SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Good morning.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Jeremy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the student and family pastor here at Faith.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a Bible, please join me in the letter to the Philippian Church, the Book of Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: We'll be in chapter one, verses twelve through eighteen.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
SPEAKER_01: Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.
SPEAKER_01: The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
SPEAKER_01: What then?
SPEAKER_01: Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: We are in December, and if you're dis disappointed that we are not having a Christmas message, I apologize, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But it's kind of Christmassy if we think about the theme for this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Um but being in December means that we are fast approaching January, which means a new year and accompanying New Year's resolutions.
SPEAKER_01: And statistically, most of you are going to take on a New Year's resolution that is focused on health or physical fitness.
SPEAKER_01: And statistically, you know where this is going.
SPEAKER_01: Most of us are going to fall off the bandwagon about first or second week of February.
SPEAKER_01: If you go to the gym already, you know, like January, the first week of January, the place is packed.
SPEAKER_01: All the machines are taken up.
SPEAKER_01: People who have never been in a gym are doing who knows what in there.
SPEAKER_01: And you're just kind of a little irritated and annoyed because maybe that's kind of your space.
SPEAKER_01: But come the first or second week of February.
SPEAKER_01: It's a ghost town, right?
SPEAKER_01: We soon find out our goals are harder to obtain than we thought.
SPEAKER_01: So, what do we do as a society with all of our ingenuity and all of our brilliance?
SPEAKER_01: Um, how do we increase the likelihood of getting the results we want without having to put in the difficult work that eventually discourages us from accomplishing our goals?
SPEAKER_01: We we do what every civil society does, and we invent shortcuts.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Such as, for example, the ab belt.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have seen this, which is why you're chuckling.
SPEAKER_01: The ab belt.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you've seen these things.
SPEAKER_01: The ab belt straps around your waist and it's designed to stimulate your stomach muscles.
SPEAKER_01: Like it's just this large belt that just sits there and goes, and it's supposed to stimulate your stomach muscles, and and the promise is that you're going to get this physique and this um fitness, this aspect of fitness if you just strap on this belt and let it do its thing for a certain amount of time, a certain number of days.
SPEAKER_01: Even if you watch the commercial, it gives the impression of effortless uh results.
SPEAKER_01: The guy, uh I saw this a long time ago, long, long time ago.
SPEAKER_01: These things have been around for a while.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but the guy who was had the ab belt on on the commercial, he was sitting there eating his breakfast, drinking his juice, and the ab belt was just going to town.
SPEAKER_01: We want the results, we want the goal, but we don't always want to put in the work.
SPEAKER_01: The truth is the ab belt does not do what is it what it is advertised to do.
SPEAKER_01: Without the proper diet and without burning more calories than you take in, the abs that you might develop might still be hidden under stuff.
SPEAKER_01: They'll be a little less visible than maybe you had hoped.
SPEAKER_01: We often look for shortcuts and easy ways to accomplish our ideals, and we tend to avoid hardship and difficulty in order to accomplish those goals.
SPEAKER_01: As the people of God, we have a mutual goal.
SPEAKER_01: Our mutual goal is the gospel advancing to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: We want our neighbors to hear about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We want our coworkers to hear about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We want our children to hear about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: But in an increasingly hostile culture, God's people find themselves encountering greater and greater adversity, greater opposition, and greater difficulty because of the message of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's not uncommon for God's people to be called bigots and hateful as we share the exclusive nature of Jesus Christ and his gospel as the only means of salvation in the public square.
SPEAKER_01: Families are estranged from one another.
SPEAKER_01: Students in public schools are bullied into silence.
SPEAKER_01: Employees might experience the same as their views are not welcomed in the break room.
SPEAKER_01: Some even face the loss of a job in order to be faithful to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is stuff happening now, here in this country.
SPEAKER_01: But do we look for an easier way out?
SPEAKER_01: Do we avoid conflict and opposition for an easier road?
SPEAKER_01: Do we try and find an ab belt for the gospel that gives us the promised results without having to put in the difficulty of the work?
