To Live is Chris to Die is Gain

Philippians 1, uh 18 B through 26.

Hear the word of the Lord.

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 which I shall choose, I cannot tell.

I am 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.

Hear the word of the Lord.

And uh Father, we just lift up this time, we just lift up Brother Robert as he brings your word to us.

Uh we just pray that he brings what you have for us, that you just use him as a vessel to share with us what you'd have us learn about you.

We're just so thankful for this time to learn more about you, and to learn more about what you've had for us.

Father, we just pray that our our hearts are listening, our ears are listening, and our hearts are attentive and and we're concentrated, and we learn for what you teach us today.

We pray all this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you, brothers.

You guys can be seated.

I'm grateful for whoever it is that left me this note that the stairs are gone, because I would walk right off the front of the stage.

So I'm grateful for that note.

I hope I'm not the only one that gets in the habit of something and has to be reminded of things.

Surely I'm not.

But if you have your copy of God's word and you have not already flipped to Philippians 1, I encourage you to do so.

We're on the back half of verse 18 through verse 26, as Tessa read for us a moment ago.

I'm grateful to be here with you guys and grateful to be able to uh open God's word with you.

And today I'm grateful to be in this passage.

This is a pretty uh in-your-face passage and words that we see from Paul to the church in Philippi.

And as you probably already noticed, we are continuing our study through the book of Philippians.

And if you're new, we are working our way through the book.

We preach verse by verse here, and we're, I think, on about the fourth week of our study of Philippians.

We'll be here for about six months.

And what we know from Paul, really, we know it from all of his letters, but we know it very specifically from this first chapter of his letter to the church at Philippi, is that he found his joy in the Lord.

He found satisfaction in the Lord.

The language he uses today is he he talks about rejoicing.

Um, and he he found that in the Lord, he found it in the Lord's people, and he found it in the Lord's gospel.

You read about Paul's joy all throughout this book, and we you read about it in multiple ways, but two specific ways I want to point out for you.

One, you read about it uh in in from the standpoint of his joy, and you also read that he desires the joy of the Philippians.

And we see in verse, then in chapter one and verses three through five, talks about him finding joy in partnership, right?

Partnership in the gospel.

Chapter two, verse two, he found joy in the unity of God's people that was being displayed by the church at Philippi.

In chapter four, verse one, the brothers and sisters like within the church were his joy.

The very people of God were his joy.

And four, verse ten, he found joy in the fact that they remembered him, right?

The people in Philippi remembered.

They they had this remembrance, a sweet remembrance of Paul, and Paul found joy in that.

But one of the things that's most striking to me is not only did he find joy, but he desired their joy.

He desired the joy of the people within the church at Philippi.

He desired them to have joy in their faith.

We see that in chapter in chapter 2, verses 17 and 18.

Same chapter, verse 25.

He found joy in the progress that they were making in their faith walk.

In verse or verse 28 of the same chapter, he found joy in the fact that Epaphroditus was with them.

In chapter 3, verse 1, he found joy in calling them to rejoice in Christ alone.

Right?

So Paul uh found joy in the people of Philippi, not just, he wasn't just out there looking for his joy.

And then in today, in the second half of verse 18, and this is why we didn't, you know, you might remember last week we went through 18.

This week we're we're staying in part of 18 before we go to the rest of it.

He says, Yes, and I will rejoice.

In other words, I will have joy, I will rejoice.

And it is so hard for us to comprehend that Paul is rejoicing, right?

Last week we remember, he said, I find joy.

And this week, as we see in verse 18, he says, I will continue to find joy.

So last week I find joy, and this week I will continue to find joy.

And it's not some superficial feeling or action, it's not happiness that is based on circumstances or the things that are going on around him.

Joy for him was recognizing, understanding, and finding peace and knowing that the Lord our God is in the control in the midst of the most impossible circumstances.

When you're on your face and you're crying out to God in tears or in pain because of loss, you have joy.

When you're on your face and you're crying out to the Lord because of broken relationships, there is joy in knowing that God is in control.

When you're on your face and you're crying because of some detrimental diagnosis that you received or a loved one received, there is joy in knowing that God is in control.

Joy is not happiness as we would define it on this earth.

So as we work through today's passage, when you hear me speak of joy, don't think happiness and everything is going perfectly.

Think joy is in you are finding satisfaction and knowing that the sovereign God of the universe is in control in the midst of the most impossible circumstances that you will ever face.

