This dates me, I know, but I can sometimes relate to Charlie Brown in the Peanuts cartoons. Like the one where Lucy is philosophizing and Charlie is listening. As usual, Lucy has the floor, delivering one of her lectures.
She says, "Charlie Brown, life is a lot like a deck chair. Some place it so they can see where they’re going. Others place it to see where they’ve been.
And some so they can see where they are at the present." Charlie Brown sighs and says, "I can’t even get mine unfolded."
Have you ever come up face to face with a dilemma? Have you ever been stuck between a rock and a hard place? Or in a situation where you were genuinely conflicted which way to go?
Most of us at some point in our lives have hit that point when we just have to make a determination which way we are to go. [PPT]
The Apostle Paul was no stranger to this type of struggle. Paul had committed his life to serving Jesus and to sharing Jesus with as many people as he could.
Paul was driven by vision – first it was the vision that transformed his life on the road to Damascus, when God changed his name from Saul to Paul.
He had been travelling to Damascus to continue his pursuit of what at that point in his life he considered to be the awful heretical group known as The Way. That was the name of the church in its infancy, actually.
The risen Jesus appeared to Saul and asked Saul why he was persecuting Him. That led to a series of events that transformed Saul from a self-righteous Pharisee to the pastor and apostle he is known to the world as.
And here in this passage Paul is reflecting on the numerous struggles he has faced. He has more than once stared death in the face. In 2 Corinthians Paul elaborates for us the kinds of trials he has faced:
2 Corinthians 11:24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
So Paul is a guy who’s known a lot of pressure. He’s been in situations where his own mortality was really up for grabs in the moment. He’s thought a lot about living and a lot about dying.
He’s reflected on how rich and full his life in Jesus has been, how blessed he has been to be alive and to have been saved, and to have been given a calling in life, a vision – for Paul it was the calling of an apostle.
He has thought about the sheer beauty of living now for Jesus…and he’s done it a lot.
Paul has also thought about dying. He writes a fair bit about heaven, but it’s clear that when Paul speaks of heaven, his focus is the chief tenant of heaven. His focus is on God.
And so Paul writes in our passage today these powerful words: [PPT] 21 “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain”. What is Paul trying to convey here?
Well, he actually unpacks what he means for us. And as he unpacks it he thinks in terms of pretty practical considerations. Now whether Paul lives or dies, of course, is not up to him. This has nothing to do with a person ending their own life, in case you’re wondering.
Paul says “to live is Christ”, and he sees the value of remaining alive in his service to others. If he is granted more time to live, it will mean fruitful labour. Time well spent. Not time consumed on himself, but time lived on earth in God’s service to other people.
I was talking to my son the other day about people being happy. He was interested in what makes people happy, and especially in why so many people are unhappy. I shared with him that the difference between happy and unhappy people tends to be their focus.
Those who plan and scheme and live in order to position themselves to be happy, to get all that they want, those people always seem to end up miserable, whether or not they get what they want. If we focus on ourselves, we lose track of what God wants.
Those who tend to focus on others – on serving others, on loving others; those who are outward focussed, who live in kindness and thoughtfulness toward others – those are the people who end up truly happy.
That’s really because stuff doesn’t make us happy. Things do not add quality to life.
The key to happiness is relationships – good, hard-won relationships where our focus is not getting what we want from someone else, but rather our focus and our energies go toward giving ourselves. Giving of ourselves.
For Paul, a man who God used incredibly to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ, his joy was in his purpose, his fruitful labour – which was what?
The spreading of the gospel! People coming to Jesus. The church growing in depth and power of positive influence in the world.
It was all about people. And that’s why you get such a positive picture of Paul being even weirdly upbeat in places like prison and when under much pressure.
Paul, at the very writing of this letter to the Philippian believers, is in a Roman dungeon chained perhaps between two Roman soldiers. He describes his situation as “in a strait betwixt two” He is literally hemmed in or confined by his surroundings.
Paul says to live is Christ, to die is gain. What does Paul have to gain should he die? Well…the riches of heaven.
The glorious inheritance of the children of God. Living with Jesus. Being in ceaseless relationship with God. Forever worshipping the glory of His majesty. In other words, for Paul, were he to die, the gain would be his.