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of opposition and difficulty, what we see in our text this morning is that there is a need not to fight back against opposition, not to avoid or be timid, but rather to keep our focus solely on the proclamation of Jesus Christ with the utmost confidence.
SPEAKER_01: Hence the title this morning, Confident Proclamation.
SPEAKER_01: Not only is there a need to keep our focus on the gospel, but there is a need for us to understand and embrace opposition and hardship as a divine means for the greater advancement of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And so here's our big idea for this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Don't have my clicker here, not used to this thing.
SPEAKER_01: There we go.
SPEAKER_01: That was very smooth.
SPEAKER_01: Ah, there we go.
SPEAKER_01: Here's our big idea, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So if you're taking notes, if you're a note taker, here's what I want you to write down.
SPEAKER_01: God wants to encourage us that hardship and opposition produces confident proclamation of Christ in his people.
SPEAKER_01: This is where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: This is our destination for this morning.
SPEAKER_01: And so it asks the question naturally: how do opposition and hardship generate confidence in God's people?
SPEAKER_01: And how does opposition, how does hardship generate the proclamation of the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: How does it advance the cause of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: What we see here in the example of Paul is that first, God uses opposition and hardship as an opportunity to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Second, we see that God uses opposition and hardship to embolden others to proclaim the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And third, we see that God uses opposition and hardship to refine our focus on the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And God uses the Apostle Paul here to demonstrate to us that opposition, difficulty, adversity is not something that should be avoided as if it is a risk to the gospel, as if it has the potential to stop the gospel, but rather to embrace it as ordained by God for his good and sovereign purposes.
SPEAKER_01: And so we begin first with the fact that God uses hardship and opposition as an opportunity to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Paul again writes, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We have to ask ourselves, what has happened to Paul?
SPEAKER_01: What is he referring to?
SPEAKER_01: Well, when Paul is writing this letter, he's imprisoned.
SPEAKER_01: Not necessarily in prison, but he is imprisoned.
SPEAKER_01: He's in all likelihood under house arrest in Rome, chained to a Roman soldier 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
SPEAKER_01: He has some privileges because he's not really a flight risk, but he can't go anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: He is under house arrest.
SPEAKER_01: And what led to Paul's imprisonment is that he simply he just couldn't keep his mouth shut about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that God would give all of us such an affliction that we would not be able to stop talking about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I digress.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul is imprisoned for.
SPEAKER_01: He just literally cannot stop talking about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the pattern of Paul's hardship and opposition's pattern of ministry.
SPEAKER_01: All the hardship he experiences, all the opposition to Paul's ministry is because he just won't stop talking about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul's hardships are consistent with following Christ.
SPEAKER_01: In Matthew chapter 5, verses 10 through 12, Jesus promises blessing, the blessing of the kingdom of God for all of those who are persecuted, and includes them in the pantheon of faithful prophetic witnesses.
SPEAKER_01: John 15, Jesus promises that the world will hate his disciples, because the world first hates him.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus' disciples are not greater than Jesus, and so if the world hates Jesus, then they will hate his disciples.
SPEAKER_01: However, there is comfort here because Jesus says there is a promise that he will send the helper, the Holy Spirit, so that they can be a witness for Christ in those circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 10 through 12, the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy, his young protege, that all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Peter chapter 4, 12 through 14, the Apostle Peter writing to the churches, scattered throughout the Roman Empire, reminds them that they should not be surprised when the fiery trial comes upon them, but rather that they should rejoice in the sufferings of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter would go on to say that none of God's people should suffer as mere criminals, but rather only on account of the name of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly where Paul finds himself.
SPEAKER_01: He's imprisoned on account of the name of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's desire is to preach Christ, though, regardless of the circumstances he finds himself in.
SPEAKER_01: And in this case, it is the difficult circumstance of imprisonment that facilitates the advancement of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Look at what he says in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Again, verse 12, what has happened to me has served.
SPEAKER_01: It is a servant to this purpose.
SPEAKER_01: What is that purpose?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The entire imperial guard has heard Paul's gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the same soldier chained to Paul every single day or maybe even every single week.
