Joyful Living And Dying For Christ - [Philippians 1:18-26]

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If you would turn with me to Philippians chapter one, the title for my message today is
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Joyful Living and Dying for Christ. Joyful Living and Dying for Christ.
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And as you're turning there, I have a quotation for you. And most of you will probably guess where this is from.
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And here it goes. I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
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So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.
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Famous book, famous movie, lots of you love it. And it's a story that starts with an adventure, lots of excitement.
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And soon enough, you know, there are many sections in that book where what was exciting turns out into sheer terror.
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It's like, why? You know, I thought this was gonna be a lot of fun, but right now I wish I wasn't here.
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And here in this particular scenario, the counsel that is given is that Frodo has a certain role that he is responsible for, and for him to do what was called in this particular time and moment.
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And the book of Philippians is about joy. The believer has an overflowing abundant joy in all kinds of circumstances.
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This is a book written by Paul from jail, from prison. And he is just flowing with joy as he writes this book.
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And so my goal this morning is to show you how you and I can have that deep seated joy that endures and overflows no matter what circumstance you are facing today.
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And before I do that, I just want you to, I want to bring all of you to the cross, to Jesus Christ, our
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Lord and Savior, because he is the one who has occasioned for us to experience this joy.
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So if there's anyone here who does not know Christ, my goal is that you will be drawn to Christ and have that same joy that every single believer here has today.
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Here is a few snapshots of Jesus Christ. Here was Jesus who dwelt in glory, who chose to come and be born in a stable.
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And I always try to think, how did it smell in that stable relative to where he was in heaven?
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Here was someone who has eternal glory from eternity past to eternity future, who transcends time to come and live minute by minute, second by second, 30 years of complete obscurity in a little town that nobody ever heard of until he came to his ministry.
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Here was the righteous ruler of the universe who faced the most unjust persecution and trial and execution.
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The giver of life who then gave up his own life for us all.
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So as we think of our own circumstances, I want us to just look at Jesus Christ, our savior who experienced the most unthinkable of circumstances and yet lived with joy for his
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Lord and granted us the joy for us today. The text I have for you is in Philippians 1, verses 18 through 26.
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So if you're using one of the blue Bibles in front, I think it's on page 980 or 81.
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And this is a text where Paul is writing to the church at Philippi and he's talking about his own life.
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And as you look at Paul's life and his words here, I want you to remember in 1
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Corinthians 11, one Paul said, be imitators of me as I am of Christ.
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And here is Paul explaining how he thinks and what he wants, how he gains joy in the midst of his circumstances.
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And I want you to remember Paul and be imitators of him as he imitated
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Christ. Now, with that said, let me first pray as we begin our message.
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Our loving father, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each of our hearts be pleasing in your sight.
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In Jesus' name we pray, amen. All right, so let's begin with Philippians 1.
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I'm gonna give you a brief overview and then we'll jump into our text. If you see the beginning of Philippians in verse one, it's
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Paul and Timothy writing to the church, the saints at Philippi. And in verse three,
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Paul begins with thankfulness. You know, one of the keys to joy is just being thankful for what we have. So often my joy is lost when
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I think of what I don't have, when I forget to thank God for the things I have. And then in verses one through five,
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Paul just talks about those reasons he's thankful for the Philippians. And in verse six, you have this thing where he says,
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I'm confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.
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Our confidence in our life is not in my ability to successfully finish it, but in the ability of my savior to take me to the finish line successfully.
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And that's a key source of joy for the believer. And then in verse nine and beyond,
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Paul says, and I pray this, that your love may abound more and more. And as he prays for love, there are a few attributes that come out, knowledge, discernment, approving the right things, the excellent things, being sincere and blameless.
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So there are things that God does in our life as we are transformed by the work of God in our lives.
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And we can get to see those things and rejoice. And Paul prays for that in the life of the
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Philippians. And then in verses 12 through 17, Paul is talking about a circumstance.
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And I want you to understand this because this will help you know what we are gonna be looking at today. Here he says,
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I want you to know these things, friends. He's like, come alongside, I'm gonna teach you something. He says in verse 12, my circumstances, and his circumstances, he's in a house prison tied to another
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Roman guard. And that circumstance has turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.
