9 Essentials to Living the Christian Life: To Live is Christ

Isn't it true that often at the beginning of a year, we think back about what has been and we look forward to what will be?

And my question for us today is, what has the past year been?

Particularly what has it been spiritually? But more importantly, my question for us is, what will it be this year? And we start today to ask the question, what does it really mean to live the Christian life? And I hope as we go through this, it will help you think about what this year should be like and help you to begin on that journey of day by day by day living for Christ. You will notice you have a memory verse.

for the next nine weeks, you will get one verse that I'm going to ask you to memorize. They're going to be simple. Any four-year-old could memorize it. And those of you who are some multiples of that, it should be a piece of cake. But the text for today is Philippians 1.21.

For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. That is the verse that is the focus as we look at the first essential of living the Christian life. Let's pray. Lord, I pray this day that you will capture our hearts and you will capture our minds and you will help us to understand what it really means to live this life that we call the Christian life.

I pray for those for whom 2002 was a disaster.

But I pray that for them, they will know that you are the God of hope. That you are the God that can change life. That can take disaster and from it bring triumph. From defeat, victory. And I just pray that we will look to you as our only source of hope and life.

For it is in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Steve Lowe, would you mind hitting the fans, turning them off?

He was imprisoned.

And he had already suffered a lot for the faith. We know from the text of Scripture, particularly 2 Corinthians 11, that the Apostle Paul had already been flogged five times for his faith. That means, he says it was 40 lashes less one. That had happened five times. Floggings were typically with multi-stranded whips that had pieces of bone and metal tied into the strands.

painful, often life-threatening type of beating. Not only had he been flogged five times, he'd been beaten with rods at least three times. On one occasion, we know for sure he had been stoned because he had been preaching the gospel and been left for dead. By the time he writes the book of Philippians, he's been shipwrecked on at least two occasions and spent the better part of two days in the sea waiting to be rescued. At the time he writes the book of Philippians, for over two years he has been imprisoned.

First in Caesarea for about two years, and then he appealed to Caesar when he was before the procurator Festus. He, as a Roman citizen, had this right to appeal his case. He was imprisoned because of a charge the Jews had made against him that he took a Gentile into the holy part of the temple. And when he was before Festus, the procurator, he says, I appeal to Caesar. I'm a Roman citizen.

So he now is in Rome in his first Roman imprisonment, and he writes to the Philippians. And I think as he writes, though he's under house arrest, and in some ways this imprisonment is much easier than the one that will come later, his second imprisonment, he's still imprisoned. He's apparently chained to a Roman soldier. While he can receive guests, his ability to move and get about are very restricted and limited. He's awaiting trial, and he does not know what the result of that trial will be at this point, Philippians. Either he will be vindicated, released, let go, set free, or if convicted, there is the potential for serious punishment at least and possibly even death. And so he's in that sort of in-between time, not knowing for certain what the future holds. When he writes that verse that captures, I think, one of the essences of Christian living.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

What does it mean?

For to me, to live is Christ means several things. And I want to review those with you right now. To live as Christ means first and foremost, I am a Christian and Jesus Christ is my Lord and my Master. I am a Christian and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Master. You can't say to live as Christ unless you are a Christian, which means also Jesus Christ is your Lord and your Master.

On your diagram, we've got to first fill in the center, the circle.

And what you want to fill in is this circle. You want to write right there, Christ. And under it, you want to write Philippians 121.

One of the essentials for living the Christian life is first to have Christ at the center. In other words, to be a Christian and to have Christ as your Lord and Master. Now I want to pause here and make sure everybody understands what this means. What does it mean to be a Christian? it does not mean that you have lived a good life and God has finally said boy you are so good and you are so magnificent and I don't know what I will do if I don't have you as one of mine and so I'm going to make you a Christian what being a Christian means is that instead of living for myself, having self at the center, this circle is our lives. Instead of having self at the center, instead of going my own direction, doing what I want to do, doing what I choose to do, living my life any way I want to live, I finally say, Lord, I realize that my life as I live it is not what you want it to be. I have fallen far short of what you would want. I am a sinner.

I know that I cannot inherit your eternal life without you. And I can't be all that you want me to be unless you are at the center of my life. So instead of going my way, I'm going to do an about face. I'm going to repent. And I'm going to put my faith in you, unite with you.

and instead of me being at the center, you are now at the center and are Lord and Master of my life.

Having embraced Christ and made Him the center, it doesn't mean you'll be perfect, but it means that in the main, your desire in life, your goal in life, and the way you live your life will in the main show that you have committed your life to Christ.

That you have believed into Him. That you have confessed with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, Romans 10, 9. And believed in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. He is your Lord.

