“I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.” (1 Corinthians 9:23)

I began playing baseball at about 8 years old in my hometown of St. Louis, where baseball is serious business. I was captivated from the first warmup throws. This love affair continued until my freshman year of high school when lady football winked at me and smiled. Suddenly, my affections pulled in a new direction. Had the stars aligned correctly, I would have played in college and beyond. Alas, they did not. Nor did the molecules of my body. No matter, because another fondness had begun swelling in my heart, reaching full-size when it came time to choose a major. Music would be my long-term love, my lifetime companion, my bride. Then I met Krista. That settled it. I would have two loves for the rest of my life—my girl and my guitar. All of my dreams and ambitions would find their fulfillment in one or the other. What more could I wish for? Everything was in order. My aim had its target, my dreams their realization, my passions their proper release. Until. In order to help propel my music career, I started a business. Before long, I realized that entrepreneurial waters had been flowing below the surface of my heart for years, bubbling up occasionally, but going largely unnoticed. Now, they were ready to burst forth as a great river of productive creativity. This one would surely last. And it did. For a while. But soon another siren sang her mellifluous melodies, attracting me with her enticing mental and philosophical adventures. I had discovered a love for theology. This I devoured with the same hunger as I had baseball, football, music, Krista, and business. It was settled this time for sure. I would pursue music, aided by enterprise, and become a lay theologian par excellence.

If Jesus had appeared to me during those years and asked, “What do you love? What do you dream about, think about, long for? Where does your mind go? What gets you up in the morning? What brings you joy? What makes your life worth living?” I would have been ashamed of my answer. Not because any of those things are evil, but because I now realize that only one thing deserves to be my all-consuming passion. To find greater joy, be more impassioned, or experience deeper fulfillment in anything or anyone other than Jesus borders on idolatry. Maybe it crosses over.

What about you? What do you rejoice in? What do you live for? What gets you up in the morning?

 

The Gospel Is the Only Basis for Partnership

I recently spoke at two retreats, one for elders and one for a college and career ministry. At each of these venues, I covered the book of Philippians with a particular concern to show how obsessed the apostle Paul was with the gospel of Jesus Christ. At the elder retreat, I read the letter in its entirety in one sitting emphasizing each occurrence of gospel, Jesus, or Christ. Rarely do two sentences pass without the mention of one of them. The gospel was Paul’s preoccupation, a zeal he wanted to pass along to the church at Philippi. His reason was made clear when he wrote those famous words about counting all things as rubbish compared to knowing Jesus Christ. I wonder whether our familiarity with those verses steals their meaning.

I also wonder whether a failure to consistently read the epistles as unified wholes, all at one time, leads us to force them into unintended and unhelpful subdivisions of topics. There’s a reason they don’t come with a table of contents, chapter headings, theological categories, or indexes. Yes, they are full of theological and doctrinal truth. But all of the theology is gospel-theology, all of the truth is Christ-centered truth. In every book of the New Testament, the gospel is the understood topic of discussion because Jesus is the understood topic of discussion. That’s why every other topic was rubbish to Paul. Christ and Him crucified was all. A regular hearing of his writings will reiterate this over and over again.

Paul’s single-minded focus is obvious in paragraph after paragraph of Philippians. For example, he rejoiced in the Philippians’ partnership in the gospel (1:3-8). From prison, Paul’s concern was the gospel (v7). His affection for the believers in Philippi was not due to their sharing common past-times or ethnicity or life experiences; it was due to their common love for Christ (v8). He loved them solely because of their relationship to Jesus. The same is true for us today: the only basis for Christian fellowship is the gospel.

One of the Greek words Paul uses in this section is sunkoinonos, which connotes a mutual buy-in or a corporate partnership wherein each partner has a significant stake in the success or failure of the business. The shared goal is to achieve profitability and growth. If one loses, both lose. If one succeeds, both succeed. Their relationship is defined by their mutual objective. One of the businesses I owned years ago was such a partnership. My wife and I invested blood, sweat, and a few dollars with another couple in order to create a viable company. When it eventually dissolved, so did the heart of our relationship with the other couple. While we remain friends to this day, the nature of the relationship is different because without the common goal, the primary bond is missing. The same was true of Paul and the churches. Their mutual love was the love of the gospel. His commitment to and friendship with them was rooted only and exclusively in their devotion to Jesus. If they failed to continue as partners for the cause of the gospel, he would have no ties with them whatsoever.

