or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00: It's not what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to choose.
SPEAKER_00: But what he's saying is that if you really understood reality, the way things really are, truth, you would come to see that that which is to come is far better.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what I'm hoping to do as we unpack several of these verses is to reflect on this matter death far better.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you've noticed I put a question mark and an exclamation point.
SPEAKER_00: How should we punctuate this?
SPEAKER_00: Is this death far better?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the way we think, and that's the way we live.
SPEAKER_00: We'll do anything to hold off death.
SPEAKER_00: We'll go to all kinds of extreme measures.
SPEAKER_00: We'll submit ourselves to all kinds of procedures that may add a few hours or a few weeks or a few months to our lives, but at what cost?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying I'm not saying what you conclude with that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying that there is something more important than holding on to life.
SPEAKER_00: See, he says death, far better, exclamation point.
SPEAKER_00: And we tend to say death far better.
SPEAKER_00: And I do.
SPEAKER_00: That's where I live too.
SPEAKER_00: Much of the time.
SPEAKER_00: But what I want us to do a little bit this morning is to try to figure out and to try to challenge you to think through how you punctuate that phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Death.
SPEAKER_00: Far better.
SPEAKER_00: Death, far better.
SPEAKER_00: Death far better.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're trying to do here.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just uh walk through some of these verses.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 19 and 20, where we see the apostle uh dealing with and thinking about the circumstances in which he finds himself, circumstances which are not at all clear where they're heading and what's going to come next.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, Yes, I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus, this will turn out for my deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he's got the big picture in mind.
SPEAKER_00: He knows ultimately what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: But what he doesn't know is what's going to happen tomorrow or the day after.
SPEAKER_00: And in this passage, he's it reminds me of a lot of the Psalms, where the psalmist kind of pulls the curtain back of his heart and his soul and his inner wrestling.
SPEAKER_00: And in this case, he's sharing with his spiritual friends in the city of Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a phrase that we may not end up unpacking very much, but a spiritual friend is a friend where at the core of the friendship there is the reality of what God is doing in my life that has an impact on you, and what God is doing in your life has an impact on me, that not the totality of our friendship.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we may like the same sports, or we may, you know, there may be affinity or whatever, and those are all good things.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00: But there's another level of friendship where there's a spiritual connection.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was writing to people with whom he was comfortable unbearing his soul and his heart and his thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: Extremely helpful for us.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you've got some people in your life that you can be really honest with and really share.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what we find in his circumstances is that he is in prison.
SPEAKER_00: We already made reference to that.
SPEAKER_00: He's in a Roman prison.
SPEAKER_00: He's in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: Writing back to the church and his good friends in Philippi.
SPEAKER_00: He finds himself under arrest, under imprisonment.
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't think of a medieval dungeon.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the kind of arrest and imprisonment he was in.
SPEAKER_00: It was house imprisonment.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't free to go anywhere he wanted or to do anything he wanted.
SPEAKER_00: But what we find is that he was chained.
SPEAKER_00: He was imprisoned.
SPEAKER_00: The word is chained, and we already saw before that his chains were something that caused the Praetorian guard that was, it was his the people who had imprisoned him, or that he was chained to, to understand the gospel and hear the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these chains, it was kind of like handcuffs, if we understand correctly from the custom at the time of Roman imprisonment.
SPEAKER_00: They were handcuffs.
SPEAKER_00: The chain was about maybe 18 inches long, and it was chained from one arm of his to an arm of one of the emperor's elite guards, the Praetorian Guard.
SPEAKER_00: So 24-7, 365, over the period of about two years, Paul was chained to a rough, tough, and dangerous guard.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the nature of his situation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's really interesting is that these chains were no hindrance for the spread of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He was chained, and yet the gospel was free.
SPEAKER_00: Because he could share the gospel, and he said, through the whole Praetorian guard, they were hearing of the good news of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So he was chained, but the word of God was not changed.
SPEAKER_00: Chained.
