The priestly service of Christ

Let's turn together to the book of Philippians. I'll ask you to read with me in the book of Philippians in the New Testament, and we read together in chapter 1. Like our brethren who have spoken to us this morning, I too counted again a great privilege to be here for the conference in Stout. Great to see so many friends again, and to have the privilege to be with the Lord's people.

Let's turn then to Philippians chapter 1, and we'll take a reading from this chapter. Philippians 1, and look with me at verse number 19. For I know that this shall turn to my salvation.

Now, what he has in question when he speaks about this, for I know that this shall turn, is actually what he mentions in verse number 18. His spirit of rejoicing. Paul knows that his spirit of rejoicing, being preserved by Christ, will actually be the thing that preserves him in the trial of the imprisonment in Rome.

For I know that this shall turn to my salvation through your prayer, and the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor.

Yet what I shall choose, I know not. For I am in a straight betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.

Just glance with me back to verse number 21 again, because I hope to focus my remarks on this lovely verse. For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. God bless to us that reading from the precious Scriptures.

Many of you will know that this man is in prison. I think that's quite clear. All of us who are gathered, we know the background of the book of Philippians.

We also know that this is one of the letters that he wrote from that imprisonment. Ephesians and Colossians and the little book of Philemon. And this book came from his pen when he was in his first Roman imprisonment.

Of course, Paul at this point, he's just waiting on the Lord's will. He seems to understand, and he seems to know this, that he's going to be released from prison. Actually, if you read into chapter 2, he actually tells the Philippians that he's going to be released shortly.

He's not exactly sure that that will be the case. And so in light of that, the expectation of possible release, he writes this lovely chapter, chapter 1 of the Philippians. He does know that there is the possibility of death.

He has that before him. There is that possibility still that he could die. And yet, and yet, even though there is the possibility of death, he gives us this desire which is before him.

And I want to focus on it just for a few minutes this afternoon. For, to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I was choosing a title for this this afternoon, just a succinct title I think would do.

The title that I want to address this afternoon is this. One Committed Life. I'll repeat that again for you.

One Committed Life. If there was ever a man who showed his commitment in the service of God, it is this man, the Apostle Paul. And so what I have before me, and I am mindful of what our brethren have said about the minutes, I am mindful of the minutes, but I want to speak as possible in the moments of one committed life.

This is quite a life. In fact, we would say, we would likely have said, it is not possible to live a life like this. If it wasn't for this man, we would say that the epitome and the great life in the Scripture is the life of the Lord Jesus.

And we would say Christ is there. He is the headline copy. His life is the life par excellence.

And there is no possibility of living a life just like that. And yet what God does, in fact, He does it in this letter, is He puts four lives together. Just read chapter 2 for yourself.

And when you are reading Philippians chapter 2, we get the life of Christ. And we get the life of the Apostle Paul. And we get the life of Timothy.

And Paul says, I have no man like minded. He is of the very same soul. I have no man who is of the very same soul, who will care for your state.

And then, of course, there is another man, one of their own, just at the end of that chapter. And we have four great lives. We would say, there is no possibility of living like this.

A life for God. And God picks up a man. And when He picks up that man, the first time we are introduced to the man is in Acts chapter 7. You will remember they are about to stone Stephen, the martyr Stephen.

And as they are about to stone Stephen, they actually take their clothes off, their outer clothes, and they lay them at the feet. And it says in Acts 7, he was a young man. And his name was Saul.

And that's the first time we are introduced to him in the Bible. In fact, in his shortest epistle, in the little book of Philemon, he doesn't call himself a young man. Years have passed by now, and he says he's Paul, and he's the old man.

He's Paul the aged. But the first time we see him, it's a young man. And God has His eye on that young man.

Now he's not saved yet. I'll be coming back to some of these details in a moment. He's not saved yet.

And there we have them, and they put their clothes at the feet. I was listening to someone recently, and they suggested it was very apt. If there were any feet that are marked in the Scriptures, it's the feet of Paul.

You think of all the journeys that this man was involved in. You think of the journeys that he took from Tarsus, that he came to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem back to Tarsus. And we know the journey on the Damascus Road.

And we know the three missionary journeys. All of those journeys. And yet the first time we're introduced to the man, they lay their clothes at the feet of the young man whose name is Saul.

And just for a few moments, I want to pick up this life. One committed life. I want to couch my remarks under three headings.

I want you to think with me, first of all, of his formative days. And we consider that. The second thing that I want us to notice is his focus days.

And we think about that. And the last thing I want to speak about in these minutes is not so much his formative days or his focus days. I want you to think of his service and his fervent days.