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So people were thinking, oh, Paul has changed. The message is not gonna go out in Rome. But he's like, no, no, no, this is exactly the right thing that God had planned, even though that wasn't what
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I planned. And that turned out for the gospel to go forth. In verse 13, my imprisonment in verse 13 led to what was in the end of verse 14.
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It caused people to have more courage to speak the word of God without fear. So here was
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Paul in prison speaking to all the people who are coming, so much so that even the prisoners were getting saved and the message was going into Caesar's household.
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And everybody else who saw this and thought, oh, if I speak the message, maybe I will go to jail. They were no longer afraid.
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They said, you know, we can do the same thing. We can see how God works in our adverse circumstances.
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And so he says, this is a great thing. And then he says, not only that, that message went out in verse 15.
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He says, some are preaching Christ with envy and strife, and some are preaching from goodwill.
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And then he says in verse 18, what then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth,
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Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.
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Rejoice. And really that's at the heart of Paul's key to joy.
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His key to joy was not on having the right circumstances or even having his own will accomplished, but his joy was fixed on the proclamation of Jesus Christ, and Jesus will accomplish that through the very circumstances that Jesus has put
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Paul in, and that was his confidence. So that's kind of your background. And I have a text here that I wanna just read again, because this particular text doesn't talk a lot about Jesus.
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And I think one thing I've learned from Pastor Mike is that I wanna talk about Jesus in the pulpit as much as I can.
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So I'm gonna read you a couple of verses, and then we'll continue with verse 18. And this is a verse that I think will help you think of how do
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I take these truths and live them in my life? So you don't have to turn here.
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It's in Hebrews 12, one and two. Right after Hebrews 11, where it talks about the faith that all of these people had in God, how they trusted
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God and how God was with them and was faithful to them. Here we read in Hebrews 12, one.
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Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin that so easily entangles us.
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And let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. And you can just underline that in your mind.
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Let us run with endurance the race that is run before us. And how you're gonna do, we're gonna see that in Philippians.
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But the endurance comes by looking at Jesus, fixing your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
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For consider him who endured such hostility by sinners against himself, so that you will not grow weary or lose heart.
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Jesus is your savior. He came and died in order to pay for your sin and procure your righteousness.
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He is also your forerunner, your Lord, your master, whom you follow in his footsteps.
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He has endured, he has shown you what he has accomplished and he is able to make you have joy in the circumstances of life as well.
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So with that, let's jump in into Philippians 1, 18 through 26.
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I'm gonna read that whole section so that we have a sense of what this is and then we'll break them, walk through them step by step.
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Already read this in verse 18. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth,
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Christ is proclaimed and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ.
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According to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness,
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Christ will even now as always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
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And this is the key verse that's the theme of this passage. For to me, to live is
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Christ and to die is gain. Verse 22, but if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, for I do not know which to choose, but I am hard pressed from both direction, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better.
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Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
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Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again.
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In verse 21, Paul says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
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And Paul is telling us that in all of life circumstances, in the way you live and even in death, you can have a victorious, a joyful and an abundant hope in God who helps you through it all.
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So there are three points for today. If I alliterated it would be help, hope and wholly covered.
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That's as far as I could get, W -H -O. So you have help, you have hope, and you are wholly covered in life and death and everything in between.
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Let's begin with the first point, you have help. And you find this in verse 19.
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So in the end of verse 18, Paul says, yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ.
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You know, when Frodo ran into trouble, you know, he would start wishing for things. I wish this thing,
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I wish that thing. But you and I have two important sources of help.
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One of them is the prayers, which Paul is talking about the deliverance through your prayers.
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And the other one is the spirit of God, the provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ.
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But look at verse 19, it begins with for I know. The word oida, the Greek word used there is certainty.
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There is a confidence here. This is not, I wish these things will happen. He's saying, I know for certain this is something that I can bank on.
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This is God's word, his promise. And I can count on it. It will not be shaken. And I have a full assurance of this.
