Do you read much in the way of biography? My personal reading is very eclectic. I read spiritual and devotional books, and mysteries, histories and biographies. I am currently reading about the University of Washington rowing crew in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The histories I read include Baptist and church histories, but also such things as the Manhattan Project. Some of my more recent biographies include Alexander Hamilton, Stephen Gano and J.D. Rockefeller. If you read biographical material, you’ve probably seen that people’s lives break down into chapters.
For example, as we look at the life of the Apostle Paul we can see distinct chapters. His chapter one included his birth and early life in Tarsus, Cilicia, about which we know next to nothing. He traveled to Jerusalem for an education, sitting at the feet of some of the greatest minds in Judea. Chapter three may have been when he began a career of vigorous Pharisaism. Then he was converted by the grace of God, starting an entirely new section of his book. As a Christian there were a variety of chapters in his life: There was Damascus and time spent in the desert learning about Christ. For a while he was back in Tarsus and then back to Damascus. Each of his missionary journeys would count as a chapter in his life. And then there was his arrest and prison in Judea. Paul’s trip to Rome would be an exciting addition to his biography. Then there would be those two years or more in Rome, when he wrote the letter to the Philippians. And in our scripture, Paul suggests that he was expecting to start a new chapter soon. In the mean time, he was not content to waste away his years in prison – or his days, or even his hours. “I am determined to make something of the time which God has given me.” Obviously, this chapter in Paul’s life was not written by Paul alone, it was co-authored by the Lord. This book of life is not fiction – it was not written for entertainment. It was given, written and penned by inspiration for our instruction. “Whatsoever things were written afore time were written for our learning……..” Tonight’s message may sound like it contradicts this morning, but listen carefully, because it doesn’t.
What is the lesson in verse 20? It is that we, too, should have the same kind of expectation that Paul had. Notice that there are two words which seem to be so closely related that they are almost redundant. What are the differences between “expectation“ and “hope?” Is there a difference or does Paul use similar words simply for effect and emphasis? Both obviously reach into the future – a place which we must consider to some degree. But a Biblical hope is not the same as a human expectation. “Hope“ in the Bible is something which hasn’t yet occurred but which is guaranteed by God. And the highest of hope of the saint is related to the return of our Saviour. What will happened when Christ returns? Among other things we shall be glorified together with Him. “The whole creation groaneth and trevaileth together until now, waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God.” Along with Paul we should be looking for that “blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.” This was Paul’s “hope“ …. But his EXPECTATION was not necessarily to BE glorified, but to CREATE glory. What can we learn here?
Paul had a good and proper EXPECTATION.
And of course, we are not the least bit surprised about this. Paul was not an aimless sort of person – going from day to day like a cloud pushed by the winds. But isn’t it true that many people are not like Paul in this way? We ARE creatures of habit and servitude. I’ve already admitted it today. We let our circumstances dictate what we do and how we behave. Obviously much of the time there is absolutely nothing we can do about that. We have the contract we made with our employers, and we are stuck living under their orders. Laundry must be washed and meals must be fixed, or stomachs begin to growl. But there are opportunities every day when we can make choices; when we have options. And at those times, we need to take control and make choices which please the Lord. We all need to have aims and goals to help us to make those choices properly. We need to be sure that our aims and goals are godly and Christ-like. The Bible doesn’t have very nice things to say about the aimless person.
In chapter 3, Paul tells us that God has special purposes when He calls us. “Brethren, not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: But I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” Why were you apprehended by the Lord? What did the Lord intend for your life, when He “called you out of darkness into his marvelous light?”
Paul was a intellectual man; perhaps he was even a genius. But he was not blessed with the gifts of a seer — a prophet in that sense. For example, he couldn’t say for sure whether or not on June 23, he would still be in chains or freed. Later, in a letter to Timothy, he said that thought that he might die in those chains. The fact is that he didn’t really know for sure. But he did know that on that day and every day, he was going to be magnifying His Saviour. Paul was a relatively ambitious man, earnestly desiring, for example, the best gifts. He was not satisfied to enter the gates of splendor “saved, yet so as by fire.” He wanted to be able to say to his Saviour, “Lord, I glorified thy Name, and I did it Your way.”
