The Wonderous Cross Pt.6

Why don't you open up to Acts 16. And as you are opening up that chapter, let's go ahead and pray. That the Lord would guide us during our time this morning. Oh Lord, we thank you so much for the supply of the Holy Spirit.

that empowers us and fills us, allows us to understand the gospel and your word. It's confusing to us, Lord, to think that you would say to your disciples, it is good that you should go away. We would think that it would not be good for Jesus Christ in the flesh to go away, but you said it was good because then you could send the Helper, the Comforter, the Spirit, and we thank you that we have the Spirit here with us this morning and we have your word of God. We have the word of God, and we ask that You would fill us with your Spirit as we look at your word together.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right, we're going to be looking at Philippians 1, particularly verse 21, but to set this up, we're going to give quite a bit of the background and so I want you to open up to Acts 16 where we see Paul's part of Paul's second missionary journey with Silas, and then Luke joins in on part of this journey. And before he heads over to Macedonia, however, in Acts 16:19, It says during the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and pleading with him, Come over to Macedonia and help us.

Now what would you think, and I want to direct this particularly to the children. What would you think if you had a dream or a vision or you got a letter with somebody pleading, come over and help us? What would your assumption be that they would need help with? Well, if you knew anything about Philippi, this city in Macedonia, you might think, well, they need help with the slave trafficking because they have girls over there who are demon possessed being used for profit.

Or you might think they need help to reform the justice system because Roman citizens are being arrested and confined without due process of law, and those that are actually perceived as non-Romans are being discriminated against. So come help us with our justice system. Or maybe you might think that they're saying please come help us save the Balinas Brandeis snails who are being exploited by business people who just want to make a profit from the snail's purple excretion. And all three of those were issues in Philippi.

But look at verse 10. What's Paul's immediate interpretation of this vision? It says in verse 10, As soon as Paul had seen the vision, we got ready to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. The vision didn't say what was needed.

It didn't say what the help was, but Paul's immediate assumption was one thing the gospel. Brothers and sisters, this is a football. We'll talk about what our Green Bay Packers coach said at the beginning of this class that you go back to the basics. You go back to the essentials.

What's the one thing in football? It's a football. What's the one thing in Christianity? What's the one thing in Paul's mind?

It's Christ and Him crucified, it's the gospel. When he sees a vision of somebody asking for help, nobody has to tell him what the help entails. It entails preaching the gospel. Now, as we're gonna see, as he preaches the gospel, he ends up addressing all of the other concerns that people may have had who lived in Philippi.

But he doesn't go running after his tail and all those other concerns. He goes for the jugular, the power of God unto salvation, which is the gospel. So again, let's, let's think about the background here in Philippi in Macedonia, which is modern day Kavila in Greece. You have in this area he's going to run into Lydia, a seller of purple from Thyratira.

By the way, by the way, anybody who was a seller of purple at this time, this is a multimillionaire. This was not, having a dollar store on the corner. This is like Bourne's Technology Center, right? Fortune 400 comes that Fortune 500, Fortune 500 company.

So Lydia is an incredibly wealthy woman. And she's going to hear the gospel and come to know Christ. Then Paul and Silas are going to be accosted by a lady who's been is being slave trafficked, and she's telling fortune she's demon possessed and a demon is cast out of her and she hears the gospel which makes her owners mad and so they drag Paul and Silas before the magistrates. This is the leadership of the city.

The city leaders tear off the clothes of Paul and Silas, beat them publicly, confine them illegally, so this, they're not following proper police procedures. They're beating these people because they are perceived to be Jews. That's racism, and they confine them and then at midnight, what are they doing? They're singing and praising the Lord, and all of the prisoners are listening to them.

They're evangelizing in the prison with their songs. They can't go from cell to cell, so they decide to sing, and everybody's hearing the gospel sung. Then an earthquake happened Hold on here. Let's say that again.

An earthquake happens. a soldier wants to commit suicide. They could just run for the doors and get out of there, leave him to himself. They say, no, we're here.

He runs up, says, What must I do to be saved? They say, Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, ditto household. and so you have all of this conversion.

This is the beginning of the, of the church in Philippi 52 AD and then 10 years later he's writing a letter back to them while he has been imprisoned again. And by the way, remember the magistrates come to them later and say, Hey, by the way, you're free to go now. So Paul does exercise his Roman rights and says, Wait a second, you've bound Roman citizens without a trial. Then everybody backs away and they're like, oh, we're in.

