What Do You Live For

Major League Baseball has a promotional scheme today to showcase fans and players who are completely dedicated to the game with a burning passion for the game of baseball. And they have even coined a phrase to summarize that dedication and that passion. What is it? Say, if I know? Some of you ladies, yes, some of you ladies say, who cares? You know? All right, let's watch the one of the commercials and we'll see. You'll remember when you see it, I believe. I was always said I was going to be playing professional baseball. That's all I ever talked about. The thing that means most to me is I want to be remembered as Yankee. You're neither love, so hate us. I enjoy playing at home, fun and great spans in the world. I also enjoy going on the road, people booing us and hating us. The bottom line is when you compete and you want to win. I live for this. Catch Major League Baseball. All season long, on ESPN. Don't miss it. OK, what is the phrase? I live for this. And ESPN even has a, or actually Major League Baseball is running a contest to try to identify the best fan in the country, the one who embodies that phrase the most. I live for this on their website. They say, we're talking about the kind of fan who wears his colors, his team colors, to work every day. The kind of fan who calls in sick on opening day every, every year. The kind of fan who names his children after his favorite players. We're doing a contest to find out who is the fan that really embodies the phrase. I live for this. I live for this. I want to ask you this morning, what do you live for? What are you really passionate about? What is it that you could say? I live for this. I want to recommend an activity to you today that I think could be helpful to all of us in actually, honestly, answering that question. At the top of your sermon notes, or maybe some other piece of paper you brought with you, write out the phrase you see on your screen this morning. To me, living is an in draw blank. And over the next few moments, think about what it really is, what you would put in that blank, how you would answer and complete that sentence to me, living is. Now take time. Be honest. Resist the urge to quickly put in something you know should be there. The way you ought to answer. Be honest with this. Think about what really makes you come alive inside. Just as a very feeble example. We are doing some wedding shopping these days. And occasionally we go to a place and I want to tag along because I enjoy being with my family. And so I tag along and I drive them and occasionally we will be at a place. I'm not really into looking at candles and dresses and stuff like that. So occasionally we'll be in a shopping center where there's a barns and nobles. And I light up and I kind of feel something inside like wow you know it calls two of my passions are books and music. And there's no better place to be if you want to books and music than a barns and nobles. And plus they've got Starbucks. So how can you go wrong? So I'll just drop them off and say you all come get me when you're done because I just kind of light up when I see a barns and nobles in a shopping center like that. Okay on a much deeper level now. What is it that does that to you? What is it that you really live for? That really lights you up inside. That you really get excited about and you're really passionate about. You may have to put in the blank. If you're honest and if you have resisted the urge to quickly put in there what you know Jesus, you know quickly what you know you should do. If you're really honest and you may not even be able to complete this statement right now you may want to take it home and do it later. But if you're really honest some of you may have to put in there my job. To me living is my job. Some of us may have to put in there to me living is possessions. My stuff. Some of us may have to put in there living is family. Some of us may have to put in that blank to me living is recognition. Really deep down what I want is for people to recognize me. What I want is for people to talk about me or to think well of me. That's what I live for. For some of us we may have to put in that blank planning for retirement. For me living right now is planning for retirement. I can't wait. It's all I'm focused on planning for retirement. For some of us we might have to put in that blank pleasure whether it's sports or shopping or whatever form of pleasure it may be we may have to put that in the blank. But please take the time. Resist that urge to quickly put in the blank what you know should be there and do it honestly fill the blank what is most important to me. What am I really passionate about? What really gets the motor of my heart revved up? Paul tells us how he would complete that statement. Philippians chapter 1. Now for those of you who have a short memory it's been a while since we've been in Philippians right. So we're getting back to Philippians this morning. We've been tracking our way through Paul's letter to the Philippians and we find ourselves in chapter 1 verse 19 at this juncture today. We've seen already that Paul has talked in chapter 1 about suffering for Christ. And he's talked about his own present experience of being in jail and how he views that. But now he kind of shifts his thinking from his present circumstances to what he's thinking about the future in verse 19. And when he talks about his vision for the future and what really he's passionate about in his life it comes out very clearly what he's living for. What really is life to him and he describes this is what I live for and