Fighting the Flesh

Introduction

Last week I sent out an update letter from The Mason’s our friends who are serving in Southeast Asia as missionaries with the IMB. I hope you received that email and read it.

Getting a letter from missionaries is a really valuable thing—we want to know how they are doing, how we can pray for them.

It’s far easier nowadays to receive these updates. I’m reading a biography on Charlotte Atlee White Rowe who was the first appointed female missionary and her first update letter arrived to her home church 9 months after she left the shores of England and headed to India.

Philippians is a letter from Paul to his former congregation in Philippi—they wanted to know how he was doing amidst the rumors of his imprisonment and hardships.

Our text today is Philippians 1:12-18. You can go ahead and find your way there.

Like Charlotte the Apostle Paul did not have email or Zoom—he wrote letters too. Philippians is one of these letters.

And so far in verses 1-11 Paul has thanked God for the Philippians, expressing his love for them, and telling them how he prays for them.

And now in verses 12-18 Paul gives them an update on how things are going with him.

And our text breaks into two majore exhortations for us. I. Put the Gospel First and II. Love the Glory of Christ More Than Your Own.

So that’s where we are going to focus this morning—these two battles—to put the gospel first in our lives and to love God’s glory more than we love our own.

I. Put the Gospel First (12-14)

Philippians 1:12-14 “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

We see the scripture stories from a top down perspective. We see months and years sequentially in chapters but for the Philippians it had likely been a long number of months since they had heard directly from Paul instead of just hearing about him.

And what Paul chooses to talk with the Philippians about is really telling of his focus. He doesn’t go on and on about his imprisonment or every hardship that has happened to him.

He says, “I want you to know brothers that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel,...”

What has happened could refer to everything that has happened to him since he left Jerusalem in captivity and made his way to Rome.

This would include a riot, a two-year imprisonment in Caesarea, appealing to Ceasar, a threat on his life, a shipwreck on the way to Rome, his current house arrest, or the uncertainty of his future.

There is a lot to write about, to update the Philippians on, there is a lot to complain about but Paul’s focus is elswehwere and he simply sums it all up with “all that has happened to me”.

What is Paul’s focus? What does he say about all that has happened to him?

God’s Mission is Being Accomplished

Paul says, “All that has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

Paul looked at the hardship in his life and his focus was not on the hardship but on what was being accomplished by it.

The word for advance used here carries with it the idea of “blazing a trail for others to follow in”.

Paul could see through his suffering the gospel was moving into new territory.

The Romans wanted to quiet Paul down, the Jews wanted him dead but all that had happened was that Paul was given a captive audience that he probably never would have gotten a chance to preach to.

Everyday for two years Paul was chained to different members of the Praetorian Guard—on rotating shifts. Paul was chained to them, but they were also chained to Paul. And there was no way you could be chained to Paul and not here the life changing good news of Jesus Christ.

As a result some of these guards were saved. And the gospel was being preached in Caesar’s own household.

And as a result people in Caesar’s household are getting saved. At the end of this letter Paul writes in Philippians 4:22 “All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar’s household.”

And as a result the gospel is being preached more boldly in the capital city of the world. Our text this morning says that other saints in Rome are emboldened by Paul’s example.

Paul’s plan was to go to Spain but God’s plan was to imprison Paul in Rome that the gospel would be strengthened and spread there.

And Paul is rejoicing over what is taking place in his hardships.

Paul has confidence in the plan of God instead of complaining.

Paul’s focus here is not on himself. Or his comfort. Paul didn’t stop wanting to go to Spain. Paul didn’t want to be imprisoned. But his focus was not on his wants and his own comfort, his focus was on God and God’s plan.

Friends, if we are self-focused we will complain everytime our comfort is challenged.

And in this world our comfort will be challenged alot. So the question is do you want to be a person that complains alot?!

Or do you want to be a person that rejoices alot?

If our focus is instead on God then we will see our hardships in a different light. We never know how God might use our suffering to advance the gospel.

Peter O’Brien grew up in a home where neither of his parents were Christians. But his mom became friends with and was greatly impacted by their next door neighbor. A lady who had an incurable disease and suffered day after day without ever complaining about her circumstances.