Trouble. We didn't follow the due process of law. What did Paul do? He could have stayed in Philippi for the next 2 years trying to have a trial to get justice for his case, but instead he leaves quietly and heads on to the next city to go preach the gospel in Thessalonia.

And then there's another riot. So what made this vision so obvious to Paul? Why was it that he could see a vision like that that doesn't really tell him what he's supposed to do? He's just supposed to go help, and he automatically knows what's going to help the Philippians.

What made it so clear to him It was Paul's entire life purpose, Paul's mission given to him by Jesus Christ. Listen to the mission that Jesus gave Paul in Acts 26. This is Paul telling his testimony later in the book, and here's what Jesus himself said to Paul on the Damascus road, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you to appoint you as a servant and as a witness of what you have seen from me and what I will show you.

I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles.

I am sending you to them. Paul was underneath a lot of persecution and unjust treatment. Jesus says, right out the gate, I'm going to rescue from them in order to do something. Verse 18, to open up their eyes, the people who are treating you unjustly, unjustly, so that they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God.

That they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance amongst those who are sanctified by faith in me. That's the mission statement that Jesus gave Paul right from the beginning. And so Paul's entire purpose can be summed up in this idea for me, for to me to live as Christ and to die as gain. To live as Christ, to die as gain.

We could say it this way. Paul's life statement, his purpose statement was to magnify Christ in life and gain Christ in death. Magnify Christ in life and gain Christ in death. Magnify Christ in life because Christ is life.

Death only brings us what we've been longing for our whole lives to be with Christ. He is the goal, right? He is the treasure. He's what we've been longing for.

Everything else, as Paul says later in this book, is rubbish, dung, trash. To live as Christ, to die as gain. That's why he could see that vision and know immediately what the Philippians needed to help them. Let's look at our text and we're gonna, we're, let's turn over to Philippians 1:21.

This is the verse that we're going to exposit and then we're going to get the larger context as we move through it. He says in verse 21, actually, I'll start at the end of verse 20. As always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body whether by life or by death. For to me, to live as Christ and to die is gain.

Notice he says to me, To me. Now, there's things he's going to talk about that are probably better for the Philippians in the long run, but he says to me, What's important to me is to live for Christ, but ultimately to die and get to what I'm after, and that is Christ Himself. Paul would argue that the ultimate goal is to be with Christ. And so for to me, yes, I can magnify Christ in my body whether by my life or by my death, but as we're going to see in a moment, really where I want to be is with Christ.

That's where I'm driving, is to be with Him. But he front ends this with What's leading to that death, what's leading to that presence with Christ is the first side of the coin of his first purpose statement, which is this Paul's end goal was to magnify Christ in life, and that's where you can fill this in on your handout. Paul's end goal was to magnify Christ in life. He says to live is Christ.

The verb here is present tense. The idea is living is all about Christ. And as you look at the context, it's particularly the preaching of the gospel of Christ and defending of the gospel of Christ that he's emphasizing, which was more needful to the Philippians than for Jesus or for Paul to go to Christ immediately. he gets his very sustenance from Christ.

Now think about the things that people no doubt would have said in Philippi. People that didn't know Christ, you've probably seen the, t-shirts or slogans where, you'll see a baseball is life, football is life. video games are life. people could say for me to live is gold or for me to live is just substance.

I'm just trying to get by day to day. For me to live is learning. For me to live is pleasure. For me to live is honor from other people.

I want my name to be famous. For, for Paul, it's for me to live is Christ. And what actions qualify as Christ as life actions. When we look at this context, there's certain types of actions and activity that would fit within the idea of Christ as life.

Look at verse 24. We're gonna jump around to get the context. He says, nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. When he says to live as Christ, he's talking about remaining in his body because, he's writing this epistle as a prisoner.

And he knows that he could die or he could be released and continue to live. And so he's equivocating. He's like, Should I stay or should I go now, right? To be or not to be?

Do I really want to stay in this life, in this body and remain, or do I want to go apart, depart and be with Christ? Well, in verse 24, he says, If I remain, it's needful, at least for you. And then if I verse 22, if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor. So to live as Christ means providing labor that produces fruit that is needful for someone else.

Do you get that? So Paul, he sees the need that the Philippians have. He wants to continue to have fruit in their lives, and he wants to labor. What labor are we talking about here?

