Philippians 1:12-26

We teach and study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel.

So if you'd like a paper copy, I invite you to lift your hand and someone will bring one along to you as we start our study of the book of Philippians.

It's one of the DNA distinctives we have here at TBC.

Any of the five services that you come to, two at our other campus at TBC East, which they're watching right now at our 1015 service, or three over here, you're always going to get verse-by-verse Bible teaching.

Our pastor Jim began our study of Philippians last week.

I was so excited about that.

This is one of the most personal of letters that we have from Paul.

Perhaps one of the most personal letters in all of the New Testament.

It's heartfelt.

He loves these people.

He uses pronouns constantly.

We subtitled this study of Philippians, The Hope of Joy.

That's the thrust, that's the theme of this letter.

That's his end goal, is that when he sends this letter and Epaphroditus delivers it, that they would be encouraged, that they would grow in the faith, that they would come to Christian maturity, grow in Christian maturity.

That the focus, the energy, the aim of their life would be squarely on Christ and his gospel.

And it would be for their joy.

Not a flimsy happiness, but a sturdy source of joy.

It's not joy per se that we're aiming for, as Paul will show us this morning.

The clarity of our aim should be to live for Christ, to live in him, to live through him and with him, hemmed in on all sides.

And from that, after he's rescued and redeems us and holds us fast, and as we continue to grow in grace, it will produce this joy that he talks about.

As a reminder of the background of this letter, Paul is writing this from Rome.

And it's a city of Philippi in Macedonia, which was founded in 356 BC.

I have a map here.

Jim did a quick overview.

I'm just going to do an even quicker one.

At the top right-hand corner, it kind of blows up so you can see Philippi just a little bit closer, and you can see it in relation to Thessalonica and some of the others.

And then if you look to the bottom, you can see it with the broader map.

And of course, to the left, we have Italy and Rome there.

So Paul is writing from a prison, chained to a guard in Rome, writing to this church that he loves in Philippi.

The church was founded in 52, and he's writing this in 62 AD.

So this church is 10 years old.

It's been 10 years since they've seen their founding pastor and since he's seen them.

That's one of the reasons this is such a personal letter.

This is his second missionary journey.

You can read about it in Acts chapter 16.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

So as we read the text in just a minute, I want us to recall and keep in mind at least three people who were the core group who started this church at Philippi.

So he has more than these three, I'm sure, in mind, but we can at least infer because we see this in Acts that he has these three.

So we have Lydia, the businesswoman, the woman who sells purple goods, the fashionista, if you will.

They find her down at a river and she's at a prayer meeting, not a Christian prayer meeting, but the scripture says that the Lord opened her heart and she came to know the Lord.

So that's one.

We have the slave girl, this teenage who's demon-possessed, this teenager who's demon-possessed.

She's used, she's abused by businessmen who are seeking to make her essentially a fortune teller, making money off of her.

And Paul casts the demon out, and now she's a formerly demon-possessed girl.

She's been redeemed and restored.

So we have Lydia, we have the slave girl, this formerly demon-possessed teenager.

And then because these businessmen were so upset that Paul, when casting the demon out, took essentially their prophet center away.

They take Paul and Silas and they put them in the prison, and many of us know the story, and Jim went over it last week.

They sang, they prayed while in prison.

There was an earthquake, the shackles fell off.

And this Roman jailer who was watching guard over them also came to know the Lord and his whole household.

So we have Lydia, we have the slave girl, and we have the Roman jailer.

So as we're reading the text this morning, I want us to at least have these three folks in the back of our mind, because we can infer that he certainly does, and much more.

He loves these people.

Pastor Paul, this is a letter from a pastor to a group of people he deeply loves.

He's writing it from within chains, he's bound, awaiting the possibility of an execution.

He's chained 24-7 to a Roman centurion.

But this pastor, the Paul who's imprisoned, the one chained, seeks to encourage this church.

It's radical.