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So he says, when he talks about your prayers, who is he talking to? So in verse one,
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Paul was writing to a church and it was the church in Philippi. So these are the believers, the individuals who made up the church of Philippi and the church collectively that he is writing to.
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And so here, as we look at this text, you wanna remember that when you pray, when you have a need and you ask someone else to pray for you, when you have that BBC announced and there's a body that is coming alongside and praying for you, those are certainties that there is help that you can count on when those prayers are lifted from the believers that go up right into the throne room of God.
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James 5, 16 says, therefore, confess your sins to one another, pray for one another that you may be healed.
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And the prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. So as you pray,
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God uses that in terms of his work in each of your life.
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So when you need help, ask for prayer, you pray for those who are in need. And that is one of the means that God has provided for us in your time of trouble.
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The second one there is the spirit, the provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ. So the provision here is a full and abundant supply.
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This is not the kind of provision where your food runs out in the middle of your journey like some of the travelers did in the book.
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This is a provision that you will never, ever, ever lack. God's abundant, last week,
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Pastor Mike was talking about the, according to the riches of his glory, this is not a part of the riches of his glory, a portion of the riches of his glory.
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This is in keeping with Jesus Christ himself and his fullness that you will have what you need in your particular circumstance.
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In your case, it might be, you need strength to move forward in this trial that you're facing, or it might be wisdom in knowing how to act in this particular circumstance.
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Maybe it is protection as the assault of the enemy or the health trials come your way, or it may just be needing the joy that you need to exhibit when it seems so difficult to do.
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God has provided for you help in the prayers of the saints, the believers, and in the spirit who is at work in you and who fully supplies all your needs in your particular trial.
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So that's the first point, you have help. The second one is you have hope.
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And this I want you to look at in verse 20.
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So if I just read 18, 19, and 20, just picking a few words, you wanna rejoice in verse 18 because Christ has proclaimed and he's saying, this thing will turn out for my deliverance in verse 19.
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And then in verse 20, this deliverance is according to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness,
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Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
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There are many times in our life when hope seems to be something that is so promising and then that just kind of dwindles away.
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But the hope that God promises is not that kind of a hope.
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You know, when we use hope in the English language, it's like you're thinking probability. It's greater than 50%, okay, that's hope.
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If it's 90%, I have hope. And this hope that Paul is talking about is a slightly different hope.
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It is a hope that has an assurance linked to it. And we will see why Paul has that kind of a hope.
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And that's the kind of hope you and I can have in our circumstances too. So let's look at the words that are used here.
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He says, earnest expectation and hope. I had an uncle whose name was
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Ernest and he passed away last year, but he was a very sincere man.
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I mean, he would genuinely, everything he said, he meant it and he would say it and hold on to it. And he won't let you get away if you said something insincere.
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He was true to his name. But that's not the kind of earnest that this word is talking about.
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The actual word there is like a giraffe. You're stretching out your neck with anticipation to what is coming.
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So you have a hope that is like, you're just reaching out to hold it. And what is this earnest thing you are, what is this earnestness that you have, the stretching out to word?
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It is that you will not want and you will not be lacking in anything.
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That's from verse 19. And also he says, you will not be put to shame in anything.
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Now let's kind of look back at Paul's circumstance. Here he was a prisoner in Rome.
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And he says that I will not be put to shame in anything. And so here he is in front of Caesar, he is going to appear before him.
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He's not afraid of it. In front of the world who's looking, okay, here is a guy who's lost his freedom in front of the church as people were having ill motives in the way in which they were responding to him.
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And even for us today, family, friends, no matter what your circumstance is, there is a sense in which you can be assured that you will not be put to shame in anything.
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And so you don't have to fear. Now you may ask yourself, how does that work? I feel like I'm shamed in every turn that I take.
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I say something and people laugh at me. I do something and people talk behind me on the back. How do
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I have that kind of not being ashamed of things in my life?
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So let's see what Paul says in verse 20. He says, his hope, in the end of verse 20, and that with all boldness and confidence, is that Christ will be exalted in my body.
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So, and it's always, now as always. His purpose, and this is the secret
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I think to Paul's joy, is wasn't really to exalt Paul.
