The Christian’s Greatest Goal

What is the Greatest Goal of your life?

What is the great goal of your life? We all have goals—they may not be conscious goals all the time but we have them.

For instance, in the morning I get up and brush my teeth. Why? Because I don’t want people to recoil away from me because of bad breath, I don’t want to pay dentist bills, I want my wife to kiss me. Goals.

My son Noah is working at his first job—why? He wants to buy things, save for his future, be independent. Goals.

Our life is full of them—great and small—chase down the why of the actions that you do and you’ll come to a goal that you have.

Our goals reveal what is important to us. And there is one goal exemplified in Paul’s life that all Christians should share—in fact this goal is the highest and greatest calling on your life. The stake are high.

Whether or not you pursue it is the difference between a wasted life or a rewarding life.

We are continuing our sermon series through Paul’s letter to the Philippians: Pursuing Christ Together. Our text this morning is Philippians 1:19-26. Let’s read the word together and let me remind you that this is God’s holy Word inspired by God the Holy Spirit written through men as they were guided by Him so that what was written was exactly what God intended to communicate—you can build your entire life on this true Word and we should. Hear God’s Words for you today.

Philippians 1:19–26 ESV

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.

Pray with me

Our Greatest Goal

The Christians’s greatest goal is stated here by Paul. He says, “I want Christ to be honored in my body, whether by life or death. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Paul is saying the great goal of my life is to honor Christ with my body, my life, my death, all my being—that all of it would honor Christ.

And this is exactly what Jesus says we should do.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was he responded in Matthew 22:37–38 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.”

Do you see the parallels here? Paul is echoing the words of Christ. And so should we—All of me, All for Christ.

That’s the great and lofty goal that God’s Word is calling us to this morning.

Paul is in prison and chains and the great goal of his life is not escape, it’s not comfort, it’s that all of his life would honor Christ—even though he faces potential death, this is his goal.

Why? Because Christ is worthy of the devotion of our lives.

Colossians 1:15–16 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.”

Hebrews 1:3–4 “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.”

Revelation 5:12 “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!””

All of scripture points to Jesus and says, “Come and see the glory of God’s love and grace.”

Paul knows this to be true and He can see it clearly—so his great goal is All of Him, All for Christ.

Friends, if you have put your hope and faith in Jesus as the atoning sacrifice for your sins and your savior then you know it too. Christ is the great savior and redeemer of your soul and He is worthy of your life.

The one who has been so devoted to save you is worthy of the devotion of your life.

But we also know that often times we give that devotion to other things.

We often chase lesser goals. We chase goals we can accomplish on our own—that require little faith.

Or we chase goals that have us at the center of them—where the accomplishment of the goal magnifies ourselves.

But God has called you to something more grand. All of you, all for Christ.

What God delights to use is a willing heart—so if this is intimidating or feels too weighty be encouraged and know that God uses a trembling, sincere prayer that says: “Yes Lord, I’m afraid, but use me. Let my life honor You.”

And here’s the good news—He doesn’t call you because you’re impressive. He doesn’t need the strongest or the most gifted. He calls the weak, and then He makes them strong in Him.

Every story in the Bible of someone doing something great for God—every story throughout church history of someone being greatly used by God—is the same story at it’s core—a man or a woman leans into honoring Christ and trusts God to use them to glorify God.

So we don’t have to have everything figured out—we just have to take the steps in front of us. As we keep looking at our passage this morning we see a couple of ways that we can honor Christ starting right now…first….

Be Burdened For Each Other

Paul says, in verse 19, “I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ that this situation I’m in will turn out for my deliverance.”

The Philippian believers were burdened for Paul. They prayed for him, they sent Epaphroditus to Paul, they wanted to hear from him—they were joyfully burdened with a love for Paul.

Honoring Christ with our lives means loving those that He loves. And Christ loves and cares deeply about His people.

This is what Jesus says to Peter after Peter had denied him 3 times and Christ had risen from dead—He is restoring Peter and He says, “Do you love me? Feed my lambs. Do you love me? Tend my sheep. Do you love me? Feed my sheep.”

Peter if you love me, love my people. Be burdened with a love for my people.

