SERIES: Philippians: Cheerful Sounds from a Jail Cell
The Christian Perspective on Life and Death
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: Today is not only Father’s Day. It is also Juneteenth. How many of you have heard of Juneteenth? Not too many apparently. I know one thing about those who didn’t raise their hands—you’ve never lived in Texas. Juneteenth is what African Americans in the Deep South, particularly Texas, call June the 19th. That is the day Union Troops arrived in Galveston in 1865, officially freeing Texas’ black slaves by enforcing President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which had been made 2 ½ years earlier. The slaves couldn’t achieve freedom on their own—they needed to have someone come alongside and be an advocate for them in the face of great opposition. Lincoln was that man, and Juneteenth is a day of great celebration for African Americans in the South, particularly Texas.
I think it’s appropriate that on Juneteenth we should come to Philippians 1:20-26, for there is something of an emancipation proclamation in this passage. In the verse previous to our text Paul is affirming his joy and says, “Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance”—my emancipation. I believe he is talking principally of spiritual emancipation here, not just deliverance from his literal chains, but he too needed help for deliverance—and it was available through the prayers of the saints and the Holy Spirit.
Paul then reveals that he has already been emancipated from one of the great fears that imprison people all over the world—the fear of death. In fact, he was facing a real dilemma as to whether life or death was best for him. You see, all believers are citizens of two countries—the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of Heaven—and as such, the believer feels certain tensions. Especially is this true when facing death, either for oneself or for a loved one, for there is a certain pull in both directions. Paul provides us great spiritual insight as he describes his own personal struggle while facing imminent death.
We are presented in this passage with three propositions:
(1) In life or death, we have a worthy purpose.
(2) In life we have a worthy focus.
(3) In death we have a worthy destiny.
Watch for these propositions as we read our text together, Philippians 1:20-26:
20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.
In life or death, we have a worthy purpose: to magnify Christ. (20)
I am not naturally a fearful person, but there is one fear that I have struggled with more than once over the years, and that is the fear I might not stay faithful to the Lord in a time of persecution. I find it relatively easy to stand up for my faith and hold my head high as a Christian, but then I have never really been severely tested. What if I were thrown into prison and threatened with execution? Would I be so sure of my faith? Would I refuse to cave to the pressure?
It is somewhat comforting to note that the greatest Christian leader of all time wrestled with those questions as well. Paul wrote, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” It’s obvious from this that he wasn’t obsessed with doubts about whether he would remain faithful, but he wasn’t absolutely confident either. He doesn’t say, “I know that I will in no way be ashamed.” Rather he says, “I eagerly expect and hope ….” He had a personal history, a track record to help. He had already been through the crucible of persecution many times and had never denied his Lord; now, on the basis of his previous experience he eagerly expects and hopes that his courage will be sufficient this time as well.
Courage for what? “So that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” I don’t know anywhere in the Bible where one could find a clearer statement of the principal goal every believer should have: to exalt or magnify Christ. But how? It’s kind of a vague concept just as it stands. Let’s see if we can expand upon it and bring it down to where we all live. (I give credit to James Boice for the following outline.[i])
If Christ is to be magnified at all, it must be in the bodies of those who believe in Him. The reason for this is that God dwells only within His children, individually or collectively, as the Church. And if He is to be seen at all, He must be seen in the lives of those who know Him. Throughout the history of the Christian Church this truth has been denied or perverted over and over.
People have often made the mistake of believing that Christ is magnified in causes, like democracy, or prohibition, or pacifism, or civil rights, or even the right-to-life movement. But God is not magnified in these. There is no doubt that many of these movements have been based on Christian principles, at least in part, and God has often blessed them and blessed people through them. But God’s hand is not evident in the movement itself. It is seen in the lives of those who guide it. Where men honor God in their bodies, God prospers their work. When they cease to honor Him, the institution ceases to be a vehicle in which His glory is seen.
Others have sought to magnify Christ by building great churches, but Christ is not magnified in buildings. I have had the privilege of visiting some of the finest cathedrals in Europe, like Notre Dame, St. Peter’s, the Cathedral at Reims and St. Paul’s in London. These brilliant examples of Renaissance architecture contain magnificent frescoes and stained-glass windows that celebrate truths about Christ, but they were built with indulgence money squeezed from the peasants, and the doctrine taught in them over the centuries has been far from the truth taught by Jesus Himself. I believe with all my heart that Christ is less magnified in those buildings than He is in this rented gymnasium in which we are sitting.