SPEAKER_00: So what was really more challenging to Paul, as we see in this passage, because it's the previous passage in which he says, this has turned out for the best, the gospel's being spread, the gospel is unchained, I'm chained, but the gospel is not chained, I'm rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: Now he kind of turns to how he's processing what's going on in his situation.
SPEAKER_00: He did not know for sure what would happen next day or next week or next month or next year.
SPEAKER_00: You never know what a day will bring.
SPEAKER_00: Proverbs 27:1, one of my favorite verses.
SPEAKER_00: You never know what a day will bring.
SPEAKER_00: Paul didn't know for sure what the next day would bring.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have any idea what tomorrow will bring.
SPEAKER_00: You may think you do?
SPEAKER_00: So when we don't know what's coming, and when our situation is discouraging, painful, dangerous, or whatever, how do you think about things?
SPEAKER_00: Now, we know, because we've read the rest of the book, the rest of the book of Acts and the rest of the letters of Paul, that in fact, see, he wasn't sure whether his case before Caesar, whether he would be vindicated or executed.
SPEAKER_00: Those were the two options.
SPEAKER_00: And he just didn't know for sure what was going to come.
SPEAKER_00: We know that this imprisonment, he would soon be actually, he would actually be released.
SPEAKER_00: If we put together the chronology of the New Testament correctly, then it would appear that he would be released for a couple of years or a period of fruitful ministry from this imprisonment.
SPEAKER_00: And during that time he would travel and share the gospel and he would write some more epistles.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy and Titus were written in this time period after Ephesians, after he had been freed.
SPEAKER_00: But then he would be imprisoned once again.
SPEAKER_00: And shortly before his execution, because in the second imprisonment he would be executed, but shortly before that, then he would write 2 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: So we know that.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul doesn't know that.
SPEAKER_00: You never know what a day will bring.
SPEAKER_00: God knows, we rarely do.
SPEAKER_00: And when we think we do, we might just be wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives are in God's hands, not ours.
SPEAKER_00: If you think your life is in your hand, just live a little longer.
SPEAKER_00: And you will discover that you really don't control your own destiny.
SPEAKER_00: God does, however.
SPEAKER_00: That's an excursus there.
SPEAKER_00: At the point of writing Philippians, it was uncertain really what would happen with Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Would he be executed or would he be released?
SPEAKER_00: So my question as I read this, as I let these things kind of put myself in the situation, what was going through Paul's mind?
SPEAKER_00: When he's speaking here, what's going through his mind?
SPEAKER_00: What do these words mean?
SPEAKER_00: So let's just pretend that you're in Rome, you're under house arrest, you've got this hunkin' uh Praetorian guard uh 18 inches from your wrist, and it's three in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: What goes through your mind at three in the morning?
SPEAKER_00: What goes through my mind?
SPEAKER_00: At three in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I hear tell that there are people who sleep through the night soundly like a baby.
SPEAKER_00: I love one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Jane hits the pillow and she's out for the night.
SPEAKER_00: It drives me nuts.
SPEAKER_00: But so if you're awake in the middle of the night, where does your mind go?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I can tell you what goes on in my mind.
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow I've got a doctor's appointment.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what that's gonna reveal.
SPEAKER_00: Or yesterday, day before, I had some tests run.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder what the outcome's gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're a pessimist, if the glass is always half empty, and I know pessimists always think of themselves as realists.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the quirks of a pessimist, then your mind begins to think of things that are disconcerting.
SPEAKER_00: And so in the middle of the night, my mind goes every once in a while to our kids, especially our kids who are eight months into their first term of service in Albania, and we've just discovered that there were some very, very serious problems and actually some significant spiritual attack in the team that they're involved in.
SPEAKER_00: Key people ending up under great, great difficulties.
SPEAKER_00: And are Jeff and Meredith gonna be next?
SPEAKER_00: Our three grandkids, are they gonna be subjected?
SPEAKER_00: My mind goes there.
SPEAKER_00: Am I allowed to be honest with you guys?
SPEAKER_00: Oh well.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna get some honesty anyway.
