You want to turn in your Bibles
to Philippians, the book of Philippians. I was thinking about this chapter
and I mentioned this. Verses in this chapter to Eddie
and Sarah while I was down there and it means a lot to me. I was
talking to Lance Heller when Claire first was injured and
was taken to the hospital and he and I spoke on the phone for
a bit. at that time and he mentioned this verse in verse 20 to me
and it stuck with me ever since. It seems like in great trouble
when the scripture comes to us in comfort that it sticks, doesn't
it? God has a way of making his truth
mean something to us. when it's real in our lives,
when we have a great need for it. So I want to bring a message
today from Philippians, and I've entitled this message, For me
to live is what? And for me to die is what? So
let's pray and ask the Lord to be with us. Father, thank you
for your word. Thank you for giving us so freely
a revelation of the truth in your heart and mind and your
will from all eternity in the work of our Savior and his person
and the ministry of your Spirit in us to direct our hearts towards
him and towards you in worship and thanksgiving and trust. Thank
you for this comforting word from the Epistle to the Philippians
by the Apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. Help
us to take these words to ourselves, to lay hold upon the Lord Jesus
Christ as our Savior, as our Lord, as our all. And we pray
that this confession of the Apostle would be our confession in life
and in death, that for me to live as Christ, and to die is gain. Help us,
dear Lord, as we consider your word. We pray that you would
suggest thoughts to our minds that would be of your spirit
and they would be to the praise and the glory of your grace.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Now the church of Philippi began
when God appeared to Paul and sent him into that region. In
Acts chapter 16, this is recorded if you want to look at it later
in your own time. But when Paul went there to that
area, one of the first things recorded is that Lydia, who was
a seller of purple, a woman of influence and stature in the
community, the Lord opened her heart and she believed and she
was baptized. And then later, when Paul was
arrested and he and Silas were put in prison, Then, by God's
grace, the Philippian jailer was converted. Remember the account
there, at midnight, while they were singing, Paul and Silas
were singing, God sent an earthquake, and in the earthquake, their
chains and the chains of all the prisoners were loosed, and
the jailer knew that if the prisoners escaped, his life would be taken. And so he drew out his sword
to kill himself, but Paul spoke to him, think about the attitude
of mind this man had in this fearful situation, an earthquake,
all the chains of the prisoners let loose, and he himself now
the object of capital punishment, really. And he undoubtedly thought
that this was his deserved doom. And so he draws his sword, ready
to kill himself, and Paul cried out to him, and, do yourself
no harm. And he asked that, momentous
question, what shall I do to be saved? And Paul directed him,
like he directs us throughout his epistles to the Lord Jesus,
he said, believe. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved. What a conversion that was and
how endearing it was for this jailer to have met and heard
through Paul of Christ and to realize his own eternal salvation
at that moment of time when it seemed like his life was about
to end under the condemnation of his sins. It was that bond
of love between the apostle and the jailer and between Paul and
Lydia and others in this church at Philippi that is expressed
here in this epistle. At the time when the letter is
written, Paul is in Rome and he is in prison. The Philippians
send their beloved pastor Epaphroditus to Paul with gifts to let him
know that their prayers were with him. In response, he sends
this letter back to the Philippians. So you can hear in his words
in this letter the affection, the deep affection he has for
these people. And he expresses his affection
in many ways, but one of the most endearing is the way that
he expresses it is their fellowship in the gospel of Christ. And
that fellowship in the gospel of Christ is what God has given
us. When we hear the gospel preached, when we speak of it, when God
applies it to our hearts and we tell of it to one another,
When we express the thoughts that God brings to our minds
from scripture, from the revelation of Christ to us, in our need,
how God has saved us from our sins, there is a bond between
us. It's called the fellowship of
the gospel. That bond is deeper than any other experience in
life, because it's a spiritual bond. It's a bond in the Spirit
of God. He made that bond, and that's
something to be treasured. And we can hear that in the words
of the apostle as he writes to these people. In verse 1 of Philippians,
chapter 1, it says, Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus
Christ, to all the saints in Christ, which are at Philippi
with the bishops and deacons. Paul was an apostle. He was chosen
and separated and commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ to go
with his gospel that treasure which Christ deposited in Paul
and all of his apostles and all of his people, for that matter,
as in earthen vessels, a treasure, to take that treasure and to
proclaim it with the authority of the King of Glory, the ruling
and reigning sovereign of heaven and earth. to whom all things
have been given, and in whose hand all power is. And so he gives this to Paul
with all authority, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
this message. Because it's the power of God
unto salvation to everyone that believes. And so Paul took that
message As an apostle, he had a special commission, a special
office given to him by Christ himself. that with such an auspicious
appointment by Jesus Christ himself, that Paul would think about himself
a little more highly than others. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you be
tempted to think that way? Well, God has given me this ability.