SPEAKER_01: There's likely a rotation of guards coming in and out who are rotating with one another, standing guard over Paul, and as they switch shifts, the next guard comes in, and guess what happens?
SPEAKER_01: Hey, can I tell you about Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: And Paul throws in this that everyone else, all the rest, everyone else who has crossed paths with Paul has heard the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's situation seems counterintuitive, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: It's counterintuitive because he's in chains.
SPEAKER_01: He's imprisoned.
SPEAKER_01: That's not a way to facilitate the advancement of a message.
SPEAKER_01: That's how the world thinks is going to stop.
SPEAKER_01: That's why they put him in prison in the first place was to stop him from what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: But that's how the message of the gospel spreads in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts chapter 8, under severe persecution.
SPEAKER_01: The believers of the church are scattered abroad from Jerusalem into the broader geographic region of Samaria and Judea.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is preached under persecution.
SPEAKER_01: The church grows.
SPEAKER_01: In Acts chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas are driven out of a town called Antioch in Pisidia by devout women of high standing and leading men of the city after having shared the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: They're driven out.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens to them?
SPEAKER_01: The church in Antioch experiences growth, they are strengthened, and Paul and Barnabas move on to the next town called Iconium.
SPEAKER_01: Later on in that chapter, they would receive death threats in this city, so they move on and preach the gospel in the next town, Lystra.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is eventually followed by those who oppose him, and they convince everyone in the city to drag Paul out of town, pelt him with rocks until he's lying on the ground and presumed dead.
SPEAKER_01: Paul miraculously pops right back up, heads back into the city, preaches the gospel, and more people follow Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The church grows and is strengthened.
SPEAKER_01: We could keep going, not just in the book of Acts, but we could go to history.
SPEAKER_01: For the first 400 years, the most powerful nation on the planet tried to stomp out the message of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And the gospel grows so much to where it overtakes this powerful nation.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot stop the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing can stop the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Opposition, difficulty, and persecution not only can't stop the gospel, but they are generally, usually, mechanisms that intertwined with the advancement of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't make sense to us that opposition is the path towards advancement, but that's because we've been trained to think that freedom and liberty is the natural path towards gospel advancement.
SPEAKER_01: But that's that's simply not true, brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the reality: we live in one of the freest societies in the world, the freest country in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And yet studies show that evangelical Christians are extremely hesitant in sharing the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We have this enormous freedom and yet we do not leverage it.
SPEAKER_01: And then you look in places like China, which is on pace by 2035, to be the most Christian nation in the world, which has also experienced some of the most severe persecution in the last 50 years.
SPEAKER_01: Opposition, hardship, difficulty is intertwined with the advancement of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: That's because the kingdom of God is paradoxical in nature.
SPEAKER_01: What makes sense to us is not necessarily how God works.
SPEAKER_01: For example, let's consider the example of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not tracking with what I'm saying in terms of the paradoxical nature of the kingdom of God, let's look at Christ, for example.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ was arrested so that you and I could be freed.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ was judged guilty so that you and I could be declared innocent.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus was beaten so that you and I could be healed.
SPEAKER_01: He was stripped naked in humiliation so that we would be covered by his grace.
SPEAKER_01: And he was killed upon a cross so that you and I could have life.
SPEAKER_01: What makes sense to you and I is not how God operates.
SPEAKER_01: And what makes sense in terms of the propagation of the gospel and using freedom, that's not always necessarily how God works.
SPEAKER_01: What if God wants to use the difficulty, hardship, opposition in your life as a means for advancing the gospel in your context?
SPEAKER_01: God's people will always be opposed.
SPEAKER_01: They will always experience hardship and they will always be persecuted in order to be a witness for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So the question is, what opposition is confronting you as you come in here this morning on account of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: For some of you, it is a difficult family relationship.
SPEAKER_01: It's a family member who rejects your Jesus and all that he stands for.
SPEAKER_01: You're afraid to have that difficult conversation, and I understand.
