Unshakable Confidence: To Live Is Christ, To Die Is Gain

``But what's the worst day in history? The day we killed God on a cross. What's the best day in history? The day God gave his life for sinners like you and like me, for all of sin, past, present, future, sins of omission and commission, sins you talk about that are respectable like gossip and you say it's prayer requests, sins like lust pride that overtakes your soul. On that worst day in all of history where we killed God, he took upon all that sin where it should have been put on you for eternity in hell and he took it upon himself. [00:54:17] (51 seconds)  #DayOfTheCross

What are you putting in that blank? If it's status, if it's success, if it's your religious works, none of that will sustain you. It will all fail and yet Jesus Christ, you put Christ first in your time, in your talent, in your treasure, in your priorities, in your schedule, in your routine, in your politics, in the name of Jesus, in your finances, in your sickness, in your health, in your relationships, you put to live is Christ, then you can have to die his game. And you can have the world in checkmate and you can face any circumstance and even death, and you can be confident and full of joy knowing there's a purpose through pain. There's a promise through even death in Jesus Christ. [02:38:30] (44 seconds)  #LiveIsChrist

death has lost its sting through the cross of Christ. He rose again. Paul writes that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. To die is gain. If I live, it's fruitful labor for the glory of Christ. If I die, I get to see face to face the glory of Christ. Paul had the world in checkmate. Do you play chess? Neither do I. But I know enough to know checkmate is when you are in position you cannot lose. You have won. That's Paul. You wanna wanna put me in prison? That's great. Get to share the gospel, to write these letters, get to put it all out. Epaphroditus is my boy, he's gonna take it to Philippians. [02:22:08] (43 seconds)  #DeathIsGain

Any of you ever said, I'm having the worst day? Have you already said that? Listen, Paul's got you beat. Right? He's got every circumstance is not going his way. He's experienced all of this right now. He's in prison and yet he's fearless, confident and joyful. I want to ask how? You should be asking how? Now I know the Sunday school answer is Jesus and it you know, we'll get there yeah. But look at the text, where do we get this from? How is he so confident? He tells us, verse 21, look at the verse, He says, well for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. [02:15:48] (40 seconds)  #ConfidentLikePaul

And we have this weird thing that we've termed in our day called comfortable Christianity and consumer Christianity. And if we're honest we have, hey to live as Christ depending on the day and the circumstance. To live is Christ one hour a week on a Sunday morning. To live is Christ if he does these things for me. And what Paul is presenting to you is to live is Christ period. I heard John Piper, a theologian pastor say this one time, If you were to go to heaven and get the streets of gold and the mansions and the crowns and all these things and like it would be so amazing, but Christ wasn't there. Would you still want to go? [02:37:03] (42 seconds)  #ChristOrNothing

How can you have a joyful confidence through any and every circumstance? Listen we live in a day where everything is shaky. The stock market is shaky. The gas prices in the name of Jesus are shaky. Everything is shaky. Your mental health we talked about a few weeks ago is shaky. We live in the anxious generation every single year. You know what two of the top prescribed medicines are? Antidepressants and antacids. Every in 2026 you think we would have progressed by now, you think we'd have this peace from AI and chat GPT, but we don't. [00:41:50] (43 seconds)  #AnxiousGeneration

Did you know Jesus died and rose again for you? For your sins to be healed? For your for you to be forgiven and adopted into his family? For even on a deathbed like mine, you can have hope in Jesus Christ that goes beyond death into all of eternity? This is a nurse on her shift? And so that's to the point where when my dad passed away you had nurses come into the room who had seen my dad one day, one time, and they were bawling. They didn't even know him. But they're like, Hey there's something different. [01:00:34] (34 seconds)  #ResurrectionHope

You're up if your circumstances are up, you're down when your circumstances are down. If the world is shaky, you are shaky. If your job is shaky, you are shaky. If your relationship is shaky, you are shaky. What Paul offers, what God offers is something different. He offers an unshakable confidence in a shaky world. Do you have that? Do you have that? See this befuddled people, it's why in Acts chapter 17 they've gone from Philippi to Thessalonica and people come and they're trying to kill Paul and all his friends and they say this one specific phrase in Acts 17, they say, hey these are the guys who are flipping the world upside down [02:25:47] (47 seconds)  #UpsideDownFaith

We started the church in some crazy circumstances. A lot of people didn't know me, we didn't have family or friends in Phoenix. We had this mega church shut down, there's a lot of distrust, skepticism. We didn't have much money and people hadn't known me for very long. Just great recipe to start a healthy church. Amen? And now we get evicted with six weeks left to to move, and I don't know where we're gonna go. And about half the people wanna leave. If you ask me what was the worst day, I'd tell you it's that day. [00:52:13] (28 seconds)  #ChurchInHardTimes

But if you ask me what's the best day, I'd also tell you it's that day. Because through that pain, through that circumstance, God provided not a school that we set up and tear it down in, but he provided a church building that was empty. Look at God, won't he do it? And we began to get stable, we moved and we did lose some people. We also gained some people and we refined our vision. We began to impact our city to a greater extent. Fast forward a few years, we're growing healthy and we got to come on this campus and see a church merger happen and see a church reunited [00:52:41] (34 seconds)  #ProvidenceInPain