Other people have believed that Christ is magnified when we magnify the Bible. But this is not necessarily true either. The Bible is free of error and God has chosen to honor it as He will honor no words of men. But Christ does not dwell in the Bible. He is only magnified as God’s Word is lived out in the lives of his people.
No, it is not great movements or church buildings or even allegiance to the Bible that magnifies Christ. Listen to what the Lord says: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.” The thought is a bit astounding, isn’t it, that a mere human being could ever be able to magnify the Son of God? Well, the stars are much bigger than the telescope, and yet the telescope magnifies them and brings them closer. The believer’s body is to be a telescope that brings Jesus Christ close to people. To the average person Christ is a misty figure in history who lived centuries ago. But as the unsaved watch the believer go through a crisis, they can see Jesus magnified and brought so much closer.
If Christ is to be magnified at all, it must be in the bodies of those who believe in Him.
If Christ is to be magnified in our bodies, He must be magnified in each of their constituent parts. We need to bring this down to where the rubber meets the road. Christ must be magnified in our eyes. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Matthew 5:29) It is quite evident that this is a warning against the snares of improper sexual desires and materialism, both of which normally trap people through what they see. It’s no secret to anyone today that the bulk of advertising in our society appeals to the baser elements in our character. If Christ is to be magnified in our bodies, He must be magnified in what we choose to let our eyes dwell upon.
The Bible also teaches that Christ must be magnified in the way we use our tongues. In fact, a whole chapter of the Epistle of James is given over to that subject. He warns us about how unruly a member the tongue is and chides us for the fact that out of the same mouth proceeds blessing and cursing. It is not unheard of for someone to sing great spiritual songs on Sunday morning and then swear at another driver on the way home. “My brothers,” James says, “these things ought not so to be.”
But praise God, there are many Christians who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, have conquered unruly tongues. I know businessmen who have stopped swearing completely after receiving Christ as Savior. I know housewives who have quit yelling at their kids. I know liars and gossips who no longer use their tongues for such purposes. Christ is now being magnified in their bodies because He is being magnified with their tongues.
We could go on, speaking of the hands, the feet, the sexual members of the body, the mind. If Christ is to be magnified in our bodies, He must be magnified in each of their constituent parts.
If Christ is to be magnified in our bodies, our bodies must be surrendered to Him. Romans 12:1-2 reads, “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodiesas living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” I think a lot of Christians operate under the mistaken notion that God is interested only in our souls and our spirits; our bodies are no great concern to Him. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, it is folly to try to make a distinction between the body, the soul, and the spirit—we are a unity and what the body does inevitably affects the soul and spirit, as well as the mind and will and emotions.
Merely to see this truth is not sufficient; it must also be practiced. We must practice yielding our bodies to Christ. We must surrender our thoughts to Him as we wake up. We must yield ourselves to Him for guidance when we enter the office or the factory, or when we go about our household chores. As we do, Jesus Christ will be magnified in our bodies and we will be able to say with Paul, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”
In life we have a worthy focus: the person of Christ. (21-26)
Philippians 1:21 is a text which cuts like a surgeon’s scalpel to the heart of Christianity. What is Christianity, anyway? The answer is a puzzle to the historian, sociologist, psychologist, politician, the man on the street, the housewife, the college student. But it is not a puzzle to the true believer: Christianity is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. As Paul put it, “For to me to live is Christ.” John Stott has written, “The person and work of Christ are the foundation rock upon which the Christian religion is built . . . Take Christ from Christianity, and you disembowel it; there is practically nothing left. Christ is the centre of Christianity; all else is circumference.”[ii]
Many people do not realize this. They see only the paraphernalia of Christianity. Consequently, they form false conclusions about its essence and reject it on these grounds. They identify Christianity with so-called Christian character, and since many believers are far from what God intends them to be, this data gives a false impression.
Other people actually get into a church and assume that everything they observe there is identifiable with Christianity. Still others participate in the ceremonies of the church and may even pass for Christians because they participate properly.
And some actually come as close as the creeds, and they can recite them with much vigor: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord ….” Unfortunately, this too is less than Christianity, as important as the creeds may be.
