To live is Christ...

“For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21)

This past Sunday, Eric Hesselbach preached from Philippians 1 on the subject of identity. In Philippians 1:21, Paul utters the famous line, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” From Paul’s perspective, the only things that really mattered were knowing Jesus and seeing more people come to know Him. Because his joy and purpose was found in Jesus, he could rejoice even in prison, when others unfairly maligned his reputation, and even when facing death, as long as more people were being transformed by the gospel. It was clear that Paul’s identity was not found in anything else – not his freedom, his fame, his health, his reputation – it was only found in who He was in Jesus.

As I have recovered from back surgery this past week, I have found it instructive how suffering can reveal a great deal about our identity. One thing that back surgery has robbed me of has been my ability to help out much around the house. I have to avoid bending, twisting, and lifting more than a gallon of milk. Plus, my back pain forces me to lay down and rest every few hours. As a result, I feel pretty useless. If this were typical of how I spent my time around the house, then it would be no big deal, but this past week has revealed how much I have prided myself on how much I do around the house, and how involved I am with raising our children. Now that I am contributing very little in those realms, I find myself struggling with feeling less valuable, that because I have less to offer, I am not worth as much.

I would suspect that many of you have had similar crises of identity. All your life you have taken pride in your ability to provide for your family, and then you lose your job, and begin to feel useless. Or perhaps you felt valuable because of your looks, only to watch them fade as you get older. Maybe you felt valuable because your children were models of what a Christian child should be like, but now that they are older, they have not turned out at all like you had hoped. Suffering in its various forms has a knack of revealing our misplaced identity, the many ways in which we have located our joy and purpose in things other than knowing Jesus and furthering His gospel.

If I were like Paul, then my circumstances may not change, but I would not be so anxious about my lack of contribution around the house. I would not be in danger of pushing myself out of my dysfunctional need to feel valuable. Instead, I would know that I am valuable because Christ died for me when I was a sinner, and I would rest in that. And whatever I do – whether resting or working – would be to honor Him, not to serve the idols I have set up in my own life.

So let me ask you: where do you find your value? Why do you feel that your life matters? And when that is threatened, how does it cause you to act? Bring that to the Lord today, and let Him remind you that He loves you, and that your value is secure in Him. To live is Christ, and to die is gain.