To Advance the Gospel

This morning, we're starting a new sermon series from the book of Philippians.

You'll read the text printed in the Bolton.

Be reading chapter 1, verses 1 through 18.

You might think of the theme of this sermon series, finding joy and contentment in the gospel.

Is that a challenge for you?

Finding a life of joy, finding a life of contentment.

Where do we find that?

But in the gospel.

And so we read this epistle.

You can imagine as Paul wrote these epistles and sent them by couriers to the churches.

Paul wrote this from a prison in Rome to the church in Philippi, a group of people that he loved dearly that we'll get to know more about as we go through this series.

Hear the word of God.

Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus, to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers and deacons, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all, making my prayer with joy.

Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, and I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel.

God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus.

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge and discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.

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.

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.

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.

This is the reading of God's holy, infallible, inerrant word.

May we ask him to open our minds by the work of the Spirit to understand and live by this truth this morning.

Father, we thank you for the life of the Apostle Paul, all that you did in him and through him.

We thank you for this epistle that we have centuries later.

And so, Lord, would you open our eyes, our minds, and our hearts this morning, that the gospel may advance in us and through us in even new ways in the days ahead.

We pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Not surprisingly, every one of Paul's letters was written for a particular reason to a particular audience, and they all have their own style and tone accordingly.

The epistle to the Roman Church, this theological treatise, the longest, clearest, fullest explanation we have of the gospel anywhere.

The book of Galatians, the letter to the Galatians, it has a fiery tone about it.

We just see Paul's passion erupting.

The book of Corinthians has a rather combative tone to it.

Still loving, but you just get the point as you read through this that there were things that Paul was quite concerned about, and at some points he says anxious about.

What about the letter to the Philippians?

Very personal, very warm.

He's got some things to say, some things to challenge, but you read this epistle and you get the sense that this was just a sweet time in his life, even with the challenges.

As I mentioned earlier, in this time of Paul's life, this is getting toward the end of his life.

He wrote probably around 61, 62 A.D., from prison in Rome.

This was not the last prison and imprisonment in Rome, in the Mamertine prison.

This was house arrest, but apparently he was chained to guards, even now.

Philippi, the city of Philippi, the very important city in the Roman colony, the first church in Europe on this major thoroughfare, this east-west turnpike.

Some of you remember from history, the Ignatian Way, that ran right through the city, located near rich mineral deposits, gold.

This was probably, there were definitely people of wealth in this congregation, influence.

Philippi, the urban political center in Macedonia.

Many residents of Roman soldiers who were fiercely loyal to the emperor, and we're going to catch a whiff of that through this letter.

Think in some ways, maybe like a little Washington.

A lot of retired military.

Well, yeah.

A lot of wealth and just a lot of things in common.

And this was the church that the Apostle Paul had spent time with.

We don't know how long he stayed there, but clearly he stayed there long enough to develop some very close personal relationships.

So why did he write this?

And let's just give a very broad overview out of the gate.

First of all, because they had were facing some hardships themselves and some persecution.

Secondly, to thank them for their financial gifts and their prayers.

They came at a critical time in his ministry, and he wanted them to know how thankful he was.

And thirdly, challenging them regarding their unity.

There were some unity issues.

There were some folks that were not getting along with each other.

And Paul gently, lovingly, but clearly invites them to come back to the cross and find reconciliation with people that they had been estranged from.

This is a letter about the gospel.

This word gospel occurs more often in this letter than any other Pauline letter.

And so he begins with the greetings that we see, typical Pauline style.

Right at the beginning, Paul and Timothy, and Timothy was his son in the faith.

Timothy was his closest spiritual companion on earth.

Servants of Christ Jesus.

It's interesting that he would say servants because most of these cities in Roman colonies had many servants, many slaves.

Oftentimes the cities would have more slaves than free.

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi.

To all the Christians.

And many of us know and understand that if you're a Christian, you're a saint.

The saints are not reserved for those patron saints of some churches.

The word in the Greek means those who have been set apart.

If you are a Christian, you have been set apart by God for Himself and for His purposes in your life, and it's good to be reminded of that, isn't it?

We are the set apart ones.

We've been set apart not primarily for our own life, but for his life and his sake.

And then we get to this point, and I think this is really the linchpin of this sermon.

I hope that you hear this.

To advance the gospel.

This is what Paul says clearly.

This is really the thrust of his letter.

To advance the gospel, that the gospel would go deeper in each of us, and that the gospel would go out of us.

And we say that a lot here because it's true.

When the gospel goes deeper in you, and it's really the gospel, and it's not religion, it's not morality, it's the gospel.

When the gospel goes in and the gospel goes deep, it always goes out.

We are not ponds that the water just collects.

We're rivers when the Spirit is at work.

Advancing the gospel.