Her attitude and witness made a huge impact on O’Briens mother and she eventually trusted Christ as her Savior.

Later under his mother’s influce Peter became a Christian. He would go on to seminary and to get his PhD. He would go to India and share the gospel for years. Then he would go to Austrailia: share the gospel, teach pasotrs and write commentaries.

Now if you had initially come to this suffering lady and said, “Here’s the deal: If you will glorify Christ in your suffering then Indian people will be converted, pastors will be trained to teach the Bible, and countless God-glorifying sermons will be preached. Will you do it? Will you suffer faithfully everyday?

She probably would have said, “Yes, Yes I can endure the suffering for these reasons.”

But she didn’t know. Friends when we are in the middle of the suffering we never know what will happen as a result of it—but we must trust that God is sovereign and that He can and often does advance the gospel through the hardships of his people.

And this should encourage us because it means that in all things—especially the hard things—our God is sovereign.

Our job is to, like Paul, stay gospel focused in the midst of it.

So what does that look like for you? Maybe you don’t like your job. Maybe you have a bothersome neighbor. Possibly you yourself are struggling through pain. What is your hardship?

Whatever it is, let me ask you, how are you thinking about it? Is it a bothersome interupption to your plan for your life—or are you viewing it as a bothersome interupption that God is using to advance the gospel?

Friends, know that at anytime you can come to the great lover of your soul and give him your worry and your anxiety and your frustration—you can drink deeply of the grace that is yours in Jesus Christ and in His strength you and I can really face the hardships of life in a way that accomplishes the mission of God.

So this morning our text is encouraging us to Put the Gospel First. That in all things we would see our job, where we live, our hobbies, and our hardships as God ordained for the purpose of advancing the gospel.

The second way our text pushes on us this morning will help us with the first. If we are to put the gospel first then we must

II. Love the Glory of Christ More Than Our Own (15-18)

In these next couple of verses we see Paul talking about the motives of human hearts.

Even though some believers were inspired by Paul’s imprisonment like we see in v.14, others were not.

These other believers looked imprisonment in a different light. Let’s read the text.

Philippians 1:15-18 “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 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,”

Eugene Peterson was an American Presbyterian who wrote The Message. Peterson’s goal for writing the message was to provide a companion to God’s word to help readers instantly understand it.

I don’t reccomend that you use The Message as your primary copy of God’s Word but sometimes the feeling of the passage is captured really well. Listen to how he translates the rest of our passage:

It’s true that some here preach Christ because with me out of the way, they think they’ll step right into the spotlight. But the others do it with the best heart in the world. One group is motivated by pure love, knowing that I am here defending the Message, wanting to help. The others, now that I’m out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves. Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition, and so the worse it goes for me, the better—they think—for them.

So how am I to respond? I’ve decided that I really don’t care about their motives, whether mixed, bad, or indifferent. Every time one of them opens his mouth, Christ is proclaimed, so I just cheer them on!

So with the rest of our time let’s compare the motives and message of these two sets of people we see in our text and apply God’s Word here to our own motives.

Our passage gives us two sets of evangelists here; two sets of believers and both of the were sharing the gospel.

There are envious evangelists preaching the gospel while filled with envy and strife.

And there are empathetic evangelists who preach out fo “good will”

One group preaches out of rivalry and the other group preaches out of love.

The envious evangelists look at Paul’s imprisonment as an opportunity for their own to elevate their own ministries.

The empathetic evangelists care about Paul and seek to partner with him in the proclamation of the gospel.

Here’s the thing friends—we should not assume that the envious evangelists are not believers because our text doesn’t say that they are.

It’s easy to see “bad actors” in biblical stories and just slap the label of “not saved” on them, but our text doesn’t say this.

What we are seeing here is believers who have fallen into some bad ways. And you and I should understand that this can happen to us as well. So let’s learn from them.

As we look at these brothers in this text acting poorly we see 4 warnings:

1. We need to beware of jealously and envy in our own ministries.

Maybe the first thing you thought was, “I don’t have a ministry.”

