Topic: To Live Is _________...
Every single person has a philosophy of life. They have something that gets them out of bed in the morning. They have a center of gravity, a sun around which the planets of their life revolve. We all fill in the blank in the sentence: "For me, to live is ___."
Paul in writing the letter of Philippians provides a life motivation theme that shatters every earthly-minded paradigm. The apostle Paul was not writing from a position of comfort, but from the harsh reality of a Roman prison. From this place of uncertainty, Paul does not write a letter of despair. He does not complain. Instead, he pens a love letter to his dear partners in the gospel, the church at Philippi, and he makes one of the most powerful declarations in all of Scripture. He boils down his entire existence, his past, his present and his future, into ten simple words: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." This is not a clever motto. It is the spiritual DNA of a mature believer. It is the secret to joy in sorrow, peace in turmoil and courage in the face of death.
For Paul, Christ wasn't just the start of his life; He was the very substance of it. Christ was the operating system that ran every program. He was the theme of the book, found on every single page. This is a radical idea. It means that Christ is not meant to be one part of our life. He is not just our "Sunday life." He is our Monday-morning-stuck-in-traffic life. He is our Tuesday-afternoon-dealing-with-a-difficult-client life. He is our Friday-night-deciding-what-entertainment-to-watch life. He is our handling-of-finances life, our raising-our-children life, our forgiving-those-who-hurt-us life.
If Christ is the source and substance of our life, it logically follows that He must also be the goal.
Paul's ambition was not to build a great reputation for himself, but to magnify the reputation of Christ. He says it in the preceding verse (20), "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.”
Paul is saying, my one goal is that when people look through my life, they see the true, magnificent greatness of Jesus. Whether he lives or dies, the goal is the same: make Christ look great. That is the supreme ambition of the Christian.
Do not settle for a compartmentalized faith. This week, pick one area of your life—your finances, your relationships, your free time—and consciously ask, "How can I make Christ the source, substance and goal of this area?" Let this verse be the anchor for your soul in the storms of life.
Next week I will write about the second part of the verse, “…to die is gain.’
See you Sunday,
Dr. Scott Kallem