But in reality, it's not about
the time we spend, it's about really the time it spends in
us. How much of the Word of God is active and alive in our lives?
What is it that we're really looking to accomplish when we
get into the Word, when we come to fellowship together? What
are we really hoping for? What is our expectation of God
in His Word and through His Word? Are we looking to see Him more
fully? Are we looking to embrace Him more deeply? Are we looking
to understand Him? Well, here, as I said that I
would do last week, if you look at Philippians 1, verse 20, Paul
is in the middle of a sentence, so it's very frustrating. Let's
look at verse 18b and read down through verse 20. Yes, and I
will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the
help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance,
as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at
all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ
will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. And so when we think about this
particular passage here, I wanted to take this week and next week,
and I wanted to really look at two things. Today, I want to
look at what it means to really glorify Christ with our bodies
in life and death. This will not be exhaustive,
but I believe in the context of what we're going to see in
the weeks to come, Paul explains that, and so instead of having
to refer back to it, I want to focus on it for a minute mold
our minds and our hearts closer to Christ. And then next week,
I want to really answer the frustrating question, how is Christ, how
is to live Christ? To live is Christ. It's not, it makes no sense,
but it does make great sense the way Paul explains it. All
together, we know where Paul has come from. We've journeyed
now in this little bit of this letter, which if you put it on
a piece of paper, it's only about that much. It looks bigger in
your Bible because the columns are smaller. But it's just a
small little introductory paragraph that we've approached thus far,
and yet it is theologically rich, it is enticing to worship, it
is fulfilling in application, it gives us everything that we
need for joy, and for worship, and for camaraderie, and for
ministry. It's all here. What we've already
seen is an introduction. The unpacking of all of these
truths are going to be extremely magnificent. when we get to them. But as it is my eager expectation,
listen to the words of Paul, and my eager hope that I will
not be at all ashamed. Let's put it into perspective
for a second. Let's just relate the sentence. It is my eager
expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed. It is my eager expectation and
hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but it is my eager expectation
and hope, with full courage, Christ will be honored in my
body, now, as always, whether by life or death. So let's look
at it. and to try to get all these commas
where they need to be in our minds. My eager expectation,
as we looked at last week, is that Paul had great anticipation
of a certainty, of a hope, that he would be released from prison
first, because he knew he was going to Rome to stand before
Caesar. And it is His eager expectation
and hope that in His suffering He would not be put to shame,
and we looked at what that was talking about, that He would
not be ashamed, that He would not be made to be shameful, that
all that He stood for and even in death He would be vindicated
and that the gospel would be preached even if He died. and that he had courage with
great and eager expectation that Christ, right now in his present
circumstances, as always had he been in his body, in life
and or in death, honored. So let's look at it. I think
we should look at things sort of in pieces. Let's look at the
first little piece of this in this sense. Paul uses the phrase,
but that with full courage. Full courage. I do not want to
be ashamed, but have full courage. So if we look at what Paul is
saying, we understand he's contrasting Being ashamed with courage. Paul
says he's eagerly expecting with great hope that he will not be
ashamed. He will not be at all ashamed. But the opposite of
being ashamed is that he would have great courage. You ever
seen a shy person trying to communicate? And they know what they're saying.
They have great wisdom. Like a child who can ask politely
for something. And the parents are like, go
ahead and tell us. And then they just, they look down, they put
their finger in their ear. Say it again, we can't hear you.
Then they're embarrassed. This is the picture that Paul
is painting. that for so many people, there
is this expectation that he is going to, when he is seen in
public again, he's just going to be this little mealy-mouthed
mouse of a man, and he's going to step straight according to
the Roman dictation, according to the Roman law, according to
the commands of the emperor to keep his mouth shut about Christ. And he's saying he's not going
to be that way. He's not going to be ashamed of his suffering.
He's not going to be ashamed of Christ. But he has full courage
now. He has full courage. This is
showing that Paul hopes in something that's not like a wish. He's
not saying, I wish upon a star, I really hope with my fingers
crossed, I'm blowing out the candles of my birthday cake here.
He's not anticipating something with fear that it might not be.
He has absolute resolve that that which God has shown him
is certain. He is absolute resolved that
the omniscient, sovereign, supreme God of the universe has orchestrated
not only the breath He just took, but the breath He's going to
take and measured the days of His life for the sake of the
glory and the honor of Christ. He's confident in that. He has
not wallowed in the cell. He has not wept for his own release.
