How do you strike the balance between being a citizen of heaven, that's where we're going to end up, Philippians 3.20, our citizenship is in heaven, well at the same time being responsible as a citizen of this earth. How do we live in between these worlds? We're moving to heaven but we're on the earth. Philippians gives us a real good structure on how to do that. As the week starts to bring this series to a close today here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, we're going to examine a couple of important issues that we need to make sure we deal with right now before we visit the hereafter.
But first, we want to let you in on this month's Connect with Skip resource offer. In nearly 40 years of expository teaching, I still love hearing that one of my messages spoke to someone personally that it urged them on to know God better or become more like Him. But that's not because of me, that's just the power of the Word of God doing the work of God in the hearts of the people of God.
Is the rapture real and overcoming an anxious mind? This four DVD collection is our thanks for your gift of $25 or more to help keep this ministry connecting more people to Jesus. Call now to request your copy of Pastor Skip's Picks, 800-922-1888, or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. From the Edge of Eternity is our series about the afterlife, and as you open your Bibles to Philippians chapter 1, we'll join Skip Heitzig as he explains what we need to do to get to heaven. To get to heaven, you have to have the right approach. You can't just say, well, I just decided I want to go there.
That's a good decision, but you've got to make sure that you come through the right channel. Just like if you were to go to a foreign country, you couldn't just decide I'll buy a plane ticket. You can't get into a country unless you have one of these. I brought mine this morning because there was a time when I forgot mine at the airport in Los Angeles. I had flown from Albuquerque to LAX. I had been doing domestic travel, and I just didn't think about putting the passport in. When I got to my connecting flight at LAX, they asked for this, and my heart sunk because I knew I didn't pack it.
So I had to stay overnight in LA airport while this was being overnighted to me. The passport allows you entrance into a foreign country, and so, too, to get into heaven, you have to come with the right documentation, not because you have a big Bible or a bumper sticker on your car, or because you attend a certain church, but you've come the way of Jesus Christ alone. And so, I want to sum up all that we have studied with today's message. There's two things you need to be sure of. You need to be ready to die, and you need to be ready to live until you die.
First, you need to be ready to die because that moment could come at any moment. I read a story of a bank in Binghamton, New York that wanted to send flowers to a competitor bank that had moved to a new location. So they sent the flowers, but the flower shop got the card mixed up. So you imagine their surprise when this new bank at their new location saw a card on the flowers that read, with deepest sympathy. It just wasn't the right message. The flower company was embarrassed, but they were even more embarrassed because they realized at that moment there's a funeral home in that town, and a flower bouquet in front of a casket with a card that said, congratulations on your new location.
Which is pretty accurate, actually, if you think about it. That person in the casket is no longer there. They're at a new location. The question is, where are they?
It may or may not be a cause for congratulations. So you want to make sure that you're ready to die, but are you ready to live until you die? This is where we now come to Philippians. How do you strike the balance between being a citizen of heaven, that's where we're going to end up, Philippians 3.20, our citizenship is in heaven, while at the same time being responsible as a citizen of this earth? How do we live in between these worlds?
We're moving to heaven, but we're on the earth. Philippians gives us a real good structure on how to do that. I'm taking you to chapter 1, and we're going to read a section of verses together, and I'm going to give you four words that will describe how Paul strikes the balance between the present and the future. Those words are simple and they're in your outline, rustling, wanting, willing, and waiting.
And we'll see how that unpacks as we go together. Let's read the entire section, beginning in chapter 1, verse 19. For I know that this will turn out for my salvation through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. According to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor, yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. I'm hard-pressed between the two having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to remain in the flesh is more needful for you. And being confident of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you for your progress and joy of faith.
That your rejoicing for me may be more abundant in Jesus Christ by my coming to you again. It's pretty obvious from this paragraph that Paul is wrestling with something. He's struggling with how he feels about what the future might bring. You see, he's in prison. He's been arrested. And he doesn't know how the trial is going to go, if he's going to get a death sentence or if he's going to be released. He may live, he may die. He didn't know. And so he's very honest emotionally about how he takes the situation.
And I'll tell you, when I first read this paragraph, I'll tell you what came to my mind immediately. Remember Fiddler on the Roof? Remember the patriarch of the family named Tevye? His three daughters are getting married and this guy thinks out loud, he processes out loud. And one of his daughters wanting to marry this guy, they don't really approve of the guy. And so Tevye says, on one hand, he's not the one I would have chosen, but on the other hand, she loves him. And on one hand, he goes back and forth deliberating with this choice. Well that's what Paul is doing here. He's thinking about the possibility of living and continuing his ministry or dying and going to heaven. Notice verse 23, I'm hard pressed between the two.
