Good morning. Welcome to Trinity Reformed Baptist Church, Jackson, Georgia. It's April 23rd, 2017. Join us now as Pastor Matthew Brennan brings us a message from the Word. If you have your Bible, you might like to turn to Philippians chapter 1. While you're doing that, let me express my gratitude for your very kind invitation. It's a long way from temporary. Let me also have a little caveat before I start. Charles Spurgeon, some of you know, was, well, I think Spurgeon was close to genius, but Spurgeon had trouble with depression and the gout, and there were times he was not in his pulpit. He would be out of the pulpit because of his health, and for long periods, he was out of his pulpit towards the end of his ministry. On one such occasion, he was down the country visiting a small congregation, and the young minister who was made aware immediately that Spurgeon was coming in, what a daunting prospect, Spurgeon is coming in. Well, he was aware that Spurgeon was coming in, and he preached a sermon. After he had preached the sermon, Spurgeon wanted to see him in the vestry, to which the young man was anticipating Spurgeon's comments. And Spurgeon said to the young man, he said, I was very, very helped by your sermon this morning. And the young man said, well, he said, it was one of yours. And Spurgeon says, well, I've been doubly helped in the preaching of it and hearing it because it did me good this morning. Well, where I live in Tipperary, as I said this morning, it's a little out of the way town and resources for good theological thought are scarce. But I have one source that I go to and I have practically taken everything this source has written or discussed, including his commentary on Philippians. And like that young pastor, he's in our congregation this morning. So it's a little daunting to have Tom Lyon sitting in the congregation because I have plagiarized all his material and it has kept me going in Clonmel these 30 years. So a backhanded compliment, Tom, thank you for your many years of ministry. We in Clonmel have been blessed by it. Let's get to the text, Philippians chapter 1. Paul is an enigmatic individual. We all can relate to Peter. He's quick of tongue, sharp, quick-tempered, and he's a bit silly by times. When we compare him by the Apostle Paul, we meet a different man entirely. Paul just seems to have this dogged, determined, policy and energy of preaching and living and suffering for Jesus Christ. He's unflinching in his zeal. He's unwavering in his determination to preach Christ any and everywhere he goes. He is now writing from jail, and this is one of the prison letters that we have. Now think of it. Imagine you being in jail. Your comforts are restricted. Your activities are on view, and the things that you normally like and enjoy are prohibited to you. It may not have been as restrictive for him, but that's an idea. He is in some form of restricted condition. Is he having a pity party? Is he having one of these woe is me moments? Read the letter. It begins, Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ. To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, including the overseers and deacons, Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always offering prayer for you with joy in my every prayer for you all, in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. For I am confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you all, because I have you in my heart. Since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and discernment. so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory of God. Now, I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. so that in my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorium guard and to everyone else. And that most of the brethren trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill. The latter do out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, things to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed and in this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the spirit of Jesus Christ. According to my earnest expectation and hope that I will not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, and I do not know which to choose. But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and to be with Christ, for that is very much better. Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again." Ending at that verse. I have been perplexed by verse 21 and 22 of this section of Paul's letter to the Philippians. I've been perplexed by the fact that it is so Such a strange statement for the average man to say. He says, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. He says, but if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me and I do not know which to choose. Now, if Paul had a bad day in jail, and his comforts were lacking, and his health was declining, and they were making his life painful. You could understand why someone would say, I just want to go home. I just want to go home. That's understandable. But it's not that kind of, Paul isn't just having a hissy fit and having a sort of moody expression here. This is the energy of his life. This is the goal and determination of the way he lives. It's not circumstantial. Some Christians long for heaven, and they long for it for wrong reasons. Their circumstances are trying and difficult, and they think, you know, if God would wave his magic wand, I'd be home and out of this mess. Well, that may be a motive, but it shouldn't be the major motive of the heart of the Christian. We don't want to go to heaven to escape. We want to go to heaven to do something better, to enjoy something more than we're enjoying here. And that's why I find Paul's verse 21 and 22 so enigmatic. He says, to live is Christ and to die will be gain. Whether I'm tied to these soldiers, I'm