Study the Word

Guest (Male): Did you know that 62% of the people in our country fear dying? Do you fear dying? As we talk about that 62%, that should give you some confidence in the workplace among your family to talk to them about Christ and heaven.

Six out of 10 people have some degree of fear of dying and we have the answer to that, don't we? Right? We don't die. We transition from this world to the next with Jesus.

Guest (Male): Life, death, and other issues comprise much of what Pastor Tom Keller will address today on Study the Word. Paul the Apostle would never shy away or be ashamed of his message concerning Christ Jesus. This is coming from a man who was imprisoned and eventually martyred for his devotion to Jesus.

How are you doing in that arena? Do you live honorably for Christ? In Philippians chapter one, verse 20, Paul expresses his desire to glorify God in any situation. This means whether he is free, in prison, alive or dead. Can you say the same? Let's join Pastor Tom as we learn how to have this same mindset.

Pastor Thom Keller: The story's told of a man who bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas. After hearing about this extravagant gift, a friend of his said, "I thought she wanted one of those sporty four-wheel drive vehicles." "She did," he said, "but where was I going to find a fake jeep?"

Well, according to Forbes magazine in 2018, counterfeiting was the largest criminal enterprise in the world. Sales of counterfeit and pirated goods total $1.7 trillion per year, which is more than the drug trade and human trafficking combined. It's expected to nearly double to 2.8 trillion by the year 2022. According to the counterfeit report, China produces 80% of the world's counterfeits, and whether or not it's China's intent to completely undermine the US economy, the United States buys about 80% of these fake products.

Interesting. There's so much dishonesty in the world today. That's why studying the life of Paul is so beneficial for us because Paul models absolute honesty in all of his relationships, in all of his dealings. So let's take a look. Philippians 1, verse 20. Again, Paul speaking. "For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die. For to me, living means living for Christ and dying is even better.

But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ, so I really don't know which is better. I'm torn between two desires. I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it is better that I continue to live. Knowing this, I'm convinced that I will remain alive so I can continue to help all of you grow and experience the joy of your faith. And when I come to you again, you will have even more reason to take pride in Christ Jesus because of what he is doing through me."

Boy, verse 20 by itself. "For I fully expect and hope that I will never be ashamed, but that I will continue to be bold for Christ as I have been in the past. And I trust that my life will bring honor to Christ, whether I live or die." The honesty of Paul here. He says, "I hope that I will never do anything that causes me shame." Paul does not live in some false and dangerous self-confidence, thinking that he's not capable of sinning in a way that would bring him shame.

Do you hear his humility and lack of confidence in his own strength? Folks, this is so important that we take on this view of ourselves. As an example, guys and women who come into the U-turn program, let's say they're out of a full-blown addiction and they show up at U-turn. There are some fairly predictable stages that take place. The first night, they're looking at the door. They literally want to run from the program because the drugs are calling them.

The second stage is they start to get into the word and they start hearing from God. The third stage is God then softens their heart and they get their non-drug mind back and start thinking clearly. Fourth, they come to realize that they need to be fully dependent on God. "I just can't make it without God, I know that. I'm utterly dependent upon God." Number five, their strength in the Lord begins to grow.

And number six, the danger point. In this newfound strength, they become overconfident and they think, "I've got this. I've got this. I'm not going to fall. I can jump from cliff to cliff, I'm going to be just fine." And they begin saying things like this to themselves: "I really love playing pool, and I think I can go back to that bar and not drink. In fact, it'll be great because I can witness to my friends about Jesus in that bar." Wrong. That doesn't work.

Listen, when you become confident in your strength, in your ability to not sin, you are claiming to be stronger than Paul, who says he prays that he would not bring shame to Christ by falling. You can see this overconfidence on their faces. You can hear it in their voices. You really can. When these guys turn, it's in their face. They got their chin up a little higher, they got their shoulders back a little bit more, they got that twinkle in their eye like, "I've got this."