 

The Gospel as Our Priority

During the college retreat I referred to earlier, I asked the participants to describe what they pray about, what a common prayer list would look like for them. I wanted to use the nature of their requests to test whether they were gospel- and Christ-centered. Prayer is a reasonable barometer because it indicates our priorities. We pray about those things which are most precious to us. Judging by most prayer groups, it would be easy to conclude that the greatest concern among Christians is health, followed by jobs, family, and fun. This group was no exception.

Next, I gave them a quiz. I asked them to identify all of the places where the New Testament teaches us, by precept or precedent, to pray for someone’s health. Maybe you would like to take the test. Can you think of any passages where Christians are taught to pray for healing? How about examples of people praying for recovery from sickness? The immediate response is usually James 5. True enough, if you’re an elder. (Although I would argue that the emphasis is on spiritual, not physical, weakness, but we’ll leave that debate for another time.) But you will search long and hard to find a biblical parallel to the proportion of praying we do for temporal things. In fact, I believe there is only one place in the entire New Testament that speaks of praying for a sick person, and it’s in a book that believers almost never read unless they are participating in some kind of read-through-the-entire-Bible plan.

In contrast to ours, Paul’s prayers were Christ-centered and gospel-focused. For example, his petitions for the Philippians were for their increased love for Christ and each other. He wanted them to possess a greater knowledge of Christ. He asked that they would be properly prepared for the day of Christ Jesus. When he did mention his dear brother’s brush with death, he thanked the Lord for sparing him, without a single mention of any prayer for healing or recovery. That doesn’t prove that no one prayed for Epaphroditus’ health, but it is a significant silence. For Paul, a devotion to Christ was all that mattered. It’s what he prayed for.

What do we pray for? What tops our lists? What makes up the majority of our supplications? Do we pray for our brothers and sisters to increase in spiritual maturity, to grow in their knowledge of the Son of God, and to have a stronger faith and hope in the gospel? Do we contend with the Spirit of God to grant perseverance and steadfastness to our co-laborers? Is a deeper expression of love for Christ and love for other Christians among the most asked things from us to God? If we love Jesus and our fellow believers, our greatest desire will be their devotion to Him. We should pray for it. (We will consider prayer in more detail in another chapter.)

Getting back to the book of Philippians, we find that Paul lived to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ (1:12-26). When falsely accused and wrongly imprisoned, he was not discouraged as long as the gospel was continuing to prosper (v12). Maybe he was simply an optimist, one of those glass-half-full kind of guys? No. All he cared about was that Christ was being exalted and people were hearing the good news of His salvation (v15-18). If that happened, his own circumstances were irrelevant.

Christ was Paul’s life (v19-26). Above all, he longed to cross the threshold of death and enter the room where the manifest presence of Jesus could be personally enjoyed forever. Dying would bring the ultimate prize. He wanted it more than anything. Yet, if the Lord was not content with his earthly service, he would labor on striving to identify with His Savior’s earthly sufferings. You see, for Paul, there was only one reason to live at all—to know Christ, to serve Him tirelessly, and to help others find their raison d’être in Him as well.

What would change in your life if your preoccupation was Jesus Christ and the gospel of His kingdom? What would it take to make Him your preoccupation?

 

Gospel-Worthy Living

In 1:27-2:30, Paul urged the Philippians to walk worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I wonder how many Christians have never contemplated whether their life is worthy of the gospel. In Matthew 10, Jesus listed a number of things that we may find ourselves tempted to love more than we love Him. The items aren’t the kinds of things we typically think of, such as money or power or pleasure. They are sons, daughters, and wives. Then he grabs the edge of every possibility, demanding that we give up the entirety of our lives for Him. The conclusion is: “He who loves _______ more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Fill in the blank with absolutely anything.

Quite jarringly, then, to live worthy cannot be accomplished simply by avoiding “big sins,” or praying the “sinner’s prayer.” It is a whole-life preoccupation with the gospel of the kingdom and the glory of Jesus Christ. Only that kind of devotion deserves to be called gospel-living.

