For an intro to this message,
I'd like to read a couple of passages of scripture. And I
want us to hear the heart desire of a few believers that were
here on this earth before us. Turn with me first to Psalm 42. Psalm 42. David said in verse one, as the
heart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee,
O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for
the living God. When shall I come and appear
before God? That was David's heart desire,
his true heart desire. He said, when shall I come and
appear before God? I want to see my God. I want
to stand face to face with my God. Now turn with me to Luke
chapter two. Luke chapter 2 verse 25 says, And behold, there was a man in
Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. And the same man was just and
devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel. And the Holy Ghost
was upon him. And it was revealed unto him
by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death, before he had
seen the Lord's Christ. And he came by the Spirit into
the temple, and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to
do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up
in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now lettest thou
thy servant depart in peace. according to thy word, for mine
eyes have seen thy salvation. This man Simeon, the Lord Jesus
Christ came in at eight days old and he hailed him. and looked
into his face and he said, Lord, please let me depart. I have
seen your salvation. I've seen salvation. I've finally
seen salvation. I've seen the one who is my salvation. I've seen now the glory of God. I have now seen God's mercy. I've seen the peace of God in
the face of a person. Religion has been removed. Religion's
over. Religion is over, isn't it? Ceremony
has been removed. Doctrine has been removed. I've seen a person. I've seen
Christ. And he said, Lord, let me depart. Let me depart, I've seen Christ.
Now go with me to our text, Philippians chapter 1. The last time we were here, the
Apostle Paul said in verse 21, for me to live is Christ. For me to live is Christ. And
he said, to die is gain. Now verse 22, he said, but if
I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor. Yet what
I shall choose, I want not. That word means no. I don't know. I know not. For I am in a strait
betwixt two. Having a desire to depart and
to be with Christ, which is far better, nevertheless, to abide
in the flesh is more needful for you. Paul had the same desire
in his heart that David had and that Simeon had, and it's the
same desire that every child of God has in his heart. It's the same heart that every
child of God develops. He said, I'm here on this earth.
This is what he's saying. I'm here on this earth. But in
verse 23, he said, I'm in a straight betwixt two. Having a desire
to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Now I want
us to clearly understand something about this. Believers don't desire
death. Sometimes you hear people say,
I'm ready to go, and you think, what? Believers don't desire death. Men desire death all the time.
Men are fascinated with death. They put a skull and crossbones
on everything. They're just completely fascinated
with death. And it's not of God. Death is
not of God. Men carry out their own death
all the time, and it's not of God. I'm ready to be done with
this, and I'm just gonna wrap it up. That's not of God. David
did not say, we went to Psalm 42, and he did not say, I want
to die. He didn't say that. Simeon did
not say, Lord, let me die. He didn't say that. The Apostle
Paul is not saying right here, I'm torn. Really, I'd rather
die. He's not saying that. Believers
don't desire death. They desire Christ. That's important to understand.
They desire Christ. They're completely taken with
Christ. David said, as the deer pants
after the water brook, he's thirsting for water in a stream. He's thirsty. He needs it. He has to have it.
It's not a fork in the road. Am I going to eventually drink
water or not? If not, I'll die. I have to have
that water. It's consuming me, I can't think
about anything else until I have that. He said, as the deer pants
after the water brook, my soul thirsts for thee. Oh God, when am I gonna get to see
you? When am I gonna get to see you?
Can you imagine, what if Jesus Christ walked in tonight? Simeon said, Lord, let me depart. Let me depart. I want to leave
this place and I want to be where you are. And that's what the apostle Paul
is saying right here. Verse 22, he said, but if I live
in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor. This ministry, he's,
he's in prison for preaching the gospel. They put him in prison
because he started preaching the gospel and all of a sudden
people started believing it. They didn't like that. They put
him in prison. He's saying this ministry is the fruit of my labor.
You are the fruit of my labor. And he's saying it's worth it.