And I tell them, "This is the danger point." In First Corinthians 10, we read this: "These things happened as a warning to us so that we would not crave evil things as they did." Going onto verse 12, "If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall." If you think you are standing strong, when you think you're standing tall, be careful. That's when you're susceptible to falling.

An example is my wife and I, when we pray at night. We often tell God that we're grateful for the marriage that he's given us. But we tell God, if we ever begin to think that there's something special about our marriage, so special that we can't fail, it's the first step toward failure. Overconfidence can ruin your day. I remember a man my age, I was close to him. He was an elder in his church, married with children. And he repeatedly told me that it would be impossible for him to fall into sexual sin because he had the Holy Spirit in him.

I debated and argued. I said, "Look, that's just..." "Oh no, it's not possible." Well now, two decades later, he's now divorced and living with a girl that's 20 years his junior. Speaking of this deception, this overconfidence, Paul says this in First Corinthians 8: "If anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know." The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know. I like the next one, it's kind of a twist on it a bit. "The wise man knows he knows nothing, but the fool thinks he knows it all."

So true. First Corinthians 10:12: "If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall." And then moving on in Philippians verse 21, Paul says, "For me, living means living for Christ and dying is even better. But if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don't know which is better. I'm torn between two desires. I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it's better that I continue to live."

These are some of the most beautiful words in the entire Bible. "To live is Christ, to die is gain." These are words that absolutely decimate, dash to pieces, the world's fear of dying. Listen, "To live is Christ, to die is gain." Do you feel that it's to your advantage to die? What percentage of Americans would you guess fear dying? According to a 2010 study on fear of dying published by the Postgraduate Medical Journal, this was the exact question asked: "How scared are you of dying?"

29% of Americans said a moderate amount, 33% said extremely or very afraid of dying. So 62% of Americans have a fear of dying. Do you fear dying? As we talk about that 62%, that should give you some confidence in the workplace among your family to talk to them about Christ and heaven. Because six out of 10 people have some degree of fear of dying and we have the answer to that, don't we? Right? We don't die. We transition from this world to the next with Jesus.

Keep that in mind. My old barber, many years ago, said he knew the Bible better than anyone else. He read it more than anyone else, didn't need church. He just knew the Bible. And he was so confident, and I tried to talk to him, he just shut me down. But one time he said this: "Tom, when I go to bed at night, a lot of times I'm afraid I'm going to die at night." And I thought, "Wow, that was an entry into his soul, into that understanding of who he is." This is a common, a common fear.

To take away this fear of dying, God has given us some strong words. These verses are verses that I normally will read when someone is in a hospital dying or at home dying because they bring such comfort. Second Corinthians 5: "For we know that when this earthly tent we live in now is taken down, that is when we die and leave this earthly body, we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing."

Then skipping ahead to verse 6: "So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies, we are not at home with the Lord. For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather..." This is just what Paul said in Philippians. "And we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord."

In Greek, Paul said again, "To live is Christ, to die is gain." In Greek, gain means advantage. So Paul is saying, "To die is actually to my advantage." But more to the point, this should no doubt be the emphasis on the words given: "To die is to my advantage." That's clearly what is intended here. Look at these verses again. "For if I live, I can do more fruitful work for Christ. So I really don't know which is better. I'm torn between two desires. I long to go and be with Christ, which would be far better for me. But for your sakes, it's better that I continue to live."

Paul writes to the Philippians very candidly, saying that it is to my advantage that I die, but it's to your advantage that I live. Verse 24, "To live is Christ, to die is gain." Now a question: Has God ever asked you a question? Has he ever asked you a question? I love Dan Van Vleet's comment on this. Dan said that if God ever asks you a question, he's not looking for information. He's trying to put you in a box because he knows how you're going to have to answer the question, and in your struggle to answer the question, the answer becomes obvious.

If you've not experienced that yet, you will. God asks the best or the worst questions. Well, a question that God asked me one time in the wee hours of the morning in my spirit, in bed. He said, "Tom, if you could choose between remaining on earth or coming home to be with me, which would it be?" Well, I knew it was a trick question as soon as he asked it because you get the point. Well, in my selfishness, yeah, I'd rather be with you.