This morning, in preparation for coming to the Lord's table, just two points.

Paul speaks, first of all, of how he advances the gospel through prayer.

And you see that in that first paragraph, verses 3 to 8.

The gospel is advanced through prayer.

Hear me, it's never advanced without prayer.

Whether that's a meeting, whether that's a Christian meeting, whether that's a worship service, whatever context you can think in your life, if you're not taking this gospel in by prayer through prayer, it's not going to advance very far in your life.

The centrality, the primacy of prayer.

And he praises prayer for the Philippians.

And notice, I'm just going to break it down as he does.

First of all, with thanksgiving.

It's probably been about four years since he's seen them.

But he still thinks of them.

And did you get that?

He says, when I think of you, he's not thinking of a congregation by name.

He's thinking about individual people with faces and names and stories that he knows.

He says, whenever I think of you, which is all the time, whenever I pray for you, which is often, every day, likely.

He didn't plant that many churches.

He said, I can't think of you without being thankful for you.

That God brought you into my life.

He says, always.

And that has really convicted me this week as I've studied.

That word haunts me.

Always?

How about sometimes?

How about sometimes when I think of you, I I pray with joy and thanksgiving.

He says, always.

That was the work of the Spirit, for sure.

For all of them, and this just grabs me.

How about not some of them?

What he's saying here is when he thinks of this congregation, if he was standing here in this pulpit today, and he said, I give thanks to God for every one of you in this congregation, with joy.

Yeah, but Paul, even the ones that are giving you grief, Paul, even the ones that are making your ministry harder, we're going to see the answer to that is yes.

And then he says, When I pray for you all with joy.

Now I mentioned at the outset that this is going to be a letter that we're going to learn more about joy.

This is the first of 16 times that he uses this word joy.

This is a letter about that subject, joy.

Joy ought to be one of the dominant themes of our Christian life.

Are we known for our joy?

We're going to talk about it because Paul does.

And then he says, because of their partnership in the gospel, from the first encounter with them until now, from the first encounter until now, evidently they didn't drop away, they didn't fade away, which sadly happens in many churches today.

People just fade away, they drop off.

And what happened?

Their partnership in this gospel, this word partnership is a strong word.

It doesn't refer primarily to participating in something just personal, like a hobby, but rather the gospel life itself.

It refers to participating in something that God does, not that we do.

It's not talking simply about sharing something.

You can think about it like this.

Paul would say about the Church of Alexandria Presbyterian Church as well, that the one thing that defines us more than anything else, not our hobbies, not our personalities, not our backgrounds, not our languages, which we have many in this church.

He says, the one thing that defines this congregation is that we are all participating in the great gospel proclamation.

That we are new creatures in Christ.

And it's about the gospels more than it is about us.

He says, that's what I pray for.

I thank God for.

Verse 6 being confident of this.

Many people say that this is one of the top five verses in the Bible.

Maybe it is for you.

That he who began a good work in you will what?

Complete it.

Don't you need to hear that sometimes?

God, I know you started this in me.

I know you gave me the new birth.

I believe that.

My life has changed in some ways.

But are you really going to see me through to the end?

Because sometimes I feel like giving up.

And sometimes I wonder if I'm going to make it.

Paul says, I am confident of this.

That he, God, who began a good work in you, will complete it.

This confidence is not based on us, but God.

The good work in us is God's.

That word good, that adjective, it refers to origin, the quality of the good, the purpose of the good, the result of the good.

The good work is God's.

William Hendrickson, Greek scholar, says that men conduct experiments, but God carries out plans.

And God never does anything by halves.

God never does anything incomplete.

One of my friends mentioned the other night in Bible study that God has a plan and he has a list of things for all of us to do.

And as my friend said that, I it just struck me in a different way.

Because it's true.

God has a list of things for every one of his people to do.

Now that's a good to-do list.

Some to-do lists kind of wear me out.

Just take that in for a moment.

Here's a list with your name on it for you to do to advance the gospel that nobody else can do but you.

If you believe that, it'll affect your life in a profound way.

Paul's prayer, let's get down to the prayer itself specifically.

Three things he prays for right here.

Paul's prayer, how about our prayer?

Number one, that our love may abound more and more.

This word is rich, like a river overflowing its banks.

With knowledge and discernment, advanced spiritual knowledge.

Knowledge that comes from the study of God's word.

But then he says, May your love for God and may your love for each other abound, overflow like a river.

And we've seen some of that on the news this past week, haven't we?

There's parts of our country that have been flooded.

What if that was my life?

What if that was your life?

And that was your love?

That your love for God and your love for other people is actually increasing.

You know it doesn't increase automatically just because you live longer as a Christian.

You know that, right?

Some people become less loving as they get older.

Some people become less discriminating as they get older.

