Fanatic

What Makes Life Worth Living?

What is life? Sitting down with a bowl of popcorn, watching Willow the Nelwyn save a baby, with the help of Val Kilmer and a couple fairies. Sitting there, Drew and Ella taking it all in for the first time, Logan, Arabelle and Dylan quoting favorite lines, that’s some good life.

I remember Pastor Rod, as I was just starting to date Karen, he asked me: Does she make life just a little bit better?

I said “yes, yes she does.”

He said, for me… that’s football :D.

What is life? Life is also watching a great movie with my wife, the whole family sprawled around us on the couch. Maybe with a glass of wine in hand.

Life is making someone laugh. What is life to you? What are the moments that make life worth living? That turn strife and struggle into pure joy?

What if you take all that away? What would keep you going?

Today we talk about fanaticism, crazy passion to the point of insanity, an absolute focus on one thing on one dimension of life.

Paul is in Rome on house arrest… and Paul has gone crazy!

We return to the book of Philippians and, over the next few weeks, we can see Paul’s descent into madness.

Paul writes to reassure the Philippians that, even though he is in jail (or house arrest), even though they stopped his mission trips and took away his pulpit, even though he could very well be sentenced to death in the upcoming trial: everything is awesome!

Everything is Awesome

Paul planted so many churches across Western Asia, spent years teaching to some of these churches, pastoring them in person and in letters from afar. Now that people have heard he is incarcerated, they are getting bold to speak out. Some are inspired by his example, but some are motivated by envy, to try and steal Paul’s influence and authority, his mantle, his pulpit.

But Paul’s not mad.

Philippians 1:15–18 ESV

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice,

All he seems to care about is that Christ is proclaimed. Christ is glorified. The gospel is preached.

He is hopeful he will get out… but this is crazy town, he can’t seem to decide which he would prefer, to be let out and enjoy everything life has to offer or to die.

Philippians 1:19–21 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.

That is such a bumper sticker. Is that true?

The “die is gain” part. I get that. If you are a “believer” that is true for you. To die is to be made whole, made clean, present with Christ and all who believe on his name, eternity and paradise. “To die is gain.” Do you believe that? You take all that is good about life, all that you will miss. My wife and kids, my favorite games, my favorite movies, sunsets and mountain views, campfires, all of that good, all of that great… and you pile it up on one side.

On the other side is eternal life with Jesus… and Paul says even with all that over here, to die is gain. Immeasurably more, in fact. The only reason we get confused about that is because we lack vision, or imagination. For the Christian, to die is gain.

When I explained heaven to my kids for the first time, they get that immediately. That sounds awesome: let’s go. And as we come to love and trust our Savior and Creator more and more… and as we see more of the brokenness of this world, our heart longs more and more for all to be made new and to see our Savior’s face. To die is gain!

I want to focus in on the other piece of this, though. This struck me so powerfully this week. For die is gain… but to live is Christ.

To live is Christ?

To live is good. To live is fun. To live is my responsibility, to take care of my children. To do my work and to do it well. My kids are counting on me, my wife is counting on me, my church is counting on me.

But to live is Christ? Was Paul’s life truly such that every meaningful or important or good thing in his life could be summed up this way: to live is Christ?

He helps explain it in the following verse.

Philippians 1:21–22 ESV

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.

It isn’t just that the thing Paul loved most in life was living for Christ. That’s in there. But we also hear about Paul loving the fellowship with close friends, with believers… I imagine he still enjoyed a good meal, a good night’s sleep.

To live is Christ means something specific. He connects it to this idea: “that means fruitful labor for me.”

Fruit… with a harvest… it produces.

“Fruitful labor” is labor for the gospel, for the sake of Christ. Not “meaningful employment” in some generic sense. To live is Christ as in Christ is glorified and his gospel is made known through every moment of Paul’s life.

And it isn’t just that he’s trying… he sees the fruit of it too. He sees that he is valuable, that God is using him fruitfully in Rome, through his letters to the churches, “on your account” he says, he knows he is valuable, fruitful in ministry to the Philippians.

Paul sees that Jesus is using him… and seems to say that’s his favorite thing. That is the thing that makes life worth living, that makes him excited, glad, ready, eager to live another day on house arrest. This is fanaticism for the name of Jesus: to live is Christ.

And he writes to the Philippians to reassure them… but also to hold himself up as a model of what following Christ looks like… and then he kind of makes it worse:

Philippians 1:27–28 ESV

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.

Paul says “live your life” or “be a citizen” worthy (weighing the same as, a credit to, worth the same as) the gospel of Christ.

But we’ve just seen how much he thinks the “gospel of Christ” is worth. This sounds like an absolutely impossible standard! Not only is the gospel elevated to such and extreme that it is the only thing worth living for… then I am supposed to what? fake being that good? Rise to those heights? Pretend that I’m perfect?

