Philippians 1:12-18

Introduction

Have you ever had someone in your life who was just a bundle of joy? I mean at all times they are just full of life and always see the glass half full. Maybe it’s a grandparent, maybe it’s a friend or family member, a co-worker. Someone who every chance they get to put a positive spin on something they do. Their dog could have just died and they would probably come back to you and say “well at least they’re not suffering anymore. This will give us a chance to love on a new dog.”

Have you ever tried to complain to these people? You come home one day and you’re absolutely livid at your co-worker who you think isn’t holding their weight and you go to vent to your spouse and the ray of sunshine responds back with “well what a great opportunity for you to expand your skills”. Or you and a sibling are fighting and you try to complain to your parent about it and they encourage you that this is “an opportunity to exercise patience”. I don’t know about you, but the moment I hear that my frustration just went through the roof! All I want to do is complain about what is happening. Just let me vent my frustration!

But can I tell you what I've found the more I talk with the “Mr. Sunshines” of the world? There is rarely a circumstance in which there is not joy to be found. For those of you who are more like me and far more inclined to find the negative in a situation before a positive, Paul gives us a masterclass in what choosing joy looks like. Beaten 3 times, flogged 5 times, shipwrecked four times, imprisoned and even stoned once. A guy that if we’re friends and he invites me to join him on a roadtrip or a vacation, I’m busy. I don’t know with what or why I’m busy, but whenever he’s going somewhere, I've got something all of a sudden that I can’t get out of.

When we pick up today’s passage, we find Paul writing from the cell of a Roman prison. Chained to a wall, needing to rely on others to provide food for him, not knowing if he is to live or to be executed. And as he’s writing to a church, who by the way is around 300 miles away, what does the man who can make anything look like sunshine say to his audience?

God Uses Our Circumstances (V 12-13)

We pick up our passage following a beautiful exhortation that Paul has just given this church about how deeply he cares about them. Paul has opened this letter describing the hope that he has derived from the church at Philippi. There is a clear love between him and this church that has given him great hope during his stay in prison. Verse 12 marks the beginning of his “update” to the church about his present circumstances. From inside the confines of a prison cell Paul writes, “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.”

This congregation is worried. Paul himself is unsure at this point whether his life is coming to a close or whether this is just another hardship he must endure. Yet what does he tell this congregation? “What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel”. Paul’s perspective is not just something we ought to admire, but something we ought to aspire to have. Staring at the walls of prison he tells this church that these circumstances he has found himself in have come to be something that has grown to advance the gospel. Christ has become proclaimed and known as a result of Paul’s imprisonment. These imperial guards may never have had the chance to come to know Christ without Paul’s imprisonment.

Yet is this how you and I view the circumstances we find ourselves in? Maybe you came in to service today and parts of your life didn’t turn out the way you expected. A relationship failed, a job was short lived, financial difficulties have caused great tension. Maybe you walked through the doors today carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Friends have left. Maybe a family member has passed. Someone you love is causing great distress. Life feels as though it just won’t let up. One trial after the next.

If you walked in feeling like that, might I point you toward the joy of this text? What I love about this passage is that Paul is not denying the suffering and stress that he is enduring. Rather he is pointing to how the Lord is using those very circumstances for good. When you look at the text Paul is rejoicing at his suffering because the entire imperial guard has come to know the gospel. His suffering is not where Paul’s focus lies, but rather how the gospel has come to be known through his suffering.

Do you and I view our suffering in this lens? Is our suffering a road to which people may come to know the gospel? Are we taking inventory of our circumstances rejoicing at the opportunities being provided? Paul saw his immediate suffering in light of the opportunities it provided with his ability to interact with the imperial guard. Yet Paul’s understanding of this opportunity did not merely stop at those he could preach the gospel to.

God Uses Our Endurance

In verse 14 we pick back up with Paul rejoicing in his circumstances when he tells this church “And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

Paul is a picture of resilience. He is one of those guys that just isn’t afraid of anything. No jail, or punishment, or suffering will deter Paul from his goal to make Christ known throughout the world. With everything this man had endured, He’s absolutely earned the right to complain. I don’t know about you, but I would be inclined to at least start questioning whether all of this is worth enduring the amount of suffering Paul is going through. Enduring hardship after hardship, going from suffering to suffering, with almost an expectation that if he endures this one there is another waiting.

