In our age, big numbers are very important. The more people, the more money, the more millions or billions, the higher the net worth, the more people at a gathering, the more members in a church. We can develop a mindset of having no value for a single thing. As we grow as a church, we can also get into a mindset where the crowd becomes important, and we forget the value of a single soul. God says the value of a single soul is infinitely great. We have to often remind ourselves of the value of a single soul.
Do you realize the infinite value of a single soul? We give all importance to the body, but our soul gives us our real identity. If the soul goes away, we will not even call ourselves by our name; we will say, “Where is the body?” The real me is my soul. The infinite value of that soul is so big; it was created in the image of God and will live as long as God lives, meaning there is no end to that soul. Not only that, but the wonder of a soul is that it has an expanding capacity for enjoyment or pain. You know heaven will not be boring for a second because of this wonderful nature of our soul. When we enjoy it to its full capacity, it expands, and God fills us with more joy. It perpetually expands and enjoys more joy every second of eternity. In the same way in hell, how can every second be of maximum pain? Don’t we get numb to pain? No, every second we experience maximum pain. How? The soul experiences maximum pain, then it expands, and God increases and inflicts more pain, so the capacity is perpetually increasing. You and I not only have an eternal soul but an eternal capacity to enjoy joy or pain. What a wonderful creation, a living soul. Our Lord says its value is greater than the net worth of the entire world. It is even more valuable than 10,000 worlds. If a man gains the whole world—imagine, he gains all the land, houses, all the gold and silver, all the things in the entire world, and it is his—yet loses his soul, he is a big loser, a zero-profit venture. Think of it: when a man goes to eternal hell and thinks of all he gained in this world—his comforts, education, position, wealth, relatives—he will curse them all because all of that brought him to eternal hell and made him lose his eternal soul. The very memory of his gains will be an eternal torture. For all eternity, with no gap in suffering. Think of the word “eternity”; what a weighty word. If a man loses his soul, everything is a curse for him. It is therefore great madness to neglect the soul for anything else.
As Christians, when we think in an eternal perspective, if one soul is so valuable, there cannot be a greater work you and I can be involved in than in gaining souls through gospel work. Think of it, if we gain one soul, we gain more than the worlds in terms of value. All we do and gain will one day not profit us if we fail to gain souls. Apostle Paul had this wisdom and labored with all his earnestness for saving souls. He was so earnest and swallowed up in that work that he was even ready to die for it.
In spite of all his efforts, he lived with a fear that he might run or labor in vain. He repeatedly expressed this in different ways. In 1 Corinthians 9:27, when teaching others, he says, “I fear I may be disqualified, so I buffet my body.” In 1 Corinthians 3, “I don’t want my ministry to be burned up as wood, hay, or stubble.” In this chapter, verse 16, “I may not run and labor in vain.” He uses the words “in vain” as though some mistake on his part should obliterate all the results of the work. This is a very healthy fear, and it was this fear that compelled him to serve out of passion and zeal with maximum effort and sincerity.
We have to ask ourselves: We have so many fears about our lives, our children, our families. We fear poverty, and this and that danger. That fear makes us work hard, but do we have this fear? Our life is full of running to and fro and incessant labor; we are running so much. What if all this running, labor, and energy, at last, is shown as being in vain? It was a vain and useless life in God’s sight. So many days lived in vain! So much effort in vain. We run for this and that, all in vain. All the Bible reading, prayers, church attendance, trying to live for the gospel—all in vain. So many sermons preached and heard in vain! This is a solemn inquiry. We refuse to face it. If we need wisdom, we have to face it now, not when it is too late. Are we running in vain? Are we laboring in vain? Ask yourself, “At the last day, will God say all my running and labor was in vain?”
Do you have this fear? A lack of this fear may lead to dangerous consequences. I think most of our carelessness, indifferent attitude, and “it’ll be fine” attitude, and no fear and trembling in our spiritual life, is because we don’t have this fear. It is this fear that uniquely makes any Christian sincere, zealous, and passionate. The great question should be: How can we avoid such a great eternal disappointment?
Today, we will learn two principles from Paul for our running and labors to have a lasting and permanent benefit or reward and not be in vain. How should it be done? There are two key words: sacrifice and service in verses 17-18. I will cover three headings:
- Sacrifice: Offer your life wholeheartedly as a sacrifice to God.
