God, What Are You Doing?

“Why did this happen?”
“Why did it happen now?”
“Why did it happen to me?”
What if we viewed even our adverse circumstances though the eyes of faith?
What if the God we love loved us so much that He could work out every event for our good and His glory?
What would that life look like?

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Grace Fellowship Church
Buddy Hoffman
Series: Philippians: The “What Ifs” of Faith
September 22, 2013

God, What Are You Doing?
Philippians 1:12-20

If you’re here this morning and you don’t have a Bible with you, slip up your hand. We want to put a Bible in your hand. It’s really not our goal here that we preach sermons. It’s not our goal here that we make points. It’s not our goal here that we go through the Bible kind of topically and pull out topics about which we think are relevant to you at the moment. It is our goal that we go into the passage and we ask the Holy Spirit to show us what he is saying to us in that passage.

Now I don’t know what kind of church you grew up in, but it’s becoming less and less frequent that the Bible has a whole lot of attention. Whether you listen carefully to what I say this morning or not, I really pray you will look at that passage as we read that passage and ask the Holy Spirit what he is saying to you out of that passage.

How many of you believe the Holy Spirit actually still speaks to you? Yeah. We all know that if you are in the kingdom the Holy Spirit resides in you, wants to reign over you, and be released through you. What the Holy Spirit will do is he will speak truth to you. I’ve had people walk by me on the way out of preaching a sermon or teaching or doing a talk, and people will say, “Man, I really loved what you said about so-and-so.” I’m thinking, “I didn’t say that.” That wasn’t part of that message.

Do you know what it was? It was the Holy Spirit speaking inside of you. If you haven’t grown up with that, you need to listen to this, because the Holy Spirit might just really pull something out of there. So if you have today’s handout sheet, you’ll notice across the top there is a big question, which is…God, what are you doing?

It’s out of this passage in Philippians, this letter that is written back to the church at Philippi. We’re going to look at verses 12-21. Last week, we looked at the introduction here and the prayer he prayed for them. Look down to verse 12, because the church at Philippi has this huge question in their minds, “What is God doing?” because Paul is now in prison.

Now we don’t know which particular time this is written that he was in prison, which is kind of funny in itself. I mean, he was in prison so often, it’s hard to nail down. Some say this is when he was in prison at Rome and he was about to get his head cut off. Because he was in prison so often, it’s hard to nail down exactly when he was in prison. Suffice it to say he wasn’t at the hotel. He wasn’t in a villa somewhere. He is chained to what is referred to as the imperial guard, the special forces of that ruling community.

He’s going to write back and he’s going to answer the question about what happened and why it happened and what’s going on. Verse 12: “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel…” (Philippians 1:12) Now we’re going to come back to that. You might want to underline it if you’re using your own Bible. If you’re using one of ours, you’re welcome to do that too. But that’s going to be a crucial point. He says, “What’s happened has served to advance the gospel.”

“…so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest…” So this is spread everywhere “…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. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel.” (Philippians 1:13-16)

Now if you’ve been at Grace for awhile, I hope it just automatically jumps into your mind when you see that word gospel is the word kingdom. It’s the word euaggelion. When Jesus in the gospel comes, it says he came to proclaim the gospel, it’s the euaggelion. It’s the word the Roman government would use for the expansion of the kingdom. This is a kingdom movement that what has happened here is really the Roman Empire is being invaded by God’s empire. The darkness is being invaded by the light. I like that.

Sometimes you find yourself in situations where you really would rather not be. We should always ask ourselves when we find ourselves in this situation, where it’s a place of darkness and it’s a situation we just wouldn’t pick to be in, “Is God putting me here in this circumstance so this is an opportunity for the kingdom of God to be manifest, so people will see the difference that knowing God makes in our lives?”

Verse 16: “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…” Boy, that’s a strong, broad statement. In every situation, in every way “…whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice…” (Philippians 1:16-18) Now you remember there’s a difference in joy and happiness. This joy is something that comes from within. There is this commitment that…listen…”I rejoice in this and I will rejoice in this.”

