To live is Christ

Well we are going to take a little bit of a Slightly different approach to teaching this morning. I'm going to run right into it. I'm not going to review. And I asked you a couple weeks ago if you enjoyed having that process and you said, yeah, we like having that review. And I said, you know, I'll definitely want to do that. But today there's such good content that I felt like let's leave a bigger review for another day.

I just want to run into these four verses and start to soak it up because The content here I think is impactful and it's just one of those gems of scripture and definitely a gem of Philippians that I think we could just spend a little bit more time on and really enjoy together.

So we're going to be looking today at Philippians 1, 21 through 24. And we've labeled the title of this particular class as, To Live as Christ. And so we're going to be jumping into some positional truth today, and a dilemma that Paul was facing when he was sharing with the Philippians. And just as a reminder, we're dealing with Philippians The Book of Philippians, a letter that was written by Paul to the church in Philippi, and he was imprisoned.

He was in a situation in Rome where he was on house arrest, chained to a Praetorian guard, and this is a situation where he found himself waking and sleeping and eating, and all the things that we do literally chain to another human being. Even his writing. You think about Paul being in this secret desk situation where he's got his parchment and his fine pen.

Here he's got a guy, he's like, could you scoot over a little bit? I need to position myself. But he's got a situation where he's writing to these Philippians and he's got this human being sitting right next to him. And there's ministry going on there. You can imagine all this writing to the Philippians and then stopping and saying, you know what I'm saying?

Here's some thoughts that you might be interested in understanding. And there was success in the gospel presentation in that setting for Paul. But nonetheless, that's where Paul is and that's what he's dealing with. And he deals with this issue that we see in the verses 21 through 24, both living and dying.

And for the Philippians, living was obviously a very pagan concept, and the way they lived was very fleshly, but also the way that they died, and the way that the Philippians, the pagan mind of that day viewed death was something of interest as well.

They had quite a big to-do about dying and there was literally societies within the Philippian, I'm sorry, the Philippian citizens that these societies would handle the death process and it was a big deal. They were very concerned that when the spirits came to receive the spirits of their dead loved one that it be done in the proper way and so You get the idea of how different fetishes are used by animism and other societies to ward off evil spirits and to keep the right ones away from the dead loved one.

And they went through a lot of processes similar to that. Very concerned about how the transition from death to life took place. And so they almost obsessed over that aspect of it. And Berne taught that in his Philippians course several years ago. And he does such a great job of bringing out the historical perspective. And that's something that would have been in the mind of the culture surrounding these Philippians believers. Here he's going to talk about death. and the dilemma of life and death, and this is the way these Philippians were thinking, is, oh, to die is such a big thing. And you know what? It was a dilemma for Paul too, but for a totally different reason, and he was trying to encourage these believers in that dilemma.

So let's read verses 21 through 24. I'll go ahead and read this today. And take note of the coloring, and I'm going to ask you some questions about that here in a minute. 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. Dilemma. But I am hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better. Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

So here Paul is explaining a choice, two different directions that he can go here in his mind, and he is taking the situation that he's dealing with and he is framing it from a biblical perspective. And so his dilemma, it's not that believers don't have dilemmas, it's just that in this particular case, the dilemma was framed from a biblical perspective. What is the dilemma here? What's Paul?

We say wrestling with, but it's a good kind of wrestling with. He's thinking through it. He's like, well, there's this and then there's this. I'm not an omnipotent, omniscient. omnipresent person, so I've got a dilemma, and I don't know which one would be better. He's saying I've got an area where I don't have all the information, however, I do know these things. But what is he trying to wrestle with here? Or what is he communicating?

Living versus dying. And it's interesting how living and dying are defined biblically here. So, I'm going to say to you guys that we actually have in this passage, I think, a New Testament perspective on both living and dying, which is really pretty cool. Because it's one of the biggest things that we deal with, especially the death side of things. As we get older, we start to wrestle with this concept.

And you know, Paul had the same issue. At some point, I'm not going to be here. And it's going to produce certain consequences. However, if I'm not here, it's going to produce certain consequences for me. And so I think that we have a perspective here that we each can learn from in terms of living and dying and the ability to think through the options.

It's really pretty neat here. What I've done is I've put some content in green and some in red. I've got a little olive back there waving at me. That's awesome. So what we've got is, I've separated the decision here that Paul is thinking through in his mind, the perspective in green and red. So in green we see what? Life. Life side. And in red we see the death side. Right, living side. And in your handout, it's not done that.