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The struggle I often face is I think I'm exalting Christ, but I'm actually trying to exalt myself.
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And sure enough, I face shame in that process because that's not God's ultimate purpose.
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His ultimate purpose is to exalt Christ in my life.
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And so Paul's goal was that I, as I live my life, Christ will be exalted, and that's the hope that he has, and that's the earnest expectation that he has anchored his life on.
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And then he says, it doesn't matter whether by life or death, in my body. So you wanna remember, as a believer, your body is the temple of the
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Holy Spirit. You are an agent, for you fans, of God in this world.
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You have the awesome responsibility of living out in your body, in those very circumstances, what
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God has purpose to do. And so Paul's saying, that's my goal, that Christ will be exalted in my body.
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And remember again, Hebrews 12, to Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising its shame.
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The cross would be the ultimate shame -producing factor. Pastor Mike preached on this, but Christ was looking down on the cross while he was on the cross because God was being exalted through a task that nobody else understood at that time, but now there's millions, billions of people who have come to experience the joy that Christ has set for them, that they have experienced today.
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And so when your goal is on, I see what God is doing this and I wanna exalt Christ, you're no longer shamed by whatever that circumstance might be, but you see that very circumstance as a means of exalting
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Christ. So the key to having a hope is not in the intermediate circumstances of your life that you think should happen or not happen.
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Paul himself didn't know, as we saw in this text and we'll see soon, he didn't know if he was gonna live or die and it didn't matter.
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His hope was that Christ would be exalted in his body and that was a hope that was unshakable.
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And so you and I, as we go through our circumstances in life, if you wanna have that confidence, that hope to be able to live your life with joy and assurance, you wanna make sure that you're not looking to exalt yourself or to fulfill your own purposes, but to look to Christ and his purposes in your life today.
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So you wanna ask yourself, what is your cross? Jesus said, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.
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In your body, think of, is Christ exalted today in what
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I wanna plan and do? No shame, no fear. You can have an outstretched neck as you go and face that giant in your life tomorrow at work.
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You can rejoice because you have health, prayer, the spirit. You can rejoice because you have hope because it is exaltation of Christ in your body.
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And that brings us to our last point. Rejoice because you are wholly covered, wholly covered.
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And that's actually verse 21. For to me, to live as Christ and to die is gain.
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Okay, one more quote. Most of you will guess this. To be or not to be, that is the question.
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Whether to be, whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take up, take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them.
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To die, to sleep, no more. And by a sleep to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to.
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It is a consummation devoutly to be wished to sleep, to die, to sleep. To sleep for a chance to dream.
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Hey, there's the rub. For in that sleep of death, what dreams may come.
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And Shakespeare goes on to talk more about this trouble that Hamlet faced. Now is
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Paul's, to live as Christ and die is gain, a soliloquy of despair? Absolutely not.
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You know, death as you look at it, we need to kind of step back and look at death. Death is not good.
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If Adam had never sinned, death would have never entered this universe. Now, death is a separation which is unnatural.
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When your soul leaves your body, you kind of wonder, how do I see without my eyes?
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You know, there's a lot of questions that come up. And there is a fulfillment when your body or your glorious body will be united with your soul one day.
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And there is, death is killed. But death is something that each of us must face unless Christ returns before that and you're taken up in the heavens.
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It is a consequence of the fall. But the life that Paul is talking about is a crucial truth to remember.
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What does he mean when he says to live is Christ? In fact, in the
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Greek, you just have to live Christ and to die gain. There's not even a verb. What Paul is talking about, and I think this is at the heart of this message, is that life is not just the day -to -day living, the mundane, the pain of trials, you know, the works, godly work and the joys that you do.
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It's not just that. It is about that fellowship in Christ, which is the means to everything that you do with your body.
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You know, how you face your trials, how do you do godly work, how do you enjoy life? All of those things is anchored in that fellowship in Christ.
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I missed Pastor Bob Bowman. This was his heart verse, in Christ. Now, life in Christ is not just some moral thing.