“…for I know…” That’s that know of experiential knowledge, something you’ve experienced in the past and you know this is coming through in the future. “…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…” Now look at that next phrase. “…whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:19-20) There’s a fork in the road here.

Then he makes a statement in verse 21 that is incredibly important. “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Philippians 1:21) Now we’re going to kind of draw a line in the middle of verse 21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” We’re going to explore next week what he means by “to die is gain.” But this week, we want to focus in on that first statement, “to live is Christ,” because all of the former realities he states beginning in verse 12 come out of that ultimate reality, this settled confidence, this commitment, “For me to live is Christ.”

If you have your handout sheet, do me a favor and write these words, “To live is…” Draw a blank and don’t fill it in right now, but I just want you to think about it. To live is _____. Paul had a definition of life, an understanding of what life really was and what really mattered that held everything together.

Have you ever seen those tee shirts that say, “Life is golf”? Let’s hope not. I mean, it didn’t even work for Tiger Woods, and he’s good. Or, “Life is tennis.” I don’t know if it’s still true, but a number of years ago, there were more people who played organized tennis in Atlanta than any other city in the United States. Did you know that? For some people, all week long their conversation and their schedule and the circumference of life and their universe of life revolve around tennis.

Somebody said to me awhile back, “Be careful with someone who really likes tennis because for a really intense tennis player love means nothing.” If you don’t play tennis, you don’t get that at all. But if you know how to score tennis, love means… But if you have to explain it, it doesn’t really work at all.

For other people life is their job. They live for their job. Everything is really about their job, their career. For some people, life is education and knowledge. For some people, life is power. For some people, life is position. We can think of some things we would say, “That’s obviously not worthy of living for,” and we could think of some things we could fill in that blank for someone… If we looked at their life, and if they were honest with their life, life is drugs, the next high. Or life is sex. Or life is… You just start naming things off.

But I’m not really worried about that group of people because most of the time that group of people knows they’re off track and that center won’t hold, that definition of life won’t hold. For some people, life is looks, how they appear. If for me, life is hair, it’s long gone. I used to have good hair. I was at a ballgame with Jody and there was a guy sitting in front of us who had this really thick black hair. She kept looking at the back of his head, and I said, “Baby, what are you looking at?” She looked at me and she said, “Didn’t you used to have hair like that?”

What really is life to you? Now I’m going to say something that is a little bit tougher for us to wrap our minds around, but we can even substitute good things that in themselves are not bad, but in substituting them for Christ they really can become bad. For some people, life is family. That’s really what matters. Life is family. “The most important thing to me in life is family!” Or, “The most important thing in life is my husband.” Or, “My life is my wife.”

I’ve talked to young couples who find somebody they are going to marry, and they say, “I’ve finally found somebody who completes me. They’re perfect.” How many have been married five years? Is that true? No! No! We are flawed individuals. You can find somebody who will make a great mate for you, but no mate, no child, no church will substitute for God. It just won’t.

People go, “Oh, I love Grace. It’s such a perfect church.” I just want to laugh out loud. I want to just say, “Oh my goodness, no it’s not! We all just try to like each other. We love Jesus, and most of the time we love each other, but we don’t always like each other.” Do you know anybody you like all the time? I mean, if you do, you’re like wonderful or silly.

I remember when Jody and I first got married. We moved off to Idaho. We were starting this church. We’d been friends for a long time. We’d been married about four months, and she just made lunch. I was sitting there and she looks across the table, and I could tell it was serious. She goes, “You’re starting to scare me, because I really don’t like you all the time.”

I said, “That’s okay, honey. I don’t like me all the time. If you don’t like me, go for a drive. Go shopping or something. Take a day off and get away from me. I wish I could get away from me.” Don’t you wish sometimes you could take a break from yourself? Like you could just say, “I’m leaving you here. I’m going somewhere else.”

Now we kind of laugh about this stuff, because when you think about it, it’s so ridiculous it’s funny. But let me just say something to you, and I would encourage you to write this word down and contemplate it a little bit, because it’s not a word you even hear anymore even in church…idolatry.