To be satisfied in Christ, to be satisfied in the glory of Christ is Paul's ultimate aim in living and in dying.

That's what joy is.

Right?

That is the joy he speaks of.

That is why he's able to rejoice when he is enchained.

Verses 18 through 26 help us practically and logically see how this plays out.

We're gonna look at two things.

In verses 18 through 20, we're gonna see the certainty of God's deliverance.

And then in verses 21 through 26, we're gonna see the confidence in God's sovereignty.

And in the midst of that, we see the beautiful reality of how this statement that he uses, I believe it's in verse 21, where he says, To live is Christ and to die is gain.

It should totally alter the purpose in which we walk across this earth on a day-by-day basis.

It should change the trajectory of our lives as followers of Jesus.

This statement, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Because if verse 21 is true, right?

If that is true and I stand before you telling you that it is true, you should either live in submission to Christ, or every day should be a challenge to you, day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, to live in a way that is in submission to Christ.

So let's begin by looking at the certainty of God's deliverance.

I got stuck this week on that word deliverance.

It spent a lot of time on that word that you see in the back end of verse 19.

What does he mean by deliverance here?

If you do a word study on it, you kind of double-click on it, it's used to talk about salvation.

It's used to talk about being saved, it's used to talk about being safe, it's used to talk about strength, it's used to talk about finding wholeness, it's used to talk about safety across the board.

So, what in the world does Paul mean when he uses this word here, deliverance, when he is in chains in Philip, uh when he's in chains, writing this letter to Philippi?

If you remember that he's in prison, it's worth asking questions like, is he talking about deliverance from prison?

Right?

Is he talking about deliverance, meaning safety from his adversaries, safety from the people who sought his harm, safety from people on this earth?

Or is he talking about deliverance from sin?

Right?

Deliverance from sin, meaning that he will have freedom, as Marcus said a minute ago from the Romans, right?

There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Is he talking about that deliverance, or is he talking about physical deliverance on this earth?

Will prayers of God's people and the spirit of Christ that we talk we read about in verse 19, will it deliver him from the physical chains, or will it deliver him from judgment?

Personally, I tend to lean towards delivered from judgment based on what we see in verse 20, when it says, Whether I live or die, may Christ be honored in my body.

Doesn't it to me sound like a guy who is confident that the Lord is going to deliver him from the physical chains that he was in?

However, there are folks who are a lot smarter than me that lean the other way, that would say that he certainly knows that he's going to be delivered from the physical chains, and they would point to verses 25 and 26.

You guys know that I believe God's word is inerrant.

You know that I believe is infallible.

And because of that, I have to draw this conclusion.

If Paul doesn't specify the specific deliverance that he is referring to, meaning he doesn't make it black and white, whether this is the eternal deliverance or the deliverance from my physical enemies here on earth, there is a reason he doesn't specify.

It is on purpose that he doesn't specify.

It is not some accident.

Oh no, I forgot to specify.

No, it's not a mistake.

There is purpose.

And it is entirely possible that the reason is because whether he is talking about deliverance from the physical chains of this earth, or is he talking about the deliverance in when he faces judgment, there is truth and application to be made in both cases.

And that is this deliverance or rescue comes from two things.

Comes from two things, the work of the spirit and the prayers of God's people.

Deliverance comes from the work of the spirit and the prayers of God's people.

And I want to take a minute to look at both of those.

A dear brother handed me a book recently, and the subtitle of the book is this Defeating Sin with Superior Pleasure.

Defeating Sin with Superior Pleasure.

We often struggle in this life with so many things.

I don't know about you, but there is not a piece of paper big enough for me to list all of the different ways that I struggle in this life.

And one of the broad categories of things that we struggle with when we're in this fleshly earthly state is this thing called sin.

And some of us have struggled with the same sin or category of sins for as long as we have been breathing on this earth.

For as long as we have been breathing every single day we go to battle with the same general issue.

And what happens is we begin to struggle and we rely on our own strength.

And if we realize anything in that moment when we're trying to rely on our own strength to overcome this struggle or this sin, is we realize how weak we are.

Maybe I'm not the only one.

I thought there would be an amen to that.

But we realize how weak we are.

You see, our strength is not only insufficient to save us, it is insufficient to sanctify us.

It's insufficient in the battle against sin.