Christianity is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And nothing about Christianity will be rightly understood until there is faith in Christ and a personal relationship with Him. The best way I know to communicate this is by means of four affirmations:
Christianity is faith in Christ. It is the acknowledgment that you can do nothing to save yourself, that you deserve hell from God rather than heaven, and that Christ has provided salvation for you by dying in your place. Moreover, it is acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Savior and as the Lord of your life. Nothing else will make you a Christian. Maybe you have faith in relics, or in proper doctrine, or in the sacraments of your church, or in things you can do to improve your human character. These things will not save you. They have no value in reconciling you to God. You must let God strip them away like dead skin after a sunburn so that you may fling yourself on Christ. Christianity is faith in Christ and in Him alone.
Another aspect of the essence of Christianity is that …
Christianity is fellowship with Christ. This is a necessary complement to the fact that Christianity is faith in Christ, because there are many who tend to think of faith impersonally and intellectually. Christianity is not only belief in Christ but also communion with Him. It is fellowship with Him, and fellowship must be cultivated. A. W. Tozer has written, “The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and, as such, (a relationship with Him) can be cultivated as any person can.”[iii]
John wrote about this in his first epistle: “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make your joy complete.” Fellowship with Christ inevitably leads to joy. If you lack joy in your life, it may be that things are keeping you from Christ. Or people are keeping you from Him. Or activities may be keeping you from Him.
Martha was upset because her sister Mary was sitting at Jesus’ feet while she was doing all the dishes, and Jesus said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better.” (Luke 10:41-42). Worship and fellowship are more important than service.
To the truth that Christianity is faith in Christ and fellowship with Christ, we must add a third, namely that …
Christianity is following Christ. The Christ in whom we have faith has an agenda which we are called to follow. Jesus once asked, “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say.” (Luke 6:46). The fact is, obeying Christ is no easy thing. In Luke 14 Jesus told a large crowd that had gathered out of curiosity to hear Him speak, “If any man comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life also—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple…. And anyone who does not give up everything that he has, cannot be my disciple.” Salvation is free, but discipleship is costly.
Christianity is faith in Christ, it is fellowship in Christ, and it is following Christ. Finally,…
Christianity is fruitful labor for Christ. Verse 22 reads, “If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me.” What did he mean? Simply that if he survived it would be so that he could serve. He would continue planting seed and harvesting the crop for God. “Saved to serve” is a concept a lot of Christians today seem to have forgotten. We are here to reproduce ourselves, not just bask in the relationship.
Let’s review: in life or death we have a worthy purpose. In life we have a worthy focus. Thirdly,…
In death we have a worthy destiny: to be with Christ. (21,23)
An ancient philosopher, when asked what was different about Christians, responded, “They die well.” That’s true. When one of their leaders can speak of death as a gain and refer to it as “far better” than life, it is evident that Christians have a radically new perspective on the oldest Enemy mankind has known.
Death is a gain. In what sense? Some people view life and death as two evils, but when life reaches the point of intolerability, death becomes the lesser of two evils. Is that what Paul meant when he said, “To die is gain?” After all, he had just completed three years of nearly constant trauma.
No, that’s not at all what he meant, for he never allowed his pain and suffering to be the focal point of life. He lived a full life. He was filled with delight at the growth of the churches he had founded. He rejoiced in the fact that many of his converts were becoming first-class disciples of Jesus Christ. He rather looked at life and death as two great blessings, of which he knows not which is the better. On either side of the veil, Jesus Christ is everything, but death can be viewed as a gain in the sense that it allows companionship with Christ to be more perfectly realized.
Death is a departure. Paul says in verse 23, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” What does he mean by “depart?” Is this simply a geographical term indicating that he will be vacating this world? I think not. The Greek word translated “depart” is a word which refers at times to the freeing of a slave, to the sailing of a ship, to solving a problem, or to breaking camp by one of the Roman legions. In every instance it conveys the idea of leaving something permanently behind.
Christians break camp at death and all that is not useful is left behind—all of the sin, all of the pain, all of the care and anguish of this world. The result is a permanent freedom from evil. The unsaved man may not desire this, preferring to wallow in his sin, but the Christian who has tasted the delight of God’s righteousness longs for a purity that he knows he will never experience on earth. Death is a departure from evil.