He has not worried about what he's going to do. He is not fearful
of what's going to happen with the ministry. He is not troubled
by the fact that there are churches to be planted and people to be
reached. There is no wavering in the resolve of Paul for he
has confident hope and eager expectation with full courage. Why? How can this man have such
certainty? Well, we've already dealt with
that. We've already looked at it. Because God has given His
grace. Grace to you and peace from God
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of your partnership
in the Gospel. I'm sure of this. He who began
a good work will bring it to completion. Paul is confident
because God has always given grace to him. God always and
unchangeably gives grace to His people to endure. Not to retreat. Simply, I've got to endure this
pain. That means the pain's not leaving. That means you've got
to make it through it until it's gone. But you stand up under
it to endure all suffering for the sake of Christ. The grace
of God empowers the church. The grace of God has empowered
Paul. He knows this grace. It's not
a theory. It's not theological pursuit
of academics. This is a real and live experience
that Paul has to go with his knowledge. Paul has the grace
of God at this very moment, as he always has, as we'll see.
And because Paul is confident because God has given this grace
through Jesus Christ. Why? Also because God finishes
what he starts. Why? Because God is faithful. God is faithful to his children. God has done a work inside of
him and when he preached that same gospel that transformed
himself to the ears of those in Philippi, they too were transformed
by the power of God's grace. confident that the evidence of
salvation would be strong in them. You see why when we think,
when we talk as Christians, as God's people, and we hear preaching
sometimes, and it gets on these issues of what we should be doing
and what we shouldn't be doing and all this, people get a little
disgruntled. You know, some people get frustrated and they, well,
you know, I just can't be perfect. You know what that is? That's
a cop-out saying, I'm not going to try because I can't be. That's
a cop-out to try to put ourselves, it's a plea to the masses, it's
a fallacy, an argument. Well everybody else isn't perfect,
why would I want to be any different? Or worse, we get into this really
crazy argument of going, oh that's just legalism. God doesn't expect
us, He does expect us to be holy. But the reality is that there's
nothing in our flesh that could ever be holy. Ever. That's why Christ died, that
we could be set right, legally, spiritually, alive in Christ. We are justified because God
has granted it so. Evidenced by faith. Evidenced
by a pursuit of righteousness. So when we see what Paul is going
to say in a minute, that Christ be honored in my body, he lived
it. He pressed into holiness. It's
not a cop-out. We use the word addiction and
habit way too often in this world. I can honestly stand before you
and say I have no addictions and no habits that are controlling
my life. Anything that I do habitually or addictively, I purposefully
do. Why? Because Christ killed my
flesh and it no longer controls me. I'm not belittling addiction.
I'm not belittling psychological problems, compulsive disorders,
of which I teeter on, believe it or not. I lost my train of
thought. I'm not belittling those things,
that's what I was saying. But I am saying that for the
most part, we, as we live our lives, we make choices to honor
Christ or to dishonor Christ. We are not slaves to our flesh
if we are in Christ. Because if this is continually
evident in us, if the fruit of our lives is godlessness, then
the scripture teaches us that we're not in the light of Christ.
That we have not been saved. That our flesh controls us rather
than the love of Christ compelling us. This is not a stomping ground
for legalism and puritanism. This is the gospel. It's what
the gospel does. So to say that God's power doesn't
affect us in that way is to say that God's powerless and maybe
all of these open theists are right. But God is doing this work because
He's faithful always to His children. He's faithful to His children
to never leave them, never forsake them, to always empower them,
to always impress upon them their affections. He transformed, the
Old Testament even teaches, God speaking to Israel through the
prophets. He says, I will take out that
wicked dead heart and I will put in a new one. What is that? Did God paint a picture of what
it could be and stuck it out there for Israel to look at and
go, That looks pretty good. I think I'll pick that. Is the
gospel a menu in which we just peruse and decide we want to
eat the entree? Is the Christian life this list
of tables that we can go through and accomplish in our actions,
in our hearts, in our thoughts? No! It's the work of God alone. Period. Done. And the sooner
we get that into our thick craniums, the better we'll be. Here's the
great reality. As we hear the Word of God and
as we see the life of Paul and the Apostles, as we see the teaching
of the New Testament, God empowers our minds to grasp it. God gives
us the resolve to start to stand up and push away sin. God convicts
us in the midst of our wickedness and our darkness and says, you're
a child of mine. I've saved you through the blood
of Christ. Stand up under this and get off of it. Get away from
it. Don't wallow. And what was the
opportunity for Paul to sin? What would he do? Oh, he could
have done a lot. He could have exercised his rights.
He could have stood there and clanged a cup in the bars or
whatever it looked like in that day and wanted his lawyer. He
could have, well, he was only in prison because he requested
an appeal to Caesar. This is his own fault. He could
have said, well, you know, I really made a mistake. I don't need
this anymore. He was in jail for two years
after he was exonerated because he had appealed to Caesar. You
realize that? He gets arrested. He says, I
appealed to Caesar. I'm a Roman citizen. Okay. Put him on the docket. There
was no bond. There was no bail. It took two
years to get in front of Caesar. And the procouncils and the king
and everybody else goes, You're an idiot. You're innocent. But
you've appealed to Caesar, so off you go in shackles. For two
years. He could have easily gone, you
know, I'll revoke that. Try me right now. Maybe. I don't know anything about the
justice system of Rome. But I'm sure he could have made
some noise. I made a big mistake. He could have decided to start
being very politically minded inside that jail. He could have
started getting some guards on his side. You know what? I'm
an important guy. God Almighty saved me on the
road to Damascus, and I'm His top representative in this world.