He has no desire to complain or manipulate the situation.

He's not asking Lydia, hey, do you have some business contacts in the area that might be able to get me out of this jam?

We don't see any of that.

We don't even see him list out any of his personal discomforts.

The only thing he does is he points to the chains.

He shows us, in both word and in deed, what Christian maturity looks like.

An unwavering trust in Christ.

A 20th-century missionary, Elizabeth Elliot, who many in here might know of, also gave us a beautiful example of Christian maturity.

Her husband, Jim Elliott, and her, they were missionaries.

He went out with another group of four men to bring the gospel to the Aka Indians in Ecuador, and they speared him to death, him and the four other men.

Two years later, her second husband was consumed with cancer.

This is a woman who knows suffering.

She doesn't dismiss the horrid nature of pain, but she says this: in such a time, it is a profound comfort to know that although all things seem to be shaken, one thing is not.

God is not shaken.

God is God, whether we recognize it or not, but it comforts us and infuses strength into our faltering spirits to rest on that truth.

This is certainly one of the marks of a maturing believer.

We see this in the example of Elizabeth and of course with Paul in this letter.

It's a confidence in the providence of God, that he's good.

And this is something that can only be achieved when we are consistently abiding with Christ, holding fast to him as he holds fast to us, as we just sang.

I invite you to turn in your Bibles to Philippians 1, and we'll start with verse 12.

And I'll be reading from the English Standard Version this morning.

As you're doing that, let me pray.

Lord, in the reading of the Scripture, may your word be heard.

In the meditations of our hearts, may your word be known.

In the faithfulness of our lives, may your word be made visible.

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we all said.

Amen.

So verse 12.

I want you to know, brothers, I'll just stop there for a second.

I want you to know.

Think how personal this is, this personal pronoun.

I want you to know 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.

This first section is essentially Paul giving a missionary report.

He's comforting them by showing that the gospel is still flourishing.

If you grew up in the church, you may have experienced on more than one occasion, like I did, as a kid, Global Mission Sunday or a missionary Sunday at your church.

And I loved these as a kid.

They were a little awkward because they were coming from a foreign land, still getting used to the American culture sometimes.

The music was sometimes a little, sometimes a little odd.

Instruments were interesting, the language was different.

But I loved hearing the story of how the gospel was being spread wherever they were coming from.

In fact, some of the first books that I ever read were these little missionary biographies that they would bring of missionaries that had gone before them.

They would bring these, and they were usually for children, and those were some of the first books that I read.

This is what Paul's doing here.

He's giving a missionary account.

They haven't seen him in ten years.

And he's showing him that the gospel is still flourishing.

But what's stunning about this particular missionary report is that again, the one who's in prison, the one who's suffering, is the one who's doing the encouraging.

The one in chains recognizes that this church that he loves is discouraged.

Think about it, their father in the faith, the founder of this church, the great apostle to the Gentiles, from their perspective, it looks like this ministry has been shut down.

He's imprisoned.

They've invested time and money, resources into him.

They've got to be discouraged.

And I don't want this to be abstract.

Think about if our pastor or if another great Christian leader you can think of, it might be popping into your mind now.

If we heard on the news that their ministry had been shut down, that he or she was in prison, that would be discouraging to us.

It would be disheartening, perhaps disillusioning.

It would be perhaps make us even angry.

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

Really is a very important thing.

He's emphasizing it.

He's saying, don't be discouraged, my loved ones.

In Philippi, the Lord has me right where he wants me.

And it has been for the good of the only thing that matters, Christ and his gospel.

The word advanced in the original language in Greek, prokope, has a military connotation, the word advanced.

So his chains, his imprisonment has really served to advance.

What that means is literally making a way.

He's saying, look at my chains.

I know you're discouraged, but actually what it's done is it's made a way for the gospel in the heart of Rome to flourish.

I love the way the NIV renders this last sentence.

It says, as a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.

The SV renders imprisonment, NIV and chains.