The people shrink from this. Why do people not embrace Christ? If Christ is the only way of salvation, why do people not embrace Christ? everybody embrace Christ. I think at least one reason is that in order for Christ to be the center, he must be your Lord and your master. And there is something about us in our humanity that refuses to bend the knee. But you are not in Christ and he is not in you until you have bent the knee. He does not call us to be slaves in the same sense to anyone else.

But he calls us to be his slave. When Paul wrote the book of Philippians, he starts out calling himself a doulos of Jesus Christ. Doulos is a slave. A slave who knows he has a master.

but I want to tell you that this master in this master when he is our master and Lord there is the more freedom than we can ever imagine in life

but there's so many and I've talked to some in this class I've talked to many outside of this class when it comes to the point that you have to say alright Lord I'm no longer in charge of my life you are in charge of whatever you want

do, many stop right there. You know why? Because to bend the knee to Christ, genuinely to bend the knee, to say you are my master means life will be different. You cannot keep living the way you did in the past. You are going to have to live differently. It means something will change.

And people are afraid that they will have to be different. They don't want to let go some of that stuff in life. They want to keep it.

But to live as Christ means we let that old stuff go. And now He is our master. And we live for Him and Him alone in the ultimate sense.

To live as Christ means I am a Christian and He is my Lord and He is my master.

Francine Rivers has written a great book that I'm not through with yet, but it's a book called Redeeming Love. Has anybody read it? All right! One person. Oh, two people, three people. Thank you.

All women. All right, men. Is there a man that read it?

Well, I can hear her. book you have read. It is a great book. It is a story based on the story of Hosea and Gomer, but set in a more modern setting. Everybody remember the story of Hosea and Gomer?

Gomer was a prostitute. God said, Hosea, go marry that prostitute. And he married her, and he loved her, and he loved her, and he loved her, despite the fact she kept going back to prostitution and so forth. He took her for his wife. Well, in the book, Redeeming Love, there's a great scene. There's a Hosea in the book, Redeeming Love, and there's a gomer.

Her name is Angel in the book. And Angel has been a prostitute, beaten, used horribly by men. And Michael Hosea goes and rescues her from the paradise, P-A-I-R-A-D-I-C-E. The paradise. you get it, it was a gambling place with a brothel upstairs he went and rescued her from the Paradise Saloon and takes her as his wife and she lives with him

but she doesn't want to give him her love because she thinks she will lose her freedom she wants to go back to her old life because she thinks there she was free she was in charge, she was in control And there's a scene at the movie where she's standing on the road getting ready to leave Michael Hosea. And Michael says to her, 30 miles that way is paradise. P-A-I-R-A-D-I-C-E. 30 miles uphill. Pain.

Despair. Hopelessness. He says, one mile this way, downhill, is my home. With a warm fire. Good food.

and all the love you can ever imagine. Won't you come home with me?

At that point in the story, she can't do it. She wants to go 30 miles uphill to Payne, to the brothel, because she thinks there she's free. She won't accept the one mile because she thinks she has to make Michael Hosea her master, and that would be giving up her freedom.

if you're at that point you want to go back to the brothel you want to go live your life the way you want to will you please hear me making him master is going home it's going to where there's love it's going to where there's care it's going to the place where your life will be so much more immensely enjoyable than you could ever imagine go home Make him your master. Bend the knee. The old life is hopeless. The new life is filled with hope.

Leave the past behind. Embrace Christ.

Is this picture clear enough? I wanted to start the year with a clear message of come to Christ. That's what it means to live. Thirdly, I'll hit these others a little more quickly.

The highest loyalty in my life is to Christ. That's what it means to live is Christ. The highest loyalty in my life is to Christ. Of all the loyalties of life, and there are other lesser loyalties, there is no loyalty in my life greater than Christ. he is the ultimate king in my life

he is the one I must serve first above all others the problem so many of us have in trying to live the Christian life is we haven't settled our loyalties we try to please these others or live by these other loyalties to self to expectations of other people to my desire for other things. We've got to settle our loyalties. Christ has got to be number one in our lives.

To live as Christ, my highest loyalty is to Christ. Fourthly, to live as Christ means I serve Christ at all times and in all things.

Colossians 3, 23 and 24 is the verse I cited here for you. Paul is talking to the slaves who have masters, earthly masters. And he says, serve your masters as serving the Lord. Whatever you do, do your work heartily as for the Lord, knowing it is the Lord Christ whom you serve. And his point is in that whatever we do, we serve Christ.

Those of you who have employers, your employer is not your boss. Jesus Christ is your boss. Those of you who are married, your spouse is not your ultimate boss. That's not who you serve ultimately.

first. The reality is that when we serve Christ first, we serve everybody else better. But where Christians have often failed is that when some other little master demands something, we decide we're going to serve them rather than serve Christ. I don't care if it costs you your job, Serve Christ. I don't care if you lose your friends.

