Ecclesiastes 12
Philippians 1:20b-26
Introduction:
The title of this sermon is “Philippians 1:20-26 part 1: a worldview eclipsed by Christ”. Do you know what it means to be eclipsed? It means to be obscured, blocked out, overshadowed, to fail to appear, to leave. If you are as a person, eclipsed by Christ, you are blacked out in comparison to light Himself. To be made nothing, save Christ. To be seen as nothing, Save Christ. To be meaningless, to be void. Save Christ. Hopefully, you’ve heard before that all that’s good in you is Christ. A true saying. But a truer saying is this; all that is in you is Christ. Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life I live in the flesh I live by faith.” Who died on that cross? And Romans 6:4; “For you were buried with Him by baptism into death so that just as Jesus Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father you too might walk in newness of life.” Who was buried in that ground? The evil in you… Has died. Christ drowned your old nature. He pushed the Adam within you below the waters of baptism and He held him there. He squeezed the neck of that filthy snake until the last breath of anti-life was expelled from its lungs… until death was dead. All that is in you is Christ. All that is, is Christ. Everything else is vanity. It is void. It is nothing… it is eclipsed.
Christian thinkers these days are often inclined to discuss something called a “worldview”. The word “worldview”, is a relatively new term used to refer to an old idea. It refers to answers or attempted answers to tough questions. It seeks to understand the world. The world not as in earth, but as in the universe. The world as in all creation. Specifically, the whats, hows, and whys of creation. Of self, of substance, of the transcendent. A person’s worldview consists of their answers to these questions. This worldview is then applied to several more minute parts of life. Paul in this text works out applies His Christian worldview to personal human life. The Scriptures teach that humans are made in the image of God. They reflect Him in Character and in deed. For God Himself said, let Us make man in Our image, ater Our likeness, to rule…” It is for this reason that human life has value: because it reflects God, Genesis 9:6 says so explicitly. This is what of human life. Since man’s fall into sin and the beginning of spiritual and physical death, the how, is to be born anew by the Spirit, to be risen to new life in Christ by faith. In this, we have both spiritual and physical resurrection. True life, true human life, is found only in Christ. That is the how. But what is the why? The why, is union with God. We were first created in the garden for the express purpose of covenantal union with God, face to face, on earth, eternally. That is Christ’s definition of life in John 17:3 is it not? “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent”. The what, how, and why, intersect. They all center around the same answer. What is human life? The image and reflection of God, a title borne by our Lord Jesus Christ. How do humans come back to life after the fall? Through mystical union in Christ by faith. Why should humans live? Covenantal relationship with God through Christ. Again, what, how, why? Christ, Christ, Christ! Or, phrased another, more famous, more divine, and more apt way, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain”.
- 20b-21: 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.
Two opposing worldviews:
We live in an Atheistic culture where suicide is in the top ten causes of death. People are committing suicide for the reason that they simply cannot find a purpose to continue living. Others commit suicide because of the suffering in their lives. While still others continue on begrudgingly living their lives because the only thing that they fear more than living another day is the darkness of oblivion that they think is on the other side. In the minds of the Atheists, be it conscious or subconscious, there are only two sides; nothingness, and a greater and darker nothingness. This is the Atheistic worldview. Brothers and sisters, we are assembled here today by God Himself, who called us out of that darkness. Do you know why? We are called to be the bearers of all meaning, truth, hope, and love. We are called to rise up out of the culture of darkness and to be the light of the world. Paul says, to live is Christ. Don’t mistake this statement for one that is purely metaphorical. It’s not. Paul here is making a very broad statement and then applying it to a much narrower circumstance in his life. Paul is telling us about his worldview. Mind the contrast here.
Living defined and expounded:
He says; “to live is Christ.” There are, as far as ancient and modern theologians can figure, three modes or levels of life. Physical, spiritual, and vocational. Life at a physical level is not separated from Christ. Christianity is and has always been an earthy faith. We believe that we were made out of the dust of the earth. We believe that God came and took upon Himself a body like ours in every way save a sinful nature. We believe that it was that same incarnate God for whom and through whom we were created and are sustained. We believe He did physical miracles of healing and controlled the weather in great shows of divine power. We believe He suffered a horrifying physical death and poured out His blood onto the earth for the forgiveness of our sins. Even that the physical body of our Lord rose again, and that in that same manner so will ours. That is the hope that we confess in the apostle’s creed. This is your faith, Chrisitan: your salvation relies on a specific Jewish man’s His life, words, death, blood, and resurrection. “If Christ be not raised, your faith is in vain, and you are still in your sins.” So says Paul. And you can account that to any possible lapse in the true humanity of Christ. The Christian focus on the physical is unrivaled among all religions of the world. We rely on Christ for our physical life, and our salvation relies on His. To live at a spiritual level is to be risen to life in Christ by the washing of regeneration and renewal in the Holy Spirit through faith in His person and in His work. Humanity is by default extinct in this spiritual sense. Dead. Every single one of them. Killed by the work of their own hands. If we will live in the spirit it will be by a new life granted in Christ alone. We rely entirely upon Christ for our spiritual life. Not only is it from His work that we receive it, but it is lived in and through Him from beginning to end. Living out our vocation is another sense in which life and “to live” ought to be applied. If you approached an unbeliever and you told them of how their physical life is dependent on Christ, and likewise that their spiritual resurrection depends on Christ and His work for us, you still wouldn’t have given them a whole, living faith. A whole, living faith is a faith planted by the means of grace which manifests itself in fruit. A good tree bears good fruit says Matt 7:17. We show the fruit of grace in that we humbly return every Lord’s Day to the place that Christ promises us His gifts of Word and Sacrament. We show the fruit of grace when we rely on God in pray for our daily necessities in body and in soul. In this text, the main concept of fruit is in our work. Not in works of righteousness as some might think of them; e.g. going to church, fighting sin, daily Bible reading, Although you cannot have this without those. The idea Paul is striking at is faithfulness in the setting to which you have been called. This brings me back to our earlier point. For what purpose have you been called out of the darkness? To be a light in a world of darkness. To bring hope, meaning, and life, to a void that is full of nothing but emptiness, despair, and death. And where is hope, meaning, and life to be found? In Christ alone. Physical life relies on Christ’s creating and sustaining power, spiritual life relies on our entering into Christ by faith, and the living out of our vocation as Christians relies on Christ as the meaning, hope, and life that we communicate to the world.
