http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14941683/the-unwelcome-gift-of-suffering
In a season that focuses on gifts, I often overlook one of the most priceless ones. It’s a gift I’ve dreaded, refused, and longed to give back, but it has been invaluable in shaping me and drawing me to Jesus. It’s the unwelcome gift of suffering.
Suffering does not seem like a good gift. Job’s friends saw it as punishment for an unrighteous life. Most people, including me, avoid it whenever possible. Even thinking about it can fill me with a sense of fear.
Yet the Bible shows us that suffering is an intentional gift. Though we are never told to seek it out, we can know, if we are in Christ, that God gives us suffering for our good.
Comfort Can Make Us Forget
God used the wilderness to shape the wandering children of Israel, so they would learn to trust him for all their needs and live by his word (Deuteronomy 8:3). In the wilderness, God’s presence was unmistakable; his direction, clear. He provided for the Israelites what they could not provide for themselves and fulfilled all his promises to them (Joshua 23:14).
God wanted his people to remember how he delivered them in those difficult days — he knew how important the wilderness was to their faith. He wanted them to remember his tender care, and he knew that when they were prosperous, they would be tempted to forget him. They would assume they could provide for themselves and would turn away. So he says through Moses,
Take care lest you forget the Lord your God . . . lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God . . . who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware lest you say in your heart, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” (Deuteronomy 8:11–17)
In essence, God told them that in times of plenty and abundance, they needed to reflect on past times of struggle and remember how he met them in it. The great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and thirsty ground was the place they learned of his faithfulness and provision.
This is the opposite perspective of the world, which urges us to look back and focus on the good times and to work for future success and comfort. But God knows the gifts of success and comfort are temporal, only to be enjoyed while we have them. Apart from God, they don’t foster lasting joy and often lead to bitterness when they are taken away.
Where Great Prayers Were Prayed
God never promised to give us thriving ministries, perfect marriages, obedient children, healthy bodies, comfortable bank accounts, or protection from painful trials. But he has promised to be with us in trouble, which can be a greater blessing than the absence of trouble.
“God has promised to be with us in trouble, which is a far greater blessing than the absence of trouble.”
His presence feels nearer. His embrace tighter. And when the trial is removed, we have a deeper faith, rooted in God’s character and love. Just looking back at God’s faithfulness in trials anchors us. The memory of the presence of God in our pain is enough to make us love Jesus more, long for heaven, and fall to our knees in gratitude.
Joseph Parker, a British pastor in the mid-1800s, speaks of the value of the great and terrible wilderness. He says, “The ‘great and terrible wilderness’ was the place where our great prayers were prayed. . . . You do not know what you said in that long night of wilderness and solitude; the words were taken down; if you could read them now, you would be surprised at their depth, richness, and unction. You owe your very life to the wilderness which made you afraid” (The People’s Bible, 80).
Suffering Deepened My Faith
I owe the depth of my faith and my love for Christ to the wilderness that made me afraid. I learned to lament, to press into God, to depend on him completely in the wilderness. I don’t remember what I cried out to God in the dark, but I do remember that God answered with himself.
“I owe the depth of my faith and my love for Christ to the wilderness that made me afraid.”
Friends were around me, but no one could touch the deepest parts of my pain. I couldn’t even articulate how I felt. The emotions often seemed bigger than I was. It was in crying out, in throwing myself on his mercy, and in praying desperate prayers, that I met God most intimately. He knows that our experience of him and his unmistakable provision in suffering can mark and ground our faith. If we truly are comforted by God in our pain, we likely will never forget it.
That is why suffering is a gift. Not the suffering itself, but the turning to God in suffering, because that is where we encounter him. The greater the pain, the closer God comes. And the closer he comes, the more joy he offers. In his presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11), and he offers joy for those he chooses to bring near (Psalm 65:4). This otherworldly, counterintuitive, overflowing joy assures us that heaven is real, God is good, and glory awaits.
Tearing Wrapping Paper
I have come to see that this life is like wrapping paper and ribbons. We want our lives to look beautiful, and we spend most of our energy making sure they are. This wrapping is what we can see and touch and experience, both the tangible and the intangible. It includes our families, our friends, our homes, our accomplishments, our physical appearance, our money, our gifts — all the pursuits we spend time on, appreciate, and invest in. God wants us to enjoy these gifts which are from him, though none is permanent or indestructible.
Suffering tears that wrapping paper, and the process permanently changes us. Life as we knew it may never be restored, and we appropriately mourn what we’ve lost. We look at the torn paper longingly, wishing that we could at least tape it back together. We look at other people’s intact paper and shiny ribbons and wonder why only ours have been damaged, sometimes almost shredded. It doesn’t seem fair. We’re tempted to wonder what we’ve done wrong.
But as we sit with our torn paper, we begin to realize that the paper wasn’t an end in itself. It was only temporary, never meant to last forever, like our earthly tents, which are not our permanent dwellings. We know we will deal with pain and loss until our true home in heaven (2 Corinthians 5:1–4).
While the paper was once our focus, when it rips, we notice that there is something more. We see that the paper, whether beautiful or plain, was just there to enfold a gift. The gift is the item of supreme value, and the torn paper enables us, perhaps for the first time, to notice it. Even a glimpse of the gift is breathtaking. While the wrapping paper had an important purpose, it fades when we see the unparalleled beauty of the gift. The gift is God himself — the only treasure that will last.