You could do both.

In chains, it's very visceral.

We can think about it, we can see it in our head.

Don't be discouraged, Philippians.

Physical persecutions, beatings, my current chains.

All this that was intended for evil is being used for his good purposes.

The Roman Palace Guard, the Imperial Guard, the Praetorium, as some of the translations would say, this was quite literally the most elite of military officers.

This was, these are the bodyguards of Caesar himself.

That's where the Lord has put Paul in this place.

The power instilled in this particular elite group was sometimes so strong that they in and of themselves had the power to put in kings such as Nero, who's on the throne now.

And it was this elite military guard in the heart of Rome that God sends Paul.

The prison has now become Paul's pulpit.

What was intended for evil had to bow down to the good purposes of God.

He would have been chained to a Roman centurion 24-7, a new shift every four hours.

And I can imagine in Paul's mind, every four hours a new opportunity to tell of the resurrected king.

The circumstances of Paul had become servants of God and of his good pleasure.

Paul gives us an example of a proper self-forgetfulness.

He shows us in word and deed what Christian maturity in the face of suffering can look like.

Tim Keller says this things put into the furnace properly can be shaped, refined, purified, and even beautified.

This is a remarkable view of suffering that if faced and endured with faith, it can in the end only make us better, stronger, and more filled with the greatness, with greatness and joy.

Suffering, then, actually can use evil against itself.

It can thwart the destructive purposes of evil and bring light and life out of darkness and death.

That from walking with God through pain and suffering, which I would commend to anyone.

Have you ever made plans to comfort or console a friend or a family member?

I'm sure many of us have.

My grandmother, we call her Grammy, was when she was going through cancer a couple of years ago and was in treatment.

And I would sit with her or talk with her on the phone as she was going through this treatment.

And although I did try to encourage her, and hopefully I did, I almost always left as the one encouraged.

Her strength, her clarity.

There's a ring of clarity in her confidence in who God is, who her Savior is, that strengthened my faith, and that's why I'm even talking about it right now.

That's what Paul's doing here in this case.

He's doing here for this church, he's giving them strength, he's encouraging them.

And he says, and most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

The chains that were meant to stop the ministry of Paul were multiplying the ministry of Paul.

This is just remarkable.

What encouragement it would have been to them, and what encouragement it should be for us today.

So let's keep reading it.

Verse 15, if you would.

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 rivalry, 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.

Here Paul has moved from a report of what has happened.

He's currently, or he's been imprisoned in Rome, to what is currently happening.

He's giving a missionary report of what's happening inside of prison and now what's happening outside of prison.

Verse 16 says that some are preaching Christ, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.

The phrase put here also has military connotations.

It's almost as if he's saying, I have been stationed here by my commanding officer.

I'm exactly where I am supposed to be.

And in that he rejoices.

And think about how remarkable this is.

He from prison is rejoicing in the fact that other ministries outside of prison are flourishing.

The one in chains is rejoicing that other ministries are advancing the gospel.

This is such an unusual confidence for modern ears to hear, including my own.

In a culture that worships luxury, that encourages growth and more growth of our platform, making our life plan so specific.

An Instagram feed full of only the choicest parts of our lives, all those things can be good.

But Paul here models a self-forgetfulness that is utterly counter-cultural.

What Paul values more than anything is Christ and him glorified.

His glory, making him known, trusting him, abiding in him.

He has him stationed exactly where he is for a reason.

This, while he watches other ministries grow and flourish, and in this he rejoices.

Don't let this be lost on our ears.

Some indeed preach Christ from envy, verse 15, and rivalry, but others from goodwill.

So we don't know the exact reason why some were preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry.

We can infer from the text that there were some personal reasons that he didn't expound on.

All of us make a decision with mixtures of pure and less than pure motives.

Paul isn't referring to people here who aren't preaching the gospel, that are preaching a different gospel altogether.