I'm sort of like the mini-me king. I want to talk to some
people around here. Something's got to be done about
the accommodations. The cable's out. My food was terrible. I
mean, he could have really started to become very selfish, self-focused,
self-centered. He could have began to try to
be pitied. What does Paul say? The only
reason we should be pitied is if Christ has not been raised
from the dead. Paul had a great opportunity to wallow in his
self-despair. Paul could have sat there and
cried and prayed and woe is me until he stood before Caesar
and just sniffled and snobbled all over the floor, and Caesar
said, I didn't see you do anything wrong, why did you appeal to
me anyway? You know why he appealed to Caesar? So that he could stand
with full courage and boldness and say, Jesus Christ is King,
you aren't. Jesus is the King of you. Jesus
is the God of you, He created you, and you rebelled against
Him. And He came to this earth to
satisfy the judgment against you, for you are guilty in the
court of the King of Hosts. And you can see the dialogue.
And this God died on the cross and was raised to life and He
reigns supreme. And you, you better believe or
you will stand in judgment. Paul tells that to Caesar. You
believe or you stand in judgment. And Paul is saying, that now,
in my present circumstances, I want to be full of courage,
and not that I just want to be, I am going to be. See, there's
a big difference. There's a big difference in hoping,
like wishing upon a star, and having hope in what is certain. I see people hoping every day
at the gas pump. and they throw that $30 ticket
in the trash. I spoke to the gentleman up here that runs this
$4 billion last year in the state of Georgia. $2 billion was paid
out. Where'd that come from? People
putting their hope in nothing. And he says there are several
customers that cash their check in lottery tickets every week.
And they'll win $1,000 and they'll come in and they'll get $1,000
worth of lottery tickets. And he tells them, you've spent
$7,000 this month or this year. You're not ahead. Hope. That's not the kind of hope that
we have in Christ. It's not a, I wonder if the wind's
going to blow my direction. I wonder if the ticket that they
printed out, you know, six years ago, is going to have the winning
number on it. I wonder if I'm going to be able
to have enough people to bail me out. I wonder. I hope. Oh, I hope the cavalry's coming.
It's not hope. It's despair. Paul had no despair. And he says that I am full of
courage, Now. He says now. In the present. Think about his
present circumstances. Think about what he's going through.
His incarceration and his suffering. His defamation. The people who
are preaching, as we've already seen, a true gospel just to try
to make their ministry look better than Paul's. How does he know
that? Because he was out there. He
saw the hostility. He saw the competition. He saw
the aggressiveness that some of these people had. And probably,
most likely, they did then just what they do now. Oh, you were
listening to Paul preach? You better watch that guy. Did
you hear he's in jail? What? Yeah, he's a false teacher,
man. He got arrested. God's people don't get arrested.
But guess what? I'm here to pick up the slack.
You just follow me. See, that's what this looks like. I'm going
to preach a good gospel to you, but you're going to follow me
down. That's what a church split looks like. Y'all just follow me down
the road. Forget about the power of reconciliation.
I hate y'all. Anybody likes me or that guy,
y'all come with me. It's a new church. Yay, look
what God's doing. That's what it looks like. It's
just really, we're blind to it. Culturally blind. Paul was suffering
in this way. And you know what the greatest
suffering that he had? Is that he was so burdened for the souls
of these people. He had no time to wallow in his own self-pity.
As a matter of fact, he didn't have any. He was so confident
that what he was doing was for the sake of the expansion, the
proclamation, the defense, and the advance of the gospel, that he
had no self. He would not be anywhere else. Because could Paul have really
probably just gotten out of jail? Probably. Matter of fact, he
got out of jail in Philippi, didn't he? He just prayed, and
him and Silas prayed, and the whole jail opened up. And God used that. What? That they didn't escape. I don't
want to see people die. Let me stay and preach the gospel
when they find out that it was God who opened up these doors
and took off our chains. So now in the present circumstances
of incarceration and suffering, Paul has full courage that Christ
will be honored in his body. in his body. He is confident
that his suffering will honor Christ. He is confident that
in his incarceration that it is honoring to Christ. He is
confident that in every interaction he has with every guard that
he is honoring Christ. He is confident that any person
that comes across his path while he's in chains, he is honoring
Christ. He is confident that as anybody who in all of Palestine
and Asia Minor, in all these areas, would think of Paul when
they get the news of him being in prison, that he is honoring
Christ. Paul is confident that the plans
that did not come to pass would honor Christ. He's not worried
about what he went to do, because what he went to do is of no consequence. Because what he went to do is
do the will of God. And the will of God is that Paul
would be arrested and served time in jail. That's the will
of God. And so I can't understand, and
I know I'm a bit, I can't understand why so many people would not
embrace, and most of it's come from the idea, oh, look what's
happening in Texas, it's a terrible thing. Just like 9-11 and some
other catastrophes, Katrina, and natural disasters across
the world, and mass shootings, and all these horrific things
that happen. And people start to get this
mindset, well, praise God, we'll just pray for God, pray for God,
pray for God. But then they misstep when they make any suggestion
in any way that God was out of the control of such disasters. They really misstep. I've had people tell me that
God did not see 9-11 coming until the plane hit the building. Now
come on. I've had people tell me that
God never intended for us to harness nuclear power. We got
one down on Him. Can you imagine the Tower of
Babel as a nuclear power plant? And God didn't even have to destroy
it. He just baffled them all. Just confused them all, and they
just left. Paul knows that his change of
plans will honor Christ. He has not lost a day in ministry.
