Philippians: There is No Game Over for the Gospel (Phil 1:12-30)

Hello, friends, this is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning in to Newsong Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsong Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsongportperry.ca The second lesson is taken from the letter to the Philippians, chapter 1, starting in the 12th verse.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

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 Lord and to all of us that my imprisonment is for Christ.

And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more able 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.

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.

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.

Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith, so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your own hands.

This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation and that from God.

For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake.

Engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had, and now fear that I still have.

The word of the Lord.

What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we believe that through the power and ministry of your Holy Spirit, all authority on heaven and earth has been given to our Lord Jesus.

And it's in his name that we gather today.

We pray through the grace you ministered to us in our baptism, through the grace of your word, we would come to know your saving power.

Lord, you are mighty to save.

Lord, that you would lift our hearts to yourself.

And Father, that you would gather us as your faithful people.

Make us a reflection, Lord, of your own eternal love that you share.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It's in the holy triune name we pray.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Well, as many of you are well aware, I went to a school called Moody Bible Institute.

That's where I did my theological training, and it's not by accident that many of its students and even some of its faculty refer to it as Moody Bridal Institute.

That's because the hope is that by the time you graduate, you're not just going to graduate with your degree in theology or Bible or Christian education, whatever it is that's going to set you up for your career and ministry afterwards.

The hope is that you're going to graduate with a spouse as well.

And I will confess I gave it my best go.

I uh by the time I was graduating, I was I was in quite a serious relationship.

I thought I knew exactly where this was going and how this is gonna plan out.

In fact, I thought I'm gonna graduate with my degree in theology, I'm gonna have a great career in Christian education.

I think I wanted to go and teach in a Christian school of one sort or another.

That was the wonderful plan that I had for my own life.

And um, you know, but by the time I got to graduation, this relationship that I had such high hopes for truthfully was starting to deteriorate for a number of reasons, mostly because we were just clearly being called on two different life paths.

By the way, Rachel didn't go to Moody.

But stick around, there's a happy ending to the story.

We were clearly being called on two life paths, and so, but we're doing our best to make it work.

So when I moved back to Ottawa after I graduated, I had it in mind I'm gonna go into education, so I'm gonna start a college kind of outreach ministry on the campus of Ottawa U, and I had it in mind that, okay, well, this is long distance, but we can make this work, and it took about two, three, maybe four months before everything just sort of broke down.

Like both my ministry plans that I'm gonna have this great outreach ministry going on the campus of Ottawa was just going absolutely nowhere, and this relationship had just totally dissolved.

And, you know, I'm in my early 20s, so this is just maybe it's life a little bit, but at the same time, when you're walking through a season like this, you kind of feel like it's a game over sort of moment, you know?

Like all the wonderful plans that I had, all the things that seemed right to me, all the things that seemed agreeable with God's will, all of these things that seem so clear to me, none of them have seemed to work out.

Have you ever been in a moment like that?

You feel like it's game over?

You feel like I had such great plans for my life, Lord, and they seem to be so perfectly in keeping with what I thought you had in mind for me.

Why isn't this working out?

Why am I in this game over sort of moment?

I mean, here we read a letter that Paul writes to the Philippians.

We know that Paul has planted this church, ministered to this church in Acts 16.

He has high hopes for this church.

And now he writes this letter to the Christians gathering in Philippi from prison.

And I have to think, if there's sort of a game over moment for a pastor, it's going to prison, that's probably going to be a significant hindrance to the sort of ministry you had in mind.

But the remarkable thing is, even though Paul encounters this sort of game over moment, even though Paul is in this situation which seems like such an impediment to his ministry, Paul takes a step back and recognizes that God is bigger still.

And God, being bigger still than his present circumstances, is still at work advancing his purposes in the world.

The paradox of the gospel is this.

What we assume hinders the gospel, what we assume hinders God's purposes.

So often it seems that these are the very things that God uses to advance his will.

Have you found that to be true?

What we assume hinders the gospel can be exactly the means that God is using to advance it.

So this is what Paul writes to the church in Philippi.

Pull out your Bibles, your order of service here.

Philippians chapter 1, verse 12.

Philippians 1:12

Paul is writing to this church, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, what's happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.

Well, we already know what Paul is talking about, what's happened to him.

He's in prison.

He's been put in prison because the preaching of gospel seems like a political sedition or something like that.

So here he is in prison, and I have to think that in similar circumstances I'd probably be thinking, this seems like a game over sort of moment, but not Paul.

What has happened to me, he writes, has really served to advance the gospel.

Despite all appearances to the contrary, not only is God still at work, but this can be the very means by which he is moving his purposes, his saving gospel forward.

And Paul lists a couple of examples.

One, I get a chance to minister to the Imperial Guard.

Paul is actually preaching the gospel to his jailers, and they are coming to know Jesus.

He would not otherwise have that opportunity if he wasn't in prison.

And not only that, but his imprisonment seems to have inspired the brothers and sisters within this church to be even more bold in their proclamation of the gospel, to take the gospel forward in a way that it wouldn't otherwise.

They see Paul as an example to imitate.