Serve Christ. I don't care where it takes you. Serve Christ. I don't care what it costs. Serve Christ.

That's the Christian life. To live is Christ. We serve Him at all times and in all things. So never lose sight of the picture when you go to work in the morning, when you go to play in the evening, when you go to the football game, when you're coaching Little League basketball

when you're leading the GAs, when you're at the garden club, when you're at the Lions club, you serve Christ. Your first designation is Christian. And below that comes every other designation. We forget who we serve. That's why the church looks so much like the world.

we serve Christ. Fifthly, I live to please Christ above all others. I live to please Christ above all others. That's what it means to live as Christ. Os Guinness has written a great book about the call.

It's called The Call. It's about the call of God on our lives. And in the book he has a chapter where he talks about the audience of one.

and his point is that when at the end of the day when we finished our day have we pleased the one

as we live our lives we need to be constantly reminding ourselves I'm living to please Christ I'm living to please Christ when the audience applauds or doesn't applaud looking to see if one person is applauding. That's Jesus Christ. The whole world can be booing me. If Jesus is applauding me, I've done what I need to do. We try to please too many people and we don't please Christ.

Please Christ. Please Christ. Please Christ. In every circumstance, in every situation, seek to please Him. That's what it means to live as Christ.

I want to please him. He's the audience of one. Sixthly, I obey Christ. That's, of course, how I please him. I obey him.

I do what he says. I get asked a lot of times, David, what should I do? What should I do? What should I do? I've talked with many people in difficult circumstances, many of them Christian people.

And somehow there's a disconnect when it comes to making decisions in life we don't ask what does Christ command or what does he say about this issue. The first question we should ask when faced with a problem in life is what does Christ command or teach here? If there's a clear answer, you need go no further. Do it. Obey Christ.

To live as Christ means I obey him, which means I've got to know what he says,

which will take us to some other points about living the Christian life in future weeks. You can't please Christ if you don't obey Christ. It's that simple. If you wish to please Christ, you must obey Christ. Do what he says.

I don't know how many Christian people either don't know or when they do know, they just don't do it. It's like they don't trust that what Christ has commanded is the best way.

is. Obey him. Please him. To live as Christ means I obey him. And lastly, to live as Christ, it means I want Christ to be honored and exalted. That's what the Apostle Paul says in that chapter one of Philippians. He really doesn't, isn't all that concerned about whether he lives or dies.

All he is concerned about is that through his life, Christ will be honored and exalted. As you is Christ, it means you don't want glory for yourself. You don't want adulation for yourself. It means in everything you do and say, you want the glory to go that direction to Christ.

It begins by recognizing that all we have and all that we are comes from Christ. Your intellect, your abilities, your gifts, your skills. You didn't conjure all that up yourself. Who gave you your mind, your body, your skills? Jesus Christ gave you those.

Let others know that you know that. Live to honor Him. So, seven things that at least to live as Christ means. I am a Christian. He is my Lord and Master.

My highest loyalty is Him. I serve Him at all times and in all things. I live to please Him above all others. I obey Christ and I want Christ to be honored and exalted. The second part of the phrase is, is to die is gain.

Now this is where we turn the world's thinking upside down on its head. How many people would say to die is gain? But to say to die is gain means first, for to me to live is Christ. The only way that you can say with the Apostle Paul to die is gain is if you can say to live is Christ. Because if you can't say to live is Christ, when you die there is no gain.

In fact, there's a lot of terrible loss. Life after this life isn't going to be what you want. But if you can say to live is Christ, then you can equally and as fervently as Paul said, to die is gain. And that word gain means profit. It's a profit, a profitable thing to die.

It's a good thing. It is to your advantage to die.

I see some of you backing up. I'm not saying that the process of death is easy for us in our humanity, but I'm saying we need to recognize that death is to our profit, it is to our gain, for at least two reasons. When I die, life gets better.

For I mustered into the presence of Christ and will live with him forever. If I can say to live as Christ, then when I die, it's gain because I go to be with the one for whom I have been living. And I live in his presence for eternity. And for me, there is nothing better as a Christian. Because I go to the place where there's no more death or mourning or crying or pain.

The old order of things has passed away and I live in the unveiled presence of my Lord.

And the reason we are so unimpressive in our Christian lives is because we've forgotten that. It is when we know that death is gain that we will be the best witnesses for Christ in this world. It is when we will undertake any journey in His cause. We will undertake any battle for Him. There's nothing we can face in life that will overwhelm us because if they kill us, they just send us to Christ.