- Service: Offer your life in service of others’ faith. This means helping others to come to faith and grow in that faith.
- If we do that, we will enter a new world of joy unknown to us so far because these two—sacrifice and service—are the greatest keys to a world of true joy.
Remember the context: he taught about humility, then said to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. No matter how difficult it gets, he says in verse 14, “Do it without grumbling or disputing… so by God’s working, you become blameless, harmless, and faultless children of God and shine as lights in a dark world, and so my running and my labor is not in vain.” Then, if we still have doubts about whether anyone can live without complaining and disputing, he goes on by giving an example of what such a life will be like. He gives three examples: first, he gives himself as an example, in verses 17-18, and then Timothy in verses 19-24, and Epaphroditus in verses 25-30. These are three flesh-and-blood human models who lived their Christian lives in humility, working out their salvation with fear and trembling without grumbling or disputing. So, the flow of the passage is that he teaches the principles, and now here is the example and pattern to follow. Today, we will see only Paul’s example, and in the next few weeks, we will look at the other two men.
Now, how can we live a life so that we don’t finally put our hands on our heads and cry out, “All is in vain”? Remember, first, Sacrifice: Offer your life wholeheartedly as a sacrifice to God. Verse 17: “Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.”
Sacrifice and Service
You see two key words: sacrifice and service. Then he talks about a drink offering. Let us understand what is on Paul’s mind. He uses an Old Testament sacrifice imagery, so it was very familiar to ancient people. We talk about sacrifice today, but we don’t know what that means. We’ve never seen anybody sacrifice a lamb or a ram or a goat; maybe we’ve read or heard about it, so we don’t have a very vivid sense of the sacrificial perspective and imagery.
In the Jewish temple, an animal would be brought to God as a sacrifice. After the animal was slaughtered and placed on the altar to be burned, there was a final act of sacrifice, a final topping off of that sacrifice where the offerer came and took oil or wine and poured it with force generously on top of the burning sacrifice. It would immediately vaporize into steam and go into the air, symbolizing the rising of that sacrifice into the nostrils of God as a sweet aroma. It would please God. This was the final sacrificial act. It was called a libation. The sacrifice was considered incomplete until there was the pouring out of the drink offering, and once done, it was a sacrifice acceptable to God. You can see such drink offerings in Exodus 29:39-40, 2 Kings 16:13, and Hosea 9:4.
And that is exactly what Paul has in mind. The whole sacrificial scene is burning in his mind as he writes these words. He says, “My life should not be in vain, so I am offering my life as a drink offering upon a sacrifice.”
This is the only way we can ensure our life is not in vain. We offer it wholeheartedly as a sacrifice to God. We were created to glorify God in our body and redeemed for that. The sooner we realize that and get that wisdom, the sooner we will not waste our efforts and life. In that great epistle of Romans, after telling the grand plan of redemption for 11 chapters, he says as an application, “if you understood the mercy of redemption,” Romans 12:1-2: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”
Only when you commit yourself to live for God as a sacrifice, you will not be conformed to the world, and only then, on that condition, will the Holy Spirit, by renewing your mind, show you how not to live in vain, but according to the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God.
So Paul says, “I offer myself as a drink offering.” Look at Paul’s intensity. He begins, “Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice.” There is a present and future tense in this. Right now, he is being poured out as a drink offering as a prisoner, chained to a Roman soldier 24 hours a day for the gospel in God’s service. Then, he says, “even if,” a conditional statement, even if he has to be poured out, meaning if he has to die in serving God as a sacrifice. He will be willing to generously, unhesitatingly, and wholeheartedly pour his life out as a drink offering libation. So Paul first talks about his wholehearted sacrificial life and his willingness, if needed, even to die as a sacrifice so that his running and labors are not in vain.
Second word, notice he adds the word service to sacrifice. Verse 17: “Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.” Again, using temple imagery, after the sacrifice, the priest would serve in the temple, offering it to God, praying for the people, and offering people before God to forgive and accept them. So Paul here says, “I am ready to be poured out as a drink offering for the sacrifice and service of your faith.”