He has not lost a minute. I know several pastors in their
later years in life who have been preaching and teaching the
Bible for years, who are at this very moment, this morning, concerned
that they've wasted their ministry. One of them in particular has
had a great influence in my life through the years, and my wife,
and my oldest two children. And the last time I spoke with
him, he made the comment that he felt like maybe it was just
too late for him to be any success. He's in his late 60s. What he fails to see is that
where he is is exactly how God planned it. The problem is that
we look sometimes at what we think success looks like. We
look sometimes at what we think ministry looks like. Based on
the world view of, I don't know, accelerated growth, Felt needs
or whatever it might be. Butts in the seat. I'm going
to tell you. Narrow is the way. Narrow is
the gate. And when we do the work of an
evangelist, most people run. Most people hate it. On Tuesday,
we looked at God Help Us. We did have Richard Dawkins on
video. And we looked at some of his debates on why the Bible
is just the most ridiculous book he's ever seen. How stupid it
is. How ridiculous it is. And how
it should just be thrown away. Thrown out. Just throw it out.
Don't look at it as even a compass for anything because it's absurd.
He called the cross of Christ disgusting. And how anybody of any kind of
rational thinking could believe in a God like that. And my first
knee-jerk reaction when I hear those things is, why do you care
if it's fake? I've never heard anybody burning
down buildings because Humpty Dumpty fell off the wall. Never happened. I didn't see anybody, you know,
stand out with signs and terrorize people who believe Spider-Man
was dead. Don't hear it. You don't hear
it because in reality, every human being knows that God is.
Every human being that walks or ever has walked or ever will
walk this earth hates God or they love Him. There is no gray neutral zone
when it comes to accepting the reality that God is. Paul is confident that he'll
honor Christ with the change of plans. Paul is confident now
that his inability to preach and plant churches is honoring
to Christ. I want you to think about it.
And I'm trying to paint a picture of what Paul's plans were. You
know what Paul's plans were? I'm going here, I'm mobilizing
these preaching opportunities, these men who I have trained,
and we're going to train more, and we're going to see a great
expansion, and the gospel is going to turn upside down the
culture. This is my plan. Probably already
had contacts. Probably already had men traveling
with him. And he gets there and everything
he planned is gone. But it's what God had for him.
And so he knows that with honor, it would be like trying to plant
Grace Truth Church and never got off the ground. It would
be hard for me to go, ah, maybe I missed the call of God. Maybe
you didn't. Maybe this is the outcome of God's call for you.
Because we don't know God's wisdom. It's like some people that are
like, I want a prison ministry, and then they get arrested. There you
go. That's what Paul got. Paul is confident because he
understands the sovereignty of Christ. Paul is confident and
he has courage because he understands the supremacy of Christ. A.W. Pink says that God's supremacy
is His place and power and authority over all things. He suggests
that sovereignty is defined as the exercise of His supremacy.