And so Paul sees that even though all appearances seem to suggest that this is game over for my ministry, no, actually, God is using this to advance the gospel, and that's what matters most to Paul.

What matters most to Paul is that the saving message of Jesus is going forward, that it's being taught, that disciples are being made.

He recognizes that even for those who are, uh even for those who are proclaiming the gospel, there's mixed motives.

Verses 15 to 18 here, some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but he says others from goodwill.

Some are doing it out of love, and some are proclaiming the gospel out of selfish ambition or affliction.

Maybe this means that there's just mixed motives within the congregation.

I probably I'm more inclined to think that there are those who aren't Christians, who are outside of the congregation, who are looking at this Christian gathering with suspicion, and are probably saying, I can't believe these Christians believe all of these things about Jesus, that he was crucified, that he rose from the dead, that he's ascended into heaven.

All of these things that make this crowd so skeptical and so hostile towards the church is exactly what they're, that's the word they're spreading around.

It's a little bit like, you know, so maybe in the last 10 or 15 years, there's kind of been this rise of what's been called New Atheism.

And new atheism is nothing new.

But new atheism is sort of a repackaging of like 200-year-old Enlightenment ideas with a special hostility towards organized religion.

And within New Atheism, there's been called the four horsemen of new atheism, which is a very apocalyptic and kind of overblown image, I think.

But uh but they include Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, uh Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris is the other one.

Anyway, these are some interesting thinkers with some serious objections to organized religion generally, but Christianity specifically in the name of atheism.

But here's the thing: they do these huge stadium tours where they go and and and debunk the Christian faith for all these reasons, and yet they go into detail in Christian doctrine.

And yet, they proclaim Jesus, not with a sense to convert people to Jesus, would that the Lord grabs their heart and indeed they come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

But nevertheless, they go on these speaking tours, and what's being proclaimed is Christ.

And the conversations that are being had are about Christ.

And I've even found in my own one-on-one conversations that at some point, so often, it's one of these four guys that are part of the journey of conversion for a young person coming to faith.

It's like I used to think this with atheism, and I was so deep, you know, into this thinking, and I was listening to these lectures and I was reading these books, but I could only, I could only keep coming back to the claims of Christianity.

It's not necessarily true for everyone, of course, but for so many, this is part of the story.

Christ is being proclaimed, sure out of rivalry, sure out of hostility, but he's being proclaimed nevertheless, and it serves to advance the gospel.

And that's the remarkable thing that Paul recognizes, and so he says, What then?

Well, I'll rejoice.

Why?

Because Christ is being proclaimed.

I mean, in a real way, we should pray for folks like the like the four that I described.

But I think as Christians, we can be sort of winsome and thankful that these are conversations that we can engage in.

Like we have an opportunity to speak the gospel in a way that we wouldn't otherwise.

And that is exactly why Paul wants to rejoice.

People are talking about Jesus, and isn't that the goal?

And boy, I think Paul has such a relaxed attitude there that I admire so much.

So Paul is confident that the gospel's moving forward one way or the other because God is still in control.

So Paul has a confidence in God's deliverance.

I will rejoice, Paul says, verse 18, for I know that this will turn out from my deliverance.

And this word deliverance, you could translate salvation.

So this is not the same thing for Paul as presumption.

This is not Paul thinking, I know the plan that I have for my life, and everything is going according to plan.

Paul knows that God has organized all things in Christ, ordered all things in Christ towards salvation.

So that even in this very difficult circumstance he finds himself in, God has not forsaken him.

But God is still at work drawing Paul deeper into the mystery of his deliverance in Christ.

I wonder if Paul would ask us if we're often more focused on our plans for our life than we are in God's own work of salvation.

Because I feel like things have gone off the rails in my life when they're not going to my plan.

But Paul's not really so much focused on his plan for his life.

He's focused on what God is working in Christ.

How God is working the good news of the gospel, moving it forward.

So this fills Paul with confidence.

It fills Paul with so much confidence that he can go on to say, For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Paul is conflicted.

Which is better?

I'm in prison, I might be executed.

If I get executed, I get to go and be with the Lord, who I love more than anything else.

And yet there's good ministry still ahead of me that I would love to do as well.

This is not a resignation.

This is not a place of despair for Paul.

This is a man who is in love with his Lord, who longs for Jesus and longs to do what pleases Jesus.

He has confidence because no matter what happens, God's will for Paul is moving forward.

God's will to move the gospel is moving forward.

And so even death for Paul is not a loss.

It's a gain.

It's a gain because nothing is outside of God's control.

And there is no such thing as game over.

Friends, I have to think that when I well, when I think about our own story as New Song, I'm, I mean, I've only been privileged to hear the story from so many who've told me the story.

But I know that there are moments in the life of this congregation that have seemed like game over sort of moments.

I know that when this congregation started its ministry, it seemed like a game over moment.

We were coming from a context in which there seemed to be so many hindrances to freely, faithfully proclaiming the gospel.

It would be so easy to say everything is happening here is just an obstacle to the sort of ministry we're called to, and yet it was the courage of leadership and the congregation that decided we are going to step out in faith.

