Philippians (Lesson 10)

All right, thank you so very much for that kind word of introduction.

Thanks to each and every one of you for tuning in today.

I'm Brother James, and I greet you as always in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

And I welcome you once again to the Preaching of the Cross Radio Broadcast.

We are studying the Bible book of Philippians, and we may as well jump right in because we have one of the most important passages that a Christian could hear to discuss today.

I would say to you after over three decades of trying my best to be a pastor to God's people, that one of the greatest difficulties that we all face in our Christian life is trying to understand why things go the way they go.

Trying to understand the why behind the troubles, the trials, the heartaches, the disappointments that arise in our lives.

Now it's easy to say they happen to everybody and they do.

It's easy to say that's just part of life in a sin cursed world, and it is.

But none of that supplies the joy and rejoicing that Philippians says should be and could be ours.

If somehow or another we could make some sense out of our hardship, if some way or another we could be convinced that there was some benefit to the trials of our life, maybe then it would lighten the load just a little bit.

How many times have you heard someone who knows nothing of God, nothing of the scriptures, who has never been born again?

And some news reporters stick a microphone in their face in the hour of their deepest need and say, How do you feel?

And they'll say something to the fact that, well, we know something good's gonna come out of this.

We know the good Lord had a purpose and all this.

Those are vain and empty words.

If you're not saved, if you are saved, it is possible that you could speak those words with genuine certainty and genuine conviction.

Let me read to you the passage at hand for today's broadcast, and then we'll break it down and discuss it together.

Philippians 1, verse number 12 says, But I would, ye should understand.

It is God's will.

This is the Holy Spirit speaking, Paul the Apostle recording, I would, ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places, and many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

Now notice first of all, in verse number twelve, that it is possible to have some understanding of the reason for the troubles and trials in our life.

The man who's recording these words is in bonds.

Oh, he's in Christ.

Everywhere he goes, he's in Christ.

He's never outside of Christ, but he is in Christ in bonds.

He's locked up, a prisoner.

He's in a jailhouse, not for doing wrong, but for doing right, not for sinning, but for telling men and women how they can be free from sin.

And from this jail cell he says, I want you to understand that some very good things are resulting from this very bad situation.

Okay, second, second in verse number twelve, but I will ye should understand brethren, brethren, if you are not saved, first of all, you you cannot understand, and second of all, you have no guarantee that the things that are happening to you serve any benefit whatsoever to you or anyone else.

Let me let me give you that oft quoted, and rightly so, verse from Romans chapter eight, where the Bible says, and we know that all things work together for good.

That's not the verse.

That is the first half of the verse.

The verse says, and we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

If you know Jesus Christ as your Savior, if you have answered the call to trust him and be saved, then for you, for you, all things work together for good.

If you don't know Jesus Christ as your Savior, everything in your life works together, and then you die and go to hell.

You spend eternity in a lake of fire.

You couldn't possibly say everything worked together for good in the life of a lost man, lost woman.

No, no, to them that love God, to them with the called according to his purpose, and that purpose is stated in the next verse, verse 29, as being to conform, save people to the image of Jesus Christ.

So, first of all, it is possible to understand, and it's the Holy Spirit's will that we do understand.

Secondly, only brethren can understand that there is a benefit to their trials and troubles, because only in the life of saved people is there benefit to trials and troubles.

Then he says, I would that you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened the things which happened, that's the exact language we use to this very day.

I can't believe that happened.

Look what happened.

This word, this word happened speaks to the fact that some things just come along.

Some things just befall us.

This word shows up in the book of Ruth.

I'm turning there now, the book of Ruth, where it talks about the I'm gonna find it here, where it talks about um Ruth going out and working in the fields, and the Bible says that it was her hab to fall in that part of the field that was owned by Boaz.

That is, it just happened.

Nobody sent her there, nobody directed her there, there was no specific plan to get her in that place, it's just the way things worked out.

Now you've got to understand, my friend, that sometimes in this life things happen to you that are not the punishment of God, the judgment of God, not some strange and bizarre plan of God.

Life is not certain.

Life is not predictable.

In fact, the Bible says it this way in the book of Job and chapter number five, Job chapter five and verse number six, although affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground, yet man is born into trouble as the sparks fly upward.

Dust just shows up.

There is no grand scheme or design on the part of people who want to cause you housework to slip in in the middle of the night and scatter dust here and there.