SPEAKER_01: For some of you, it's in the workplace.
SPEAKER_01: Your Jesus is not welcomed in the break room.
SPEAKER_01: And yet the conversations that are stimulated in there, you're afraid to speak up because you don't want to encounter opposition to what you believe.
SPEAKER_01: What opposition is facing you at this moment?
SPEAKER_01: If I could just be really honest, it's it's sometimes the fear of not being liked.
SPEAKER_01: That's really the opposition that we have a hard time overcoming.
SPEAKER_01: That's what keeps us from sharing the gospel with our neighbors.
SPEAKER_01: We're afraid that they will reject our message, that they will in turn reject us.
SPEAKER_01: And so we keep to ourselves, we mind our own business.
SPEAKER_01: We do not share.
SPEAKER_01: What opposition is confronting you on account of Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: What is your disposition when it comes to difficulty on account of your faith?
SPEAKER_01: Parents, how are you training your children to respond to difficulty?
SPEAKER_01: Again, the culture is not becoming more gracious towards Christians.
SPEAKER_01: It is becoming more hostile.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying this so that you can go out and be a victim in society, but rather, brothers and sisters, we gotta we gotta prepare ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We gotta prepare our children.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to follow Christ, you will be opposed, you will be hated, and that's okay because God uses that for his purposes.
SPEAKER_01: And what if, rather than avoiding hostility, rather than avoiding dissent, objections, and antagonism, we embraced opposition, hardship, and difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: As an opportunity for the gospel to be explicitly declared and made known.
SPEAKER_01: What if?
SPEAKER_01: What if we worked harder at persuading others of their need for Christ rather than debating the superiority of Christian morals?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're the kind who doesn't avoid the challenge, right?
SPEAKER_01: You see people avoid or opposed to your faith, and so you're like, okay, let's do this.
SPEAKER_01: You put the gloves on, you're like, let's go to work, let's fight.
SPEAKER_01: And you end up getting pulled into an argument about abortion, homosexuality, relativism.
SPEAKER_01: And rather than talking about the gospel of Christ, you get pulled into these fights and debates about Christian things, but not about Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: Now, point of clarification here.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So that you can not write that email.
SPEAKER_01: And if you do, I'll tell you to go back and watch the tape.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a point of clarification.
SPEAKER_01: Christians should stand against sin and evil.
SPEAKER_01: Murdering babies in the womb is evil.
SPEAKER_01: Indoctrinating children in gender confusion is evil.
SPEAKER_01: A homosexual union will never be marriage.
SPEAKER_01: God's people have been called on to speak out about such issues.
SPEAKER_01: However, what should be the primary emphasis for God's people in a hostile culture?
SPEAKER_01: Should it be all the morals or should it be the gospel of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Let us not forget that we are not unique.
SPEAKER_01: The Church of Jesus Christ lived in, again, the most hostile culture for the first 400 years of its existence in one of the most liberal cultures known to man, far more liberal than the current society that we live in.
SPEAKER_01: And yet the church's focus was not on the immorality, although they spoke out against it.
SPEAKER_01: The church's focus was on the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: If you win the argument on morals, ethics, or politics with your coworker, with your in-laws, or that wayward child, they are no closer to heaven if they don't have Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: So what is it that we gain?
SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul wanted to encourage the Philippians that the affliction and hardship he suffered served to advance the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: God wants you to know that your hardship and difficulty on account of Christ can do the exact same thing.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel advances under hardship and difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: But part of how the gospel advances is that it also encourages boldness in others.
SPEAKER_01: God uses hardship and opposition to embolden others to proclaim the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: Paul adds, and most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord, why?
SPEAKER_01: Because of his imprisonment.
SPEAKER_01: They are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
SPEAKER_01: Paul explains that what has happened to him has served as an opportunity to advance the gospel in his specific context, but there have been some ripple effects that have spread beyond Paul's imprisonment.
SPEAKER_01: Word has gotten out regarding what's happened to Paul, and it's generated confidence in other brothers, confidence and boldness to preach the gospel of Christ without fear.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's boldness, in spite of his opposition, has caused others to be also bold in their proclamation of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: His imprisonment is kind of serving like an Alamo.