Gospel-worthy lives will also be marked by unity in the Holy Spirit, striving together for the faith of the gospel, and selfless service to others (1:27-2:4). Notice that it’s more than just attending the young marrieds’ Sunday school class or running the men’s mountain-climbing ministry. The gospel demands a tremendous exertion of effort.

There is a lot of division and disharmony in the Church and in churches because too many of us are unwilling to make the effort. It’s hard work to show deference to others. It’s hard work to leave the basis of our unity at the gospel instead of extending the borders to other doctrines or principles we hold near and dear. It’s hard work to be kind, gracious, and forgiving for the sake of unity. I’ve seen it over and over again where a brother or sister has all of their theological ducks in the appropriate rows only to empty their barrels on everyone else’s ducks, not over theology mind you, but because their feelings got hurt. We all want grace when we don’t deserve it, but we find it much harder to extend when it’s our rights that have been wronged. The gospel is about giving up rights. It’s about Christ stooping from glory to serve us in the slop. He doesn’t just clean the pigsty, He becomes a pig and lives in it, all for the benefit of the other pigs. That’s our example. That’s living worthy of His gospel.

Christ is the example not only of amazing humility, but also of serving without complaint (2:5-11). He willingly gave His life for ours. When His brothers rejected Him, and His closest friends abandoned Him, and His own creatures—men who could only lift a hammer because of His sovereign sustaining will—drove stakes into His body, He said nothing in response. There was no grumbling, no sarcasm, no quick wit or biting comeback. He just took it. Because He loved them. It’s what He lived for.

I often think of Peter, the man who impetuously vowed to die rather than let any harm come to Jesus, who then, merely a few hours later, denied even knowing Jesus. He did it three times! Of course, the Lord already knew it was going to happen. He described it all to Peter before the fact. As He did, forgiveness was implied. He told Peter that when he came back to his senses, he was to strengthen the other Christians. Extraordinary! Christ entrusted him with ministry while knowing the full extent of his coming betrayal and cowardice. Not only that, but when it was all said and done, Jesus never mentioned it. No “I told you so,” no scolding or rebuke; just grace, trust, love, and unity. That’s the model for living worthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It behooves the Christian to take inventory of his life, to ask questions like: Do I “strive together” with others for the faith of the gospel? How am I selfish? In what areas of life am I more concerned about myself than about my fellow believers? What do I grumble and complain about? How am I like the “crooked and twisted generation” in which I live? What needs to change? Would I be willing to die for the gospel? If we’re honest in our evaluation, we might discover something about the sincerity and depth of our faith and our love for the gospel.

Pop culture delights to instruct us about what we should want most in life. Although there are some universals—unlimited and unrestrained sexual experiences, wealth, freedom, governmental care-taking, etc.—the American axiom is that we should want whatever makes us happy. Movies, books, songs, and other entertainment media all point in the same direction, toward the self. Live according to what you want. That’s everything. Paul only wanted to know Christ and eternal life (3:1-21). Everything else was all rot, to use a good old British phrase. He took seriously Jesus’ command to abandon life in order to gain it. For Paul, it wasn’t “all good.” The only good was that which exalted Christ. It wasn’t “to each his own,” it was “imitate me as I imitate Christ.” It wasn’t “live and let live,” it was “I live to become like Him in His death and attain to His resurrection.” Anyone who finds things, people, events, and experiences more attractive than Jesus is not worthy of Him. “For the sake of Christ” is the answer to why you should have ambition in life. He is why you should care.

 

Remembering the Gospel

Gospel-focused, Christ-obsessed living not only directs our desires, it also impacts what we think about when we’re driving, showering, and pondering. It informs our “quiet times.” It yields tangible fruit in our lives, such as the following from Philippians 4:

• Thinking of Christ overcomes anxiety (4:4-7).
• Thinking of Christ is thinking of what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, and worthy of praise (4:8-9).
• Thinking of Christ brings contented acceptance of life’s changes (4:10-20).
• Thinking of Christ provokes rejoicing (4:4).

Think about it.

If our thoughts are consumed with His glory, His faithfulness, His sovereignty, His power, and His mission, fear and worry are forced to sit quietly in the corner until we stop thinking about those things. It’s only when our minds move to ourselves, our stuff, our desires, and our plans, that we get scared. We don’t have to face our fears, just face Him. They will vanish from the presence of the One who has overcome all things.