How He interacts with all things. I like it. I ought to tattoo
it to my head. Look in the mirror all day. I
mean, it's good. God is supreme. Paul knows that Christ is supreme
and there is no Caesar in the world who can thwart the plans
of Christ. And God alone knows the sureness
of the future with complete detail, with minute detail. Friends,
this is important for us to see because it is under attack. Do
you know what one of the largest arguments against Baptist theology
is? This. It goes back to the agency of
man. Some people would suggest that Paul's decision to go to
Rome was a good one, but God did not see the incarceration
coming. Didn't see it. And so a plan
B had to put in. So God is, Christ is honored
through the liquidity of God, through the changeability, the
mover that is now moved, the great mover, as Pinnock would
call him. It's garbage. I hate to say stuff
like that, but it is. Friends, Paul is not looking
at a God who is giving him a plan B. Paul says, this is the plan
all along. This is what you have ordained
for this day. So in this, I, what? Rejoice. Because if I were free, all that
you're doing would not have been done in great wisdom. We cannot do, with all the wisdom
we could muster, anything close to how God can work in the most
unwise, seemingly unwise way. In counseling, sometimes I like
to take a sticky note and put it on this hand, and I like to
write the words, my greatest vision. And I like to write on this hand,
God's greatest purpose. So if we could envision where
our lives are, where we'd like to see them, for the glory of
Christ, and say this is exact, if this could turn out this way,
it would be awesome, and nothing would stand in my way. This would
be magnificent for the cause of Christ. I can see it looking
like this, and I can see these people, I can see that. You ever
been there? Of course you have. And the greatest thing that we
could ever contemplate, we could envision it and we could pray
for it. And if God gives us that and
it's not His plan, it's worthless. It's a waste of time. It's living
in a hog pen like the prodigal son and throwing our lives away. Because we want the Father's
blessings for our focus, for our vision, for our plans. What if God just wants to put
us in a holding cell for 25 years? What if God wants to send us
into exile so we could get the New Testament? When you think
Paul wrote these letters, most of them in prison. Do you know
why? Because unless you're locked
up or laid back, you don't really take time to do it. And if you look at the letters
to Timothy, you see what Paul was doing there in his last days.
He was writing letters. He even tells Timothy in that
personal letter, please bring my cloak. I'm cold. That's a personal request.
Bring John Mark, he's important. bring the paper, and bring that
writing that we started. I don't know about you, but that
overwhelms me. That God orchestrated, through
all the choices of man, perfectly, His divine decrees. And nothing
we do, and nothing that happens to us, will change God's eternal
plans for this day. We don't just skip over all of
the history of humanity to the end, which is what some people
like to argue. Well, there's God and He's got these big markers. He's sovereign over the markers,
but He chooses not to meddle in all this. I mean, it's like
panentheism in some sense. I don't know where it comes from. This day. So back to the point. Paul is
sure that now, All of now, Christ will be honored. Everything that's
going on right now, Christ will be honored and He will not be
ashamed. He will not be ashamed. He will
not be ashamed of Christ. He will not be ashamed of His
suffering. He will not be ashamed of His charges. He will not be
ashamed of the accusations against the gospel. And Paul says, as
now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body. And so this
is not a situation that Paul is just coming to see. It's not
a doctrine that Paul is just beginning to embrace. This is
something that from the day he was born again, to the day his
head popped off his body, Paul would not be ashamed. And he would have courage that
his life would honor Christ. As always. As always. So see, in Paul's mind, God had
not changed. God was the same God that He
was even when Paul was of the Sanhedrin, even when he was a
young boy learning the law, even when he was a child in his father's
home. The same God that he misunderstood then had never changed. but revealed Himself fully through
Jesus Christ. And all that Paul thought he
knew about God was transformed radically. was transformed radically
at salvation, at that new birth. Because all the humanism and
the naturalism and the philosophy and the theorizing that Paul
had embodied as part of his doctrine and his theology and his worship,
all that went to the garbage pail. He even says that, I count
it all as loss for the countless price of knowing Christ. Garbage! Rubbish! This is, I've misunderstood,
now I see. But now I see that which was
veiled, I see clearly. That which was hidden, I look
upon. That which we could not see and
live, I have beheld face to face. And the interesting thing is
that Paul in his life as Christ walked the earth, never met.
It's one of the reasons that he defends his apostleship so
often. But yet, we saw John say that
he touched and heard and felt, embraced the God of heaven. What about old Thomas? God did not change for Paul.
God is eternally faithful to preserve His people. Those who
fall away never were of Christ. We spend more time in our lives
Church, listen to me. We spend more time in our lives
begging unregenerate people to live as though they are in Christ
than we do praying for their soul and teaching them the gospel. And we wonder why we feel like
a hamster on a wheel upside down in an elevator going backwards
on an escalator. That's a mess. Now that I have your attention
and that picture is in your mind, God has not changed. And God
was faithful to Christ. God was faithful to those before
Christ. God was faithful to Abram. God was faithful to Moses. God
was faithful to David. God bless him. God was faithful
to Saul and Solomon. God was faithful. He never changes. And Paul knows that God is going
to be faithful to him. And because God is unchangeably
faithful and eternally immutable and unmovable, then Paul has
an absolute certainty that God will always give him the hope
that he stands in. See, it's one thing if God were
to follow you around and, you know, just light a brick on fire
and say, Oh, Paul, don't worry about this. We got it. Here's
what we're going to do. I mean, see, that'd give us confidence.