SPEAKER_01: You guys know the Alamo.
SPEAKER_01: I know we're pretty far north, but you know those brothers down south.
SPEAKER_01: The Alamo?
SPEAKER_01: In February of 1836, the Mexican army laid siege to a place known as the Alamo.
SPEAKER_01: In years past, the Alamo served as a mission statement or uh station for the Roman Catholic Church.
SPEAKER_01: But in this time period, it became a fort, a fortress, in the battle between Texas and Mexico.
SPEAKER_01: And after a 13-day siege, the Battle of the Alamo commenced.
SPEAKER_01: The fighting lasted only 90 minutes, and every Texan within the Alamo was killed.
SPEAKER_01: It was an utter defeat.
SPEAKER_01: However, this defeat would become the rallying cry for the Texas Army in future battles.
SPEAKER_01: Just a few months later, in April of that same year, General Sam Houston led the Texas Army in the battle against the Mexican army on the banks of the San Jacinto River.
SPEAKER_01: And as they charged into battle, they cried, Remember the Alamo.
SPEAKER_01: That battle only lasted 18 minutes.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a resounding victory for the Texas army.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the Alamo.
SPEAKER_01: Remember Paul's chains.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's chains are a rallying cry for other believers to be bold in their proclamation.
SPEAKER_01: There's a mystery of courageous actions that inspires others to also be courageous.
SPEAKER_01: I was a Marine for four years, and I deployed twice to Iraq as an infantry rifleman.
SPEAKER_01: And there's something unique as you see bold and courageous actions of other brothers that you are fighting with that inspires boldness within you to go do courageous things.
SPEAKER_01: And your hardship and your difficulty or opposition can be the rallying cry for other believers to be bold and faithful in their witness in what they are going through as well.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it only takes one courageous action to generate courage in others.
SPEAKER_01: One more historical illustration from the 1900s, early 1900s, during China's Boxer Rebellion, which was an attempt to purge China of all foreign influence.
SPEAKER_01: And so naturally Christianity was seen as a Western religion, and so any presence of the Christian faith was purged, or there was an attempt to purge it from China during this time.
SPEAKER_01: And in 1900, insurgents captured a mission station.
SPEAKER_01: And this mission station served as a church, but also as a school, training young people in the Christian faith.
SPEAKER_01: The insurgents captured the mission station.
SPEAKER_01: They blocked all the gates except for one.
SPEAKER_01: And in front of that one gate that they left open, they placed a cross down on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: They spread the word to all of those inside that any who would trample the cross underfoot would be free to leave.
SPEAKER_01: Those who refused would face a firing squad.
SPEAKER_01: Terribly frightened as you could imagine.
SPEAKER_01: The first seven students trembling as they approached the gate, trampled on the cross, fearing for their lives.
SPEAKER_01: But there was something different with the eighth student.
SPEAKER_01: The eighth student, a a young girl.
SPEAKER_01: She walks up to the cross while her captors are watching, waiting to see what she does, seeing if she follows the example of the first seven.
SPEAKER_01: She walks up to the cross, tears in her eyes, and she kneels beside it.
SPEAKER_01: She prays for God to give her strength and courage and boldness for what she's about to face.
SPEAKER_01: She stands up and faces the firing squad.
SPEAKER_01: Strengthened by her example, every single one of the remaining ninety-two students followed by her example at the firing squad to their death.
SPEAKER_01: One courageous attached.
SPEAKER_01: Church we are watching.
SPEAKER_01: Not to see how you stumble and fall.
SPEAKER_01: We are watching each other, looking for who's going to be brave in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: Where is God calling you to be brave?
SPEAKER_01: Where is He leading you to be courageous?
SPEAKER_01: What impact might you have?
SPEAKER_01: Might God work through and in you if you took a step of faith to be bold in your proclamation of Christ, regardless of the outcome.
SPEAKER_01: Do you underestimate the impact that you might have if you were courageous?