What does that mean? A burden is a weight we feel.

if you didn’t know, I’m interested in hiking—particularly I’m interested in long distance hikes—The Appalachian Trail, The Pacific Crest Trail, The Continental Divide—all of these are between 2,000 and 3,000 miles long. And a thru hike is when you tackle one of these trails all the way through from start to finish—it takes months. And when you are hiking day after day with everything you need on your back how, much things weigh becomes very important to you.

There is a whole industry built around offering the lightest and strongest hiking equipment. Hikers will brag about how little they carry—and will constantly be working on reducing the weight that they have to carry. The ethos of long distance hiking is everyone carries their own weight.

But then a sherpa moment happens. Someone gets injured, or exhausted and they need help. So a hiker will bear the weight of their pack for them and bear their burden for their good—to help them along.

And I think this is a beautiful picture of the gospel life.

When we truly love people we are glad to feel the weight of them in our lives.

Christ bore the weight of His love for us on the cross.

All true love is burdensome—when someone matters to us we feel it.

A life free from the burden of others is an empty life indeed—and for the Christian it is a life wholly unlike their savior’s.

If we want to be like Christ and honor Christ then we will allow people to take up space in our lives. We will bear a burden of love for them.

So one way we can work on honoring Christ with our lives is to serve each other joyfully and have a weighty love for one another.

Also, our passage shows us that honoring Christ means…

Drowning Out the Noise

Paul says in verse 20 that it is his “eager expectation and hope…that Christ will be honored in his body”.

Paul is looking forward to and hoping that he will honor Christ in his present circumstances no matter how they turn out.

The Greek word translated into “eager expectation” in the ESV is the word, “ἀποκαραδοκίαν” (apo-kara-dokian) and this word is a compound word of a couple of Greek words. καρα means head and δοκία means thinking. So It’s a thinking towards something, and the picture is like someone sticking their neck out and leaning toward something. So it’s an eager expectation. Like if someone is offering you a bit of something really delicious.

But the Greek here means more than just looking forward to something.

ἀπο at the beginning of the word means away from—so the full picture is turning away from one thing to strive toward another.

If we want to honor Christ we have to turn away from the world and turn toward Christ.

I’m kind of preaching to the choir here but I’m blown away with how much life has changed since I was a kid.

My generation was the last generation before the internet. I remember what life was like before everything became connected. Before everything was so fast. Before all the quiet places in life disappeared.

Today there are a million different voices coming from a million different directions and they are all demanding your attention.

And while it is easier than ever to be informed. It is also easier than ever for us to be burned out, overwhelmed, and distracted.

There is one voice in our lives that is more important than all others.

Psalm 1:1–2 “Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.”

How many times—I’m not gonna do a show of hands—but how many times have you gotten through a whole day without spending time with God through His word or spending time with God in prayer?

It’s not because we don’t have time. So what is it?

When we first moved to Virginia I was working part time as a substitute teacher while I was pastoring. It was a good way to be in the community and I pretty much exclusively subbed in high-school classes. But one day I decided to take a day subbing for a kindergarten teacher’s class.

Do we have any former kindergarten teachers here? Bless your heart—ya’ll should get discounts like soldiers do.

Do you know what the hardest part of that day was for me? It was the overwhelming amount of stimulus—from every direction someone was vying for my attention.

And at the end of that day I didn’t want to talk to anyone, or see anyone, or do anything. I was exhausted.

Many of us feel that way towards God— we are so overwhelmed by everything else pulling our attention that going to God in his Word or through prayer just feels like too much.

And that’s a real problem because only Jesus is true water when you’re thirsty, only Jesus is true bread for the hungry soul, in Jesus is true wisdom for your life. Only Jesus can teach you to walk in His ways—he’s the true teacher for our hearts and minds.

Everything else offers counterfeit sustenance—all this entertainment, and news, and video shorts offer us sustenance but they really just leave us tired, and hungry, and thirsty and overwhelmed.

So what do we do? Paul had an eager expectation that he would honor Christ with his life. He turned away from the things that would keep him from striving toward this goal.

And that’s what we have to do too—we have to drown out the noise that’s distracting us from Christ.