Paul is actually saying, “I am only the final drink offering upon a sacrifice.” What is the main sacrifice? “The sacrifice and service of your faith.” The Philippian believers, in the midst of a pagan culture, are, by their faith, performing a spiritual sacrifice and service. It is like the Philippians are living as living sacrifices as they grow in faith, living in humility by following Christ, working out their own salvation with fear and trembling, and doing all things without complaining and disputing so that they may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom they shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that Paul may rejoice in the day of Christ that he has not run in vain or labored in vain.
This is not easy to live in a pagan culture. It may require great sacrifices. The Philippians were already suffering for their faith, but when your faith makes you live like that as lights in a dark world, you are living as a true sacrifice for God and serving God. On top of that sacrifice, “I am willing to be poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith.”
He sees the Philippians as priests who are offering up their lives as a living sacrifice and serving God in faith, and he is willing to offer himself as a final drink offering on their sacrifice. So what Paul is really saying is that “you and I together are offering to God the sacrifice of our lives; together we are offering ourselves.”
He says, “I offer my life in service of your faith.” “I am willing to pour myself out for the strengthening and growth of your faith.” In verse 17, he is willing to pour out his life in death in service for their faith. Do you see how important this is? Pouring out our life for the faith of others in the gospel. We can help people, give them food, and clothes, and there is nothing wrong with that. But all our running and labor need to ensure that it is for the faith of the gospel. Our Lord kept saying, “Whatever you do for my sake, for my gospel’s sake, will never go in vain.” We should always have that as our primary goal.
Paul sees gospel work and the strengthening of believers as the most noble, sacred service, a priestly service that brings direct pleasure to the heart of God as in temple worship. He calls it “the service of your faith,” a sacred, priestly service. Paul is so zealous that he is even willing to die, a picture of a generous libation poured out to God. He uses the same word in his last letter before death, 2 Timothy 4:6, in which the apostle, facing his impending death under Nero, says, “I am already being poured out as a libation or a drink offering.” He was maybe thinking of his manner of death. It would be a violent death in which they would place his head on a wood block and cut it, and his head would roll on the floor, and all of his lifeblood would spurt forth and be spilled. “I am ready to offer myself like that if God can be glorified through my death.” What a passionate and zealous service!
So, the lesson is that when you and I offer our lives in sacrifice to God and in service of the faith of others—service to bring others to faith and grow them in faith—with our whole heart, a picture of a generous, unhesitant pouring, our running and labor will never go in vain. We should do it not while grumbling, but with passion and joy. Do we know this sacrificial service with passion? We talk about giving ourselves as living sacrifices in worship. We talk about a burden for souls. Does that burden reveal itself in passion, in running and laboring?
One saint said, “It is certain that before any service that we do for God or man is likely to be of lasting or permanent value and benefit, it must be saturated with our heart’s blood. That which costs us nothing will not benefit others. If there is no expenditure of labors, efforts, sweats, tears, and prayer, if we don’t do that with agape love, we may speak with the tongues of men and of angels, may know all mysteries and all knowledge, may bestow all our goods to feed the poor, but it will profit nothing. Without travailing of soul, labor, pouring ourselves out as an offering, our labors will not give much fruit. Real fruitfulness is gauged by the expenditure of our spiritual force.”
And then he says this: “It was because Moses was prepared to be blotted from the book of God for his people that he carried them for forty years through the desert and deposited them on the very borders of the promised land. It was because Jesus wept over Jerusalem that He was able to send a Pentecost on that guilty city. It was because Paul was prepared to be accursed for his brethren according to the flesh that he was able to turn so many from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God.” He concluded, “No heart burdens, no labor, no pangs, no spiritual seed.”
The people that make a difference in the world are the people with passion and zeal, willing to pour themselves out for God’s glory and in service to souls. They live with a fear that without such service, all their religion is superficial lip service, taking the Lord’s name in vain. Christ will finally look at all they did and say, “I do not know you.”
So if our lives are not to go in vain, we need sacrifice and service. And now, thirdly, sacrifice and service are great keys to spiritual joy. We will enter a new world of joy unknown to us so far because…
The Secret of Joy
Notice, is Paul crying in self-pity? “Oh, I do so much sacrifice for you.” No. Verse 17: “I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.” What is this joy? Not only is he joyful, but he is asking others to be joyful. One joy leads to another. One will even die as a sacrifice, and another group will rejoice. Do we know anything about this joy?