I want to suggest to you that Paul, for Paul to live as Christ means labor for Christ on behalf of others, focusing on what is needful and will produce fruit. To live as Christ isn't just busying oneself for the sake of being busy. Paul didn't just want to put seeds in the ground for the sake of having something to do. He wanted to do things that were needful and would produce lasting fruit.

Paul knew that only preaching the gospel through the supply of the spirit of Christ could produce fruit. Let me say that again. Paul knew that only preaching the gospel through the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ could produce lasting fruit. And I want to use an illustration here for this.

Imagine writing with a pen with no ink in it just because you enjoy the motion of writing. If you guys ever picked up a pen and you tried to write with it and the ink's just not coming out, I've never known anybody except for maybe a little kid to just continue just because they like the motion of writing. No, you want to see ink come out. Or imagine writing on something that won't take the ink.

Sometimes when I try to sign my name on a receipt, I'm at the store and it won't write because the paper doesn't want to take it or I've got to put it on a particular surface for the ink to come through. Paul didn't want to go through the motions of writing with an inkless pen on paper that wouldn't take the ink on the surface or a surface that wouldn't support his writing. He wanted to preach the gospel that with, with the supply of the spirit on hearts prepared by the Spirit.

It is only preaching Christ crucified, the good news, good news of Jesus Christ, that is the power of God unto salvation.

Going to try to help people without preaching the gospel of Christ crucified is like trying to write with a pen with no ink. What are you really going to accomplish? right now one of my favorite people in the pro-life movement, I'm not going to name her name, but she's the leader in the pro-life movement. I love listening to her speak.

She's very logical. She's been a boon for the pro-life movement, but towards the beginning of her actions, her activity, she converted to Roman Catholicism. And began to place herself under the law unto salvation rather than under the gospel to salvation. Let me just ask you a question.

If she saves millions of babies and yet teaches millions that they need to be saved by purgatory and by prayers to Mary and the saints, what has she really accomplished in life? I want to suggest to you that she's writing with a pen with no ink. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. Paul wants to be involved in labor.

Let's look at the types of labor and fruit that he's talking about, verse 12 and following. This again is part of our context. Look at verse 12. I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me, that is him being arrested unjustly and currently in prison in 62 AD, have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel.

So he says my unjust treatment and unjust arrest has actually turned out for the furtherance. Of the gospel so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard and all the rest that my chains are in Christ. How would it become evident to everybody that his chains are in Christ? Because he keeps talking about Christ.

Verse 14, and most of the brethren in the Lord have become confident by my chains and are much more bold to speak the word without fear. My arrest has made other Christians more bold to preach. Since indeed some indeed preach Christ from envy and strife and some also from goodwill, the former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely supposing to add afflictions to my chains, but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel, what then?

Only that in every way.

Whether in pretense or truth, Christ is preached, and in this I rejoice and yes, we'll rejoice, even if people are insincere but they're preaching the true message. They're actually out there trying to oppose Paul in their preaching of the gospel. Paul says that's gravy. As long as Christ is being preached, I'm good.

Go over to the book of Galatians, and here's people that are sincerely preaching, not insincerely, but sincerely preaching, but adding law to grace. Paul says anathema, cut them off. The truth of the gospel of Christ is crucified by grace, faith through grace, that Paul says, I'm glad. You add a little bit to the gospel, he says anathema that is destructive that will destroy.

And so the labor that Paul is so excited about is the preaching and the defense of the gospel because it's the gospel that's the power of God and salvation. Now look at the results. Let's consider the results and the types of fruit that he talks about in the rest of the chapter. He's laboring and he wants to see fruit in progress.

He doesn't want to just write with a pen with no ink. He wants to see results if he's going to remain in the flesh. By the way, let me give you a little aside. This whole chapter mitigates against the idea of soul sleep.

You understand soul sleep that our Seventh Day Adventist friends. Argue for they say that when a person dies they go into the grave and they sleep and then they're resurrected when Christ returns. Paul says if Paul would have believed that he was just going to go into the ground and just be asleep in the dirt, he would have clearly said, I'd rather remain in the flesh because that's more needful for you. The only reason to say it's much more better to die is if he goes immediately into the presence of Christ, just like it says in 2 Corinthians 5:8, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord.

So it completely destroys the idea of soul sleep. What is the fruit and labor? That Paul is excited about. Well, first of all, he's excited about producing gospel joy, gospel joy.

Look at verse 25 and being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress, your fruit. And joy of faith that your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ. Why am I coming to you? When he says joy of faith, he's talking about joy in the gospel, joy in the gospel.

