Declarations of Faith

Introduction:

By the time the apostle Paul wrote this letter to the phillippians he was in prison.

Previously he had been beaten with rods on three seperate occassions, whipped 39 times on 5 seperate occassions, he had been stoned and left for dead , shipwrecked three times, he suffered hunger and rejection and on it goes.

So by the time we come to read his letter we would expect to find a broken man explaining to the church why he cannot go on any longer and why he is leaving the ministry.

we would expect to read that he has had enough and the he is hanging up his gloves as it were and leaving the life of an apostle behind for a quite life in the country.

but instead we find a man full of faith who knows in whom he has believed and he is sure that He is good and in control.

instead of reading ‘i feel like God has given up on me’ we read in verse 19 ‘I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance,’

instead of reading the words i have done my best and i cannot go on any longer, we read the words ‘to live is Christ and to die is gain.’ in verse 21

and instead of writing there is no purpose to any of our suffering instead he assures them of God’s sovereignty as he writes in verse 29

‘For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,’

We are so used to reading these statments that we forget the magnitude of them especially when we consider the context of the apostle Paul’s life and all that had happened to him.

and so we are going to look at these three statments which we could call declarations of faith and learn what God has to teach us through them

and by His grace hopefully whatever we have been through or are going through or will go through we will walk by faith and not by sight and give our all for the glory and honour of Jesus.

Maybe your listening this morning and you feel like you have gone 9 rounds with Mike Tyson in your Christian life and you can’t bare the thought of a tenth

and you’re ready to throw the towel in this morning and surely the message to us is press on and keep fighting the good fight because Jesus is worth it all.

God is our Deliverer (v.19)

The first thing we learn then is that God is our deliverer. and this is from Paul’s declaration in verse 19.

which says ‘for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance’

Though Paul was in prison and he had gone tough times yet he knew that God would bring about his deliverance and what’s more he knew that God would use their prayers to acheive this.

most people would be tempted to question God’s ability to answer prayer after going through what Paul went through and yet he assures the church in Phillipi that God is going hear their prayers for him.

We find that Paul says something similar in second corinthians chapter 1 when he writes ‘For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.’

Clearly God works by prayer for the deliverance of His people.

but not only will God work through their prayers but He will also work by His Spirit, He comforts us, He helps us in our weakness, He empowers us, He convicts the world of sin, He intercedes for us and He guides us.

and so in Paul’s statment in verse 19 we find a prime example of walking by faith and not by sight, against all the odds Paul knows that God will deliver Him and He did as we read at the end of the book of Acts

He was released from prison and dwelt in his own house rented house in Rome before his eventual martyrdom.

So what we see here is a faith in not only God’s ability to deliver His people but also His willingness.

This is the mentality we are to have as we live the Christian life, not only can God interevene in my situation but He is also willing to.

now this isn’t to say that God is not sovereign and that He does not have a purpose in our suffering because He does and even our suffering is for our eternal good as we will go onto see

but it is to say that God is good and both able and willing to work in our lives and situations and it is this truth that we are to hold onto at all costs as we walk with God day by day

no matter what happens in our Christians lifes we are to say along with Paul ‘I know that through your prayers and by the Spirit of Christ, this will work out for my delirance’

and whatever happens we are to trust God’s goodness and wisdom.

Illustration:

We are to be like the three Hebrew young men the book of Daniel chapter 3, who had been torn away from their homeland and their families and they made to serve the king of Babylon.

They were then pressurised to bow down and worship a golden statue of the king but they refused to bow down and worship the idol and so they were threatened with being burnt to death in a firery furnace

and yet they were full of faith and replied  ‘If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.’

they had faith that God could and would deliver them even against all odds and yet if it pleased God not to then still they would trust Him and not worship false gods.

Application:

And so no matter what we are facing may we never forget these things in our lives.

firstly, God answers prayer and so may we pray for ourselves and others and seek their prayers on our behalf knowing that God is a prayer answering God.

secondly if we are in Christ this morning then God’s Spirit dwells in us and He is at work in us and in our situation and so may we trust God and rely upon His strength and not our own.

and thirdly may we always remember that through these means, at any time and against all odds God can bring about our deliverance.

whether we are struggling with home life or people at school or work are giving us a hard time because of our faith.

maybe you are really struggling with temptation or a particular sin that you hate and long to be rid off

or maybe you feel trapped in your current circumstances whatever they may be

through prayer and God working by His Spirit may we say God can and will deliver me and if not still I will trust Him.

but what ever happens may we never forget that if we are trusting in Jesus this morning then we have already been delivered haven’t we.