But the Holy Spirit of God wasn't giving Paul all these intricate
details of what was happening. He just remembered and through
the Spirit continued to have top of mind awareness of the
fact that God is God. So we don't have to worry about
today or tomorrow. Paul has no reason to believe
that God will ever act any other way than how He's always acted. Christ has always been glorified
through His people. In Ephesians, Paul says it this
way. He talks about Ephesians 6, the
powers and the principalities of the darkness, the enemies
of God, the angels in the heavenly places, Satan and his demons. And in the early part of the
letter, he says that the church displays the manifold wisdom
of God to the powers and the principalities of the heavenly
places. And if you remember that sermon when I preached it several
years ago, I made one statement that sort of summarizes that
particular text. The enemy knows that Christ is
because the church exists. The church, not the walls and
the buildings and the name and the worship services. That the
body of Christ exists. The enemies of God in the spiritual
realm know Christ is victorious. Because He's created a people
for His own glory. Who evidence His power. Who have
a mutual affection that is bar none ridiculous. It's supernatural. Why do you
love these crazy people? I can't help it. You cannot help
but have an affection for Christ's people. You cannot help but have
an intimacy for the church. You cannot help but want to drive
into holiness. Christ has always been glorified
through His church. I mean, Paul prays that to the
Ephesians. That through all the generations, through all the
ages, that Christ will be honored, that God will be glorified in
the church and through Jesus Christ the head. The whole idea
that we know about what marriage is, is a temporal microscopic
picture of the macrocosmic reality of Christ in the church, is that
we are to see what our head did to purchase us. and that we are
to see that in that purchasing, it is for the purpose of creating
us to be holy and blameless and spotless. God has not changed. Christ has not changed. So through
suffering, hatred, beating, shipwreck, everything you can imagine, Paul
knows, as always, Christ is glorified. But what does it actually mean
in closing? For Christ to be honored. For Christ to truly be honored
in the body. I've given that some thought,
and I touched on it a little bit last week, and Paul answers
it in his own circumstances here. And if you look at his other
letters, you start to see it there also. And so to do an exhaustive
list of just what Paul has said, it would be a series. Might be a neat little Bible
study for somebody to pick up. Hint, hint. But if you think about it, in
my body, and I alluded to this a little
bit. last week, here's what I think, we could summarize it this way,
that Paul would do nothing, this is in the physical sense of his
body in his current situation, that Paul would do nothing to
bring attention or focus to himself or his circumstances. That's the surface of it. So
Paul to give honor to Christ, or Christ being honored in His
body now, means that as He suffered in His body, He would do nothing,
or say nothing, or think nothing that would disgrace Christ's
purpose in it. And what would do that would
be to start bringing attention or focus to Himself and His circumstances.
Does that make sense? So when you really look at it,
Paul desired in his body, the fullness of his being, to defend
and proclaim the gospel. To defend and proclaim the gospel.
Paul wanted to, in everything that he was, honor Christ by
preaching Christ. You know, you hear through the
years, you hear all these interesting little quips and sayings, and
I've heard I don't even know where it all began, but there
was a movement after a while, a while ago, maybe 15, 20 years
ago, where, you know, relational evangelism, or, you know, what
do they call that? Observational evangelism. You
know what that means? Let's go fishing, and you'll
see how cool I am, and you'll like Jesus. Or you watch me do
good in the world, and then you'll see that there is a God. Does that really work? You hang
out with somebody for 10 years, they see you're a very moral
person, and you stub your toe with your hammer and you say,
and they don't care how good you've been the last 20 years.
They go, ha, I knew you were something. Look at you, you said
a dirty word. I mean, it's not, they're just
going to put it on a billboard, put it on Facebook, tweet it
out, hey, pastor so-and-so just slammed the hammer and said an
ugly word. It's not about watching you,
it's about catching you. Tabloid syndrome, so that everybody
else can feel justified in their non-following of Christ, because
you're just like they are. It doesn't work. What works is
a bold proclamation of the truth. And Paul says to the Corinthians,
if people don't want to hear that, if they can't see Christ
in the proclamation of the gospel, then the God of this world has
blinded their eyes to keep them from believing. And the only
hope they have is to keep hearing what they cannot hear so that
God in His infinite mercy and His sovereign will at the right
time will give them ears to hear it. Because God alone will open
the eyes of unbelievers so that they can see the light of the
knowledge of the gospel in the face of Jesus Christ, of the
glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. This is the only thing
Paul knew. He had decided to get rid of
everything else in his life that occupied his time. So that means,
let's think about our bodies for a minute. Christ honored
in my body, always. Let's just start from the top.
Head. What do we think about? What
do we place our time? What do we contemplate? What
do we ponder? Where do we put our thoughts? How about our ears? What do we soak up as we're listening
to things? What do we think is entertaining
to us? Where are we sitting and resting
in this world that our ears are taking in that which is honored
to Christ? Our eyes. In fact, 1 John chapter
2 even uses the lust of the eyes as one of the primary things
that show we have a love for the world and therefore do not
have a love for God. And worse, that the love of God
is not in us. The lust of the eyes. The things
we see in this world. The materialism. The stuff that
we look at with our eyes that dishonors the Holy Spirit of
God within us. That dishonors the Christ who
saved us. And friends, we are together in this. Some of us, if we want to put
it on a scale, more heinous than others. But there are a continual
series of idols and idolatry in the life of humans. How about our ears? I mean, our
mouth? What do we say? What are we spending
time talking about? How are we using our mouth for
the glory of God? How do we respond to circumstances?