Gift of Suffering
We’ll delight in Christ endlessly in heaven, and encountering his beauty and comfort on earth gives us a small foretaste of that eternal happiness. For me, experiencing God in my suffering is the closest I’ve come to pure joy.
Suffering has taken my eyes off the temporary and fixed them on the eternal. My faith is not theoretical, not a set of doctrines and principles that others have adopted; it is personal and real. As my outer nature is wasting away and my paper has ripped, I have glimpsed a weight of glory beyond all comparison.
So this Christmas, if your paper is ragged and torn, don’t despair. Look carefully to find the gift of supreme value, that can never be taken away and will last throughout eternity. It is the matchless gift of our Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
You Might also like
-
The Supremacy of Christ in Everything
Let’s begin by asking the “So what?” question. So what, if Colossians 1:15–20 is one of the greatest exaltations to Christ in all the Bible? Maybe the greatest. There are a few that come close.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. . . . And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1–3, 14)
That’s close.
In these last days [God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 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. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. (Hebrews 1:2–3)
That’s close. But Colossians 1:15–20 may be the greatest. So, you are about to listen to me for the next thirty-five minutes or so wave my little expository finger, and point toward this Mount Everest of Christ-exalting Scriptures, and then you’ll go home. And the crucial question will be, So what?
I’m going to give you two answers to that question here at the outset from Colossians so you can be testing while I preach, and then when you go home: Is this happening? Is this text having this God-appointed effect on me?
Vaccine Against Error
Here’s my first answer to the “So what?” question. False teaching has begun to infect the minds of some of the believers in Colossae, and Paul intends for the clarification and exaltation of the majesty of Jesus Christ to be the theological vaccine that protects the Colossian Christians from the disease of Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting error.
Turn with me to Colossians 2 to get three glimpses of the false teaching in Colossae. Notice that in every case the failure to embrace a clear enough and big enough Christ is what makes the church vulnerable.
Colossians 2:8: See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.
If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you will be a sitting duck for Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting philosophy, empty deceit, and human tradition.
Colossians 2:16–17: Let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you easily mistake shadows for reality.
Colossians 2:18–19: Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head.
If you don’t embrace a Christ that is big enough and clear enough, you will stop holding fast to Christ as the great, all-supplying Head of the body, and take up sectarian strategies of self-improvement.
So, the first answer to the “so what” question is this: if you embrace a Christ who is big enough and clear enough — the way Paul shows him to be in Colossians 1:15–20 — you will have a theological, spiritual, biblical vaccination against a hundred Christ-diminishing, Christ-distorting errors — and they will not be getting fewer in the last days.
Endure and Give Thanks with Joy
Now, the second answer to the “So what?” question. Back to chapter 1. Last week, Pastor Kenny walked us through Paul’s prayer for the Colossians — and for us — which starts in Colossians 1:9. It’s the connection between this prayer and today’s text about the supremacy of Christ which clarifies the second answer to the “So what?” question.
Paul prays in Colossians 1:11 that we would be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience. And then that little phrase “with joy” could go either way, forward or backward. Endurance and patience with joy, or, with joy giving thanks to the Father.
Experientially, I can’t see any difference. We are enduring with patience the pandemic, the political acrimony, the war in Ukraine, churches in conflict, the sexual debauchery of the culture, the heartbreak of lost loved ones. Does it make any difference whether you say: “We are enduring with joy” or to say, “We are enduring, giving joyful thanks to God the Father”? In both cases joy marks our patient endurance in these days, and, God willing, to the very end. Serious joy, thankful to our heavenly Father to the very end.
“Joy marks our patient endurance in these days and, God willing, to the very end.”
But how can we have thankful joyful hearts as we patiently endure these days? Paul answers in Colossians 1:12, because God the Father “has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.” We are not going to be cast into outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). Our inheritance is a new world where night will be no more. And there will be no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb (Revelation 22:5; 21:23).
And then Colossians 1:13 adds that we have already entered into this kingdom of light: “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.” And Colossians 1:14 adds that the reason that we guilty sinners can enter that kingdom of everlasting light and joy — it’s because “in [Christ] we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” He paid the ransom with his blood for our forgiveness. By faith we are united to him. And his sacrifice covers all our sins.
Greatest Tribute
Now, follow the flow of thought to see the connection with today’s text. Paul’s prayer in verses 11–12 is that we would endure with joyful thankfulness everything this fallen world throws at us until Jesus comes. The reason we can do that, he says, is because he has qualified us for an eternity of light and love not darkness. And the way he has done that is by paying the redemption price for the forgiveness of all our sins and bringing us already into the kingdom of his greatly loved Son.
“The supremacy of Christ is meant to sustain our joy through patient endurance.”
And at this point Paul is so full of awareness that our thankful, joyful, patient endurance depends on the greatness of the redemption of Christ and the greatness of the reign of Christ that he launches into the greatest tribute to the supremacy of Christ in the Bible (Colossians 1:15–20). In other words, the second answer to the “So what?” question is that, if your mind and heart are captured with the greatness and the beauty and the worth of Jesus Christ in verses 15–20, you will endure the hardships of this life with patience and joyful thankfulness. The supremacy of Christ is meant to sustain our joy through patient endurance.
