The Ultimate Win-Win

Introduction: The Defining Question of Your Existence

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, if you were to stop a hundred people on the streets of Manila today and ask them one question, "What do you live for?", imagine the answers you might get. You might meet a young professional, working 80 hours a week, sacrificing sleep, sacrificing health. For him, "to live is promotion." You might meet a loving mother, whose every thought and action revolves around her children. For her, "to live is my family." You might meet someone captivated by the endless scroll of social media, chasing 'likes' and fleeting fame. For them, "to live is approval." Others might say money, security, comfort, or just making it to the weekend.

Every single person has a philosophy of life. They have something that gets them out of bed in the morning. They have a center of gravity, a sun around which the planets of their life revolve. We all fill in the blank in the sentence: "For to me to live is ___."

But today, we turn our attention to a man who gives an answer that shatters every earthly-minded paradigm. The Apostle Paul, a man who is not writing from a position of comfort, but from the harsh reality of a Roman prison. Let's paint the picture. He is not in a minimum-security facility with a library and a cafeteria. He is likely in a cold, damp cell, perhaps chained to a Roman guard, awaiting a verdict from Caesar's court that could mean his execution.

From this place of uncertainty, suffering, and imminent danger, Paul does not write a letter of despair. He does not complain. Instead, he pens a love letter to his dear partners in the gospel, the church at Philippi, and he makes one of the most powerful declarations in all of Scripture. He boils down his entire existence, his past, his present, and his future, into ten simple words: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

This is not a clever motto; it is the spiritual DNA of a mature believer. It is the secret to joy in sorrow, peace in turmoil, and courage in the face of death. This morning, let's dig deeper into this treasure chest, to understand the two sides of this divine coin, and to see how this truth can set us free.

Part I: "For to me to live is Christ"

This first clause is the foundation for everything. "For to me to live is Christ." What a statement! Let's explore its three-fold meaning.

1. Christ is the Source of our Life

Before Paul could say "to live is Christ," he had to be made alive by Christ. Remember Paul's life before his conversion. He was Saul of Tarsus, a religious zealot, a man who thought he was living for God but was, in reality, spiritually dead. As Ephesians 2:1 says, he was "dead in trespasses and sins." Then, on the road to Damascus, he had an encounter with the resurrected Lord Jesus. In that blinding moment, everything changed. He was given new life, spiritual life. He was, as 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, a "new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

Think of a lightbulb. A lightbulb is designed to give light. It has the filament, the glass, the structure-but it is dark and useless on its own. It has no life in itself. Only when it is screwed into the socket and connected to the power source does it fulfill its purpose. We, my friends, are the lightbulb. Before salvation, we are disconnected, dark, lifeless. Christ is the power source. The moment we are saved, we are connected to Him, and His life flows into us and through us. To say "to live is Christ" is to first declare, "I have no life of my own. My very spiritual existence, my breath, my hope, comes solely from Him."

2. Christ is the Substance of our Life

This is where the rubber meets the road for us today. For Paul, Christ wasn't just the start of his life; He was the very substance of it. Christ was the operating system that ran every program. He was the theme of the book, found on every single page.

This is a radical idea. It means that Christ is not meant to be one part of our life. He is not just our "Sunday life." He is our Monday-morning-stuck-in-traffic life. He is our Tuesday-afternoon-dealing-with-a-difficult-client life. He is our Friday-night-deciding-what-entertainment-to-watch life. He is our handling-of-finances life, our raising-our-childrenlife, our forgiving-those-who-hurt-us life.

What does this practically look like? It means that when you are at your job, your goal is not merely to earn a paycheck, but to work with integrity, excellence, and honesty "as to the Lord, and not unto men" (Colossians 3:23). When you are interacting with your family, your goal is not just to keep the peace, but to show the love, grace, andorgiveness of Christ. When you are faced with a decision, big or small, the question is no longer "What do I want?" but "What would most honor Christ?"