Death allows us to be like Christ. This truth does not come directly out of our text, but it is so closely related that I have imported it here from I John 3:2: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” We will be like Jesus in righteousness, in love, and in knowledge. I don’t mean that we will be omniscient, but I’m thinking of 1 Cor. 13:12, where it says, “For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then, face to face; now I know in part, but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Finally, and most importantly, …
Death allows us to be with Christ. “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.” You know something? In the greatest comfort passage in the entire Bible, John 14, Jesus Himself said something very similar to His disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God; believe also in Me. In my father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”
Have you ever noticed that when you really love someone, it doesn’t matter where you are so long as you’re with that person? The mansions are not what makes Heaven attractive; there are mansions right here in Ladue. And it’s not the streets of gold that draw our attention; we know ourselves well enough to know that we’d get bored with those in no time. It’s the fact that Jesus is there that overwhelms the true believer and allows him to cope with the terrible separation that death entails.
Nine years ago last month I was lying on the couch at home with a sick headache when the phone rang and a policeman in our church announced, “Beth Brake has just been run over by a garbage truck.” I jumped up, my headache immediately gone, and drove the four blocks to the Brake home. There, on the street right in front of her house, lay the crumpled body and bicycle of one of the cutest little seven-year-olds you would ever want to meet. I held her mother while we waited for her dad to get home from the hospital where he was a radiologist. The pain for that family was indescribable, and probably only those who have lost a child could really understand it.
One thing I remember distinctly is Nancy saying, “The hardest thing is that the separation seems so final.” So, in the memorial service I talked about separation. Do you remember the first time you were separated from your infant son, the first time you left him with a babysitter? How you didn’t quite enjoy that evening out because you worried about him. And the moment you got home you rushed into where the crib was and checked to make sure everything was OK?
Or how about the first time you sent your little 5-year-old off to school, and you cried a little inside as you dropped him off at the kindergarten room and you couldn’t wait to pick him up at noon? Or perhaps you remember the first time your child went off to camp and you faced separation for almost an entire week. You almost wished the camp nurse would call and say your child had chicken pox so he could come home early.
Then the time flew by until a more difficult separation came as your son went off to college. He came home at each vacation, but you found every conceivable reason to arrange a business trip to the city where he attended college. Still the separation was hard. Or maybe your son went off to Viet Nam and you recall the heartache as he left. Would he return? Would he be the same person when he returned?
Then came the wedding day when your son and his new bride moved to another part of the country, and you knew in your heart that this was a more permanent kind of separation. No longer would he be dependent upon you. No longer would he be relying on you for his needs, for encouragement, and for advice.
Why is it that separation hurts so much? Well, it hurts because we’re lonely. And it hurts because we can’t share our love with that one as before. But most of all it hurts because we fear that our loved one may not get quite as good care as we always gave him. Would the babysitter be as cautious as we would be? Would the kindergarten teacher protect him from cruel remarks by other children? Would the camp counselor see to it that he gets his rest? Would the college roommates be a good influence? Would the army realize that he is a real person with real needs and real feelings? Would his new wife do the little things for him that you as his mom always did?
Death is a separation too. It’s more far-reaching than the other separations. And it hurts more. But there is absolutely no need for that common fear that the one who is dying may not get good care, for if he is a believer, he is with Jesus.
Conclusion: The death benefits for a believer are tremendous. But they were never intended to cause us to flee our responsibilities. Our text concludes this way in verses 23-26: “I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.”
Paul realized that his own personal desire to be with Christ must be subordinated to his pastoral responsibility to the Philippians. He had been called to serve, he was an ambassador for Christ, and he was perfectly willing to put up with second best for himself in order to be faithful to his calling. What a man Paul was! He was even willing to postpone going to heaven in order to help Christians grow, and he was willing to go to hell himself in order to win the lost to Christ? (Rom. 9:1-3)
Maybe there’s someone here for whom Juneteenth can become a day of emancipation. Think once again of verse 21 and fill in the blank: “For to me to live is _______.” Money? Fame? Power? If so, you are in bondage to those things. Not until you can say, “For to me to live is Christ,” have you experienced true spiritual emancipation. Nothing would give me greater joy than to know that today someone grasped the essence of Christianity and received Jesus Christ as personal Savior. That can be your privilege as we bow our heads. If you desire to know the joy of a personal relationship with God, pray quietly with me as a I pray.
DATE: June 19, 1988
Tags:
Death
Separation
[i] James Boice, Philippians.
[ii] John Stott, Basic Christianity, 20.
[iii] A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God, 13.