Philippians 1:12-18 – Perspective

20/09/20 Philippians 1:12-18 – Perspective

HBI: vs 18 Whether through persecution and pain or the highs of life, in every way Christ needs to be proclaimed and in that we rejoice.

Þ Intro

- Paul had a desire, and that desire was to spread the gospel. In this desire to spread the gospel Paul really wanted to go to Rome to spread the gospel.

- As we know God changed Paul’s plans. He did end up going to Rome but not in the same way that he originally thought that he was going to get there.

- Rome was a key city at the time and If he could spread the gospel there then many would here of the gospel of Christ, such was his desire to be a missionary there.

- Well while Paul was in Jerusalem, he was preaching the gospel to the Jews and the Jewish leaders got so mad at him they vowed not to eat or drink till he was dead.

- They got Paul arrested and beaten and thrown in jail. Paul became the focal point of both political and religious plotting and remained a prisoner in Caesarea for two years.

- When he finally appealed to Caesar (which was the privilege of every Roman citizen), he was sent to Rome.

- En-route, the ship was wrecked! The account of that storm and Paul's courage and faith is one of the most dramatic in the Bible. After three months of waiting on the Island of Malta, Paul finally embarked for Rome and the trial he had requested before Caesar.

- Many would see this as failure, they would wonder why Paul would continue on after going through all that he went through to get to Rome.

- But Paul had one track mind, to spread the gospel in spite of what was happening to him. Call Him crazy, but that is what God called him to do.

- Everyone has heard of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the famous British preacher, but few know the story of his wife, Susannah. Early in their married life, Mrs. Spurgeon became an invalid. It looked as though her only ministry would be encouraging her husband and praying for his work. But God gave her a burden to share her husband's books with pastors who were unable to purchase them. This burden soon led to the founding of the "Book Fund." As a work of faith, the "Book Fund" provided thousands of pastors with tools for their work. All this was supervised by Mrs. Spurgeon from her home. It was a pioneer ministry.

- God wants us to be like that as well, in our Christ centered life he wants us to be pioneers of the gospel. To take the gospel into the world no matter what we will go through along the way.

- SO, what then does it look like for Christ to be preached despite all that we are going through? There are 3 ways Paul tells us God used him to pioneer the gospel in Rome.

Þ Paul’s Chains vs 12-14

- God can use anything to advance the gospel. We would be foolish to think there is something in our life that has surprised God. There is nothing that will take Him by surprise and cause God to say, “well now how am I going to use this?”.

- God sometimes uses what we may see as strange tools to advance the gospel. And if our perspective is not in the right place then we will fail to see How God can use us.

- You see it is all about our perspective during the times when our circumstances change. Our perspective always needs to be centered on JESUS.

- Philippians 1:12 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel,

- Paul wanted to reassure the church in Philippi. They likely would have heard all that Paul had gone through and where likely worried about him.

- We get the encouragement that Paul sent to them that His goal, our goal in living a Christ centered life was to advance the gospel. And the first tool that we hear that God used in the life of Paul to advance the gospel was Paul’s chains.

- I was doing a bit of research on this verse. I like to do word studies sometimes. The word used for “actually advanced” is a military term, or at least has in the past been used as a military term.

- The word was used to mean something more along the lines of a pioneer advance. To further something despite repeated blows, progress despite difficulties. The first of people to go and prepare and scout out the way even though it would have been hard.

- So, the advance of the gospel that had been made was to prepare the way for God to work in their midst, but more importantly it was to prepare the way through difficult times.

- God often uses many things that the world would consider foolish. Just look at the people He has used.

- People could have looked at Paul and seen his chains. Maybe wrote him off because of his imprisonment. But Paul say his chains where just a means to share the gospel.

- Philippians 1:13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.

- Paul knew that his imprisonment was because he was spreading the story of Jesus. His chains where literally because Paul lived a Christ centered life.

- There is joy in this statement, joy in the fact that Paul was in prison for all the right reasons if that seems possible.

