Philippians 1:18-26 • Between a Rock and a Hard Joy
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
I want to take you to Scripture this morning if you would look in your Bibles at Philippians chapter 1 as we will be looking at verses 19 through 26 and see an awful, wonderful dilemma before the Apostle Paul. Let's stand as we honor God's Word.
We back just into verse 18 as the Apostle is giving a cause for rejoicing, that the gospel is going forward even through hardship and he writes these words, "Yes, and I will rejoice for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ
this will turn out for my deliverance as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death.
For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet what shall I choose? I cannot tell. I'm hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.
Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again.
Let's pray together.
Father, we thank you for the beauty of your Word that reminds us that our entire existence on the faces of this earth and with Christ is all of your doing and even when we have a hard reality to face, the reality of Jesus Christ is still ours, giving hope and strength and joy.
Teach us of Him this day, we pray.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Please be seated.
Roll call was at 4.30 a.m. in Ravensbruck, the concentration camp in North Germany.
Corey Tenboum would write about it later, saying that in the chill air at 4.30 a.m., even midwinter, the roll call would take sometimes up to three hours in which the women would have to stand in ranks waiting for whatever arbitrary decision of the guards would finally let them go. One day, the woman standing in front of Corey Tenboum, the Dutch girl, whose father, the watchmaker, had made a decision to hide Jews in their house, watched as the woman in front of her fainting from standing out on the cold was then beaten mercilessly by the one they would call the beast of Ravensbruck, the hyena, the woman who took her rage unbridled out on those who fell.
That morning as the woman fell and the beating was so intense, Corey said, "I did not know if any of us would survive."
And just as she herself was about to give up hope, there was a skylark who flew over the camp whose piercing song went through the still cold air in a way that all heads in the camp rose upward. And Corey said at that moment, she thought of the Scriptures as high as the heavens are above the earth so great is the love of God for those who fear Him. And in that moment, she said, "I realized that the ocean of the mercy of God was more real than the cruelty of humanity, that there was that promise of God that she would cling to even in the midst of the awfulness of the concentration camp of Ravensbruck.
For the next three weeks right at roll call, the skylark flew and sang, giving them fresh hope and fresh courage."
But as you think about it, even though Corey was believing that God's grace and mercy was higher than the heavens, she was facing awful hurt and harm.
Why not join the skylark?
Why not go to heaven?
Thousands already had in Ravensbruck. Thousands already had experienced the merciless nature of humanity. Why not go to the mercy and the rest and the goodness of God? Why not say, "This is done. I want to be with God."
It's not just a question of a little old lady in a concentration camp, it's the question of believers facing crisis or suffering or abuse or a shattered relationship or lost significance. Why not just go on? I believe that heaven is real, that God is good, that there's an eternal rest there, that the misery will be behind me. Why not just put it all away? It's even the question of an apostle.
Why not just depart to be with Christ, which is far better?
His answer is the reason is because it's far better for you that the witness of the apostle remain. It's the answer that Christians have to have over and over again. Why not just depart? Why choose earth over heaven now? And the answer is because of the mission of Christ Jesus, which He gives to all who put their faith in Him, that He has said, "Yes, there is glory to come, which is far better, but for now to live is Christ."
And that purpose and calling are so important that the apostle, even in prison, says, "For me now, I will rejoice for whether I'm bound to this Roman soldier or released to heaven. I believe that the mercy of God is going to go forward in His purposes for those who call Him Lord." Why? Why do we need that kind of joy? I mean, the answer is so plain as the apostle describes it in verse 20. It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be ashamed, but that with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body. I need joy even in the midst of suffering and sorrow and sadness and abuse and hurt. I still need this joy in me that God has some purpose for my life, and the reason I need it is because I need courage, whether it's before boss or coworker or spouse or family tragedy or friends looking on. I want to speak with courage of the one in whom I have faith so that Christ be not dishonored.
It's living for the sake of another, and the fuel for that kind of joy is itself explained in verse 19. For I know, Paul says, that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. I'm needing the joy to be sustained, the joy that is my strength for the courage that I need. And where does that joy come from? He says, the prayers of God's people and the Spirit of Jesus Christ. It's a combination of the apostle consistently puts together in his epistles that the prayer of God's people becomes the working of God by his Spirit so that the purpose of God go forward. It's the great encouragement that we take over and over again in our lives that in our flesh we are the candle of God by which he is showing his light to darkness, people around us, people who don't know, people who would reject it. And yet by the prayers of God's people and the working of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,
God is making known his name and accomplishing far more than we could ever imagine. It's the message of Romans 8, 26 through 28 where the apostle Paul, the same apostle says, we don't know how to pray. Aren't you glad an apostle said that?