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You know, I love walk like Christ. I do things like Christ. It's not a mystical thing. Like I have some, you know, some magical union with Christ.
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It's not a sacramental thing. Even if there's anyone from a Catholic church here, it's not about just some, you know, thing that you eat and think he's a part of you.
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Christ, and there are a few word pictures about life in Christ that I'm just gonna throw out, and hopefully that'll be helpful for you.
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I'll tell you what verses they are so you can take them down and read them later. Ephesians 2, 19 through 22, it talks about how
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Christ is our foundation, and we are that building, that superstructure.
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So as you look at your life in Christ, you wanna know that you have a foundation that is
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Christ himself, and it is on him that you are built up. Nothing can break that away.
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John 15, four to five talks about how Christ is the vine, and we are the branches.
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So your existence, your sustenance, everything is coming out of Christ himself, and he's the one who will nourish you, and you will flourish because you are in him.
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So that's from structural to agricultural. So let's come to the marriage in Ephesians 5, 22 and 23, another word picture of what in Christ means.
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Here, Christ is the husband, and we are the bride. You have that intimate relationship with Christ as you live your life.
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So because, so for those of you who are not saved, you might be thinking, what on earth does this mean?
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Because until you surrender your life to Jesus, your life was yours. I lived as Pradeep, for Pradeep, in Pradeep before.
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It's not a good life. And many of you here have experienced that joy when you realize this life is not worth living because not just is it unfulfilling here on earth, but the consequence of my lived life here would be a penalty that is eternal in hell because I have done a lot of terrible things which
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I can never ever atone for before a thrice holy God. So when what happened, and I'm talking to those of you who don't know
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Jesus here, is that you need to realize that your life here is not meant to be lived the way you live today.
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If you are living your life just for yourself, just for the things that you have understood and the things that you think are good, you will find it ultimately unsatisfying.
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And there is a thrice holy God with whom you will have to reckon when you die. And if you want to meet him, you do not want to meet him with your sin on your back.
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And that sin that you have committed, you cannot pay for. So you want to deal with God today.
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Jesus Christ who came, what I was talking about earlier, living a perfect life, dying on that cross, was to provide a gift that was free and unconditional.
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You don't have to do anything except recognize that you are a sinner before a thrice holy
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God and that you accept this gift that Jesus gives freely. But there is something that happens afterward.
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What happens afterward is God changed... Theologically, it's not afterward, it's simultaneous.
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Your heart is regenerated. You have a new heart with new desires. You have a heart that wants things that you never wanted before.
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The sin that you enjoyed suddenly becomes undesirable and the things that are good suddenly become beautiful.
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And so that's the change inwardly that God does in you because you have the spirit of God now indwelling you and giving you new desires and aspirations and to follow after Jesus Christ.
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So what happens here is I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.
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So the life that I now live, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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So now I'm not living for Pradeep. Every believer here is not living for each of you. You are living for Jesus Christ.
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So he is the husband, we are the bride. And we have that union with him that makes life so much more wonderful than the way we used to live before that.
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There is one other imagery in 1 Corinthians 12, 12 through 13, Christ is the head and we are the body.
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So we do those things. When Paul was talking about the hope he had in his body, we do those things that God wants to do.
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He is the head, he gives the direction, he gives the goal and we live that out in our life today. Now, let me just make a couple more comments on death.
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We talked about life in Christ, to die is gain. I misunderstood this contrast between life in Christ and to live is
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Christ and die is gain until I read Calvin. And he said, sometimes when the phrasing of that structure seems to be like these are opposing things, life, death,
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Christ, gain. So if I have Christ here, I have something different here.
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No, no, no, that's not what it means. The way the sentence is structured is that even in life
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I have Christ and that's all I need. And here I have more of Christ.
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I get to be in his presence completely. So what does that death mean? Let's just unpack that for a little bit.
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So when last couple of years we've all had COVID around us, some of you, some of us might have had greater fears of COVID than others, either for yourself or your loved ones or somebody else who did not know the
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Lord, but death is no loss when you have no hell to face. Today, you are dead to the power of sin.
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You are slaves of righteousness, but even more so in death. Death will no longer have its, sin will no longer have its presence in death.
