Philippians 1:12-18 | Two Steps Forward, One Back

Sunday Morning | September 14, 2025 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In Philippians 1:12–18, Paul reminds the church that even in difficulty, the gospel continues to move forward. First, it spreads broadly as more people hear about Christ, and second, believers are emboldened to share their faith with courage. Yet, alongside this progress, there are setbacks as rivalry and envy creep in—even among fellow believers whom Paul still calls brothers. Envy distorts the heart, causing grief at others’ blessings and satisfaction at their struggles, which stands in direct contrast to the love Christ calls us to display (John 13:35). Still, Paul does not respond with bitterness but with joy, knowing that regardless of motives, Christ is proclaimed and God’s kingdom is advancing.

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Transcript

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It's always fascinating to me how things line up sometimes. The passage I'm studying in my personal life, it also aligns with what I'm studying to prepare for Sunday, which also aligns with things I'm wrestling with personally, spiritually, and also aligns with things that are happening in our church. But then also when it's things happening in our culture, it's always amazing to me when that happens and it's not all the time, but when that happens, it seems to me God is trying to say something to us, trying to get our attention in a unique way. I think this is one of those weeks, and I'm going to comment on the situation with Charlie Kirk's murder later in the message. I'm up because I want to make sure my comments about that are rooted in Scripture. You know, that's that's our burden as a church to make sure hopefully we're being faithful with God's Word. Hopefully everything we say, do, believe, put forward is rooted in God's Word, not just a reaction based on momentary feelings and and all that. I want to make sure we're rooted in, in Scripture and especially in the message of today's passage. It's very timely. Because Paul is saying to a group of people, a new church, young believers who've likely gotten discouraged, the gospel is still advancing forward. You may feel like in the moment, things that have happened that aren't great in your city at that time, and you feel like you've taken two steps forward, and now we're taking a step back. But the gospel still moves forward. The mission still moves forward. There's a famous story or situation from World War two, where the Great Britain had been advancing in France and Germany, moving towards the German army. But then they had a big setback, and they had to evacuate somewhere around 300,000 of their soldiers. And of course, they celebrated that we rescued 300,000 of our soldiers from Dunkirk. There's been a whole movie down on it recently. The the who wouldn't be glad. Thank you that we rescue them and live to fight another day. But then Churchill, of course, speaks up and says, but don't forget, wars are not won through retreat. We still have to go back and fight. We still have to advance. The mission has to continue forward. That's great. It's great that happened, but it's got to keep pressing forward. And this is the message we're going to hear from Paul today. The gospel keeps advancing even when it seems that things aren't going the way they should, even when it seems the enemy is winning, even when things aren't going right in life, the gospel still advances. The mission of the gospel still moves forward, and we've got to stay focused on that. So we're going to be in the book of Philippians today. We started a series in the book of Philippians a couple of weeks ago. If you have a church Bible that'll be on page 921 in your church Bible, if you don't have a Bible, we always have those out in the lobby for you. Feel free to slip out any time and grab one. You can keep that. That's for you to have and to be able to read from. We want you turning in God's Word and reading from it while we study His Word together. And we want you to continue to read and study it on your own throughout the week. Read ahead. Saturate yourself in the book of Philippians over these months. Know the book of Philippians very well. I believe God has messages for us in this book for our church in this time that are very specific for this church. Where Paul is going to start in this passage is by reminding them about the good, the two steps forward, the things they should be celebrating. An enthusiastic church, a young church has things to celebrate. So let's look at these two steps forward. Let's start in verse 12 of Philippians chapter one. I'm going to read the first couple of verses here. Verse 12. 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 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. Now, the first thing to note about his address to them, before he starts to highlight the ways the gospel has continued to advance forward. The first thing to note is that he calls them brothers. Brothers. And that term, when used in Scripture, is often also translated. Maybe in some of your Bibles it might say, brothers and sisters, that's an appropriate way to translate that word. It's it's like if I say to the whole church, I'm talking to all you guys. I don't mean just the men in the room. That means everyone. Now, I would never say she's a great guy, right? That didn't make sense. Because if I use guy in the singular, I'm referring to a man. But when I say guys, I could be referring to a whole group of people. And it's the same way here. He calls them brothers. It can be translated brothers and sisters. Here's the point, though. Oftentimes in Scripture, when Christians are referring to other Christians, family language is used. They're referred to as family. This reminds us of studying the book of Proverbs. There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. There is a friend who is actually closer than family because of our relationship in Christ. There's something that happens here in church when you connect with another Christian, when you connect deeply with them, there's something that happens that is even more of a connection than even your very family. And many of you could attest to that. You could say, God has brought other believers into my