We have been delivered from sins dominion and condemnation, from hell and the wrath of God

and we have brought into God’s kingdom, adopted in His family and saved for all eternity.

and so may we rejoice in this full deliverance God has already wrought for His people.

but if you are here this morning and you haven’t yet experienced this wonderful salvation through Jesus, then being delivered from a tough situation or a difficult time

is the least of your worries, it’s like seeking bongela for a mouth ulcer when you have a gaping gun wound to your chest.

I exhort you to make it your priority to seek Jesus and the salvation that He alone can offer before you worry any further about your temporal problems.

point 2: Christ is our life and death is gain.

Secondly then we see that Christ is to be our life and death is gain.

The Apostle Paul goes on to say another statement which we read so often and yet i wonder how often we realise it’s implications for our own lives.

Paul says in verse 20 that his hope and expectation is that he will not be ashamed but rather that both in life and death Christ will be honoured in his body and

then he says these familiar words in verse 21 ‘For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’

Here we find a man who is totally surrendered to the Lord Jesus and lives for His glory and honour alone.

remember he is currently writing from prison which we see in verse 7 of this chapter, he has been so beaten for the cause of Christ that elsewhere he could write ‘I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.’

and at times it was so bad that he could write that ‘I despaired of life itself’

and yet instead of saying I’ve had enough of living for Jesus, the Christian life is too hard, I never signed up for this

instead he says to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Everything he did in life was for Jesus, it was all centred around him and he had given everything for Him.

Christ was his life, so much so that in chapter 3 of this letter, after listing everything he once held dear he says I count them as rubbish for the sake of Christ.

this is seen in no better way than in Acts 21 when it had been prophesied that he was going to suffer in Jerusalem and the Christians who knew him and loved him were crying

And Paul responded in verse 13 saying ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’

and the reason Paul could say this was because of the truth contained in the second part of this verse.

To die is gain.

Paul goes on to explain what this means in the following verses as he explains, he desires to depart and be with Christ which is far better.

Paul knew that as soon as death came he would be in Jesus’s immediate presence which is true of every Christian when they die, they go to be with Jesus.

Which is why death is gain because it is through death that they enter into their reward and dwell with God for all eternity.

which is the greatest incentive for the first part of the statement, to live is Christ because we are to live for eternity.

and whats the worst that can result from a life that is all out for Jesus? well someone may persecute you to death, that is the worst that can happen and yet death is gain.

which is why Jesus is worth our everything, it makes sense to say to live is Christ and to live like it because when we are in Christ, death is gain.

the worst thing that could ever happen which is death amazingly becomes the best that could ever happen to us as it is the door way to Jesus’s immediate presense.

The one we have lived for all our Christian lives.

Ignatius who according to tradtion died as a martyr in the early second century once said ‘Neither the ends of the earth nor the kingdoms of this age will be of benefit to me. It is better for me to die in Christ Jesus than to reign over the ends of the earth. I seek that one who died on my behalf. I desire that one who rose up on our account.’

may we have this outlook ourselves, to desire nothing but Christ and to know that when death comes it will be worth it all becasue we will be with Him for ever.

The Puritan John Flavel is surely correct when he once wrote ‘every Christain must be a martyr, atleast in disposition and resolution of heart’

in other words though it is highly likely none of us here this morning would ever die as Martyrs yet in our hearts we must be both martys and willing to be one if the time ever came

and that is because this verse should be the theme of our lives ‘to live is Christ and to die is gain’

I was listening to a pastor the other day who pastored a church in the Middle east, speaking about dying for the gospel

and he shared about his conversation with a recent convert who expressed to him that she knew she was going to suffer and he assured her that it was worth it and she responded by saying I know.

He goes on to say that the gospel is worth dying for, it is better to know Jesus and die a few weeks later and to meet him before the throne forgiven and he finishes by saying

‘I mean do we really believe this stuff’. meaning if we truly believed what we read in our Bible’s then of course we would willingly suffer for the gospel.

Jesus is worth living for and Jesus is worth dying for.

and so though me may never be a martyr physically we must be one in our disposition and resolution of our hearts.