because the Holy Spirit saw fit to put it in God's Word. It's a challenge to us as to what we ought to be living for today. Three things Paul says, this to me is life. This is what I live for. The first one in verses 19 and 20 is faithfulness to Christ. Faithfulness to Christ. Look at what he says in verse 19 of Philippians chapter 1. He says, for I know that through your prayers and to help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body whether by life or by death. He's talking about faithfulness to Christ here. And I want you to see first of all his desire for faithfulness that he expresses in verses 19 in the very first words of verse 20. His desire for faithfulness, this passionate, I live for this kind of feeling comes through in the words he uses. He says first of all in verse 19, he says, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. The writers who write on the book of Philippians take at least three different views as to what he means by deliverance. The word literally is the word salvation. And there are at least three different views as to what he means. This is not an in-depth Bible study this morning so I'm not going to go through all three of those views. And the context supports the view that he's talking about his release from prison verses 24 and 25. He'll talk more about that. The fact that he expects that God is going to allow him to be released from prison to continue ministry among the Philippians and others. So I think the context would lead to this deliverance idea being his deliverance from prison. He has convinced that's going to happen. And he says, I'm convinced that that will happen as a result of both your prayers and to help given by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, probably speaking about the Holy Spirit moving on the hearts of the authorities to rule favorably in his case so that he can be released from prison. So he says, I think that's what's going to happen, but that's not what I live for. Whether I am released or not, he says in verse 20, and look at these words, I eagerly expect and hope. And he's going to tell us two things that he's really passionate about here and we'll see those in just a moment. But I want us to first of all focus on this desire, this intense desire for faithfulness. The words he uses here, I eagerly expect those are intense words. The word that he uses here is used only one other time in the New Testament is used by Paul in Romans chapter 8 and verse 19. Look at this on the screen. The creation waits in eager expectation. That's our word that he uses here in Philippians. And eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. Now what he's talking about there in the context is that the whole creation, you know, nature, the plant kingdom, the animal kingdom, all of creation is a part and under the results of the curse of God on nature because of man's sin that happened in Genesis 3. And the curse that God placed on nature, nature groans under that and longs to be delivered from that. And when, as he says, the sons of God are revealed talking about when we're in heaven, when we're with Christ, when things come to their consummation in the kingdom of God, then the earth and all of nature will be released from that bondage. And right now all of creation is just longing for that. Eager expectation, same word Paul uses here. It is my eager expectation. The idea of the word really carries the idea of a runner who is stretched out every muscle strained toward getting to the finish line, head high, focus on the face, straining towards something. Look at this picture. 1988 Olympics. Ben Johnson on the left from Canada, wins 100 meter dash. Carl Lewis is on the right. Look at those runners. Look at how stretched out they are. Look at every focus intention of muscle in their body. Look at the two middle runners trying to get third place. Look at the focus, the stretching forward. It's exactly the idea of this word. Ben Johnson was disqualified because he used steroids. But anyway, he was still trying hard, at least in this picture. But the idea of this word is that you are stretching out for this. This is a passionate, intense desire. Your focus is solely on this goal. The Jewish writer Josephus, Jewish historian, who was at one time before he became a writer, was at one time a military commander among the Jews. And he was responsible for a city in Galilee when the Romans were attacking one time. And he uses this word to describe his feelings as they were waiting for the Roman army to attack the city that he is responsible to defend. He says, and I quote, we breathlessly awaited the hail of arrows. You can just sense that gripping intensity of feeling there as he breathlessly awaits the unleashing of the power of the Roman army. Same word. So the idea is a passionate, intense desire to be faithful to Christ. Do we have that kind of desire to be faithful to Christ? Or is our passion and intensity driven by other things in this life? Or said, I eagerly anticipate, I eagerly passionately stretch myself out for this. This is my desire and it is to be faithful. What kind of faithfulness is he talking about? What does he mean? He describes it for us in verse 20. This is the description of faithfulness. And he mentions two areas. He says, I eagerly expect and hope that number one, I will in no way be ashamed and will have sufficient courage. That's the first thing he wants to be faithful about. This is the first description of faithfulness to Christ. I don't want to be ashamed. I want to have courage. It's quite clear in the context he's talking about when he stands