And all of these difficult circumstances that were faced at the beginning of Nusong's life, throughout New Song's life together, have served to advance the gospel, haven't they?

Aren't we a gospel-centered church today?

Doesn't mean that we've experienced nothing but success and prosperity.

Of course we've experienced hardship.

Paul experiences hardship.

But we recognize that there's no such thing as game over in God's economy.

There's no such thing as game over when we think about the salvation that we proclaim.

God is certainly bigger than nucle.

But God has a plan for us.

And God is at work advancing the gospel even in our hardships.

So we can rejoice.

We can have confidence.

There is no such thing as a game over.

I mean, honestly, isn't the cross proof of that?

If ever there was a game over moment in the history of salvation, surely, surely, it would be when the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, hung on an instrument of execution, horrific instrument of execution by the Roman Empire.

It's like that is game over, isn't it?

And disciples walk away from the cross saying, well, we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

We'd pinned our hopes on this, but clearly it's game over.

I mean, the cross is proof that God takes a game over, and buried somewhere deep in that is our victory, is our triumph.

Is the gospel moving forward?

Is God's grace moving forward into the lives of those it's yet to reach?

That's why Paul can write to the church and Colossae that in Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Christ to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace by the blood of his cross.

What was God doing through the cross?

He was making peace.

He was bringing estranged sons and daughters back to himself.

He was rescuing sinners from the power of sin and death, all through the suffering Savior.

What we look at and we think that looks like game over.

God looks at and he says, No, this is making peace.

This is reconciling all things.

This is not defeat, but it's triumph.

That's why Peter can preach in Acts chapter 2 that this Jesus, being delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, he accuses this crowd, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It's true that on a human way of understanding, a horrible thing has happened here, an injustice has occurred.

And yet Peter recognizes that God is still at work moving his saving purposes forward.

This was God's definite plan.

This was his foreknowledge that determined this is the way I am going to save my people.

So when we gather at the foot of the cross, we gather as those who take confidence that God works victory through defeat, that God works his saving purposes through all circumstances, no matter how bleak they might seem, God is not outmatched.

So we can rest assured that no matter what, God will not forsake us or abandon us.

That whatever harm or hindrance seems to be playing itself out, maybe in the life of our congregation, maybe in our own lives as Christians, God is actually working out his purposes, not despite these circumstances, but even in these circumstances, mysteriously.

And so we're invited by Paul to put into practice a life that is worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Did you see that in verse 27?

Let your life, Paul says, be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

This word worthy is something like becoming, something like being appropriate to.

Whatever the gospel is, let your life be in harmony with it.

And Paul gives us some examples.

What does that look like?

Well, Paul says, it looks like unity.

Standing firm in one spirit, sharing a common life together, striving side by side.

Maybe at this point we should notice that when Paul says, let your life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, that you is plural.

Y'all.

Let y'all's life be worthy of the gospel of Christ.

This is an exhortation to the whole congregation.

And this is what churches are meant to represent.

When we stand in unity together, when we share a common life, when we step out together in common mission, we're being an image of this God who himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, shares a common life of love together.

And we become a reflection of this God who is at mission in the world, drawing all people to himself.

And so Paul says, be unified and be courageous.

Do all of this without intimidation or fear, is what Paul says.

Why?

Because our trust is that God is bigger even than our circumstances.

Even than the hardships we face, God is greater still, so we can have courage to face the circumstances at hand.

Things don't always work out according to our plans, do they?

Here I was, graduated, living in my parents' basement now.

Life looked very different than I had in mind a couple of months ago in terms of my ministry, in terms of my life.

And yet it's through all of this that I made a connection with this church called St.

Peter and St.

Paul's in Ottawa, which had a lovely guitarist leading worship most Sundays.

And I got connected with a pastor there, came a really good mentor of mine.

And it was through his words of wisdom that I started to sense, you know, maybe this education stuff is not what I'm geared for.

Maybe it's parish ministry I'm geared for.

And through all of these difficult circumstances, this moment that felt like such a game over only a couple months previous, started to, I started to recognize, okay, God, maybe you're at work even in this.

Maybe you're working not my best will for myself, but your best will forward.

And friends, there's no guarantees.

I'm so glad I met Rachel.

I'm so glad that we're married.

There's no guarantees that God grants us exactly what we want in life, but he grants us something even better, and that's himself.

That's who he is.

That's his love for us.

That is the assurance of knowing our salvation is secure in Christ because of his cross and his resurrection.

That is God's guarantee to us.

That's the guarantee he makes through his word and at his table.

That's what fills us with confidence as Christians, friends.

That's what fills us with confidence even in the paradox of the gospel.

What we assume hinders the gospel can be exactly God's means to advance it.

So, Nusong, can we move forward with confidence in our own lives as Christians, in our common life together?

We know that God is at work in our midst, and He's moving His gospel forward even in the midst of our hardships.

Let's meet it with courage and trust.

What happens to you and I, what happens to us as a congregation, really serves to advance the gospel.

Christ is proclaimed, and in that we rejoice.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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May God bless you and keep you today and every day.