So part of the fruit that he wants to see if he continues to remain and do this to live as Christ type of activity is to see more joy produced in the Philippines in the in the Philippians. The type of joy that he and Silas were able to express when they were in jail after having been beaten and treated unjustly as if they were not Roman citizens because they probably looked Jewish, right? He's in jail with joy because to live is Christ. A second fruit is gospel conduct.

Look at verse 27 and following the conduct worthy of the gospel of Christ. Verse 27. Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Remember, gospel always means what?

What's gospel mean? Good news, good news is something that's always preached. Good news isn't something that's kept to yourself. It's news.

It's produced, right? It's broadcast. So conduct your worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or I am absent, I may hear of your affairs. That's more fruit that you stand fast.

So it's gospel content. gospel conduct. What's the gospel conduct that Paul's after? Standing fast in one spirit with one mind, striving together for what?

The faith of the gospel, that's the conduct he's after is that the Philippians would be unified, have the same mind about the mission and what's the mission to strive for the faith of the gospel. That's good news. Good news implies broadcast and preaching and spreading. He wants the Philippians to have good gospel conduct by being unified on the mission which is to preach Christ, that when they get a message, Hey, we need help, their default setting is we know what they need.

They need Christ, and they're unified on the mission. So he wants the fruit that he wants to see produced is gospel joy. Gospel conduct which results in preaching the gospel, and finally gospel fearlessness. Gospel fearlessness.

Look down at verse. 28 and not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them proof of perdition, but to you of salvation. And that from God, for to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him but also to suffer for his sake, having the same conflict which you saw in me and now here is in me. He wants to see the fruit from his labor that the Philippians will not be terrified.

They'll be fearless in the face of persecution. Understanding that it's been granted to them, it's a gift to them not just to believe the gospel, but also to suffer for the gospel just as Paul and Silas did in prison. They were beaten by the magistrates unjustly, thrown in prison. And Paul is saying you guys don't need to be terrified by this because guess what, when they persecute you and you suffer, that's a proof of two things one, of your faith two, of their destruction, judgment.

It's the same argument that Paul makes over in 2 Thessalonians that Jesus Christ is going to come with flaming fire and take vengeance upon his enemies and everybody who persecutes his kids. And so suffering, you don't have to be afraid by the suffering, because when you suffer, it's being granted on the behalf of Christ to suffer, and He enables you to suffer. It doesn't come from you. Why was Paul and Silas, by the way, singing instead of complaining in prison?

Is it because Paul and Silas are just so much better and stronger than every other Christian? No, it's because they have the supply of the Holy Spirit. And the Lord enables believers to rejoice and sing when they're persecuted as a grace. Sometimes we fear persecution.

I don't know about you, but I fear persecution, right? And I wonder what am I going to do? One of the reasons why we don't have to fear is because it doesn't depend upon you. You didn't believe in Christ because of you.

And you're not gonna endure suffering because of you. It's granted to Christ's children, not just to believe, but also to suffer. Your ability to suffer is a grace of the Lord Jesus Christ that's been won for you in the gospel. Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins.

And he is the one that sends the Holy Spirit, who's a comforter and a helper to help you bear up underneath the suffering. He doesn't look down at his children and say, you guys better, you better bear up. You better do it. No, he supplies the grace needed to suffer.

And so these are the types of fruit. Paul says for me to live. Is Christ and what's entailed in his idea of living for Christ is he automatically knows when somebody needs help, he doesn't have to think about what his mission is. He knows they need to hear the gospel.

When they hear the gospel and he begins to write with a pen. And that the ink is flowing because the spirit is flowing, people begin to get saved. People who sell purple get saved. Demon possessed fortune tellers get saved who are slaves, soldiers who are not following the right police procedures get saved.

Magistrates are rebuked. The gospel goes out. It's the power of God unto salvation, and the Lord begins to do His work. It's just like Paul says over to the Colossian Church when he says, if you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is seated at the right hand.

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ. When Christ, who is our life, say that again, Christ who is our life. Say that again. Christ, who is our life appears, then you will appear with Him in glory.

Christ is life. That's why Paul in Philippians 3:20 later in our book says, for our citizenship is where in the United States. No, our citizenship is in China. No, our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also wait for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So can you say, I want to ask all of you, including the children, can you say today, for me to live is Christ? Can you say that today? How would you fill in that blank today? Would you say for me to live is what would you put in there?

For me to live is politics. For me to live is republicanism. For me to live is capitalism. For me to live is whatever liberal.