You see how Paul had opportunity just to sin in his mind, sin
with his ears. How would he have done that?
He would have listened to those guards scoffing and mocking him.
He would have listened to the circumstances rather than to
the Spirit of God. Don't we do that? And then somebody comes along
and reminds us of the Word of God that never changes and God's
faithfulness that never fails. And then all of a sudden we go,
you know, thank you, you came along just in time. How about
our stomach? Yeah, I could talk about the
surface of that or what we eat. Are we really focused on our
bodies and focused on food as a gift from God for fuel to sustain
that which we've been called to do? More than just food, what
satisfies us? See, that's the argument that
Jesus uses in John 6. When people are hungry, and rightly
hungry, they've been following around, standing outside. They
get hungry. And then you turn around and
there's Jesus feeding everybody. And they follow Him all the way
to Damascus, I mean to Capernaum. And they find Him. And they call
Him Teacher. When did you come here? Like
they cared where he was, or who he was. And he turns to them
and says, you don't care about me, you want what I've got. There's
a paraphrase. You've got your bellies full,
you want some more food. What about our stomachs? What
satisfies us in our souls? What satisfies us? What are we
looking for? If we could just have this God, then I'd be satisfied. The Bible teaches us that we
have all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. That Christ
is the fullest of all the bread that we'd ever need. He is the
water that overflows and wells up to eternal life, John. So, what else do we need? You
think Paul was hungry? Yes. You think he had any need
to be satisfied? Absolutely not. It was all met. in Christ and having honor in
His body. How about His feet or His hands?
They were shackled and chained. Nowhere to go. But what about
us who have no shackles and chains around our hands? Are we shackling
our hands? Are we chaining our feet by how
we work and do? By what we do with what God has
given us in our talents? In our travels? In our treasures? How about our time? And most
ultimately, we honor Christ in our body and our whole being
by what we are. And we use this in our culture
and in our time, but not always. In Jesus' day, it was the stomach. It was the gut. Now we talk about
the heart. The heart is the center of affection.
Back then it was the gut. My stomach longs for you. You
cannibal? What about our heart? What's
the core of our, what's the pulse of our life? What do we love? What are our affections set upon?
What do we want more than anything? For ourselves, for our neighbor,
for our spouse, for our children, for our community. Yeah, I'd
like to see people not in poverty, but had I rather see them rich
in hell or poor and hungry with eternal life? And in all reality, Paul knew
that by honoring Christ in his body, in courage, in boldness,
it would probably be the very cause of his death. Think about
it. Standing before the supreme,
and according to the Romans, divine emperor, and saying, you are guilty, and
you are judged. lest you believe in Christ, whom
you killed, whom God has raised to life. You see how Paul had courage?
I pray that I may be more bold.
I pray that I may be as bold as those who have been empowered
and emboldened by my imprisonment. in my body, in my whole being,
that which will cause me to die, I must do. It's the reason I'm
here. No other reason. And then he says these last two
words, he says, by life or by death. By life. You know, it's an interesting,
really, I'm going to take this down. You are alive. I know y'all have been waiting
on that. You're alive. We're alive. So
this moment that we have is an opportunity then for us to reflect
on how we honor Christ. Now here's a ploy of the enemy
in this, as I give us a caveat to consider. that when we look,
we will be waning. We will be wanting. We will be
wilting. And the other W, you want to
stick in there. We will not be measuring ourselves and going,
hallelujah, I got it all right. But don't fall prey to that inner
voice that you might think is a good conscience that tells
you to give up and throw it all away. Do not fall prey to the
guilt-ridden, I'm not talking about guilt over sin or conviction
that brings zeal, but let it bring zeal. Let it bring life. See that God wants to, as He
grows us, sharpen us for growth, not stagnant. We don't stand
where we are in fear of doing what's not honorable. We move
into Christ. We draw near to Him. We draw
near to each other. We process where we are in our
salvation and we work it out trusting fully that God has done
all the work and we will benefit and bear the fruit of it. We
make war against sin. We don't wallow in the pity of
it. We certainly don't embrace it.
by life. What kind of life did Paul have
at this place? What was his quality of life?
I hear that a lot, especially for those who work with hospice.
There's just no quality of life. There is great quality of life
if breath comes through your lungs and blood pumps through
your veins. Because even in the darkest of
sufferings, you have breath, you can honor Christ. Even if
you can't speak, your consciousness can bear witness to the satisfaction
of Christ and even celebrate that this too is temporal. How about our private lives?