I'm so blessed of God. And you would begin to take airs
to yourself. But the Apostle Paul was not
that way. Notice how he phrases it, Paul and Timothy, the servants
or the bond slaves of Jesus Christ. At a time when Jesus Christ was
hated by the Jews. At a time when Christians were
being put to death and burned alive for proclaiming that Jesus
is Lord, not Caesar, but Jesus. At that time, the apostle, while
in prison, boldly declares himself and his dear son in the faith,
Timothy, to be bond slaves of the Lord Jesus Christ. He doesn't
put himself above Timothy. He finds a title for himself,
a character description of himself, a place that describes both him
and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, because there is no higher
honor No higher privilege than to claim that title, I am a servant
of Jesus Christ. We tingle even to say it, don't
we? And we doubt ourselves. But trust in the Lord. Look to
Him to provide the grace to give you that commission to be a servant
of Jesus Christ. And he writes this letter to
all the saints. Now saints is another word for
the sanctified ones. We are sanctified by God the
Father from eternity when He chose us in the Lord Jesus Christ. He says in Ephesians 1.4 that
He has chosen us in Him, in Christ, to be holy and without blame,
before Him in love, before the foundation of the world. And
in Jude 1.1 He says the same thing, that we are preserved
by God the Father in Christ Jesus. So we are sanctified by the electing
love of God the Father. And that love and choice of us
is in Christ. Because in Christ we are actually
sanctified. When He shed His blood as our
High Priest and offered Himself by that one offering to God,
He sanctified His people according to the will of God. Hebrews 10
verse 10. In fact, as the High Priest,
He didn't just do something that needed to be repeated, but He
did once and perfected forever all those who were sanctified
by his one offering of himself to God for us." Hebrews 10.14. And so in the Lord Jesus Christ,
by his blood, according to Hebrews 13.12, we are sanctified by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we're sanctified in those
two ways. And then again, we're sanctified by the Spirit of God.
We're sanctified in regeneration or in the new birth. When God
creates us in Christ Jesus, He raises us from spiritual death
to life. And He joins us to Christ by
His Spirit. We're sanctified by His Word
because it is in the preaching of the Gospel that we're born
of God. James 1.18, by the will of the
Father, we are born or begotten again by the Word of Truth. So
all these things teach us what a saint truly is. Someone who
has been sanctified by God the Father from eternity, sanctified
at the cross in the blood of Christ as our high priest who
offered himself to God to make us holy, and then the application
of God's eternal choice in Christ's blood made to us by the Spirit
of God when He raises us from spiritual death to life by the
command of His gospel. The light of the gospel shines
in our hearts, and we're joined to Christ by the Spirit of God.