- This had the possibility to scare some people away from spreading the gospel, but the message is clear to us all, if you are living a Christ cantered life spreading the gospel no matter what happens have joy. What better accusation is there then to be accused of living a life for Jesus.

- 14 Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.

- What this caused to happen is it gave the people confidence. When you see your mentor go through some horrible times yet have confidence and joy it gives you confidence as well.

- If I am going to get in trouble for anything then let it be for sharing the gospel with people. You see if our perspective is on the hard times when we go through hard times then they will likely draw us away from the Lord.

- But if through the hard times our focus is on God and sharing His gospel, then we can find joy in all things because we know God’s will is being done through us.

Þ His Critics – 15-18

- The 2nd think God used to spread the gospel In Paul’s Ministry was his critics and his friends. Philippians 1:15 To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of good will.

- We have two different type of people that are being talked about here. There are critics and followers of Jesus.

- In the next verse it tells us that the critics are preaching Christ to get Paul in even more trouble. Paul was in the position because the Sanhedrin got riled up over what they viewed as heresy, so they went and got Paul thrown in Prison.

- They then started to preach the gospel to get Paul in even more trouble. That seems weird to me. I do not believe your message, but I am going to share it to get you in even more trouble.

- Sure, this is not ideal but with a Christ centered perspective Paul did not care. He said hey, Christ is being preached and people are coming to Him!

- Wow what a perspective. These people where set out to hurt Paul and as long as the name of Jesus was being spread that was fine with Him.

- I was helping lead a joint good Friday service once. A whole bunch of pastors in the area where also helping with the service.

- One of the pastors preached Christ, but in a way that I was not comfortable with and in a way that I did not think was biblical. But nevertheless, he preached Christ crucified. It was just the way it was delivered I felt was wrong.

- I found out later that during that service there where people that came to the Lord, during the message that was delivered in a way that I did not agree with.

- Well what on earth could I do? I wanted to tell the preacher that what he did was out of line, and I told him as much but then I said someone came to know Jesus through what he said so now it has caused me to think twice about what I was going to say.

- We have gone over what Paul’s end goal was, that is to be found perfected. But while on earth our job is to spread the gospel.

- With all this going one, even though some where preaching in order to bring harsher retribution down on Paul his attitude is one we need to echo. I like how Eugene Peterson phrases this in the message.

- Philippians 1:18 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! And I'm going to keep that celebration going

- I do not care why they are preaching Christ, I don’t care what there motives are, I don’t care what happens to me in the process people are becoming followers of Jesus and that is all that matters.

Þ So, What?

- How should this affect our lives? Though I have never had anyone preach Christ out of spite to get me in trouble I have seen many people who preach Christ out of some sort of selfish motive.

- Often when this happens though people tend to eb deceived in other ways. First the question that I need to ask is if I where to ask you what the gospel is what would you tell me?

- This seems like a rabbit trail but bear with me. We have been talking about what perspective we have on our circumstances. That no matter what happens to us if we are focused on Jesus and sharing the gospel and people are responding we will not care what happens to us as long as Christ is being preached.

- But we have also talked about the gospel. This is very important to understand. For it always comes back to the same thing, do we really know what the gospel is?

- I do not have much time left to get into it so let me be brief. It is our mission to spread the gospel. But what we have done over the past few years is turn the gospel into the salvation message.

- What must be done to be saved is important, but that is only a small, though vital, part of the gospel. What Paul was preaching was the story of Israel fulfilled through the person of Jesus who died on the cross for our sins.

- It is the life of Jesus, what He did, what He said. To become a follower of Jesus we first need to go back to the beginning and share Jesus with people. Not just the salvation message but the whole story of Jesus.

- In doing this sometimes-bad things happen and it causes a shift in our perspective to our circumstances rather then on Jesus.

- In stead of asking yourself How God can get you out of your circumstance ask How God can use you even in your circumstances.

- I am not saying that we need to stop praying for miracles to happen, but what I am saying is that we need to start asking God to use us despite what we are going through.

- If our perspective is Christ Centered then our goal is going to be to make sure that the message of Christ is spread to everyone we meet.