“Paul, why are you rejoicing?” “I’m rejoicing because I am being poured out as a drink offering, ready even to die as a drink offering.” “Why, Paul? Have you lost your mind?” “No, only now I have a proper brain, as the Holy Spirit did an operation, and I know the true way of joy. I have realized the divine wisdom that our life can be the greatest gain and blessing when we offer ourselves as a sacrifice and in service to God. It is so well-pleasing to the heart of God. God smiles and enjoys our sacrifice, and as evidence of his pleasure, he always sends and fills us through his Holy Spirit with the fullness of joy.”
I have experienced unspeakable joy living as a sacrifice in the service of God. Remember, this whole epistle is filled with joy. The first chapter is full of joy, even though he is in jail, chained, and everyone is slandering him. He was rejoicing. Why? Because the secret of spiritual joy is living a life as a sacrifice to God in service to others. “I have experienced so much joy like this.”
The greatest joy comes to me at the time of my greatest sacrifice. The highest expression of my sacrifice is when I pour out my life in death for God and in service of others’ faith. When I do that, I enjoy the greatest experience of joy. The reason we don’t know much about this joy is because we know nothing about that level of sacrifice and service.
As I told you in Friday Prayer meeting, as a result of the fall and sin infecting our brains, there is a brain tumor called prejudice. God says this is the way to happiness, but the mind of every sinner in the world goes in the opposite direction. Happiness is money, facilities, and position. Even though God says, and even if we see that rich men are not really happy, and they all live and die dissatisfied, we will not believe God’s way, nor will we make any efforts in that way. That is the brain tumor of prejudice. Unless the Holy Spirit does an operation and removes this tumor, no matter how much I preach, Paul says we will all try chasing the wind like Solomon and waste our years and say everything is vanity. We realize at the end that all our running and labor was in vain.
Again here, God, through Paul, says true happiness comes from sacrifice and service, but prejudice mocks it. How? “Did you ever sit back and say, ‘How can such-and-such a missionary leave all the facilities of his country, big jobs, and a future and come to the poorest countries and live under terrible conditions? How can such-and-such a missionary go to that difficult place, stay in that place, and endure what they endure for years and years, and some even die?’ How can they handle that?” The reason is this: the Holy Spirit opens their eyes, and they realize the infinite value of offering their lives as a sacrifice to God and serving others by bringing them to faith and saving souls. Their life of sacrifice and service is so pleasing to the heart of God that it fills them with unspeakable, divine joy which makes them bear all those things. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the joy. The more supreme the offering, the greater the exhilaration. Paul’s testimony is that his greatest joy comes at the time of his greatest sacrifice. Paul said, “I count not my life dear to myself; I just want to finish what the Lord gave me to do.”
We don’t know anything of this joy because we don’t understand anything about sacrifice and service, so it’s difficult to relate to that. “Okay, Paul’s head is spoiled. What about the Philippians?” Why will you, Philippians, rejoice because of Paul being offered as a drink offering? So he says, “For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.”
Because they know Paul’s heart and what gives him the greatest joy. What do you mean “rejoice in the same reason/way”? Well, you’re going through suffering, and you’re going through persecution in the Roman colony. There are enemies attacking them; they have to make sacrifices, and you’re going through opposition. “You rejoice too, and I’ll rejoice, and we’ll rejoice together because we have the great privilege of putting our lives on the altar as a sacrifice and in service to God, which is well-pleasing to God. And as evidence of that, the Holy Spirit fills us with divine joy, and in that is our great joy.”
So sacrifice and service are the secret keys to joy. Spiritual joy is not related to circumstances at all, but most of our joy is. If the circumstances are positive, we have an earthly joy. If the circumstances are negative, we lose our earthly joy. Many Christians have never known the exhilaration of a spiritual joy born out of sacrifice. These are spiritual people, rejoicing in difficult circumstances because they learned the secret of joy is sacrifice and service.
And that’s so foreign to most of us. And we look at a person like a missionary or someone who is devoted to the work of God in a hard place—destitute, alone, hard-pressed, uncomfortable, miserable by human standards—and we say, “How can they endure that? What a miserable existence.” And quite the opposite is the truth because in their ultimate sacrifice, they have found the ultimate spiritual joy which we know so little about but which is a gift of the Spirit of God to every believer who obediently sacrifices and serves.