We're set apart. We're made holy. And that holiness,
that sanctification, is given to us by God. It's not a work
that we do. And this is significant. Our
sanctification is God's work. Our sanctification is the fruit
of His grace, secured to us in electing love, and by the blood
of Christ, and made to us by the Spirit of God. And so we're
set apart, and we are holy. We are given a holy nature in
the new birth. Ephesians 4.24 says that we have
a nature created in righteousness and in true holiness. So now
these are the things that God teaches us, and He reminds those
in Philippians about this when He calls them the saints, and
the bishops, and the deacons. Bishops are those who are given
oversight, spiritual oversight, of the Church of God, to feed
the flock of God. And that endears them to the
believer, and the believer to them, because there's a mutual
dependence upon that gift of Christ to his church. When he
ascended on high and gave gifts to men, he made some apostles
and prophets and teachers and preachers for the edifying of
the body, for the perfecting of the saints. And so this is
why they were given. And the deacons are those who
serve Christ's church in spiritual matters as well as physical matters,
seeing to the needs of the people. In our congregation, we are very
small, so we have but one pastor. But in other churches where there's
more people and more responsibilities, there should be and there are
a plurality of elders and deacons. And then the Apostle goes on
in verse 2 and 3 and 4. He's talking here in verses 2,
3, and 4 about blessing that he prays to God for the Philippians
and also his thanksgiving to God for them. He prays to God
the Father and he prays to the Lord Jesus Christ that God's
grace and peace be given to them and be upon them. And what more
could we want but that? Grace, he says, be unto you,
and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Those words are almost repeated,
I think they are repeated, in every epistle of Paul. Perhaps
the book of Hebrews was written by Paul, and you don't find them
there at the beginning of the book, but I believe you find
them near the end of the book. In any case, grace is from God
the Father, but not just God the Father. Not only Him, but
from the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the grace of the Father
that gave His Son. It was the grace of the Father
that chose us, when we were without strength and sinners and enemies
of God, even in ourselves, to be His sons. and made us His
sons and predestinated us by Jesus Christ to be His sons from
before the foundation of the world. This is the grace of God. It was the grace of God the Father
that gave His Son for us and appointed and anointed Him to
save us from our sins, to be our mediator. to be our High
Priest and our Prophet and our King, to bring us to God, and
to bring God in revelation to us in our heart, and give His
Spirit to us, and reign over all things for us, and even subdue
our hearts to Himself in faith, and give us that gift of faith.
This is what God the Father has done. He's given us all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And that was from
before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1.3 and 2 Timothy
1.9. And so grace is from God the
Father. And it is also from the Lord
Jesus Christ. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ
be with you all. Amen. is the close of many epistles. And so, here we see Christ's
grace towards His people, that He would come into this world,
take our nature in the likeness of sinful flesh, and bear our
sins with the guilt and shame, and endure the punishment of
them for us. The Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Apostle wrote
to the Corinthians. Though he was rich, yet made
himself poor, that you through his poverty might be made rich.
And that poverty was a poverty of the degradation under the
load of our sins and in his outward appearance and in his place before
God as a servant to bring us to God. But the riches are not
the riches of this world, it's everything, every spiritual blessing
God has for His people. And so we see this, the grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace to forgive, grace to receive,
grace to bring us to God, and grace to keep us and to be faithful
He has pledged to us in that everlasting covenant to have
us for Himself and to make us His own people in the union of
that bond of marriage, that spiritual marriage between Christ and His
people. And so this is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. And
so you can see from the outset of this epistle how the Apostle
directs the hearts of the Philippians to God in His grace for them. This was the gospel message,
grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. And then he goes on in verse
3, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. When Paul,
by God's grace, God put it in Paul's heart to remember the
Philippians, because remember, whenever we remember the saints,
that's God's grace to us. To remember his people with endearing
memories. of their love for Christ and
the salvation that He's given to them in Christ. That love
is a common love. It's a common thing, like fellows
on a ship who endure the raging storms and the deprivation of
comfort and food and so many things. striving against the
sea together. Those fellows have fellowship,
don't they? They have a common bond of union
in their struggles against the sea for their lives to achieve
their goal. And so many other examples could
be given of fellowship and so he remembers them with an endearing
memory. And he remembers them, he says,
upon every remembrance of them, he thanks God. I thank my God
upon every remembrance of you. He says, always in his memory
of them, when they're brought to his mind, what does he do?
In verse four, always in every prayer of mine for you all making
request with joy. The thought of them gave Paul
joy, and the prayer that God gave Paul, put it in his heart
to pray for them, brought joy to his heart. Because he knew
in his prayers for them that this was God's will for them,
and that God would answer his prayers, and he would do for
them what was in God's heart, and put it in Paul's heart to
pray for. And so he thanks them with his joy. He says, in verse
5, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until
now. Great fellowship. Being confident,
He says, being confident, and we are to have this confidence.
If this is the confidence expressed by the apostle, the one sent
by Jesus Christ to bring his people to himself through the
preaching of the gospel, he says, being confident of this very
thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform
it until the day of Jesus Christ. There's many things to learn
from this verse of scripture. First of all, who does the work?
being confident of this very thing that He, which hath begun
a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Whose work is it? It's God's
work. Who began the work? God did. Who completes the work? God does. And how long does it
take? Until the day of Jesus Christ.