before Caesar in his trial. He wants to not be ashamed of the gospel. So the first description of being faithful to Christ is that we are not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. And I want to be ashamed. I want to have courage when I stand before Caesar. Nothing will stop me, he says. I know I'm going to be standing before the most powerful ruler on the planet. I know I will be before the highest tribunal on the planet. And I know that the stakes are high if they rule against me. I die. It's capital punishment. I don't want any of that to shake me, Paul is saying. I don't want any of that to move me. I don't want my knees to buckle, I don't want my voice to clover, I don't want my spine to tip over, I want to stand strong, I want to speak loud, I want to stand strongly for the gospel of Jesus. I want to be courageous. I don't want to be ashamed of him there. And I don't want anything to intimidate me there. That's what it means to be faithful to Christ. That we will not be ashamed of the gospel. By the way, what does it take to intimidate us and cause us to become weak need and our tongues to be silent and our mouth to be closed when there is an opportunity to stand up for Jesus and say, yes, I am a believer. I do believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior. The gospel means this to me. How intimidated we often become by much lesser opposition than what Paul was facing. Our faithfulness to Christ may well be measured, at least in part, by whether or not we are ashamed of him and ashamed of the gospel when we have opportunity to take a stand for him in the course of our daily lives. So the description of faithfulness for Paul to give a good account of the gospel, to not be ashamed and to have courage to stand up for the gospel when I am in that trial. But there is more to it than that. There is more to faithfulness than that. Paul says, secondly. I eagerly expect in hope that I will in no way be ashamed but will have sufficient courage and here is the result. So that now as always, Christ will be exalted in my body whether by life or by death. The second part of the second description of being faithful to Christ is that Christ be exalted in my body, whatever happens, life or death, whichever way this trial goes, whatever the decision is, whatever direction my life takes, I want Christ to be exalted. I really prefer the word magnify, which I think is the word the King James uses, to magnify Christ in my body. Another translation puts it this way, I want the greatness of Christ to shine out clearly in my person. The word here translated exalt or magnify is literally the word which means to make great or to enlarge. So magnify is probably a word that we identify better with in that sense of making something great or enlarging something. I want to plum the depths of what Paul means here, what he is talking about. And maybe we can best do that by remembering how we magnify things today to really get the grasp of this word to make great or to enlarge. There are two ways we magnify things in our world today. One is with a microscope. We take something that is very small and we magnify it 60 times, 100 times, 200 times to where it looks bigger. That is not the idea here. Christ is not someone who is so small that he needs to be made to look bigger than he really is. Okay, so that's not the idea. But there's another way that we magnify things in our world today and that is not through a microscope but through a telescope. And what a telescope does is it takes something that is very far away and for that reason looks very small but it isn't small and it brings it closer and puts it in focus so we can see what is really far away. A couple of weeks ago I was sick and some of you were very thankful I was sick so that you could see that Louis Giggly of DVD and you're saying, John, get sick again, man, if we can do something like that, get sick again. You know, thanks a lot. But anyway, that's a great DVD to you, and I think Kyle Swim for learning that to me and he's the one that put me onto it and I was hoping for some time to be able to share that with the whole church. That was great, wasn't it? And what you saw was the amazing wonder of what the Hubble telescope has been able to bring to our attention about the universe and the amazing power of God. We've got a picture of the Hubble telescope here and the reason why it's able to take such clear pictures is it's above the dust of our atmosphere. It's about almost 400 miles above the Earth's surface and so it's above all the dust and particles that collect in our atmosphere so it gives stunning clear shots of deep outer space. Like one of the ones that Louis Giggly of showed you a couple of weeks ago, the Sombrero Galaxy, 28 million light years away. The next picture shows us that. Even that stunning, just that beautiful picture of the Sombrero Galaxy, we would never have seen that. It hadn't been for the Hubble telescope. We would not know it was out there. 