To Live Is Christ

Gracious Father, we thank you for the Holy Scriptures,

their precepts, promises, directions, and light.

In them may we learn of Christ, grasp his truth,

and have grace to follow in his steps. Amen.

The passage that we're looking at this morning is from Philippians.

My name is Lydia. Originally from the city of

Thyatira, I moved to Philippi for business opportunities.

You see, I'm a seller of purple goods,

and Philippi, being a Roman colony, does a good trade.

I'm not a Roman citizen. I don't have that coveted status.

I don't get the tax breaks, the legal protection, or the social privilege.

I trust God though. There was no synagogue in

town because there weren't enough male Jews, but every week a few of us would

meet just outside the city for a time of prayer.

Then one day we had a visitor join us for prayer.

His name was Paul, and he told us the most amazing good news.

He told us that there is a King, God's King, who reigns over God's

kingdom, and this King's name was Jesus. We sat

intently as we heard how this King Jesus came and how he

suffered on the cross, died for our sin,

and then 3 days later came back to life again.

And get this, one day he's going to return.

And we heard that if we trust this King Jesus, we not only receive

the forgiveness of sin, but we also become citizens

of his kingdom. With privilege and status beyond what we

could imagine. Well, God that day convicted

me of the truthfulness of these words, and I believed. That day was so sweet.

My sins were washed away and I became a citizen of God's kingdom.

We were by the river, and so I was baptized straight away,

my family too. Soon others put

their trust in Jesus and our little gathering began to grow.

We rejoiced in what God had done for us through his King Jesus as

we shared with others the good news.

It's not always easy though. To start with,

it wasn't long before Paul and his companions were beaten and thrown

in prison. People feared the power of King Jesus

and instead of believing him and trusting him, they ran away from him.

There was a pretty miraculous prison escape where the jail just fell down.

And the jailer who witnessed it, he and his family joined

our gathering because they put their trust in Jesus. Because Paul, when the jail

fell down, he didn't run away, but he stayed there and he shared the

good news with the jailer. So exciting!

Anyway, needless to say, Paul had to leave town. There is still

some hostility. Some of us have suffered ridicule, disrespect, imprisonment.

A bunch of people won't purchase my purple goods anymore because I

follow King Jesus. I'd say it's worth

it though, because in Jesus I've gained so much more than I could ever get

in this world. We're so thankful to God that Paul

came and shared the good news with us. That was about 10

years ago now. We pray for him as we know that

he prays for us. We're partners in the gospel now. And like Paul

does, we tell anyone we can about the good news of God's King Jesus.

We just received a letter from Paul the other day. We read it

together in our gathering. It was so timely and addressed some areas we needed

to hear, like about the argument between Euodia and Syntyche.

Don't get me started on that. And these so-called

preachers who seem to care more about undermining Paul than preaching the gospel.

He reminds us too of what it means to be a citizen of God's kingdom

and how good it is. The latest news is that Paul

is still in prison, still suffering because he kept telling people about Jesus.

This one could be death for him depending on the mood of Caesar.

But his faith is strong. Paul is encouraged by our

prayers for him and he is confident that God will answer our prayers and

be able to come and visit us again. We're hopeful that

he will be able to come and visit and encourage us and spur us on

in the faith so that we can continue to live as faithful citizens of

God's kingdom. We're so thankful for this

letter and we will be sure to read it again and again.

Yours truly, Lydia, believer in Jesus, citizen of the

kingdom of heaven.

While we gathered as a church today, I was struck as Paul's

letter was read out by his attitude towards life and death,

particularly the words, 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. For to me to live is Christ and to die

is gain. Paul's whole world is shaped by

Jesus and his resurrection, and he knows that death is

gain because, as he puts it, I desire to depart and be with

Christ, which is better by far. He longs to be

with the resurrected King. Me too. This world

is tough. Business is struggling. The Romans can be harsh.

How good is it going to be to be with Jesus?

And knowing that I am a citizen of his kingdom, knowing what is to come.

And it means that like Paul, I don't have to live my life for myself.

I can live it for Jesus.