Supremacy of Christ
So let’s look at the supremacy of Christ in Colossians 1:15–20.
I see at least five ways Christ is supreme in relation to creation — and then three ways he is supreme in relation to the church. Or if you prefer, you can use the word “preeminent,” since that is the purpose of God stated at the end of verse 19: “that in everything he might be preeminent.” That’s the immediate goal of this passage: to show that in everything Christ is preeminent, or supreme — that he is the greatest, most excellent reality that exists.
Supreme over Creation
First, then, in relation to creation — five aspects of his supremacy.
1. Christ Is God
Colossians 1:19: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” Even more clearly in Colossians 2:9: “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” Remember, in verse 13 Christ is called God’s beloved Son. Now we see that the Son is said to possess the fullness of God-ness. He is fully God.
And this divine Son came to earth and clothed himself with humanity. He has a body and a human nature. So Colossians 2:9 says, “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” We call this the incarnation of the divine Son of God. There is now, and forever, a God-man. God the Son never lays down his body. He rises from the dead with it. He ascends with it. He possesses it in heaven today glorified according to Philippians 3:21. And he will return visibly in his body.
They could see him and touch him while he was on the earth. And we will see him when he comes again. I think this is what Paul means in Colossians 1:15: “He is the image of the invisible God.” God is invisible. He is spirit. But Jesus is not invisible. He is the visible God. In John 14:9, Jesus said to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”
So I would ask you very frankly, Do you worship Jesus Christ? Matthew 28:17 says, “When the eleven saw him they worshiped him.” Do you? Is your Christ big enough and clear enough and supreme enough that you treasure him more highly than any other reality, as very God of very God?
2. Christ Is Before All Things
Colossians 1:17: “And he is before all things.” Why would Paul say that? It is so obviously implicit in virtually everything else he says about Christ in this paragraph. Well, sometimes it is very good to make implicit, glorious things explicit! Things that we just pass over and don’t ponder. I invite you to ponder the fact that before there was anything else, Christ was.
For example, this draws our attention to the fact that Christ’s relationship to things that are not Christ is very different from our relationship to things that are not us. We think that we are creators. We’re not. Not the way Christ is. When we make things, we just rearrange what’s already there. We rearrange chemicals and make a medicine. We rearrange molecules and make an atom bomb. We arrange materials and make house.
When Christ brought creation into existence, he didn’t rearrange anything, because he was before all things. There wasn’t anything to arrange. Christ is absolute reality. Everything else is secondary.
3. Christ Created Everything That Is Not God
Colossians 1:15–16: “[He is] he 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.”
“Firstborn of all creation” does not mean he is part of creation. Four reasons:
He is God — not part of what God made. We have seen that already.
The ground of 15b in verse 16 contradicts that he is part of creation: “He is firstborn of all creation. Because by him all things were created.” It would make no sense to say, “He is part of creation because he created all things.”
The word “of” in “firstborn of all creation” does not have to mean he is part of creation any more than my saying, “David is the coach of his son’s little league team,” means he is a little leaguer on the team. “Coach of” means “coach over” and that’s what Paul means here — he is the firstborn over all creation.
The word “firstborn” came to mean, alongside its biological meaning, “having the highest rank,” as in Psalm 89:27 where God says to David, “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” That is, not having his origin from the kings of the earth but highest over them.So I say again, Christ created everything that is not God. And I suspect Paul listed the particular creations that he listed to make sure that the Colossians did not try to make exceptions by saying, “No, no, the thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities do not include evil powers.” Yes, they do! And that’s the point! Verse 13 just said we were delivered from the “domain (Greek exousias) of darkness” and that word “domain” is the same as the “authorities (exousiai)” in verse 16. He made them. And he delivered us from them. They have no independent existence or power.
No exceptions, Colossians. No exceptions, Bethlehem. Christ is the creator of all that is not God. Including all the demons and their political echoes in this world. Is it any wonder that Jesus simply commands fevers, and wind, and water, and demons, and they obey? As then. So now.
4. Christ Holds Everything Together
Colossians 1:17: “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Christ doesn’t just bring everything that is into being. He holds everything that is in being. This may strike home to help us feel the way we ought, even more than knowing that he is our Creator.
Hour by hour the reason you do not fly apart into a billion fragments and then vanish is because Christ holds you together. And this is true of everything in the universe. Everything that man has ever made, and every body of every man and woman and child. And every mountain and ocean and cloud and supernova — all would cease to be if Christ did not hold them in being.
He holds together the metal on the tanks rolling into Ukraine. He holds together the cellphones in Ukraine that connect the resistance. He holds together the pew you sit on, the clothing you wear, the food you eat, the skin that covers your bones. As your Creator you might think he is distant, having done that work some time ago. But to confess that in him you’re very body and soul, millisecond by millisecond, are held in being is another matter. He is not distant. You are personally and radically dependent on Christ, even if you don’t believe on him.
5. All Things Were Created for Christ
Colossians 1:16 (at the end): “All things were created through him and for him.” What does for him mean? It can’t mean, in order to meet his needs. To be God means to have no needs. Acts 17:25 says, “God cannot be served as though he needed anything.”
“Christ created everything and sustains everything for the glory of Christ.”