We'd say, I'm in between a rock and a hard place. In fact, the idea, the picture behind the language that Paul uses is the picture of a traveler on a narrow road with a canyon, walls on either side. And as he travels, they're pressing in further and further and constricting his travel more and more. So think of it this way. On one side is the wall of what Paul wants for himself in the light of his situation. I'd rather just be in heaven. On the other side is the wall of what they, the Philippian church, need for Paul to continue and to minister to them and to live as an example.
Now let's apply that. Sometimes our lives become confined. Things narrow. Our options are less today than they were yesterday. We feel like life is closing in on us at those times. It could be an illness that we face, loss of a loved one, loss of a job, career change, death of a vision, breakup of a relationship.
We feel like our life is being constricted. At those moments, our choices are very critical. And we as Christians are faced with the choice, am I going to land on choosing to live for God's glory or for my personal comfort? Typically when we go through a hard time, our first response is, how can I get out of this?
It should be, what can I get out of this for the glory of God? Now I'll tell you why that's a critical choice because in those times, if our motivation is for personal comfort rather than God's glory, we're going to end up in one of two different camps. Number one, some become fatalistic. That is, this is hard, heaven is better, it'd be better if I just die. I know people who live their whole life that way. They're never happy, it's always a bummer, it's a drag, life's horrible, we're going to get to heaven soon, it'd be better to die. Now those people can develop suicidal tendencies, it can be a very dangerous way to think. Others, rather than becoming fatalistic, become totally materialistic. Yep, life is hard, this is a drag, I know I'm going to heaven, but until I get there, I'm going to make it all about me and have as much fun and spend as much money as I can on my own personal comfort.
They become materialistic. I know that she didn't really completely understand what she was saying, but I'm going to tell you a story about a girl that I met years ago. We were all talking about, she was a believer, we were all talking about the Lord coming soon, and she was just getting engaged to a young fellow, and I'll never forget what she said. We said, yeah, Jesus could come at any moment. And she said, well I hope he doesn't come right away.
Because there's still a few things I haven't done yet. There's a few experiences I haven't made it through, like marriage and children, and I'd like to buy a house, and she had a little list of things she wanted before the Lord came. Now I understand that kind of emotion, but she really sold the Lord short on that. Not understanding what eternity had in store for her as a believer. Sort of reminds me of Mark Twain when he was told about heaven. He said, you can have heaven, you just give me Bermuda.
You know, for him, the temporal was more important than the eternal. So here's Paul, he's in a predicament, he's in prison, he doesn't know which way the verdict's going to fall, and so he's wrestling. Now he tells us also in the same paragraph what he wants personally. He's wrestling with a predicament. He's wanting to push off, and I'll tell you why I use that language in a moment.
Look at verse 23. He said, I'm hard pressed between the two, these constricting walls of my emotion, and having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. So what does he want? What does he want to do?
He has a desire to what? Depart. Now the word he chose is a very telling and descriptive word.
Ana lucae. And ana lucae means to let loose of, or to break up, or to undo. And it was a word a couple thousand years ago in the Greek language that was used, number one, of mariners who were leaving port. And what they would do is they would loose the ship of the moorings.
They would untie the ropes, they would bring up the anchor, and they would give them the freedom to set sail. That's what they meant by the word departure, and it's a beautiful description of Christian death. I'm going to pick up the anchor, and I'm moving on.
Paul used it that way when he wrote to young Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 4. He was toward the end of his life, and he said, I'm already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure ana lucae is at hand. Timothy, I'm already untying the ropes. I'm bringing up the anchor.
I know my time is short. I'm setting sail. Now this imagery has found its way into hymnology. Some of the hymn writers speak about gathering together on the other shore.
We're setting sail. There's a second way the word ana lucae was used in ancient times, and that was for striking a camp or breaking up a camp. Soldiers would camp out in their tents. When it was time for them to move on, they would fold their tents up. They would take out the tent pegs.
They would wind up the cords, and they would move on. That's a beautiful description of death as well. We're pilgrims.
We're traveling through. We're camping out on this earth. This isn't permanent. Now, camping is a lot of fun for like a day. Okay, for a week or two, but after like two or three weeks in a tent, it gets really old, doesn't it? You know, you long for something more permanent. You long for a shower because you're smelling pretty ripe after a few weeks.
I don't care what KOAs have. It's just different. And so the Bible is very descriptive to say this life is like living in a tent. We're camping out, and when we die, we strike the camp, and we move on to something more permanent.
2 Corinthians 5. We know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down, that is when we die and leave these bodies, we'll have a home in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God and not by human hands. And if you're an honest person, the longer you live, you realize, yep, it is very temporary, and I am in a tent.