It's so worth it. He started this by writing to
them in verse 3. I thank my God upon every remembrance
of you. always in every prayer of mine
for you all, making requests with joy." Verse 8, he said,
God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels
of Jesus Christ. He's saying it's worth the labor. But he said in verse 23, I'm
in a straight betwixt two. I'm torn. Having a desire To
depart and to be with Christ. And to be with Christ. Believers
don't desire death. They don't. They desire Christ,
who is their life. Christ is their life. The longer
we live on this earth, the more Christ is going to become our
life. It's just so. It's just true. The longer we
live on this earth, the more we're going to realize how dead
everything is here. And Christ is going to be the
only thing that's life to us. The desire that God puts in His
people to leave this sinful world is a desire to leave death. That's what it is. They are finally
fed up with death. They don't want to have anything
to do with death. Turn with me over to Romans chapter
7. Romans chapter 7, the Apostle
Paul said in verse 24, O wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? Who shall deliver me? I'm in death right now. Who shall
deliver me from the body of this death? What he's saying is, I
can't wait to get death off of me. I can't wait. I'm ready to be rid of it. I
want to be absolutely rid of it. A preacher said this a long
time ago. It's been repeated many times.
And he was saying this concerning preaching. He said, I'm preparing
men and women to die. All right, here we are talking
about these things. We're all going to go out and
meet God face to face. There's one hope, isn't there? And men, they go out all the
time. They go meeting God without a hope. They go meet God without
the blood of Christ. They go meet God as their own
advocate. And man, how terrible. So he said, I'm preparing men
and women to die. And I see where he's going with
that. But I believe my calling is a little different. I believe
I'm preparing men and women to live. We haven't started living yet.
Soon this wretched man right here is going to be delivered
from the body of this death. And whether we realize it or
not, we can't wait for that to happen. Believers are not morbid, not
at all. They're not morbid. They don't
want to have anything to do with death. I don't want to die. I don't want to die. And it would
be fine with me if the Lord came back while I'm still standing
on this earth and he just picked me up. But even if that's not
the case, it's gonna be the same thing. It's gonna be the exact
same thing. Believers desire life. And they see that life is found
in a person. It's in a person. It's in one
person. If they're gonna have life, they
gotta have Him. They have to. Some of you have read the book
Pilgrim's Progress. And I don't know if many of you
have, but I don't normally push books. I'm not a big fan of books.
I like one book. We need one book. But that's
a good book. Pilgrim's Progress is such a
blessing. It's an allegory. It's an illustration of a sinner
in the journey through life. And it's just such a comfort. This man in the book, Pilgrim,
his name is Christian. And the book starts out with
him. It says that he is wearing torn
clothes, torn ratty clothes, and he has a burden
on his back. That's how it starts. And this
man is standing there in rags and he has this burden on his
back and it says he has a book in his hand. That's how it starts. Standing there in his rags with
a burden on his back and a book in his hands. And the more he
reads the book, the more he cries. And he's so distraught. His family
thinks he's going crazy. His family thinks he's mad. They
think he's lost it. And he sits there and he cries
and they try to help him go to sleep and he can't sleep at night. And the reason he's crying is
because he has found out in this book that he is destined to die
and so is the whole city he lives in. He lives in the city of destruction. And death is coming to everybody,
and it's crushing him. Everybody's going to die. That's
what he's finding out. Everybody's going to die. And
one day, this man comes to him, and his name is Evangelist. And
Evangelist comes to him, and he says, Why are you so sad?
And he said, Because I live in the city of destruction, and
we're all bound to die. An evangelist pointed over this
huge field and he said, do you see yonder wicked gate? And Christian said, no, I can't
see it. He said, well, then do you see
yonder shining light? And he said, yes, I see it. He
said, head for that light and keep that light in your eye.
Don't ever turn from it. He said, that light will lead
you straight to yonder wicked gate. He said, when you get there,
knock on the door. It shall be open to you. And
he said, enter in. It will lead you down a straight
and narrow way to a cross. And as soon as you get to the
foot of that cross, your burden will fall. So he headed out. And as he goes,
his family, his wife, his children, they're all pulling at him, they're
all tugging at him, begging him not to go, telling him he's crazy.