Those are the three things, just for the few minutes. And we seek the Lord's help as we move forward. Well, you say, what about these formative days? What about his family life? What about his social life? What about his educational life? You know, some of those things, we're not actually told in Scripture.

But we can find from the Bible some links that will unpack some of those things about the life of this man. Most likely, he was raised in quite a wealthy family. Most likely.

I think we could deduce that from the Bible. Some of these things I mentioned, and I'll pass on from them. In fact, his father was a Roman citizen.

We know that one of the soldiers said to Paul on one occasion, he said to Paul, he says, with a great sum, I achieved this freedom. And the Apostle Paul looked at him, and he says, I was born free. Now, what it meant was this, that he was already a Roman citizen.

And when he was born, he was a Roman citizen by birth. Well, you say, sure, that means nothing to us. That was quite a prestigious thing.

This man was born into a home. He was a Roman citizen. His father was a Roman citizen.

His father had an elevated position. You say, how did he ever get that position? Again, the Bible doesn't tell us. But we do know they were tent makers.

And in the area of Tarsus where they lived, it's quite well known in history that there were black goats that were raised there. And the hair was taken. And the hair from those goats, it was used to make tents.

This man himself was a tent maker. I'll come back to that in a moment. But he was raised in a family where his family were Romans.

Most likely, they received Roman citizenship as a gift because of their service to the Roman military. And here is a man, he's raised in that home, a wealthy family, an educated family. We know he could speak Greek.

We know he could speak Hebrew. We know he could speak Latin, the language of Rome. And here he is with all of these things.

And he was a tent maker. You say, that means nothing to us. One of the things I do like about it is this.

You see, in his missionary journeys, he could support himself. He could work. One of the things I like about it is this.

This man, even in his formative days, he wasn't afraid of hard work. You see, there are people, and if you said to them, we give you 30 minutes to speak at the Stout Conference, they'd almost jump at it. Almost jump at it.

But if you said to them, well, you have to do the dishes after you get some of that good beef. Man, that beef was good. And if you said to them, you have to do the dishes after we get some of that beef at lunchtime, they'd look at you as if, what? Listen, this man wasn't afraid of work.

That's a principle that I learned, beloved saints. One of the great principles of this man's life is this. God raised a man in his formative days, and God raised the man in such a home with wealth and with education, and the man wasn't afraid of hard work.

You know, when it comes to the things of God, it's still the same. It takes hard work, beloved saints. And this man wasn't afraid to do it.

His formative days in his family life, his formative days in his social life. I've gone over some of those things. He was given two names.

I've heard some of our brethren, and they tell us, well, at his birth he was called Saul, and then later on he was called Paul. I doubt that. No, no, I don't believe that for a moment.

When he was born, because of the prestige of his birth, he was given the name Saul, that Hebrew name, and he was also given a Roman name right there and then. He was both Saul and Paul from his birth. And what I learned is this, that God was already preparing his man.

I'll come back to that in a moment again. But even in the background of this man's life, God is preparing his man. And God is at work.

And God is moving, because God has his eye on this man. And he was given the name Saul, asked for. And he was given the name Paul, right at his birth, little.

And here is the man in his family life, and in his social life. And you say, what about his educational life? Well, you see his father, his father could say that this man, this was quite a brilliant young man, quite brilliant. In fact, he lived in Tarsus.

There were a number of great educational centers in that day. Down in Alexandria, in Egypt, that was a university city. There were a number of other university cities right through the Mediterranean area at that time.

He was raised in Tarsus, which was again a great university city, right up there in the north. And you say, what has that got to do with us? Well, his father knew the brilliance of this man. And there came a stage, there came a stage where his father sent him from Tarsus.

And his father sent him down to Jerusalem. And this man was put into the school of Gamaliel. And you say, who was Gamaliel? He was a grandson of Hillel, the great teacher of the law.

In fact, Gamaliel was such a brilliant man in the law and in the scriptures of God, they actually said that when Gamaliel passed away, the glory of the law itself, the glory of the teaching of the law, it came to an end. And here's a man, he's sitting at his feet. And this man, as he's sitting at his feet, now these are his formative days.

Don't forget that now. His family life, his social life, his educational life, just in his formative days, he's sitting at the feet of Gamaliel and God is preparing his man. And into the life of this man is the scriptures poured into his heart, poured into his spirit, poured into his soul.

Is it any wonder, beloved saints, is it any wonder that when it came to the fact that he was saved, he had the scriptures on his fingertips. Suddenly, he's moving amongst those Jewish people and as he's moving in the synagogues and amongst the Jews, he begins to contend with them that this Jesus is the very Christ. And they couldn't overturn him.