SPEAKER_01: Your example can and will inspire courage in others to do the same.
SPEAKER_01: Opposition and hardship.
SPEAKER_01: It advances the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It inspires courage in others.
SPEAKER_01: But it also changes our perspective of life.
SPEAKER_01: God uses hardship and opposition as an opportunity to refine our focus on the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: If you look at verse 15 through 17, Paul talking about those who are proclaiming Christ, those who look to Paul's example and feel a little more emboldened to go and preach the gospel, right?
SPEAKER_01: We get an insight into some of their motives.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 15, he says, Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's kind of messed up, don't you think?
SPEAKER_01: But others from goodwill.
SPEAKER_01: The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.
SPEAKER_01: Notice that Paul includes an added detail here of why some of these brothers in Christ are preaching the gospel more boldly.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, his imprisonment has generated confidence in all of them to preach the gospel boldly, but not all of them have pure motives in doing so.
SPEAKER_01: And for clarification, we need to understand that these brothers are proclaiming truth.
SPEAKER_01: It's not an issue of the content of what they are preaching, it's an issue of motive.
SPEAKER_01: And I've often heard this verse used as justification for listening to false teachers.
SPEAKER_01: Well, they get most things right.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Paul says, who cares, right?
SPEAKER_01: As long as the gospel's preached.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what Paul is saying.
SPEAKER_01: These brothers are preaching the truth of the gospel faithfully and confidently.
SPEAKER_01: It is their motive that is the issue.
SPEAKER_01: Some are preaching Christ from envy and rivalry.
SPEAKER_01: They have this selfish ambition of outperforming Paul, thinking that they will humiliate Paul in some way by racking up more converts while Paul rots in jail.
SPEAKER_01: And this isn't all of them.
SPEAKER_01: Some are preaching Christ out of love, love for Christ, love for Paul.
SPEAKER_01: You can almost sense maybe a hint of irritation as Paul is writing these things down.
SPEAKER_01: Those who are using his own imprisonment against him.
SPEAKER_01: Notice Paul's response to the haters.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: What then?
SPEAKER_01: Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: It's Paul's way of saying, I really don't care.
SPEAKER_01: But why doesn't Paul care about the motives of these rivals?
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ is proclaimed.
SPEAKER_01: That is his central focus.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is in prison.
SPEAKER_01: Others are trying to make him look bad in their ministry, and his response, Christ is proclaimed.
SPEAKER_01: What of it?
SPEAKER_01: And Paul uses this word rejoice to describe his response, not to the actions of others, but to the proclamation of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What Paul has been through up to this point has completely refined his focus so that even when people do the wrong uh right thing for wrong reasons, Paul rejoices in it because it's not about him.
SPEAKER_01: He realizes his life, his reputation, his comforts, his wants.
SPEAKER_01: None of it matters.
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that matters in Paul's mind is the proclamation of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Even, even regardless of the motives of the preacher.
SPEAKER_01: Paul's perspective has been refined to focusing on a primary objective, regardless of personal accomplishments, statistics, or reputation.
SPEAKER_01: If the Minnesota Vikings went 2 and 15, no one is going to care about the greatness of Kirk Cousins.
SPEAKER_01: No one's going to care about his passer rating, no one will even care about how many yards Dalvin Cook gets for the season or anything else.
SPEAKER_01: No one's going to care.
SPEAKER_01: However, if by some miracle of the Lord they make it past the playoffs into the big game and they even win, even the fourth string tight end gets to celebrate in his team's victory.
SPEAKER_01: The goal is what matters.
SPEAKER_01: No one's going to be looking at his statistics.
SPEAKER_01: And frankly, if the quarterback has a bad or mediocre passer rating, but his team wins the big game, who cares?
SPEAKER_01: Who cares?
SPEAKER_01: It's unimportant.
SPEAKER_01: This is Paul's point.
SPEAKER_01: Life is not about us.
SPEAKER_01: It's not our personal reputation.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about our personal statistics, our accomplishments, what we gain.