Paul was also a firm believer in the LORDSHIP and SOVEREIGNTY of Christ. He knew that the Lord had plans for his life, just as He does for us all. I can’t for a moment think that it’s the Lord’s will for us to waste our lives. Whatever length of time God has designated for us, it is just perfect for accomplishing the Lord’s plans. Years earlier Paul expressed his belief that it was God’s will he preach the gospel in Rome. Now, here he is in the city of Nero, preaching to all who came to his rented house. It may not have been as Paul originally envisioned it, but his dream had come true. It would not be wrong for us to set goals and make plans for the glory of Christ. How shall we read God’s word this year? What will our personal devotions be like in 2017? Maybe we should have some sort of Bible memorization plan. “Lord, by thy grace, I am going to glorify your Name in these specific ways this year.”
Paul’s expectation was that CHRIST would be GLORIFIED in his LIFE.
There are three more words in this verse that we need to know how to define. First, there are those two: “earnest expectation.” These are found in this combination only twice in the Bible. The other place is Romans 8:19: “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.” These words refer to watching the horizon with head raised and eyes fixed. Paul was confident of the third word we need to understand – he would “magnify“ the Lord. What is it to “magnify“ something? I have three or four kinds of magnifying glasses – like the ones you see in the hands of Sherlock Holmes. I use them to look at the details on some of my stamps. And I also have a reasonably powerful microscope. Microscopes give people the opportunity to look at very small things – by magnifying them. When Paul speaks about “magnifying the Lord,” he was talking about making the omnipresent God even more omnipresent – but of course that is silly. It is silly to talk about making the immensity of God larger or smaller. But it is possible to enlarge God or make Him smaller in the eyes of others, by our testimony or by the way we live as Christians.
What a change this was from an earlier chapter in Paul’s life. Before his meeting with Christ on the Road to Damascus, Paul was using the Lord to glorify himself. He was using his persecution of the people of God to elevate himself in the eyes of the Sanhedrin. But now he could honestly say, “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of Christ….” He could say with John, “He must increase; I must decrease.”
Some people talk about glorifying Christ, but they mean something different from what Paul was saying. There are people who claim to be Christian tattoo artists, saying they are trying to glorify the Lord. I have met farmers who raised tobacco and gave of their income to glorify the Lord in heathen lands. There are rap singers who claim to do it for the glory of the Lord. And in some of these cases they may sincerely believe what they are saying. But just as when Paul was persecuting the saints, they are deceiving themselves. Because they are not using the patterns laid down in the Word of the Lord. Every act of worship and service must be according to the pattern which the Lord has provided. Scripture says that the Lord has “magnified His Word even above His Name.” We cannot glorify God’s Name while ignoring His Word. It is impossible.
Paul expected Christ to be glorified in the way in which he lived his life. Without doubt that included Paul’s salvation and deliverance from sin. He called himself the chiefest of sinners; but he was saved by the powerful grace of God. Paul was “chosen to salvation from before the foundation of the world.” That salvation was given and applied by the Lord, when Paul turned from sin and trusted Christ. And now Paul was confident that “what the Lord had begun he would continue to perform.” “He was kept by the power of God unto salvation and would be presented faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”
But the Lord’s glory should not be confined to just what THE LORD was doing in Paul. That man was actively striving, seeking, and yearning to glorify the Lord in every part of his life. In his mind, for example – “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” He wanted to glorify the Lord in his sufferings, as we see in chapter one. “But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; So that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places; What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.” He want to glorify Christ even in his eventual death. Another way that the Lord is glorified is in the effects on those who are left behind.
But, on what did Paul BASE those EXPECTATIONS?
There is a shroud-covered sense in which the Lord will be glorified by everyone: heathen and Christian. He will be glorified even in the punishment of the wicked in Hell. But Paul’s reference to glorification was not NEGATIVE. He expected the Lord to find within his life the resources required to build a monument to Himself.
To have this expectation, Paul must have been confident that his life PLEASED his Saviour. He had so ordered his daily activities, and he had so dedicated each and every day that every part of his existence pointed to the Lord. “I am dead, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.” He had a healthy fear and fight against personal sin. He knew the importance of confessing and forsaking sin, destroying its shame before it began. And he was striving to continue to grow in the things of the Lord. And there was a desire to be victorious for the Lord.
There are many who are ASHAMED of a bold, vigorous magnification of Christ. There are many who are too concerned about what people will think about us. They are too little concerned what they think about our Saviour. Then there are those who are AFRAID to magnify Christ. What will the world do to me? I may lose my job, my friends. But we live in a civilized society where few die as a result of persecution. When was the last time “ye resisted unto blood striving against sin?”We ought to be more concerned about what the Saviour thinks of us than what men might think.
Is it your earnest expectation and hope that in nothing to be ashamed of Christ? Can you say, “I shall with all boldness magnify the Lord?” “For to me to live is Christ.”