When will it be perfected? When the Lord Jesus returns in
glory. Our salvation occurred at the cross. It was obtained
for us. Our eternal redemption obtained
by Jesus Christ when he offered his blood. Hebrews 9 verse 12. But here he's telling about how
God began a good work in you. When does that work begin in
us? Well, to our own experience, it begins when we first believe
Christ. But that faith we have in Christ
is the evidence of being born of God. John chapter 3, we remember
when we went through that. The evidence of the new birth,
according to Jesus, was as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
wilderness, even so the Son of Man would be lifted up, that
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. And so that's the evidence that
everlasting life is the reward for Christ's obedience given
to those who believe, and that faith in Him is the result of
the new birth. The wind blows where it pleases,
the Spirit gives life to whom He will, and He gives faith in
Christ. And that's the evidence we have
that God has given us this. That's the new work begun in
us. Up until that time in our lives,
we were without Christ, alienated from the life of God, and without
hope in the world. We were, like Titus 3.3 says,
we were as others. We were hateful, hating and hating
one another. And we were far from the kingdom
of God in ourselves. But God had set His love upon
us from eternity, and Christ had died for us at the cross.
And therefore He sent His Spirit from glory from His throne in
heaven to us at the appointed time, and He quickened us. He
sent His gospel, and He made us alive, and He began this work
in us. And we realize it when we find
that God has received Christ for us and we apprehend that
in Christ God has justified us by his blood. And we look away
from all that we are. We cease striving in order to
produce in ourselves a cause for God to accept us. And we
realize there's no cause in us except for God to damn us. And
so we find in Christ every reason, everything God requires, and
we look to Him. And we're so delighted to find
that God would so graciously appoint and accept Christ for
us. And we lay hold on this truth. We lay hold on the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's God beginning a work in us. And the first experience
of grace is not the last, but only the beginning of eternal
work in us. Here he says, he who has begun
a good work in you will perfect it, or perform it, until the
day of Jesus Christ. And it will be perfected. It
will be brought to perfection. God's work in us is begun at
the new birth, but our salvation is not just then. He says in
2 Corinthians 1.10, you have been saved, you are being saved,
and you shall be saved. So this salvation extends throughout
our life and it culminates in our eternal redemption of both
our spirit and body in glory. And so we have the foretaste
of it when in the death of our body our spirits go to be with
Christ. Well, we have the first foretaste
of it by faith, but then when our souls go to be with the Lord,
but finally in the consummation when our body is resurrected
and our body is redeemed and we're joined in soul and spirit
and body perfected before God in heaven. Then when we see Him
as He is, we shall be like Him. You see, and so that's the day
of Jesus Christ. The eternal predestinated purpose
of God for his people, that they would be conformed to Jesus Christ,
is finally fulfilled in the day of Jesus Christ. And so in verse
7, he says, even as it is meat for me to think this of you all,
having this confidence of you all, because I have you in my
heart, inasmuch as both in my bonds and in the defense and
confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers of my grace.
So he's saying, I'm in prison now, I'm in bonds now, but whether
I'm in prison or whether I'm preaching, out of prison, in
whatever condition I am, I know that, and I'm persuaded of this,
that because I have you in my heart, And you support me both
in my bonds, whether I'm in prison or out of prison, preaching the
gospel, defending and confirmation of the gospel. You are all partakers
of my grace. We believe the same Christ. We
depend upon Him. We serve the same Lord. And the
same grace has been given to us. Therefore, I am confident
that God has begun this work in you and that he will perfect
it and complete it to the end. He says in verse 8, For God is
my record, how greatly I long after you in the bowels of Jesus
Christ. The powers of Jesus Christ. That's
the most intimate, ardent love of Jesus Christ for His people.
And Paul says that same love that the Lord Jesus Christ Himself
has for you. I long for you after that. That same love because He's put
it in me to love you. He says, I'm willing to spend
and be spent for you. And he says in verse 9, And this
I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and in all judgment, that you may approve things that are excellent,
that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by
Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. What does this
grace of God do? We're partakers of His grace.
What does it do in us? Well, it directs us to Christ,
and unlike the law which imposes upon us things we can never do
and find offensive to our nature, grace comes, gives us a new nature,
directs us to Christ in whom all of our salvation and hope
lies, and shows us who He is in His character, in His nature,
in His love towards us, in His forgiveness. at the cost of his
own blood, in his humility, and his faithfulness, and in his
truth. All these things come to bear
in a point upon our hearts, and they direct us to him by faith. And so this results in the fruit
of the Spirit. He says that your love may grow
or abound yet more and more. We grow in love. We don't have
a full maturity of faith and love. We grow. The work has begun,
but it's not complete. We are to grow and mature as
believers in Christ. We're not to be babes, but full-grown
men. And that will happen by the grace
of God, as we are directed from the gospel to look upon Christ.