One clue is found in Colossians 1:18 at the end: “that in everything he might be preeminent.” Creation exists “for him” in the sense of putting his preeminence on display. He does everything he does in order put his supremacy, his glory, on display. Christ created everything and sustains everything for the glory of Christ! This is why the universe came into being — to put the preeminence of Christ’s glory on display.
Supreme over the Church
Lest you think that makes an egomaniac out of Christ, we turn now, all too briefly, to three acts of Christ’s supremacy in relation not to creation but to the church in verses 18–20.
I’ll name them quickly:
He is supreme as the head of the body. Verse 18a: “And he is the head of the body, the church.”
He is supreme as the beginning of the new creation as he rises first from the dead, the first of millions. Verse 18b: “He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.”
We’ve already looked at verse 19, so I skip to verse 20: He is supreme as the one whose blood secures a new heaven and a new earth where everything is reconciled and at peace with God. Verse 20: “And through him to reconcile to himself all things whether on earth or in heaven making peace by the blood of his cross.”Apex of Glory: Grace
Here’s what changes the whole idea of egomaniac. When we say that Christ has created everything for the glory of Christ, the apex of that glory is the glory of grace toward his people.
It’s the glory of being the head (v. 18a) that supplies every need that the church ever has for everlasting holiness and joy.
It’s the glory not of being the only one to rise from the dead, but the first one to rise from the dead (v. 18b), bringing with him millions upon millions of people who will be delivered from the bondage of death and brought into a new world of everlasting joy with Christ.
It’s the glory of shedding his blood (v. 20) so as to make peace — to make a new world of only reconciled people in two ways: one is to supply the forgiveness of sins for everyone who believes, and the other is to strip from the hands of God’s demonic and human enemies all grounds for condemning God’s people and dismiss those enemies into outer darkness where they will not in any way infect the new heaven and the new earth.Bethlehem,
Jesus Christ is our God.
Jesus Christ is before all things.
Jesus Christ created all that is not God.
Jesus Christ holds everything together.
Jesus Christ created everything to display the supremacy and the glory of Jesus Christ.This is not egomania. It is love. Because the apex of that glory is the glory of grace. It’s the glory of Christ’s supplying everything his church needs to be holy and happy forever. It’s the glory of triumphing over death in bringing millions of believing sinners to everlasting life. And it’s the glory of establishing a new heaven and new earth of peace and reconciliation by the blood of his cross.
What he wants from us is the answer to Paul’s prayer — that we would find strength for all endurance and patience with thankful joy because we have embraced this Christ.
-
Live Like Death Is Gain
A few weeks ago, my seven-year-old informed me that he wanted to be eight — but not any older than that. “Buddy, why don’t you want to be any older than that?” I asked. “Well, because when you get old, you die.” Fair enough. Eight seemed safe and exciting enough, I guess (he has some eight-year-olds in his class), but nine — now nine was a different story. Who knows what might happen then? Better stick with eight.
It’s a sobering thing, isn’t it, to watch your children begin to wrestle with a reality like death (and then to force you, as a dad or mom, to try and explain something like death). I think our verses this morning are a great help to dads and moms (and teenagers and twenty-somethings and sixty-somethings) in answering the biggest questions we ever ask. What’s going to happen when we die? What does it mean to really live?
A couple of years ago, on June 28, 2021, my (then) 64-year-old dad had a heart attack. I’ll never forget the moments I spent beside his hospital bed that week, as he waited for quadruple-bypass surgery. I felt my own mortality, watching the strongest man I’d ever known now fighting for his life. I know some of you have experienced this. When you’re growing up, Dad is the embodiment of strength, almost immortal. I mean what can’t Dad do? A toy breaks? Oh, Dad will fix it. Want to know what makes an airplane fly? Dad will know that. My three-year-old’s been worried that skunks are going to get into her room at night (longer story there), but I’ve said to her, “Honey, I promise, Daddy won’t let any skunks in your room.” And she believes me! Because I’m Daddy.
And then dads grow older, and their arteries fail — or they get really sick, or their minds begin to go. Slowly, they’re a little less superhero, and a little more human. And in the process, we realize just how human we are.
By God’s grace, my dad’s doing really well, but I thought of him leading up to this message because our conversations over these last couple of years (one in particular) remind me of these verses. He told me that he’s more aware than ever that every day he has is a day he’s been given for Christ, that however many days he has left — whether hundreds or thousands or just one — he wants them to honor Jesus. My dad came close enough to death to be able to remind his son how to live.
And that’s what we have in Philippians 1:19–26: we have a man, a spiritual father, who has come close enough to death that he’s able to tell us (whether we’re 8 or 38 or 68) how to live and die well.
The Happy, Driving Passion
As we’ve learned over the last several weeks, Paul wrote this letter from prison in Rome. The situation’s serious enough that his friends in Philippi are worried if they’ll ever see him again. And on top of the dangers and hardships of his imprisonment, he had enemies (even in the church) trying to make things even worse for him.
“Death, for believers, is better than life because death finally gives us Christ.”
I don’t want it to be lost on us over these next few months in Philippians that the most joy-filled letter in the New Testament was written in horrible circumstances. That tells us something, doesn’t it, about how much joy we can expect to experience even on our hardest days. Look how joyful he is even now, even in prison! And they tell us about how much we can still help others enjoy Jesus — even on our hardest days.
