suffering

“To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain”–Philippians 1:19-30

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

I don’t do anything on time, it seems.  This post was supposed to be released last Sunday, then on Wednesday, then yesterday.  I’m finally writing it, though, and that’s what matters, right?

We’re finishing up Philippians 1 today.  In these next few verses, we have one of the most well-known and quoted statements regarding the Christian faith: “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”  We’ll examine what that means and looks like in the rest of this post.  But let’s start with verse 19.

Paul is in prison, and as we saw last time, he sees every situation, even prison, as an opportunity to advance the gospel.  He considers himself nothing, only that the gospel goes forth from his life.  So he starts in verse 19:

“For I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.”  What does Paul mean by deliverance?  Some would argue that he’s talking about being delivered from prison, and others say he’s talking about final deliverance from this life, and into the presence of God.  He left some ambiguity here, intentionally, most likely.  While Paul clearly wants to be delivered from prison, as he talks about seeing the church again and encouraging them and having “fruitful labor” for Christ.  But more than he wants temporary deliverance, he wants eternal deliverance–“My desire is to depart and be with Christ.”

Paul’s desire to be with Christ and depart from this world leads us to verse 20: “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.”

Paul’s goal, whether he lives or dies, is to honor his Lord and Savior.  He counts himself as nothing (Acts 20:24), and wants to honor Jesus by the way he lives and by the way he dies.

From his self-denial and exalting of Christ, we get the famous verse 21:

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”  To live is Christ, to die is gain.  Let that sink in for a moment.  What does Paul mean by this?  The quick, Sunday-school-answer, is to say “We live for Jesus and when we die we get to be with Him.”  And that’s absolutely true.  But can we honestly say we know what it means to “live for Jesus?” What does that even mean?  And are we doing it?  Is death truly gain for us?  Do we see it as gain?

I remember growing up, and hearing about heaven and Christ returning and what it would be like to see Jesus and be with Jesus, and while I thought that all of that was cool, I remember thinking, “I want Jesus to wait a while.  I want to get married, and have kids.  I want to travel the world.  I want to do this, and that, and that over here, etc.”  And I know I wasn’t the only one who thought that way.  That’s a heart problem and a sin, whether we recognize it or not.  We’ve unconsciously made idols out of this world, and out of “good” things.  There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be married, and have a family, and wanting to travel.  None of those things are bad, but when they begin to take the place of God, our “good” things have become idols.  When we want the things of this world, even the good things, more than we want to be with God, more than we want our faith to become sight, there’s a huge problem.  We have stored up treasure for ourselves here by forgetting the treasures we have in the gospel, the treasures that are eternal.

For Paul, his life now belongs to Christ.  He has given Jesus total control.  In fact, Paul says in Galatians 2:20 that he is now “crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.”  Paul is dead.  His will, his ways, his desires, his old life, is now dead.  And his will, his ways, his desires, his wants, likes, dislikes and whole way of life now mirrors that of Christ.  He has died to himself.  So his life is now 100% dedicated to serving Christ and working to see God’s kingdom grow and disciples made through him.  He belongs to Christ.

This is the call Jesus has for every man, woman and child that wishes to be his disciple.  Lose yourself and your old life, old ways and old desires and live for Christ.  Have a completely new way of living.  And too often, the “new life” we supposedly have is only shown on Sunday mornings.  We’ve traded the promises of a new life for a comfortable, convenient, religious life that’s only a part of our everyday lives.  And it’s not okay.  Did Jesus really die and rise again and breath life into my bones so that He could be a “significant” part of my life?

I had to fill out a “diversity pie chart” for a PR class this past semester.  I can’t remember the specific instructions, but basically, we were to divide our lives into a neat little chart and show which parts of our lives drove us the most.  Example: Being a college student made up 50% of my identity.  It affected that certain percentage of my life.  And being a son affected 25% of my life, and so on and so forth.  And I found myself struggling with this.  I didn’t feel right saying that my faith in Christ affected a certain percentage of my life.  Because it’s not a percentage.  Faith isn’t a very important part of my life.  No…outside of Christ and my faith in Him, I don’t have life.  And now that I’ve been brought to Him in faith, it affects everything I do.  At least that’s the goal.  I can’t say I’ve arrived yet, but I’m beginning to see how surrendering to Jesus as Lord affects everything, and what it means to lose myself in Him.  I’ll have more to say on how His Lordship affects specific areas of our lives in a later series this summer.