2 Corinthians 3.18 says, When you behold, as in a glass, the
glory of the Lord, which is the Lord Jesus Christ, you're changed
into the same image even from glory to glory. And so here we
are, looking to Christ in all that we are and are not in ourselves,
in our sinfulness, in our complete impotence. we look to Christ
and we draw from Him, we lean upon Him, we take from Him and
we rely upon God's Word that our salvation is in Him and complete
in Him and that we are complete in Him in whom the fullness of
the Godhead dwells bodily. And so we lean upon Him and this
produces by the Spirit love in our hearts for Him. We have a
growing Appreciation for the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. A growing appreciation for God's
eternal will and love and mercy and wisdom and grace to us. All
these things are brought by God's grace through faith to bear upon
our hearts. And the Spirit of God enables
us then more and more to run out in love to Christ and to
his people. So that we see that Christ so
loved his own, he gave himself for them. And so we want to give
ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ as a submissive wife yields to
her husband. And so we delight in this. It's
a submission of love and faith and trust. And he goes on to
say that you might abound yet more and more in knowledge and
in all judgment so that you know, you can discern between false
gospels and the true gospel, between works religion and the
truth of grace and truth in Christ. In verse 10, that you may approve
the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without
offense till the day of Christ, being filled with all the fruits
of righteousness, because righteousness imputed to us produces fruit,
which is the gift of God in us, to live to Christ by His Spirit. But verse 12, he goes on, But
I would that you should understand, brethren, that the things which
happened to me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of
the gospel. So my imprisonment, my bonds
here in prison, were by God ordained to actually further the gospel. A lot of times we look at life,
we say, well I've been, I'm frustrated. It's not happening like I thought
it should. Things are not occurring like I think that they should
happen in order for me to freely do the things God has given me
to do. So that the gospel can go forth. And we feel frustrated.
Oh no. This is all designed by God.
We offer the to God the prayers from our heart and asking Him
to look upon the things that we observe and yet make in His
own wisdom and by His own power the course direction that He
would have taken in order for His will to be fulfilled in our
lives. So he says, look, God has made
it known to me that my imprisonment here is actually for the furtherance
of the gospel. And here we have it! Here we
have all these epistles written by Paul, many of them under the
affliction or imprisonment due to the gospel. Isn't that amazing? And it was exactly as God had
revealed it to him. He says in verse 13, So that
my bonds in Christ, or my imprisonment in Christ, are manifest in all
the palace, and in all other places. Even this palace in Rome,
where the royalty live, that are holding me in prison and
keeping me in bonds, they're hearing the gospel. Isn't that
God's grace? And many of the brethren in the
Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to
speak the word without fear. That's self-evident, isn't it?
These people who see in Paul's bonds God's grace given to him
and the furtherance of the gospel, they're emboldened to speak more
freely of the gospel. I read somewhere that Christians
in those days would sometimes sell themselves as slaves so
that they could go preach to the slaves. Think about that. These people had an ardent desire
given to them by God. God had put it in their heart
to tell of the glories of Christ in their salvation when they
were undeserving and hell-deserving sinners, how he brought them
out of the pit. In verse 15, some indeed preach Christ even
of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. The one preached
Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to
my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the
defense of the gospel. So there were some who probably
preached against Paul. If he's in prison, like Job's
friends, he probably deserves it. See how the gospel is being
silenced. See how the cause is being frustrated. Because it's not of God. But
it was of God. They didn't see how God's hand
was strong in this thing. And then there were others who
understood that Paul's bonds were for the furtherance of the
gospel. And they preached Christ in love. But in either case, both of these
groups he's referring to were actually preaching, at the core
at least, the gospel of Christ. And so he says in verse... Verse 18, What then, notwithstanding
every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached? And I therein do rejoice, yea,
and will rejoice. So God used even these malicious motives of these men
who preach the gospel in this way. He used it to further the
gospel. And Paul was encouraged by that.
You could not discourage Paul. You could not hold him down.