But the next two slides will divide them up, I think, well. So let's go ahead and move on into that. Paul's dilemma, I don't know which to choose. So we have this, to live is Christ. And we're going to get into the individual word side of things and break it down. But let's just get the big picture here. Let's divide it into the life side and the death side. Let's see what he's weighing out. What is he balancing here as a decision?

So to live as Christ, we've got this live on, also remain on. And what he's saying is to remain on in the flesh, to continue to be here, to walk, actually to stay chained to this guy and to be sitting here riding you and communicating with you from Rome, that's where I am as far as remaining in life. But to live, is he grumbling here? No, he's just saying in order to continue to do this, to live on, I define that and categorize that as a person. Living is literally a person, is what he says, and that's pretty interesting. But he says, to remain on in the flesh, it would result in several things, fruitful labor, and it would be a more necessary thing for the believers of Philippi.

So let's break that down and compare it to the death side. However, if the choice was afforded me to die, having that desire to depart, literally to be with Christ face-to-face, to leave the flesh, and he qualifies that as being very much better, even beyond his current circumstances. But one of the things that he doesn't say when he says to live as Christ is to say, that's not a good thing. He doesn't say that.

But he does say that to be with Christ would be very much better. However, to remain does produce certain consequences and results. For me, fruitful labor for me, and for you, it is good that I do so, and there's a reason why. So this is the dilemma, to live and to die, and both are positive in Paul's mind.

Do you see any negativity in these verses? Let's go back to them and look here real quick. Is there anything negative here? The only thing that might be somewhat of a maybe neutral perspective, I guess, is the hard-pressed part of it. I'm hard-pressed, and we're going to look at what that word means, but everything else is, well, this produces this, and this produces this, and these are good things. In fact, this is far better, and this is still fruitful. So there's not any negativity at all about this particular choice. Either of them is a positive outcome.

One is far better, and we can see which one that is, and we need to talk about why that's the case. But we all fall into this side of it, don't we? we all fall into the living side of it right now. But we all need to have a perspective about the transition to the dying side of it, because we're all going to enter that side of it as well. So here's a really interesting way of framing it, verses 21 through 24. Let's break down to live. We already defined that as remaining on in the flesh, and the result would be fruitful labor, and it would be necessary for their sake. So to live is Christ.

What happens here really is spiritually significant. In other words, your life, just like Paul's life, had a spiritual significance. That's a pretty important even issue of counseling, I think. For the believer who is lacking a perspective on their own life, God intends to use you here. You are not here for the reason of just existing and taking up space. You have a spiritual significance here, and Paul recognized that too. But where was his spiritual significance found? Was it found in his circumstances? And he didn't even mention his circumstances. He didn't. If he's got spiritual significance in the here and now, where is it found? What does it say?

Is Christ. His spiritual significance today in my battery is going to die. It's going to depart. We are going to take this computer situation and make it all about verses 21-22. So spiritual significance is found in position or condition? According to Paul, so far. If his significance is found, just think of ourselves, if we were chained, literally to a Roman guard today, and we were supposed to be doing mission work, you can imagine how the human perspective would be on that.

I'm supposed to be out there. There are unbelievers out there that God called me here. I made it all the way to Rome. It was a difficult process, a long journey. I have the financial means. I have the support back home. I have the prayer back home. And here I am stuck in a room, house arrest, to this guy. And I can't get out to the people that I need to be getting out to.

Is there enough to be grumbling and complaining about for Paul? I know I would be. I mean, I really would until I got to this verse and hopefully took it to heart because what Paul is saying is that, look, my spiritual significance is not found in my present condition. It's not my experience right here and now. It's found in the fact that I'm in Christ and that produces a certain effect. Let's see what that effect is. To live on and remain on in the flesh.

Did he think he did he know if he was ever going to be let go from that situation? But here he's saying that if I am able to continue my earthly ministry, and I don't even know if I'm going to be able to get away from this particular guy that's stuck next to me, but to remain on in the flesh means that I can continue to have ministry.

How did Paul have ministry from a house arrest? He couldn't get out to the believers and talk to them. So what did he do? The guy chained to him. Okay, so there was a one-on-one ministry, and what about when that guy switched out with some other guy?

I'm assuming that they had to do something like that, huh? Through Scripture, it's obvious about what happened to those men. That's right. Because a lot of them were saved. That's right. So here he is, he's chained to a guard, and so he's like, okay, my ministry is to the guard. and his family and his surroundings. But he had another ministry as well. Somebody was doing this thing. Yeah, he was writing the Philippians. He was ministering to the Philippians. Who else was he ministering to?