Our public lives? The manner in which we go about
every day. Paul, in some sense, was saying,
right now, I am honoring Christ in my body. I am sure of it. He is being honored. He is certain
it will happen. And I have salvation now. Though they will take my head,
most likely, I have salvation now. What is it like? Because
Paul was empowered to persevere. He stayed the course. That's
salvation. That's sticking power that only
God can bring. And he will proclaim the gospel
to Caesar. Let's read The next 10 verses. Verse 21, For to me, to me, this
is very personal. There's no instruction here. This is very, very personal as
we'll see next week. To me, to live is Christ and
to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh,
That means fruitful labor for me. What does he mean? I will
do that which God has called me to do for the sake of honoring
Christ in my body as I now do and always will do. Christ will
be honored in my body. Yet which I shall choose I cannot
tell. There's an argument against our
free agency. What shall I do? I cannot tell
what I will do. I am hard pressed between the
two. My desire, see this is the heart
of Paul, I want more than anything to die. Not so I wouldn't suffer
anymore, because He rejoices in suffering. I want to die to
be with Christ. That is far better than anything
this life could ever bring. Even this glorious ministry that
He set me in, it is far better to be with Christ than to work
for Him. Okay? Both honorable. What's better? being there. But
to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. See,
Paul has already said, God is my witness. I have the affection
of Jesus Christ for you. That shows it. Convinced of this, of what? That
I'll stay here for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that
I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and
for your joy in the faith. As I suffer, you rejoice. As I have imprisonment, the freedom
of the gospel goes out. As I am dying, you are made alive. 2 Corinthians 4 says a lot of
that. So that in me you may have ample
cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.
Only, verse 27, I think this is where Paul sort of plays out
what it looks like for us to honor Christ in our bodies. Let
your manner of life, what's that? That's how you live. Let your
manner of life be worthy of the gospel. What's the other side
of that? To put the gospel to shame. So that whether I come and see
you, or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing
firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side in
the faith of the gospel, for the faith of the gospel, and
not frightened. in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them
of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from
God. For it has been granted to you
for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him, but
also suffer for His sake. Engage in the same conflict that
you saw I had and now hear that I still have." So Paul sort of
paints a picture for us in weeks to come of what it looks like
that Christ be honored in His body by life or by death. By
life, we suffer well, we live well, we honor Christ well, because
Christ has granted it to us to believe and granted it to us
to suffer. And by death, Paul, though he
has died to himself, and lives for Christ. He says
that. It's not I who live, but Christ who lives within me. In His flesh, as He lives, He
is dying for the sake of Christ. And in His death, He will boldly
proclaim the trueness of the gospel. Because God, in all of His sovereignty,
In all of his unchangeability, in all of his power, in all of
his glory, he informed Paul of a certain future. Suffering and
dying. Paul knew that was his future. And he loved it. God placed Paul where he was
in wisdom to accomplish only that which Paul being in prison
would accomplish. You might say, well, can't God
use non-suffering to do great things? Think about your own life. Do
we really grow when everything's great? We say a lot of stuff. Praise God. Better than I deserve. God is great all the time. We say the Christian stuff. But it's only real when in the
midst of pain, in the midst of horror, in the midst of earthly
hell, we rejoice. Because in us it can't happen. Only in Christ can it be so. And Paul's plans were completely
different. His thoughts were completely
different than what God had planned. But God ordained those steps,
and Paul joyfully, joyfully lived for Christ. I guess as we leave today, the
question then is, how are we living? How are we living? Or better yet, are we living?
Because I suggest the breath is in our bodies and our physical
forms are alive. If we are not in Christ, we are
dead. If we are not in Christ, we are
completely turned over to our sin. And we will never escape
the flesh. except we believe the gospel
of Jesus Christ. Pray with me. Father, I pray that it would
be our prayer that we would desire that which Paul desired for the
Philippians. that we would stand in one faith, one mind, one spirit,
without fear of our opponents, even if our opponents are in
the form of disease or depression. Lord, I pray that we would stand. Lord, help us to have that type
of resolve. And God, we confess rightly to
You that there is no way in our flesh, if we think too hard,
to come up with the way or the plan to be this way. But Lord, in Your grace, and
in Your power, and in Your love, You've equipped us to be just
like Paul. Paul was not a special person,
Lord. and you are no respecter of persons,
so that which you've done in the life of Paul, you also are
doing in our lives. Lord, encourage us deeply as
we all just traverse the files of our hearts, as we contemplate
all the things that we love and all the things that we wish were
no longer in our lives, that we might see the joy of
it all. For you are a father who never allows us to walk apart
from the path which you have planned. No matter how many choices
we make. You are right, Lord, you are
just, you are merciful, you are kind. And God, in all of those
things, would you save those who are not yours because they
are yours? Would you save those who are
lost through the gospel of Christ? Bury it deep within their souls.
Bring their lives to you. And we pray this in Jesus. Amen. Thank you, church.