For me to live is Christ. And let me just add this one addendum before we move into our second point, that is, we don't always, we're not always on the exact same level of for me to live as Christ, right? It's not like you become a Christian, and then you Riding at 100% the rest of your life for me to live as Christ. If your life is like my life, it's like the stock market.

It's like for me to live for me to live as Mike, for me to live as Mike, and then for me to live as Christ, and then it's for me to live as Mike Christ and for me to live as Christ Mike, and it's always this up and down thing. But the blessing is Christ is always at 100%, and Paul argues all throughout his epistles that we're in Christ. And so we aspire. That's the mission.

That's the goal, but he's won it all for us. Christ never has to question whether he is living for his father and whether he is protecting his bride. But we want to keep our eyes on the mission and on the prize, the treasure of Christ. So there's a lot that Paul says about the living side of this coin, but let's turn the coin now.

Paul's end goal was to magnify Christ in life, but secondly, to gain Christ in death, he says, and To die gain or to die is gain. To have died is gain. He's not talking about he wants to go through the process of death. He's talking about the state of being on the other side of dying, which is to gain what we've all been looking for anyway, and that is to be with Christ.

How in the world can dying be a gain? think about it. When a person dies, They lose a lot of stuff. They lose their wealth, they lose their riches.

The Bible says, naked I came into the world, but, and naked shall I return from dust to dust. I've known professors who have been incredible scholars of the Bible that get to the end of their life and they can't even find Bible verses in the Bible anymore. They can't remember the theology that they wrote books about. Their health wanes.

They lose friends, family, wives. They leave behind people that are in tears and mourning. Everything that they've built up in life, the wonderful homes that they built, they leave it behind. The the the reputation Maybe the things that they accomplished politically, the things they accomplished socially, the name that they made for themselves, it all gets left behind.

But Paul says to die. I gain. What does he mean by gain? Think of just the word gain in an economic term, because this is an economic term.

What does it mean to have a capital gain? It's a profit from the sale of property or an investment. So you buy something or you have a property, you sell it and you make a profit on it. Paul is saying to live is Christ.

All the things he's just mentioned, he, he says there's a part of me that would like to remain to produce fruit and labor and see gospel joy and conduct and fearlessness in your life. But notice what he says. Later in our context, Look over at Verse 23, for I am hard pressed between the two having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is what? Far better.

It's actually 3 words in the Greek. It's like much more excellent. Much better, much, much better. Think about that.

That he says that he has a desire to depart and be with Christ. There's a lot of the text that Paul talks about when it comes to remaining in the flesh, but there's only one phrase given. To this other reality and it's having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is much more better. Paul says he has a desire that's the same word that's used in different places for lust, longing, eagerness.

This is a very strong word. I have an eager longing. To depart, which means to die. And to be with Christ, to be with Him, that's the goal.

That's the mission, to be with Christ. And he says, which isn't just a little bit better, it's not just equal to remaining on in the flesh. It is much more better, much more excellent to be at home with the Lord. Think about it.

He's, he's arguing that even though to remain in the flesh is needful for the Philippians, and he gets to preach the gospel and fulfill his mission on this earth and hopefully see produced in them joy and gospel conduct and fearlessness, he says, I'm still struggling because if I die, I get to go be with Christ, which is the goal anyway, and that is so much more excellent. Let's ask ourselves, Could we say that today? Could we say that to, to part from this life is gain? It's a, it's a profit, and it's not just a little bit better, it's much better.

I want to propose to you that to have that attitude will help us with the first part of Paul's phrase to live as Christ must be interpreted in light of to die as gain. Because if the ultimate mission in life is for us to get to a place where we are with Christ, that changes everything. Think about it this way. Our goal in life is to magnify Christ in our bodies.

The end of life is a gain, not a loss, since we depart to be with Christ, which is by far much better. Jim Elliott, a missionary in Ecuador, had this to say. He says he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. You are not a fool to lose things in this life to gain Christ in the next.

You are not a fool to bring the gospel. Let me just propose something to you. It could be that we as believers here at Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church, we could miss the boat on some residual issues that are very important. Maybe Cornerstone, at the end of the day when people write our history, they'll say Cornerstone really blew it on the justice issue.

Cornerstone really blew it on the trafficking issue. Cornerstone really blew it when it came to speaking about politics to their congregation. They really blew it and they let, they let communism take the day. They really blew it in this area, in that area and that area, but I want to propose to you on the authority of this passage, the word of God.