You. Right now. That's right. So Paul had this dilemma. Here I am. I'm stuck. I'll write. I'll communicate to this Praetorian guard. And it's good that I remain on in the flesh. This is what I can do if I'm here. And I can do it because I'm in Christ, not because I have the best circumstances.

You can imagine trying to build a mega church concept on you know how certainly our past he says he's house arrest and He can write to us occasionally, but it takes you know three months for us to hear what he has to say And this is not grand at all I mean and they get behind this guy for the Philippians as we know in previous verses They were a hundred percent behind and their partnership with him in the gospel was solid and he commended him for it And here he is he's got I mean it's like Again, we talked about in past lessons, when you want to get behind a missionary, you know, you want to see big things happen. Give me a newsletter with big graphs and numbers, and I want to see the line chart just going up to the top. People getting saved. And you just don't know exactly how it is that's happening.

But in his life, He had an earthly ministry and it was effective. We also see in these four verses that life resulted in a fruitful labor. So how did he how did how did he describe the labor that he had sitting there writing and talking? It was fruitful stuff. You know, this is this is fruitful labor. He says that this is an effective ministry. This is an effective way the Lord is working. I guess one of the things I took from that is sometimes effective ministry doesn't look like effective ministry to people.

Ruth sitting down trying to figure out how to pull together a good news club doesn't look very effective. It's like, I'm in Microsoft Word. I get an email, ding. Now I'm back in Microsoft Word trying to figure out my members and the days and the times and the calendaring. Sometimes you can do that long enough and you can feel like, wow, is this effective? Is this really making a difference?

But then one little kid shows up. And you only get one kid that shows up to the whole club. Oh, that's not effective. I've got to write my newsletter. One kid showed up to my club. Things like that happen. I mean, I've had classes where there's one person. I've had classes where there's no person. And I'm like, sit down by myself and deal with it. I remember trying to get a youth group started not too long after I had really taken hold of the Word.

We had these big plans, and we did all this graphical design for the church and posters and stuff, and one kid showed up. We had three of us, and we had music, and so here we are playing music, and this one kid is sitting out in the middle by himself. And we're thinking, wow! Wow, can this be effective?

Do you think Paul understood how effective throughout the ages after that was written to the Indians and the Philippians. I'm not sure how far forward he was thinking, but in terms of these four verses, he definitely knew that it would benefit the Philippians.

And they weren't present with him. I mean, they were 800 miles away. So he at least knew that what he was going through was fruitful for them and good for them. Because in the next part of what we say with life is that it's actually necessary that he be alive for their sake. Paul's earthly ministry is a spiritual benefit to the Philippians and others.

Did he know others would mean me? You know, I don't know. Yeah, Thought. Yeah, doesn't it say somewhere that the whole guard and even to the palace of Caesar were aware of why he was in prison? and the gospel was being taken to those people. Paul's missionary journeys as recorded through Acts and his imprisonments and so forth show a result of this necessary for your sake. And that's right, it did affect the entire Roman world. Paul's little chain in a house affected largely the Roman world. And ultimately it affects us in insane ways because we would not have the positional perspectives of our salvation had we not heard from Paul.

So he had this perspective of life. Let's compare that and contrast that with his perspective on death. Oh yeah, there's some arrows for you. They all point back to life. So, to die. To die is gain. Does anybody say that? I mean, is that really the way it is? How do you express death to people? Did somebody gain something?

Or do we explain it as a passing on, a loss? And it's a loss from our perspective. So from a conditional perspective, yeah, to die is a loss. I'm sorry, not from a position, but from a conditional perspective, it's a loss. You lose your body. Not a big deal, you know, with the bigger perspective, but it's a big deal for others. To not have that person in your life is a huge loss in many ways. But for the believer, death is a huge gain. Positionally speaking, Paul had a perspective of death that was about gaining something that he didn't have. And that's why it was so difficult to make the choice about what was better.

And here's the thing that I ask myself. What do I actually think about death? I mean, yeah, we've got a good church here, and each of us have been here to varying degrees of time, and we've all taken in the positional perspectives, but we all go home for the other six days of the week, and we spend time with the loved ones, and we deal with things, and we wrestle with health and these kinds of things. What's your perspective on death? Do you think, ah, yeah, I don't, I'm excited about gaining what Paul talks about in these verses in the area of death, but I just, not yet. That's how I feel sometimes. I'm thinking, I'm ready to die, I'm okay with it, but just not yet, because there's so much for me to do here, you know, I believe.

But Paul's dilemma was not, not yet, it was, and it had nothing to do with him, it had to do with the sake of the others that were in his life. I don't want to die for your sake, but if I go, I personally gain. So the death side was personal, the life side was actually about other people.