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Dead when you're passed from judgment now, but so much more in your physical death, it culminates.
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You are in God's presence forevermore as a child of God. You are dead and you're glorified with a new body one day for all eternity.
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So death as we see is no longer an enemy or something to be afraid of.
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We know we are passed from judgment into life, but your physical death will take you into glory.
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Can you affirm this like Paul did? If you're not a believer, I would want you to trust in Jesus so you can affirm it.
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If you are a believer, sometimes I do this. I live like I'm living for today and not for that day when
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I will see him face to face. And that was the secret of Paul's joy. His eye was fixed on Jesus Christ.
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Now, some of you would say, all right, maybe some of you children, maybe not children. You might say, well, you know,
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Paul had a wonderful, adventurous life like Frodo, up and down, in and out, had no idea what was going to happen, come down a basket in the middle of the night and all these things.
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My life is dull as ditch water. I hit the alarm, do my job, eat my food, go to bed, hit the alarm.
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And sometimes it may seem like what I'm doing in the body seems very unexciting. But as you examine your own life, the troubles that you have faced today may not be the troubles of, you know,
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Russia and Ukraine for which we pray that the Lord would watch over. But your troubles, you know.
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The Lord has placed you exactly where he wants you to be today. Maybe there's going to be a major trial coming up front.
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Maybe there is a little trial that's troubling you today. No matter what the scale of that trouble might be, you want to consider
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Christ. Consider the Paul who considered Christ. Consider to live as Christ and to die is gain.
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Now, most of you may think I'm done with my message, but I'm not. It's got a little bit more to it and I will finish in time.
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So there's a sub -bullet to this holy cupboard. So let's unpack this in life a little bit more.
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What does it mean to live in Christ? So if you look at verses 22 to 24, I'm going to read a few of those sentences so you can apply them.
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In verse 22, but if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me.
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And verse 24, yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
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So what does life in the body mean for Paul? The physical life. He was talking about fruitful labor, that I can do things that produce fruit that are good for the body, the believers and even for unbelievers that they may come to Christ.
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So these could be things like righteous deeds that you do. Philippians 1, 11 earlier in the passage, it says that you may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.
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That your life would be a sweet aroma while you live here. That you do those things that God produces in you and God is glorified in our midst.
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There are good words. Philippians, Ephesians 2, 10. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which
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God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them in order that God's Christ's work in your life may be accomplished and God would be glorified through it.
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This fruitful labor is spirit enabled.
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Galatians 5, 22, 23. The fruit of the spirit is love. What's the next word?
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Joy. So if you are struggling with joy, you want to remember it is the spirit of God who produces that fruit in you.
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And so when Paul is thinking of fruitful labor, you know his life was consumed with proclaiming, exalting
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Christ throughout the nations and he wanted more believers, the message of the gospel to go to those who haven't heard it that they may come to faith in Christ and he went back to those believers that they may be strengthened and that was the fruitful labor for Paul.
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And he says in verse 24 that this is more necessary for your sake. So in Paul's loving heart as the father, as he has produced, he has brought the gospel to all of these.
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This was his joyful responsibility and I want you to think of this for a moment. He is fine with forestalling, postponing or even differing heaven in order to be of service to those among whom he is.
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Can you just imagine that? You know, I could be with God in glory but I can see that God has placed me here in order that there may be fruitful labor in your midst and for that I'm content to stay.
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And that's what he says in verse 24. So in our life and your life, the intimacy of your life in Christ enables you to live for Christ.
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What fruitful labor has God called you to live? Let's now look at the other aspect.
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You want to rejoice because you're wholly covered in death. And we see this in verse 23. He says, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is much better.
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And as I mentioned earlier, death is no longer an enemy, it is your entrance into glory. It is to be with Jesus, with the father and the spirit forever.
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But there's a word he uses there, it's called depart, the desire to depart.
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I've already mentioned, this is not like the soliloquy of Hamlet. The word used there has the imagery of setting sail.
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It's, you know, you lifted your anchor, raised your hoisted your sail and you're just heading out, be with Christ.