SPEAKER_00: So I struggle with those kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you do as well.
SPEAKER_00: I often wake up in the middle of the night with a sense of anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'll realize I've been dreaming, and I've been dreaming about something that I can't fix.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've been dreaming about this church.
SPEAKER_00: I can't fix this.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm just lost in a car uh parking lot and I can't find the keys.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know where the car is anymore.
SPEAKER_00: All these crazy things that go.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody else like that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there are.
SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of you like that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, um if your nature is more to be an optimist, I guess there are people like that around, the the glass is always half full, then you're likely to just simply not really want to deal with the negative things that might possibly happen.
SPEAKER_00: That's really all optimists do.
SPEAKER_00: They just kind of shove it aside, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Just find my happy place and just focus there on my happy place and not think about the unforeseen disaster that's about to fall.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding with that.
SPEAKER_00: So my question is, what was going on in Paul's mind?
SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple of things.
SPEAKER_00: Uh what we find in verse 19, we hear him saying, For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Christ Jesus, this will turn out for my deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's look at that thought here.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's so beautiful and so simple what he says, being in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: I know that through your prayers and the help of Jesus, that's what I need.
SPEAKER_00: I need your prayers and I need Christ's help.
SPEAKER_00: My friends, you need the prayers of other people and you need Jesus' help.
SPEAKER_00: You need it at three in the morning, you need it at noon time, and all along.
SPEAKER_00: But in his need, what Paul does is he turns to his spiritual friends that he can be really honest with and he can share with.
SPEAKER_00: And he he asks for prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have some people that you can go to in your life at three in the morning?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you might want to wait until nine in the morning before you call them.
SPEAKER_00: But do you have some people like that?
SPEAKER_00: I do.
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: Um we need the prayers of other people, and that's what spiritual friends are for.
SPEAKER_00: Because what God is doing in my life and what God is doing in their life, they're connected, and I can be completely honest, not just asking for prayer for the things that are socially appropriate and acceptable in our circles.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I get the feeling as I listen to our prayers, and I'm not just talking about yours, I'm talking about the evangelical world, that the biggest activity of God is taking care of people's illnesses because we constantly pray, well, not because there aren't needs for him constantly to take care of illness, but it's apparently appropriate and acceptable to share that we've got physical needs.
SPEAKER_00: And it is, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: But what about some of those other things?
SPEAKER_00: That's not really very, that you're not really comfortable with with sharing other people.
SPEAKER_00: Those may be things that are far, maybe some deep-seated issues in your heart, your mind, in your background, in your thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Umbe there are sins that you are struggling with that you'd rather not talk with other people about.
SPEAKER_00: I get that.
SPEAKER_00: But we need other people.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have some people in your life that you can just share and be really honest with?
SPEAKER_00: If not, then you need to find some.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the body of Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: The body of Christ is not 350 people sitting here listening to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what the body of Christ is.
SPEAKER_00: The body of Christ is where people connect spiritually with one another.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray and we trust God together and we grow together.
SPEAKER_00: Do we have that?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have that in your life?
SPEAKER_00: It's to me just so encouraging.
SPEAKER_00: Um prayer matters, and Jesus helps.
SPEAKER_00: That's just so beautiful, so simple.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, one way or the other, I'm sure that there will be deliverance here.
SPEAKER_00: For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus, this will turn out for my deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what he's not saying here, if you read the rest of it, is everything's gonna be groovy.
SPEAKER_00: Just, you know, it's gonna turn out, I'm gonna get unprisoned, I'm gonna be able to just do what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: No, that's far too narrow an understanding of deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: The word here is a word that is often used for salvation, but at its core, it really is well translated by deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: And the reality is that sometimes God delivers us from the circumstances, and sometimes God delivers us through and out of the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes he removes us from the circumstances, sometimes he's with us on our way through the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Um I had a few more years here, I would subject you to a whole series of what I call fingernail verses.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're hanging on barely, only by your fingernails.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you've got a series of key verses that are just so precious to you.
