Let’s Get Together, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! – Organizations, Denominations, and Congregations, Oh My! - Purity 719

Let’s Get Together, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah! – Organizations, Denominations, and Congregations, Oh My!  - Purity 719

Purity 719 04/30/2022     Purity 719 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of, what I believe to be, an early morning sunrise over a farm somewhere along the way on my wife’s morning commute to work comes to us from my phone’s photo archives as I saved it back April 12^th, and as of this morning its origin is still in question as I have absolutely no degree of certainty that a. it was taken and shared by my wife or comes from some other friend or b. it is a photo of a sunrise or a sunset! 

No, I think that’s a sunset, right? Yeah. Whatever. Whether it’s a sunrise or a sunset, I share it because of it’s natural beauty and I love how the clouds are above the sun forming a triangular heavenly “teepee” that encapsulates the sky and has the sun as a base fire.  

This heavenly tabernacle, or tent of meeting, reminds me of two things. 

Because I am currently at my countryside home enjoying the company of my beloved wedded wife, it reminds me of the ideal Christian marriage, where husband and wife are gathered together with God as their focal point of worship, purpose, and direction, as the Lord is the One who establishes the standards of their marriage covenant. 

When a husband and wife are equally seeking the Lord and His will for their individual lives and agree to obey the commandments that the Lord puts forth in His word for husbands and wives, they naturally will draw closer together and have peace and harmony, as each party will seek to love and serve the other as an expression of, not only their love for one another, but as an expression of their love and obedience to the Lord, and as a confirmation of their individual identity in Christ.

Did you know being a good husband or wife was a spiritual practice? It is, and if you are married, your role as a husband and wife isn’t just a duty it’s part of your identity and purpose in Christ. 

The second thing that today’s photo, and what I see to be a heavenly tabernacle,  reminds me of is the church, that body of Christ, that often meets in buildings with steeples that literally point to the heavens and usually have a cross at the top to remind people of Christ’s sacrifice and to encourage people to put their faith in Him. 

This morning I have a whole mash up melody of musical theatre and theatrical moments in my mind as the consideration of today’s photo, marriage, and the church have bounced around my mind as I reflect on my faith walk, things happening in my life right now, and the mystery of how the “church” and individual “come together” has my thoughts spinning as I consider the paradoxes and expectations of a life of Christian discipleship.   

In considering, the individual and the “church” a whole cavalcade of questions and concerns regarding the various aspects at play in that dynamic came to the fore front of my mind.  

In regards to the church, different types of buildings, forms of worship, traditions, and denominations are all out there for us to choose from.  What the “church” means to one person can be completely different to someone else. Just a few options for your church include:  

·       Steeple or no steeple,

·       conservative or liberal,

·       Bible only or Bible and church tradition,

·       Liturgical verses Non-liturgical,

·       Pipe organ, choirs, or contemporary worship music,

·       Women preachers or no women preachers,

·       Denomination or non-denominational

·       Gifts of the Spirit or not so much

Just these options alone can make your head spin and are a perfect reason for the unbelieving masses to question the Christian faith.

But I would challenge those who would say that agreeing to become a Christian means a loss of freedom, because obviously with all the possible combinations of these variables, there is actually great freedom in how one decides to worship as a Christian that can accommodate your personal convictions and preferences.

And that is what it comes down to right? It comes down to your personal relationship with the Lord and how you choose to worship the Lord.

As individuals endowed with the freedom to choose what we believe and what we do, as much as we may like to rely on “the church” to determine our life of faith, it really is our decision and how we will express our life of faith that will determine the relationship we have with the Lord.  

As I considered the idea of coming together as a body of believers I thought of the old Hayley Mills Song “Let’s Get Together” from Disney’s the Parent Trap that says:

‘Let's get together, yeah yeah yeah
Think of all that we could sha-are
Let's get together everyday
Every way and everywhere
And though we haven't got a lot
We could be sharin' all we've got
Together’ 

Let’s get together, as the body of Christ, as a body of believers, think of all that we could sha-are, right?  Coming together to support one another in our faith with common traditions and forms of worship is a good thing but I have to be honest when I say that sometimes our expectations of what we will receive from membership with a church can be challenged as our interactions may be less than ideal, or loving as we hoped for, as people will invariably disappoint one another from time to time and if we aren’t growing in our practice of forgiveness and cultivating the fruit of patience, we could easily become offended or disillusioned at some of the things that can happen in a church.  

When I thought of that Hayley Mills song, for the life of me, I thought the lyrics said somewhere “Let’s get together, yeah, yeah, yeah, we could have lots of fun.” But they don’t,  and just like how I could be wrong about how I thought I had a perfect old pop culture reference from my memories to poke fun at our gatherings as a church, our expectation for a perfect church family where we can be completely fulfilled and satisfied in our walk of faith could also misguided and incorrect.  