When we think of Jesus, we cannot simultaneously think of things which are evil, debauched, worldly, or selfish. If you have ever been near the ocean at dusk, you know that one does not tend to hold in his mind both the grand vista of the sun slowly slipping off the edge of the earth reflecting its iridescent brilliance on the glassy white-capped mirror and the putrid bird remains splattered beside the road on the walk down. One precludes the other. Persistent pondering of the splendor of our magnificent Savior will prevent all kinds of wickedness. And it will fill our minds with Him whose beauty leaves us wanting for nothing else.

Paul declared that he could do all things through Christ who gave him strength (Phil. 4:13). By that he did not mean that he could lift cars, win the lottery, or cure cancer. He meant that he could endure any and all circumstances for the sake of His Lord. If he was hungry, Christ was his sustenance. If he was sick, Christ was his endurance. If he was lonely, Christ was his companion. If he was successful, Christ was his boast. If he was profitable, Christ was his treasure. He needed nothing, he wanted nothing, he pursued nothing but Christ. And since he had Christ, he had everything.

Christ provokes rejoicing. How can He not? In what circumstance do you not have reason to rejoice? As a person who has hated God, disobeyed God, turned his back to God, been ungrateful toward God, doubted God, displeased God, and expressed untrue things about God, your future should include unmentionable amounts of horror. The image used in the Bible is a lake of fire in which one never dies, only burns. But you have been rescued. And it’s not just that Jesus climbed in the fire to keep you company. He took your place in it, keeping you out altogether. What’s more, He has earned for you an eternal experience in the next age for which there are no adequate words. The best we can do is talk about what is not there: pain, suffering, danger, evil, crying, or death. The most helpful way I know to describe it is that there will be absolutely no disappointment. In every aspect of our existence, we will be utterly satisfied. Even our imaginations will be unable to conjure up an improved situation because there the true fulfillment of all dreams, hopes, and desires will be realized. All of that has been given to you by the very God you once hated. Again I ask, in what circumstance do you not have reason to rejoice?

We are not called to rejoice in everything, but in the Lord. There is a time to mourn and lament and sit in sober quietness. But even then, if we cannot rejoice in the Lord, maybe we do not really believe the gospel. If the loss of a loved one stops our rejoicing in Christ, we have forgotten our sin and our Savior. If disease or malady stops our rejoicing in Christ, we have forgotten our sin and our Savior. If job situations and financial struggles stop our rejoicing in Christ, we have forgotten our sin and our Savior. If pain from relationships, past or current, stops our rejoicing in Christ, we have forgotten our sin and our Savior. If for any reason we stop rejoicing in Jesus Christ, we have forgotten.

 

Conclusion

One day, you are going to stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and give an account of your life. Every word you have spoken, every deed you have done, every thought you have pondered, and every desire you have felt will be laid out and compared to what God desired you to say, do, think, and want. He will evaluate to see whether you lived your life intentionally Christ-obsessed in all things. Like a tennis judge, He will decide whether you fall inside or outside the lines He has drawn. For anyone who falls outside the line at any point, this will be the most terrifying day of their existence, because a life lived less than perfectly devoted to Christ in absolutely everything will suffer the wrath of God.

This is what makes the gospel such good news. None of us have lived perfectly devoted to Christ, not even one. But before Jesus took the crown, He took the cross. He died in order to suffer the punishment that we deserve. The gospel message is that everyone who believes the truth about His death and resurrection, and who proclaims Him to be their Lord, will be forgiven for every sin they ever commit. They will be saved from His wrath. They will live eternally in His presence, happier than their wildest dreams can imagine. It is this truth, this hope, this Man that became the transformational infatuation for Paul. Christ and His gospel were the only reasons for waking in the morning and for continuing on after breakfast.

The more we realize the depth of our sin and the awful price paid by Jesus to earn our release, the more we will love Him. (He who is forgiven much loves much.) The more we love Him, the less we will love other things. Their beauty will fade in comparison to His. The less we love other things, the less time we will spend thinking of them and pursuing them. They will grow dark in the light of the glorious gospel of Christ. Then we, too, will count the things of this world as waste. We will long to exalt Jesus, to know Him, and to attain to the resurrection, so that we might see, face-to-face, Him whom we love. He will become our all-consuming passion. We will be imitators of Paul. We will find meaning and purpose and life in Christ and His gospel.