PHILIPPIANS 1:22-26

22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.

Verse 22: The AV translation of this verse doesn’t make a lot of sense, and virtually all modern translations concur that the NIV has got it right here. To carry on living means work for Paul; and work means fruitfulness. Those two assumptions are important! Life means work: God doesn’t intend people ever to sit around in idleness, doing nothing; even in the Garden of Eden, there were responsibilities for Adam and Eve, and even in heaven, “reigning” with Christ implies some sort of administrative input! Work is a necessity for the healthy functioning of the human system; we have to count for something, to feel that we’re making some kind of a contribution, or life rapidly becomes intolerable. That’s why Paul criticizes the people in Thessalonica who were living in idleness, supported (so we assume) by a wealthy patron who required them to do nothing but simply exist as living, sponsored examples of his generosity. It isn’t right, argues Paul, and if you don’t work, you don’t eat.

Second assumption Paul makes: work means fruitfulness. This doesn’t imply that all Christian service will be attended by spectacular results; many great missionaries have laboured for years in unrewarding cultures, and seen very little “fruit” for their labours. But sometimes the “fruit” is late in appearing; only a few minuites ago I was reading Ravi Zacharias’ story of how an old Pentecostal missionary came to his home in India and prayed for Ravi’s brother, who was at the point of death. The boy recovered, and the deep impression made on Ravi was one of the major steps leading to his conversion. Ravi Zacharias is now one of the most influential Christian apologists in the world. Yet the missionary never knew:

I don’t recall ever seeing Mr Dennis again, though I have often thought of him. He was a missionary living on a meagre salary, a living saint. Somebody must have supported him. Why did he pick our family to visit? Was this not God in the shadows, keeping watch over his own?

Sometimes, too, the fruit will be other than we expect. Sometimes we go through tough times in which God appears to be doing nothing through us. And we’re slow to realize that he’s doing something in us instead. I remember going off on an Operation Mobilisation mission to France, as a student, convinced that God was probably calling me to go and work there.

I discovered rapidly that I wasn’t at all suited to the door-to-door work I was expected to do. And that was the staple of evangelistic work in France in those days. So I wasn’t called to go there after all; but I had signed up for a full month of mission, and there was no way back.

I don’t think God used my efforts in that month to do anything significant in the life of France! But I did see him do something significant in me, as I learned the discipline of doing something faithfully that I was completely ungifted for, and emotionally unwilling to tackle. The “fruit” wasn’t what I anticipated; but it was there.

Wherever the fruit comes from, Paul’s expectation is that “work means fruitfulness”. This is what Jesus called us to (John 15:16) – not just to work, but to be fruitful. We don’t control the production of fruit, any more than a lemon tree takes executive decisions about how many lemons it will output this year. But if the fruit never appears, there’s something wrong with the normativity of our Christianity.

Verse 23: The Darby translation is “I am pressed by both”. The word sunecho means “to hold together”, or “to press from either side”. It’s sometimes used of holding your ears so that you can’t hear (Acts 7:57). Strong says it can be used of a “cattle squeeze, that pushes in on each side, forcing the beast into a position where it cannot move so the farmer can administer medication”; or of a narrow channel that forces a ship to navigate with caution. What Paul means is that both possibilities are pressing in on him forcefully; both appeal to him so strongly that he finds it hard to decide which he’d prefer.

Verse 24: “It is more necessary for you”. Our life isn’t independent of others, as Paul Simon’s great song reminds us. There’s a touching memorial website for those who have committed suicide, called www.1000deaths.com . Its name is chosen because, it says, “The person who completes suicide dies once. Those left behind die a thousand deaths, trying to relive those terrible moments and understand... Why?” And it continues: “Remember ...We are all intertwingled, each desperately loved and needed by others.”

This is vitally important to remember at times when our life seems meaningless to us, when we’d rather give up the battle and simply leave the field. Our existence matters to others, and sometimes people who stay around for the sake of others will discover an unexpected new sense of purpose and drive which changes their outlook completely.

As Christians, our life needs to be other-directed anyway. It struck me yesterday, reading through the list of “new garments” which Paul says we should “put on” in Colossians 3:12-14, that every single thing in the list is directed towards our relationship with others. By contrast, the “old clothes” (3:8) are all things which divide us off from others and push them away. No wonder we lose the point of life when it ceases to be our motivation to serve others and put them first.

Verse 25: Paul is convinced he will remain alive because there’s still work to do. He was right (for another few years, anyway) but we need to be careful about applying this reasoning to ourselves. Sometimes – we’ve all seen it – God will remove one of his greatest servants from the planet when it appears he’s irreplaceable. Why take David Watson? Why allow Henry Martyn or Keith Green to burn out so soon?

And often when Christian leaders have been diagnosed with cancer, their first thought has been: “Not now! There’s still so much to do!” None of us are as indispensable as we suppose (1 Kings 18:10, 14, 18) and it’s good to remember that.

Paul had been wrong before (Acts 20:25) so maybe we shouldn’t take his statement here as divine revelation, so much as a sober assessment based on what he thinks God is doing. At any rate, he’s arrived at the conviction that death is not summoning him yet, but he is unclear about the rest: will he stay in chains, or be freed? Will he revisit Philippi, or only hear about it (v. 27)?

He has learned through experience that it is wise not to “second-guess” God. And we can all learn from that.

Paul thinks he will be staying in order to bring two things into the Philippians’ lives: “progress” and “joy”. This is what God wants for us: not just progress, but joy too – Christian living is supposed to be a happy experience, a discovering with delight of new dimensions in living, new sources of pleasure in God’s creation and his providential care over our lives, new riches in our relationships with others. If we’re not enjoying God, we’re getting it wrong. I very much like John Piper’s concept of “Christian hedonism”, the idea that our calling is to enjoy God as we live for him.

The other side of the picture is that it’s not just joy, but progress too. Christian living is not just a happy-happy experience of blissful moments and constant thrills. It’s supposed to be going somewhere. And the two go together: only as we’re making progress will our joy be full. You can’t live off yesterday’s manna (Exodus 16:19-30).

Verse 26: This is a complicated verse. Paul literally says: "... so that your boasting may abound in Christ Jesus in (or by) me on account of my presence with you again". It isn't the normal word for "joy", but kauchema, which really means "a reason for glorying". Does he mean: My presence with you will give you added reason to glory in Jesus, because he's brought me back? or does he mean: My presence with you will increase your reason for taking pride in me, because Jesus has done one more marvellous thing for me?

And does it matter? Because it's all true. The Philippians are wrapped up in joy - caused by Jesus, intensified by their love for Paul, making them even more excited about being Christians. Often when this happens to us it's hard to disentangle the causes of our joy. The important thing is just that it does happen!

Incidentally, I like Louis Segond's translation here: afin que, par mon retour auprès de vous, vous ayez en moi un abondant sujet de vous glorifier en Jésus-Christ. ("So that, by my returning to you, you'll have in me an abundant cause of glorifying yourselves in Jesus Christ.") Read with 2 Cor 10:17 (in Segond: Que celui qui se glorifie se glorifie dans le Seigneur), that makes a lot of sense.