Read Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and you will see how they can rejoice as they’re being burned at the stake, how they rejoice as they’re being crucified, how they rejoice as they’re being whipped. And your flesh says, “Well, how can they do that?” This is the divine secret formula: when you learn to offer yourselves as a sacrifice in the service of God, God’s pleasure is shown by the Holy Spirit filling us with unspeakable joy. So ultimate sacrifice produces ultimate joy. They are rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ’s name.
So Paul is a perfect example of the principles he taught in humility, working out salvation with fear and trembling, doing everything without grumbling and arguing, and even with joy. So he shined and still shines as a light in the dark sky.
If our running and labor are not to be in vain, and our whole lives are not to be in vain, before it is too late, may God help us to learn what it means to live as a sacrifice to God in service of faith for others. These two are the secrets of Holy Spirit joy.
Applications
How times have changed! We have gone so wrong as a generation. We have forgotten timeless wisdom. It is wise to learn from olden times. That is why we have museums. When we see a rare ancient piece, we keep it in a museum and conduct many studies on it for our times. Like that, behold this museum piece called Paul, the apostle in a Roman prison. He exposes our false philosophy of the 21st century. He rebukes pastors and Christians today. If we lived with this man Paul for a day, we would all feel ashamed and exposed of our sad, foolish, and selfish lives.
Firstly, this man’s picture shows how crooked and perverse our generation is. Our generation lies to us that the true path to happiness is to enjoy yourself. The path to true happiness is to be selfish, just enjoy yourself, indulge yourself, fulfill yourself, realize your selfhood. Sacrifice and service are considered nonsense. If you want joy, don’t give any time, money, or effort for God or others. Don’t care about anyone. “I want my high and I want it now. I want to have my fun.” This philosophy comes to one of its most frightening expressions in the obsession with and addiction to entertainment, mobile phones, music, luxury, drink, sex, and drugs. It can entrap and completely redirect our lives in the opposite direction of God’s way of happiness. With our prejudiced minds, we easily go the wrong way. Paul exposes our generation.
Behold a true pastor model here. If this is a picture of a true pastor who is willingly to pour out his blood for people joyfully, what a rebuke to all the fraudulent pastors in our day who suck the blood of people in the name of God. He is so humble and so sacrificial. How he labors and serves! But today, there is only laziness, no laboring in the word; they come and blabber and make people clap. He is so humble, even ready to have his head cut off, but today’s mentality is a superstar or a celebrity emphasis. Which pastor will not bow his head seeing Paul?
Behold, this passage exposes all false churches. The true success of the gospel is not how big the church is, how famous the church is, or how many people are going to the church. Not how the world sees the church. No, Paul was worried about gospel success, so everything should not go in vain. See how he measures success in a God-centered way: if the church is living as a sacrifice and in service to God, then he is sure his labors are not in vain. It is Godward, not how men see it.
Think of us calling ourselves Christians… we do not have even the slightest idea of sacrifice. We think 100 times for a small sacrifice. What an exposure to hear a man say, a man throbbing with life, with a powerful intellect, and an energetic mind and spirit: “I am ready to be poured out,” not seeking selfish pleasures. “I’m ready to be poured out for others and for God.” What a rebuke to this selfish generation of Christians.
His life and joy should rebuke our pathetic lives. We are filled with the spirit of this age, and we believe joy is chasing worldly pleasures. The first question we ask is, “What is wrong with that?” That is a wrong, selfish question. We should ask, “Is this good for glorifying God and good for serving others? Is it good for my own soul?”
Do we know anything of this joy that comes from sacrifice to God and service to others? Now, that comes only when we offer ourselves in sacrificial service. I should ask, “What are you sacrificing in service to Christ? What amount of time, effort, money are you sacrificing for the cause of Christ?” In other words, our Lord said this is the first step in enjoying following me: “If you want to follow me, you have to say no to yourself, no to the world, no to pleasure, and say yes to my will and my kingdom.” What have you said no to in order to say yes to the Lord, or God’s church? That’s the question. Paul lived a life of sacrificial joy. The reason we have such discontent and unhappy lives, even as Christians, is that we are trying to find joy in worldly possessions rather than in sacrifice where ultimate joy lies. And so we are chasing an illusion.