It just shows up.

And there is no great conspiracy of man or of God or of devils to plant trouble in our lives.

It just shows up seemingly out of nowhere.

So the first thing we need to understand.

Second thing, only brethren, saved people can understand.

Third thing, it doesn't do any good to sit down and say, Why did God do this to me?

You have no evidence, no proof God did that to you.

Why did God let the devil do this to me?

You have no proof whatsoever that the devil did anything.

Trouble's been happening since Adam ate that fruit.

That the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather.

Rather.

Okay, so there's two options.

There's two options.

The result, the outworking of trouble could be something very hurtful and very bad in the long term.

Or the consequence of trouble could be something very helpful and very beneficial in the long term.

One is is a rather.

One is to be preferred above the other.

If I gotta go through some trouble, if I gotta go through some some bad times, I hope that the result will be something good and something blessed rather than something that proves all that trouble is just a great waste of time.

And so the scripture says we can be confident of this, we can be sure of this, that when the saved man, when the saved woman goes through trouble, the outworking of that trouble, the end result of that trouble will be for the good, not for the bad.

We will get the God honoring rather as a consequence of our troubles and of our trials.

Now, since we have to have trouble in this life, it can't be avoided.

Since we have to have difficulty in this life, it can't be avoided.

At least we can look at the rather side of the equation and see that it will be beneficial.

And to what end?

To what end?

The things which have happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.

Okay, let me let me give you some situations here.

A man in our congregation recently missed a great deal of work owing to physical troubles and difficulties that landed him in the hospital.

And after that hospital stay, a long and lengthy recovery.

He was not placed in the hospital because God was breaking somebody apart because he didn't pay his tithe.

He did not fall through a window where he was robbing a house, he did not get shot in the act of committing a felony, he just lived in his life one day and a physical problem struck, and he ended up in the hospital.

Now, as a result of that lost work, his financial situation did not improve.

As a result of that time in the hospital, his material situation was not bettered.

In fact, it was rather the worse.

Doctor bills, hospital bills, medical bills.

The rehab time proved very frustrating and very difficult with a number of setbacks that provided no benefit to him whatsoever as touching his body.

Now, through all of that, through all of that, as he leaned upon the Lord Jesus Christ, as he fellowshipped with the Lord Jesus Christ, as he was set apart from all the other duties and responsibilities of life and really had nothing to concentrate upon, but thoughts of Jesus interspersed with all of his aches and pains and physical trouble.

The end result is that man came out of this not with a better body, not with a better bank account, not with a better physical or material situation, but he did come out of it a better Christian, so that God can use him in a greater measure to reach others for the Lord Jesus Christ.

So there was a spiritual benefit as touching the furtherance of the gospel that resulted from this trial and from this trouble.

I was this very morning I was at the hospital visiting a saved man, a saved man who has suffered a heart attack.

Not not because he was out on the dance floor, not because he was getting drunk, not no, no, he suffered a heart attack because these physical bodies wear out and fall apart.

It just so happened that the affliction in his body was his heart.

And as we sat in that hospital room, he was not better off financially because of the doctor bills he's running up.

He's not better off physically because he's going through this uh heart trouble.

It has not been a good thing for his family, it's been a very difficult, very trying thing for his family.

And yet, as he lay in that bed and I sat in the chair beside it, the nurses would come in one after another and would hear from his lips the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They would not hear that gospel if you knocked upon their door, because they are not being paid at their house to be nice to you and to help you.

They would not hear that gospel if you were proclaiming it on a street corner.

They are not being paid to stop and listen and would not do so.

They are not coming to the church to hear the gospel.

They have other things to do on their day off.

But here are individuals who are required by the duties of their employment to politely listen and engage in conversation with the patient to whom they are tending.

And so a man has suffered a heart attack, and there's nothing good about that in any area of life but the spiritual area, because it allowed the gospel to go further into the hearts and into the lives of these nurses and doctors than it would have gone had this brother not experienced this trouble.

You see, if you're earthly minded, materially minded, if all that you do centers around material temporal benefit, you'll never see the benefit and the value in most of your troubles and trials because quite honestly there is not one.

But if our lives revolve around, bringing honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ and bringing others to the knowledge of that Savior, then it can be said that whatever happens to us can indeed result in the furtherance of the gospel.

I hope you understand that.

In Paul's case, verse 13, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places, he gained notoriety by being imprisoned.