Where is our treasure?  This is the question that we’re presented with when reading Philippians 1:21.  If Christ is our treasure, then to die really is gain, and to live is to live for nothing more and nothing less than the glory of God in Christ being made known through us.  Death is gain because we get Jesus.  We’re free from sin, temptation, sickness, disease, war and everything else that plagues this world and we’re in the presence of God for eternity.  Even things such as marriage and sex, things that are good and given to us by God, are but a shadow of a greater reality yet to come.  Marriage is a picture of Christ’s relationship to the church, and our hope is that one day, the perfect, eternal marriage will take place that will replace all earthly marriages, as Christ returns for His bride.  That is good news.

But if our treasure is in this life…we won’t live for Christ.  And death won’t be gain.  We’ll fear it, because we don’t want to leave our stuff.  We don’t want to leave our spouse, our children, our job, our home or our toys.  So where are you at?  What are you living for?

I want to be like Paul.  I want to treasure Christ and embrace Him in faith, in full assurance of my salvation in Him, and I want to hold on to nothing in this world and joyfully shout that Christ is my treasure, Christ is my reward!  And I want that to drive the way I live.  Because while we wait for our treasure to take us home, He has works prepared for us to do here (Eph. 2:10).  So Paul continues in verse 22 in saying that if he remains here, it is “fruitful labor for me.”

Because Paul died to himself and now lives for Christ and looks to Him as his treasure, it allows Paul to be remarkably others-centered.  He says that he remains on account of the church, for their “progress and joy in the faith.”  So Paul’s life isn’t focused on what he can get, or building his resume, or anything like that, but about the kingdom of God.  He constantly disciples other believers, encouraging them in the faith, sharing life with them and worshiping with them.  He cares nothing for himself, but pours himself out for the church, as Christ did.  He’ll talk more about that in Philippians 2.

He does this for the glory of God, and for the church’s progress and joy in the faith.  Paul’s aim is that God is glorified and His children grow in their faith in Christ and their progress and love and joy for Him.  In other words, Paul is concerned supremely with God’s glory and the church’s sanctification.  That raises questions for us:

Do we take joy in growing in Him?  Do we sincerely enjoy knowing Jesus more, through His Word, knowing His character, seeing ourselves grow more Christlike, having our faith strengthened and confirmed?  Or are we content with where we are?

And do we take joy in seeing others grow because of us?  Do we even care whether or not our fellow believers are being encouraged and strengthened as a direct result of our relationship with them?  We saw last week that before we pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ to have material blessings or good health, we should pray for their love for Christ to grow, and pray for their sanctification.  Now, Paul says, we play a role in that.  We see in Acts that the church isn’t a gossip club or a place to talk about football.  Not that every conversation has to be this forced talk about “God things,” since sharing life means we’ll talk about things like jobs, football, and our children, but you get the sense that conversations about Christ come frequently and naturally for the believer.

Paul sets an example.  And it’s in Scripture so we can follow it.  Paul even tells us that in 1 Corinthians 11:1–“Be imitators of me as I imitate Christ.”  We are all responsible for helping our brothers and sisters in Christ grow in their faith and Christlikeness, and this should be our joy.  If we treasure Christ, and count our lives as nothing for the sake of knowing and treasuring Him, we will be wonderfully selfless and take joy in seeing others grow because of us, and our vain pursuits and concerns will fade away.  I pray this happens in my life, and in yours.

Wrapping up (since this post is already really long…my bad), let’s look at verses 27-30.  Paul tells the church that they have an impact on his joy.  He’ll echo this again in chapter two.  He tells them to let their “manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.”  And he wants this to happen, whether he’s there physically or not.  He wants to see them “striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.”  What does this mean?  Understanding that Paul spent much of his time combating false gospels and false teachers in churches, it, on some level, means contending for the faith.  It means that the church is united in believing, embracing and preaching the true gospel.  It means they’re growing in their faith in Christ.  They become more and more convinced of the truth of the gospel, and they love Jesus more, and they trust Him more, with everything.  And they’re becoming more like Him.  And even though their opponents are many, they embrace suffering because their joy is in Jesus.  We can embrace suffering because we have Jesus.  And we know that this is a sign of the enemy’s destruction, and a sign of our salvation.