If there was no one else on the face of this earth, it was just Tom Keller, no one but me, of course I'd rather be with him. So how do I answer that question? He knows what I really want, but at the same time I know what he wants my answer to be, right? It's to stay and to be a benefit hopefully to others. Again, but that's selfish of me. What about Sue? What about the church? What about the unsaved people that God has yet to choreograph into my future? What about for them? For them, it's better that I remain.

So in these settings, we find that our heart calls us upward toward our heavenly home, but God's spirit calls me back to my earthly home. Paul says it's good for me to depart earth for heaven, but it's better for you that I stay. C.S. Lewis spoke of this drawing of our spirits to heaven this way: He said, "If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in the world can satisfy, the probable explanation is that we were made for another world."

Now does that mean that we should flee from life and run recklessly toward death? No. God wants us to enjoy life and avoid premature death. I said in the second service, I love what Solomon said about this. He said, "Young man, take in everything you want to do. Enjoy life, take in everything you want to do. Just remember you have to give account to God for all that you do." Enjoy life, take it in, live it to its fullness. But just remember you have to give an account for all that you do.

So enjoy life, but don't run toward death. So go to the doctors, keep yourself healthy, take vitamins. The commentator McLaren paraphrased this, and this is so good, listen to this. He said, "Paul no doubt shrank from death as we all do. But it was not the narrow passage of death which attracted him, but the broad land beyond." That word "gain" suggests that to Paul's confident faith, death was but an increase and progression of all that is good on earth.

To him, death was no destruction of his being and not even an interruption of his continuity. Everything that was of real advantage to him would continue on after death just as it had before. He ends by saying, "To Paul, the change from earth to heaven represented clear gain. Everything good on earth was to be just as it had been on earth in heaven, only better."

This is written by a Lance Farm, it says this: "We are not citizens of this world trying to make our way to heaven. We are citizens of heaven trying to make our way through this world." That radical Christian insight can be life-changing. We are not to live as to earn God's love, inherit heaven, and purchase our salvation. All those are given to us as gifts. Gifts bought by Jesus on the cross and handed over to us.

We are to live as God's redeemed, as heirs of heaven, as citizens of another land, the kingdom of God. We live as those who are on a journey home. A home we know will have the lights on and the door open and our father waiting for us when we arrive. That means in all adversity, our worship of God is joyful, our life hopeful, our future secure. There is nothing we can lose on earth that will rob us of the treasures God has given us and will give us.

Let's say you travel to Bulgaria and in Bulgaria, gasoline, heating oil is $100 a gallon. Now that means to fill your car up, you'd need $1000 for 10 gallons of gas. To put heating oil in your home for 1000 gallons, $100,000 to heat your house. You go, "Oh my word, this is terrible. I can't survive like this. How am I going to keep my house?" You're asking the wrong question. This isn't where you live.

You don't live in Bulgaria, you live in the United States. It's someone else's problem, it's not your problem. You're not home yet. You're going to go back to your home where this is not a problem. Same thing here. We get all caught up in the stuff going on in this country, all the problems here. Hey, you're not home yet, right? The best is yet to come, folks. You know that.

So that's what is meant by "to die is gain." But what does Paul mean, "To live is Christ"? Well, first and foremost, this recognizes that when you came to Christ, your old life ceased and a new life began. Romans 6:4: "Therefore we were buried with him through baptism in the death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father, so too we also should live in newness of life."

And because you no longer live any longer, your identity now is in Christ. Your identity is in Christ. Now you might say, "What is my identity?" Your identity is who you see yourself to be. It's that self-portrait that's composed of all the words that have ever been said about you, spoken over you, charged to you, and the way you see yourself based upon your experiences in life. They form the different views that shape you into who you see yourself being.