But the good news that we see in this passage is that we may be insufficient on our in our own strength, but the spirit of Christ is sufficient.

It is sufficient.

Paul's certainty of his deliverance, the way that he was able to talk so boldly about being delivered, was not because he knew how strong he was or he was relying on his own strength.

His confidence was not in his strength, his confidence was in the Lord.

He knew that left to his own devices, he would fall short every single time.

We experience salvation through the work of the Spirit.

We talk about that all the time.

By grace through faith.

It is not our doing.

100% true.

But guess what?

We also experience this thing we talk about called perseverance of the saints, meaning that we stay saved.

We experience that not by our own doing alone either.

We experience that through the work of the spirit.

The perseverance of the saints exists because of the spirit that is within us, not because we have the capacity to endure and conquer sin.

So we endure physical and spiritual suffering through the help of the spirit.

Not because we're strong enough to endure.

Does anybody remember when we read about Jesus talking in John 16?

He's talking about leaving and going, right?

Departing from this place.

Anyone remember what he refers to the Holy Spirit as?

Says this, yes.

I heard someone say it, helper.

John 16, 7.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.

Okay, let me pause for a second.

Remember, this is God in the flesh talking.

Okay, this is God in the flesh talking.

Now, says this, nevertheless, I tell you the truth.

It is to your advantage that I go away.

This is Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, saying, It is better that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper, Holy Spirit, will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him.

The Spirit is not some arbitrary being, some far out there deity that may exist or may not exist, or may randomly show up or may not show up with or without explanation.

No, since before God in the flesh came, it was God's plan for him to come and to be our helper, right?

To be our helper.

Paul makes reference to that in verse 19 when he says, the help of the spirit.

We saw last week that God rules over all things, including us.

But guess what?

God is also with us because the spirit indwells us at the moment of salvation.

And he doesn't just indwell us to leave us, he indwells us and he helps us.

The question we have to ask ourselves is do we want help?

Right?

So many of us in our American mind living in uh DeSota County or wherever we live, we have this mindset of we want to pull up our bootstraps and we want to get to work and get it done.

And we don't need anybody's help to do it.

We can do it on our own.

But we have a helper.

We have a helper.

Have you ever experienced either with your kids or with someone else where you knew that someone needed help?

Right?

You knew they needed help.

Everyone else knew they needed help.

They had help right in front of their face, sometimes screaming at them.

I'm here to help you.

H E L P, help you.

Let me help you.

But they didn't know they needed help, or they didn't want help.

How many times have we experienced that in our lives?

I experience it every day with my kids.

All right, let me help you.

I don't need your help, Dad.

I'm good.

And then something falls apart.

Hey, Dad, can you fix this, please?

The spirit is here to help us.

We think, man, I got this.

Only to find out.

Well, oops.

Never mind.

I don't have this like I thought.

Let me phone a friend and get some help.

We're not just saved through the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit.

We're sanctified through the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit.

We are sustained through the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit.

Please don't hear me discount that if you have experienced salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, there is nothing that will pluck you from his hands.

Don't hear me discount that.

You're not going to lose your salvation.

But you also were not saved and then left alone to try to figure it out.

That's not the case, right?

As the famed Clark W.

Griswold once said to Cousin Eddie, the Spirit's not going to drive you out in the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead.

That's not who he is.

That is not the case for us.

He is with you.

The moment that you were saved, you were indwelled with a helper.

And that helper doesn't drive you out in the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead.

He helps you.

Your sanctification is a work of the spirit.

Your justification is a work of the spirit.

And not only are we saved and sanctified through the work of the spirit, we are also saved and sanctified through the prayers of ourselves and through the prayers of others.

I'm just going to be really candid with you.

This one is hard for me, right?

This one is hard for me because it can be so easy for me to overlook prayer because I simply look only to God's sovereignty.

I overlook prayer.

And I think, man, God doesn't need me.

He doesn't need me.

Why should I pray?

He is God.

I am not.

He doesn't need me.

Are you kidding?

Look at me.

And I would be right.

He doesn't need us to pray.

Be really clear.

He doesn't need you to pray.

We don't pray because God needs us.

We pray because God tells us to.

Praying for God's people is not just some responsibility that we have to do.

It is an opportunity that we are invited into by the God of creation.

He invites us to pray.

This is God inviting us, mere weak earthlings, to pray.

He invites us to pray.