28 million light years away is this beautiful, beautiful, spectacular creation of God. Now what a telescope is able to do then is to take something that is very far away and looks small because of that or may even be imperceptible to the natural eye and brings it close where we can wonder and be odd at it. That's the idea of the word infillipience. To magnify Christ means to take someone who is far away. He is outside the scope of visibility. He's in heaven. People can't see him anymore. And by the way, the natural man, the unsaved man can't even really appreciate who he is as he's described in the Bible anyway. So we cannot see who Christ is and what God wants to do with us, with you and with me. Is he wants to take our body? That's what Paul says here. Christ be magnified in my body, whether by life or death, whatever this turns out. I want Christ to be seen. God wants to take your body and mind and use that as the telescope through which a distant Christ that the world cannot see is brought near and put in focus and people can see how Jesus Christ would work a job that you work on Monday through Friday. And how Jesus Christ would respond to the situation that you are in right now, if he were in that situation. And God wants the world to see how Jesus Christ would speak and respond verbally to whatever challenges you face. We are literally responsible for making clear to people who can't see Jesus what he looks like. In that sense, we magnify Christ. Paul says, I live for that. I want above all things to be faithful to Christ in the sense that I don't want to be ashamed of the gospel. And I want Christ to be seen in this world through my body, through my life and how I live. I want people to be able to look at me and say, you know, I think that's how Jesus would live. I think that's what Jesus would do. That's what it means to magnify Christ. So Paul says, I live for this to be faithful to Christ. But that's not all. There's something else Paul would put in that blank. He's going to crowd the space a little bit. He's going to put another thing in there. To me, living is not only faithfulness to Christ. Paul says to me, secondly, living is focus on Christ. A focus on Christ. And what he's talking about is that not only do I want Christ to be seen through me and not be ashamed of the gospel, but I want my own heart and mind and life to be focused on Christ. Now that kind of focus on Christ does three things for us. First of all, it clarifies life. That kind of focus clarifies life. Paul says that in verse 21. Look at the beginning of the verse. For to me, to live is Christ. Please don't miss what that verse is saying because of your familiarity with it. Philippians 1.21 is one of the first verses that people often memorize. Many claim this as their so-called life verse. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. It's a verse that many have memorized in their childhood and carry it with them all the time. And that familiarity with it may blur its meaning or at least its impact, the depth of its impact. What Paul is saying is I want to keep my focus on Christ. I want my life, my whole life, everything to focus on Christ. And that will bring focus to everything else in life. That will put everything else in the proper focus. If my focus is on Christ. In other words, Christ will be the lens through which everything else is viewed in my life. Christ will be the controlling thought through which everything else is processed in my life. Now we've already seen how that works with Paul. He's describing it for us in this chapter. Remember, he's in prison. How does Paul view prison? What does Paul think about prison? It's an opportunity to share the gospel of Christ with jailers and with Caesar's household. You see his heart, minds, life is focused on Christ. So that brings focused everything else. You see how Christ becomes the lens through which everything else is seen. Christ becomes the controlling thought through which every other thought is processed. And Paul says there are preachers out there that are preaching and some of them are trying to gain a following, thinking they'll hurt me because I'm in prison and I'm not free to preach out there in public like they are. He says, I just rejoice in what? That they're preaching Christ. You see how Christ is the lens through which he sees everything else? You see how Christ is the controlling thought through which everything else is processed? Everything is viewed through Christ and what this means to Christ. He's going to say in just a moment, you know, the end result of this thing could be, I might die. But that's okay to be with Christ is to die and that's far better. So how does he view death? You see how Christ is the lens through which he sees everything else? You see how Christ is the controlling thought through which every other thought is processed? Even death is processed through what does this mean about my relationship with Christ? If I die, I get to be with him. And then he says, you know, it could result and he comes to the conviction that it will result that he will stay here. But you know what that means to him? I get to serve Christ more and serve you by serving Christ. You see how Christ becomes the lens through which everything else is seen? Christ becomes the controlling thought through which every other thought is processed? That's what he means when he says for to me to live is Christ. Don't let that just glibly roll off your tongue. What it means to us, what it should mean to us if we can even say it. What it should mean to us is not, oh, Monday morning, I got to go back to work. No, no. What it should mean to us is I get another opportunity to represent Christ in my factory, in my office, in my workplace, in my school. I get another opportunity to represent Christ. I'm his ambassador there. What does this mean for me in relationship to Christ? He is the lens through which everything else is seen. He's the controlling thought through which every other thought is processed. That's what it means for to me to live is Christ. You end up in the hospital. And I know this is not easy. It's not probably our first thought, but if we're walking close to the Lord, it ought to come pretty soon that