He says in verse 19, for I know, I know, Paul says, he's confident
now, I know that this shall turn, all this turmoil that seems to
be at conflict with each other so that the gospel is going to
fail in its mission. He says, no, I know that this,
my imprisonment, and all that he's mentioning, shall turn to
my salvation through your prayer. Isn't that amazing? Paul is going
to be delivered. How? Through their prayer. Now
that's a humble thing to say, isn't it? If Christ sent me,
as he did Paul, and gifted me with all those things that he
gifted Paul, I would tend to think that it's just going to
happen. I don't have to think about it.
But Paul was not presumptuous. He even laid great importance,
he understood that God was pleased to work through the prayers of
these saints who in themselves were insignificant to the cause
of the gospel. He told them, no, by your prayers
they shall turn to my salvation. and the supply of the Spirit
of Jesus Christ. By those two things, the prayers
of the saints and the Spirit of God given by Jesus Christ.
Now listen to verse 20, which is kind of where I wanted to
get to here. He says, according to my earnest expectation and
my hope. My earnest expectation and my
hope are synonyms. He's confident. He's expecting
God to fulfill his promise. Christ to be faithful to his
word. He sent him. He's going to accomplish
the work he sent him to do. He's confident that God's going
to perform the work he began in the Philippians to the day
of Jesus Christ. And so he says, according to
my earnest expectation And my hope that in nothing I shall
be ashamed. In nothing I shall be ashamed. But that with all boldness, as
always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether
it be by life or by death. Now that is a confidence given
out of grace. We have every reason to doubt
ourselves, don't we? every reason. When we think about
coming to the throne of grace, we doubt because we have some
part of ourselves in that coming. When we think about the assurance
of our salvation, we doubt because we have some part of ourselves
in that assurance. When we think about God's love
to us, we doubt it because we think somehow that we have to
be in that equation. When we think of standing before
Christ in glory and before the judgment seat of God, we tremble
because we see some part of ourselves in that. But Paul saw it differently. He was confident because he saw
all of his salvation dependent upon what God thought and received
from Christ alone. He saw Christ as all of his hope,
all of his salvation. And he was confident that he
was able to do what he had promised. And so he says, I'm confident
that with all boldness as always, so now also, Christ shall be
magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. Now,
who could hurt someone like that? Who could deter? Who could stop
someone with that attitude in life? I don't care whether it's
my life or my death, Christ shall be magnified in my body. He would
take up the cause of Christ with full vigor, all the strength
and confidence of Christ's power, of Christ's merit, of His righteousness,
of His faithfulness, of all that He has in Himself, wouldn't He? He's the one who's, I can do
all things, He said, through Christ which strengtheneth me,
a little later on in the same book. He was confident because
Christ was his all. Not because of what he thought
about himself. No, he said, by your prayers
and by the Spirit of Christ. So he was confident, Christ will
be magnified in my body. And so every believer, every
believer is to take the same attitude. The same attitude that
Christ shall be magnified in my body. We think, well, our
body is full of sin. I seem to be a slave of sin in
my body. What am I to do? Look away. Look away to Christ. and be confident
that He cannot fail. Though we, in ourselves, are
prone to deny Him as Peter, to be unfaithful to Him, forsake
Him as all the disciples did at the cross, yet He remains
faithful and He cannot deny Himself. And so He says this. Now, listen
to verse 21. He goes on. He says, For me to
live is Christ. And to die is gain. Now, I want
to spend the rest of our time thinking about just this one
verse here. And I was trying to understand this. If you say
it over and over, it's like a lot of things. You repeat them enough,
and they lose meaning. For me to live. If I was to give
you all a blank sheet of paper and put that question at the
top, and I wrote, for me to live is dot, dot, dot, what would
you write below that? You might say, for me to live
is golfing. For me to live is quilting. For
me to live is traveling the globe. It's obtaining my degree. Or it's having children and grandchildren
surrounding me in my later years. Or it's giving myself for my
children and my grandchildren. What is it? For me to live is
what to you? I want to give an illustration
here that occurred recently when we were at the wedding of my
niece, Anna. There was a young woman there
who played an instrument called a cello. I'm assuming you know
what a cello is. It's like a large violin. It
sits one end on the floor and the other end up here. And the
person playing it draws a bow across the strings. And they
use their fingers to select the notes they want to play. It has
a hauntingly beautiful sound to it. It's a very beautiful
instrument to look upon, but especially to hear. So, while
we were at Anna's wedding, this young woman played the cello
and I was Thinking how beautiful that instrument was to look at
and how the sound it produced was so spectacular And the sound
that the room we were in could seat about 200 plus people I
think it was 30 feet wide and 100 feet long It was a big room
and long and then beyond that was this long hall and when we
were practicing for the wedding she was there with Denise and
she was playing the cello, and Denise was playing an electric
piano, and the cello just had no electrical amplification to
it. Just the raw, the wood, the shape
of the wood, and the structure of the wood, and the strings,
and the bow, and all of it together. It just emitted this sound that
filled the room, so that everyone, it was like, as soon as it began
to play, everyone just went silent. And I wanted to sit down and
just listen to it. It was captivating. And so the
sound filled this large room and as she played, people were
captivated by the sound. And they would just sit and be
quiet. And you could hear beautiful
music at first. When you hear it, you want it
to be as still as you could just to absorb the sense of beauty
that only your ears and the vibrational senses in your body could experience.
