For those new to Venture, I need you to know one of my weaknesses so that you hopefully don’t take it personally and get offended by it.  I’m HORRIBLE at remembering names.  I’m talking about the names of people I’ve known for years, and I can tell you their life stories, people we sincerely love and do life with, people we’ve gone on vacations with!  It’s not what happens to me when I’m trying to get the attention of one of my kids and end up saying the names of our other two children first and possibly even my wife’s name before I say their name, but rather, I will actually temporarily totally forget their name!  I jokingly blame it on many years of intentional helmet-to-helmet contact in football (something that you now get kicked out of the game for doing), but the fact of the matter is that I’ve been this way my entire life!  Therefore, given I can have temporary amnesia and forget the names of people I love and do life, it is truly mind-blowing to me how many thousands of totally unimportant, meaningless things I do remember, including things from my childhood!

I remember things like the taste of some of those weird church potluck deals people made!  If you are a GenXer, you know what I’m talking about.  Remember that weird green Jello salad thing called Watergate Salad, or the nasty green pea salad thing where they put mayonnaise, green peas, and onion straws together with a bunch of other stuff to create a terribly looking disaster that tasted worse than it looked?

I remember the feeling of the mud on the bottom of my feet when we used to walk in the big drainage ditch by our house to find tadpoles, crawdads, and minnows.  I even remember the smell of that ditch!

I remember seeing the first blooms of the daffodils around the old maple tree in my parents' backyard and what my neighborhood looked like from the top of my favorite climbing tree, which happened to be another maple tree in their backyard.  I remember the rope I used to climb that tree and even what it felt like in my hands.  I’ve never seen another rope like it. It was a soft, flat green rope about an inch or so wide made of a material woven tight enough that it didn’t leave little fibers stuck in your hands as you shimmied up and down it to get in and out of the tree.

But the meaningless, vivid childhood memory that sets up what we are going to talk about today is the distinct sound and smell of the pressure cooker my mother used to can green beans and other vegetables as well as speed up the cooking process of some of the evening meals she made us.  A pressure cooker has a very distinct sound produced by the combination of the steam coming out of the pressure valve and the obnoxious rocking and clanging sound of the weight you put over the valve to regulate how much steam can escape.  As a child, I had no idea of the importance of that annoying weight that made all that racket.  You see, a pressure cooker has different weights to create different pressures within the cooker, and it turns out that you have to pay very close attention to instructions for whatever you’re using a pressure cooker to prepare, not only to keep you from quickly ruining whatever it is you are cooking but also to keep the pressure cooker from exploding!  Cooking with a pressure cooker is literally cooking with a bomb!

Even the best-made pressure cooker in the world has a limit to how much pressure it can contain before it explodes, and when one of those things explodes, the projectiles include hot steam and liquid! Every pressure cooker has a breaking point, just like every one of us has a breaking point.

Some people crack under very little pressure, while others can handle enormous amounts of pressure. However, like pressure cookers, everybody has a breaking point, and as such, we need to know how to keep ourselves from getting to that point.  Now, when I say that, the first thing that likely comes to most of your minds are things you like to do to vent off some of the pressure in your life; things like working out, taking a jog, or going for a walk, painting, working in your flower beds, and the list goes on.  Those are good practices in life, for sure, and all of us should certainly have some built-in, consistent, constructive practices that help us vent some steam, not only to keep us from exploding but also to keep us from doing destructive things like chugging a bunch of beer, sitting down at an all you can eat donut buffet, cussing out our family or punching a hole in a wall!

However, most people know the difference between constructive and destructive ways to vent the pressure of life, so I don’t think I need to spend any time addressing them. What I want to get into today is how the Bible teaches us to counteract the cause of the pressure—that is, not how to vent off the steam, but how to keep so much steam from being created in the first place!

To do that, I want us to first look at the next story in our study of 2 Samuel because it’s one of those times you would TOTALLY understand a person cracking!