going to preach to them until some of them are converted. You put me in another dungeon and I'll do the very same thing. You can beat me, I can be naked, I can be starved, I can be rejected, I can be abandoned, but I will preach and speak about the Messiah, come what may. Come what may. There is nothing and no one else I will speak about. For me to live, the purpose of living is to declare and live for Christ. And then he adds, and death is gain. Death is gain. Although we have a full Bible, and we have great theologians who have left us volumes, we are just on the edges of the Pacific of the greatness of God. We know we know a little, and very often we think we know more than we think. and we can be so dogmatic about certain things that I almost find it scary that we can be so dogmatic about certain things in the Christian life. Heaven, for example. What is it? Am I going to be busy? Will I have a Sims fly rod on a nice lake like your minister wants? Will I have All the cravings I've enjoyed here will do better there. What is it? What is it that this man, and he's not running from prison, he is ceasing one pleasure for a better? What is it? that makes this man think this way about death. Well, you know the confessional position about death. Death, we're made perfect in holiness, we pass into the presence of God, the body is united to Christ, and the body rests until the great resurrection. That's the confessional position. But why does Paul say, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain? Well, let me suggest maybe five or six other reasons why. For you and I, guys, on a personal level, He says, death is gain for you and I because we're rid of sin. We're rid of sin. We're rid of that something that pours out through our pores day and night. That cavernous, dark crevice of the human heart which is so corrupt and perverse and oozes out from the mouth and the ears and the hands and the body of fallen man will no longer be there. There are days, and I ask myself, is the blood of Jesus sufficient to cleanse my sin? Never mind the sins of the entire redeemed. Can the blood of one man atone for my sin? It's a staggering, staggering thought that it can. But it's even more staggering that it covers millions of hell-deserving, corrupt, perverse, wicked, self-righteous, arrogant men and women. And in heaven, we'll be rid of sin in all its subtle, scheming, self-righteous, perverse tentacles. We will be sinless. Now, you and I as Christians, we have a very narrow view of sin. Well, maybe you don't. Some Christians have this narrow view of sin, I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't curse, I don't fornicate, I'm a good man. And that model of sin is so, so, so superficial. It is so superficial. When you look at the life of the Lord Jesus, the woman caught in adultery, did he say, oh, tut, tut, tut, tut, you're taking the back seat in church for the next six months and we're going to expose you? Does he? No. What does he do? Does he bring her before the elders like the scarlet woman? No. He writes in the sand very nonchalantly. And after he's finished writing, those who wish to stone her are gone, the self-righteous few. We band of brothers, we favored few. And he says, has no one condemned you? And then this jaw-dropping, heart-stopping moment. He says, go and sin no more. Go and sin no more. Imagine it. He knows the worst about me. Go and sin no more. The sins that you and I think are the baddies, or society at large perceive as the baddies, who was Jesus' most staunchest criticism for? Well, the Bible readers, the Bible thumpers, the elders. The rulers, why? Because there was an attitude in their hearts that was self-righteous and graceless and unlike God. They put burdens on people's backs that the people couldn't carry and they didn't lift a finger to help them. They knew the minutiae of the law, but they knew nothing of mercy and of grace. The danger for the Christian when we assess the wider world with regard to their sin, we somehow think they're worse than us, when it's the reverse. With great privilege comes great responsibility. So to be rid of sin, in all its self-righteous, in all its lust and pride and envy and laziness and gluttony and gossip and accumulating of wealth so you can spend it on yourself and the comfort and the ease of a life you enjoy, all that hideous, hell-deserving sin is gone. I'll be sinless. You'll be sinless. It'll never be there. But not only that, our souls will be purified. We won't have the capacity to think or want sin again. We won't have the capacity or the interest or the desire to sin again. You know how it is on your most holy moments. You've read your Bible, said your prayers, you're in the car driving to work and all of a sudden the girl walks across the street and she looks around, oh dear, where am I? It's there and it's done fast. In heaven, our souls are purified. We will hate sin the way God does, which we can't do here because we're unable to. We will hate sin because we're able to, because our souls will be purified. And then thirdly, heaven. It may be that you'll get a Sims rod in the lake. Our capacities will be enlarged. Our capacities will be enlarged. That's not to say that we're all going to be on the same level intellectually or spiritually in one sense, but the individual capacity of the person will be enlarged to the fullest of their capacities. You will understand things profounder. Your grasp to retain will be improved considerably. All your capacities will be enlarged to their fullest. To their fullest. God doesn't make our pleasures less, and he won't make them less in heaven. He will make them more. As C.S. Lewis writes, all the good we enjoy here is only a foretaste of the good we're going to enjoy there. Magnified. And then he says, for me is gained, why? Because I'll