To be “worthy of the gospel”… that’s a CRAZY high bar.

Worthy? Weighing as much as. Here’s the gospel, here is my “manner of life.”

What is the gospel? That Christ died for a sinner like me, that He paid my price, He bought my ransom, and I am saved by grace alone, not because I am worthy but because He is worthy, not because I am righteous but because He was righteous. The gospel itself declares I am worthy! So is that a crazy high bar? Yes! Is that what the gospel is and what it declares me to be? Yes.

So “live in a manner worthy of the gospel” is not to say “pretend you are perfect” but to say “live out the gospel.” Be who you are. Be who you are.

Live it, love it, embrace it, believe it, stand on it, soak in it. As he will say in the next chapter “work out your salvation with fear and trembling...” humbly allowing the gospel to truth to soak and pervade every moment and every aspect of your life. That is transformative, that is what changes you.

That is what can transform your chains into another chance to tell your story.

That is what can transform your envy of other people’s success into praise for the name of Christ.

It is the gospel that makes you worthy… you just get the impossible privilege of walking in what God has already done and is doing in you.

As Jono taught us last week, we are privileged people who have unprecedented constant indwelling access to the manifest presence of God. The Holy Spirit in us. God is already with you working this out in you.

Paul says:

Philippians 1:6 ESV

And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

He, God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ… He is accomplishing that in you. The gospel being worked out in you.

Paul’s prayer for the church, what did he want for them?

Philippians 1:9–10 ESV

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,

I love this because some here hear that kind of radicalism, that kind of obsession with the gospel… and don’t even want that. It sounds extreme and maybe even unbalanced.

But as our love abounds more and more… our hearts become attuned to His heart… and we discover within us the desire for more love, for more Christ, for more gospel. As we gain knowledge we learn Truth… and we discover that anything that is True in any meaningful sense is found only in Christ. And as we gain discernment we are able to truly piece out and understand what is of Christ and what is not, what is life giving and what is not.

If the universe is made through Christ, by Him and for Him… then quite literally to live is Christ and the only living there is to be done now and in eternity is in Him.

Paul had a hold of this profound truth and it transformed everything he experienced.

Paul prayed that the people in Philippi would discover that. More knowledge, more discernment, minds and hearts changing such that they see it, they see what is excellent.

How do we get there?

That’s okay if we are not there today. That’s honest. The gospel drives out all guilt and shame, it takes and transforms us where we are at. Paul isn’t bragging here in Philippians, he is encouraging people he loves and who love him. He is, in the rest of this chapter, giving them ways to help and not hinder the work Christ is doing in them. He calls them to follow his example, even as he continues to chase after Jesus.

The answer to that kind of life transformation is never more guilt-induced trying… it is more gospel. It is more Jesus.

So we become people on the lookout for Christ in our lives. Whatever piece of life we enjoy, if we find the Christ in it, we have found the truth, the heart, the center of it.

If my time with my kids, with my wife, is that Christ centric? Then I have found it’s truest center, it’s true life. And when God is glorified in my parenting and in my marriage… maybe even in our games, that is life abundant.

I love this quote from John Piper, something he calls “Christian Hedonism.”

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

We had such a beautiful example of this in Pastor Rod. In the last several years of his life, this verse was a constant touch point for him. On the one hand, he was ready to go, excited to meet his Savior face to face. On the other, he could see (some) how much good God was doing through him for his kids, his grandkids, his church, all of you.

If you asked him what made life good: he would say football.

But his life said Christ.

He could see, he knew that God was using him in powerful ways in our lives. Fruitful ministry. What an incredibly beautiful thing.

To live is Christ… that is the truth written at the foundation of our universe. We can grasp it, we can live in light of it, or we can miss it… but it doesn’t stop being true.

This is the bold claim of Christianity: that the purpose of your existence is to glorify God. Specifically the name of and the glory of Jesus Christ. And there can be no greater fulfillment than fulfilling the purpose for which He has made you. You will never be more fulfilled than that.

Fruitful ministry. Ministry that bears results, results of love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. Ministry that leads people to seek and find Jesus Himself, God Himself.

Ministry inside and SO MUCH outside these walls. I think the biggest piece of “Divine Dissatisfaction” that God has laid upon our church is that we desperately desire have FRUITFUL ministry, to be able to see “I see that God is using me, effectively, powerfully… To live is Christ.”

As we seek and consider God’s will for our lives, individually, as families, as a church… we can find no answer bigger or better than the gospel of Christ. If it isn’t under the name of Christ… it is wrong. If our future doesn’t glorify Jesus, then it simply isn’t.

So, it is my prayer that our love may abound more and more.

With knowledge and discernment,

so that we may approve, so that we may desire, so that we may long after and chase after what is excellent...

and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ… because He has declared us and made us pure and blameless.

Let’s live for Christ. Amen.