Idolatry is anything you place in the place of God. Idolatry is anything you substitute, that really, actually, when it comes down to it you worship, that you make it the center of your cosmos. Nothing deserves to be the center of the cosmos of a Jesus follower. As someone who is in the kingdom, the only One who deserves being King is Jesus. Amen?

Now I’m just going to tell you something. I think every person I know needs to, on occasion, really spend some time recalculating the center of their affections. “What is the center of my affections? What is the center of my expectations? What is the center of the reason for which I live?” When you see that phrase Paul lays out there, it really answers all the questions that come before. “For me to live is Christ.” It’s Paul’s definition of life.

If for you to live is your business, you may end up in a situation you’re going to be really severely disappointed, because your business can crash. Can anybody say amen to that? Things we think could never crash can crash. So let’s look through here.

1. What happened? The simple answer to that is Paul went to prison. Paul was really the most influential individual except for Jesus himself in the planting of this church movement.

2. Why did it happen? In verse 12, it says, “…that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel…” (Philippians 1:12) That phrase that’s used there, you might want to just underline it, because it’s really, really, really important. It’s actually the thesis of what’s going on here. The word was used by soldiers for those who went ahead of the army and carved out trees and roads and mapped out the way for the army to move forward. They laid the infrastructure in place.

I have a good friend who led the army’s section of the civil engineers. Before the army can go through an area, civil engineers have to map out a trail on how the army can go through an area. Sometimes they have to take down underbrush. Sometimes they have to look through deserts. Sometimes they have to figure out how to cross a river.

What Paul is saying is, “What’s happened to me has resulted in a pioneer advance of the gospel.” That where the gospel had not gone previously, where the kingdom was not known, now the kingdom is being shown. You look at your circumstance and you wonder why things happen. One of the reasons God allows things to happen to believers… I really ought to insert here, there are a lot of reasons things happen. We don’t always know that it’s the kingdom advance, although God can always use it for the kingdom to advance.

Sometimes the reason things happen is because we make bad choices. Can anybody say amen to that? Sometimes we blame things on God that God didn’t really do. You talk to young couples sometimes. They get married and they buy a house, and then they get credit cards, and then they buy a bunch of furniture, and then they run those credit cards up. Then they start yelling at each other and they wonder which one is responsible, and they both are.

I’ve had young couples say this to me, “Why has God allowed this to happen to me?” I’m very bad about this. I just kind of tend to tell things as I see it. I always just say, “Well, God didn’t sign those credit card slips. God did not buy that car. God did not give you that loan. The bank gave you that loan, and you did not take Financial Peace. If you had gone to the Financial Peace class, you wouldn’t need the marriage counseling class right now.” Can anybody say amen? We’ve all been there.

I remember the first time I ever ran up a credit card. It was with JC Penney’s. Remember Penney’s? I wasn’t even out of high school. I was walking through, and they said, “Do you want a credit card?” and I said, “Yeah.” Man, I got a credit card. They issued that thing right there. It had a $200 limit on it. I had $200 on that thing in about 30 minutes.

They started sending me these bills, and my dad said, “You got a credit card?” I said, “Yeah. It’s Penney’s. Man, they just like gave it to me.” He goes, “Now you have to pay that off.” At $12 a month, it takes a long time to pay Penney’s off. Now I could’ve sat around going, “Well, God, why did you let this happen to me?” But it really had nothing to do with God. God didn’t tell me to do that. I just thought it was fun. I guess God had something to do with it, because I’ve hated credit ever since then.

Sometimes what happens to us is really the results of our bad choices. Sometimes the things that happen to us are really just the results of the brokenness of life. We live in a broken world. You do understand that. I mean, this kingdom is shattered, and you will not get through this shattered kingdom to the kingdom that is going to be restored that we so eagerly anticipate… You don’t walk on broken glass without occasionally being cut, amen?