see the glory and the majesty of him. I will see him. for I shall be like him. Men struggle with this concept because men aren't feeling orientated beings. The way our androgynous society is going, it might change, but at the moment men are very clear emotionally. And when we speak about loving another man, Well, it's always couched. It's always couched because we don't want to be seen to cross a particular divide. But if any of you have been in the war, any of you older boys who have been in the war, when you're in the trench with someone or in war together, you love your band of brothers. There's a love that is not experienced once you go back into Civvy Street that you can never experience again because you've sheared in profound suffering and pain, but you've also gone through extraordinary things together. And there is that aspect where you love those whom you fought with. So soldiers in one sense can understand what it must be like to see Jesus when they're saved. because they'll see the one who is the perfect man, who is the Adonis, who is the man par excellence, who is a man unrivaled, unparalleled, brilliantly, intellectually, humanly, in every capacity, they will see him and we will love him. We will love him. You think of Isaiah's vision in Isaiah chapter 6, in the pre-encounter with the Lord Jesus. What does he say at the end of it? He says, I'm mentally deranged. I'm coming apart at the seams. That's what he says. I'm unhinged. I'm unhinged. And then John tells us in John chapter 12 that the one Isaiah saw was the Lord Jesus. Well, when he sees him on the other side, he won't be unhinged anymore. but he will love the Jesus he saw in Isaiah chapter 6 with unsinning heart and will see him in all his regal splendor and majesty. No one ever loved me the way Jesus did. No one ever loved you the way Jesus does. No one. Because when people get to know you, let me rephrase that. When people get to know whom you choose to reveal of yourself to them, you control how intimate the relationship will get. Here, Jesus knows everything. Everything. And he loves me. And he loves me. His love for me is not conditioned or conditional as human love is. Sometimes we fail very badly as parents because we put a conditional love on our children. And we make deals with them, if you do such and such, you're out of the house. And we say things to them and the children hear something and the children hear in their ear, this parent is conditional in their love. And they'll love me only as far as I conform to a particular standard of morality or their ethics. And if that doesn't happen, then their love for me is questioned. George Duncan was a British Anglican preacher. And some of their senior men speak at Keswick at the convention. And they were in a home one time having a conversation. And they were talking about their children. And one of them says, if my daughter ever got pregnant outside of wedlock, I'd throw her out of the house. And George Duncan was there, and Duncan turned, and he says, if my daughter gets pregnant, he says, I'll take her in my arms and love her. Who was more God-like? Who was more Christ-like? The conditional love, or Duncan with his daughter? That's what makes Jesus so extraordinary, guys. You don't earn brownie points. You don't win his approval. You don't merit his love. It's a given. It's a given. So we'll see him. Isn't that enough? Isn't that enough? What more do you want? What more do you want? You got that? What more do you want? I'll give you two more. We will worship willingly. we will worship willingly. Sometimes when we come into church, we've had a row with the wife, we've scolded the children, we've kicked the cat, and we've done something else. And the minister gets up and he says, we're going to begin worship, and you are stone cold hearted. And he knows that there's no love in your eye. And he knows that there's no twinkle in your voice. And he knows that there's no excitement in your voice. But you'll go through The duty, and that's right sometimes, but it's more than duty you'll do there. We'll be like dogs at a race in the trap waiting to get out to sing the praises of God. And we'll do it with unsinning heart and with unceasing joy. John Stott died a couple of years back. And when he was elderly, quite old, he was being interviewed for a podcast or a YouTube, whatever it was. And as he was being interviewed, this man asked him the question, Dr. Stott, when are you most alive? When are you most alive? Now, he cannot see distant anymore because of his eyes. He's a bird watcher. He would have been an internationally renowned bird watcher. He was that brilliant at it. His eyesight is failing him. His body is failing him simultaneously. He has fallen in the street and his face is cut and he's a little frail. And Stott sitting in a chair asks the question again, when are you most alive? He's been an honorary chaplain to the Queen. He's an international conference speaker. He has been an extraordinary man. When are you most alive, Stott? He said, I'm most alive at public worship. I'm most alive at public worship. When the saints gather with the angels and the archangels to sing and gather to hear God's word and sing his praise, I am most alive then. Are you? I know you're not. I can see it. Sometimes you are. But then we will be. then we will be. We will join all the heavenly choir host in unceasing praise, in unceasing praise. Lastly, we'll enter an eternal world of joy. What does that mean? If you pursue joy in itself, you'll always be a miserable, lemon-sucking person. Joy is never the goal. Joy is a consequence of something else. Always. If you go looking for joy, whether it's in drugs or sex or whatever, as a lot of folk do, it's ubiquitous in our part of the world. Everyone's on cannabis. Heroin is as common as grass. Everyone's