Life is to be used to exalt and honor Christ.

And Paul, he, as he seeks to live for Jesus, he wants

Jesus to be exalted and honored, but he also wants our little church here in

Philippi to progress in our faith, to increase in our joy in Jesus.

I really do hope that God answers our prayer for him to come and visit.

As I think about my life and the difference Jesus makes, I used to only

care about my business gains. But since trusting King

Jesus, my priorities have changed.

Now I want to follow Paul's example, and in everything I do, I want King

Jesus to be honored and exalted. I want everyone to hear the

good news. And I love seeing the church grow and others

come to follow Jesus. I love that my business gains can be used to help

grow the church, to help Paul on his missionary journeys and honour

Christ. I'm going to pray regularly now that my life would

honour Christ in everything. Lydia.

Well, a week has passed and a different part of Paul's letter

stuck with us today as we heard it read. It was about how to conduct

ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of King Jesus. The jailer

put it like this: if we proclaim that Jesus is King, We need to live

as if Jesus is King. And we discussed how that

means we have to keep living for Jesus no matter what, holding on to the

Gospel no matter what, making sure we keep Jesus at the centre no

matter what. And this matched Paul's words about

how we are to stand firm in the Gospel together, in one spirit,

striving together as one for the faith of the Gospel and

not being frightened of opposition.

There is opposition. Paul was driven out of town. There are people who are

opposed to us because of King Jesus. And so we need to stick together by

the Holy Spirit and stand firm for the gospel.

We could just say, ah, Jesus isn't really my king,

or stop living as if Jesus was our king, join in the idol worship of

the city. It'd be so much simpler just to blend back into the crowd,

join in the imperial ceremonies keep my business safe,

but that would not honor Christ. It's tempting

sometimes, but I'm so glad for the encouragement today to keep living for Jesus and

to not be ashamed. What's the point in having a King

if we give up on him at the first sign of trouble?

And so we encouraged each other, we doubled down today in

prayer, praying that we'd stand firm for the gospel and that we

would be known as people who not only talk about King Jesus

but live for King Jesus.

It was stirring. I'm excited now about the future of our church.

Everyone was. Lots of fuel for my prayers this week.

Lydia. Well, there ends the

first-person story of Lydia.

You may have noticed that there is references to her

Our conversion, that's recorded for us in Acts chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

You can read it later.

Paul's words are the letter to the Philippians that we have before us, which we

had read out earlier. And there was a bunch of historical context,

and I used a little bit of creative license there in Lydia's life.

This letter to the Philippians was God's

word to that church in a particular

time, in a particular place, and it was for their encouragement. It was for their

building up. It was so that they would live to exalt Jesus.

And God's word is eternal and it transcends

time and place. And so this letter to the Philippians is for us so

that we would exalt Christ and live for him.

So what about today? Well, here are a couple of reflections

from the parts of the letter that Lydia was reflecting

on. In Philippians 1:18-26,

Philippians 1:18–26

we are to live life for King Jesus.

Now, did you notice the desire there for face-to-face ministry?

Paul and the Philippians are praying that they could be together again.

They were using the technology of the time, writing letters to communicate,

and that was good. But they wanted to see each

other face to face. In our digital age,

it is possible to never meet,

but actually that's never going to replace meeting someone in person.

In Kununurra, top of Northwest Australia, smack bang

in the middle of nowhere, I spent a lot of

time speaking with people by Zoom or FaceTime,

and that was good, it was helpful, it was necessary even,

But it was always so much better when I could see them face to face,

when I could sit with them, chat with them, pray for them

while they were there. The same is true today.

We need to not give up meeting together because face-to-face encouragement

to live for Jesus is so valuable.

And we live in the I generation, don't we? We are so focused on ourselves.

We're very individualistic.

But it's interesting to note that Paul, who's in prison,

likely on death row, he's focused on building

up the Philippian church. He's focused on the church,

on others. He wants to see Jesus honoured

and fellow believers grow in their faith.

Imagine what it would look like if we all had that same attitude as we

walked into church. To meet with God's people.