They didn't have the ability to overturn what God had put into the man. I say again, beloved saints, God ever and always prepares His man. There might be a young person here at this conference.

That has been the burden on my heart. I have to be honest with you. That has been the burden on my heart.

I look across. I see young men here. I see young sisters here who are here in this gathering today.

And you know what I learn? In the formative days of this man, God ever and always prepares His man. God ever has His man. And it might be that there's someone in this conference and you're saying, well, I don't feel I've been prepared by God.

God was moving providentially in the life of this man in His formative days. And God has prepared His man. It would be a great thing, mind you, just to have the Scriptures on your fingertips.

I would love that. If there is one thing that I would like, beloved saints, it would be like this man. When they were contesting on the book of the Psalms, he had it on his fingertips.

They took him over to Deuteronomy. He had Deuteronomy on his fingertips of this hand. I say, beloved saints, listen, young people, get to know the Scriptures.

And when you get to know the Scriptures, you will get to know the God of the Scriptures. And here is the man. One committed life and His formative days.

Let me speak for a moment, and I'll do this quite quickly again. Not only formative days and His development. I want to speak about focused days and His distinctiveness.

He leaves Jerusalem. One of the puzzles to us is where was He when the Lord Jesus steps onto the scene? That has ever been a puzzle. We read through the Gospel records and there's no record of Paul.

We read the early chapters of the book of the Acts. No record of the Apostle Paul. It's most likely, I'll suggest this to you, that He was educated under Gamaliel and then He left.

He wasn't there when the Lord was crucified in Jerusalem. He went back home to Tarsus and suddenly there's something dramatic has happened in Jerusalem. The Lord Jesus was crucified and following the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus, there are literally thousands of Jewish people that are flocking to the name of Christ.

Could I suggest to you when this man heard this, he put it into his own mind, I'll go back to Jerusalem. And when I get back to Jerusalem, I will become the ringleader against this, against this, these people that have taken the name of Christ. I will become the ringleader and I will go on the offense against them.

These are fervent days. Of course, we know He did this. He was traveling in the book of the Acts.

You know the story. I hardly need to give you the background. He's traveling on the Damascus road.

He has letters in his pocket. He has hatred in his heart. He has left Jerusalem.

He's going up to Damascus. It's 136 miles. It's going to take him a week to get there.

20 miles a day. Nothing will stop this man. In the heat of the noonday, he's almost approaching Damascus.

And suddenly it happens. And you say, what happens in these focused days? In these focused days, he was apprehended. That's the nicest metaphor that I see in the man's life when it comes to what Christ did for him.

You can read it for yourself in the book of Philippians. Read Philippians chapter 3. And he says, I was apprehended of Christ Jesus. He was on his way to apprehend Christians.

He was on his way to arrest saints and bring them bound back to Jerusalem. And suddenly, beloved saints, there was something that happened. He could never forget it.

By the way, you see when it comes to conversion, I have no time at all. And that seems like a strong statement. But I have no apologies for that.

There are people who tell me they're saved and they can't remember it. I struggle with that. You look at the Bible.

And just look into the New Testament. And every time you see someone saved in the New Testament, it is such a majestic thing. They can never forget it.

It is a wonderful thing. And here is this man now almost at Damascus. And he's going to arrest Christians.

And he's going to bring them bound. Put them to death. And he's apprehended of Christ Jesus.

There is a hand. A divine hand in power. Arrest the man.

And put his hand on the man's life. And the man will never be the same again. Once he did that, do you know what Paul knew? I am his.

You know, beloved saints, never forget. Never forget. It's just true for you and I today.

He has laid hold on us. I know it's not as dramatic as the life of Paul. I know that.

People tell me, why the drama? They ask, why the drama of Acts chapter 9? Those three great conversion stories. Acts 8 and Acts 9 and Acts 10. Why is it that Acts 9 is so dramatic? I mean, in Acts 8, it's a man sitting in a chariot.

And the man sitting in the chariot has a gospel preacher sitting with him. And the gospel preacher didn't even realize the man got saved. I love that.

It's a great thing, isn't it? When someone gets saved, and you might even be with them, and you don't even realize it yourself. Philip didn't know until the man confessed the name of Christ. And it's just two men sitting together.

You say, what about Acts chapter 10? Acts chapter 10, there's a little bit of a development. It's in a house now. Cornelius gets saved.

Cornelius' family gets saved. You can see it's expanding a little bit. But you say, what about Acts 9? Acts 9? Talk about dramatic.