As Pastor Jonathan showed us last week, Paul responds to all of this — imprisonment, mistreatment, betrayal — in an otherworldly way, because he had a different passion than the world. And what was that passion? The glory of God magnified through the advance of the gospel. That passion is why he can rejoice while his enemies preach Christ (verses 15–18). That’s why he can rejoice even while he sits in prison (verses 12–14). That’s why he prays like he does (verses 9–11). That passion is why his love for these people runs deeper and richer than many of our relationships (verses 3–8). And now, in our verses this morning, he’s going to tell us about that passion. He leans in, after all of that, as if to say, Do you want the secret? “To live is Christ, and to die is gain.”
What Kind of Deliverance?
Our passage begins in verses 18–19:
Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance.
Now, right away, what kind of deliverance do you think he’s talking about? What’s he going to be delivered from? Is he talking about deliverance from prison (which is what we probably assume) — or is he talking about some other kind of deliverance?
Let’s keep reading: “I know that . . . 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” (verses 19–20). Why do I expect that all of this will turn out for my deliverance? He doesn’t go on to talk about judges changing their minds, or about him developing some goodwill with the jailers, or about a large group of Christians putting together a petition.
“No,” he says, “I’m confident this will turn out for my deliverance because I’m confident that, whether I live or die, Christ will be honored in me.” That phrase — “whether by life or by death” — is the biggest reason I don’t think he’s talking mainly about being delivered from prison. He can’t die in prison and be delivered from prison. “I might die here in prison,” he’s saying, “but I’ll still be delivered. Even if I’m never released from these chains, I’ll still be set free.” How could that be? How could he be delivered without being delivered?
I think that question is massively relevant for us, because some of you are praying for deliverance right now. Not from prison (because you’re here) — but what you’re suffering might feel worse than prison some days. Intense, prolonged conflict with someone you love. Hostility where you work. Cancer. A child who’s walked away from the faith — and maybe from you. By the end of this sermon, I’m praying that you’ll be able to say, to anyone who cares about you, “Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this pain, this conflict, this cancer will turn out for my deliverance” — not mainly because the pain might finally let up in this life, or because the relationship will necessarily get better, or because the cancer will go into remission, but because I believe my life, and my suffering, and even my death will say something true and beautiful and loud about how much Jesus means to me. About how much he’s done for me. About how much I’m dying to go and spend the rest of my life with him.
What kind of deliverance is Paul expecting? Not mainly deliverance from prison (although, as we’ll see, he clearly expects that too). No, deliverance from spiritual ruin, from the intense temptations that come with suffering, from walking away from Christ. “I’m confident I will be delivered,” he says, “because I’m confident that, whether I live or die, Christ will look great — and that’s all I really want.”
“I count everything as loss,” he’ll say in chapter 3, “because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (3:8–9). That’s what deliverance looks like, the most important kind of deliverance, the kind we all need, especially when suffering comes.
These next verses, then, are a mural of the delivered life — the life freed from self and sin and death, and filled with Jesus. Again, they teach us how to live and die well: “I know that . . . Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” Verse 21: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” We know that verse, and we think we get it — but do we really get it? Could you explain it to a seven-year-old? These next verses help us see both sides of this precious, life-altering (and death-altering) verse.
To Die Is Gain
Let’s start with death, though, with the second half of the verse: “I know that . . . Christ will be honored in my body . . . by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” How is Christ honored in a dying person’s body? Our death honors Christ, he says, when we begin to see our death not as loss — not as the end, not as defeat, not ultimately as a tragedy — but as gain.
So how could Paul look at death, even a death alone in horrible circumstances, and see victory, see reward? The next verses take us deeper. Beginning now in verse 22: “If I am to live in the flesh” — to live is Christ — “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.”
“Jesus is not just the only way to heaven; he is what makes heaven worth wanting.”
Now, of course, Paul doesn’t really get to choose. “Which of you by being anxious,” Jesus asks, “can add a single hour to his span of life?” (Luke 12:25). Paul’s not actually choosing life or death here; he’s just letting us see what he wants. “I am hard pressed between the two,” he says. “A big part of me wants to stay and live a little longer here with you” — and we’ll see why in a minute — “but if I’m honest, I’d rather go home. I’m so ready to feel my last aches and pains, to have my last hard conversations, to wipe away my last tears. More than anything, though, I’m so ready to finally, at last, see him, to set aside this old, foggy mirror and look at him face-to-face: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace in the flesh — the seeable, huggable, high-five-able God. To get to know him, to know Jesus, as well as he’s known me all these years (1 Corinthians 13:12).
“Oh, how badly I want to stay,” Paul’s saying, “and help you see more clearly, and understand more deeply, and love more fully, and obey more joyfully, but it will be so much better for me if this apostle left you (for now) and went on to be a kindergartner, a beginner, in glory.”
Better Than This World’s Best
Notice, he doesn’t diminish the goodness of this earthly life. From an earthly perspective, Paul’s life wasn’t all that great (it was horrible) when he wrote these verses — and he still wanted to stay. God has filled this broken, sinful world with people and pleasures and experiences — with really good gifts — that hint at heaven and help us long for heaven. I have three small kids, and there are moments every week when I stop and think, I just want this to last forever. (There are plenty of other moments when I think, When will this ever end? But there are so many moments I want to hold onto.) When we tickle them and they giggle until they cry. When they say certain words really wrong. When they learn how to do something for the first time, and then do that same thing a thousand times every day for a week. When they come, snuggle up next to you, and tell you they love you for no reason at all.