We walked in with the intention to give a word of encouragement

from the Bible to someone, or we took 15

seconds to encourage the person who's serving morning tea,

or pulling aside that person that we know has been struggling and just letting them

know that you've been praying for them.

Well, we can do this as we embrace Paul's motto in verse 21, to live

is Christ and to die is gain. Through faith in

Jesus, we are citizens of God's kingdom. We have such

a privileged position. We don't need to worry about

ourselves and our own position. And it means we can live for King

Jesus. We can live to exalt him, to honor him.

And the way that we do that is by loving and serving

his church. Which he died for.

So let's pray that we would do this with our lives. To live is

Christ, to die is gain.

That's the next part of the verse, isn't it? To live is Christ, to die

is gain. And for Paul, death is gain because death

is just the beginning of being with Jesus. Verse 23, I desire

to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.

Well, today God is present with us and Jesus is present with us

by his Holy Spirit. But he is not physically

present with us. Jesus is at God's right hand in heaven,

and Paul is longing for the day when he will get to be with Jesus

face to face. Now, our culture

avoids death. Part of some people's thinking— you

know the word AI, everyone's talking about AI these days— some people

in the AI world are hoping that AI is going to mean the

end of death. That we're going to become so technologically advanced that

humanity would never die. But the Christian,

we actually look forward to what death will bring because

it'll bring us into glory with Jesus. We will be with him.

It's not something to avoid.

And so we live for Jesus, and when

we die, we gain because we get to be with Jesus.

And then in Philippians 1:27-30, we are to live

Philippians 1:27–30

life for the gospel. In fact,

we're called as a church to live a life worthy of the gospel.

Uh, this is a life where the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection is

center, and we are to strive

for this cause, be united in this cause,

And we do it because of King Jesus, who died on the

cross for our sin, who suffered for us,

but who was raised to give us eternal life.

The reason we strive for the gospel is because of Jesus,

because we're citizens of his kingdom.

I think of a flock of birds like cockatoos or rainbow lorikeets.

One bird on its own doesn't look very impressive.

But when you see a flock of hundreds and thousands of birds

just all together, zipping and weaving, going in one direction,

that's a sight to behold, isn't it? Well,

we're to strive together for the gospel like the birds.

And we can do it because Jesus has given us his Holy Spirit.

On October 11th, we're having a combined service as a church followed by a

workshop to help us work out together what does it

look like for us to live a life worthy of the gospel. What does it

look like for us to strive as one for the faith of the gospel unashamed?

Now we don't do it in our own strength, we do it under King Jesus,

so please be praying for this day. That it'll help

us to stand firm as one in Jesus Christ, living a life worthy

of the gospel. And in all this,

our goal is to exalt Christ, to honor Christ,

to live for him so that people will see us

and our lives and give glory to God.

And as we strive for the gospel, It might mean suffering.

We are blessed to live in the time and place that we do where we

can meet with great freedom.

But there's always this warning here in the Scriptures.

Jesus suffered for us, dying on the cross to bring us to God.

Paul suffered as he shared the good news of Jesus.

Paul actually puts it in terms in verse 29 of being granted to suffer

for Christ, like it's a gift of grace. That Paul has

the privilege of being able to suffer for his faith in Jesus,

just like Jesus suffered for us. The Philippian church was

told to expect suffering. We should not be surprised

if at some point we suffer for the sake of the gospel.

And we can do this because of Jesus, because we know

that we're citizens of his kingdom and that

one day when we are with him, We will suffer no more.

And so we can stand firm for the Gospel of Jesus Christ,

not because everyone will like it, but because it's worth it.

So may we echo Paul, for me to live is Christ

and to die is gain. May they be our words

and our prayer. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you that Jesus came and

he suffered for us, paying the penalty of our

sins so that we could be right before you and in relationship with you

and be part of your kingdom, citizens of your

nation. Help us, Lord, to live as citizens of your

kingdom. May these words of Paul's be true for us. May we know that

to live is Christ and to die is gain. And we ask, Lord, that in

all that we do, that we would exalt Jesus,

that we would bring him the glory and the praise and the honor. And we

ask this in Jesus' name.