That’s not a bad thing. All Christ-followers eventually die, unless Jesus returns before some of us do – and He may well just do that, you never know. But we should always be prepared.
But here in this passage, Paul decides. It’s neat the way, with Paul especially in Scripture, you get the sense of a man in process, a man deciding. It almost sounds sometimes like he’s dictating live to his scribe and the scribe is writing down Paul’s process thoughts.
Anyway, he gets to this point:
23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.
So in this kind of hypothetical scenario that Paul is considering of living or dying, he chooses what is best for others, knowing that his reward will one day come soon enough.
A little bit later, in Verse 29, Paul says: “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,30 since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have”.
Again, Paul here speaks from personal experience, and the word he speaks is a sobering one that helps point us in the direction of genuine discipleship – what it really means to belong to Jesus and to live for him.
Now someone might say: “Hang on, I thought all I had to do was believe in Jesus and that was it”. Well, here’s the thing: believing in Jesus is the first step. The first critical step to being a follower of Jesus.
[PPT] Believe and Follow:
We hear the gospel, we see it being lived out in ways that we can understand and find compelling. We learn this truth of God’s love expressed in Jesus, God’s Son, coming to earth.
We absorb the reality that Jesus went to the cross because of our sin and that he took our sin upon Him on the cross. We grasp that this sacrifice was for us personally, and we are amazed. We turn to God in repentance and choose to turn toward God with our whole lives.
We receive Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and commit to following Him our whole lives, depending on His grace and mercy for every step.
We join a local fellowship if we’re not connected already, and we make the ongoing choice to walk beside other believers, strengthening others and being strengthened ourselves.
“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him,30 since you are going through the same struggle you saw I had, and now hear that I still have”.
Suffer:
And in one way or another, we will suffer. If you’re like me and you’re the first Christian in a family for a long time, a family that is atheist and hostile to faith, you suffer as your family thinks you’ve lost your mind and as they do what they can to dissuade you from your faith, to help you see ‘reason’.
That’s a kind of suffering, and it can build your faith or destroy your faith.
Or your social group will not understand your conversion to Christ and you may find yourself on the margins, needing to build a new social world, needing to really immerse yourself in Christian friendships in order to deal with the loss you may suffer because of simply being misunderstood by your friends.
Again, that’s a kind of suffering that builds or can damage faith.
Or you may, like Paul, be called to a ministry where you go in to new areas and share Jesus Christ with people you have never met before, and, like Paul, you may suffer directly for sharing your faith. And you may, like Paul, reap huge rewards in seeing people come to Christ and seeing communities transformed by the love of God.
At the very least, we are each called to heed Jesus’ words in Mark chapter 8:34-36
"If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?”
What suffering will do, in the end, is either build or damage our faith. But if we are followers of Christ, we should come to terms with suffering. And if we do, when things get tough, as they did in the extreme for the Apostle Paul, we will never stop turning to Jesus, looking to Jesus and committing our way to Him.
We will know that no matter what we face, we never, ever suffer alone. We are always carried by Christ, held and empowered and strengthened to endure whatever may come our way. This is one of the many great joys of being a follower of Jesus.
The Apostle Paul says that to live is Christ, to die is gain. Are you ready to live for Christ? Do you choose daily to live for His glory and His honour? Do you awake afresh in the morning and commit your day to Him? Are you here today and you have never opened your heart to Jesus?
You know, you can do that today. You can speak with myself or any one of the members of the prayer team…Bob and Gary, Lee and Helen, Olive, Eric, Agnes…each of them will delight to pray with you to receive Christ, or to pray for you for any matter you are facing.
Perhaps you are in the middle of real suffering. Maybe you feel the need for prayer to have greater strength to endure graciously in a hard circumstance. The prayer team is here for you today.
Let’s pray. Holy God, may we find it in our hearts to say with the Apostle Paul “to live is Christ, to die is gain”. May our lives yield to your love and your gracious authority. May we enjoy the comfort of your presence in the things that we suffer. And may Jesus Christ our Lord continue His transforming work in and through us, for it is in His name we pray. Amen.