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And the other imagery there is your bonds that have tied you have been broken. You are unfettered and free to head on to glory.
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This is not the worldly view of death that the world thinks of as finishing and culmination.
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This is sailing and be free. How about you? Ready for the departure?
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You know, if you're a not -believer, I do pray that you would trust in Jesus.
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Be ready to go when your time comes. If you're a believer, are there things anchoring you, binding you, which should not?
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I remember, this is I think in my first or second year here, talking about the possibility of death.
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There was just some health issue and I was telling Pastor Mike about my children. I don't mind going, but I don't wanna leave my children.
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They're like very little. I think I had just one at that time. And Pastor Mike, he gave me a book and he gave me some very good counsel.
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And I said, you know, I also have a lot of debt. I don't wanna leave that with Sunita to deal with. She's an accountant,
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I know she can handle that, but still, I wouldn't be right to do that. And he said,
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Pradeep, let me ask you something. Do you think you can do a better job with your children if God wants you to go to heaven than God can do with your children if you're not here?
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If that was his plan. I just had to scratch my head for a few days before the weight of that sunk in.
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Yes, you know, I don't have to worry about any of my responsibilities because if God has that departure date for me set, he has everything else figured out as well.
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And he can do it better than I can do in my body here. All right, so that's death. So the last section of my sub -bullet is everything in between.
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So there's a few verses we skipped and I'm just gonna comment on that and then we'll wrap up. Rejoice, we said before, because you have help.
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Rejoice because you have hope. Rejoice because you're wholly covered in life, in death, and everything in between.
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In the end of verse 22, Paul says something puzzling. He says, I do not know which to choose, but I am hard pressed in both directions, life or death.
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And then verse 25, convinced of this, what he has just said in verse 24 about remaining,
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I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again.
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Hard pressed in both directions. The idea here is like walking through a narrow gorge and you have these cliffs on either side that are high and pressing you.
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So you have both of these things and Paul says, I didn't know. So this is something that is undecided as far as Paul was concerned.
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And so when he says convinced, this is a little different than the know that was used earlier in this passage. This is his personal judgment.
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He is just using his faculties and determining between life and death, what seems to be the best choice and his personal judgment as he's kind of walking through his mental process so you can understand how he thinks.
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And it helps us to think as we face our own choices, how do we make those choices in our life that exalt
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Christ and bring glory to him and we can have confidence in. So here he says in verse 25, that it's for your progress, your joy, your faith.
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His desire is that fruitful labor that God has placed before him. And he sees the need and he says, this is what
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I wanna do. If God takes him away, God will bring someone else to accomplish that in these people's life.
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But that's what he thought would be the best thing for him to commit to.
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And so he says, and all of this is not about Paul. The last sentence might seem a little confusing in verse 26.
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He says, your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus.
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Another way of phrasing the sentence would be your proud confidence may abound in Christ Jesus, parenthetically seen in me.
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You know, we've been talking already about, you know, how do you have joy in life? See how Paul has had joy in life.
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He has joy in life because he's following Christ, his savior. So there is a chain as we are looking through even applying this message.
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And Paul's message here is, you know, you may have that confident hope that abounds in Christ Jesus, but that intermediate step is through me because you get to see that lived out in me as well.
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So as we wrap up, the questions you wanna ask, what has God called you to do?
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Paul was a missionary. He was a prisoner. He was a laborer, co -laborer, and a faithful friend.
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What is your role in your family that God called you to live in Christ?
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What is your role in church? How does God expect you to live in your work in those very circumstances that seem to suck all your joy away?
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Is your life intended to be producing fruitful labor that God may receive all the glory, that believers may grow in Christ and unbelievers may wanna come and taste and see that the
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Lord is good? So ask yourself these questions as you weigh that balance like Paul did.
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When you walk out of these doors, are you ready for life? Are you ready to die?
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And are you ready for everything in between? Let's pray. A loving
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Father, we thank you for the joy you've given us in Jesus Christ. We thank you for Paul. We thank you for the spirit that indwells us.
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Help us, oh Father, to look at our lives in light of the gospel, in light of Jesus Christ, our