Expecting others to bless us or to give us what we need in terms of our relationship with God is a tall order for anyone to fulfill and reveals a misunderstanding of our faith. Expecting another person, a member of clergy, a pastor, elder, or friend – or a whole collection of others, that corporate body of believers, gathered together in unity, to provide you with satisfaction and purpose reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what our faith is: a personal relationship with God.  

So yes, we should follow a spiritual leader for regular sessions of worship, and we should join a corporate body of believers to support and encourage one another in our faith,  but we can’t expect that leader or our brothers and sisters in Christ to establish and maintain our personal relationship with the Lord.  

So yes, there are many options of how we can worship the Lord in a corporate setting, and it may be a little scary to contemplate:  Organizations, denominations, and congregations, OH MY! But we should humble ourselves and choose one, where the word of God is preached, and where we can worship and serve the Lord faithfully.  

But we shouldn’t expect our membership in that church to completely fulfill our relationship with God. To be honest, we can’t have a true personal relationship with God through these means. Sure we can worship and serve the Lord there but think about your relationship with God like it was a relationship with your spouse. 

Expecting your relationship with God to be complete through your local church alone, is like deciding to have a relationship with your wife through her father.   

I love my wife TammyLyn and I want a personal relationship with her.  Now her father, Cliff, has known TammyLyn all of her life. He loves her and knows a lot about her.  I could go to Cliff and learn many things about TammyLyn and together we could give thanks and praise her at Cliff’s house.  We could even agree to get together once a week to remember the things TammyLyn has said and done in her life and to declare our love for her.  Through this process, I could learn about TammyLyn and grow in my love for TammyLyn. I could even ask Cliff to tell his daughter that I love her for me.

But would this process, of loving my wife though her father, at his house, be the best way to be in a personal relationship with TammyLyn?   Wouldn’t it be better for me to establish and maintain a relationship with TammyLyn by myself, without an outside party to bring us together, without a formal structure, that takes place once a week, to show her my love?  Shouldn’t I talk to TammyLyn directly?

Of course, I should.

And likewise, our relationship with God was never intended to operate solely through a service of an ordained minister or even through the corporate gathering of a like minded body of believers. Our relationship with God can include these things but to really receive His love and express our love for Him, we need to go to Him directly. 

So start today or keep walking and talking with God. The mystery of our faith and our purpose in Christ can be unraveled as long as we seek God’s presence in our lives and ask Him to guide us to where we should go, continually.  

Although  I may have felt nervous and uncomfortable in my initial attempts to talk to TammyLyn, and believe me I was, it was easier with time, as we got to know one another, and we understood that we loved one another.   

Just so you know, God loves you. He sent Jesus to earth to show us how much He wanted to be with you. He revealed the truth of the gospel to forgive you, to heal you, and to live with you forever.   So no matter how uncomfortable or nervous you may be about “talking to God” or “in prayer”, remember that the Lord has already accepted you and He wants your love for Him to increase and for your personal relationship to grow. 

So let the Lord know that you appreciate what He has done and that you don’t want just to see Him once a week at church. Tell Him you aren’t really sure how this works but that you want to know Him more and to be with Him every day.

______________________________________________________________

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Isaiah 57:15 (NLT2)
¹⁵  The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: “I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.

Today’s Bible verse reminds us of the exalted status of the Lord Almighty but also shows that He is love because He restores the broken when they are humbly come to Him in repentance.   

The Lord is high and lifted up! The heavenly realm is “who knows where”.  I have actually seen  Christian teachings that utilized astronomy and scripture to show how the positioning of various stars coupled with certain Bible verses lead the presenter to believe that heaven was somewhere in the “north of the universe”.  Apparently others were more specific and theorized that heaven is located in the star cluster Pleiades!

I will just let that go because I don’t know and it doesn’t really matter where heaven might be located because no matter where it is I am assured that those who put their faith in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and who die before His return to earth are guaranteed to find it someday.  

As good as it is to know that Christians will never really die because to be absent with the body is to be present with the Lord, it is also very good to know that God is present with us in the here in now through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and through the utilization of the wisdom of the word of God.  God is with us!

And as today’s verse indicates although He is “in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble”, He is also willing to “restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those” who come to Him  “with repentant hearts”.   

God will restore us and will give us courage when we turn from our sins and choose to live according to His wisdom and ways.   

Our relationship with the Lord God Almighty who is high and lifted up, is happening here on earth and we get to experience the joy of being restored, strengthened, and empowered when we choose to follow His will and His purpose for our lives.  

 

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. 

Today we continue sharing from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”.  

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase John Pipers’ books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $5.00.