life, and they have become closer than the ones God God gave me just through family. Something powerful is happening there. So he calls them brothers, calls them sisters, speaks to them as family. But he says to them, what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. So keep in mind this is Paul's letter to a church who had given him a gift for the mission work he's doing now. He's a missionary. He's traveling about it. Send him a gift. He's writing them a thank you note. And of course, if a missionary I'm supporting ends up in prison, I want to know a little more about that situation. Tell me a little more. What's going on? How are you doing? How did you end up there? I hope it was for good reasons. Not bad. What? How can we pray for you? How can we continue to come alongside you? Is your ministry still existing? Should we keep giving or not? You're gonna have a lot of questions. And I love how Paul addresses all of these. All he says the only thing he refers to about his imprisonment is he just says that thing that happened to me, what has happened to me. And here's what happens. It's served to advance the gospel. You know, Paul doesn't spend any time talking about prison. He doesn't give any attention to maybe the conditions, the sleeping arrangement, the food, the prison guards, the quality of the internet connection. He doesn't get into any of that. He doesn't address it at all. And to be assured, if I were in prison and I was writing you a letter about it, that most of it would be about that, here are the conditions here, how horrible they are, how I'm being mistreated. How in the world did this happen? On and on and on. And all Paul says is, yeah, this happened. And it brings about the advancement of the gospel. He's focused on the mission. It doesn't matter what happened to me. The gospel goes forward. Tim Keller has this phrase that I love. When I read things like this, it reminds me of he calls it blessed self forgetfulness. You know, he's not worried about himself. It's almost like he's forgotten about himself in a in a healthy way. He's not preoccupied with self, is more worried about the gospel more worried about the mission. Now he says two things about how it has advanced, how it has moved forward at first is it has advanced broadly in your notes outline. That's that first category. It has spread broadly. Look back at verse 13. What has happened to me is really served to advance the gospel, to push it forward. So that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial guard and all the rest, that my imprisonment is for Christ. So the whole Imperial guard, the whole pretorian guard. Some would say that was maybe more of the elite of the Roman soldiers, maybe like we would consider officers. These would have been maybe more of a hardened group, hard shell to crack. And Paul is saying this is to be celebrated. These are people who now have heard the gospel. Would they have heard the gospel apart from me being in prison? God use that to reach this group. It's hard to reach. Not only that, but it says to the rest of the brothers now or to the rest. Also, we don't know exactly who that is. Some speculate that that's probably other people that the Philippians knew broadly and had been praying for. But the point here is the gospel has spread broadly. It has gone throughout the immediate known Earth at that time. But even now we can say the gospel has gone throughout the world. I mean, think of a person's name that is more well known throughout the world than the name of Jesus. You can go to the most remote parts of the earth, and there oftentimes will be people there who have heard the name of Jesus. They may not believe in him. They may not know everything about him. They may not understand all that he did, but they likely have many times have heard his name. We were in this remote village in Rwanda once, which is this tiny country in the middle of Africa, and we end up in this hut to have a meal and a sit down at the chair. And I look up and there's a picture of Jesus on the wall. Now, right next to him was Tupac. I'm not sure why they had those together. It was kind of like what I didn't quite understand. But Jesus, his name is everywhere. He is known throughout the world. His name has spread. And Paul says, I can rejoice that my imprisonment has led to the advance of the gospel. It's spread broadly first and foremost. Now look here secondly at what it says. Look at verse 14. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. So it spread broadly. But secondly, the second step forward is that it also emboldened the brothers to speak the Word of God without fear. It embolden people who are already Christians to to continue to advance the gospel. So not only did Paul spread the gospel, others looked at his example and said, we need to be doing that too, because you're in prison now. I feel more courageous to spread the gospel because of your sacrifice. I feel like God is calling me to do that as well. Emboldened. Encouraged. This is why we can't just look at the face value of any given situation and make a quick determination about what it means, and I'm not even talking about the Charlie Kirk situation yet. You've all had this happen in your life where something bad has happened to you, or someone you know around you could be the loss of a job, could be the loss of a relationship. Could have been that a ministry you had a vision for fell apart. And at the moment you thought everything is over. Life seems to have ended. And then a little time passes and you see God had a different plan. He actually had something better in mind for me. I'm not talking about every situation, but you've had those moments. That job ended and you realize that was actually a good thing. I'm actually in a better place now. He has a plan that I couldn't see at the time. And one of the consequences or results of Paul being in prison is that it led to others being inspired to speak the Word of God boldly, without fear, courageously to continue to advance the gospel. And as I thought about the situation with Charlie Kirk, and if you don't know who he is, we'll have a photo of him up on the screen. He's a political social commentator. I don't know all of his political views. I'm not necessarily endorsing every view he had. I didn't follow him all that