When Jesus is our treasure, then these things become our joy.  If Christ is not our treasure, these things may still bring us joy, but they will not be the focal point of our lives, and thus, we rob ourselves of true joy.  There is a supreme joy in trusting and loving Jesus with our heart, mind, soul and strength.  There is a supreme joy in dying to self and saying “all I have is Christ” and living for His glory and His church.  This was Paul’s mission.  This was Paul’s life.

So how do we get here?  While Paul’s a pretty important dude, he’s a sinner, like all of us.  He wasn’t a “super-Christian.”  He’s a normal (whatever that means) guy that God chose to use to display His glory.  And while we certainly won’t write Scripture and we may not plant most of the early churches, we can be men, women and children who think nothing of ourselves, trust only in Christ, live only for Christ and joyfully embrace death on our way to be with our King.

We “get there” by receiving the gospel.  By remembering the gospel.  By having faith.  True faith in the gospel always leads to a love for Jesus and a denial of self to live for Christ as Lord.  I’d argue that if I, if we, truly understood all that we have in Jesus, we would willingly and joyfully lay down everything we have, count it all as “rubbish” with Paul, and be completely His and His alone.  We won’t be perfect.  We’ll sin, we’ll make mistakes, and we’ll have idols that come up and threaten to ruin us.  But by living a life of repentance and faith and by the grace of God, we’ll overcome, we’ll grow, and we’ll bring glory to God.  And we’ll see Him face to face one day.  For those who have put their faith only in Jesus for salvation, for forgiveness of sins and righteousness before God, and who now want to follow Him as Lord, this is what you have, before you take a step toward following Jesus:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.  In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.  In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to the purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.  In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.  In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.”–Ephesians 1:3-14

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved–and raised us up with him and seated us with him to the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”–Ephesians 2:4-7

Lord Jesus, may we treasure you above all else.  May we remember all we have in you–grace, forgiveness, adoption, eternal life, and much, much more.  May we trust in you alone, even as we continue to fight and battle sin and temptation.  May we rest in your amazing, saving grace, despite our sin.  May we joyfully exalt you because of your love for us.  May we embrace suffering and death as we treasure you.  May we live only for you.  May we die to ourselves and know you more.  May you be everything to us, Lord.  May your joys be our joys.  Make us yours.

God bless,

Neal E

Bearing One Another’s Burdens

/ Neal Embry / Leave a comment

As I type this, I’m in the safety of my dorm room, while Hurricane Sandy continues to destroy homes and claim lives across much of the East Coast.  I pray for all those in harm’s way, and ask that you would join me.  God is sovereign, and God is good.  And God is calling us to action.

I recently read through the book of Galatians, and was struck by so many things, but this passage is what is sticking out right now.  It’s Galatians 6:1-5.  Read along with me.

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.  But let each one test his own work, and then his reason to boast will be in himself alone and not in his neighbor.  For each will have to bear his own load.”

There’s a lot in this passage, and I hope to break it down for us in a real, tangible way.  Paul is writing this letter to a church that is struggling to understand the gospel, to understand salvation.  This church has struggled with legalism, false teachings and other sins.  Paul’s encouragement is for them to help each other out.

In verse one, Paul is telling those who see a Christian friend in sin to restore them “in a spirit of gentleness.”  This doesn’t mean that we don’t call sin what it is.  We know from God’s Word that we are to put off sin, trusting that Jesus died for all of our sin.  We know that we are to rebuke one another when necessary.  But we’re called to do this in a way that restores our brother or sister, not in a way that tears them down and makes them feel unloved.  They are never unloved.  We are to go to them and boldly tell them that they need to repent.  They need to confess their sin to Christ and believe the gospel, and through it, seek God’s grace to change.  We are to, at the same time, preach the gravity of sin and its consequences, and also the gospel of God’s grace.  The gospel doesn’t just tell us our sin is paid for and we’re “off the hook.”  The gospel makes our sin look disgusting and paid for, and makes Jesus look beautiful and worthy. 

So, share the gospel with each other, in both rebuking and encouraging.  Do not tear another brother or sister down if they have gone to the Lord for forgiveness.  If God has forgiven them through the cross, we should as well.

We’re also told to watch ourselves, that we don’t fall into temptation.  Restoration takes maturity on the part of the restorer, in that they don’t succumb to the same temptations but instead lend a helping hand to those who are weaker.