We have to make protected spaces in our lives that are for God. In the morning I want to read my Bible—so I don’t touch my phone. Because if I do then it can easily eat up all the time I have that morning to be in God’s Word and to pray.

What about in your life? What things do you need to turn away from in order to turn toward God? What would leaning forward in eager expectation look like for you? If you don’t know ask Him to show you.

And then aggressively get rid of the things that are drowning out of the voice of God in our life.

I’m serious—Jesus is serious—Jesus said if something is causing you to sin get rid of it—if your hand causes you to sin cut it off, if your eye causes you to sin tear it out—what’s the point? What’s he saying?

Show no mercy to those things that get between you and God!

If we are going to honor Christ we have to seek His voice. Also,

Make Christ Your Greatest Love

Let’s read the rest of verse 20 through to verse 23.

Philippians 1:20–23 “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.”

For Paul the greatest thing he could think of was to go and be with Christ. The best outcome was that he would be put to death and go and be with the God he loves.

It’s all over these verses. Paul says, I want to honor Christ with courage in my body and not be ashamed.

And this is really revealing…what we are ashamed of reveals what we love.

A person might be ashamed of their child acting up in public because they love to be seen as respected and in control.

A person might be ashamed of the job they work because they want to be seen as successful and important.

Shame often unmasks the functional gods of our hearts. It shows us whether we love Christ most—or whether we’re treasuring respect, success, control or something else above God.

Paul would have been ashamed to not honor Christ because he loved Christ more than anything else. Christ was more important than his status, his freedom, his comfort, even his life.

Do you know that? Do you believe that Christ is better than everything else?

I hope Jesus comes back before I finish this sentence—look it’s natural to look forward to things in life. God is a good Father who gives good gifts to his children. Marriage is a good gift, children are a good gift, there are many good gifts in this life but none of them are better than the gift giver himself.

The greatest gift any of us receive in salvation isn’t that we are saved from the judgement our sin earns us—I mean that is pretty good—but the greatest gift you get as a child of God…is God!

In Christ, we are God’s and He is ours and we can truly know Him. God says so all over the scriptures, repeated again and again—You are my people and I am your God—you are my children and I am your Father. You matter to me and I love you.

God’s love for us is seen in the Son—in Jesus the love of God shouts to us—though your sin seeks to condemn you I have overcome it, nailing it to the cross—if you want to see how much your God loves you look into the face of Christ.

See Him and see God’s love for you—and in turn love Him back with your life.

If we want make honoring Christ our greatest goal then we must make Him our greatest love.

So we honor Christ by embracing a burden of love for each other, by drowning out the noise competing with God’s voice and by loving Christ more than anything else.

That’s how we pursue making all of us all for Christ.

But before we close this morning our text also gives us a warning. Here it is…

Honoring Christ with your life is not safe.

Loving Christ is a bid to come and die like he did.

The pursuit of honoring Christ with your life is a march toward self-denial and being radically others-focused.

Christ Jesus, was radically others focused—he preached, loved, healed, admonished the crowds—he poured himself out for them and when he was tired and tried to retreat they followed Him.

And what did Jesus do—he looked at them as sheep without a shepherd and felt compassion for them and served them over Himself.

The King served his subjects.

Paul, in pursuit of honoring Christ did the same thing—look at the last verses of our passage this morning.

Paul has already said, “It would be better for me to go and be with Christ—that would be gain—FOR ME!” And then he says,

Philippians 1:24–26 “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.”

When we love Christ we desire to draw near to Him and go and be where He is—and this will not be safe for you. It will challenge your comfort, it will call you to put others first. It will call you to care for the lost and the hurting—and this will, it absolutely will get in the way of your plans for your life.

Honoring Christ with your life—offering all of you all for Christ will cost you but church I can confidently say that it is absolutely worth it and the best investment you can make with your life.

Church, one day soon we will see Christ face to face. On that day you won’t wish you had played it safer, lived more comfortably, or loved yourself more. You will wish you had given more of yourself to Christ. So let’s not wait for that day—let’s live like it now. All of us, all for Christ—until our faith becomes sight.

Pray with me.