SPEAKER_00: One of my fingernail verses, and I think it's legitimate to say it this way, 1 Corinthians 10, 13, for no time of testing has overtaken you but such as is common to man, and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested beyond what you are able, but will with the time of testing provide a way of escape that you may be able to endure it.
SPEAKER_00: And there he covers both.
SPEAKER_00: God, because of who he is, and because of his great grace, has promised that he will either deliver us out from under or by his grace delivering us through the circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the answer is to be able to endure it.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not what I want.
SPEAKER_00: Not most of the time.
SPEAKER_00: I want out from under it.
SPEAKER_00: And God loves us too much to always give us what we want.
SPEAKER_00: Because there's things that God only does as he shows his power and our weakness.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul himself, three times, take this thorn in the flesh from me, no.
SPEAKER_00: Take this thorn in the flesh from me, no, take this thorn in the flesh from me.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: My grace is sufficient for you.
SPEAKER_00: That's Paul's experience as well.
SPEAKER_00: So when we're confident of deliverance, let's recognize that God has promised, made some promises for deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not always the way I want it or you want it.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the way of escape is to endure under the circumstances and to experience the goodness and the grace of God in a way that still does not feel good, but glorifies Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he goes on further, and he says, It is my eager expectation and my hope, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: It is my eager expectation and my hope that I will not at all be ashamed, but with full courage now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the first thought is a beautiful phrase, my eager expectation.
SPEAKER_00: This is one of, this is a word that Paul made up.
SPEAKER_00: This didn't exist in the Greek language.
SPEAKER_00: It's a compound word, and he uses it twice.
SPEAKER_00: He uses it in this passage and in Romans chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: And it's literally standing with outstretched neck in eager anticipation.
SPEAKER_00: It's someone craning his neck to see what's coming, knowing that the best is yet to come.
SPEAKER_00: For me, picture eight or ten years old, western suburb of Chicago, 4th of July, we have a parade.
SPEAKER_00: I love a parade.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember standing there at the edge of the street, just looking down, because I know what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: You know what's coming?
SPEAKER_00: There's a truck coming, and there's going to be some clowns, and they're going to throw candy out, and I can have some of that.
SPEAKER_00: And then the best is really yet to come.
SPEAKER_00: That's the fire engines.
SPEAKER_00: So I stand there craning my neck with eager expectation of what is sure and certain to come.
SPEAKER_00: That's the picture, Paul says, with eager expectation.
SPEAKER_00: And then he talks about the word hope.
SPEAKER_00: A biblical hope is not the kind of hope you and I have.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a hope-so, but a no-so.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the kind of hope that we talk about is I hope so, but I don't know-so.
SPEAKER_00: For example, um, I hope that last Thursday's snowstorm was the last one of the season.
SPEAKER_00: Now, many of you have been kind enough to disabuse me of such foolish thoughts, because this is North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: We can hope so, but we don't know so.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Jan, seems to me uh you told me about your mother talking about uh snowfall on the 4th of July or something.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to hear anything about that.
SPEAKER_00: So that's a that's our kind of hope.
SPEAKER_00: I hope so, but I don't know so.
SPEAKER_00: That is not what the Bible means when it talks about hope.
SPEAKER_00: Hope in the scriptures is something that is sure and certain.
SPEAKER_00: It's just not here yet.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't see it yet.
SPEAKER_00: We just haven't experienced it yet.
SPEAKER_00: But it's true because God has said so, and we can take it and we can take that to the bank, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: Um hope is a reality, a certainty, but we've just not yet experienced it.
SPEAKER_00: Um the that same word in uh in uh is is that that picture, uh, the blessed hope.
SPEAKER_00: The blessed hope.
SPEAKER_00: That's a phrase that woe is us, we don't use very much anymore.
SPEAKER_00: It talks about the blessed hope of the Lord's return.
SPEAKER_00: That's a surety.
SPEAKER_00: That is certain.
SPEAKER_00: That's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: He's coming back, and he's gonna win.