I saw this with my dad who died six months ago. I'd be in the hospital the last month of his life and he'd be suffering, I mean it was so traumatic, suffering every single day and the nurses would come in and he'd perk up and he'd get a smile on his face and he'd be like, hey, can I have some ice? You know, it was always so funny how my dad got into the gospel. Hey, can I have some ice? Can I have some ice chips? Also, you know what's cool is the sweet grace of Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. [00:59:52] (30 seconds)  #GraceInSuffering

Yet even through those dark times, March, God was orchestrating his kingdom for his glory, for our good that one day two thousand years later you and I get to step into as well. And so that's what we see as we look at the book of Philippians. As we go to Philippians one nineteen through 30 specifically what we see is Paul has, if you take notes write this down, Paul has a confidence that transcends every circumstance. If you look at the text with me, I read it on video, I'm not gonna read it all again, but just look at verse 19 with me. Paul says, I know not I think. [02:11:40] (38 seconds)  #TranscendentConfidence

Paul's like, hey, I got this guy with me and he's like, I'm not gonna be a victim here and be like, God, you came to me in light in Acts chapter nine on the Damascus Road, but now I'm in a dark cell and what is happening and oh, I'm such a victim and I'm gonna write a blog about it online. You don't see Paul doing that. You see Paul saying, hey brother next to me, you're kind of close to Caesar, how about this, if you were to die today and stand before God on a scale of one to 10, How confident are you you would enter heaven? Like he's he's sharing the gospel with the people around him and you could just imagine this had to be so frustrating for the imperial guards. [02:19:44] (41 seconds)  #ShareBoldly

Some of you are doing great on the outside. But on the inside, there's every single day debilitating anxiety and depression. You're connected online, you're on your screen all the time, but there is crippling loneliness. Nobody really knows you. Nobody knows the deepest parts of you. You don't feel seen, you don't feel loved, you don't feel cared for, but outside you got the finances, you got the job, everything's going great. And yet do you believe that through any and every circumstance you can have confidence because you know Christ? That he's building muscles right now, [00:55:58] (40 seconds)  #BehindTheSmile

He has a purpose through pain and he has a promise through death. That's how he's joyful. That's how he's confident, even obnoxiously so in his circumstances. He has a purpose through pain. Look at verse 22, he's suffering for Paul means fruitful labor. Verse 25, it means progress in the faith. Last week Paul talked about the gospel of Jesus Christ advancing even through his chains. Last week Jeff Gokey did a great job talking about these other preachers who were kind of hating on Paul, who had different motivations. They were still proclaiming Christ and some of them they saw the boldness of Paul that he was imprisoned [02:17:01] (42 seconds)  #GospelAdvances

And you watched, and I've watched a lot of these interviews, and you watch these guys interview Ben Sasse and one guy on sixty Minutes he asked him, hey man I've had some moments where I thought I could lose my family but nothing like this, like you know you're gonna lose your family. And Ben Suss has a wife of thirty one years, two girls like 21 and 24, and he's got a 14 year old son. And the interviewer's just talking to him and he's like, hey you're going to die soon. How do you reconcile losing from losing your family? [00:58:17] (32 seconds)  #FaithInLoss

He's like, you know and I'm super bummed I'm not gonna get to do that. But he said something really interesting, he said, I know we'll be separated for a while, but I know God has a plan and I know it's better than mine. When they pan to the interviewer in this moment, his jaw is dropping. What? What? Like you have a confidence that goes beyond circumstance? You have a confidence that doesn't hinge on the stock market or gas prices? As a senator? As a politician? You have a confidence that goes even beyond death? [00:59:13] (40 seconds)  #ConfidenceInGodsPlan

And he talked about it. He talked about man he's super sad that he's not going to get to walk his girls down the aisle and he wanted to. He talked about specifically, he got a little choked up when he talked about his son who's 14 and still growing and not an adult yet and he wants to take him by the hand and take him by the neck sometimes as a teenage boy and teach him how to be a young man and not get listened to as his dad, he joked. He's like, I want to do all that and he gets a little emotional but he comes back together and he says, but hey, I know this, [02:28:25] (32 seconds)  #SorrowAndSureHope

He's got them right next to him and he's like, hey man, I would never get this kind of access to these elite people if it weren't for being in prison. And you just kind of picture the scene. Paul's like, he's not playing the victim, he's not crying, oh woe is me, like why am I in prison? Oh god, you're supposed to be for me like on that road that Damascus Road like acts nine, I saw this light and now I'm seeing this dark and what why is this happening to me and I'm gonna get online and write a blog about it. [00:47:47] (26 seconds)  #NoVictimMentality

God we pray that your spirit would move mightily in this moment and you would focus our eyes, you would soften our hearts, you would open our hands to everything that you want to do during this time. Transform us from the inside out. Holy Spirit we pray in the mighty name of Jesus. And everybody said, amen. Amen. How many of guys have heard of Alexander the Great? Many of you learned about him in school? A lot of us in the room. You know this great military leader who was really a legend by the age of 30. He conquered the known world and yet while many of us know about Alexander the Great, many of us don't know about his dad King Philip. [02:06:17] (36 seconds)  #PrayForRevival