Having a Philippians 1:21 heart doesn’t mean you despise the God-given joys and giggles of life on earth — it means you realize that another life’s coming, another world, one that’s better than this one, even at its best. And not better by a little, but better by far. “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better” (verse 23).
And what’s the better? It’s not weeks without work or years without taxes. It’s not endless tee times on the golf course or more girls nights with your best friends. It’s not your favorite foods at your favorite restaurants (and you never have to wait or pay). (I, for one, by the way, believe all of that will happen in heaven, and that it’s all going to be better than we can even begin to think or imagine. Believe me, nothing you enjoy here is going to get worse in heaven.) He tells us what the best better will be, though, in the same verse: “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” He puts a face to the gain. Death, for believers, is better than life because it’s death that finally gives us Christ — all of Christ, with all our senses, meeting all our needs and satisfying all our lingering, gnawing desires. He is our gain.
In college, I read a paragraph that I’ll never forget. It still haunts me, in the very best way. It goes like this:
Christ did not die to forgive sinners who go on treasuring anything above seeing and savoring God. And people who would be happy in heaven if Christ were not there, will not be there. The gospel is not a way to get people to heaven; it is a way to get people to God. (God Is the Gospel, 47)
I still remember where I was on campus when I read that chapter. It felt like I had stumbled into a land I had never seen before, an ocean I’d never sailed before, a favorite meal I’d never tasted before. I really believe those were the moments when God became heaven for me. When he was no longer the God who makes heaven, or who lets sinners like me into heaven, but the God who himself is what makes heaven heaven — that he would always be (even after thousands and thousands of years) the best part of living there. This Jesus is not just the only way to heaven; he really is what makes heaven worth wanting. He is the great meal. He’s the ocean. He is the treasure hidden in the field and the pearl of great price.
Doorway to Deepest Gain
And if that’s true — if we really think that way — how awesome will he look when we die? While everyone around us in the hospital clings to the last days they have here — while they scramble to try and make it to a couple more things on their bucket lists — we’re going to be the really strange people who have this deep and abiding peace, who talk about how much better life’s about to get, who feel free to spend the last days and hours we have on other people and their needs, who still smile even through horrible pain. We’re going to be the strange and beautiful people who use our last breaths — on the hospital bed, in hospice care, covered in wires and monitors — to sing. When we die like that, what will that say about Jesus? You know if you’ve ever seen a saint die well. In those moments, Jesus looks more valuable than anything life could ever give — or that death could ever take. Don’t you want to die like that?
As we turn to the first half of verse 21, then, I want us to see the relationship between these two phrases: “to live is Christ” and “to die is gain.” We’re about to see what “to live is Christ” means as a way of life — what strange people like this does with the weeks and months and years they have. But before we even get to that, to the kinds of things they do, we’re already seeing who they are — we’re seeing their heart, their passion. You see, the kind of people who honor Christ with their life will always be the kind of person who sees death as better than this life. They glorify God with their life because they want Jesus more than life. I first learned this, like many of you, from John Piper: “God is most glorified in us — in life and death, in joys and sorrows, in marriage and parenting and singleness — when we are most satisfied in him.” God will be most glorified in our lives when death is gain, when we know that the day we die will be the greatest day we’ve ever lived — yet.
To Live Is Christ
Now, in the next couple verses, he turns to explain “to live is Christ.” How does he explain that? He’s already said, in verse 22, “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.” Fruitful labor — that’s the first part of our answer. But what does “fruitful labor” actually mean?
He goes on to tell us: “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” (verses 23–24). It would be better, far better, to go and be with Jesus, but I’m convinced it’s more necessary, for now, that I stay and keep laboring among you. And what is the labor? What does he need to stay and do for them?
Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith. (verse 25)
The fruitful labor Paul stays to do is to work for others’ progress and joy in the faith. He stays to help them grow in their faith in Jesus (progress), and to help them find greater joy in that faith. If we live for another day or month or year, it’s because someone needs help believing in and enjoying Jesus. That’s how Paul thinks about his life — and yours. This is why you’re alive: to help someone else keep believing in Jesus. Do you think about your life that way? Do you look at your days, or weeks, or decades of life as a gift God has given you to give other people God? To live is Christ — to hold up Christ for one another.
But what does it really mean, practically, to live for someone else’s “progress and joy in the faith”? Does Paul give us any hints about what we’re supposed to actually do? He gives us lots of hints. His letters are filled with this kind of life. But we’ll limit ourselves to just Philippians for now. What does it look like to live for one another’s “progress and joy in the faith”?
It looks like praying for one another, and especially for each other’s souls (1:9–11).
It looks like calling one another to obey Christ, to live a life worthy of the gospel (1:27).
It looks like meeting practical needs for one another, as this church did for Paul (4:14).
It looks like honoring one another, as Paul honors Epaphroditus (2:29).
Sometimes it looks like warning one another: “Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh” (3:2).
It looks like reconciling believers with one another when there’s conflict or division, as Paul does in 4:2: “I entreat Euodia and I entreat Syntyche to agree in the Lord.”