But he keeps going and all of his friends and all of his neighbors,
they start mocking him, they start ridiculing him. So he sticks
his fingers in his ears and he starts running toward the gate,
crying, life, life, eternal life. That is the heart desire of a
true believer. life. And they see it in that gate.
They hear the one who said, I'm the door. You come knock, I'll
open to you. They need Christ who is their
life. Now go with me back to Philippians
chapter one, and I want to show you something that was such a
blessing to me. I hope this will be a help to you. I think this made me a little
bit more prepared to live. You know, there's going to come
a day, maybe somewhere around 3 score and 10, that I'm going
to, it'll be my day to go live. And I believe this prepared me
a little bit more for it. Verse 22 says, Philippians 1
verse 22 says, Paul said, but if I live, if I live in the flesh. This is the fruit of my labor,
yet what I shall choose I know not, for I am in a straight betwixt
two, having a desire to depart. and to be with Christ which is
far better. You know what he's saying right
there? He's saying this flesh is not me. That's what he's saying. This body is not me. I just live
here. I think this is amazing. He said I just live here right
now in this flesh and I have a desire to depart. I have a
desire to move. This body that we walk around
in is not us. Okay, this is not us. I've given
you this illustration a few times, but it applies so well to this.
If I were to lose this arm right here, I would still be me. And if I
lose this arm, and if I lose both legs, I'm still me. Does that make sense? This body
is not us. We just live here. We currently
live in the flesh. Peter called it our tabernacle. He said, I must put off this,
my tabernacle. Look with me at 2 Corinthians
chapter 5. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 1 says, For
we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,
we have a building of God and house not made with hands eternal
in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed,
we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle
do groan, being burdened Not for that we would be unclothed,
but clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
What he's saying is, here we are in this house right now and
we're burdened in this house. And if this house were dissolved,
we have another house already prepared and waiting for us to
live in. It's the house from heaven. And
he said, we don't desire, we're so burdened in this, but we don't
desire just to put this house down and have nowhere to go.
We don't desire to die. He said, we desire to be clothed
upon with this new house so that mortality, that's death, might
be swallowed up of life. Verse five, now he that hath
wrought us for the self, same thing as God, who also hath given
unto us the earnest of the spirit. Therefore we are always confident,
knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent
from the Lord. He's saying as long as we live
right here in this flesh, we're not face to face with our Lord.
Verse 7, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident,
I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body and to
be present with the Lord. Believers start to see this and
they become willing rather to be absent from this body, this
house, and to be present with the Lord there. So this body
is our house. That's what this is, it's our
house. Now, God has given every one of us in this room a home
to go to tonight. All of us. There's not one of
us here that does not have a home to go to tonight. And we're thankful
for our houses. We love our houses. But our houses
are not us. They're not us. My house right
here in Kingsport, Tennessee, everybody here knows my house.
You've been to my house, right? That house is not me. You can
drive over there to it, stand in front of it, look at it and
say, that's Gabe's house. I recognize it. That's not Cole's
house. That's Gabe's house. But what
you can't do is drive over there and stand in front of my house
and look at it and say, that's Gabe. It's not. It's not. I just lived there.
That's all. I just lived there. And if my house over there on
Wildwood, if it were dissolved, if God sent a tornado through
Kingsport and just wiped it out, just blew everything away, it
would be gone. But I wouldn't. I wouldn't be. What I would do is I would move
to a new house. Verse 1 right here in 2 Corinthians
5, he said, we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle
were dissolved, we have a building of God and house not made with
hands. He's not talking about two by
fours and shingles. It's an eternal one in the heavens.
For in this we groan earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with
our house which is from heaven. If so be that being clothed we
shall not be found naked for we that are in this tabernacle
do groan being burdened not for that we would be unclothed but
clothed upon that mortality might be swallowed up of life. For
a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, this is true, for a child
of God who has been covered in the blood of Christ and Robed
in the righteousness of Christ, what we call death is not death
at all. It's not death at all. Last week
we were talking about to die is gain, and Spurgeon said, mourn
for yourselves that the command of death hasn't come for you
yet. But what we call death is not death at all. It's a departure. It's a move from one house to
another. That's what it is. Now, I would
say that most everybody here has moved from one house to another
at some point in your life. I have many times now moved from
one house to another. It's fine, isn't it? Everything's fine. There's nothing
to be afraid of. Everybody in here is afraid of
death. I know it because I am. I don't
want to die. I don't have dying grace, whatever
that is. I'm not ready. I want Christ. I want life. And everybody's afraid of death,
what we know to be death. But our Lord Himself said it's
fine. You see, I told you. There's
nothing to be afraid of. Depending on what we are moving
from to what we are moving to, that move could be wonderful.