we begin to process that experience by saying, okay, this is not easy. I don't feel very good. I feel awful, but you know, God may have put me here so that I can share Christ with a nurse or a doctor or someone else in the room who's in the bed beside me. Or maybe just this experience is so that I can draw closer to Christ and become more like him in his suffering so that I can help someone else and serve Christ better. You see how Christ is the lens through which everything else is viewed, the controlling thought through which every other thought is processed? See, that's what it means for to me to live is Christ. It took me a while to process that a couple of weeks ago, when that bug got a hold of me on a Saturday night and wouldn't let me go and finally about Sunday evening, I began to realize when I began to hear reports about how well the DVD had gone over, I began to realize what the Lord was doing was, you know, he was saying, okay, John, I really want the people at Johnson Chapel to see that and I know you plan sermons so far ahead that your schedule's full and you'll never get it in. So zap, there you go. They're going to get to see the video. Now, it took me a while to come to that, but I did eventually realize, you know, God had a purpose in that because I think in that morning, God wanted you to see that. See, and by the time I realized Sunday morning, I wouldn't be able to even get out of bed much less, get up and preach. It was too late to call anybody else to preach and I thought, that DVD, let's show that. And so there it was. God did all that. How does that relate to our relationship with Christ? So what we need to be focusing on, if we have a focus on Christ, is that whatever happens to me today, how can I view this through how it will enable me to serve Christ better, to share Christ better, to know Christ better, to show Him to others better? Christ is the lens through which everything else is seen. Christ is the controlling thought through which every other thought is processed. That's what Paul means. It's a focus of our life on Christ and that clarifies life. It means that everything is seen through that lens. Every thought is processed through that controlling thought. But not only does it clarify life, it clarifies death, the end of the verse. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. You talk about clarity on death. There's no way you can say this if you don't feel out the first part of the equation right. See if for you living is all about me or about my comforts or about stuff or about whatever, in this life, if that's what's really important to you, then you cannot in any sense of the word say to die is gain. But if your life is focused on Christ, then this makes sense. This really clarifies what death is all about. Because if life is focused on Christ, if life is Christ, then death is gained. The Greek word literally means more. Death is more. You know why it's more? Because I get to be with Him. I can't see Him now. I can't really personally worship and thank Him for dying for me. But when I die, I'll be able to do that. So it's greater. It's more. It's gain. I will worship Him better there than I've ever worshiped Him here. And we had a wonderful worship time this morning. My heart was just caught up in that. It was great. But we will worship Him better there than we ever have here. We will serve Him better there than we ever have here. And every sense of the word, if your life is really focused on Christ, then to die is gain. It's more. It's better. So this really brings into focus, into clear focus, what death is all about? Simply means to be with the Lord, which is really better anyway. So this kind of focus on Christ clarifies life, it clarifies death, but it also clarifies choices. Look at what Paul says in verse 22. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know. I am torn between the two. I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far, but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. Do you sense the pull here within Paul? This choice, and it's not really like Paul has a choice as to whether or not he dies, or choices out of his hands. It's in the hands of the Roman tribunal and Caesar, ultimately in the hands of God, as to whether or not he continues to live or he dies. It's not Paul's choice, but Paul is saying, if I had a choice, I'd be hard pressed to say which is the one I choose, to depart, to leave this earth, this body, and to go be with Christ. That's far better. That's really the better choice. What I know to remain here is more needful for you, and Paul will come to the conclusion that God does have more for him to do, and so he's convinced that he will stay here and have more service for the Lord. But do you see what he's doing here? He's battling between two choices, and basically he's saying, there are two good choices, because I view them through the lens of Christ, through the controlling thought of Christ. If I depart, if I die, I get to be with Christ. If I stay here, I get to serve Christ. So it clarifies choices. A lot of the things we struggle with, by way of choices, would be clarified a lot if our focus were on Jesus Christ. And we were asking ourselves which direction, which choice, which option will enable me to better serve for, live for, know, magnify Jesus Christ. That clarifies a lot of choices in life. Now here, Paul's saying, both of them are good, and I'm willing to just leave it in the hands of God, which everyone happens, because both of them either get to be with Christ, or I get to serve Christ, both are great choices. But it's amazing