It looks like reminding one another of heaven: “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (3:20–21).
It looks like, get this, just having more conversations about Jesus.Any of you can do all those things. These aren’t things only apostles do, or even things only pastors do; these are things Christians get to do for one another. We live, for however long we live, for one another’s progress and joy in the faith — to live is Christ.
Paul strikes one more note here, in verses 25–26: “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.” “If I live,” he’s saying, “I want to give more reasons to worship Jesus — and not just a few reasons, but plenty of reasons” — “so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus.” Paul’s not living for a bare-minimum Christianity, a bare-minimum spiritual influence on others. No, day by day, he wants to pile on the reasons, as many as he possibly can, for those he knows and loves to trust and enjoy Jesus.
So, when God brings others into your life, are they better off spiritually for being there? Are they a lot better off spiritually for being there? What if you started looking at your relationships — family, community group and life group, neighbors, coworkers, friends — and tried to give them ample cause to love and glorify Jesus? How much more spiritual good could you do? How might the good you do then multiply through them into all of their relationships?
“If we live for another day or month or year, it’s because someone needs help believing in and enjoying Jesus.”
Again, notice he says, “I am hard pressed between the two.” So even though to depart and be with Christ is far better, Paul really does want both. It’s gain to die, no question, but it’s not loss to stay and live for Christ. To live for Jesus — despite how much it cost him, despite how little fruit he saw at times, despite the fact that he might live the rest of his life in prison — to live for Jesus was its own reward. Therefore, he could gladly say, To die is gain for me, and to live is Christ for you, my joy and my crown (4:1).
Because You Pray for Me
Before we close, then, I want to go back briefly to the beginning of our passage and look at how this kind of Christ-honoring life and this kind of Christ-honoring death happen. If God delivers us from walking away from Christ, from giving into temptation, from slowly drifting into worldliness, if he helps us honor Christ until the very end, how does that happen? Where do we get the strength and focus we need to keep going? Paul gives us two quick glimpses (so quick we might completely miss them), but I think they’re too good to pass over as a church. You’ve already heard these verses, but we need to hear them one more time:
Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance. (verses 18–19)
Why is Paul so confident that he’s going to make it to the end, that he’ll keep honoring Christ, even in prison, even under persecution, even if it costs him his life? What does he say? Because you’re praying for me.
Do you ever pray like this church prayed for Paul? Does anyone pray like this for you? If we commit to praying like this for one another, Cities Church, we’ll be able to say things like we heard Paul say in verse 6: “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” — because we’ve prayed for you. I know you’ll honor Christ, whatever happens to you, because we’ve prayed for you. Or, as in verse 19, “I know this horrible circumstance will turn out for my deliverance” — because you prayed for me. Prison can’t overcome these kinds of prayers. Cancer can’t overcome these kinds of prayers. All the armies in the world couldn’t overcome prayers like these.
Why? Because God answers prayers like these — and he doesn’t answer from afar. No, he comes and helps us from inside of us, by his Spirit (“through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ”). His Spirit lives within us. And as he does, his strength becomes our strength, his peace becomes our peace, his love becomes our love.
By the Spirit, right now, in whatever callings you have been given, you have everything you could possibly need to honor Christ — whether by life or by death — because that Christ lives in you. He’s going to help you.
-
What If God Were Happy?
We will be most satisfied in God when we know why God himself is most satisfied in God.
If the world is a mess (and it is), and if God is in charge of this mess (and he is), then how is it rational to be satisfied with a God who let things get so messy? If he’s ultimately responsible for all of this, how could we trust in him, much less delight in him?
Several answers come to mind. My own satisfaction with God springs from a number of places, including:
His steadfast love in Christ.
His drawing near to me instead of remaining far off.
His personal acquaintance with my grief and sorrow — in every respect tempted as I am, yet without sin.
His mercies, new every morning, triumphing over judgment and removing his just wrath upon sinners like me.
His ability and willingness to fulfill all his promises, and his appetite for making really pleasant ones to me, despite how little I deserve.While realities like that are unspeakably savory reasons to delight in God, they’re not the one I uncovered in the sentence above.
Seeing the Universe Through a Sentence
Years ago, I had already embraced the God-centeredness of God — that he does all he does for his glory — but the happiness of God was almost entirely off my radar. Until I read one sentence. I read it thirty years ago now, and I haven’t read the Bible the same ever since:
We will be most satisfied in God when we know why God himself is most satisfied in God. (John Piper, The Pleasures of God, 9)
Could it be true? Could the God I’ve believed in all these years possibly be happy? And not only happy, but the happiest of all?
A sentence like the one I read drives us to ask deeper, simpler questions, like “What is happiness?” It’s not mindless giddiness. God is not drunk or on LSD. Happiness — including God’s happiness — is pleasure in a desirable sense of well-being, a contented joy in all that’s fitting, a delight that seeks expression in pure, unsullied, unblemished, unpolluted, untarnished, unbounded, unrestrained rejoicing.
And if, as Piper claims, my satisfaction in him hinges upon his satisfaction in him, then there’s no more important question than this: “Is God happy?” By setting me on a quest to find what makes God happy, this sentence changed the way I read the Bible and the way I observe everything I observe in the universe. And there’s a lot to observe in this universe. There’s a lot that makes God happy, and his happiness fuels my satisfaction in him.