To those who are new to our study.  David was by far Israel’s greatest King, but that doesn’t mean everything went perfectly in his life.  As a matter of fact, at this point in 2 Samuel, his life is a total disaster!  In the previous chapter, we found out that one of his own sons spent four years executing a deceitful, unethical plan to run David out of Jerusalem and take his throne, and it worked!  Therefore, it’s not at all hard to imagine that David is on the verge of exploding.  The hero King of Israel is now on the run, trying to protect himself, the family and friends that remained loyal to him, as well as the nation God charged Him to lead that is now getting ready to be run by a narcissistic, deceitful, egomaniac who sees power as a privilege rather than a responsibility!

To add to the pressure cooker that his life has become is the knowledge that all of it was caused by his own sin!  When the prophet Nathan confronted David about his affair with Bathsheba and the murderous way he attempted to cover it up by arranging for her husband Uriah to be placed in a battle situation that would all but guarantee his death, he told David God was going to inflict severe consequences on his life and family as judgment.  Specifically, Nathan proclaimed,

10 Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, because you have despised me and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.' 11 Thus says the LORD, 'Behold, I will raise up evil against you out of your own house. And I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun. 12 For you did it secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the sun.'" (2 Samuel 12:10-12)

So, in addition to the obvious massive pressure of David’s circumstances, there is the knowledge that all of it is ultimately his fault—his circumstances are the direct results of God's judgment on his sin and his own passive leadership of his family and government, which was likely sourced from his refusal to forgive himself.

But the pressure of David’s circumstances still hasn’t climaxed.  It’s almost predictable that just when you think things can’t get any worse in life, that’s about the time they usually do!   So, right when you think things can’t get any worse for David—they do!  In 2 Samuel 16, there are three more significant escalations of pressure in David’s life, which could understandably lead anybody to crack, but to David’s credit, he doesn’t.  Let me walk you through this story; then, I will talk about the most important thing the Bible tells us to do: not to constructively vent the pressure of life’s circumstances but rather to counteract the creation of the pressure itself!

2 Samuel 16 tells the story of three significant escalations of pressure on David’s life.

 The first escalation occurs in verses one through four.

 Escalation #1 – David was deceived into believing he had been betrayed by a man he had graciously and abundantly provided for.

 1 When David had passed a little beyond the summit, Ziba the servant of Mephibosheth met him, with a couple of donkeys saddled, bearing two hundred loaves of bread, a hundred bunches of raisins, a hundred of summer fruits, and a skin of wine. 2 And the king said to Ziba, "Why have you brought these?" Ziba answered, "The donkeys are for the king's household to ride on, the bread and summer fruit for the young men to eat, and the wine for those who faint in the wilderness to drink." 3 And the king said, "And where is your master's son?" Ziba said to the king, "Behold, he remains in Jerusalem, for he said, 'Today the house of Israel will give me back the kingdom of my father.'" 4 Then the king said to Ziba, "Behold, all that belonged to Mephibosheth is now yours." And Ziba said, "I pay homage; let me ever find favor in your sight, my lord the king."

The backstory to this occurred in chapter nine. Sincerely wanting to show some respect to the first King of Israel, David asked Ziba, a former important official in  King Saul’s government, if there were any survivors that he could honor.  Ziba then informed him that the crippled son of David’s best friend Jonathan, a son of Saul who was killed in the same battle Saul was killed in, had survived.  This not only gave David a way to honor Israel’s first King but also an opportunity to fulfill his vow to Jonathan to protect his offspring.  David immediately sent for Mephibosheth and gave him all the possessions of Saul, including Saul’s lands.  He then ordered Ziba to assemble a crew to work them for Mephibosheth and give Mephibosheth all the profits.  David even invited Mephibosheth to live in Jerusalem and eat at David’s table anytime he wanted, meaning Mephibosheth had direct access and privileges with the King of Israel.  Once finding out Saul had a legitimate heir, he was obligated to give Saul’s lands to him, but he wasn’t obligated to do anything else.  David poured out his blessing on Jonathan’s son, but there was really nothing at all for David to gain from doing so.