 

I Live for Your Progress and Joy in Faith

To see this we need a definition of faith. Ordinarily faith would mean trust or confidence you put in someone who has given good evidence of his reliability and willingness and ability to provide what you need. But when Jesus Christ is the object of faith there is a twist. He himself is what we need. If we only trust Christ to give us gifts and not himself as the all-satisfying gift, then we do not trust him in a way that honors him as our treasure. We simply honor the gifts. They are what we really want, not him. So biblical faith in Jesus must mean that we trust him to give us what we need most—namely, himself. That means that faith itself must include at its essence a treasuring of Christ above all things.

Now we are in a position to see why Paul’s two aims for his life are in fact one. According to verse 20, his aim is to magnify Christ in life; and according to verse 25, his aim is to promote the progress and joy in the Philippians’ faith. That is why he believes God might let him live. This would be his life: to labor for their “progress and joy in the faith.”

But now we have seen that faith is essentially treasuring Christ. The word “joy” in verse 25 (“for your … joy in the faith”) signals that this treasuring is a joyful treasuring. And if Christ is joyfully treasured, he is magnified. That is the single, all-embracing passion of Paul’s life. In other words, Paul is saying, “My life is devoted to producing in you that one great experience of the heart by which Christ is magnified—namely, being satisfied in him, joyfully treasuring him above all else. That’s what I mean when I say, ‘For me to live is Christ.’ That is, for me to live is your Christ-magnifying faith.”

The Christian Life Is Many Deaths

It would be a great mistake at this point if we separated the way death honors Christ from the way life honors Christ. The reason this would be a mistake is that the life of a Christian includes many deaths. Paul said, “I die every day!” (1 Corinthians 15:31). Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23). Daily Christian living is daily Christian dying. The dying I have in mind is the dying of comfort and security and reputation and health and family and friends and wealth and homeland. These may be taken from us at any time in the path of Christ-exalting obedience. To die daily the way Paul did, and to take up our cross daily the way Jesus commanded, is to embrace this life of loss for Christ’s sake and count it gain.

In other words, the way we honor Christ in death is to treasure Jesus above the gift of life, and the way we honor Christ in life is to treasure Jesus above life’s gifts. This is why Paul used the same word “gain” in relation to Christ at death and in relation to Christ in life. Not only did he say, “To die is gain,” but he also said, “Whatever gain I had [in life!], I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss 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” (Philippians 3:7–8).

Pain and Pleasure as Ways to Make Much of Christ

All of life for the Christian is meant to magnify Christ. This can happen through pleasure, and it can happen through pain. We are focusing here on the pain. The reason for this is not that a thousand pleasant things don’t come our way as Christians. Nor is it that we should not enjoy them as gifts of God and glorify him with thanksgiving. We should. That is what the Bible teaches. “Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4–5). And it is true that “The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me” (Psalm 50:23).

The reason I don’t stress this is that we are spring-loaded to see the pleasant side of truth. We are fallen, comfort-loving creatures. We are always on the lookout for ways to justify our self-protecting, self-securing, self-pleasing ways of life. I know this about myself. And I am glad that this is not all bad. God “richly supplies us with everything to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17).

How We Handle Loss Shows Who Our Treasure Is

But what I know even more surely is that the greatest joy in God comes from giving his gifts away, not in hoarding them for ourselves. It is good to work and have. It is better to work and have in order to give. God’s glory shines more brightly when he satisfies us in times of loss than when he provides for us in times of plenty. The health, wealth, and prosperity “gospel” swallows up the beauty of Christ in the beauty of his gifts and turns the gifts into idols. The world is not impressed when Christians get rich and say thanks to God. They are impressed when God is so satisfying that we give our riches away for Christ’s sake and count it gain.

No one ever said that they learned their deepest lessons of life, or had their sweetest encounters with God, on the sunny days. People go deep with God when the drought comes. That is the way God designed it. Christ aims to be magnified in life most clearly by the way we experience him in our losses. Paul is our example: “We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:8–9). The design of Paul’s suffering was to make radically clear for his own soul, and for ours, that God and God alone is the only treasure who lasts. When everything in life is stripped away except God, and we trust him more because of it, this is gain, and he is glorified.^[1]

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

---

^[1] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 70–73.

A Rock Steady Purpose – One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus! -Purity 718

A Rock Steady Purpose – One Day at a Time, Sweet Jesus!  -Purity 718

Purity 718 04/29/2022 

Good morning,

Today’s photo of  a spectacular sunset in the distance and reflected in the waters of Portsmouth Harbor comes to us from a pastor friend in the United Kingdom who combines paddling and prayer to enjoy the magnificence of God’s creation and to bask in the peace of the Lord in what he has called his “happy place”.  

