12-09-12 This is Victory??

Phil. 1:19-21

We are in the process

of walking with Paul

through the thoughts he chose to share with some very good friends of his,

as he sat under house arrest in Rome

waiting for his trial before Creaser.

Paul’s letter to the Philippians

is a letter written for the winters of our life.

It is a letter that reveals to us

Paul’s keys for survival

during the tough times,

the times when things make no sense,

the times when what we see

and what we feel

are very hard to put together

with a concept of a God

who loves us with an everlasting love.

It is a book written

to help us understand how to think “Christian”

at those points where

the evil that envelopes our world

touches our lives

in very pain-filled ways

and what we want and what we expect

and what we actually experience

are miles and miles apart.

There is a lot of junk

being marketed under the Christian banner in our world today.

“God wants you healthy,

wealthy,

and wise.”

Much of what we are taught about prayer

is little more than

techniques for twisting God’s arm

until we can trick Him

or drive Him into coughing up

whatever we want out of Him.

For years I’ve heard people talk about

“storming the Gates of Heaven”

as if God was some cruel feudal lord

who had confiscated all the food

and locked it inside his fortress,

and we peasants were reduced to

pounding on the doors

pleading for a few crumbs

before our children die of starvation.

Never in all of scripture

is it even remotely suggested

that we must storm the gates of heaven

in an attempt to bend God to our own will

so that He will meet our needs.

In fact, when we listen to our Lord,

not only do we not find a grumpy,

greedy lord barricaded behind his gates,

but we hear Him saying things like this to us:

HEB 4:14 Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. [15] For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. [16] Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.

and this...

I Peter 3:12 "For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, And His ears attend to their prayer,...

I’ve mentioned before

and you’ll hear me say it again,

that I believe the only real battle we ever fight

is the battle to discover and affirm

the true character of God.

Maybe you are fighting a moral battle right now -

you know what your Lord has to say

about the issue you’re struggling with,

but you find yourself powerfully drawn

in the opposite direction.

Underlying that battle

is the real question of the integrity

and the character

and the trustworthiness of God.

The real question is can you trust Him?

Can you trust what He says

when it comes to your own needs?

Can you trust that He really does

have your best interests in mind?

Can you trust Him to supply the resources

you are going to need

to make obedience possible?

What are His real intentions toward you

with the boundaries He has established for life?

I don’t think there is any place

in our interaction with God

where our true concept of Him

is more clearly revealed

than in this whole area of prayer.

We say all sorts of things about God

in our conversations about Him -

“He’s good.”

“He’s loving.”

“He cares about me.”

“I can trust Him.”

But our true attitudes about Him

have a way of popping to the top

when we begin to pray.

Is He a mean-spirited feudal lord

who has hoarded all the wealth and power

within His castle walls?

Is He the ultimate Santa Claus

with a big bag of goodies,

surrounded by thousands of reaching children,

and we must yell a little louder than the rest

so that He will notice us

and give us our package?

Is He a distant and disinterested father

who really doesn’t like us much

or at best doesn’t want to be troubled with us,

a father we must approach just right,

or wear down over time

so that He will finally give us what we ask?

I bring all of this up this morning

because the next verses we have before us

in our study of Philippians

deal with Paul’s attitude towards prayer

especially as it affects his own release from prison.

The passage is Phil. 1:19-21

and I want us to move into it one verse at a time,

because I think it will help us better relate

to some of our own misconceptions about prayer.

The passage begins in Phil. 1:19

with a statement we’re going to like very much.

It is a statement that, pulled out of context,

says just exactly what we want it to say.

19] For I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ,...

Now isn’t that nice?

A strong, bold, clear

affirmation of Paul’s confidence

in God’s ability to deliver the goods.

Paul sees deliverance in his future.

There is a sense of absolute certainty

in the sound of his voice.

I KNOW!!! I KNOW!!!

And he even tells us

the two solid points upon which

his great confidence stands.

He says, I know with certainty

that my deliverance shall become a reality:

first through your prayers,

and then through the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

Now, if we just stop there,

doesn’t it sound like he is telling us

that if the Philippians just keep praying

and asking God to get him out of prison

Paul knows with certainty

that God’s Spirit is going to pull off another one of those Peter things,

like in Acts 12

where this angel shows up in the middle of the night

and pokes Peter in the side as he slept in prison

and Peter just sort of stumbles along after the angel,

and the chains fell off his hands,

and the doors all opened before him,

and they walked right by the guards

and out onto the street.

And if we just read verse 19

it sounds like Paul is anticipating the same thing:

‟If you guys just keep praying

I know God is going to bust me out of here.”

That, of course, is the problem

with the whole name-it-and-claim-it mentality within the Christian world -

you have to be very careful

that you stop reading at the proper places.

You need to choose your scriptures very carefully,

and edit them very skillfully

so that you can get God

to appear to say the things

that you really want to hear,

or that you audience really wants to hear.

You need a God

who always comes through

with what we want

when we want

just so long as we do our part

and follow the system,

and play the game the right way.

That’s the kind of God our flesh wants, isn’t it?

It’s that Declaration of Independence God,

the one who guarantees everyone

and inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It’s a god carefully formed

after our own image,

a god who delivers the goods.

The problem, of course,

is that Paul didn’t stop his letter

with verse 19,

and what he says in verse 19

can only be understood correctly

when placed in the context

of verses 20 and 21.