You just want everything else to be quiet so you could absorb
that. And so when I heard that cello played, I wanted to join
in somehow. But I had no ability to admit
any sound that would complement that beautiful sound. If I had,
it would have been like a howling hound dog. We used to have a dog that did
that. When the piano was played, our yellow lab would start moaning
in pleasure. That's what it would have sounded
like had I thought to sing along with the music then. It was just
wonderful. Now, think of that cello for
a moment. What if you found a cello, but you did not know what it
was or what to do with it? You didn't know what it was.
Maybe you would hang it on the wall as a beautiful ornament
to look at it. Or maybe you would attach legs
to it and make a coffee table. Or you might put it in your garage
to keep the door open when the wind was blowing so that you
got some air in the garage. Who knows what you would do if
you didn't know what it was. Or maybe you just want to feel
how smooth that wood is and the curves in the wood and the texture
of it and slide your fingers up and down on those strings
and hear that funny sound when you use your fingernails to draw
it across there. Whatever you did with the cello,
it would be an insult, wouldn't it? To the purpose for which
that cello was designed. And until someone skilled to
play the music with it came along and played it. and tuned its
strings and fingered those strings in the right place on the frets
and with the right movement drawing the bow across those strings
of the cello to take a beautifully written piece of music and make
it come alive to your senses and make you sit in captivated
appreciation for the beauty of that instrument sounding in your
ears by the resonance of its special shape and that select
wood out of which it was made. Until that happened, you really
wouldn't know what that cello was for, would you? What is living
to you? What is life? For me to live
is what? Think about the cello. It was
designed to be used in a specific way to emit this beautiful music. It makes hearing certain kinds
of musical pieces as if you had never heard them in that way
before, as if hearing them from a new angle, a new perspective.
for the first time, compelling you to join in, yet knowing your
own skill would detract from that beautiful sound. To use
a cello for anything but what it was designed to do, and as
a fine instrument like a cello to be used by anyone unskilled
to play it, that would be a waste, wouldn't it? As if a man or a
woman had lived their life without finding the purpose for which
they were created by God. Only that's a much worse waste.
So here's the other question, what is dying to you? I know
a man who had a PhD in philosophy, an extremely intelligent man.
He wrote superbly, and he had wide influence across the United
States and internationally. And his writings remain a reference
of clarity of thinking, even today, long after his life is
over. But this man died of cancer,
and when he learned that he would die of cancer, he was greatly
disappointed, and he was even angry. He did not want his life
to end. So I ask this question, what
is dying to you? Do we have a purpose only in
life? Do we have an aim, a hope that
only goes as far as our life? Will our death be a loss to us?
Now, we are sinners. We have fallen short of the glory
of God. We are like a fine instrument
that has been warped. left out in the rain, and dirt
has soiled it, and mold has begun to form on it, and the wood is
split, and rotted, and molded, and hardened. And we've abused
ourselves, like the misuse and the abuse of a cello, a fine
instrument. We've served ourselves, and we
have, by doing that, taken our own lives away in tragedy. We
were made for God, but no spiritual sound can be heard from us. No
one knows how to use it. We lost our spiritual life. God
must take us back from death to life. When he does, what will
that life be? What is that one purpose for
which we were created? There is but one, isn't there?