Words that you heard as a child, maybe "you're worthless," "you'll never be anything," "you're just trash," or "I wish you never would have been born." Or experiences: "I've been a drunk my entire adult life, I guess that's just who I am." That's your identity before Christ. But those negative thoughts are all lies once in Christ. And how does God deal with those lies? He doesn't do a makeover. He doesn't make you into a better version of the old you. No, it calls for a death.

I remember someone saying, a very bright man said this: "There isn't a problem in your life that a good funeral won't fix. Your funeral. Your funeral. Dying to self. Dying to self." When you come to Christ, God promises to give you a new identity and a new life. Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. There's the death, there's the burial, there's the old life gone. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life that I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."

I shared this before, but before I surrendered my life to Christ, I was hopelessly controlled by what other people thought of me. So I would buy more stuff, try to have more influence, more power, more prestige, which I used to bolster my identity. But as you know, folks, this leads to a trap. It leads you to that place where others control you because their opinion of you is what controls you.

But when I surrendered my life to Christ, I realized that my true identity was who Christ saw me as, not what others thought about me or even what I thought about myself. And you're set free. Folks, this is what ends your slavery to the opinions of others. Because there's only one opinion about you that is correct, and that's what God has to say about you.

If anyone in your life, anyone in your world, past or present, has said anything about you or it rings in your ears what they said and it's different than what God says about you, they're wrong and God is right. It will always be the default. So when you hear those old voices come back, you hear that tape recorder play, you say to yourself, "That is not what God says about me, that's a lie." Don't swim in it, don't deal with it, don't listen to it. Call it what it is: a lie. And accept the truth that God speaks about you.

And this is one of my missions in life, to help others get out of that cage that I was caught in. But that cage can seem like an old familiar friend and many resist giving up their old life and even the old words that were spoken about them. Since you already know how you see yourself, the starting point then is how does Christ see me? Oh, I'm glad you asked.

This next section is taken from the Father's love letter. "My child, you may not know me, but I know everything about you. I know when you sit down and when you rise up. I am familiar with all your ways. Even the very hairs on your head are numbered, for you were made in my image. In me you live and move and have your being, for you are my offspring.

I knew you even before you were conceived. I chose you when I planned creation. You were not a mistake. All your days are written in my book. I determined the exact time of your birth and where you would live. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. I knit you together in your mother's womb and I brought you forth on the day you were born.

I have been misrepresented by those who don't know me. I am not distant and angry, but am the complete expression of love. And it is my desire to lavish my love on you, simply because you are my child and I am your father. I offer you more than your earthly father ever could, for I am the perfect father. Every good gift that you receive comes from my hand. For I am your provider and I meet all your needs.

My plan for your future has always been filled with hope because I love you with an everlasting love. My thoughts towards you are as countless as the sand on the seashore, and I rejoice over you with singing. I will never stop doing good to you, for you are my treasured possession. I desire to establish you with all my heart and all my soul and to show you great and marvelous things. If you seek me with all your heart, you will find me."

Guest (Male): We're going through Philippians one verse at a time on Study the Word with Pastor Tom Keller. You can hear this message again anytime of the day or night online at ccleb.com or subscribe to our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. If you'd rather have a CD copy, call us at 717-273-5633. Have you been helped by the ministry? Let us know that. It would be so encouraging to Pastor Tom and all of us at Study the Word.

Give us a call at 717-273-5633 or write to Study the Word, 740 Willow Street, Lebanon, Pennsylvania 17046. You can email us through the website as well at ccleb.com. Study the Word is made possible through the generous support of listeners just like you. And thank you for helping us reach thousands with the love and truth of Jesus Christ. You can give online right now at ccleb.com or call 717-273-5633.

We hope you'll visit us sometime here at Calvary Chapel Lebanon for our service times and more information. Go online to ccleb.com. You can also watch our livestream at ccleb.com or on our YouTube channel at Calvary Chapel Lebanon. Study the Word with Pastor Tom Keller is brought to you by Calvary Chapel Lebanon. May God richly bless you as you study the word.