And he says, Not only am I inviting you to pray, Paul tells us that he will use the prayers of God's people to deliver God's people.

Let that sink in for a second.

There's probably 180 of us ish in the room right now.

The prayers that you pray for the person sitting to your right or to your left or behind you or in front of you, or the prayers that you pray for me, they're not meaningless.

They're not meaningless.

God is using those and the Spirit's work within us to.

Provide for our deliverance is what we see here in this passage.

What an invitation that is.

Right?

What an invitation that is to both participate with one another and to participate with the spirit of the living God that is inside of us.

It can be easy for us to look at one another or maybe even ourselves and think, man, they don't need me to pray for them.

God doesn't need me to pray for them.

God's got this, or they they have it all together.

Do you see the way they live, right?

He reads his Bible.

I see him read his Bible.

He, why do I need to pray for that homie?

He's reading his Bible.

He's praying.

Everything seems to be going well.

They have it all together.

Don't ever say God doesn't need me to pray for someone.

Don't ever say God doesn't need me or they don't need me.

God's sovereignty doesn't negate the necessity of prayer.

It highlights the necessity of prayer.

It doesn't negate the power or value of prayer.

It highlights it and invites us into it to participate.

I want to be really clear.

This doesn't mean I don't want you to walk out of here and says, Robert says, My prayers have special powers, right?

I'm going to go sit up on the corner on Beale Street and I'm going to heal everyone who walks by.

That's not what I'm saying, right?

It doesn't mean that we can offer prayers and deliverance from earthly suffering or eternal suffering will happen at will because we prayed it.

That's not what's being communicated by me or the text.

You very well, this is hard.

This is so hard.

You very well may pray against the suffering in your life, physical, spiritual, emotional, or against the suffering in someone's else's life, spiritual, physical, emotional.

And those sufferings never subside.

You may pray for healing on this earth and it not happen.

You may pray for a broken relationship to be restored and it not happen.

You may pray for someone's salvation and plead with the Lord to save this person and it not happened.

But as we pray for one another, and those prayers are not answered in the way that we want them to be answered, what we can know for sure from this passage and from the entirety of God's word is that the Lord is working to carry out his sovereign plan.

And we through our prayers, we're not simply getting our way, we through our prayers are submitting and aligning our will with the will of the God of creation.

But with that, how much clearer can Paul be?

Right?

The work of the spirits and the prayers of God's people work together to accomplish his purposes for our good and for his glory.

Whether we are seeking deliverance from something on this earth or we are looking forward to the deliverance that will happen when we stand before the judgment seat, we must learn that the power of the Spirit and the prayers of God's people are things that we are to lean into, not out of.

And ultimately, in doing so, we are able to not only lean into God's deliverance, but we also lean into the plan of the sovereign God, which brings us to verses 20 through 26.

Confidence in God's sovereignty.

Right?

To me, the meat of this passage can be found in verse 20 and 21.

In verse 20, Paul talks about how Jesus Christ will be magnified, right?

Honored is the word used in the ESV, but not just magnified or honored in his body.

Look at what it says.

But honored with his body, whether he live or whether he die.

If I shall live, Christ be magnified in how I live.

If I shall die, Christ be magnified in how I die.

You know, one of the most difficult, there's a lot of difficult things about being a pastor, but one of the most difficult things for me as I sit and think back over the last however many years it has been is the times where I've had to sit with a person who drew their last breath.

Or sit with a family as they watched a loved one draw their last breath.

There's there's nothing that can prepare you for that or explain what that is like.

And I think apart from having the blessed opportunity to minister to families going through something like that, or be ministered to, let me be frank, be ministered to by families or individuals going through something like that.

It would be difficult for me to comprehend what Paul is saying here.

Christ be magnified in my death.

Be magnified in my death.

And the the easiest way to explain it for me would be this.

When a person dies, right?

When they pass from this life to the next, the way they die says something about who they live for and what they live for.

The way that a person dies says something about what why they live to begin with.

And I'm not I'm not talking about the way they die in the physical cause of death.

I'm talking about the attitude, the posture, the words that are said, the things that they they do when they sit in their their deathbed or in their death, the last place they're going to breathe on this earth.

The way they handle that speaks to what they live for.

And verse 21 is so incredibly powerful for me to live as Christ and to die is gain.

If I live, praise God.

And if I die, praise God.

Look, I don't I don't know when my final breath will be.