In fact, he has very harsh words in many of his other letters for folks who preach a different gospel and lead others astray.

No, likely he's just saying that look, whether they're doing it out of personal reasons or whether there's these folks that who love me, the gospel is advancing.

The ministry is not stopped, it's only flourished.

This is such a paradigm shift.

It really convicted me as I was meditating on this scripture this week, and I was actually talking with my wife yesterday as we were walking to an estate sale.

I said, I don't know if my life has this ring of clarity to it.

And I need to pray for that.

The Spirit would change me and continually make me like this.

It cuts the legs.

What Paul does here, it cuts the legs out of any confidence I have in myself, the props that I have around me.

The Lord has me, has you stationed exactly where you are, and it's a great privilege to point to Christ, to live for him, to abide in him.

This for the good of us, for the good of our neighbor, and yes, for his glory.

Ultimately, for our joy, as the letter will continue to expound.

Some of you have suffered greatly in the last couple of days, weeks, and months.

You're in the middle of suffering now.

This could be a hard thing to hear.

You're watching online and you're homebound.

You can't actually leave.

Or you're caring for aging parents, or you're stuck in a job that you don't love, or you can't find work.

Paul did not delight in the chains in and of themselves.

Let's make that clear this morning.

How do we know that?

Well, for one, later, he expresses his deep desire to see them in person.

He doesn't want to be in chains.

Paul is giving us great clarity.

Nothing else is more valuable than Christ himself.

We can't say with Paul, in this I rejoice, if we're running directly after joy, which is really running after pleasure or power or whatever that thing might be.

We can say in this I rejoice when we have a proper abandonment to what Christ has for us and where he's put us.

Dallas Willard says this, is Jesus' disciple.

I am his apprentice in kingdom living.

I'm learning from him how to lead my life in the kingdom of the heavens as he would lead my life if he were I.

It is my faith in him that led me to become his disciple.

My confidence in him simply means that I believe he is right about everything.

That all that he is and says shows what life is at its best, what it was intended by God to be.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

John 1 4 says of Christ.

In this loving letter, we see a radically different way of living.

It really is a paradigm shift.

From my dreams and platforms, pleasure, to Christ, his kingdom, his glory for the good of others.

And from chains he can say, In this I rejoice.

May my life be more marked like that.

Let's continue in verse 18, towards the end of 18.

Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.

Think about how personal that is.

He's inviting them to participate by praying for him for this ministry.

Verse 20 As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me.

Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell.

I am hard pressed between the two.

My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.

But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account.

For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Well, what does he mean?

Well, let's remember the context of where Paul is right now.

He is in prison, awaiting the very real prospect of an execution.

So it is quite bold when he says, if I live, I expect to be with you, working for your progress in the faith, and working for your joy.

If I die, I'll be with Christ face to face.

To live is Christ, to die is more Christ.

Eugene Peterson paraphrased Paul this way Life versus even more life, I cannot lose.

You can't silence someone who has the conviction and confession to say, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

You cannot silence.

Someone who from prison will sing hymns and pray.

This is not a morbid death wish from Paul.

He's simply saying that Christ is everything to him of supreme value.

He wants nothing more than to exalt his Savior in life or in death.

I'll make a quick note here that the apostles writing to a church who's facing persecution, the church at large is starting to taste the evils of Nero, snuffing out Christianity throughout the Roman Empire.

When Paul says Christ is honored, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death, when he says to live is Christ and to die is gained, that could be hard to reconcile for some of us in this room, especially if you're facing illness or the loss of a loved one.

Paul is not glossing over the tragedy of death.

He's well aware that death is not the way that it is supposed to be.

We know this because in a few more verses in 227 he reminds us of his friend Epaphroditus, who's actually delivering this letter to the church of Philippi.

He says this in 227.

Indeed he was ill, talking about Epaphroditus, near to death.

But God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

Paul acknowledges that death is not the way it's supposed to be.

This is why the gospel of Christ is of such supreme value to him and to us.