And as the sun sets on another work week it is my prayer that all my friends will likewise seek the Lord in similar ways and find their own “happy place” this weekend.   

Since coming to faith in Christ 12 years ago, I discovered that my “happy place” was anywhere I decided to commune with the Lord. While on vacation mission trips, both foreign and domestic, I learned that God wasn’t contained by geographical boundaries and no matter where I went, as long as I sought His presence, there He was. One of the greatest promises of our Christian faith is that God will never leave us or forsake us. God is always available to us and is the one relationship that is guaranteed to endure because He is faithful.

In the ebb and flow of 12 years of being “born again”, many relationships have come and gone as our life journey is progressive and subject to circumstantial changes. People will come and go in our lives but if we have God in common although circumstances may separate us from one another and even though our relationships can change, brothers and sisters in the body of Christ are all joined together through the Lord’s family of saints and His will, and you never know when your paths will converge again.  

The purpose of the body of Christ is to represent the kingdom of God by serving one another, learning from one another, and loving one another. Our interactions with the body of Christ allows us to grow and to meet our purpose in Christ.    

And that’s the million dollar question isn’t it: What exactly is my purpose in Christ?    

I refer to our life of faith as a walk on the path of Christian Discipleship and the thing about a walk is that it is defined by progressive movement and a certain course, a direction.  

Invariably in our “walk”, we discover that as we progress through time and space, the people we were walking with changes as the Lord directs our path. The Lord may set our course to be simple and steady: to “just keep doing what your doing” where you find yourself to be called to “walk in place”, to just remain faithful to where God has you in your job, your family, or your local church. Our faith and our purpose don’t have to be complicated and it doesn’t necessarily have to take you to a wide variety of different locations.  Just being faithful to represent the kingdom of God where you are, to be “Rock Steady”, in the maelstrom of our post Christian society in your current environment could be your purpose.  

Maintaining that “Rock Steady” faith, whether you are called to serve in the local church, called to develop ministries, called to volunteer, called to serve in represent God at work by whatever means necessary, or called to represent the Lord among your family or friends is really one of the goals of being a disciple of Christ.  

Our primary purpose as a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be faithful to represent our Lord no matter where we are called to go or no matter what we are called to do. Just like the Lord is Our Constant Companion, our unchanging purpose regardless of where we are called to “walk”  or what we are called to do is to represent the Lord by lovingly serving others and by sharing the truth of the lifegiving gospel of Jesus Christ. 

So while we can vary in the certainty of our direction and establish goals to get us to where we are going, we should all have the short term goal to be faithful to represent the Lord by what we think, say, and do “one day at a time”.   

Our daily decision to walk with the Lord and to be faithful disciples of Christ reminds me of the song “One Day at a Time: where the lyrics say:

“One day at a time sweet Jesus
That's all I'm asking of You
Just give me the strength
To do everyday what I have to do
Yesterday's gone sweet Jesus
And tomorrow may never be mine
Lord help me today, show me the way
One day at a time” 

(https://www.google.com/search?q=one+day+at+a+time+lyrics&rlz=1C1SQJL_enUS906US906&oq=one+day+at+a+time+&aqs=chrome.2.69i59l3j69i57j46i67j46i20i263i512j69i60l2.6697j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8)

It’s Friday the 29^th of April, and if your schedule is anything like mine, at the beginning of the week you probably weren’t too concerned with what you would do today because you had to get through Monday, Tuesday, and the rest of the days of the week before you got here. 

A walk is one step at a time and our lives are lived one day at a time. We can only do what we can do for today.  So stay “Rock Steady” while you walk about the earth and move towards or seek to find the purpose that the Lord has for you in your life.  Even if we are not sure “where all this is going”, we can be certain that the Lord will be pleased with us when we seek to do His will and stay in His presence by walking and talking with God. 

______________________________________________________________

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 138:6 (NLT2)
⁶  Though the LORD is great, he cares for the humble, but he keeps his distance from the proud.

Today’s Bible verse reminds us of the greatness of our God and how His care cares for the humble but keeps his distance from the proud.  

Pretty straight forward interpretation of that verse, huh?  Sometimes the word of God is simple and clear and we don’t need to read a lot into it.  So what are the implications from this verse?  

God is great. He cares for the humble but keeps His distance from the proud . So let’s  receive His care and be humble. A correct view of who we are in Christ would show us that we have done nothing to make ourselves approved of by God or we haven’t been able to perform anything that God didn’t bless us with. Our looks, our temperament, and our capacity to develop skills and increase our intelligence were all given to us by our Creator.

We may have done a great deal to become skillful, intelligent, or cared for our bodies to maximize our attractiveness and physical fitness but the raw materials and potentials all come from the Lord.  