SPEAKER_00: We've read the last chapter in the book.
SPEAKER_00: We know what happens.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't see it yet.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, do we not see it yet?
SPEAKER_00: But we have confidence because God has said it and God doesn't play games with us.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul says in this connection, it is my hope and eager expectation that I'll not be ashamed, but with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.
SPEAKER_00: That takes us right to where we need to go.
SPEAKER_00: Uh verses twenty-one to twenty-three.
SPEAKER_00: For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
SPEAKER_00: To remain in the flesh, to remain in this life now, is more necessary for you on your account.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.
SPEAKER_00: And yet what should I choose?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I would choose.
SPEAKER_00: Whether I would choose to stay in this life and be useful for you, or to be to be taken and to be home with the Lord, absent from the body, is home with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: For me to live as Christ.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for you, yet I don't know which I shall choose.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard-pressed between the two.
SPEAKER_00: My desire is to depart.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not a death wish, this is not a morbid kind of a thing.
SPEAKER_00: He's not saying life is so horrible I just have to end it.
SPEAKER_00: He's not suicidal, he's not depressive, he's not modulin, he's in touch with reality.
SPEAKER_00: The best is yet to come.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an inner tension here that Paul is experiencing, an inner tension, a distress from within.
SPEAKER_00: He's the phrase is that he's pressed on two sides.
SPEAKER_00: That's the expression he uses in verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard pressed between two things.
SPEAKER_00: And the the word picture is you're out hiking and you come to a narrow, a tall canyon with a narrow passage, and you're wanting to go through the canyon, and you start walking along, and it gets narrower and narrower and narrower, and eventually you're pressed in on both sides.
SPEAKER_00: You're constricted by these two things.
SPEAKER_00: He also uses the picture of having conflicting desires within.
SPEAKER_00: He's pulled in two directions.
SPEAKER_00: He has desires that take him in two directions.
SPEAKER_00: We all have desires that take us in multiple directions.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what Paul is not talking about here is a struggle that Paul had, just like you and I.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the struggle between our old nature, our sin nature, the sin that so easily besets us that pulls us in this direction, and the work of God in our lives that pulls us in another direction.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about that at length in Romans chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: The good that I want to do, I find I can't do, and the evil that I don't want to do I find myself doing.
SPEAKER_00: Who can deliver me from this body of sin and death?
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to God, to Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not the struggle that he's talking about here.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the pull between two things, between a good and a bad.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about he's pulled and torn between a good and a better.
SPEAKER_00: The good life for God here that he has, useful service for the kingdom, and the good life with God that he longs for and will one day be his more fully.
SPEAKER_00: It's a pull between two good things, not good and evil, but two goods.
SPEAKER_00: Now, we know something about the pull between our better nature and our worse nature.
SPEAKER_00: What I want to ask you is, do you have a sense of this other pull as well?
SPEAKER_00: A pull to go and a pull to stay?
SPEAKER_00: Or is anything for you better than death?
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: Whole lot of things that are worse than dying.
SPEAKER_00: So it's this life for God here and now, or the good life with God there and then.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paul is wrestling with in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul says is absolutely disturbing.
SPEAKER_00: It is to me.
SPEAKER_00: It's absolutely disturbing.
SPEAKER_00: And he so clearly says death in Christ would actually be far better.
SPEAKER_00: I'm hard-pressed, verse 23, between the two.
SPEAKER_00: My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
SPEAKER_00: And he had said before, I will I want to glorify Christ, whether it's by life or by death, either one, and now he's saying there's a sense in which, and this is what Paul is really saying.
SPEAKER_00: The death, if we understood death correctly, if we understood the truth, if we were in touch with reality, the way life and death really work, what death brings is infinitely better.
SPEAKER_00: And if we understood it, then we would be torn between this life here and now and the life which is to come.
SPEAKER_00: I find this disturbing.
SPEAKER_00: But it's always true.
SPEAKER_00: See, I'm not always in touch with reality, are you?