So, imagine David’s anger when he is told Mephibosheth has betrayed his generosity and is seeking to somehow use these circumstances to become King!Not only has his own son launched a coup against him, but now he finds out the son of his best friend, a man he had gone above and beyond to provide for, was now trying to take advantage of him as well.  Remember, when you think things can’t get worse, you find out they can!

But here’s the deal. Ziba was either outright making up a lie to capitalize on the pressure David was under or conveniently repeating unverified gossip that, at best, left out important context and facts.  We don’t know if everything Ziba said was without merit, but in 2 Samuel 19, it appears that Mephibosheth had been mourning the overthrow of David and not attempting to use the circumstances for his own benefit. So even if Mephibosheth had unwittingly said some selfishly foolish things that made their way to Ziba, it appears he must have repented of those statements and actually put his own life on the line by publicly grieving for David. Furthermore, it is highly unlikely that Absalom’s rebellion could have in any way created a pathway to the throne for Mephibosheth.

Either way, David responded to the news by giving all of Mephibosheth’s belongings to Ziba.Since Ziba didn’t even remotely protest the decisions, it appears this was precisely what Ziba was trying to accomplish in bringing food and supplies to David and his people in the first place—it was flattery!

Now, while I’m not willing to say this is David cracking or exploding, as in his response to the added pressure of this news didn’t cause David to have a complete emotional and spiritual meltdown that left him incapable of making wise decisions, it was, however, an unwise and unjust decision that the obvious emotions David was dealing with at the time helped facilitate.Keddie noted,

“Closely related is the biblical requirement for the evidence of two or more witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15; Matthew 18:15–16; 1 Timothy 5:19; Hebrews 10:28). David did not need to disbelieve Ziba’s word, but the law of God required him to reserve his judgement until there was corroboration or refutation of Ziba’s allegation. Even if our most trustworthy friend tells us something, we have no business judging the other person on that basis. It is not a matter of distrusting our friend and his information—it is a matter of God-honouring justice to the other party in the case.”¹Keddie, G. J. (1990). Triumph of the King: The Message of 2 Samuel (p. 152). Evangelical Press

David’s circumstances certainly don’t justify his actions in this matter, but it does make them understandable.David reacted as a man under massive pressure but not as a man who was totally out of control.  One might argue that if David had truly lost it at this point, he would have just sent somebody back to Jerusalem to kill Mephibosheth, which wouldn’t have been a difficult thing to accomplish.

The second escalation of pressure in David’s life came from a man so filled with bias that he was seemingly ready to believe any negativity about David.

Escalation #2 – A relative of Saul shouted lies about David’s character and actions and even physically attacked him!

5 When King David came to Bahurim, there came out a man of the family of the house of Saul, whose name was Shimei, the son of Gera, and as he came he cursed continually. 6 And he threw stones at David and at all the servants of King David, and all the people and all the mighty men were on his right hand and on his left. 7 And Shimei said as he cursed, "Get out, get out, you man of blood, you worthless man! 8 The LORD has avenged on you all the blood of the house of Saul, in whose place you have reigned, and the LORD has given the kingdom into the hand of your son Absalom. See, your evil is on you, for you are a man of blood."

Shimei publicly accused David of being directly responsible for the death of Saul and his sons, which is totally untrue. These are the kind of actions of a man who has either been brainwashed by the deceitful murmurings of others/or has never been open to what God was doing in the first place.  In this case, GOD was clearly the one who removed Saul as King, and David clearly had nothing at all to do with it. He wasn’t involved with or even near the battle where Saul and most of his sons got killed, and he had nothing to do with the execution of Ishbosheth; David actually executed the men who took credit for killing Ishbosheth!  Furthermore, it was God who chose David to be the next king of Israel instead of Saul. David was literally minding his own business, shepherding sheep, when Samuel showed up and anointed him, yet he still did nothing but serve and protect Saul and his family even when Saul was trying to kill him!  David not only refused to kill Saul when he had easy opportunities to do so, but he also refused to allow any of his men to do it either!

Finally, there is a massive hypocrisy in Shimei accusing David of being a man of blood; after all, it was Saul who had ordered the immoral execution of all the priests in Nob, had tried to kill David on numerous occasions, and in his selfishly motivated rages had committed all kinds of other atrocities!!