Isn't that interesting? Just some observation in terms of comparing and contrasting there. But he had that desire, he had the desire to be with Christ. And I think that that is something that I had to ask myself. What is my perspective here? Is it about personal gain? Or is it about the gain of others?

Paul said, while I'm here, I'm going to have some really stinky situations, but it's about you. And if I go, it's going to be about me, because I'm going to be with him. And then that will be very good. What comes next is incomparably better than planet Earth.

And the question is, is that your stand of faith on death? I know you know it, but have you thought about it? I'll say, I think most believers don't have a problem with death. It's how we're going to get to the death. You know, what's going to happen between now and death? You know, really, how slow or how painful or all of those things and who then it affects before you die.

I mean, that's how I am. I always say, boy, I just hope I'm jumping out of an airplane or something like that. Hope it's fast. Yeah. OK. A recent example to me was my dad. He was not worried about the death part. It was the dying part that was kind of scaring him, I think.

Well, since that's on our hearts, we're not scared about the departure. But what about the pre-boarding? What do you think the perspective on the pre-boarding is, based on what we're taking from Paul? We have to maybe draw out a little more than what we see here and that's definitely dangerous, but what can we say safely about Paul's perspective on it?

Did Paul believe, did he have any reason to believe that his Um, his life was going to get, he was going to get healthier. He was going to gain in terms of maybe financial wealth and, and maybe get him a small house on the edge of a vineyard. I mean, you know, what was, cause that's the way you think retirement. Do you think Paul had a retirement in mind here?

Well, didn't, didn't he say that the Lord told him what he was going to have to suffer? He kind of knew his plan, didn't he? Did the Bible tell you that you're going to have to suffer? Yeah. Interesting. So, each of us are going to pre-board in a way that has an element of suffering. Guess what? It's going to happen.

And it may be fast, it may not be, but in regards to how the Lord brings about suffering so as to be a light in a dark place, it's going to be different for each of us. And what's the perspective on suffering? What are some passages in the New Testament that have to do with New Testament believer suffering? What's the perspective?

I don't know the address, but consider it all joy. All joy? No way! Hebrews talks about Christ's perspective before He suffered and died. His pre-boarding plan was, I consider it all joy. The joy set before me endured the cross. So this pre-boarding concept of our death, I think, while some may be very concerned about the death side, others may be concerned about the way in which it's going to happen, consider it all joy, I think, is probably the positional perspective on the matter, and that cannot happen without Christ. It cannot happen, because if you're not a believer, there's no joy, first of all. You don't know the person of joy, and you're never going to see him face to face, so there's nothing to endure.

So, we took a little bit of a rabbit trail. I'm hoping that maybe some of that will will be appropriate for where we are, but let's keep moving on and maybe come back to that perspective as a wrap-up. Having the desire to depart, here at the top, motivated by the presence of Christ. the personal presence of Christ. He was ready to go because why? Because he was going to enter a street of gold and see these beautiful gems of streets and so forth.

I mean, I'm not very good at explaining the heavenly scene. It sounds like I need to spend more time on it. Paul didn't actually even mention that. He wasn't even concerned about the heavenly scene at all. I think it's really neat to, we just got through a chronological book with the kids, a chronological walk through the Bible. And the very end had to do with the book of Revelation and the last scene was so, the way the author described it was very picturesque as to the waterfalls of seeming believers and angelic beings and every knee having bowed and the king on the throne and all this perspective. But it didn't say anything about being face to face with Christ and I thought, Isn't that just a really big part of it? We're going to be personally with our Savior.

And there is a reason and a motivation to die because of that. To depart, to be separated from this body to live in the new heavens and the new earth with our Savior, it's not an end. And I should also, and I want to hear your thoughts there, I should also qualify the word death real quick. What does death mean? Does it mean annihilation? Separation, quite plain and simple. So separation is not an end in and of itself, it's just a separation of one thing from the other. It's a transition, right, for us. And it's a separation from what is dying and sin-filled to that which is back to the way God originally designed us with a history now. Christ's history.

What was your thought there? I was just thinking of Paul having camped out with Christ in the wilderness. There was a personal intimacy there that and he knew him, and it's like having a friend, and I want to go see him. We can know that the same way. Almost the same way. It's harder for us to know Christ in that way. I don't know if it's that way. There's so much clouder.

I was just thinking, is it too optimistic to think that Paul knew Christ so well that he didn't have these doubts about weighing you know, whether to be here or not, in his heart, he knew Christ so well that he wrote exactly how he perceived things in his reality. That this isn't something that he's weighing. He really, he's totally convinced of this. Is that too optimistic?