SPEAKER_00: He uses a fascinating grammatical construction here that does not exist in English and cannot be translated.
SPEAKER_00: It's a triple comparison.
SPEAKER_00: So death is better.
SPEAKER_00: Death in Christ for the believer is better.
SPEAKER_00: And then he adds a word to it, which we can do.
SPEAKER_00: It's far better.
SPEAKER_00: But it's a triple comparison.
SPEAKER_00: Death is more far better.
SPEAKER_00: That makes lousy English.
SPEAKER_00: It makes glorious truth.
SPEAKER_00: You know it's alright to have bad English every once in a while as long as it's the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Right, Jane?
SPEAKER_00: Jane in our family, sorry, uh, is known in our family as Emily English, because she is wonderful in correcting my grammar and correcting Jennifer's grammar growing up and correcting Jeff's grammar growing up and correcting Peter's grammar growing up.
SPEAKER_00: She found this little plaque one time, um, and I think you found it and bought it.
SPEAKER_00: It says, I am silently correcting your grammar.
SPEAKER_00: And when our son Peter saw a picture of her, picture picture of it, he said, Huh, I don't remember the silently part.
SPEAKER_00: But she's right.
SPEAKER_00: However, more far better is more far better than anything else.
SPEAKER_00: So that's a good way of looking at it.
SPEAKER_00: More far better.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, the way our world thinks is eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.
SPEAKER_00: And that makes total sense.
SPEAKER_00: It makes total sense for the unbeliever.
SPEAKER_00: Because then life here and now is infinitely better than the life to come.
SPEAKER_00: Whether they perceive that or not.
SPEAKER_00: Gonna live hard and die young.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, we don't get that choice.
SPEAKER_00: We can choose to live hard.
SPEAKER_00: We can't choose, well, we shouldn't choose when we die.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is if you leave Christ out of the picture, you only go around once in life, you better grab for all the gusto you can.
SPEAKER_00: That makes total sense.
SPEAKER_00: I respect that.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't happen to be true.
SPEAKER_00: What the non-believer experiences upon death is unthinkably beyond description horrible.
SPEAKER_00: And for the believer, the life to come is more far better.
SPEAKER_00: The best is yet to come.
SPEAKER_00: That truck with the candy, those fire trucks there at the end, that's what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the better part.
SPEAKER_00: More far better.
SPEAKER_00: Seiz the day.
SPEAKER_00: No, seize Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 24 and 20 to 26 talk about something I'm not going to touch on.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it talks about something that we'll be looking at next week because it leads us into Philippians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: So come back next week for that.
SPEAKER_00: But I just want to take a couple of minutes, and I want to just kind of reflect with you and to ask the question: how do we punctuate death far better?
SPEAKER_00: Death, far better?
SPEAKER_00: Death far better.
SPEAKER_00: What's that like?
SPEAKER_00: What would that be like?
SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you very personally where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not completely there.
SPEAKER_00: But let me share with you where I'm at.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if this will make any sense to you.
SPEAKER_00: It may sound like it's just super spiritual, super sappy spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: I hate super sappy spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is not super spiritual.
SPEAKER_00: This is real.
SPEAKER_00: I'm beginning to understand.
SPEAKER_00: I'm beginning to understand what Paul was talking about, I think, on some of my better days.
SPEAKER_00: I was thinking this week how I would handle would have handled this passage 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I was preaching and teaching 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: I know many of you weren't even around.
SPEAKER_00: But I wonder, 35 years earlier, how I would have what I would have said.
SPEAKER_00: I suspect I would have said what Paul says because it's always right to agree with the scriptures, but I'm not sure I would have really understood it in any personal existential way.
SPEAKER_00: So 35 years ago, I had some things that I wanted to accomplish in life.
SPEAKER_00: By golly, I was a missionary, so they were good and godly things.
SPEAKER_00: I had come through Campus Crusade.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we called it back in those days, Mark, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: And the Great Commission in this generation, come help change the world.
SPEAKER_00: And I had come to help change a continent.