Therefore, this man’s attacks were either rooted in a deep negative bias towards David that left him incapable of objectively hearing the facts, or he had been lied to for so long by people who were biasedly loyal to Saul that he ignorantly just didn’t know the truth. Either way, he has so much hatred for David that when he hears David is coming through town, he loses his mind and starts shouting insults towards David and throwing stones at him.

Now, it’s important to remember who we are talking about at this point. David killed Goliath.  David doubled the bride price required by Saul to marry his daughter when he killed two hundred Philistine soldiers, circumcised them, and brought their foreskins back to Saul.  As the crowds cheered Saul for killing thousands, they also cheered David for killing tens of thousands.

My point is that this Shimei guy has been sitting around watching cable news shows for so long that he has gone totally mad with anger to the point he's out there cursing and throwing stones at a man who is very talented at killing people! Shimei’s foolish arrogance is on full display at this point.  He’s so consumed with his opinions that he is literally out there acting like a complete idiot who sees no need to stop to consider things that could prove his conclusions to be incorrect or even tainted.  He’s acting like one of those people who refuse to allow the facts to get in the way of their strongly held opinions!

Furthermore, at this point in David’s life, you would think that he’s got to be absolutely filled with anger. You would think the massive pressure of his life would have steam screaming out of him everywhere possible at this point.  There would be no shock at all if what we read next was David pulling out his sword, running straight at this man, tackling him to the ground, and then cutting his tongue out for uttering lies, cutting his hands off for throwing stones at him and his men, and then cutting his head off for treason!  As a matter of fact, one of his men was already eager to do that very thing!  The Bible says,

9 Then Abishai the son of Zeruiah said to the king, "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king? Let me go over and take off his head." 10 But the king said, "What have I to do with you, you sons of Zeruiah? If he is cursing because the LORD has said to him, 'Curse David,' who then shall say, 'Why have you done so?'" 11 And David said to Abishai and to all his servants, "Behold, my own son seeks my life; how much more now may this Benjaminite! Leave him alone, and let him curse, for the LORD has told him to. 12 It may be that the LORD will look on the wrong done to me, and that the LORD will repay me with good for his cursing today." 13 So David and his men went on the road, while Shimei went along on the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went and threw stones at him and flung dust. 14 And the king, and all the people who were with him, arrived weary at the Jordan. And there he refreshed himself.

 The fact that David’s men were instantly ready to kill this guy had to at least be somewhat encouraging to David.But that aside, David’s response shouts of the perseverance and wisdom of a man who has found a way to counteract the cause of the pressure in his life and thus reduce the impact of the circumstances creating a forest fire around him.  David had clearly found a way to reduce the pressure so that when the rocks were hurled at him, he didn’t explode like a pressure cooker on overload!  You know that it doesn’t take a lot to make something pop when the internal pressure is pressing outward so hard that it’s already about to!

David’s response to this situation brings to mind what Paul wrote to the church in Rome,

3 More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:3-5)

2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, 3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. 4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. (James 1:2-4)

David wasn’t instituting ways to vent the pressure off him; if he had been, cutting off Shimei’s head would have been a perfect way to relieve some!Instead, David is finding ways to counteract the production of pressure.  The pressure gauge is dropping not because David is venting the steam but because David has found a way to counteract the steam production!  It appears that David’s revived relationship with the Lord and the total surrender to God required to have a revived relationship with the Lord is counteracting the massive pressure in his life, so much so that it’s enabling him to function not as a pot about to explode but as a man who believes that no matter how messed up everything is, God is still in control.

This is also why the third escalation of the pressure on David’s life didn’t cause him to do something stupid.

 Escalation #3 – Absalom publicly displayed that he was having sex with David’s concubines. 

Now, before the narrator takes us into the insanity of what happened on the roof of David’s house, he updates us on the status of the spy David planted in Absalom’s inner circle of advisors.