closely, but I did watch a number of his videos over the years of him interacting with college students, especially trying to correct their crazy views about the world, trying to point them to truth. And one thing I always admired about him is he was very clear, first and foremost, the most important thing in my life is Jesus. You don't always hear people be that direct about that, even if that's what they believe. And there's reasons to maybe not put that. First and foremost, I get that I'm not criticizing those who make their faith, maybe not as prominent in as others, but he made that first and foremost. He was very public and bold about it. I think some of us, when we hear and he was shot and murdered this week in Utah when he was on a campus interacting with college students, doing what he always does, I think some of us would be tempted when we hear that to go now, the world is not safe for me. Now I need to retreat. Now I need to make sure I'm not putting myself or my family or anyone else in that kind of danger. Like like Charlie did. I didn't know Charlie personally, but I guarantee you that he would plead with you not to do that. I guarantee you that he would say, because of what I suffered. Now go and speak the word more, more boldly, without fear. That would be his encouragement. Don't let that turn you towards fear. Don't let that increase. That's what the enemy. Once he wants more anxiety in your life, more fear. Listen, none of us are promised safety. We don't come here to church today to preach safety. When the gospel advances, it's almost always accompanied by persecution. We should not be surprised or shocked by persecution. We should expect it. We don't go looking for it. I'm not trying to create it. I sure don't want it. But I shouldn't be surprised. And it shouldn't cause fear and retreat and anxiety. It shouldn't cause me to go inward. More like with Paul. It should embolden God. Would you give us the courage to speak your word without fear more boldly in love? Kindly. That's one thing I admired about him. All his interactions were out of respect. He never put anyone down. He was clear. He was truthful. He was direct, but always out of respect, respecting the other person. That's so rare to see. Man, speak the Word of God more boldly without fear. These are the steps forward. Paul says, listen, I'm in prison. Here's what we can celebrate now. The reality is, though, what happens in a young church in particular, oftentimes we talked about this last week. You get a few years down the road and things aren't as exciting as they were at first. And now all of a sudden, I'm struggling with sin in ways I thought I'd be done with. And I've lost some of that enthusiasm. And then what starts to happen within that church? There's some immaturity, there's some poor decisions. Relationships get strained. And so Paul points out a couple of things. This step backward that seems to be the missions advancing. And now it seems we're taking a step backward. Let's look at what he highlights here. Look at verse 15 through 17. 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. So they seem to be taking a step back. And there's a couple of words here that specifically describe what is happening in this young church. Struggling with immaturity, struggling with challenges in relationships. One of the words he uses here is rivalry. You might call it in-fighting, might call it division. That's not what you want in a church. It's amazing how churches will split over the smallest thing. Look, rivalries great in sports. That's a lot of fun. We love it at our house. When UK and U of L play, I went to U of L, Julie went to UK. We love it. It's it turns into a rivalry. There's lots of trash talking. It's a lot of fun. Except when UK wins. That's not as much fun for me but the idea is fun. That's great. That's great. In sports. That's not good in church. Go card somebody thank you for standing up for me in my home. Yeah. Listen, that's not what you want. You don't want infighting. A friend of mine told me about how his whole denomination was birthed out of an argument in the brethren movement about whether it was appropriate or not too showy to wear buttons or not. You know, this was hundreds of years ago, like buttons, we will divide over anything. Color the paint, color the carpet, whether you should wear buttons or not. What? How? It seems like we're hard wired to divide. And Paul is saying, that's not that's not what should be the case. That's not what should be descriptive of the church. There's rivalry. But then the other word he use is envy. And that word envy. That is such a difficult word to process. We talked about it in first Peter, but I ran across this quote in your I put it in your notes that I want you to see, because it highlights just how insidious envy is. Look at this quote here. It says the envious. And this is from Joseph Heller. He wrote a Bible commentary. The envious are concerned more to deprive another of the desired thing than to gain it themselves. This is how messed up envy is. It's not just that I want that thing that you have. I want to make sure what I want more than wanting it, is to make sure you don't have it. I want more that you suffer because you have it. Then for me to even get it, there's more. Look at what else he says. This is how bad it gets. It involves sadness. When good things happen to others, joy at the evils they experience. Thus the opposite of rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, which is a quote from Romans 12. So envy is so terrible it says, not only do I not want you to have that thing, and I want that more than I actually want it. I also want you to suffer because you have it. I want you to experience evil because you have that thing that I haven't been able to have. That is something that should never be a word used to describe anyone in church. It never should be. And where envy starts, it starts deep in here. Here's where it starts. It starts with I want that, I want that thing. It might even start from a good place. I'd really like that. That thing, that person, that relationship. But then it grows into covetousness. It grows into. And I have to have it to be happy. If God loves me, he will give it to me. You see, the progress that happens, the progression. Now I have to hate others