how focusing on Christ clarifies choices in life. Paul says, I live for this. I live for this. Living for me is a focus on Christ, which clarifies everything about life, everything about death, even clarifies choices on facing. But he's not done yet. He's going to scribble a little bit more on that paper. To me, living is, Paul will say, following Christ. Following Christ. Now what does Paul mean by following Christ? What does the Bible mean by following Christ? Literally, to follow Christ means to serve Him. If you follow Him, you will serve Him. You'll be active in, bob, and some service for Christ. Just to substantiate that before we get to how Paul addresses that here, we give you a few verses. We'll look at them on the screen. Matthew chapter 4, verse 19, Jesus said, come follow me, and I will make you fishers of men. In other words, to his first disciples, Peter and Andrew, James and John, he says, you follow me, I give you a job to do. You'll be serving me. You're going to be fishers of men. He makes this clear in Matthew 16 when he talks about following Him. Then Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. There's a lot in there that means to put aside your own agenda and plans and focus on dying to your own self and following Christ. What happens if we follow Him? Well, he goes on to explain, for whoever wants to save his life will lose it and whoever loses his life for me will find it. Let's go on. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? Then he makes one final comment about this in verse 27. Notice, he says, for the Son of Man is going to come in his Father's glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. You see what he's saying? If you follow me, it means you deny your own agenda and your own self, and you take up your cross, and you come after me, and I will give you something to do, and you will be rewarded according to what you have done when all is said and done. When I come back to follow Him means to serve Him, to live for Him, to invest your life in some way for Him. I'm not talking about, everybody has to become a preacher or missionary. I'm saying that wherever you are, again, the focus of your life should be on how can I serve Christ best through my occupation, through my witness in my neighborhood, through my relationship to my family, how can I serve Him best, and how can I get involved in ministry in and through the local church? You see, following Him is all about serving Him. Jesus said the same thing again to His disciples in Matthew 20. He was constantly teaching this. He said to them when they were quibbling about who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom, He said, you that's the way the Gentiles operate. He says, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant. And whoever wants to be first must be your slave, just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Jesus Himself was the example. To follow God's will for His life meant to serve others. It meant to put the needs of others first. Now let's take that. Come back to Philippians. If following Christ means serving Him, Paul talks first of all in this passage about His confidence in verse 25. He says, convinced of this, convinced of what? Verse 24, that's more necessary for me that I remain here in the body. He says, convinced of this, I know that I will remain and I will continue with all of you for your progress and join the faith. So that through my being with you again, your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow an account of me. Now, Paul's confidence is that having prayed, having sought God about this, having thought about this, he is confident, God's going to leave him here. You know why? He tells us, God's got more work for me to do. He says in verse 24, there is more for me to do. I'm convinced that to stay here is more necessary for you and convince of this, I'm going to continue with you for your progress and join the faith. God's got more for me to do. Did you know that you will not die until God is finished with the work He wants to do through you on this earth? You will not die until God is finished as a believer. God is finished with the work He wants to do through you. You know what else that means? That means if you're still living and breathing, God still has something for you to do. He still has something for you to do. And not all of us serve in the same way, but all of us can serve in some way. Not all in the same way, but all in some way. We can serve. God. And so God has something for us to do. Paul says, I'm convinced I'm going to stay here. God has something for me to do. Notice the description of His service at the end of verse 25. We just read it. It's for your progress, for your joy, so that through my being with you again, your joy in Christ Jesus may overflow. You notice the emphasis on the reason I'm staying here is because God has something for me to do in serving Him that includes you, that involves you. I am to serve you. I am to serve others. In other words, Rick Warren is right when he says it's not all about you. Following Christ means we serve others. It's not about my convenience. It's not about what I want. It's about serving others. Do you see what Paul's doing here? Paul is actually presenting a model of what he will say in chapter 2 and verse 4 when he's talking about the church's unity. Chapter 2 verse 4, he says, each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Now, Paul's already said it'd be far better for me if I go home with the Lord. That'd be far better for me. If I'm concerned about what's best for me, come on Lord