15 Now Absalom and all the people, the men of Israel, came to Jerusalem, and Ahithophel with him. 16 And when Hushai the Archite, David's friend, came to Absalom, Hushai said to Absalom, "Long live the king! Long live the king!" 17 And Absalom said to Hushai, "Is this your loyalty to your friend? Why did you not go with your friend?" 18 And Hushai said to Absalom, "No, for whom the LORD and this people and all the men of Israel have chosen, his I will be, and with him I will remain. 19 And again, whom should I serve? Should it not be his son? As I have served your father, so I will serve you."

This was a massively important victory for David; we will see why when we study 2 Samuel 17. However, at this point in the story, David had no idea how things were going with Hushai, but I’m sure he soon heard about what happened next!  The Bible states,

20 Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, "Give your counsel. What shall we do?" 21 Ahithophel said to Absalom, "Go in to your father's concubines, whom he has left to keep the house, and all Israel will hear that you have made yourself a stench to your father, and the hands of all who are with you will be strengthened." 22 So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof. And Absalom went in to his father's concubines in the sight of all Israel. 23 Now in those days the counsel that Ahithophel gave was as if one consulted the word of God; so was all the counsel of Ahithophel esteemed, both by David and by Absalom.

Ahithophel was considered the wisest advisor in all the land, so wise that whatever advice he gave was as if God himself gave it. Now, we need to be clear that God was not giving Absalom this advice through Ahithophel, but as immoral as it was, it was wise from the standpoint of the context of Absalom’s coup.  Absalom needed to convince the people of Jerusalem that he was all in with this coup and that to back him was to back the true alpha male.  So, when the people saw David’s concubines going into a tent on the roof of David’s house to have sex with Absalom, that pretty much burned all the bridges of doubt that Absalom was all in with his coup, and for some, it also likely energized them into cheering Absalom on as the new alpha male of Israel.

Now, once again, it would have been totally emotionally understandable if David stormed back to Jerusalem at this point and attacked his son and his son’s army, but that would have resulted in a lot of innocent people dying and David’s army being defeated.But because David is counteracting the circumstances that were trying to turn David into a pressure cooker that was about to explode, David had clearly found a way to relegate the heat trying to produce the pressure in his life that would indeed cause him to explode and do something as stupid as attack Jerusalem!

Now, this sets us up for what’s going to happen next week, and as such, it’s a great opportunity to put the story on pause and talk about how we can Biblically counteract the buildup of pressure in our lives, not by venting it but by keeping it from reaching the point of making the weight on the pressure valve rock and clang in the first place!

However, before we do, I want to make sure you understand something.  If we don’t counteract the energy that’s creating the steam in the pressure cooker, then the only thing we can do is either vent the pot or risk the pot completely exploding.  I’ve already stated that it’s healthy to have constructive outlets in our lives, like getting a workout or some kind of affordable hobby (if you get involved with a hobby that you can’t afford, then you just create more pressure in your life!). Even Jesus needed to ditch his disciples and take a hike on his own every now and then!  But here’s the deal: if our only solution to the pressure of life is venting, then we are settling for a temporary relief that doesn’t relegate the cause of the pressure.  If you don’t address the cause of the pressure, then you will never be free from the need to vent!

So, given how little we can control in life; given we can’t do much in the way of changing our circumstances; given the fire heating the pot could be something I have no power to change or, more importantly, even a green light from God to try and change, how then do we relegate what’s causing our life to become a pressure cooker that’s about to explode? There’s a lot we could talk about here, but I want to focus on what the Bible makes clear to be the essential one.

 The following is the foundational Biblical key for relegating the cause of the pressure in your life.

 Run to Jesus, throw your concerns on Him, and be consumed with worshiping Him for who He is!

Peter wrote,

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

The imagery of “casting” is not one of casually laying something down but rather of running into the throne room of God and throwing your burdens on Him as you fall to your face at His feet and worship Him! It’s not an image of running into the throne room of God, giving Him counsel about what you think He needs to do, and certainly not of yelling at Him about what you think He failed to do.  Rather, the image of 1 Peter 5:6-7 is of running into the throne room of God, not only because you know being near Him is your only hope, but more importantly, that there is no greater place to be, period!  You cast your cares on Him and fall at His feet to worship Him because you don’t want to waste any more energy holding on to the things creating all the pressure in your life, but you are instead ready to have your hands free to do nothing but worship Him!