What Makes God Happy?
The Bible parades a number of God’s pleasures before us. For example (and this is only a small sampling):
He delights in justice (Proverbs 11:1).
He delights in the prayer of the upright (Proverbs 15:8).
He delights in those who hope in his steadfast love (Psalm 147:11).
He delights in choosing a people (Deuteronomy 10:14–15).
He is pleased by all he does (Psalm 115:9).
He is well pleased in his Son (Matthew 17:5).It’s perfectly reasonable to supremely value the supremely valuable. God is reasonable, supremely so. He is also supremely valuable. So he is perfectly reasonable when he supremely values himself (and he does at all times). God is satisfying to me partly because he is reasonable — consummately reasonable — by supremely valuing the supremely valuable.
To supremely value something that is not supremely valuable is crazy. It is idolatry. But God is not an idolater. Or crazy. Henry Scougal famously wrote, “The worth and excellency of a soul is to be measured by the object of its love.” What God loves most is worth the most — namely, himself. All of this may lead us to ask, “What makes something more valuable than something else? What things are most valuable?”
“God is maximally happy, because he is maximally glorious — and maximally happy in that gloriousness.”
Deep down, we know good answers. Things with solidity and lasting endurance. Things that won’t evaporate and poof. Things that overcome other things, instead of being subject to factors and forces they cannot control. Things that are never self-contradictory. Things that are substantial, influencing all other things. The thing from which all other things are derived. Something that is so rare there is nothing like it anywhere, and yet it is profoundly and decisively useful in every context without exception. Something that is inexhaustibly self-replenishing.
God is that kind of valuable, gloriously so. God is maximally happy because he is maximally glorious — and maximally happy in that gloriousness.
If God Were Not Happy
What if God were all-powerful, but a grouch? What if the well-known children’s prayer — “God is great, God is good” — were instead “God is great, but he’s not so good, so ya better watch out!”? If so, he could use that almighty power to grind us all into powder and blow us away — far away, a kind of far away called outer darkness.
The God of the Bible, however, does something remarkable because he is something remarkable. Rather than grumble or rage, he delights. God relishes. His highest and deepest gladness is in being God, and so he delights in everything he does. He doesn’t do anything poorly or wrongly. His workmanship is without error, and therefore when he does something — anything — he can step back and say, “That’s good . . . really good. I like it. I’m rightly happy with myself for doing it that way.” Even his wrath ends up pleasing him, for it ultimately carries out perfect justice, thereby glorifying him in his righteousness.
“Each day, I want to move toward becoming as happy about God as God is happy about God.”
What does this happiness mean for me? As the infinitely wise, unchanging, always-happy God, he never regrets anything he does. Therefore, I shouldn’t regret anything he has done, but instead trust him that he is working all things, without exception, for the good of those who love him. And then, beyond trusting him, I thank him, love him, praise him, enjoy him. I delight in who he is and what he’s done, just as he delights in himself. His happiness is not secondary, but primary. Each day, I want to move toward becoming as happy about God as God is happy about God.
God’s Happiness with Messiness
How can the farmer end his long hot day and glance with satisfaction at the sod all torn up by plowing? Here’s how: he’s not done with that field, and he enjoys the plowing in anticipation of the glorious crop to come. It was a good day of dusty, sweaty plowing, though at the moment the land looks like a scarred mess.
Vicki and I experienced the death of two children. To shake the fist at God as though he has failed is to wrongly assume that he is done with those children — or with us. He is not done. Ever.
I took a ceramics class with my middle school daughter. Together we labored for hours over projects that made a dusty clay mess of the studio and our clothes. How could we be satisfied in the toil and trouble? Answer: even though our creations had not yet come out of the kiln, they were on the way to something attractive and useful. God can be pleased with mid-stream projects, because plowed fields, bodily ailments, entirely flooded planets, and this broken, groaning universe are well on their way to glorious outcomes.
God is happy with everything he does because he infallibly produces immeasurable good through everything he does. He never shrugs his shoulders and mutters, “I wish I could have done better.”
His Happiness and My Existence
What difference has it made to me whether God is happy to be who he is and do what he does?
His happiness has differentiated him from man-made gods who are cranky and temperamental, like the human race that invents them. From the capricious and cruel thunderbolts of Zeus, to the unpredictable anger of Poseidon, to the Artemis who demands human sacrifice during the Trojan War, to the abortion-promoting self-deified morality police of today’s cancel culture, man-made gods are unlike the happy God who promises pleasures at his right hand forever.
His happiness has injected all of history with purposefulness. The happy God is not wasting one single event but working all things together for the good of those who love him. That changes the way I read my current circumstances. Through them, God is taking me somewhere good, very good. The happiness of God has also changed the way I read the Bible. His delight in his being and his works is everywhere in the lines and between the lines.
This life-changing happiness of God is a kind of deep happiness without any regrets whatsoever. When the Bible says God regrets or repents (and it does say that, for instance in Genesis 6:6 and 1 Samuel 15:10), it means he laments over the sad belittlement of his glory. But if he had to start all over again, he would act exactly the same way. Everything is going according to his deep plan to bring maximum glory to his Son and maximum pleasure to his people in the end, and he’s happy about that. So am I.