To Live Is Christ to Die Is Gain

by Matt Chandler

It may be, then, that this letter is the best New Testament picture we have of what a maturing church looks like and what maturing people do.

You can’t win with a guy like this. If you want to kill him, he’s cool with that because it means he gets to be with Jesus. If you want to make him suffer, he’s cool with that, so long as it makes him like Jesus.

This is how the Philippian church begins—with a Jewish fashionista businesswoman, a demon-possessed slave girl, and a blue-collar ex-GI duty bound to the Roman Empire. Probably not exactly your dream church-planting team, but the Spirit works in strange ways to utterly redeem the unlikeliest and most diverse people.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we will admit that we tend to prefer to do life with people who are similar to us.

The gospel creates a new reality that deepens our understanding of the world and our place in it.

For Paul, it means ascribing worth. When he commands others to live in a “worthy” way, he means we should live in such a way that shows what we believe is of supreme worth.

Paul’s confession erupts from deep conviction.

There is a greater day coming, a greater reward coming, a greater life coming, and the purpose of life while we are alive is to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, which holds the promise of life everlasting.

Paul says to the Philippians that to live a life worthy of the gospel means standing together as one, striving in one mind for what’s ahead. Implicitly, we see that the Philippian church was not a perfect church; in fact, the gospel is commended when we can admit we aren’t perfect, even after we’re saved.

The Christian living a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ is fearless, regardless of the situation.

The day will come—perhaps today—when you will die and see all of history being effectively rewritten from the halls of heaven. The annals of history will not be filled with wars and kings; there will be one story, the heroes will be missionaries, and the victor will be seen clearly as Christ. Knowing this, who cares if friends or enemies mock you? Do not be “frightened in anything by your opponents” (Phil. 1:28). Be willing to get on a plane and go to dangerous places. Be willing to take the pay cut at work to do what’s right. Be willing, no matter who your opponent is, to be fearless.

Gospel courage comes from gospel preciousness.

Are you living a life worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ? Have you found Christ worth living for, worth dying for, worth casting all away for His sake?

That is an awe-full lowliness.

notice how she transitions from mercy to strength:

It’s a rare occurrence in the Bible, actually, to see God exalting a strong, capable, and brilliant person in any significantly enduring way.

So what ends up happening is that we start blaming others, justifying ourselves, and living this really weird life where we’ve got this long, boring story about how everybody’s done us wrong.

And the reason the rich go away empty is because everything they’re trying to find fulfillment in, they weren’t meant to find fulfillment in.

Paul’s word to the church at Philippi should be a huge antidote to the inclination to walk with a swagger.

It’s for this reason that John Calvin calls the Psalms an anatomy of the human soul.

this way were not pursuing experiences—they were pursuing God.

Is this desperation something that typifies the church today?

The dogs stay focused on “I do. I don’t. I have. I never.” And look at what they have done. Look at what they have accomplished.

“I am presently recalled by inward motions so charming and delicious that I am ashamed to mention them.”

Here is my question: Why don’t we? Why are we so easily satisfied? Why is this sense of lustful, soul-deep angst so uncommon?

If you pay attention to that which stirs your affections for Jesus and His gospel, you will also be able to identify that which robs your affections for Him.

Isn’t it nice when someone’s love for you is not contingent upon what you do? Such is the love of God.

felt like I was being taught that in my justification, total sanctification also occurred.

Why is Paul passionately pursuing Jesus? Why should we continue to pursue Him, even after our conversion? Because we are broken people. We are really broken.

The broken in Christ must keep pursuing Christ so that Christ’s power will break more and more areas of bondage in their lives. Going after this merely through behavior modification simply won’t work.

church was such a goofy thing to me. In the experience of late 1980s and early 1990s youth ministry, I don’t know how anyone came to Christ. It might have been the most uncool period in church history, and I’m totally aware of the Inquisition.

Why is it that so few “pretty people” without checkered pasts are used mightily in the Scriptures? Because the Bible is primarily about God’s grace, not about human cleanliness.

It’s a weird conundrum, the Christian life—we can either chase Him or be miserable at some level.

I have said for years now that church is the lamest hobby in the universe. Get a boat. Go mountain climbing. Ski. If you’re just looking for some kind of self-improvement experience, do something other than church. The church as a self-help center is a terrible thing to devote your life to. I mean, it’s on Sunday morning. It’s early. You have to stand up a lot. It’s a lame, lame, lame hobby.

Oh, thank God that striving in prayer is biblical.

I know it’s very popular in the business world and even in the church world to say that we ought to only play to our strengths and spend little time on our weaknesses, but I don’t see that spirit of efficiency too much in the Bible.

humble in ourselves and confident in Christ.

We need to be most careful about our spiritual state when we are exulting in past victories. Those memories are great, but they are not suitable power for the growth needed today.

Holy discontentment produces a lot of restless energy that seeks rest in Christ and His gospel. That’s where that five-pronged “one thing” of Paul’s comes in.

Don’t play games. Don’t mess around. Instead, train yourself for godliness. Toil and strive.

But as Dallas Willard says, “Grace is not opposed to effort, but to earning.” Nobody stumbles into godliness,

while we are not saved by our striving and in fact are saved from our striving, we are also saved to our striving—a striving after Christ.

So now then: in all our toiling and striving and straining and pressing, “only let us hold true to what we have attained.” Or “hold fast,” as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:2.

We keep evangelizing each other. Indeed, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer says in his book on Christian community, Life Together, we should meet each other as bringers of the gospel. We need the word of Christ in each other.

Maybe you have to travel. Maybe you have to adjust your schedule in inconvenient ways. Discipleship is important enough to make those efforts anyway.

and what Paul shares with us in the final verses of Philippians 3, is to find who we are not in the external but in the internal.

Paul insists in the strongest terms that genuine Christianity, the kind that he wants imitated, lives in the light of Jesus’s return.

The primary reason is this: he knows that a divided church is a terrible witness.

Where is his confidence coming from? Clearly it is not coming from his surroundings or his predicament. He trusts in the sovereign power and holy justice of the loving Lord God.

Dell did not die like that. He thought, If God wants to save me, He can. And if God wants to take me home, let’s go home. It always blew my mind that he could be so calm about the whole thing, just so straightforwardly peaceful. A good description for the way he suffered might be “resolutely peaceful.”