We don't know how to pray, but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep to utter. I'm falling asleep in my prayer and the Holy Spirit is groaning before the throne of God with deeper intensity than I can muster. And the consequence is God, who knows the mind of the Spirit, now intercedes not only in accord with the will of God, but Romans 8, 28.
So that all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose, the biblical perspective is that those who are consistently praying before the Lord, that their prayers and the work of the Holy Spirit make us co-creators of a new reality by which God is working all things together for good. And that's giving me such profound understanding of the hand of God on and in my life that I take joy in all circumstances.
There is Corey Tinboom.
The young Dutch girl at that point going through the gate at Ravensbrook.
She has on her person, smuggled into her clothes, a little Bible condensed print for underground workers. And as she watches the women being searched before they go through the gate, the one in the lines ahead of her, she recognizes the Bible, which is her source of hope will be taken from her. And so she begins to pray, "Lord, send angels to shield the eyes of the guards from the Bible so that I can keep it as I go in to do your work."
And then she has this awful thought, "Angels are transparent. The guards will see right through them."
Still she prays. And as she gets to the gate, the woman in front of her causes a commotion. The guards all focus on the woman in front of her and push Corey through the gate with the Bible in her hand.
She has this wonderful sense God is with her regardless of what she must face. It's the reality that we have that God is working through us, that we take this pivotal understanding that through prayer and the working of the Holy Spirit, we have cause for joy even in the hardest of circumstances. And the prayers and the purpose of God are put together in verse 21, which is the fruit and the result of lives that see themselves as the candle that God is burning before the world.
There Paul says these amazing words, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." Those dozen words, some Bible scholars say this is the apex of the statement of the gospel in all the Scriptures. It's the most balanced statement, so much so that Martin Lloyd-Jones, the great English preacher said, "This, even to be explained, is to touch the balance and ruin it in some way."
This is holy ground where God is stating so clearly and so compactly, "This is the gospel for me to live now is Christ and to die is gain." This life or the life to come, both are put in front of us there, balanced perfectly for the work of the gospel. And even though it's holy ground, in this moment I ask you to walk on that ground with me to put aside the sandals that you have of worn weariness or shame or guilt or hurt or abuse or suffering and say, "Can we walk on this holy ground and say, "What does it mean for me to believe to live is Christ and dying is only gain?"
What would that mean? We almost have trouble explaining it because even the words that we take begin to upset the balance, "For me to live is Christ."
In the Greek there's no word "is," no being, verbs. If you actually said it in Greek you would say that simply, "For me to live Christ," as though the looking glass of the world that's bouncing back at us, our faults, our frailties, our crises, our difficulties, as though we have stepped through the looking glass of this world and we're on the other side in the new reality and are saying, "For me to live Christ." That's where I am now. That's my reality. That's my identity. Here am I in Christ so much so that Christ now is the new reality for me, my identity itself passing away. What Paul would say in Galatians 2 and verse 20, "I'm crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. And the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Somehow I have been eclipsed, and because I have been eclipsed for me to live, Christ is my reality now. And the dimensions of that reality are made clear in the unfolding of the verses that are before us." Paul says in verse 20 right at the end, "Now as always, Christ will be honored in my body." As always?
Paul, you have been a persecutor of Christians. You have murdered people for what you thought was faith. You have suffered, what do you mean, now all that's shameful and difficult and dishonoring to Jesus. As always, Christ will be honored in you now as though there's this eclipsing of the sin and the brokenness of the apostles' life. For him now, Christ is his new identity. The way Corrie Ten Boom would say it and the way she would share it with friends is to say all the sin, all the shame in your life is taken away and cast into the midst of the sea.
In the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ has put a no fishing sign on the shore. You can't fish in those waters anymore. Your sin has been cast away. Don't fish there anymore. That's no longer your identity. You are made by the work of Jesus Christ, one with his identity. Corrie Ten Boom struggled with that, honestly.
I mean, we sometimes make her a saint in our notion of what it means to be such a person who gave herself for the sake of others, but she struggled, do you know with what?
With bitterness.
The reason that she and her whole family were put into the prison camp was because they were betrayed by a neighbor, a neighbor that they had helped by sharing food under the Nazi occupation. And that neighbor began to believe, "I can get a little more food if I turn in the Ten Booms."
And the neighbor did.
And you may remember that Corrie Ten Boom went into the camp with her sister.
And the guards, as the women were searched and stripped, leered at the women. She had trouble remembering it, particularly later in life when she met one of the guards who had done that. She struggled with the fact that her father would die, her sister would die, her brother would die, all as a consequence of the concentration camps.