I'm gonna hang on to that question. Okay, that's a good question. And if he is weighing it out, why would he be doing it? So let's come back to that question. I think that's a good one. Let's wrap up the thoughts in regards to death in these four verses. He said, I will be with Christ. He says, I'll have the desire to depart. So he has a desire to do something. He also knows that the result will be that he will be with Christ. He'll see the Lord in glory face to face. That will be the consequences. And for him, he qualifies that option as very much better.

So, not a minor improvement, but a place with no drawbacks or regrets. In other words, that's the destiny. That's where I really have, in my mind, as the ultimate. What's your ultimate? For Paul, it was being with Christ face-to-face. That was his ultimate. That's what he lived for, interestingly, and he hoped to die for, was to see Christ face-to-face.

So let's talk about, I'm not gonna figure your question, we will get to that, but let's talk about what Paul is and is not saying. He's not saying that he can't decide whether to commit suicide or to purposely seek a lethal judgment against himself. Are there those that would say that? I'm sure there are.

He is, however, disclosing an eternal and spiritual perspective on the life here and now with Christ. He's giving a perspective of what it means to be literally in this body and have a perspective of life and death today. So can we learn from that? Can we apply what we're learning? Absolutely. We'll draw those applications together.

Paul is also revealing his heart's motivation here. What is of deep and basic and eternal value to him at the heart level. So in some ways that deals with what you're saying. What is Paul's motivation here? He does have a motivation to be with Christ.

But there's a particular term that it says right in the middle that helps me understand a little bit about how Paul might have personally felt about that. So we'll deal with that. But isn't it interesting that Paul does not directly mention the trials he is experiencing as one constantly chained to the Victorian guard. I mentioned that a little bit, but in this whole thing, he's not complaining.

The dilemma between the advantage to ministry in this life and the very great advantage of being with Christ presses upon him far more than the trials he is enduring. I think that maybe I would present the dilemma as not being one of negative and positive, but one of being an advantage to ministry and a very great advantage of being with Christ.

So he saw both as an advantage, but one was far better. And one had to do with others and one had to do with himself. And obviously, being with your personal Savior face to face was far better in his mind, and maybe he was thinking about the times that he was face to face with the Lord. It'll be a different experience for him, that go around, but nonetheless, he would have had that in mind. He had seen, and then not seen as a result. Let's look at some key words in Philippians that will help us kind of qualify some of the questions we have about this. First of all, gain. The idea of profiting. It's used often in monetary terms.

And what we're seeing here is that as a point of comparison, Paul is saying that being here is just no comparison with being personally embodied with Christ. How many of you actually think it's not going to be all that much different? Sometimes we kind of get wrapped up in the idea that I mean, we want to believe in this really massive, totally new experience, but sometimes maybe our flesh just causes us to think, well, is it just really all that much better? I mean, is it going to be that much better? Where do we go to find out the answers to those questions? Now, if you did not have the Word of God to tell you what the separation from this life into the next was like, would it be all that much better?

I mean, you're left with what? As an unbeliever, what kinds of hope do you have? Would it be of no comparison? Or how about the Hindu perspective? Regeneration? Buddhist perspective? Is coming back, potentially based on your racking up of positive or negative karma points, is it of no comparison to this life? Well, it might be, in a negative way. In other words, you might have earned yourself something that is in no comparison in a negative way.

You come back as an ant. We have an ant farm right now. Those guys work hard. I mean, they're not bored like the other potential reincarnated options, I guess, that could be. Flies look horribly bored. What's the comparison of this life to the next if I believe in reincarnation? Or what about being with Allah? It's the human viewpoint, without the word. And even a lot of Christians think the Garden of Eden, oh well, it'll be back like it was before the fall. Right? No comparison. That's right. A new heavens and a new earth, in other words, it's not comparable. There's no comparison there.

And so that's what Paul had in mind when he talks about the gain. It's going to be far greater. Not more, not worse, but better. The bottom line is that being with Christ puts Paul himself measurably ahead compared to being here on planet Earth. Perspective on death? Measurably ahead. No comparison. It's that much better.

That's what Paul thought. He also used the words flesh. In this physical human body on earth, in this context, Paul uses this word sarx to mean something, to mean different things in different contexts. But here, he means simply being in this human body that he has until he goes to be with Christ. That's what he's talking about, staying here.

1 Corinthians 5, 1 through 6, Paul refers to this body as a tent. And we're not going to see this shortly, actually. I didn't go into that. But 1 Corinthians 5, 1 through 6 talks about the nature of this body and the temporal tent that the spirit dwells within at the time.