SO here is the trap, shouldn’t be proud of what we’ve done? Shouldn’t we be proud of what we have learned, and accomplished.  Shouldn’t we be proud of how we have cared for and strengthened our bodies?   I mean we read the books, we took the classes, we practiced the skills, we exercised our bodies, we worked hard to get here. Shouldn’t I be proud of all I have done?  

I’m not sure if I revealed the error we are making here or just re-emphasized our penchant for pride so let me tell you.  

No, as the word of God indicates, we shouldn’t be proud.

Jeremiah 9:23-24 (NKJV) says
²³  Thus says the LORD: "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
²⁴  But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me, That I am the LORD, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight," says the LORD.

It sort of stinks we can’t be proud, right?  No, because if we know the Lord, we wouldn’t be proud – thinking we “created” our wisdom, wealth, or might.  If we know the Lord we know we have been blessed to be given the ability and favorable circumstance to achieve these positive results by a loving and Sovereign God that created us, our drive, and all the people and things that we have utilized to achieve what we have.  

We are not to be prideful. We are to be thankful.  So yeah you can recognize the progress you have made in life, but instead of glorying in our awesome you are, give credit where credit is due and give the glory to God for establishing this world and for giving you the life you have, all the blessings you enjoy, and the power and abilities He has given you.  

We can do some pretty amazing things but when we are proud of ourselves or what we have done, without recognizing God, we idolize ourselves and the way we did it “our way” or “all by myself”, when fundamentally that is a lie. 

We didn’t do anything by ourselves. God gave us the life we have and all the people and things that helped us along the way.

Which takes us to the first part of today’s verse: God is great and when we recognize just how great He is and what He has done for us, we rightly will be humble and we won’t distance ourselves from God by believing that lie that we are self sufficient and being prideful.  

So rejoice over the Lord, how He has blessed you, and give Him the glory by recognizing the truth of just how great He is by humbly, and continuously, giving Him thanks and praise.

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. 

Today we continue sharing from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”.  

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase John Pipers’ books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $5.00.

 

Paul’s Discovery of Peter’s Secret

First, “For me … to die is gain.” I wonder if Paul in his conversations with Peter in Jerusalem had talked about dying? I wonder if Peter told him about that experience recorded in John 21 when Jesus, after his resurrection, said to Peter, “When you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18). Then John adds this explanation in his Gospel: “This [Jesus] said to showby what kind of death [Peter] was to glorify God” (John 21:19). God had decreed that Peter would make God look great in his dying. I don’t doubt that when Peter and Paul gave each other the right hand of fellowship, the manly grip of their hands and the meeting of their eyes communicated this one common passion: to magnify Christ crucified—the blazing center of the glory of God—even in death.

But how are we to magnify Christ in death? Or to put it another way: How can we die so that in our dying the surpassing value of Christ, the magnitude of his worth, becomes visible? Paul’s answer here in Philippians 1 is found first in the connection between verse 20 and verse 21. These verses are connected by the word “for” or “because.” Boil it down to the words about death: “My eager expectation is that Christ be honored in my body by death, for to me to die is gain.” In other words, if you experience death as gain, you magnify Christ in death.

How Is Dying Gain?

Why is that? Verse 23 shows why dying is gain for Paul: “My desire is to depart [that is, to die] and be with Christ, for that is far better.” That is what death does: It takes us into more intimacy with Christ. We depart, and we are with Christ, and that, Paul says, is gain. And when you experience death this way, Paul says, you exalt Christ. Experiencing Christ as gain in your dying magnifies Christ. It is “far better” than living here.

Really? Better than all the friends at school? Better than falling in love? Better than hugging your children? Better than professional success? Better than retirement and grandchildren? Yes. A thousand times better. When I preached my candidating sermon for the pastoral position I hold now, this passage of Scripture was my text. That was January 27, 1980. I wanted to show the people from Scripture the single, all-embracing passion of my life—to magnify Christ in all things whether by life or death.

At this point in the message, the question arose: Is death better than life? Is departing to be with Christ better than staying here? I said to them:

If I didn’t believe that, how could I dare to aspire to the role of pastor—anywhere—not to mention at Bethlehem Baptist Church where 108 members are over 80 years old and another 171 over 65? But I do believe it, and say to every gray-haired believer in this church, with all the authority of Christ’s apostle, the best is yet to come! And I don’t mean a fat pension and a luxury condominium. I mean Christ.

I averaged one funeral every three weeks for the first year and a half of my ministry. And many more after that. It was a sobering and sweetening season for a young pastor. It knit my heart together with many families as we bade farewell to friend after friend. And faring well is exactly what we believed they did.