How does she forgive? How does she forgive the hyena who took those who were stricken and tortured them even more? Just some pleasure out of cruelty. But that wasn't even the hardest thing that she struggled with. It was after the camps, it was when she began to have worldwide ministry and fame by speaking of the reality of Christ in her life. And there was a couple that had supported her in ministry until they became jealous of her fame and notoriety, and then tried to undermine it for their own sakes.
And Corrie Ten Boom was honest about how she struggled with unforgiveness and recognized the God who had forgiven her wanted her to be able to forgive others. And she would plead to God, "Give me the heart of forgiveness and forgive me that I struggle with it." And then to remember, "My sin too is cast into the midst of the sea. I bear it no more." There is a no fishing sign there. I struggle, yes I struggle, but Christ is my life now. In Him is my identity. My sin buried His righteousness in my place. And with that identity of who Christ is, I take not only hope, I begin to have perception of the reality of Christ in everything I face. I recognize to live Christ, not just in me, but before me is the reality of the working of Christ, His hand, His working. So that Paul himself can say at the end of verse 19, even his imprisonment will turn out for my deliverance in Jesus Christ.
Hard words if you studied in Greek because the word deliverance is just the word for salvation.
Everything that's happened to me is going to work out for my spiritual eternity. Even this imprisonment, I see things happen that are good, things happen that are bad. I see the rejoicing of Christians and the suffering of the missionaries and all of this, he says, is God's hand in my life and I begin to believe it. So I have joy even in the midst of hardship. For Corrie 10 Boom, that means going through the gates and then being put in a dormitory built for 200, but having 800 women crushed into it for their daily existence.
In such close proximity with so little hygiene, the lice began to take over, making miserable life for all of them.
But it also meant the guards would not go in the place.
And the women were saved from the molestation and the greater harms that could have come upon them. And Corrie began to see the hand of God. It's not just that he's in me, he's all around me. He is working and because he's working, I believe not only is there some perception of Jesus around me, there is a purpose for my life. It's what the apostle will actually say in verse 24, "To remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account," does he say to the Philippians, "that God has put me here in this place, chained to a Roman guard."
But I believe this is right because the message is going to spread somehow by my faithfulness in this hard time. God has a purpose yet for my life.
For Corrie Ten Boom, what that meant was as the lice began to occupy the building, remember she still had her Bible?
Because the guards would not go in the building, the women, the 800, had prayer meetings with the Bible twice a day.
Corrie would later write, "I saw thousands die, but I saw many, many Jew and Gentile
that went to be with God with Jesus on their lips."
God still had a purpose. He was still working. He was still doing what he intended. Paul said, "I'm in a prison.
Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You feel imprisoned in a marriage of cruelty. Perhaps there is difficulty in your work situation. There are issues that you are facing and you say, I don't know why God would allow this, but if you actually believed, I mean if it was possible to believe that for me to live Christ that somehow you believe the reality of Christ was here in the midst of it all, not only forgiving you and covering your sin, but the hand of God present so that there was a purpose to witness before spouse, there was a purpose to witness before coworker and boss that neighbors were watching you. And this was all part of the plan and the purpose of God for the salvation of many, that God would have a purpose in your life that's far beyond your seeing, far beyond your knowing. And God was actually working that way. What you would begin to plead is, God, if you have this purpose for me, then give your power.
And Paul is saying, if Christ is your life, then that power is available as well. Verse 26, "In me," he says, "you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again." Now Paul has already said he may die. What does it mean to come to them again? It may mean that he'll be released from prison, come in the flesh, or it may mean that he will come with the angels.
But whichever way he comes, he say, people will say, God is at work. And for that reason, as they see Paul's life, that candle of God, not only Christ within, but Christ all around, and now filling him with purpose, he begins to say, you're going to see me and give glory to Christ Jesus.
His power is going to be at work so that ultimately you will point to him and say, look what God has done. You take the life of Corrie Ten Boom, little bitty Dutch girl who became a little bitty Dutch older woman, and was sent all over the world with the message of Ravensbruck, of God's power and presence in an awful place like a Nazi concentration camp, how she gave hope to tens of thousands, maybe millions, I don't know, and how God used her in so many places in so many ways.
Perhaps, she said, even saving 800 Jews by her family's work prior to the concentration camp. How did God use such a little girl later in her life, Corrie Ten Boom, and say, if you ever see a glove performing some task, you don't say the glove did it. You say it was the hand that filled the glove.