I know I'm one day closer than I was yesterday, right?

I don't know what the Lord has planned for me between now and then.

But I I do hope that I will be able to declare in my final hours, whenever those hours are on this earth, that to die is gain.

That Christ will be the testimony, not just of my life, but of my death.

And as you look at failing health, my failing health in this case, right?

Whenever that is, I pray that you will be able to say, or that I will be able to say, really, I will be able to say, Man, don't cry over me dying.

You may be sad.

Cry in grief if you're sad about that.

I may never walk this earth again, but guess what?

I will be with Jesus.

I will be with Jesus.

I may never get to run another mile, but I will be with Jesus.

I may never get to have another meal at the dinner table, but I will be with Jesus.

Don't cry over me.

I'm going to be with Jesus.

I may never walk out of the room that I'm sitting in in the hospital.

I may never get out of the bed, but I will be with Jesus.

If we are confident in God's sovereignty, there is a certainty to our eternity that allows us to proclaim Christ not just in our life, but allows us to proclaim Christ in the way that we die.

May the posture in which we approach death be a testimony to the watching world.

Further, if I live, may I proclaim Christ for his fame and his renown.

So if I die, I can proclaim Christ and be delivered from sin and death.

And if I live, I get to proclaim Christ.

Sounds like a pretty good deal to me, right?

That's what Paul's saying.

It's a win either way.

There's no loss here.

If I die, I'm with Jesus.

If I live, I get to proclaim Christ.

So other people, when they die, they can be with Jesus too.

This is a win either way.

But it's still from the text, Paul is still torn, right?

He's still wrestling with it.

In verse 23, he said, he uses language like, I'm hard pressed.

I'm hard pressed between the two, which is why verse 21 is so important.

To live is Christ, to die is gained.

It very well may be six one way, a half a dozen the other.

There may be days where we prefer one over the other.

Regardless, Paul is saying, honor Christ in life and honor Christ in death.

That is what is most important.

This is quite significant when you think about it.

This is coming from a guy who is in prison.

Think about all that he says through the lens of this brother is sitting in prison against his will.

His main goal wasn't prison break, right?

His main goal wasn't to be a free man.

We love our freedom.

I love our freedom.

It's a beautiful thing, but our main goal shouldn't be freedom.

Our main goal shouldn't be live long and prosper.

Our main goal should be the glory of Christ.

Period.

Paul admits he would prefer to be with Jesus.

I would prefer to be with Jesus, but he knows that might be best for him.

That's what he desires, and it might be best for him, but he also recognizes it's not what's best for them.

The commentary that we provide for you guys that's in the four-year have this uh dialogue that could have taken place.

This I'm not saying this is, and the commentator wasn't, that could have taken place between the prison guards and Paul.

And it's quite comical.

Let me read it for you.

The guards.

Hey, Paul, we don't like you or your messiah.

We're gonna kill you.

Paul responds.

That'd be great.

Dying is gain.

Bring it all, man.

Guards.

Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Never mind.

Second thought.

We're going to allow you to live.

Paul, fantastic.

Living means fruitful, joyous labor.

Guards.

Well, we're going to let you live, but we're going to make you suffer, right?

We're going to make you suffer.

Paul, like, man, cute guys.

Cool, cute.

But guess what?

I consider sufferings of this present world not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed.

It would fill with me with joy to suffer for his name.

How frustrating.

We're going to kill you.

Fantastic.

We're going to let you live.

Fantastic.

We're going to make you suffer.

Fantastic.

He knew the certainty of his eternal deliverance, but he was also confident in God's sovereignty.

More and simply put, he wanted to honor Christ in life.

And he wanted to honor Christ in death.

You guys understand that the only way, this is convicting for me to even read what I wrote earlier this week.

The only way to live a life that is worth living, and to die a death that is worth dying, is to live and die for the glory of Christ.

The only way to live a life worth living, and the only way to die a death worth dying, is to live a life and die a death for the glory of Christ.

And I I treasure my family.

Treasure my family.

And they are happiness to me.

But for me to limit my understanding of heaven to my family would be limiting what heaven really is going to be.

To be limiting what it's going to be.

And what happens is we think only uh through our earthly lens, and when we do that, what heaven can become is going to be this place in our minds where we don't have what we have here.

It's this place that may be cool, but we, oh, I'm not gonna, you mean, well, I will I get to do, I love to fish, will I get to fish, I love to hunt, will I get to hunt?