If We Learn to Die Well, We Will Live Well

What we have learned from Philippians 1 so far is that death (whether by natural causes or by persecution) is a means of making much of Christ. If we suffer or die on the Calvary road of obedience with Christ, the cost of following him is not just a result of making much of him, but a means. Death makes visible where our treasure is. The way we die reveals the worth of Christ in our hearts. Christ is magnified in my death when I am satisfied with him in my dying—when I experience death as gain because I gain him. Or to say it another way: The essence of praising Christ is prizing Christ. Christ will be praised in my death, if in my death he is prized above life.

Jesus said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). When the hour comes for everything to be taken from us but Christ, we will magnify him by saying, “In him I have everything and more. To die is gain.”

If we learn to die like this, we will be ready to live. And if we don’t, we will waste our lives. Most of us have some years to live before we go to be with Christ. Even the oldest among us must ask the question, “If we love Christ, how can he be magnified in my behavior this afternoon, this evening, this week?” So we turn to the other half of Philippians 1:21: “To me to live is Christ.”

To Live Is Christ

What does Paul mean: “To live is Christ”? He begins his explanation in verse 22: “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.” But that is a strange explanation: “To live is Christ” becomes “To live is fruitful labor for me.” What is the fruit that comes from Paul’s work? And how is “to live … Christ”? The answers come in verses 24–26.

In verse 22 Paul has said, “If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell.” Now in verse 24 he says, “To remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.” So evidently the fruit that Paul’s life produces is not only for himself but is very needful for the sake of the Philippian believers. So the phrase, “For me to live is Christ” now becomes “For me to live is to produce fruit that you all need very much.” Then verse 25 tells us what this fruit is that the church needs and that Paul’s life will produce: “I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith.” So we can see Paul gradually clarifying what he means by “For me to live is Christ.”

First, it means: My life is dedicated to producing fruit (verse 22). Second, it means: My life is devoted to producing a fruit that is very necessary for you to have (verse 24). Third, it means: My life is devoted to increasing your faith and helping it to overflow with joy (verse 25).

Now the crucial question is: Why in Paul’s mind is it one and the same thing to say on the one hand, “For me to live is Christ,” and to say on the other hand, “My life is devoted to your progress and joy in the faith”? I think those two statements are virtually synonymous for Paul in this context.^[1]

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

---

^[1] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 66–70.

The Compass to Guide You on the Path of Christian Discipleship – The Holy Spirit and our Conscience – Purity 717

 The Compass to Guide You on the Path of Christian Discipleship – The Holy Spirit and our Conscience – Purity 717

Purity 717 04/28/2022    Purity 717 Podcast

Good morning,

Today’s photo of the waters of the Colorado River under a cloudless blue sky near Boulder City Nevada comes to us from a friend who recently took an epic trip throughout the southwest which included a kayak tour of the Colorado that took him  all the way to Emerald Cove. 

Well, It’s Thursday again, and I share this photo of a river “pathway” not to encourage you to take the “yellow brick road” to an Emerald City but to encourage you to take the path less traveled by making the daily decision to walk in the Spirit on the path of Christian Discipleship.

What’s that mean? That means I encourage you to do the Lord’s will for your life that is described in His Word, the Holy Bible, which begins with making Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior and continues with the renewing of your mind with the truth of God’s Word and by applying it’s wisdom to your life, not just on Sunday, but every day,  24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, because the value of our faith, of our relationship with God, is only truly “redeemed” when we choose to live it out continuously.

People on the outside of this Christian life, often question why anyone would want to be Christian.  They see Christianity as a set of rules and restrictions and to be a religion of repression. They are spiritual blind to the truth of God’s word that would show them that God’s commandments are put in place to protect us from the things that would harm us or that is wrong.  

I was reading Jay Adams “Competent to Counsel” yesterday and although it was written over 50 years ago, our society still hasn’t learned anything in terms of how we can have “good mental health”, how we can have peace.   Taking on Freud’s view that man’s problems are caused by too strict a conscience, Freud’s superego, and that we need to reject our conscience’s guilt and to just do what we want to be fulfilled, Adams wrote: 

If Freud’s view were correct, namely, that trouble arises whenever the Id has been repressed by an overstrict conscience or Superego, then really our day ought to be a day of widespread mental health rather than a day of unparalleled numbers of personal problems, for ours is not a day of repression, but of permissiveness.

If there was ever a time in which the lid was off, in which there was wide open rebellion against authority and responsibility, ours is that day.

And yet unprecedented numbers are in trouble.

If Freudianism is true, the most immoral people, or at best the most amoral people, should be the healthiest, whereas in fact the opposite is true.

People in mental institutions and people who come to counseling invariably are people with great moral difficulties.

“Moral difficulties” does not always mean sexual violations; that is only one aspect of it.