Christ the Lord and door of life:
To live is not only related to Christ. To live is Christ. Our Lord calls Himself in Revelation 22:13; “the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” You cannot escape Christ. There is no part of life that is outside of God. He permeates all of life. All that is life is within Christ. Everything outside of life, that is death, and that is outside of Christ. Do you see the worldview that Paul is drawing for us? If you want to live where do you go? You go to Christ. And we go to Christ if we want life because in Him is all good, all joy, all hope, all light, and all life. There is nothing that can be properly called life which remains outside of Christ. To go back to Christ’s definition of life from John 17:3, life is to be in covenantal union with God. If you seek life outside of Christ, you are seeking union with God outside of Christ. You might as well seek water in a desert, or ice in a furnace. Did not Christ our Lord say in John 14:6; “I am the way, the truth, and the life, nobody comes to the Father except through me?” You see how interconnected all of these things are? Christ is not only something that you grasp to get spiritual life. He is not simply a tool or instrument of justification. Within Christ we have all truth, all joy, all hope, all love, all righteousness, all vibrancy, we have everything. You don’t pass beyond Christ after conversion and move onto learning His laws to live out your Christian life, He IS the Christian life. Neither let anyone say; “perhaps someday I will turn to Christ but I want to enjoy my life first”. Without Christ, you have no life. If you are outside of Christ you’ve been dead since birth!
Death as the blossoming of life:
Paul then takes this view of life and shines it right into the eyes of the Atheist. For the Atheist, life is merely a material essence. When the biological clock stops ticking and the heart musters its last beat, they consider life to be over. They consider this to be the truest and fullest death. So, Paul comes to this point and he says “and to die is gain”. That is physical death. A proper view of life will inevitably give rise to a proper view of physical death. For the Nihilistic Atheist, we have seen that life is entirely materialistic. Life for the Atheist is toilsome nothingness, and death is an even greater nothingness. Though in Paul’s worldview, life is union with God through Christ. And in death, this union grows deeper and richer as we are freed from these “bodies of death” as he calls them, and coming face to face with our Lord, we are glorified in a moment. A more intense reception of that same union. Which, mind you, is followed by a physical resurrection unto life eternal. Paul is not saying that death is in itself an excellent thing. We know this from Paul’s own writings. Romans 5:12; “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.” The Scriptures teach that death is a punishment for sin. Our sin. It started in the garden. God said to Adam and Eve, in Genesis 2:16; “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” This led to death. Through sin, came death. Came spiritual death. Came physical death. The death of the spirit first. Depravity in the depths of man. Disdain for God was born. There was a tangible separation from God. They were removed from the garden where they once dwelt face to face with Him. And a spiritual and abstract separation, they through their unrighteousness had broken their covenant with God. Then physical death. Infirmities of the flesh. Disease, hunger, decay, fatigue, and finally after a long life of toil came the final blow, Mortality. Not only the physical death of humans but the physical death of all things in creation came out of this fall. Paul phrases the connection between sin and death this way in 1 Corinthians 15:56; “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law”. So, see ye, death, even physical death is not itself seen in a positive light by Paul. No, but a negative one. As a reminder of our sin, our guilt, and our shame. But friends, if you know Christ, what do you know of your sin, guilt and your shame? What of it? It is gone. Christ has rent it from us and taken it for Himself. And in its stead, He has given us righteousness, freedom, and joy. Paul has already laid out for us the outworking of this truth. He said, “the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law”. Once we sinned against God, we died spiritually and became wretched self-destructive sinners. Once spiritually dead we began to physically die. And then moreover we are stung again, flung into the depths of hell, and desiring it all the while. Desiring to hold onto our sin rather than to be held by Christ. And sin can do this because it’s powered by the Law. Now, the Law is a good thing. It, unlike death and sin, is actually inherently good. But it condemns and accuses all who cannot live up to its divine standard. And scarier yet, most of us when faced with the righteousness of God will by nature try to measure ourselves up to His holiness so that we can find a reason for Him to have union with us inherent to our person. And that is never going to happen. A fallen man will never, has never, can never be anything but condemned to hell before the Law written on their souls, whether they are conscious of that fact or not. But for those who turn from their sin, who look to Christ and grasp Him alone in faith with all their might are in Him free of the Law. Why? Because Christ upheld the law and we by faith enter into Him and receive all that is His just as He received all that was ours. The power of sin is lost, it has no hold over us. Death no longer has a sting. It no longer threatens us. For in Christ, we have died. We died to the law. We died to sin. We died to death. And rising up from the depths of the earth, from the depths of hell, came our savior. Having borne our sin, our death, and our eternal hell and having conquered it all, He proclaimed this message in Revelation 1:18; “I am the living one. I died, and behold I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Death and Hell.” What now say you, Church? What say you when you’re confronted by your sin? What do you say when death comes to take you? You must in that hour stand fast as Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:54-55, saying; “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”. Christian death is not true death. It is the fullest and most pure blossoming of new life. When you face death, when I face death, let’s face it with a smile, and remember as you walk through the front doors of eternity, “to die is gain”.