Paul says, my prayer for you is as you get older, that your love for God will get richer.

But not just for God.

If you are growing in your love for God, this is an absolute certainty, it will become clear to others that your love is growing for other people too.

And notice how he said that earlier, not just for the people that you like.

Your love will get more concrete.

Your love will be expressed more visibly and tangibly for the people that you struggle with.

And it will become more discriminating.

What is best in my life?

You'll find yourself living a life where you'll think, as you wake up every day, Lord, it's not just show me where you want me to spend my time.

Show me how you want me to spend my life, my day, my hours, my schedule.

Lord, you need to give it to me because otherwise I'm going to just wander off on my own projects.

God, you give me your project.

Would you give me a wise and discerning mind?

I don't know about you, but I need that every day.

Because otherwise, I'm just giving to stray off and do my things.

To test something, discriminating.

It's a word that was used in that day for testing money, counterfeit money, the real thing, or candidates for office.

And then he says this.

Secondly, in this prayer, so as to be pure and blameless in life.

In the Greek, that word means oven tested.

To put through the fire, to burn off the impurities.

There's a great illustration that I read from James Boyce on this.

In that day and time when Paul wrote this, it would have been probably thinking about pottery.

In ancient times, the biggest industry in the world was the pottery industry.

And the pottery varied in quality just as our cars do today, or household goods.

The cheapest pottery was thick and solid and did not require much skill to make.

It is found everywhere at archaeological sites, but the finest pottery was thin.

It had a clear color, and it brought a high price.

Fine pottery was very fragile both before and after the heating, and it would often crack in the oven.

Cracked pottery should have been thrown away, but dishonest dealers were in the habit of filling in the cracks with a hard, pearly wax that would blend in with the color of the pottery.

Pottery.

This made the cracks practically undetectable to see in the shops, especially when painted or glazed over.

But the wax was immediately detectable when the pottery was held up to the light.

Let the sunlight run through it.

Especially under the sun.

It was said that the artificial element was detected by sun testing.

Honest dealers marked their finer product with the caption on it, without wax.

Paul is saying that the flaws in the lives of believers must not be covered up with wax.

Although our lives are not perfect and we have flaws, we must ask God to show us those flaws and not just wax over them.

Another way of thinking about what I just read to you is this.

He's saying, may you live lives without hypocrisy.

Don't be a Christian who says one thing and just does another.

May the gospel ring true in your heart.

Are we going to do this perfectly?

Absolutely not.

But we're all aware that sometimes it's just clear that some people really play loose with the truth.

To mean what you say, to say what you mean, without wax.

That was Paul's prayer for them.

Thirdly, that they may be filled with the fruit of righteousness that only the Holy Spirit can produce.

The fruit of righteousness is the fruit that righteousness produces as we walk with God, as we submit our lives under the scrutiny of the Holy Spirit.

These were Paul's prayers for the Philippians, and these are the prayers of God's people for the church today.

At APC.

In the closing moments, I want to bring you to the second point.

Paul's prayer was that the gospel would advance through persecution.

We'd rather not read that, but that's what it says.

Verses 12 through 18, he talks about what has happened to me.

Well, he's in prison for preaching the gospel.

And by the way, it's going to get worse in about two minutes.

I thank God for what's happening in my life because it's for the ultimate end of advancing the gospel.

That little phrase, what has happened to me, Paul says, now I'm going to turn it on you.

What has happened to you?

What is happening to you that's hard?

What is happening in your life in this season that's hard, and you would give anything that it wasn't part of your life right now?

Things you just don't like.

Is it possible that God has you in this season of life to teach you and to reach you through this persecution?

And you say, well, wait a minute, I'm not in a prison cell in Rome.

Right?

Good.

Well, we're grateful for that.

But that doesn't mean that he doesn't send hard things into our lives.

That we don't like, maybe.

God, in what way are you using this in my life now to advance your gospel?

In Paul's case, chained to Roman guards, to the Roman Imperial Guard.

These were the best of the troops in Rome.

And he goes on to tell us, evidently, that there were Roman soldiers, and these were tough guys.

Okay?

Back in the day in Pittsburgh, these were the steel workers.

I grew up with a lot of steel workers.

I mean, these were tough guys.

Roman guards who had been in battle, who had been in war.

They're chained to Paul and they're getting converted.

And then the first guard goes off duty, right?

Because they would come for different watches.

There'd be four watches in a day, and then the second guard comes, and it's his time to be chained to Paul.

I'm pretty sure Paul was not obnoxious when he talked about the gospel.

I'm pretty sure he was, there was a winsomeness to him.

I'm pretty sure he was a very good listener, more than a talker.

I'm pretty sure that the love of Christ just was evident in him as he was chained.

And Roman tough guys were coming to Christ.

I've got a question for you.

What are your chains?