She said, I'm only the glove of Christ Jesus. His power has filled me. If I've done anything, it's because of his power within me. And what we have through the Scriptures is the ability to glimpse that power, not just knowing we have the identity of Christ because Christ is my life. No, I recognize also I have the perception of Christ, his hand at work all around me in ways that the world says are only tragedy. I still believe God is at work. And there is a purpose for my life now that is empowered by the work of Jesus Christ. I couldn't help but think of it this week. The reason I'm mentioning Corrie Ten Boom so much to you is that I was listening to a radio program maybe some of you did, in which I listened to a speech of hers 40 years old recorded that was being on the radio this week, being rebroadcast.
As I listened to Corrie Ten Boom speak in a church 40 years ago, she just in the course of her talk said to those who were gathered in front of her, "I urge you to pray for your president that he would be successful in opening relations with China so that believers from your country could go and help believers who are suffering in China."
That was 40 years ago under the presidency of Richard Dixon.
Four weeks ago with your permission and support, I was in China ministering to Christians of the underground church.
And I think, was that because Corrie Ten Boom and the people of God were praying 40 years ago and the power of God was yet working until it comes into our lives today? Is that impossible to believe? Work from faith it's impossible to believe. But in Christ Jesus, who do you give glory to? You give glory to God. Look at Jesus' work. I think of our frailty, our faithlessness, our fainting before the challenges that are in our lives to believe that God could cover that and give us new identity, eclipse us with who He is and not only eclipse us but to let us begin to see His hand at work to give purpose to our lives, in our marriages, in our families, in our jobs, in our neighborhoods, among our schoolmates, that God has purpose for us and He's actually beginning to fill us with His power so that we are the glove of God with Christ filling us, accomplishing His purposes so that we sing with the saints of the ages, "He is behind and before me, above and below me, Christ all around me, He is at work, He's doing His purpose." And I'm part of that purpose.
When I believe that, it fills me with joy, it fills me with hope, it fills me with power,
and gives me the ability, honestly, to deal with the other half of the verse. You kind of say, "All this is about Christ being our life now. To live is Christ."
We're also told to die is gain.
What kind of gain? Please, please do not think of the heavenly reality as being you'll get wings and be on a cloud somewhere playing harp. If you could actually believe just so simply what the Apostle has said here in verse 23, what is the gain? He said, "I'm hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." As though in that heavenly reality, there's nothing between us and Christ.
In this reality, my sin gets in the way. Our suffering gets in the way. Our distractions get in the way. The criticism, the hurts, the difficulties of life get in the way. But in that heavenly reality, all these things, our identity, the perception of the presence of Christ, purpose of Christ for us, and Christ's power flowing through us, there is nothing hindering it anymore. Do you realize that heaven best defined is just earth made perfect? So that now by the work of Jesus Christ, bodies are made whole.
Relationships are made whole. No more tears, no more suffering. God is working in such a way that we have that perfect relationship with Christ in such a way that his power is flowing in and through and around us. We have a foretaste of it now. But it is the reality that God is promising so that we are embracing the beauty of it and it actually is equipping us for the life that we have now. Our light and momentary afflictions are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed in us. And when I know that, I actually have strength for now. It gives me hope now, even in the suffering and the difficulty. I think of that, you know, the awful old preacher's tale of the guy who's on a ship hanging over the rail all seasick and green and, you know, just feeling like he's just going to die.
And a friend comes up to him trying to comfort him and says, "Listen, I know you feel terrible, but I just need you to know nobody dies from seasickness." And the other guy says, "Oh, please don't tell me that.
It's hoping to die that's keeping me alive." It's the hope of glory that keeps God's people alive to him, to his purposes, to believe actually this life is never the final chapter. This suffering never has the final word. This difficulty is not the end that God is saying, "I will pour my power and purposes through you, even though you look at yourself as one not worthy, because I've covered you with my identity, my hands at work all around you. And so we take hope and comfort and reality to live for God now, because for me to die is gain. I sacrifice nothing to put it all on the field, to live it all out now, because to die is gain. And so knowing what awaits me, knowing the goodness and the greatness of that, I fully live now in the reality of what it means for this life to be honoring and good for Christ and the people he's put into my life to believe that reality is mine, to grasp it, to rejoice in it, knowing whatever challenges life brings, they are not the final word."
I think I changed Corey Timboum, the little girl so afraid at some point, the one whose marriage had not worked out with the one that she intended to marry with the difficulties of losing brother and father and sister. All the struggles surely she must have said is God's hand upon me.
But after she had experienced so much, maintained her joy, knowing that Christ was still all around her, she became a spokesman for the gospel around the world. She said, "Never was there a harder place to go than a prison in Rwanda."
It was an outdoor prison mostly, too many prisoners even to live within the small shacks that were put around the prison gate. It was a tropic environment, so the prison basically was just denuded of all grass. It was just all mud.