But until we have this mentality, we will never be what Christ wants us to be. We have got to look forward to the day when we will have that great gain and be in his presence.

the other reason the apostle paul said to die is gain is because he knew that in his dying the gospel of christ would be advanced if he died for the faith it was going to empower other believers to be more bold the fact that he died for the faith would be reported to people who were unbelievers and they would have to wonder why would someone die for something they believe in The death would be a testimony.

The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, said Tertullian. Tertullian knew that persecution usually ignited the church. It would be the seed to plant strong believers for the future. People would be drawn to Christ when they saw the kind of persecution believers were willing to undergo for the faith. So to die is gain, we can say, if, for to me to live is Christ, to die is gain means I get to go into Christ's presence when I die, and to die is gain means if I have lived for Christ when I die, my life will be a testimony to draw others to Him.

My death will benefit and advance the gospel. So do you understand to live is Christ, to die is gain, Now, here are my lessons for life. Number one, is it time to surrender?

C.S. Lewis says we are rebels who must lay down our arms. The reality is most of us haven't fully surrendered. Is it time to surrender?

Only you can answer it. Only you can answer the question if you will. Secondly, seek God's forgiveness for past failures and then let the burden go.

I love the Christian faith for many reasons, but one reason I love it is it says no matter what the past has been like, no matter what you have done, there is hope for the future because in Christ the past can be wiped clean.

I have talked to many over the last year who in the way they talked made me understand they really thought they couldn't be forgiven. What they had done was so heinous, so major in their own eyes, and they thought in the eyes of God as well, that they couldn't be forgiven. And they were carrying this burden of guilt.

Have you committed adultery in the past? Have you had an abortion?

have you been on drugs?

Have you been just living your life for stuff? Have you been hard-hearted toward the poor?

Have you killed anybody? Have you intentionally injured someone?

Christ says come to me the burden will be lifted let go of the past and turn to me for what are we waiting

let's begin to live for Christ now let's begin today to live for Christ I spoke at the Methodist Church last week and talked about Living faith will always result in action. Use the passage from James. I had a lot of people after class come up to me and say, well, you know, I need to start living for Christ. You know, I need to start doing that. It was always in the future tense.

At some point, I'm going to do that. At some point, I want to start living for Christ. And I would say, well, why don't you start right now? You know, today.

That's my plea for us. Let's don't wait. Let's start. start small. Fourthly, think big, start small. This is what I mean by that. I wish we could all be like the Apostle Paul. And I think we ought to want to be like the Apostle Paul. We really ought to want to be like Jesus first and foremost, but he's so difficult. Let me use Paul for the moment. We want to be great saints, or we ought to want to be great saints. But sometimes that is such a big leap for us, it's hard for us to get started. How can I be like that? How can I do that?

How can I be a great saint? Well, I want you to think big, but my encouragement is to start small. In other words, start with the little things and do what Christ would want you to do. When you go home today, say a kind word to your spouse.

and when you're with your children tonight why don't you say a prayer with them before they go to bed and when you go to work on Monday work hard do a good job for your employer

when you coach the little league basketball team and the referee makes a bad call hold your tongue be faithful to your spouse

and what I find is as we start in the little things to do the right thing pretty soon the big things are taking care of themselves so start small but think big fifthly constantly ask yourself how can I please Jesus in this situation Christians need to ask that all the time every day

don't just launch out and do something without pausing to think how can i please christ sixthly what is hidden in the dark closet of your life that displeases christ open the door for so many of us we've gone part of the direction toward christ but we always like to hold back that one area of our lives there's a dark closet we stuffed the stuff in there that we want to keep want to let go of when we turn to Christ. It's usually that dark closet that keeps us from being all Christ wants us to be.

Pornography. Can I keep my internet? And that particular one, I just want one website. I'll keep it under my favorites.

Or there's one something, one attitude, one something. got to open the door. You got to let that go. If you're going to be all Christ wants you to be in your living, write your eulogy. What will the preacher say at your funeral?

I think it's worth asking that question. How you live will determine what the preacher says. Have you been to those funerals where the preacher couldn't, wasn't really sure the person was a Christian, and they try to be as nice as they can be. You know, they try to say something positive. Why don't you just live your life in a way so when the preacher gets to your eulogy, he can just lift up the name of Christ and say, this person that's in, has died, has just had a tremendous gain.

And if they were here, they would tell you that because they love Jesus more than anything. Why don't we just live that way? Lastly, why don't you fill in the blank? For to me, to live is, and to die is. If you fill anything else in those two blanks, you're not living the Christian life.

It is my prayer for this class, this year, and in all years, we will get the blanks filled in correctly. Let's pray.

Lord this day may we understand the full implications of what it means to live for Christ

Amen.