This is wonderfully illustrated in a story of persecuted pastor and his wife in Rumania I believe, during communist oppression.

Their son who was now an adult was sharing about his mothers fearless faith and he shared how they went to visit their dad one day who was in a prison camp for being a pastor

and they sat and waited and waited until eventually they saw some soldiers carying a skeleton of a man in a blanket and dumped him in the table in front of them.

he had be so mistreated that they could barely recognise him, before the time was up the boys mother, the pastors wife tried to sneak him a pocket New Testament

and one of the soldiers seeing it ran over and snatched it out of the mans hand and began to shout in the ladies face asking ‘if she was crazy and that he could have her killled and her son killed and her husband killed’

and then all of a sudden this small skinny woman stood up and said to the soldier you may take our lives but you may never seperate us from the love of God.

Application:

I wonder is this our outlook to live is Christ and to die is gain or is it to live is self and to die is loss.

when we are out with our friends and they are getting drunk, do we say to live is Christ and to die is gain, or do we choose to live for ourselves and get drunk for fear of being uncool.

maybe you have suffered immensly and you are tempted to become bitter towards God and blame Him.

Intead we should we say to live is Christ and to die is gain and trust God with our suffering, and instead of it seperating us from God may it draw us to Him in love and worship.

may we not argue for our rights to comfort forgetting that Jesus suffered immeasurable discomfort so that we could be comfortable for all eternity.

when we are forsaken by our friends and family, our school peers and work colleauges because of our Christian faith do we say to live is Christ and to die is gain

or do we down play our Christian faith and become sunday Christians just so we can be liked by the world.

Instead may we all by God’s grace resolve in our hearts to be martys and to die daily to self, sin and the world as we seek to live whole heartedly for Christ knowing that when death comes there will be immeasurable gain all to the glory of God.

Point 3: God is in control

So we have seen two of Paul’s amazing faith statements which are found in this passage, the first in verse 19 God is our deliverer,

and then the second in verse 21 Jesus is worth both living and dying for

and now finally we see Paul say something just as amazing in verse 29 which says ‘For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake, ‘

and now what is amazing about this verse is that it presents a big view of God as one who is soveriegn not only in our salvation but also in our suffering.

what Paul is saying to us is that God is in control.

These philippian believers were being persecuted just as Paul was as we see in verse 30 where he says they are engaged in the conflict as he is.

and this is further confirmed by 1 thes 2:2 where Paul says that he has suffered and been shamefully treated at Philippi

and yet Paul does not say God has saved you but this suffering is not part of His will, instead he says God has granted that you not only believe in Jesus but that you also suffer for His sake.

their family rejecting them, their neighbours attacking them, their bosses sacking them. All of it has been permitted by God for their good and His glory.

surely it is the greatest priveldge to suffer for the name of Christ,

which is just what we see expressed in the book of acts when some of the apostles were beaten for preaching the gospel they rejoiced because they had been able to suffer for the name of Jesus.

but surely this principle of God being in control of His peoples suffering can be applied not only to persecution for their faith but to all suffering.

Romans 8:28 says that ‘God works all things together for the good of those who love Him’

and so surely within that little word all includes everything that happens in our lives.

and so what we are seeing from this passage this morning is that God is in control of both the good and bad in our lives

and the bad is not a sign that God has forsaken us but rather it’s because He is our Father, as Hebrews 12 tells us and the testing of our faith is precious as Peter tells us in his first epistle.

and so when we realised what this verse is telling us we should be driven trust God in complete surrender to Him.

He is directing all things according to His purposes and we know if we are Christians this morning that He loves us and that He is doing it for our good.

and our response is to be trust both in God’s soveriegnty and in His ability and willingness to interevene in our individual situations

and along side with this we are to live whole heartedely for Jesus, accepting death instead of ever renouncing Him.

and so when we are tempted to do anything other than to whole heartedly live for Jesus

May we have the same resolve as the 40 martyrs who were martyed by emperor valens but before they gave their lives for Jesus.

he tempted them to renounce their faith for honour and riches and one of them replied saying ‘why do you offer these trifles to us? do you not know that the world is despised by us’

in other words why do you offer us these worthless things, don’t you know the do not live for the things of this world but for Jesus.

may we live for Jesus alone.

lets pray.