And so that's one of the words that comes out in this particular passage. Also look at the word hard-pressed. And here's where I think we come to the answer to your question, Donna, or at least a thought in regards to it. Paul, according to this word, he was constrained, he didn't know for sure, he was hard-pressed in his mind, he was perplexed, and he was limited with his knowledge of what would be better at this particular point.

He knew what would be better for himself. And he uses the word gain incomparably better to identify what's better for him. But in terms of what would be better for the situation that the Lord had him in, he did not know which was better. But he always knew he was always convinced what would be better in his heart for himself.

I mean, ultimately, you know, he would love to be face to face with the Lord, but he wasn't sure he was hard pressed to know whether the Lord would have him continue to do this for the sake of the Philippians growth. or if it was better to be with Christ. And I think that he just kind of, it seems to me as I read through this first chapter of Philippians, he's got a very, very keen perspective on his missionary work there. And he is encouraging these Philippians about what's happening and the way that the gospel is even having the effect until the day of Christ. Didn't he say that?

Philippians 1.6, we talked about the actual perspective on the good works. that God will complete in the Philippians with regards to the sharing of the gospel and the partnership in it. So he's got a very laser focus on the gospel and the ministry that he is involved with in regards to these Philippians and also his Roman house arrest.

But he still says, wow, when I compare it to being face to face with Christ, well, that's a hard press. I'm hard pressed to know what would be better in that situation. Maybe there's more to it, but as I read it, he throws that eternal perspective right into the face of the Philippians and said, I'm here, but I can't wait to be here.

And in your case, you're a believer too. And that's probably in a very similar situation. You found yourself being, and there were those, likely those Philippians that would end up in imprisonment too for the words that they shared. that they would have recalled these words of Paul thinking, what do I do?

Do I sit and complain here? Or do I think about the ministry that I might have and even compare it to the fact that I'll be face-to-face with Christ at some point? If they want to rush my death to a complete finality, then I'll be face-to-face with the Lord. Thoughts so far? And I don't know if that directly answered your question, But correct me if you feel like maybe there's some additional ways of viewing it. I want to wait until we get to the word hard-pressed because Paul was weighing something.

What do you think? Would it be like being homesick? That's potentially a really good enough... Can you be homesick for somewhere you've never been? I think so. If it's described to you as fact, and you trust those facts, then I think it's very possible for you to get homesick for somewhere you've never been. Only in a biblical context. Because everything else is hopeful without any facts. But biblically speaking, we have facts from our Lord, who does not dwell in time, about what we will experience in time.

Could you say that what you had in green is ministry and what you have in red is life? Because that's your home, right? So death is not, I mean, it seems like in some respects you're looking at it from a physical viewpoint of who we are as we're on earth. But there's a reality that we're already seated. We've been crucified with Christ and we're seated in the heavenly places. So I think there's also a divine perspective, like when you say the homesick, and before when you were talking about the ministry, the reason that you're homesick is because that's where your life is, that's your home. What did we say death meant?

Separation. So what are we comparing? Condition and position. Okay, we're comparing life on earth ministry, you labeled it, and we're comparing separation. So we're not actually comparing life and death in the sense of two opposite ends of the spectrum.

We're actually considering life and separation from one type of life to a type of fullness of life. And we have part of that here. We do have fullness of life here. As we behold Christ through his word, we do what Paul says in his very first verse, we live in Christ. We are in Christ now, but to transition or to be separated from this body means that we are fully 100% glorified face-to-face. And I think God's got a really interesting perspective. That is where life truly is.

The fullness of all life is when we shed this human temporal body and enter into the eternal relationship with our Lord face-to-face. I mean, that's our hope. That's our hope and that is our home even now. So is it a separation from home to home? From earthly home to heavenly home? It is.

Isn't that also what Christ was dealing with before he went to the cross? He was talking about his separation from the Father. And that was why he was crying. It wasn't being separated from this earth. I think a lot of ministers or whatever, want to tell us that he was crying in Gethsemane because he was afraid of what was coming. But that wasn't really it.

It was his separation from the Lord for that time period. So it's sort of almost exactly what Paul is talking about. Being with the Lord, in Christ's case, was his life. That was his life. And to be separated from that was Not what he wanted and Paul is the same way.