Immorality of every sort, irresponsibility toward God and man (i.e., the breaking of God’s commandments) is found most prominently among people with personal problems.^[1]

This was 50 years ago! Do you think we have “let the lid off” anymore since then?  We are a more permissive “tolerant” society than we ever have been, and yet mental health problems have only gotten worse.  

“New research from Boston University School of Public Health reveals that the elevated rate of depression has persisted into 2021, and even worsened, climbing to 32.8 percent and affecting 1 in every 3 American adults.” (https://www.bu.edu/articles/2021/depression-rates-tripled-when-pandemic-first-hit/)

“On average, adjusted for age, the annual U.S. suicide rate increased 30% between 2000 and 2020, from 10.4 to 13.5 suicides per 100,000 people. In 2018, 14.2 people per 100,000 died by suicide, the highest rate recorded in more than 30 years.”  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20adjusted%20for%20age,in%20more%20than%2030%20years.)

Hey guys, as our society has become more permissive morally and less “religious”,   depression and suicide rates have increased.  Letting our freak flag fly has not liberated us to the point where there is an increase in happiness and peace but the subsequent moral no man’s land of “anything goes” has caused confusion, depression, and disillusionment because people are discovering that satisfying our selfish and fleshly desires doesn’t bring satisfaction or peace.  

If we have exercised our “freedom” to do what ever we want, why isn’t society overflowing with happiness?

Well, unfortunately, people are living out the consequences of their sins.  Not only does the pleasure dissipate and negative consequences accompany the choice to sin, our consciences – our hearts- suffer because it knows, even if we deny it to everyone , including ourselves, that the way we are living isn’t right.  

We can lie to ourselves and reject the opinions of others, but our hearts were made with God’s law written on them. Our consciences are God given and it should cause us to turn from the things that are we once knew were wrong.  

As a child, I could see that getting drunk “wasn’t right”.  It made people act strange.  But through the influence of society and my own rebellion, I decided to ignore my conscience and changed my mind and suddenly what was “bad” was “good”.  

But as much as I indulged and as much as I loved my addiction to alcohol and other things, even in the midst of them, I knew these things were wrong.  My experience taught me that, but I knew in my heart that the way I lived was wrong.   I was living in “total freedom”, so where was the peace?   

Well, I’ve learned that there is no peace without God and when we think and behave in ways that our contrary to His truth, we suffer and if we are never reconciled with God through faith in Jesus Christ, our suffering never ends.   

But we know the truth. There is a God. He has revealed to us in our hearts and in His word what is right and what is wrong.  While we can deny Him and His tenants for morality, just like gravity, we are still subject to His moral laws which affect our minds, bodies, and emotions. When we separate ourselves from the One who gave us life and violate His commandments we suffer.   

But there is great news. There is hope.  Christ paid the cost on the cross so we could be forgiven of the violations we have made and when we put our faith in Him we receive a new life that gives us the power to listen to our consciences and gives us the power to overcome the sins that so easily beset us.  

When we come to faith in Christ, our hearts – our consciences, are strengthened by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit and we receive the power to obey the Lord and walk away from the darkness of this world.  

So share the good news and keep walking and talking with God. When we are “in this thing” called Christianity, we have the power of God in us to choose what is right and holy and turn from the  things that tempt us and lead to destruction.  Instead of being hopeless in a cycle of condemnation by sinning and confessing, we can follow the “Compass”  of our Holy Spirit empowered conscience to walk out of depression, out of sin, and into the light of the new abundant life that God always wanted us to experience.     

______________________________________________________________

Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book for Men”.

This morning’s meditation verse is:

Psalm 25:9 (NLT2)
⁹  He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way.

Today’s Bible verse speaks of how the Lord will lead the humble into doing what is right and how He will teach them His way.  

To believe in God and  the gospel of Jesus Christ, we must be humble.  To believe, we have to admit that there is a higher power than us, who has a holy standard for living that we have violated, and that we are powerless to make things right with Him through our own efforts. We have to be humble to ask for forgiveness. We have to be humble to make Christ our Lord and Savior.  

But when we humble ourselves before God by admitting our sins, and by asking for forgiveness, and by making Christ our Lord,  God will lift us up!

Our humble decision to trust in Christ gives us eternal life but it also gives us the opportunity to live a righteous life by receiving the power to learn God’s ways and to apply them to our lives.  

When we humble ourselves, God will lead us to do what is right. 

When we humble ourselves, He teaches us His way.  

So if things have gone astray or if you are feeling you have lost your way humble yourself by calling on the Lord and asking for His help to show you how you can do what is right. If we are humble, He will lead us and He will teach us His way.

 

As always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and sisters in Christ with their walk. 

Today we continue sharing from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”.  