It could be wonderful. Listen to this. I'll wrap this
up. Peter said, and right here the Apostle Paul said, that we
are living right now in a tent. The word tabernacle means tent. That's what the word means. We're
living right now in a tent. We are all here inside this building.
I'm thankful for our building here. And all of us are living
in tents right now inside this building. We have a bunch of
tents right here inside this building. The apostle said that's
what we're going to put off, okay, is our tent. What are we
going to put on? This is talking about this earthly
house and this heavenly house. We're going to put off a tent.
Well, what are we going to put on? Turn with me over to John
14. John 14, verse 1, our Lord said, let not
your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my Father's house are many
mansions. If it were not so, I would have
told you. I go to prepare one for you. To depart and to be with Christ
is to leave a tent and move to a mansion. What does that mean exactly?
I really don't know. I truly do not know, but I can
tell you this. It's far better It is far better. John said, we don't know what
we shall be. What shall we be? I don't know.
He said, we don't know what we shall be, but we know that when
he shall appear, we shall be just like him. We're going to be just like him.
Paul said it's far better. Go with me back to Philippians
1. Verse 22, but if I live in the
flesh, this is the fruit of my labor, yet what I shall choose
I know not, for I'm in a straight betwixt two, having a desire
to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless,
to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. Now, all of
us, All of us who believe on Christ, who truly believe on
Christ, will at some point, every one of us, we will at some point
become so fed up with this world, we'll just want to leave it.
We'll be ready to be done with it. We will all get to a place
where we're just ready to be done with it. I pray that the
Lord might remind us that he has chosen to use means in the
salvation of his people. That's what we need to remember.
The Lord has chosen to use means in the salvation of his people.
God elected a people, all right? And God predestinates those people
to the gospel and to Christ. And not one of those people will
be lost, not one. But I bow to his word when he
says he has chosen to use means. He's chosen to use means in the
salvation of his people. Our families, we're so weak in
faith we don't have much hope for our families. We're so weak
in faith we don't have much hope for our neighbors. We don't have
much hope for our friends. But our families, our children,
and all of those people that we come in contact with, they
need to hear about the Christ who came. They just do. We're living earth, we're living
the world, life is good, we're in the right race, we're learning,
we're growing, we're doing, we're working, we're retiring, marrying,
giving in marriage, soon it's gonna be over. Our Lord has prepared for them
that love Him and believe on Him a glorious eternity for everybody
else, May God put compassion in our
souls, and may he cause us to truly enter into the fact that
all of our loved ones must hear about this Christ who came, shed
his blood, redeemed his people, and said, it's finished. It's
absolutely finished. They need faith to believe on
him. The faith that he said comes
by hearing this gospel. They need faith to believe on
him. And if God would use the means of me or you telling somebody
about the Lord Jesus Christ to save their soul, save the souls
of our children, anybody on this earth, then may God give us the
contentment to put up with this earth. This is a bad place, but
we have a good God. And may He give us the contentment
to stay as long as He would have us to be here. And as long as
that is, may He give us the resolve to use that time to tell everybody
we can about Christ. Let's tell everybody we can.
God did elect a people. But he did not stamp that big
E on their forehead. We don't know who they are, so
let's tell everybody. Tell everybody. Tell them all to run to yonder
wicked gate. Tell them to knock and it shall
be open to them. Tell them it will lead them down
a straight and narrow path to a cross. And as soon as they
get to the foot of that cross, their burden will fall. That's
what we need. May the Lord give life to us,
give life to them, show us that it's only in Christ. All right,
let's stand together.