He's he wants to be with the Lord Yeah, I definitely see some some similarities there and Yeah, those are really good thoughts I think that This is not something that you would talk about when you're comparing life and death It sounds like we're comparing what's good and what's far better and that's exactly what we're saying here in this verse and I'm just thinking of our citizenship is in heaven, so we're not really totally comfortable here. We just have this longing to be with the Lord. So, I mean, we can be comfortable in our ministry and knowing what we're doing is of the Lord, but we really long to be home with Him. That's where we belong. Yep. To live is Christ and to die is gain. That's a pretty powerful concept.

His desire was strong, it was intense. The word here is just an intense longing after. not just a mild inclination, not just like, I'm going to say this just to make sure that you, you know, I said it, check. He had a passionate desire to move forward in his life, if you will, through the separation of his body to that of face to face with the Lord. Paul very strongly desired to depart this life, not to get away from what was here so much as to be personally and eternally with Christ. Jim?

Yeah. I'm thinking, um, about the separation part in regard to my sin nature. That when I am separated from this life, I will finally once and for all be totally separated from the presence and the influence of my sin nature and truly be like Him for the unbroken fellowship and communication that right now seems like it's always getting interrupted. That's right.

And I mentioned the separation from our flesh, but didn't qualify it in that way. I think it's a really good point, is that when we're talking about separation here, we're not just talking about we get rid of the body and that's it. It's what this body carries with it and challenges our continuing person with, continually. You know, that sounds redundant.

Continually, continuing person. So what we are saying, to clarify, when we're separated from our flesh, we're also separated from the sin nature. that has been influencing and impacting that continuing eternal person of ours now. Not eternally past, but eternally future. Right? Are you following with me? Those are carefully chosen words.

I've been working very diligently to make sure that the old man and the sin nature and the continuing person are correctly used when I speak. I didn't have it all clear before. what's God doing in the Life of the Believer course that we did with Vernon. It clarified some things in him. Because the old man, we were already separated from him. It's just the sin nature that persists.

So, good point. We won't wrestle that way. There will be no more wrestling. Depart. Depart or leave. Just get out of this place. Literally. You know, as we're conformed to his image, as we get closer and closer to that point, it's almost like it's right there, you know.

Maybe that's the excitement. Paul had the dilemmas right there, ready to go, and yet the good ones seem to stay here. The closer you are, the more excited you are. I think we see that with people too. As someone gets sick and into the hospital, they gain the confidence of evangelism all of a sudden.

You know what I mean? They really start saying, I'm close, I'm gonna get busy while I'm here so that it's good for you, but I got a lot of hope wrapped up in being face-to-face with my Savior. So I'm good. Nurses don't get it. Nurses get saved in situations like that. I mean, I think Cal had quite the experience with that, if I remember being totally right about it.

Just really excited about, you know, he knew he was sick and getting closer and he was busy. He's quite busy with those folks. Goodness, we all have personal stories like that. Believers, as they get closer, just become more aware of what God's asked them maybe to be aware of all along.

Let me wrap up this concept. I'm going to skip some of these words. I think we get the idea there. There is something in this first verse that I think is worth noting. It literally says, for to me the living Christ and the dying game. It doesn't say for me to live is Christ in the original languages. Paul actually uses what's known as an ellipsis to communicate what he's saying here, but the Greek text actually has no verb. So, before Christ or before gain, it's added in as an English translation for smoother reading.

So, the way you might actually read it, I think this helps draw the positional perspective that we constantly remind ourselves of a little bit better. For to me, the living Christ. The living Christ. And the dying gain. For me, the living Christ. For to me, the living is Christ. Could be Christ. That is living. Christ is equal to living here, today. Well, that goes back to the life. Christ is the life. The living Christ. That's right. I mean, that really emphasizes it a lot. Living equals Christ.

Dying equals gain. All of Paul's life is summed up in Christ. Dying would be nothing but gain, since there would be no drawbacks to being personally and eternally with Christ Jesus face-to-face. And I put dying in red, but it should be a darker green. You know what I mean? It really should. So living equals Christ. What do you think about life? I think it's all about the person of Christ. That's the perspective of living. What do you think about dying?

Just to be face to face with Christ. It's just a variation of the same answer. And it's better. Paul believed that. But while he was here, on this planet, he was living, not by our own seeking to identify with him, but by God having identified each believer with Christ in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seeding.

We don't identify with him, but God has identified us with him. That's our identity. God gave us our new identity. We don't acquire that identity. It was given. It was a gift. So living with the identity that we have in our position today was a gift of Christ. And we'll behold it face to face personally even more so, that gift.

These truths are very clear in other verses here. I encourage you maybe to circle those on your notes and take some time. You've all been through them before I'm sure. These are going to draw out the living side of things. The identification perspective that we have while on this earth. And there's more, but those are a few. Living equals Christ. While living, life while on this planet is not to be by our very best efforts, but by His very life in the place of ours.

Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live. Are you actually living? No, living equals Christ. Does living equal you? You're not living. Christ is doing the living. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. This life I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The only thing I'm lacking is seeing him face-to-face and the removal of the sin nature.

Those are the two things, and with that comes the flesh, the literal temple tent that we dwell in. There's a whole lot. It's far better, but at the same time, I think what you mentioned there about being that close, I think biblically we are all that close. We just have to recognize what the Bible says about us. We don't have to wait for an experience of sickness or whatever to get that close. We're already that close. Christ is our life, right now, right here.

The only thing that's separating you from being with him face to face is the ministry that he has you here for. And that's gain. I mean, that leaves an area of gain for you to be face to face with him. I've got five minutes. Buzzer is always rushing me.

The end result of dying equals gain. So Paul's view here, the central focus of his desire was certainly not the process of dying, but to be with Christ. Departing this life, though mentioned, was not so much for the sake of just leaving this earth as being with Christ. That's industry thought.

It's not that I want to get out of here. I can't stand it anymore. That's not a positional perspective on your earthly ministry. You've got a problem with your here and now life. Obviously, right now, life is not Christ, if you're thinking that way. I want to get out of here. I can't take it. I mean, you can be frustrated with sin. from a justice perspective that God has on it. I think that's biblical to dislike what the world has by way of what it offers. It's sin. It's the opposite of God. It's an enmity with God. It's an enemy. So we can take sides with God's just and holy perspective on this earth, but for us to desire to get out of here just so we can get out of here and not have to deal with the suffering and the frustrations is not what Paul had in mind.

He said, while you're here, you're a living Christ is living. Christ is doing the living. You're identifying with Him. To live is Christ. To die is gain. So there's a really good perspective. I'm not complaining about being here. I'm here for the sake of ministry. But dying, oh, that's gain. That's some good stuff right there.

It's so different. I mean, just to hear myself say it sounds sometimes awkward, especially to think about the way the world views this process. especially if you're around it a lot. It's like, wow, what a hope we have. I mean, just totally different. It's very much better. So I'm going to end it with this verse.

We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body. Why? Because it stinks to be here? No, because then we'll be present with the Lord. We'll be at home. It's a good verse. Are you homesick? doesn't mean that you should have a bad perspective or a frustrating perspective about a here and now, but it does mean you can be homesick, because that's much better, the Bible says. Thoughts? We've got two minutes. I think we've talked about what it is really to be at home with the Lord in a number of different aspects that have been mentioned today. I'm thinking in contrast to what people, unbelievers say when someone dies. Well, he's in a better place. There's a whole realm of difference between those two. What is a better place anyway? It's a homecoming. When we die, we get showered with anything about homecoming.

My mom made me, you know, my favorite pie and cooked it for us and smoked a brisket. All my friends and family were there. Yay, you're home! You can imagine what your earthly homecoming would feel like after you've been gone for some time. All the celebration that would be there.

But that was Paul's perspective, is when I go home, it's not this big party thing, it's just me and him finally face to face. Yeah, there's a lot of fellowship and a perfect unity with the entire body of Christ, yes. I'll be home with my Lord. That's where he was driving home this particular verse.

And there's others we can hang our hat on too that explain what else is marriage, supper. There's all kinds of things for the body to enjoy with their homecoming. Returning with the Lord. the reign and rule in the Millennial Kingdom, and then getting to see Him create a new heavens and a new earth, and to go into a lot of really unknown, eternal places.

But we do know who He is, and He's not going to change. So it doesn't matter what it looks like around us, it matters who we're going to be beholding continually for eternity. That's pretty cool stuff. And in that way, you know what the new heavens and new earth are going to be like to some degree. Without even any description about how all that's going to feel, and when I say feel, environmentally speaking, we do know who we're going to see, and we do know his character, and we know exactly our relationship to him for eternity. And for that reason, we know a lot about it.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much that we have these verses to put our trust, our belief in, so that we might have an eternal perspective, not only on our life, but on our death. Lord, it's very challenging to think of the suffering sometimes here as being part of what Paul identifies as fruitful labor and having a ministry effect, but that's exactly what you intend, and I just pray that We might view the life here and now as literally Christ, that you might do the living, and that as we think about being face-to-face with you, that it might warm our hearts, and that we might take by faith that it is immeasurably better than even here and now. And that is a hope that we alone have because of your loving and just merciful relationship with us. The grace that you've shown us through sharing yourself and your word with us. Thank you for that. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.