There's a light from heaven. There's a man in the dust. The man in the dust is crying out, Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? And there's drama everywhere.

And you say, why? You see, beloved saints, there's something very special going on here. What's going on is this. There's a man that has been convicted.

There's a man that has been converted. There's a man that has been called. There's a man that's been consecrated.

All in one chapter of the Bible. He shall share my name to kings and the Gentiles and the children of Israel. Right there in the dust of the Damascus Road.

Talk about focused days. The apprehension of the man. I want to speak for a moment.

And that clocks murder. That's not good. Not just the apprehension, or the apprehension of the man in these focused days.

I want you to notice with me the accountancy of the man when it comes to these focused days. You say, Paul, what happened? I don't know. I don't know if he realized this, the day he got saved or not.

But you see, in Philippians chapter 3, he actually tells us what I did on the Damascus Road was this. I opened up two ledgers. And he says, in the two ledgers, on one side of the ledger, I put Christ.

On the other side of the ledger, he said, I put everything else. He says it was a profit and loss account. And he says as I opened up that ledger, I put everything else on one side.

And he said on the other side of the balance, I put Christ. And he says I counted. Verse number 7 of chapter 3. He says, I counted all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord.

He says 30 years ago, 30 years ago, I opened up the account and it was Christ. Christ ever. Christ only.

Christ always. It's Christ. And everything else was loss.

And you say, what about his accountancy now? You see when he's writing this book, he's about 30 years saved. Maybe 35 years saved. You say, Paul, how do you see it now? One committed life.

How do you see it now? You know, in verse number 8 of Philippians chapter 3, he says, I still count all things but loss. In fact, you say, Paul, they're just loss. No, no, he says, and do count them but dung that I may gain Christ.

Now, I'm going to make a statement here. I personally, it likely doesn't apply to the Midwest, so I know I'm on safe enough ground. One of the things that has saddened my heart, what we are seeing out in the east parts of Canada, is that there are people and they're 30 odd years saved.

And they've got to the stage where some of the big decisions are made in life. They've got to the stage where they've raised their children. They've got to the stage where some of those choices have been made in their home.

They've got to the stage where their children are gone. And you know now, for them, it almost seems like spiritual things are optional. It's become almost a shocking thing.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, they'll come on the Lord's Day. Sure, they'll be there on the Lord's Day morning. Sunday evening, well, see there might be something going on, so they're not there at gospel meeting.

Wednesday night, prayer meeting and Bible reading, well, if we're free, we're free. If we're not, we're not. You know, beloved saints, I look at this man.

I see him in the dust of the Damascus road. I hear the man acknowledging the Lordship of Christ. I will come back to that in a moment.

I see the man relinquish everything for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord. And now here he is, 35 years later, and you say, Paul, have you eased back a bit? Not a word of it. No, no, he hasn't eased back a bit.

He's still going on. In fact, this man now has determined I need to put more into the service of Christ than I have ever put before. I spoke about young people.

It wouldn't really be wouldn't really be a good thing just to speak to young men about this, would it? There's overseers here. Tell me, beloved overseers, are you putting now into the service of Christ what you did when you were a little bit younger? Does the assembly mean the same thing to you now as it did when you were first saved? Here is a man, and he's caught a glimpse of Christ. You know, beloved saints, if we could get a glimpse of Christ, one glimpse of Christ, and everything else would be valueless.

Everything else would be worthless. Show me thy face, one transient gleam of loveliness divine, and I will never think or dream of other loves save thine. All lesser lights will darken quite.

All lesser glories wane. The beautiful of earth shall scarce seem beautiful again. And rather than ease back, this man says, it's Christ.

I need to live for Christ. It's Christ ever. It is Christ only.

It is Christ always. And we've got focused days. I was going to speak.

I don't have time to do it. His apprehension, His accountancy. What about His appreciation? My Lord.

There's five people in the New Testament. I'll give the young people some homework. There are five people in the New Testament who call the Lord Jesus, My Lord.

Now, I was going to give you the five. Maybe I'll just leave it and we come to the next point. Those formative days, His development.

Those focused days, His distinctiveness. What about His fervent days? I want to speak just as I am almost finished here about His devotedness. What about the scope of His service? If there was ever a man that had scope for service, it was this man.

Sometimes I read it and I'm almost embarrassed. I hate to tell you that. It almost makes you feel like a spiritual pygmy.

Read it for yourself. I mean, someone says to me, two weeks. Two weeks gospel meetings.