It's the good news that Christ has defeated our last and greatest enemies, our pastor says.

He's risen from the grave.

Amen.

And those who are in Christ will do the same when he returns.

That's how Paul is able to say, with a proper abandonment, to live as Christ and to die as gain.

To live as Christ and to die as more Christ, when Christ revealed himself to Saul, who later became Paul on the Damascus road, quite literally everything in his life changed.

What was valuable is no longer valuable anymore.

Because he's met Christ.

What is of supreme value to me and what is it to you?

This would be a good diagnostic question.

I read this somewhere.

You might want to write this one down.

I have.

A good diagnostic question would be to use his phrase, to live is underline.

To live is what?

Well, Paul says to live is Christ and to die is gain, and we pray that we continue to grow that, grow in that direction.

But it could be that if we're honest with ourselves, if we're watchful of our own hearts, it could be that to live is pleasure, to live is work that is 100% fulfilling.

To live is you fill in the blank.

It's a good diagnostic question.

So as we continue reading in verse 25, convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith.

So personal.

So that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again.

He expects to see them again.

Pastor Paul loves this church.

As long as he remains on the earth, he's going to be working for their progress in the faith.

He's going to be working for their maturity, for their joy, for their good.

Oh, that my life would be marked like that for my spouse, for my friends, for my neighbor, for my church.

So, what did we learn from this section of this letter from Paul to the Philippians?

As we began the study last week, Paul's encouraging this church to continue growing and progressing, right?

To becoming more like Christ, which is the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of joy.

So he shows us, the Apostle Paul shows us in word and deed, number one, the clarity of life's great aim.

Christ and his glory.

He gives us very clear evidence of who he stakes his life on, and that is Christ.

To live as Christ is not just a platitude.

Please don't walk away thinking that.

It's not something that's just for a bumper sticker, although it would be a fine bumper sticker.

It's the way we were created to live and flourish.

It was the way we were made to live.

Our lives bound to his is where true freedom lies.

And Paul knows this.

Paul calls himself a slave of Christ.

Our lives in a disposition of submission to our Lord is when we truly live.

It's a taste of the shalom that we see in the garden before the destruction of sin.

Remember, Paul used to go by another name, Saul.

I mentioned this earlier.

So the one who is the persecutor of Christians, the one who sought to silence and to kill Christians, now says, to live is Christ.

That's radical.

That's a change.

Later in chapter three of this letter, he'll make this very clear.

It's not on their slide here, but he says this, but whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.

There's a value that he places on Christ above all things.

Is my life marked with that kind of clarity?

Is yours?

John Piper says it this way The way we display the supreme worth of Jesus in our lives is by treasuring Christ above all things, and then making life choices that show that our joy is not finally in things or in other people, but in Christ.

Paul shows us both in word and deed, number two, concern for the progress and joy of others.

Joy or rejoice is mentioned 16 times in the letter of Philippians.

This letter is an utterly, utterly personal letter.

We've seen that throughout our reading today.

Christian maturity results in the fruit of joy.

Think of the pattern of this section that we've read this morning so far.

Paul, the one imprisoned, the one in chains, opens his letter with an encouragement for these folks at Philippi.

Whether in life or death, he says, You know Christ, but for your sake, I expect to stay on this earth a bit longer.

Why?

For your progress and for your joy.

It's for them.

In fact, this whole letter is for them.

It's an others-focused faith.

The disciplines and practices of Christian life.

For example, prayer, Bible reading, when we come for worship here on Sunday morning, meditating on the word, those disciplines and practices, these are not just for our own personal benefit.

Perhaps the scripture that you meditate on this morning, the passage that you memorized this morning that meant so much to you, is actually going to be used for your friend later in the day when you learn of the suffering that's going on in her or his life.

Perhaps your growth in grace as you continue to use these disciplines, these means of grace, is actually the Spirit working you a sturdier and sturdier confidence so that when you inevitably will face suffering, your response to that suffering will embolden and strengthen others in faith.