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

How often do we bear one another’s burdens?  There’s something about this that seems crazy.  It seems weak.  We live in a society where it’s all about us.  We are extremely “me-centered.”  We don’t want to bear one another’s burdens, and we certainly don’t want anyone else to bear ours.  We can do it on our own, we say.  The truth of the gospel, however, is that we can’t do it.  We couldn’t bear our own sins, and we couldn’t make ourselves right with God.  Apart from God’s grace, we are dead in our sins.  But God comes and tells us what He’s done.  He gives us new hearts to respond to the gospel in faith, believing in His forgiveness and righteousness.  He gives us the Holy Spirit, so that we can begin to obey Him and walk with Him.  We didn’t do any of that.

So what makes us think we can walk each day without Him?  And what makes us think we can walk one day without each other?  Jesus walked each day, while He was on earth, dependent on God the Father’s will, and He actively sought Him.  We are to do the same in our relationship with God, but we’re also told to engage in sacrificial, loving, burden-bearing relationships with one another.

The law of Christ is to love one another.  That’s the new commandment He gives us, is to love one another.  This isn’t some cheesy emotion.  This is real life, everyday encouragement, teaching, correcting, rebuking, reminding, sharing amongst Christian brothers and sisters.  This is praying for each other, reading the Word together, and worshiping together.  We think we’re something, but Paul says that if we think that way, we’re nothing and we’re deceiving ourselves.

We say other people have too much baggage.  Relationships are messy, we say.  We think that we have nothing to offer others, because we’re either so far above them, or so far below them.  Over the past few years, God has shown me some of the most basic truths and lessons through the lives of small children, new believers, and people that I would have never expected to teach me.

Baggage?  Really?  We look at a young girl’s life.  She’s done things with a boyfriend that she’s ashamed of.  She’s tried to find friends in all the wrong places, her parents are angry at her, and she is struggling to find her place in the world.  And our excuse for not befriending her and showing her the love of Christ is that she has too much baggage?  Or that she’s “too far gone?” Again, read Ephesians 2.  Apart from Christ, we’re all DEAD in our sin.  It’s not a matter of being “closer” or “farther” away from God.  Apart from Christ, we are all DEAD in our sin.  How dare we presume to think that someone is too far gone from Christ.  She needs to hear that someone cares about her.  She needs to hear that we love her and want her to turn from sin and turn to Christ, not just so she can be a better person, but so she can receive true joy in knowing Christ and His love.  She does need to hear that she is in sin, but when we preach that, we must quickly preach the gospel of God’s grace in Christ Jesus and be the ministers of reconciliation, as we’re called to be in 2 Corinthians 5.

Jesus went to the outcasts of society.  He went to adulterers, tax collectors, and the sick.  Jesus understood that, yes, these people have baggage, but what they need is for someone to come carry the bags for them.  He did that.  He did that for me.  If you’re a believer, He did that for you.  He did it for that young girl.  What am I called to do in a relationship with someone who may have “baggage?”  Act like Jesus and help them carry their bags.  Help them understand God’s love for them.  Love them like Jesus does.  Help them with their problems.  Encourage them.

Can I fix it all?  No, I cannot.  Look at verses four and five.  We’re told to examine our own work, and that we’ll have to bear our own load.  What the heck, Paul?   Which one is it?  I think the difference Paul makes here is that while we are called to help each other, struggle with each other, and encourage each other, we cannot save each other.  I cannot save the girl with the bags.  Only Jesus can do that.  We can’t live off of another’s faith.  We must have faith ourselves.  But we do not walk the road of faith by ourselves.

Bearing another’s burdens requires time, effort, prayer, love, Godly advice, and sacrifice.  It will be hard, but Jesus never said it would be easy.  Let’s do it.  Our focus is on Him who paid for all of our sin, who is our righteousness before God, the One we believe in.  We can help each other, whether it’s a struggle with sin, the storms of life, or whatever else it may be.  We’re called to do it.  We need to preach love, grace, selflessness, and live these out.  We need to preach the gospel, to the world and to each other.  And through this, we will love each other, honor each other, and obey Christ.

May we bear one another’s burdens.  May we love each other as God loves us.  May we pray for each other.  May we teach each other, and remind one another of the gospel.  May we never forget Him who calls us and loves us.  May we all continue to trust in Jesus.

God bless,

Neal E.

If you have any questions, comments, prayer requests, please email me at rembry@forum.montevallo.edu or comment on this post.  I will respond as quickly as I can.  Hope to write again soon!