I'll speak about myself. Two weeks gospel meetings and I'm thinking, oh, oh, I need to get home. You say, Paul, what about you? Did you ever read 2 Corinthians 11? Did you ever read about the times He was stoned? Did you ever read about the night and the day in the deep? Did you ever read about those stripes that He received from the Jews? Did you ever read about perils? Often, and you go through it all.

By the time we're done, we bow our heads in shame and we say this, that we are not worthy to read about this man. Beloved saints, these are fervent days in the scope of His service. What about His strength for service? Where did He ever get strength to pursue? You know, beloved saints, just let me stop for a moment.

The strength that He had and He received, that strength is still available from God for you today. You say, what about His strength? You read Acts 9 and He references that strength. You read 1 Timothy 1. He speaks about the strength.

You read Philippians 4. He speaks about the strength that God gave Him. You read 2 Timothy 4. Again, He speaks about the strength that is being poured into Him. Acts 9, He received meat, but He was strengthened.

1 Timothy 1, I thank my God because He has enabled me. He has enstrengthened me. Philippians 4, I can do all things through Christ who pours His strength into me.

And you know, I love that one. I might as well give you that one in 2 Timothy 4 as well. Nevertheless, you say, Paul, you've stood before Nero.

That's right. You say, Paul, you're all alone. That's right.

You say, Paul, no one's standing with you. That's right. But He says, nevertheless, the Lord stood with me.

And the Lord strengthened me. You know, there might be overseers here going through difficult times. The strength is still available for you.

As thy days so shall the strength be. The scope of His service. The strength for His service.

I've got to finish here. What about the secret for His service? I think the secret for His service is found in Philippians chapter 1. Listen to it now. For me to live.

It would be nice to have a few more millions, wouldn't it? He doesn't say that. For me to live is the next vacation in Florida. He doesn't say that.

For me to live is Christ. This man had one goal. Just one goal.

And as this man is looking at his single-mindedness in service. One committed life. He had one goal.

And the one goal of this man is to be like the Lord Jesus. Tell me, what's your goal in life? What's my goal in life? I say today, you folks who are gathered here, every one of us now, let's get as practical as we can get with this. You have only one life.

See you young man who are here? Only one life. You young girls who are here, you've only one life. Every single one of us now who are gathered here at this stout conference, we have only one life.

I have only one life on this earth. Like a vapor, it's passing away. I must labor for treasures of worth.

Ere toil ends, at the end of the day, only one life to give. I must never withhold it from God. If I have a burden today for this conference, it's this, that there are people, young men and young women, and they will never leave this conference the same way.

I trust it will be the case. My time's more than gone. I apologize for taking a little bit extra time here.

Just as I conclude, I don't have too many regrets in life. I do have one regret. Peter Orosok and I, we were coming up the east coast of the states, and as we were just through Boston, we came to Newburyport, and I said to Peter, I said, George Whitefield is buried here.

Let's see if we can locate where he's buried. And we tried. Spent quite a bit of time trying to locate the site.

And eventually, Peter said to me, he said, let's go. He wanted to go buy some lizards and snakes. I really shouldn't have told you that part of the story, but he said, let's go.

And we were pulling close to a gas bar, and I said to him, just let me go in and check before we leave. And I stepped into the gas station, and I was standing there, and there was a person just ahead of me. They were being dealt with.

There was another person over here. They were about to be dealt with. And there was a third cashier came forward, and she says to me, Sir, can I help you? And I looked at her, and I smiled.

I was a little bit disingenuous. I said, I'm looking for an 18th century gospel preacher. She said, what? I said, I'm looking for an 18th century gospel preacher.

She said, what's his name? I said, it's George Whitfield, and I want to know where he was buried. And the mistake and the regret I have is this, that the person that was standing right there, paying for their gas, turned around to me, and she said, I live in the house where he preached his last sermon. And the mistake I made was this.

We found where he was buried, but I would have loved to have found and seen where he preached his last message. He had preached to thousands that day. They estimate perhaps as many as 30,000 he had preached to that day.

He came back into the town. He went up into the little bedroom. The man was physically, mentally, spiritually exhausted.

He went up into the little bedroom, and the crowd gathered outside the house, and they began to call, get him to preach again. Get him to preach again. And eventually he stepped out to the window, and he started to preach, and there were two candles burning on either side of that window.

There were two candles burning, and the man preached until the candles went out. And he stepped from the window, and he stepped into his bedroom, and God called him home. And one of the biographers said, the candles were only a metaphor of one life that was burned out for God.

As I step down today now, I say it again. One life. Only one.

One committed life. I wonder what you and I will do to the life and with the life that God has given us.