Will I be made?

Will I be married?

Will I get this?

Will I get that?

We start questing.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, well, what about this?

And what about this?

And we're limiting the heaven to this idea of what we have here as happiness.

And that's as exciting as it's gonna be for you.

It's gonna be this place where you don't have what you have here.

Or we'll limit it to, and I say this all the time, I'm probably the most guilty person in this room.

I can't wait to get to heaven because there will be no more temptation.

I'm not gonna sin anymore.

And that is true, and praise God from this for that.

But if we limit it to this or to that, we're gonna miss the most important thing, and that is the presence of Jesus.

And this passage most foundationally causes us to ask the question what do we live for?

What do we live for?

Is it Jesus or is it something else?

Because I promise you, if it's anything other than Christ and his glory, your life is worthless.

I say that as kindly as I can.

It is worthless.

In the church, we often I I read a guy talk about this and it was super helpful for me.

In the church, we often push obedience as we should.

We often push, man.

If you are an obedient follower of Christ, you will suffer as we should.

We are called to both, right?

We should be pushing both those.

We are obedient sufferers.

That's what that's what we are.

As followers of Jesus, if we are obedient, we will most certainly face suffering.

But guess what?

And this is what Paul is saying here.

If you live for Christ, the opportunity to be an obedient sufferer for the glory of Christ will be your joy.

It will be your joy.

We talk about Romans 10:9 all the time.

Romans 10:9

You we just heard about it in the Romans road, right?

Repent and believe and you will be saved.

But don't forget, don't forget this.

Repent, believe, you will be saved.

But do not forget to love and live for Jesus.

It's not this thing we check off and then we're done.

No, we respond, we are justified, and then we live for Christ through the power of the Spirit within us and through the prayers of God's people for us.

We live for Jesus, which means we love Jesus more than anything else.

We love him more than our family, our money, our comfort, our health.

We love him more than our standing before men, our happiness, our stuff, our self, our pleasure, our peace, our life, and our death.

We love Jesus more than all of those things.

That's what Paul is saying here.

Live for Christ.

And that means you love him more than everything.

And if you do that, whatever you experience in this life, and whatever you experience in the days, the hours, the minutes, the seconds that lead up until your death will be your absolute joy.

It will be your absolute joy.

If I had to summarize this passage, it would be something like this: to live is Christ, okay?

That means I live for the glory of Christ.

He is present with me, and it is my joy.

To die is gain.

Okay, the way in which I approach death brings Christ's glory.

And as I pass from this life to the next, as I pass from this life to the next, I'm in the presence of Christ, and it is my joy.

Right?

It is my joy.

May we be a people where the glory of Christ is our absolute joy.

And as I wrestled with that this week, man, I tried to make all these applications that would make this uh palpable for us on how to do this and ways to make this happen.

You know how we make this happen?

We have to get on our knees, on our face before the God of creation and plead for help that He would be our joy.

We have to get people around us to say, Hey, what in my life is portraying that I love something other than Jesus more?

And we have to do everything we can to posture ourselves in humility before the God of creation and say, We are yours, use me for your glory.

May that be so for us.

May the glory of Christ be our absolute joy.

Let me pray for us.

Father, we are grateful for your word.

We're grateful for uh God, thankful for Paul.

Every week that has gone by since we've been in this uh series on Philippians, just time and time again, God, we we look and see a brother who is enduring and God who is living quite a testimony.

God, I pray for us.

If first of all, pray for the people in the room who uh have never put their faith in Christ, God, who have never responded at the prompting of the Spirit, as we heard earlier.

Uh God, we have a problem.

The problem is sin, but you've made a way for us.

The way is Jesus, and we're called to respond through the work of the Spirit to repent, believe, confess that Jesus is Lord, and we will be saved, and we will be given freedom from our sin.

God, for the person in the room who's never responded at that, we we pray that today would be that day, that you would do whatever it takes to draw them to yourself.

And God, for us as followers of Jesus, I pray that we would be so encouraged by the life that Paul lived.

It's easy for us in 2026 to think, man, we're the only people who've ever endured anything difficult for the cause of Christ.

What an encouragement it is to look back 2,000 years and to see a faithful brother living out his faith, facing suffering, and doing it with joy.

May we be a people who live for the glory of Christ.

And regardless of what that brings for us, may it be our joy to do so.

We ask all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.