please, take me home. But I'm convinced that to remain here is more needful for you. So Paul says, I'm putting your interests ahead of mine. Paul's service, his sense of ministry, his sense of what God wants him on this planet for is to invest his life in helping others, serving others, reaching out to others. That is what he lives for. That's what I live for Paul says. Following Christ which means serving others. The reason why I want to emphasize that is because too often we are so ready to focus on other things, lesser things. You know some churches fight over whether the piano is on the right side or the left side of the auditorium. By the way, I got an easy one to take care of that. If you're upset because it's on the left side of the auditorium, just turn around. Now it's on the right side. That's simple, solve that one. Some people fight over that kind of stuff though. Some churches fight over whether or not the words they're singing are found in the hymnal or on the screen. Remember the first time I ever introduced contemporary Christian music to a church service when we started contemporary service back in our church in Indiana in the mid 80s. This is when contemporary services were new, fresh. And I had some folks come up to me and say, I don't like that singing off the wall. Does it really matter in the ultimate scheme of things? Where the words are? Whether they're on screen or in the hymnal. Some people get all bent out of shape over whether or not the carpet is blue or orange. Tell we were built in the 70s, can't you? There are bigger things than that. There are bigger things in life. There are bigger things in ministry. What God wants us to focus on, we are to follow Him. I live for this, follow Him, which means we serve others, which means we put others, interests and needs first, just like Paul was doing here. Be better for me if I'd go on home. But I'm going to stay here because it's better for you. I'm going to serve you. So we have to put the interests, the needs of unsaved people first. Retool our ministry, redirect our ministry. Make sure we are focused on doing what is best to reach. Lost people? That's where our focus has to be. And then our focus has to be on once they are here and they come to know Christ. How can we best serve them to help them grow up in Christ and become more mature in Christ? And if it means I need to change the way I do something of it means I need to give a little of my time to be involved in ministry so be it. We are to live for this. This should be our passion following Christ, which means serving others. Okay, go back to that exercise when we started at the beginning of the message. To me, living is... How would you fill it out? If you say, you know, I have to be honest, to me, living is my job. That's what I'm passionate about. That's what I live for, my job. Then you have to finish that verse this way. To die is to lose my job. Some of you honestly may have to say to me, living is my possessions. I'll be honest. That's what I live for. That's what really turns me on. It's how much stuff I've gotten, whether it's the newest or the best. That's what I really live for. I hate to have to say it, but that's it. Then you would have to say to die is to leave it all behind. For some of us, we might have to say, for me, living is recognition. And if you fill in the first part of the blank that way, the second part of the verse would be then to die is to be forgotten. Because it really is. Now this may be a lack of interest on my part, but I do not know the names of any of my great grandparents. They were all dead before I was old enough to even understand who they were. Three generations, they're forgotten. You will be too. If all you live for is recognition, then to die is to be forgotten. If we fill in that phrase for me, living is retirement. That's all I'm thinking about right now. That's all I live for. I'm going to retire or pleasure shopping sports, whatever, TV, whatever. If we fill it out that way, then to die means that it's snatched away from us. You see, the only way to be able to say life and death both are in the proper perspective is to be able to fill out the first part of that equation like Paul did. To me, living is, and let's ask God to help us move a step closer to this today, to me, living is faithfulness to Christ. I don't want to be ashamed of the gospel. I want to magnify Christ so that other people see Christ. That's what I live for. To me, living is faithfulness to Christ. Let's move a step closer today to being able to honestly fill in that phrase. To me, living is focusing on Christ. That everything I think and see about life is through that grid, through that lens, through that controlling thought of whether or not it will help me serve Christ better, no Christ better, live for Christ better, tell about Christ better. It's all seen through Christ. That's what I live for. And let's move a step closer today to being able to honestly fill in that blank with to me, living is following Christ, which means I give up my own agenda, my own preferences and desires, and I invest my life in serving others in doing something that will help reach somebody for Christ or help build them up in the faith. That's what I live for. Let's pray. Father, help me to move a step closer today to being able to honestly say what I really live for is faithfulness to you and focus on you and following you. So many things compete for our passion and our focus in life. I pray that today we move a step closer. To being able to join Paul in saying those tremendous confessions, I live for this. Jesus' name, amen.