Why is that man in jail, says the court officer, for preaching about Jesus?

What does that mean?

Well, something about this man who died on a cross and rose from the dead and is the only way to heaven.

Now you've got people in the palace, people in the courtroom, people in the chambers, people at the dinner table talking about this man, his preaching, his gospel, his Jesus, who don't even know the Lord, but are being used to further they're actually speaking the gospel, and they don't even know the Savior as they talk about this man who is in prison.

The warden, the warden, is told by the law enforcement and the judicial arm of the government, prisoner number forty-two, he's in jail for extortion.

Prisoner number forty three, he's in jail for armed robbery, prisoner number forty-four, he's in jail for setting forth a strange God.

What?

Why is he in with these other criminals?

Well, we're not sure, but there was a big uprising.

Well, what caused the uprising?

Well, he said that this one Jesus rose from the dead.

Now men are discussing the gospel.

Who otherwise would not have done so?

All because of Paul's trouble, all because of the bonds in which he finds himself.

And then verse 14, and many of the brethren in the Lord waxing, that's growing, increasing, the moon is waxing, the moon is waning, it's it's not an outdated term.

Waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold.

Now, wouldn't it be good if someone, because of Paul's willingness to suffer for Jesus Christ, was made bold.

You've got to admit a man comes along and says, I believe that Jesus died, was buried, and rose again, and he's so wonderful, he's so changed my life, I'd do anything for him.

Well, that sounds good when you're sitting in a restaurant eating a nice meal.

That sounds good when you're at home sleeping in a nice warm bed, but when you are being beaten and imprisoned, and that does not change your confidence and your willingness to live for this Lord Jesus Christ, that makes others bold, and that's a good thing.

But it goes beyond that.

They were not only made bold, they were made more bold.

So some that were never bold were made bold, and some that were bold were made more bold, and then he says, Some of the brethren were much more bold.

Now look at that.

Some who were not bold were made bold.

Bold by Paul's trouble in a way that they were not emboldened when he was not in trouble.

Some who were bold were made more bold when he was in trouble, in a way that they were not emboldened when he was not in trouble.

And then those that were more bold were made much more bold, as they saw the way that he suffered, as they saw the way that he endured, as they saw the attitude of his heart, the strength the Lord gave him, the unfailing, unwavering joy and certainty that he had in the promises of God through Jesus Christ, it benefited every one of their lives.

Ladies and gentlemen, my brothers and sisters, I don't like trouble.

I'm pretty sure you don't like trouble.

I don't like hardship and difficulty.

I'm almost certain that you do not like hardship and difficulty.

I'm pretty sure of that.

If we didn't know Jesus Christ, I could not tell you today that there's any good result from hardship and trouble.

If we knew Jesus Christ today, but all we cared about was temporal, material comfort, worldly prosperity and the like, I could not tell you that there is any benefit or any advantage to trouble and hardship.

Could not do it.

But if your desire and my desire as saved people is the furtherance of the gospel, then the scripture says that those things which happen unto us have a long term beneficial result in causing the gospel to go further than it ever would have gone before.

Reason one it provokes discussion.

Why is that person suffering joyfully?

What is it that they believe?

What is it that they are living for?

What is it that governs them that makes them willing to go through that in that way?

The gospel is furthered because other Christians when they see their brothers and sisters in Christ suffer without wavering, endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, bear their burden without turning back or turning aside.

It fills them with a greater assurance and a greater certainty that Jesus is real, that Jesus is all he claimed to be, that Jesus is worth living for, worth suffering for, worth dying for.

And any time a Christian is made bold, any time a Christian is made strong, they tell others about Jesus.

And it helps, it helps further the gospel.

So I would say to you, while none of us would sign up for hardship and difficulty, all of us are going to have hardship and difficulty.

While none of us welcome troubles and trials, all of us are better for our troubles and our trials, and yet, and yet it's just up to the individual to trust in the Lord and lean on the Holy Spirit so that we might receive the full benefit, and others might receive the full benefit of the difficulties that are bound to come in our lives.

Now, I told you at the start of the program this was an important passage of scripture, and I trust that you've seen how important it is to have a right Bible mindset with regard to the troubles and the difficulties that arise in our lives.

If you'd like to have a copy of today's program or this entire series on the book of Philippians, you may find it listed along with all of our other materials, thousands of hours of recorded sermons and Bible studies, books, all kinds of things.

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