Let me just say, if you are alive and you are a follower of Jesus then you have a ministry. Maybe it isn’t vocational, it’s not your job, but you have a ministry because you carry the gospel with you everywhere you go. And hopefully you talk about Christ.

How do you know if you are in danger of jealousy and envy?

Do you constantly compare yourself to others? Do you rejoice when others suceed or do you get jealous thinking that it should be you instead.

When other people are praised do you resent it? Do you start looking for their faults?

Jealousy and envy are especially dangerous if you are a minister. Pastors are the worst about looking at other pastors and being jealous over them and what God is doing in their ministries. And our text lets us know this isn’t a modern problem.

Paul was uniquely gifted and used by God. But instead of rejoicing in Paul’s ministry, the envious evangelists resented him and couldn’t rejoice in Christ’ work through him.

But this isn’t unique to pastors. Any believer can experience this.

And we must be on guard against it. We must not take the sin of jealousy and say, “Well it’s normal to be jealous.” We have to fight against it.

2. Beware of rivalry and selfish ambition.

These pastors that were giving Paul a hard time wanted to be recognized and made much of by others.

It’s a sad thing to compete with others for position when they are on the same team that you are on. The disciples did this too, jockeying to sit at the right and left hand of Christ in his kingdom. And Christ told them and us, it is the first who will be last and the last who will be first.

Selfish ambition and rivalry should be out of place in the hearts of Christ’s people. Christ emptied himself for sinners; we should not fill ourselves with pride instead of following his example.

The blessings that other people get are their blessings and you have yours. But the truth is that it is very hard to see how God is blessing you if you are constantly upset that you don’t have someone elses.

Are you struggling with this?

Do you struggle with rivalry? Maybe you get really frustrated with that other mom who’s part of the homeschool group? Or maye it’s someone at work who keeps getting promotions that you applied for.

Whatever it is, whatever reason we must fight against jealousy and rivalry. These blind us from seeing clearly what God has called us to do.

3. Beware of your response when others are jealous of you.

None of us are likely to be the Apostle Paul but the Lord may grant you some unexpected influence. And if he does others can grow jealous of you.

When people are jealous of you they may do several things. They might criticize you unfairly—always watching what you are doing.

They might speak poorly of you to others. They might stop talking with you. They might disrespect you.

You might think, this probably won’t happen to me, but don’t count out the possibility. How should we respond when these things happen?

Should we work hard to clear our name. Should we seek justice? Revenge?

What does Paul do?

He doesn’t try to defend himself. He doesn’t get wrapped up in it at all. Paul knows that God will ultimately judge the hearts and lives of people.

Paul stays focused on proclaiming Christ, he stays focuses on putting the gospel first.

We can spend a lot of time worrying about how people think of us—I know that for some people someone not liking you is a really time consuming thing, but the truth is that we can’t control how others think of us....

What we can do is think about how Christ thinks of us—about how we are secure in the gospel.

We can put our minds on the truth that we were lost and dead in our sin, but now we are alive in Christ. He died for our sins and they no longer condemn us.

We are alive in Christ and have been given ministries in Christ. We are to take the gospel with us everywhere we go and our good and sovereign God will use our lives for His glory.

This is what we see Paul doing. Philippians 1:18 “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,”

He rejoices in Christ being proclaimed even if it is by those who would see harm come to Paul.

Conclusion

This morning then what about us?

Are we putting the gospel first? Or are we putting our comfort first? Do we view the circumstances of our lives through the lens of gospel work? Or are we driven by our own comfort?

Whose glory are you concerned with? Are you more concerned with the glory of God or the glory of self?

Paul is an excellent example for us this morning friends. But let us also go to the source of Paul’s strength for these things. Paul had a heart full of worship for God and this enabled him to put the gospel first and to seek God’s glory above his own.

So what do we do? How do we move forward? How do we apply this sermon?

Pray that God would reveal to you areas of jealousy and envy. Pray that your heart would trust God’s sovereignty in adversity. Pray that God’s glory would be more important to you than your own.

And in all of this friends we cling to Christ that we may become more and more like him. Let’s pray.