And out of the stinking mud would come the insects to sting and hurt the men. She was asked to go speak in the prison camp as they stood under the sweltering tropical sun. She said to her interpreter, "Can't we just go in one of the buildings to talk?" The interpreter said, "Impossible.
We cannot protect you if we go into the buildings."
And so she spoke under the sweltering sun, praying to God, "Give me words. What should I say here to these men?" And the words that came to her are those that seem so inappropriate.
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. She spoke to the men of love and joy and peace. And as she did so, she said they looked at her with hatred.
"Oh, sure. You talk of love, joy, and peace. Have you seen where we are? The men who were caked in mud, some of them caking themselves in mud just to get away from the stinging and biting insects."
So she said, "Lord, what else should I say?
Christ is your life."
She said, "Do you want to know what it means for Christ to be your life, that there is a God for whom you can be a candle, even in this place of darkness shining for Him, that He can eclipse your sin with His work, that He can take your sin and cast them into the midst of the sea, that He can give purpose for your life, that He can take your hatred and turn it into forgiveness, that He can take your fear and turn it into peace."
She spoke of that God and she said she saw a few of the faces start to soften a little bit and still there was such hardness in most. How dare you speak to us as though you know what we are experiencing.
And then she told them of Ravensbruck.
I know the despair.
I know the cruelty.
But I know of a skylark who in the worst of our moments came and reminded us as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for us. So much so that His love is stronger than the cruelty of humanity. His reality more real than the cruelty of this camp. And in seeing that and in knowing that, they began to soften so much that she was so brave as to say, "If some of you want to know this Jesus, this Jesus who can be your reality, this one who can change your life, the one who can give you a hope of glory, would you raise your hand?"
And all the men raised their hands and all the guards too.
"For me to live is Christ and to die only gain.
When we have understood it and grasped it, it truly lets us fully live now.
I know Him and He is my identity and I see His hand all around me and I recognize He has purpose for my life or I would have already been with Him. And if I have purpose, then His power is promised to me. I will live for Him and His power will flow through me and because it will, I know to live is Christ and to die only gain."
When God calls you, He does not call you to fruitlessness. He does not call you to despair. He calls you to Christ so that Christ is your life and to die only gain because you left it all on the field here living for Him, His power within you. Let's pray to Him. Father, I pray for these wonderful people who have loved me so well because you have loved them so well in Christ Jesus.
And though I feel the weakness of my words to communicate the glory of the gospel, I pray that you by your spirit would be at work in hearts even now.
And where there are hearts, Father, that are wondering, "What does it mean to live is Christ?"
I may know all the documents in this Bible, what it means to read about Jesus dying on the cross, but I'm not sure I know what it means that my reality would be entirely Christ.
There are such people, Father, draw us nearer again.
Help us to see Christ, to have your spirit work within us in a new way.
And if there are those, Father, here who don't know Christ at all, who don't know what it means to put aside their sin and their shame, their weakness, to believe even the tragedies of their past could be a plan of God in their lives to lead them forward to a goodness beyond their fathoming so that this life would never have the last word. This would never be the last chapter.
There are those wanting to know that, Father, would you open their hearts to the reality of this Jesus as well?
My friends and family who are here, I think of Corrie Tinboom, the little woman, and how she was brave enough just to say, "If you want to know this Jesus, if you just want to know Him better, if you want to know this reality, would you raise your hand?"
I'm not as courageous as she, Father, but I do pray that right now there would be a few people in this room for whom I could pray because they raise a hand and say, "I just want to know Jesus better. I just want to see Him before and behind me, above and below me."
If there are some who don't know Jesus at all, Father, let them acknowledge that and
seek You now. If you want to know Jesus better, your eyes are closed now.
If you want to raise a hand, I will pray for you.
Would you raise a hand if you want to know Jesus better?
Thank you so many.
If you don't know Jesus and want to know Him at all, would you raise a hand?
Praise God.
Father, we're so weary at times.
We're so wounded at times that to say that to live as Christ seems the most remote thing,
it must have felt that way at times for a man in prison who wrote the words.
But you were changing his reality by making Christ real.
For every hand raised, I pray that Christ would be real, that people would perceive in a new and deep way that His identity is in their place, their sin put away, His righteousness in their place, that they would perceive more and more Christ's hand in their lives.
There's purpose for them and Christ's power flowing through them to enable them to do what He calls them to do.
Give us the hope of glory that gives us power in this day, we pray.
For all who raised their hands and all who thought about it, oh Father, give us Jesus
above and below us, behind and before us, all around us, in us.
Make Him real, we praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.