SPEAKER_01: Life is about Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Your life, if you are in Christ at this moment, is not about you.
SPEAKER_01: It is about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is why Paul would go on to say in verse 21, for me to live is Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So long as he is here in this world, life is about Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He would also go on in chapter 3, verses 7 through 11.
SPEAKER_01: He would say, Whatever gain I had, I counted all as loss for the sake of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Indeed, I count everything, everything.
SPEAKER_01: There's no separate category, everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
SPEAKER_01: For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I might know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may obtain the resurrection of the dead.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is exchanging that which he cannot keep for that which he will never lose.
SPEAKER_01: How do we obtain this kind of perspective?
SPEAKER_01: To be honest, in a society and culture like ours, it's it's probably going to require some difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to require some hardship, some opposition for us to realize that we are too attached to stuff and we need to let it go, including our own personal reputations, our own personal comforts.
SPEAKER_01: As we encounter hardship and opposition, God begins to refine our focus and our perspective.
SPEAKER_01: And the beauty in this is that this frees us from caring about what other people think.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what you think.
SPEAKER_01: Because my one goal in life is to know Christ and make Him known.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what you think of me.
SPEAKER_01: Because at the end of the day, one day I'm going to die and I'm going to be with the Lord, and everything that I've done on earth, the only thing that matters is that for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It frees us from the anxiety of worrying about the implications of sharing the gospel with others.
SPEAKER_01: So what is your focus?
SPEAKER_01: Where is your focus in life?
SPEAKER_01: If the gospel is not your primary focus in life, the solution is not to go seek some sort of persecution or opposition.
SPEAKER_01: No, the solution is for you to turn your focus upon the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: While your focus, even as you come in here this morning, bringing all the baggage from the past week in here, while your focus might be elsewhere, Jesus' focus is on you.
SPEAKER_01: Though you are sinful, he is merciful.
SPEAKER_01: Though you and I are faithless, Jesus is faithful.
SPEAKER_01: And while we look elsewhere for meaning and purpose and satisfaction, Jesus looks upon you with compassion.
SPEAKER_01: He looks at you and he sees you.
SPEAKER_01: He sees everything.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing escapes his gaze.
SPEAKER_01: He sees your sin.
SPEAKER_01: He sees your shame.
SPEAKER_01: He sees your failure and he sees your condemnation and he sees your need for mercy and grace.
SPEAKER_01: And as he hung upon the cross, he turned his focus from his captors, from his persecutors.
SPEAKER_01: He turned it upward and declared, it is finished.
SPEAKER_01: As he paid for your sin.
SPEAKER_01: Where is your focus right now?
SPEAKER_01: Will you gaze upon the cross?
SPEAKER_01: Will you see what Christ has done for you?
SPEAKER_01: And will you let him change what you see in life and how you see it?
SPEAKER_01: So that life is no longer about you, but rather about the one who offers to save you.
SPEAKER_01: To live as Christ, even if that means we might experience hardship, difficulty, and opposition.
SPEAKER_01: Because even in the most difficult and hopeless circumstances, God advances his gospel.
SPEAKER_01: God uses those situations to advance his mission, his kingdom, and uses our circumstances to embolden others while he refines our focus in life.
SPEAKER_01: What would it look like for you and I to embrace these truths today?
SPEAKER_01: God in heaven, we praise you.
SPEAKER_01: That your ways are not like ours.
SPEAKER_01: That what we think would be an hindrance to your mission in the world, you use it as gain.
SPEAKER_01: That which seeks to oppose and stop your mission serves as an opportunity to advance it.
SPEAKER_01: My prayer this morning is that you would you would help us.
SPEAKER_01: You would change our perspective.
SPEAKER_01: That we would embrace the hardship and difficulty that lies in front of us, whatever that may be, whatever form that might take.
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that we would be bold.
SPEAKER_01: So that we would inspire courage in others to do the same.
SPEAKER_01: Lord God, I pray you would refine our focus.
SPEAKER_01: May we gaze upon the cross of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: He is all that matters.
SPEAKER_01: He's all that matters.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.