Maybe you’re a bit familiar with this territory. Maybe cancer or some other illness has overtaken your life and even if you make it through this treatment, life won’t look the same at its completion. Or maybe you’ve recently lost a loved one and are experiencing how finality that comes with having loved ones pass. Maybe it's some other circumstance where when you look at your life, you can’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m not up here to deny the gravity of your suffering or to say it shouldn’t hurt because God can use it, but what I would encourage each of us to do is to take a look at suffering through the lens of Paul. Paul is able to rejoice in the darkest of times because he has understands that not only does he have the opportunity to bear witness to the imperial guards, but that others are watching him. They are looking to see how his endurance produces joy. They have seen that in the face of suffering, Paul possesses a boldness to stand firm in the truth of the gospel. His eyes are fixed on the things above. His correct view of suffering has led him to be able to endure. This endurance has become a beacon of hope to others.

When we experience the depth of the hardship that comes with living in a broken world, do you and I see our hardships in this light? Is our suffering a platform for others to encouraged by the gospel? I love this quote by Tim Keller where he says, “While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life’s joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of this world’s sorrows, tasting the coming joy.”

When I was in high school I remember my youth pastor went through a rocky time in his marriage. To me he was one of the most spiritual men I knew. I watched everything he did incredibly close because he was a spiritual giant in my life. He didn’t know the most theology nor was he the coolest guy I’d ever met, but he loved the Lord deeply. His marriage was falling apart and he gave up everything, including leading our youth ministry, to try and save it. While I was heartbroken to see him go, there was something powerful about the dedication he showed to the Lord and to his spouse. About a year after he left we met up and I had asked him what kept him going since everything else he had given up. He told me that the daily pursuit of the Lord and his word was what had sustained him. 6 years later, at the start of my final semester of college, I got a call from my mom letting me know her and my dad were getting a divorce. 2 months later, Covid took over the world and I moved back to a home with 2 divorced parents. On top of that, I wouldn’t be able to finish college and the church I had planned to work at no longer had a job for me. Devastated, not knowing what to do, I was reminded of watching my youth pastor have nothing left to give it seemed like. His endurance inspired me to pursue the Lord in the midst of suffering. His boldness to look suffering in the face and still choose the joy of Christ was a powerful example that carried me through a season of deep darkness.

The world is watching you whether you know it or not. Your children, your relatives, your co-workers. Are you setting an example of what it looks like to endure difficult circumstances for the sake of the gospel? These circumstances don’t always have to be life and death like Paul’s were. But when you’re ostracized for your faith at work or at family gatherings, or encounter backlash for your faith, may you set the example in what it looks like to endure for the sake of Christ.

Yet even though Paul has done a magnificent job of enduring in his suffering, not everyone takes it as a sign of inspiration. Some people rejoice, not that Christ has been preached, but that their time to shine has finally come.

God Uses Our Faults

Picking back up in verse 15 we read, “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.”

Paul’s letter is being written towards the tail end of his ministry. Yet as a result of his faithfulness to the gospel and all of his adventures to make it known, he has become a prominent figure. There is an authority that has been given to him both as an apostle and by the others who have heard his words. This has caused some jealousy within the early church. Some members of the church have rejoiced at Paul’s imprisonment as this is their “time to shine”. Similar to a basketball team who loses their star player to injury, his imprisonment has become an opportunity for some people to show just how “good” of a preacher they are.

Paul is fully aware that this is the case. However, he is careful not to group everyone in by this metric. He doesn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. Rather he creates two distinct groups. The first is those whose heart is to see the gospel preached and proclaimed. Paul’s heart is with these people as their heart is with him. The first group sees the suffering for what it is; suffering. Paul is not imprisoned for having violated laws that he should have obeyed. Rather, he is imprisoned for the sake of the gospel. They do not rejoice in his suffering but rather use the circumstances set before them to glorify the Lord. The second group is far different however. This group is the ones who are rejoicing at Paul’s imprisonment because it means the glorification of their name. They are not grieved at the suffering of their brother in Christ, but are elated by his suffering as it means that their name may be grown.