There's one alone who can raise us from death to life. There's
but one who knows how to recreate us to be what he meant us to
be. There is but one who can fulfill that purpose in us. What
is that sound we were designed to emit? Until our life is this
one thing, we do not really live. We are like a dissonant string
on a violin or cello or piano that is out of tune, unable to
resonate at the notes needed to play any musical arrangement. And when plucked or strummed,
it only makes the hearer cringe because it's not right. And some
might say, for me to live is this or that. The Apostle Paul
had a very clear focus on what it meant for him to live. For
me to live is Christ. Until Christ is our life, we
are out of tune, warped, cracked, moldy, like a cello in the trunk
of a car, the junkyard. never to be seen and we may think
for me to live is to travel or for me to live is to play music
or build houses or bridges or design electronic circuits or
have children but there's only one thing that will enable us
to live to God is when Christ is our life. If you saw the Lord Jesus when
he was on earth you would not think more of him than others.
Isaiah 53 says, when we shall see him, there is no beauty that
we should desire him. He was a carpenter's son. He
could build things. But if you only saw him as a
carpenter's son, when you saw him, you would not have seen
him or known him. Or if you only saw him as a miracle
worker, when you saw him, you would never have known Jesus
Christ. Or if you only heard him as a teacher, like Nicodemus
did in John 3, you would not have known him. You have not
seen or truly known him until you've known him as a sinner. What if no man cared for your
soul? What if by your own sin you had
destroyed your soul? What if you were guilty of a
great and many sins against God? What if you were hateful and
shameful before God and men? And what if you heard the Lord
Jesus speak to reveal the very truth of God to your soul? If
you were far off and He brought you near to the very presence
of God, if you were dead and He raised you to life, if you
were condemned and stood guilty before God and He revealed God's
grace in Himself to you, what if you were hateful and He made
God's everlasting love to sinners known to you? And what if you
stood trembling in your guilt and He forgave you all your sins?
What if you were the object of God's just wrath, and without
hope, and lied in your soul, and then you heard Him speak
truth and grace to you, and reveal His holy love and His infinite
grace to your worthless soul? If you had no strength, if you
found your strength in Him, what would He be to you? If you could
not come to God because of your sin and ignorance, and He took
away your sins and clothed you in His righteousness, if you
were in yourself disgusting and nauseatingly revolting to God
and men, and even to yourself, what if He washed you and you
were made without spot and clothed you in His beauty? What if you
were dead and he raised you to life? What if you saw him as
truth and grace, and life personified? If you thus heard and learned
of him, then you would desire no other, and you would answer
this question, For me to live is Christ, wouldn't you? If you thus heard and learned
of him, then you would desire him. He's the perfection, the
very perfection of all that God can find in a man. And he is
the perfection of God himself in man. He is so exceedingly
far beyond what any sinner could ask or think to find or know
of God. And all we want and need to know
and come to God for and be loved by God and blessed of God is
found in him. for me to live is Christ. What
if you, like Peter, denied him, and he looked, and with his look
turned you, and he looked upon you in compassion and love, and
in that look your heart was smitten that you could treat him so,
and yet in that look he brought you to himself again in his love,
not for you, because of his love. then you would desire none but
him, and then he would be your life, wouldn't he? He is all
compassion. He is the friend of sinners.
Sinful nobodies were found swimming and basking in the ocean of his
love and grace. He is merciful to the greatest
of sinners, isn't he? For me to live as Christ, and
dying is not a loss for the believer, because dying is gain. The apostle
Paul didn't know at this time whether God would take his life
in prison or he would live on and preach the gospel. And so
he said, I don't know which one I should choose, whether to live
or to die. For me, to live is Christ. It's
far better for you if I live and continue in this ministry
of the gospel. But for me, it would be far better
to die. And so he said, he didn't see
death as a loss, he said, for me to die is gain. Let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would
give us this great grace that our life would be like a finely
tuned instrument finally finding its purpose in the hand of a
master. that the Lord Jesus Christ would
be our life, and we would know Him, that you receive us not
for what we are in ourselves, but for what we were created
to be in Christ Jesus before the world began, made in His
image, in your predestinating purpose, and conform to His image
by the work of Your grace in His redeeming blood and by Your
Spirit in us. Bring us to Yourself, we pray,
Lord, in life and in death. Help us to live for Christ and
look forward to that time when we shall see Him as He is, and
then we will be satisfied when we awaken His likeness. We ask
these blessings on all here today to the glory of the Son of God
who loved us and gave himself for us. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.