You say, “Pastor, I am happy like this; it is not very bad.” Well, that may be true. God is gracious. But you will never know true joy, surpassing joy, sacrificial spiritual joy, or the joy of even singing during difficult times, even looking at death. It is an exhilarating joy, the joy that comes out of sacrificial giving and sacrificial effort. It is the greatest joy. If you decide to live where you are and go on, a sad fact is that all your running and labors may at last be in vain.
A preacher once said: The Christian life should be a sacrifice. Where faith in Christ is a reality, it will lead not simply to a life of service but also to sacrifice. As it says in Romans 12, “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, which is your reasonable service.”
What is our life like? God repeatedly rebuked the Israelites because they offered sacrifices with blemishes. Does God say to us this morning, “Don’t I have any honor as your father? Am I not your master? Why do you offer me a sacrifice of love so marred, twisted, and lame with your prayerlessness and indifference? Is an offering like that all I deserve?”
If Christ asks us today, “Is there a sacrifice in your life and in mine? Does our faith cost us anything, and does our service to man and God cost us?”
What is hope? How did Paul become a “wonder museum piece” like this? Where did he learn it? This was grace that flowed from Jesus to him. It is the fullness of the grace of Jesus—that wonderful Christ who offered an ultimate, perfect sacrifice. What Paul says, “I am willing,” has been done for us by our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember, we studied, “He poured out his soul unto death” (Isaiah 53:12). This is a sinful man speaking, but God took on human nature so that He might be capable of pouring out his soul as a drink offering. He did this not for loving people like Phil who are already believers but for His worst enemies, even for the very people who nailed Him to the cross. And this, too, was not in the midst of Holy Spirit comforts and God’s presence and support but under a sense of forsakenness and God’s wrath, in the depths of dereliction. Oh, who can tell what manner of love this was? Truly, its height and depth, and length and breadth, are utterly unsearchable and incomprehensible.
Brethren, you contemplate with wonder and gratitude the example of St. Paul, but what must you think of our Lord Jesus Christ? He is the source of Paul’s life. He is the fullness of this grace. What made Him offer that sacrifice? Hebrews 12:2 says that for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross.
The secret of Paul’s life is his yearning to know Christ more deeply and to abide in Christ. In the next chapter, he would say that his life’s ambition is, “I want to know Him.” I have been teaching 1689. Christ is the tank in whom all the fullness of the Godhead dwells. All the grace and sanctification you and I need is stored in Him. It is stored so we can receive from His fullness all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Paul says, “I want to know the fellowship of his suffering.” Paul found his strength to live out that model in his relationship with Christ.
All you need to live a victorious Christian life is bound up in an experiential union with Christ. You can know true joy only as we get close to Christ, like Paul. Everything was flowing out of his relationship with Christ. Your effectiveness as a Christian is directly related to the proximity in which you live in intimate fellowship with Christ. How do we abide in Him and live in union? Through prayer and scripture reading. Paul said, “You can live like this, holding fast to the word of life.” Through this, the life of Christ can flow to you. Longings, affections, and a deep love for Christ flow to us through spiritual disciplines. There are no shortcuts.
See how we fail: All spiritual needs are met only through a deep, abiding, penetrating, and consuming union with Jesus Christ. How could Paul live like this? How could he be a prisoner chained to some Roman? How could he go through everything he went through and have a spirit that says, “I offer my life willingly, and I rejoice in this?” I’ll tell you how: He was so close to Christ that he knew the very attitudes that were the attitudes of Christ in his own joyful self-sacrifice. You say, “How do I reach that level?” You have, beloved, may I assure you, the same Christ dwelling in you. The only question is whether or not you have appropriated His fullness of grace and presence and whether you continue to cultivate that union which will yield for you the fullness of sacrificial joy.
For those who have not come to Christ, this may all seem like nonsense. Here, you see a great man who says, “I am willing to suffer and even die for your souls.” How immeasurably valuable souls must be! If another person could do and suffer so much for you, what ought you not to do or suffer for the welfare of your own souls? If God went to the extent of sending His Son, if Christ took on human nature and died on the cross, and if He is willing to save you… then if you lose your soul… how valuable your soul must be! Oh, may God open your eyes to see the value of your soul! If you gain the whole world while rejecting Christ and losing your soul, you will be the worst eternal fool.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 