on it. Our students at college are spaced out most of the time. I run a Bible study in a housing estate on a Tuesday night, and I have girls come, they're unmarried mothers, and we had a Bible study a couple of weeks back, and I didn't know this, but one of the girls came and she was spaced, completely out of it. Now, she didn't come across to me as if she was spaced, but the girls told me she was spaced. Completely out of it. They exchange pharmaceutical tablets and every other concoction they can get and they're out of it. And people are looking for joy as the end in these things. You won't find joy in the bottle of a bottle. You won't find it in a syringe. You won't find it in the scratcher. You won't find it with a man. You won't find it with a woman. You won't find it with your work. Never. And the reason the world thinks they can is because they have a hankering for what real joy is. And real joy eludes them because it's a gift from God. And it always comes as a byproduct. Always. Who for the joy set before him, what? Endured the cross. Why does Paul write in the fourth chapter of Philippians, for me rejoice, what Paul? Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Where is the source of Paul's joy? It's in the proclamation and the living and the serving and the dying to self. It's always a byproduct. It's never the end, never. So on the other side, we will enter eternal joy. What is eluded men and women here in all the variety of means by which they try to attain it will be given to us free gratis by him there and then. So now, as a Christian, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. I'm getting all that. Beam me up, Lord. But then he goes on to say, this is the anchor that keeps Paul grounded. I want to go home. I want to go home. But I don't want to go home because I'm an escapist. I don't want to go home because circumstances are difficult. No. I want to go home to see him and love him. But it's for your benefit that I remain. It's for your benefit. You're holding me back. You're keeping me earthbound. It's for your benefit that I remain, that I can bless you and help you. Now, sometimes things happen in our lives that we have no idea why they are happening. But they may not be happening for you, but they may be happening for others. It's for your benefit, Paul says, that I remain. Why does an elder who's got a mother incapacitated in a private nursing home for five years, who sits and lies in a bed all day, longs for death, longs to go home, and it doesn't happen? Why? Her heartbeat is still strong, her bed sores are increasing, The other ailments that happen to people when you're bedbound for so long are increasing. And she longs to go home and her son comes to see her and he cannot, he finds it hard to go into the room. He goes in because it's a duty, he sees the son and she's the mother, but he can't understand why God has not taken her. Why has he left her for so long? Sometimes it's not for her benefit, it's for the other people's benefit. but we don't want to see it like that. Our priorities need to be regulated differently. Well, here's the Apostle Paul, he says, for me to live as Christ and to die will be gain. The struggle I have is I have to stay, and I will stay and I will work as much as I can while I'm here, but I've got the best yet to be. For the believer, for the believer, the best is always yet to be. Always. I was an orphan, as some of you know. And when I was 17, I was put out of the orphanage. And from then, I lived alone and tried to make a living. But a little woman in a farm took a shine to me. She was a farmer's wife, and she had two sons my age. And she took me in and sort of mothered me and kept me on the straight and narrow, which is a very difficult job, which she did very, very well. And she was 93. She was an extraordinary lady. She lived out in the sticks. She had the Banner truth books, read volumes, thought deeply, and yet she was a farmer's wife. She was 93, and someone had told me the mom hadn't been well, so I was going up to see her. She was retaining fluid, and she wouldn't take medicine, didn't like medicine, never. And they were quite insistent that she was quite dogmatic, she wouldn't take it. And we said to her, mother, you're dying, pop the tablet. She says, no, I will not. I haven't done it through my life. I'm not going to start now, anywhere. Right to the very end of her life, mother was anticipating the future. She was never in the past, never. She was always in the present, always anticipating. Always looking forward, never looking back. How many of you look back with regret? When you come to die, you will. We make decisions, we take courses of action that we regret doing, and that's part of the fall. But do you look back and say, oh, for the good old days? Hey, they weren't that good. Here's a woman, and she was always anticipating the future. For the believer, it's always Christmas day down the road. Always. The best is yet to be. The best is yet to be. So come living or dying. Come pain or poverty. Come success or failure. For the believer, the best is yet to be. Let's pray. Our Father, you've left on record the words of one of your servants, where he says, for me to live as Christ and to die as gain. And we have to say that there are aspects of this verse that we can't enter into because we can't understand it. Superficially, we say amen, yes, for me to live as Christ, but we don't know what that means and we don't do it. and then we say to die is gain, and it sounds trite and cliched and we say it, but we love this world too much. We'd be losing too much to give it up. And yet here's a man who says to us unashamedly and boldly, for me, whether I live, it'll be Jesus, and whether I die, it is glory. Make something of that spirit in our hearts, we ask. For his namesake, amen.