I woke up this morning and looked at my tent in the mirror, and I saw the flaps, and the tent is stretching out a little bit, the cords are wiggling a little bit looser, and you can't wait for something more permanent. A few days before he died, a guy by the name of F.B. Meyer, he was a pastor of Last Generation, wrote to a friend. Now here's a guy on his deathbed, and he says this, I have just heard, to my great surprise, that I have but a few days to live. It may be that before this letter reaches you, I shall have entered the palace. And he closes, Don't trouble to write. We shall meet in the morning.
That's so beautiful. Hey, here I am, I'm writing you. You may not even get this before I'm in the palace. I get to heaven, I've moved on.
Don't even bother to write. See you in the morning. I've also discovered that departure can come at any moment. You might think today, oh, I won't depart from this life for years. You might not be here next week. There are just no guarantees.
It can happen at any moment. Here's Paul saying, I'll tell you what I want. I would love to depart. I'd love to set sail.
I'd love to strike the camp and move on to something more permanent. Notice what he continues to say in that verse. Having a desire to depart and be with Christ. Now that's the best part. The best part isn't the departure. It's the arrival.
It's the encounter. I think I told you about J.B. Phillips who wrote that great translation of the New Testament. He conducted so many funerals in his lifetime, but he never spoke about a Christian who died as the dearly departed. You ever hear a pastor say that at a funeral? Here the dearly departed is.
He didn't say that. He talked about them as the one who has arrived. If you're a believer, when you die, you've really arrived. So there's the departure, but there's immediately the encounter.
I have a desire to depart because it means I'm going to be with Christ. And we have spent four months talking about the arrival. Four months talking about what it's like the moment we die and we're in glory and we get reunited with loved ones and we're in the throne room of God and we see the lamb and the choirs of heaven and what the resurrected bodies will be like. And all of that hope upon the arrival. Now you know, there's two modes of transportation to heaven. Number one, death. And so far that's how everybody has gotten there who's gotten there.
Death. Number two is when the Lord comes back and the saints who are alive are instantly translated into heaven. That's the rapture of the church.
That's another way to get there. Those are the only two modes of getting to heaven. That's described in 1 Thessalonians 4.
It says, We who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And here's the best part. And so shall we always be with the Lord. There's the departure. There's the encounter.
And the encounter is the best part. Because once you're with him, you'll always be with him, right? Once you're caught up in the air or you die and you're instantly in heaven, you'll always be with him. You'll be with him when he returns to the earth. You'll be with him in the millennial reign. You'll be with him in the eternal city. Forever you'll be with the Lord.
No wonder he says then in the same verse, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, look at this, which is far better. Two words, far better. In Greek, it's three words. You know what it reads literally?
Which is much more better. If you're an English teacher, that's repulsive to you. That's bad English.
It happens to be good Greek. And it's great theology. Heaven is much more better than earth. The arrival is much more better than even the departure and being here.
Now for Paul to say this, it's pretty obvious that he believed the moment he died, he would at that very moment be with the Lord. There's no holding pattern. There's no waiting. There's no going somewhere else. There's no limbo. There's no purgatory. There's no soul sleep as some hold that if you die as a Christian, you go into this sort of suspended state of unconsciousness until the Lord returns.
Then you're awakened and you're with him. Paul wouldn't have said that if he believed that. Because he thought when he departs, he'll be with Christ, which is far better. He was anticipating to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
I'm going to read to you something else. Dwight Lyman Moody. I've quoted him on many occasions. The great evangelist and pastor of Moody Bible Church, last generation. He was on his deathbed.
While he was there and he didn't know what the future state would be, he told his family gathered around him, I'm not discouraged. I want to live as long as I'm useful. But when my work is done, I want to be up and off. I want to push off. That's my desire to depart when it's my time. After a particularly restless night, the next morning with a very careful, measured speech, he said this, Earth recedes, heaven opens before me. His son who was at his bedside thought, Pops is dreaming.
And Dwight said to his son, No, this is not a dream, Will. It's beautiful. If this is death, it is sweet.
There's no valley here. God is calling me and I must go. What a great way to go. It's so great to have lived that kind of a life so that at the end, you go, ah, this is it. I'm graduating now.
This is sweet. So are you prepared for eternity? That's one journey that you absolutely must make sure you're prepared for. Because once you start it, there's no turning back. So make sure you have everything in place and ready to go, that you're ready for the return of Christ and the beginning of His reign.
Because the alternative, if you aren't prepared for it, isn't one you'll enjoy. Well, if you'd like a copy of today's message or of this series, From the Edge of Eternity, give us a call at 1-800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com. Each individual teaching is only $6 plus shipping.
Or you can get the entire series for only $39 plus shipping. Just call us 1-800-922-1888 or connectwithskip.com. We'll conclude this series From the Edge of Eternity on our next broadcast. So be sure to join us as we get one last glimpse of eternity, right here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the cross and cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection, connection. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-09-18 18:04:29 / 2023-09-18 18:13:23 / 9