Johnny Erickson Tata said this, and this is a long one, so stick with me.

God uses suffering.

How?

To purge sin from our lives, strengthen our commitment to Him, force us to depend on grace, bind us together with other believers, produce discernment, foster sensitivity, discipline our minds, spend our time wisely, stretch our hope, cause us to know Christ better, make us long for truth, lead us to repentance of sin, teach us to give thanks in time of sorrow, increase faith, and strengthen character.

This from someone who in 1967, at 17 years old, became a quadriplegic and has been wheelchair-bound ever since.

And her ministry for 40 years has been to encourage believers, such as us today, this morning.

She didn't waste her suffering.

She doesn't love her suffering, but she didn't waste it.

Number three, Paul shows us confidence in the providential care of God.

He says in verse 16, knowing that I am put here for the gospel, again, it means he's stationed.

He's living his life as if his commanding officer has put him exactly where he's supposed to be.

In the middle of a Roman prison chained to a Roman guard, no freedom.

He shows us an extraordinary confidence in the sovereignty of God.

By proclaiming this with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.

He shows us a remarkable lack of abandonment to whatever Christ has for him.

He shows this church, he shows us, he shows me and you how to trust.

Trust is not easy when you're chained to a Roman guard.

Trust is not easy when you bury a parent or a child.

Trust is not easy when you're stuck in a job, when your marriage is crumbling.

Paul shows us here in both word and deed what it looks like.

In Paul, we see an example of someone who doesn't want to waste his sufferings.

My chains are in service to my king.

I know I'm in prison, but my prison has become my pulpit now.

You might say, well, that's easy for Paul.

First of all, he was the great apostle to the Gentiles.

Second of all, it looks like he can actually see some of the fruit of his suffering.

I don't see any.

That's a legitimate question.

It's a legitimate concern.

For a believer, we must always go back to the cross.

At the cross, the Lord bore my sin and yours.

The most extraordinary act of suffering in all of history.

He bore our shame, but then he rose again so that we might have new life.

And he can take a spiritual dead man walking like Paul, like me, before Christ, like you.

He can take a spiritual dead man or woman walking and he can bring them to life.

That's how Christ, that's the first conf, that's the first ground of confidence that Paul has.

That God has his good in mind.

R.C.

Sproul said this, it's not on the slide.

God doesn't just throw a life preserver to a drowning person.

He goes to the bottom of the sea.

He pulls the person up from the bottom of the sea, takes him on the bank, he breathes into him the breath of life, and he makes him alive.

That's our first ground of hope, believers.

That's how Paul can say to live is Christ and to die is gain.

You can't have one without the other.

There was a man named Jesus who died, who rose again.

He's brought me life, and he is of supreme value.

We can continue to grow in our confidence and progress and joy as we continue to abide in Christ.

That means coming to worship on Sunday.

That means feasting on his word every day.

That means being with others, bearing one another's burdens.

That means prayer.

Prayer is a very subversive thing.

When we pray, we are letting go of any dependence we have on ourselves.

Or just opening our hands and saying, Lord, I need you.

Tim Keller said, prayer is the way to experience a powerful confidence that God is handling our lives well.

That our bad things will turn out for our good, our good things cannot be taken from us, and the best things are yet to come.

I pray we all continue to grow in our confidence in his providential care.

So with Paul, we can say, with courage now, as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether in life or in death.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Lord, we need you.

This morning we pray for tangible hope and courage.

By your Spirit, strengthen our confidence in you.

Remind us afresh of what you've done for us on the cross and our hope of what is to come.

Pour courage and strength into those who are weak and weary this morning.

I know some personally.

For all of us, lift up our eyes to you.

May the good seed of your word that we've heard this morning bear fruit.

May it lead to our progress in our faith, and may it lead us to joy.

In the name of Jesus Christ, we all said this morning, church.

Amen.