19] For I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, [20] according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. [21] For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

You see, it is only in verses 20 and 21

that Paul provides us with his definition

of “deliverance”.

And it is a very different definition

from the one we would have offered.

You see, we just naturally think in terms

of “deliverance from”...

deliverance from prison,

deliverance from our enemies,

deliverance from our pain,

or our wounds,

or our confusion.

But Paul thinks in terms

of deliverance through...

deliverance through his prison experience,

deliverance through his pain,

deliverance through his loneliness,

or his frustration

or his confusion.

And he makes this clear

in the kind of definition for deliverance

that he offers in verses 20 and 21.

His definition has two parts:

#1. “I shall not be put to shame in anything...”

Do you know what I hear him saying in that?

I hear him saying, “No matter what happens to me,

and no matter what the outcome

of my situation is,

it will be clearly evident to all

that I found my God adequate

for whatever I went through.”

Paul had no illusions

about the true nature of life with Christ.

His Christian life began

by Christ saying about him, “...for I will show him how much he must suffer for My name's sake.”

He was never afflicted with the “deliver me from...” mentality

that characterizes so much of the crud

we market as Christianity today.

He began with a “deliver me through...”

concept of God’s care

from day one.

And when he says, according to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything,

he is saying that no matter what happens

he will find his God sufficient.

And in Paul’s mind

my guess is that he is most likely picturing himself

standing before Caesar

hearing Caesar sentence him to death

and knowing that at that point

because of their prayers

and the provision of God’s Spirit

Paul will find His God adequate

for that point in his life as well.

Now I don’t want you to misunderstand me here,

I am certainly not suggesting

that we should live with a dread

of terrible catastrophes coming into our life.

The truth is that

any life lived on the basis of the pattern outlined by God in Scripture

works far better

with far less stress

than a life lived outside of the principles given to us by our Lord.

Financial choices conducted on Biblical principles

work far better

than those that are not.

Relationships approached on Biblical principles

work far better

than those that are not.

Families functioning on the Biblical pattern

provide great places for people to live,

safe places, secure places,

places that are always good to come home to.

But that is a very different thing

from believing that God will somehow

work my life in such a way

that evil will never touch me

or I will never hurt

or suffer loss.

And our great security

and the only real security we can ever have

is right here in what Paul is saying -

that we can and will find our God adequate

for anything that comes into our life.

Parenting during the teen years

is such an exhilarating experience.

In about four years

our children are suppose to transition

from the total insanity of the Jr. High years

to the point where they are

a responsible,

functioning member of the adult community.

Even when the process goes beautifully,

there is a never ending parade

of new actions,

and attitudes,

and ideas,

and experiences to adjust to.

And just when we, as parents, get up to speed on one change

it’s already been replaced by something completely different.

I don’t do well with change, folks -

I’m not a go-with-the-flow kind of guy.

I’m the type of guy

who puts the coffee in the little filter basket at night

so all I have to do is push the button in the morning.

I’m the type of guy

who gets everywhere at least 15 minutes early.

By the time our life is over

I’ll bet Sandee and I will have invested

one full year of our life

sitting in empty theaters

waiting for the movie to start

because I got us there early

just in case there might be a line.

I’m just that kind of guy.

When our daughter, Joni, was in her teens

my little life-adjustment meter was perpetually pegged out on 10 all the time.

I remember the first year after Joni got her drivers licence.

Six months after she’d been driving

I should have been use to it, right?

And yet every time I would see her drive down the driveway

I would still feel this jab of fear -

what if...

what if she meets a drunk driver...

what if she has an accident...

what if she never comes back again...

And do you know where I found my security?

It wasn’t in the belief

that my God will make sure

evil never touches my life.

It was in the assurance

that my God is adequate

to bring me through

whatever enters my life.

And now, 15 years later,

it’s my grandchildren that trigger all those fears

fears that drive me back to that same point of security.

My God is a God

who is great enough,

and loves enough

to deliver me through whatever I will go through.

That’s deliverance -

that’s true deliverance,

that’s deliverance THROUGH,

not deliverance FROM.

Sometimes our Lord does deliver from,

in fact often He does,

and I praise Him for that.

But that isn’t part of the promise,

that’s not part of the deal.

His commitment to us is that

we will find His love

and His care sufficient

for whatever we encounter.

And Paul’s second element of his definition of deliverance

makes this real clear.

The first element is that he will not be put to shame

in his boast about knowing a God

who is adequate for real life,

and his second element of true deliverance is that, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.

Paul understood that the character

and integrity of God

did not depend upon

whether or not God did it Paul’s way.

His conclusions about God

were not based upon whatever he could see in the circumstances of his life,

they were rooted in what God had said to him

through the life and death

and resurrection of Christ.

Paul said it best in Rom. 8:31-32

ROM 8:31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? [32] He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?

Not everything we want,

but everything we need

to make it through with our hand in His

from the day we meet Him

until the day we see Him face to face.

And in verse 21 of Philippians 1

Paul distills his definition of deliverance

down into a single phrase:

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

To continue living in this world,

with all of it’s corruption, and confusion, and turmoil

is to continue to see His Lord present with him and adequate for him

with each new day.

And when the time of his departure comes

what waits for him as he enters into the presence of Christ

is infinitely better than anything he has ever known

while living here in the shadow lands.