who get it when I don't. And look, that happens in middle school. We all know that, but we grow out of that, especially as we grow in Christ. And so here's what you need to do today if you are harboring any bitterness in your heart, any unforgiveness, any covetousness, deal with that today. Don't let it linger. Don't let it grow past that into envy and division and rivalry. Deal with that today, search your heart and ask. Even as I'm preaching, just ask God. God, is there any unforgiveness or bitterness in my heart towards anyone? Would you expose that to us today? Our church will not grow past your personal bitterness. It won't. That'll be a huge hindrance. I don't have anybody in particular in mind. I'm not trying to target anyone with that other than my own heart. Look, it's there too. God, would you expose that in our hearts today. Don't let us continue to just delight in that and to continue to keep it to ourselves and to continue to think it's okay. It's not. We want to be known as the church. And here's the word that should be used instead. A church should not be known as envious, as rivalrous. It should be known. And look in your notes. Instead, we should be known differently by our love for one another, because the blank I skipped over before that. The most troubling part is that Paul calls them brothers. He does call them brothers. It is true that Christians can sin. It is true that Christians might cause harm toward you. And so if you come to Valley View expecting that this will be a place of perfection and that no one will ever wrong you, and that if anyone does, you have to storm out and say, I told you so. Someone will wrong you here. If you're here any amount of time, someone will sin against you. Our hope is, though, that we will also correct that in love through Christ we will seek forgiveness. We will see the gospel played out in a powerful way that you don't. You don't get in the rest of life. I know I'm making a strong case for why you should come to church here. It's true though our heart. If we're not focused on the mission, if we're not focused on advancing the gospel, this is where it hits. Rivalry. In fact, the way he described what they were after in verse 17, the former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. Other Christians, because Paul was in prison, were thinking, now is my chance to shine. Now is my chance to show off how great I will be at ministry. Paul was okay, but he was getting too much attention. I'm the one that should have been getting the attention and he's off the scene now. Now is my chance. And also, by the way, I hope he hears about it and it hurts him. It's not where we want to be. Instead, we want to be known for love. That verse I've listed there,

John 13: 23:04

35 people will know you're my disciples by this, by your love for one another. That's what will stand out to the world when we love each other well. Not even the world. It's talking about our love for one another when we love each other. Well, people. People look and they say that that's that's not normal. Something is going on there. I got to know what's happening there. Would you tell me more? When your neighbor sees you loving on another Christian, they go, how do I get that? I don't have that. I want some of that in my life. That's why it's important to be here. Do you want to proclaim the gospel to others? Start by loving the people who are here right now. Love one another well, and that'll open the door to the gospel in amazing ways. So Paul says, yeah, we've had two steps forward, and it seems there's one step back. In fact, I'm being attacked. People hope that I hurt because of the way they're falsely preaching the gospel. Even people he would call Christians. How does he respond to that? How does Paul respond to that? I know how I would respond. How does Paul respond? Look at verse 18. What then? Yeah, that's his way of saying, so what? What do you mean, what should we think? How should I feel? What does this all mean? What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that I rejoice. That's not how I would respond. This is how Paul responds. The true gospel is still going forth, forth, and I'm going to give thanks for that. I'm going to say, I'm going to walk in joy. Because Paul knows what's happening on the surface. I can't know what else God has planned. And of course, that applies to Charlie Kirk's death. That applies to any tragedy you face. I'm reminded of a pretty famous missionary couple, Jim and Elizabeth Elliot, they went to in the 50s, 60s. They went to Ecuador to reach tribes, there, remote tribes. And Jim was brutally murdered. And a number of his friends. Elizabeth stayed to continue to reach those Indians natives. It's probably a better word to continue to reach those native tribes. In fact, she ended up leading the very man who killed her husband to Christ. Now that's amazing enough in and of itself. How many of us will have the courage to do that? And so rare, I don't know that I would. But here's what else happened. They came out of Wheaton College. That's where they met. That's where they went from to become missionaries. And here's what happened at Wheaton College. You want to know what happened over the coming years? You would expect they would go. We better not go out into the jungle. It's not safe. We better pick a different career path. I think I'm going to go into engineering now instead of missions. That's okay. By the way. No problem with that. You would think, though, that everyone would retreat toward safety and hundreds and hundreds of Wheaton College students, as a result of their example, said, we're going into missions. We're not playing it safe. We are emboldened to preach the Word of God without fear more boldly than ever before. And so wherever God has you and listen, it takes great wisdom to know what that means. I'm not talking about walking into work Monday and start reading off the gospel tract. Everyone in front of you that might do the opposite of what you want. It takes great wisdom to know what this means, but we don't retreat out of fear. The gospel continues to advance the mission of Christ continues to advance. Our theme for this whole series is press on. Keep praying that he would open doors for us to press on and to advance the gospel all throughout Louisville.