You're not chained to a Roman guard.

But there are chains in all of our lives.

What are you chained to that feels like it limits you?

What are you chained to that you think, if I wasn't chained, then I could really do something for God?

No?

That's just not the way it works.

God puts all of us in our own little prisons.

And God puts us chained to things that we wish were not in our life.

And right there is where he can do great work.

Because the work, the good work that he's going to complete isn't your work or my work, it's his work.

We have to invite him in.

And we have to ask him to search us and show us and give us gospel power and gospel strength.

God, it's not about me.

It's about advancing your gospel.

May God show everybody in this room today, including the preacher.

Those chains.

And may these chains not drive us away from Christ and His work in us and his work for us, but may they draw us closer to Him.

Offer your chains up to Him today.

Tell Him about the things that you're struggling with.

Tell Him about the things that you feel like are impeding your growth, that you don't understand.

Offer them to Him.

That you may be emboldening others, verse 14.

As Paul did this, as Paul was present in Christ, as Paul invited Christ into his life on a daily basis with his chains, other people were encouraged.

He says that.

Other people watch.

There are usually, I won't say always, usually there are other people who are watching you with your chains.

They're watching me with my chains.

And they either see me complain and gripe and be critical, or they see me learning contentment.

And they see me praising God and loving people.

The gospel was going through the city of Rome in a powerful way.

Through Paul and his chains.

We get to the last thing.

And this is hard.

I mean, I'm just going to be honest with you.

This is sad.

I'm going to give you, I'm just going to tell you, we're out of time.

I'm going to give it to you really simply.

He was in those chains because of other Christians, not because of the pagans.

Did you know that?

It's right there.

There were Christians who were jealous of Paul.

There were Christians who were envious of Paul.

There were Christians who were preaching the gospel in pretense, not for the right reasons.

And that still happens today.

Anybody who goes into ministry to find security is going to mess things up.

If you go, if you try to serve God, but you're really insecure and you're really feeling inadequate and you have to prove yourself.

You got to prove yourself.

You got to make sure everybody knows how great you are.

You're going to mess things up.

I'm going to mess things up if that's what my motivation is.

And oftentimes we don't even know what our motivation is.

It just feels so natural.

We need to invite the Spirit of God to show us what this motivation is.

The scholars agree, it just seems that Paul lost his life in part the responsibility of other Christians who were jealous of him, who were insecure, who were okay with him looking bad if they looked good.

Man, that's sad.

And it's still happening today.

Don't you be one of them.

Lord, don't let me be one of them.

Whether in pretense or in truth, not out of selfish ambition, not out of envy, not out of rivalry.

What I want to do is we end this time, this sermon, and prepare for the Lord's table.

The Lord just brought to my mind different passages.

Let's just ask the Lord to use his word to soak in our hearts as we come to the table.

The book of Philippians, chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Have this mind among yourselves, which is in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

Even death on a cross.

That was my Savior.

That was your Savior.

We think Paul was mistreated.

He was.

We think Paul suffered because of the jealousy of others.

He did.

But oh how that compales in comparison to what the things that they said about our Lord, the things that they did to our Lord.

And our Lord knew that full well as he left heaven and came to this earth on this mission.

And you know what he did.

Out of love for you.

Jesus, give me grace to take up my cross daily and die to myself and to live for you.

The Gospel of John, chapter 17, the night before his death, knowing full well what he was going to encounter the next day.

John 17 · chapter mention

You know what he did.

We're not going to take the time to read it.

He prayed for his disciples.

He prayed for all who would one day come to Jesus Christ, who would come to salvation.

He prayed for us.

And he prayed that they would be one.

May they be one, united, living in harmony.

May they be one as we are one, Father.

And may they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The greatest apologetic in the world for the cause of the gospel, for the conversion of the lost, is the way Christians love one another.

Did you know that?

That's the greatest apologetic in the book.

That's the greatest apologetic that we have.

How Christians treat Christians is the greatest apologetic in the Christian faith.

And so often it's done so poorly.

And the world doesn't take notice.

They don't care what we say if that's how we live.

The night before he died, this is what he prayed.

And honestly, it just humbles me that he would invite me to join his cause.

And he's invited you to join his cause.

And we cannot do this unless he empowers us.

Would you pray with me?

Oh Father, thank you first of all that you sent your son to die for us.

Thank you, Jesus, for saving us.

Thank you for pouring out your spirit to sanctify us, to grow us.

Now, Lord Jesus, grow your kingdom through our prayers and grow your kingdom through our persecutions, our trials.

Lord, let this not be about us.

May it be about you.

May you give us grace to understand and to accept the chains that you chain us to.

The things that you chain us to.

Lord, may we not be complainers.

May we humbly accept whatever assignment that you give us to live as Christ.

We pray this in his name.

Amen.