That if we do what Paul does and if we hear people asking for help and our immediate answer is they need to hear the gospel preached. And then we go over and we start preaching the gospel and people get saved, and if people can rightfully accuse us of blowing it in these other areas, I want to propose to you that Jesus is not going to accuse you to your face. You're not going to arrive on judgment Day and stand before His throne having believed the gospel, having lived for the gospel, having preached the gospel, and that Jesus is going to turn to you and say you blew it because you had the wrong economic philosophy.

You blew it because you did not understand the right view of history when it came to America.

We could blow it in a lot of areas. But if we blow it on the power of God unto salvation, that's a big blow. But if we keep our eyes fixed on Christ like Paul and to live as Christ and to die as gain, brothers and sisters, we're focused on the one thing the football. This is what can make a difference.

One of the things that you see when you just read the Bible from beginning to end, when you look at Scripture, What do you see from Genesis to Revelation is people are in the throes of their life and various political systems and trials and ups and downs, and one king comes up and one king dies, one prophet comes up, another false prophet comes up. If you didn't know any better, you'd be reading through the Bible and you'd be on pins and needles, what's the word, pins and needles every page wondering who's going to win.

But the consistent tale throughout the Bible is that God keeps putting forward His unconditional covenant, Abrahamic covenant, Davidic covenant, pointing to His Son Christ and all of the sacrifices, pointing back to Christ. It's all about Christ and Him crucified so that we can actually die and go to be with Christ.

That's why the psalmist can say it's a beautiful thing for the saints to die. Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his what? Saints, why does the Lord think your death is precious? Because now you get to be with Him, and he gets to be with you, and our death should define our life.

If it is true, That we will all die and that our death is closer than we know. And if it is true that our greatest happiness will be achieved when we die and see Christ, Then our impending death. And presence with Christ should affect what we hold onto loosely and what we hold fast. If it's true that we're all going to die and our death is right around the corner, and if it is true that our greatest happiness comes on the other side of death when we see Jesus, that must impact what we decide to hold loosely, not that we can't enjoy certain things, but it's vapor, right?

There's things that we can enjoy that are just going to go through our fingers like sand. So we need to hold certain things loosely and hold fast to other things, and what brothers and sisters, we need to hold fast to is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. For me to live as Christ, to die is gain. And that's what will keep us through this life, by the way, that takes us right into our next class next week when we come back, we start talking about living life backwards.

That's what we're going to talk about is the fact that you are going to die should influence the way that you live. That's what it means to live life backwards. We're all going to die. So how should that impact the way that we think about stuff, the way we think about politics, the way we think about food, work, marriage, sex?

And the eternity That's what we're gonna talk about in the next class. I'll be up here for questions again, children, you can come up to me and, and recite Philippians 1:21. I'll try to give you a prize if anybody knows the author of this book, where he's from. I'll give you free copies of this book.

We are gonna have communion later, by the way. So Kelly's right there back by our communion table, so we'd encourage you guys to pick up your communion elements between now and we come back for the preaching God's word. Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll have a time of fellowship before the service. Lord, we thank you so much for these reminders from the apostle Paul.

We thank You, Lord, for just the example that he is to us of really keeping eyes focused on the mission that as soon as somebody was asking for help, he knew what they needed. They needed to hear the preaching of the gospel. And Lord, we need to continue to hear the preaching of the gospel. We pray, Father, that You would help us to avoid trying to write with pens with no ink.

Lord, that we would be out with the gospel pen filled with your Spirit. And Lord, that we would be about looking for the fruit that is promised with the fields that are ripe for harvest. Lord, that we would not be laboring about things that will not last, but we'd be laboring about things that will last. Gospel joy, conduct and being unified around the mission of preaching the gospel.

And Lord, not being terrified or fearful about suffering, because you've granted for us, you've given us the grace not just to believe, but also to suffer for your name's sake. We don't suffer for suffering's sake, we suffer for the sake of Christ. We thank you that He suffered beforehand and He will sustain us in our own suffering. Help us, Lord, by your grace to enjoy the things that you've given to in this life, but help us to hold them loosely and hold fast to Christ.

We long for the day that we will see you face to face and we'll be like you. We look forward to the day that you will reveal to us that secret name that only, and we thank you, Lord, that we who have believed in you are the disciples whom you love, and we all join with the apostle John and share in that experience of that love. We pray this in Christ's name. All God's people said, Amen.