God is the Gospel - Week 3

Philippians 1:19-21

For I know that through your prayers and the help of the 

Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, 

as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all 

ashamed, but that with full courage 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.

Being ashamed and being courageous are put at odds in this passage. The reason we can be courageous is that living means more of Christ, He is glorified and His nature is exemplified, and dying means more of Christ, we see Him face to face. Whether we live or die we have great gain. So I am not ashamed, not because I am being honored, but because Christ is being honored. 

22-23

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. 

Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 

I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is 

to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

Philippians 3:7-8

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of 

Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing 

worth of knowing Christ Jesus my lord. For his sake I have

suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, 

in order that I may gain Christ.

What is Love? 

Commonly to be loved is to be made much of. To me made to feel good about yourself. A person feels loved when they are made to feel significant. 

Biblical love means: God loves us by doing everything he need to do, at great cost to himself, to remove every obstacle that keeps us from knowing Him. God's love has no place for boosting egos and making people feel falsely good about themselves. God's love is a love of absolute truth. God is the only one who can perfectly love by pointing to Himself as the end-all. 

How do love and glory relate to each other? God's love and His desire to show His glory are work perfectly together. Because the expression of God's glory is best for us, God's perfect love is perfectly fulfilled by showing us His glory. Jesus purposefully let Lazarus die because he loved Mary and Martha. He knew that it would be better for them to see him raised than to see him healed. 

Love is when God gets you to God.