As always, I share this information for educational purposes and encourage all to purchase John Pipers’ books for your own private study and to support his work.  This resource is available on many websites for less than $5.00.

 

The Christ-Exalting Paradoxes of Life

A life devoted to making much of Christ is costly. And the cost is both a consequence and a means of making much of him. If we do not embrace the path of joy-laden, painful love, we will waste our lives. If we do not learn with Paul the Christ-exalting paradoxes of life, we will squander our days pursuing bubbles that burst. He lived “as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything” (2 Corinthians 6:10). The Calvary road is costly and painful, but it is not joyless.

When we embrace with joy the cost of following Christ, his worth will shine in the world. The cost itself will become a means of making Christ look great. The apostle Paul had one great passion in life. We have seen him say it several ways: to know nothing but Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2); to boast only in the cross (Galatians 6:14).

Paul’s Single Passion in Life and Death

He talked about his great passion another way that shows us how the cost of making much of Christ is also the means. He said to the Philippian church, “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. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:20–21). Here the question is raised and answered: How do you honor Christ by death? How can the cost of losing everything in this world be a means of making much of Jesus? Let’s listen carefully to Paul. Christ has called us live for his glory and to die for his glory. If we know how to die well, we will know how to live well. This text shows both.

Again we see Paul’s single passion in life—“that … Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” If Christ is not made much of in our lives, they are wasted. We exist to make him appear in the world as what he really is—magnificent. If our life and death do not show the worth and wonder of Jesus, they are wasted. This is why Paul said that his aim in life and death was “that … Christ … be honored.”

Our Shame and Our Treasure

Notice the unusual way he makes this clear in verse 20: “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed.” Stop here just a moment. Shame is that horrible feeling of guilt or failure when you don’t measure up before people whose approval you want very much. It’s what the little child feels in the Christmas program when he forgets his lines, and the tears well up, and the silence seems eternal, and the other kids snicker brutally. I remember these horrible times. Or shame is what a president feels when the secret tapes are finally played, and the foul language and all the deceit emerges, and he stands disgraced and guilty before the people.

What then is the opposite of shame? It’s when the child remembers the lines and hears the applause. It’s when the president governs well and is reelected. The opposite of being shamed is being honored. Yes, usually. But Paul was a very unusual person. And Christians ought to be very unusual people. For Paul, the opposite of being shamed was not his being honored, but Christ’s being honored through him. “It is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that … Christ will be honored in my body.”

What you love determines what you feel shame about. If you love for men to make much of you, you will feel shame when they don’t. But if you love for men to make much of Christ, then you will feel shame if he is belittled on your account. And Paul loved Christ more than he loved anything or anyone. “Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7–8).

Whenever something is of tremendous value to you, and you cherish its beauty or power or uniqueness, you want to draw others’ attention to it and waken in them the same joy. That is why Paul’s all-consuming goal in life was for Christ to be magnified. Christ was of infinite value to Paul, and so Paul longed for others to see and savor this value. That is what it means to magnify Christ—to show the magnitude of his value.

Doesn’t Death Make Magnifying God Impossible?

But what if someone objected to Paul at this point and said, “Paul, we see how valuable Christ is to you now—how you enjoy his fellowship, how he gives you a fruitful ministry and delivers your life from spiritual shipwreck. But what will all that mean in the hour of death? Where is the value of Christ then? If being a Christian costs you your life, how will that help you make much of Christ? Won’t that rob you of the very life that can magnify him?”

So Paul adds at the end of verse 20 that his eager expectation is that “Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” Death is a threat to the degree that it frustrates your main goals. Death is fearful to the degree that it threatens to rob you of what you treasure most. But Paul treasured Christ most, and his goal was to magnify Christ. And he saw death not as a frustration of that goal but as an occasion for its fulfillment.

Life and death! They seem like complete opposites—at great enmity with each other. But for Paul—and for all who share his faith—there is a unity, because the same great passion is fulfilled in both—namely, that Christ be magnified in this body—our bodies—whether by life or by death.

In Philippians 1:21, Paul gives a packed summary statement explaining how he is so hopeful that Christ will be magnified in his living and in his dying: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” Then in verses 22–26 Paul explains both halves of this statement so we can see in more detail how Christ is magnified by life and by death.

Let’s take these one at a time.^[2]

---------------------------more tomorrow------------------------

Join our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!

at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can also find it on Apple podcasts

(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com. 

These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured

Email me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.

My wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group: Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask, Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)

Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship

---

^[1] Jay Edward Adams, Competent to Counsel: Introduction to Nouthetic Counseling (Grand Rapids, MI: Ministry Resources Library, 1986), 13.

^[2] John Piper, Don’t Waste Your Life (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2003), 63–66.