SPEAKER_00: I had given my life to reach Europe for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And I was in the middle of doing that, just about that much of it, but in the middle of giving myself to that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: That's not wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But I really wanted to see that accomplished.
SPEAKER_00: At a personal level, I would have, if I were honest, I'd say, boy, I'd love to see little Jennifer, little Jennifer, sweet little Jennifer.
SPEAKER_00: How she ever turned out sweet with me as her dad, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to see her grow up, and I'd like to walk her down the aisle.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to walk her down the aisle and then come up here on the platform and do the wedding.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like to see her get married.
SPEAKER_00: That's nothing wrong with that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I our boys were.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to see them be big enough to play soccer.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: Seven-year-olds playing soccer, they're all bunched up together, huddling around the field like that.
SPEAKER_00: I would have just loved to watch them see soccer.
SPEAKER_00: I would have loved, I thought I'd love to see them grow up to be godly men.
SPEAKER_00: Uh really at a personal level.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go to the top of the Jungfrau in Switzerland.
SPEAKER_00: We we lived within sight of the uh the High Alps.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted to climb to the top of the Jungfrau on a clear day, it happens about five times a year in Switzerland, that you could actually see forever from the top of the Jungfrau and just soak in the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: I had all kinds of things I wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00: I just have to be honest with you, there's something about those things that they're not wrong, but and I've gotten to do those things, actually.
SPEAKER_00: I got to perform our daughter's wedding.
SPEAKER_00: It was a wonderful day, great day.
SPEAKER_00: I got to perform the weddings of our two boys.
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful, great.
SPEAKER_00: I've gotten to see our kids grow up and be Christ followers and good people.
SPEAKER_00: I even got to go to the top of the Jungfrau.
SPEAKER_00: Once in a lifetime experience that I did it four or five times, I think.
SPEAKER_00: At least two of them were on clear days.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's all good stuff.
SPEAKER_00: But there's something about it that just doesn't completely satisfy.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not because I'm an old man.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm an old man.
SPEAKER_00: I turned 70 later this year.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because I'm old and my knees don't get me up to the top of the Jungfrau the way they used to, but it's okay, you can take a cable car up and life is good.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just that I'm old, it's not just that I don't have the energy I didn't have.
SPEAKER_00: It's that there's other things that I'm coming to enjoy and to taste.
SPEAKER_00: Taste that satisfy even more than all of the good things in life.
SPEAKER_00: Very honestly, what I'm beginning to experience is something that tastes better than all of those other things.
SPEAKER_00: Not that they're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_00: I would never have known what to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: Somehow or another, I'm beginning to experience that.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the way I would put it.
SPEAKER_00: This is not original with me.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is most greatly exalted in us.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, when our hearts are more satisfied with him than in all that death takes from us.
SPEAKER_00: And my friends, death is an enemy.
SPEAKER_00: The process of dying, it takes everything from us.
SPEAKER_00: But what is to come is infinitely more satisfying than all that death takes from us.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is most greatly exalted in us when we our hearts are more satisfied in Him in Christ and all of the things that death takes from us.
SPEAKER_00: That is more far better.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a down pat yet, but I can begin to taste it.
SPEAKER_00: My question for you, and what I really had wanted to do with this message is to get you thinking about these things.
SPEAKER_00: So how do you punctuate it?
SPEAKER_00: Death?
SPEAKER_00: Better by far?
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be kidding me.
SPEAKER_00: Or death.
SPEAKER_00: It really is more far better for the believer.
SPEAKER_00: So, you've got an assignment?
SPEAKER_00: Go punctuate it with your lives.
SPEAKER_00: Wrestle with it.
SPEAKER_00: I'd like you to stand and I'll give the benediction and we can be done.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my friends, go into the world in peace.
SPEAKER_00: Have courage, hold on to that which is good, and honor all men.
SPEAKER_00: Strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the suffering, restore the wandering, comfort the grieving, and share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Love and serve the Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit, and may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be yours.
SPEAKER_00: God bless and amen.