This is precisely what we saw David do last week towards the end of chapter 15. He went up the Mount of Olives barefoot with his head covered, casting all his cares on the Lord!  We read it last week, but in light of what we just read in 1 Peter, I want you to hear a few of those verses again from Psalm 3 about what happened between David and the Lord on that barefoot walk up the Mount of Olives.  David said,

1 LORD, how many are my foes! How many rise up against me! 2 Many are saying of me, “God will not deliver him.” 3 But you, LORD, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high. 4 I call out to the LORD, and he answers me from his holy mountain. 5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the LORD sustains me. 6 I will not fear though tens of thousands assail me on every side. (Psalm 3:1-6)

David didn’t run to his counselors; he got them together and took them with him to run to the Lord to throw ALL his cares on GOD, and as he did, the circumstances didn’t change, but the effect of the heat on the pot did!! David went from desperation to confidence, and as such, he gained the clarity he needed to recognize he had an opportunity to counter the counsel of Ahithophel by sending Hushai back to Jerusalem as a spy in the courtroom of Absalom and here, in chapter 16 we find out that Hushai has made it—more on that next week!

But then, after this awesome time of worship on the Mount of Olives, David had to get back to the task at hand—getting his people to safety. But the significance of his worship wasn’t that he was on the Mount of Olives, but that he was fully surrendered to the Lord and had no intention of doing anything else!  Therefore, in the very next chapter, the one we just read, when the enemy kept cranking up the heat, trying to escalate the pressure in David’s life, it didn’t work.  David had already thrown his burden on the Lord, and he wasn’t about to exchange his worship for clinging to his burden anymore!  He had finally acknowledged that God is in charge of His circumstances, and God is always worth trusting.

So, no matter how much the enemy cranked the heat up, the water just wouldn’t boil, and the weight over the pressure valve wouldn’t start rocking and clanging because David had now activated the power of God in his circumstance! David didn’t need to vent off steam because the pot had no steam! By this point, the stove in David’s life had been turned up as high as it could go, but now that he was genuinely abiding with the Lord, there was a force at work in his experience that was bigger, more powerful, and more glorious than his circumstances.

As long as our cares are thrown on Jesus, and our hands and hearts are fully focused on worshipping Him instead of trying to control our circumstances, then the water won’t boil, the steam won’t spew, and the pot won’t explode no matter how hot the fire gets under the pot! It's why Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walked out of the fire uninjured. The one who was greater than the fire in the furnace and therefore greater than their circumstance totally changed how their circumstance impacted their experience!  The fire didn’t go away; it was overcome by the sovereignty of God to accomplish a different purpose!

Challenge

Is your mission in life to address the cause of your pressure or the cause of Christ?

A great example of what I’m talking about here happened during one of the occasions that Paul was imprisoned.  Apparently, word got out that Paul wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon, and it opened the door for people who claimed to be followers of Christ and ministers of the Gospel to try and undermine his ministry and claim it for themselves.  It was a serious pressure cooker moment in Paul’s life.  He’s in a Roman prison while people who claim to be living for Christ are trying to steal his life’s work from him!  He’s got the threat of death in prison and the threat of being torn away from everything he’s been building.  So, in writing to the church at Phillippi, Paul makes sure he clarifies why these people are doing what they are doing and, as such, publicly rebukes them.  He’s also really clear that his mission in life isn’t to deal with these people or even to protect “his” ministry.  Listen to what Paul says about the situation.

14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. 15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice, 19 for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, 20 as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. (Philippians 1:14-21)

 Paul had run to Jesus and cast all his cares on Him.  Therefore, his mission was nothing but worshiping Jesus and inviting the world to do it with him, to the point that, like David, if he lost his ministry or even his life, he didn’t care because he knew he couldn’t lose Jesus!