Before we step into Paul’s profound response to these two groups, take a moment and think about your own heart and motivation. Do we rejoice in the suffering of others if it means the glorification of our own name? When a co-worker is up for the same promotion you are and they mess up whatever the project is, are you rejoicing over their suffering? When you open your phone to check instagram, are you rejoicing to find out someone else is “farther behind” in life than you? Does your heart rejoice when those wrong you are brought low in an unjust manner?

You see I think when we read this story we can have a tendency to read it through the same eyes we read the story of Jesus and the Pharisees with. An idea that “that group” has wrong motives and only want what’s best for themselves. But I am always like the second group. My motives are of the purest intentions. Might I encourage you and me today that our pride can be one of the most dangerous parts about us. Our desire to be known and to be above everyone else, especially in the day and age of social media, is far more divisive than it is beneficial. Christian we should be leading the charge in pursuing unity. We have something to truly unite under in the completed work of Christ. Paul does not encourage further division, even though when we look at his others letters we see plenty of instances in which he draws boundaries regarding interacting with those who are detrimental to the health of a church.

So what then is Paul’s response to those who are preaching Christ so that they can elevate their own status? He rejoices at the fact that regardless of motivation, Christ is being preached and being made known. There is almost a unifying thought here that regardless of what happens to Paul or regardless what happens to the church or regardless what happens to any individual, the Lord can and will use anything and everything to accomplish his purposes. This beautiful invitation of the gospel has been extended to you and I. Some of us came to the Lord of our own fruition through healthy discussions, loving relationships, and maybe even a summer camp or two. Having a background in student ministry I had to throw that in there as I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with faithful believers that began at a summer camp retreat. Maybe that’s your story. Praise God for those stories. But maybe your story has something to do with you having to hit rock bottom before you surrendered to the Lord. Maybe your circumstances were far from ideal but you saw the hand of the Lord work mightily in that suffering. Maybe you witnessed someone in your life walk through deep darkness with an intense peace and joy that you had to figure out more about. Maybe you listened to a flawed speaker give a message that, through the Holy Spirit, you came to know the true person of Christ.

Christian can I encourage you that our concern as followers of Christ is not with finite things such as our circumstances and the motivation of others. The apostle Paul has given us a masterclass in this section on what it means to stare into the eyes of suffering and despair and find the Light of Christ in every circumstance and situation. We have a hope that does not fade. While we cannot control others or our circumstances, we can take heart that the Lord is working mightily in all situations. One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from John Piper’s Desiring God ministry. It says, “The Lord is doing 10,000 things in your life and you maybe know 3 of them”. Christian may we have the hope and vision that Paul had while in this Roman Prison. Our lives are an avenue for the gospel to be preached through whatever means the Lord deems fitting. Whatever life throws our way, we can have the ultimate confidence that what we are experiencing is for a purpose. It is far from easy and it is far from natural, but it is the Joy of the believer to look at the light at the end of the tunnel in Christ.

Non-Christian can I extend an invitation to you? I’m sure you’ve experienced suffering before. Some of you even in a manner that is brutally difficult for many in this room to even comprehend. Your suffering does not have to be for nothing. The God of the universe has heard your cries. He sees what you are walking through and wants to offer you the same peace the apostle found chained to the wall of a prison. We have been offered an opportunity in Christ to be united in relationship with the Lord once again. There is a light at the end of suffering and it is not death. Rather it is grounded in the idea that this is as bad as it gets. When our brief life comes to its ultimate conclusion, we begin eternity with no more sorrow, pain, or suffering. A world where everything is made right. Christ offers you this morning an invitation to give your suffering purpose.

Whether we want to admit it or not suffering comes to each one of us. We are guaranteed to endure hard times in this life. Yet with the hope of Christ that Paul describes, our suffering can become a source of hope for others. Christ gives our suffering purpose. May we suffer well and be reminded that the glass is always half full.