Sometimes it’s just the proverbial realities of life. Somebody else made some really bad choices, and they impacted you. Somebody else drank and chose to drive and slammed into the side of your car. You say, “Well, couldn’t God keep me from that?” Yes, God could keep you from that, but what you are suffering from is the bad choices of somebody else.

Some of you grew up in homes where the mom or the dad either abandoned you or abused you or any of those numbers of things. Here’s what I want to say to you. Anything that happened to you… This is the amazing thing about God. God can take even the evil things, things that were intended for evil, and redound them to his glory.

Now here’s what you have to do though. You have to choose to put those into God’s hands. You say, “Well, I just can’t see how this thing that’s happened to me could possibly redound to God’s glory. This is bad stuff.” Read about Joseph. Just read it. Read the end of the book. You know the story. If you don’t know the story, read the whole story.

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers. Now how would you like that? You go off to the mall with your older brothers, and they come home without you. Dad says, “Hey, where’s Little Joe? You know, I like Little Joe.” “I don’t know. There were some people up at the mall. They offered us a good price for him, so we took it.”

Then they take him all the way down to Egypt. He works his way up as a slave. Then the wife of the owner takes a shine to him and lies about him. Gets him thrown back into prison. Then all these butlers and everything. He looks after them, and they don’t even care about him. Then he ends up second in command right under the Pharaoh.

His brothers show up wanting bread. Well, I’m going to tell you something. If I’m second in command and my brothers who sold me at the mall show up, it’s not likely I’m going to say, “Hey, they need bread.” But then this is really amazing. The brothers really haven’t changed, if you read the story. They get among themselves and say, “The only reason Joseph is doing this is because he wants to see Dad.”

“Dad’s dead.” And so they lied to him. He realizes they’re lying to him, but do you know what Joseph said? “Am I in the place of God that I should extract vengeance on you?” He’s not in the place of God, but he’s in the place of Pharaoh. He could’ve just said, “Just cut their heads off slowly.” He doesn’t do it.

Think about Job. I’ve read that story so many times. Some people believe Job was the very first book written, chronologically, in the Bible. I mean, all this stuff happens to Job. His kids get killed. He loses his business. Whirlwind comes in and destroys everything. His health is taken away from him. He’s sitting in a bunch of ashes scraping his sores. That’s a gross picture.

His wife comes up to him. If you’re going to take everything, take her! Good heavens, take Job’s wife! She says, “Why don’t you just curse God and die?” That’s the kind of encouragement we need! Curse God and die. Do you know what Job does? He falls on his face, and he says, “I came into this world with nothing, and I’m going to exit this world with nothing.” What does he say? “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Can we say that together? Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Do you know what was going on there? The back story of that is Satan is coming up to heaven saying, “I’ve been looking around at all of these men and women you’ve created, and the reason they serve you is because you’re good to them.” God looks at Job, and he says, “Have you looked at Job? Have you seen Job?”

“Yeah, you’ve put a hedge about his life.” Do you know what he’s saying? “We’ve already tried to get to Job. We couldn’t get to him. You’ve hedged his life in. You’ve protected Job. You let us get to Job, and he will curse you to your face.” Job had no way of knowing that what he was involved in was a divine drama.

All the hedges drop down. Everything pulls away from him. And he still worships. Do you know what Satan’s mistake and the forces of cosmic darkness’ mistake are? They think we’re like them. They think we only serve God when it’s comfortable, when it’s easy, when the fig tree blossoms, and when everything is going well. They think the only reason we serve God is because everything is going well. They think if everything doesn’t go well, we’ll turn on God.

See, they don’t understand Paul. The cosmic forces of darkness look at Paul’s perspective on life, and they don’t get it at all. They don’t understand this definition of life that says, “For me to live is Christ.” That’s all that matters. If it advances the kingdom, that’s all that matters. My comfort doesn’t matter. My business doesn’t matter.

You can take my family and it doesn’t matter. Yes, it breaks my heart, but here’s what I am going to do. I’m going to fall on my face and say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” because when we do that, it shakes the confidence of the forces of darkness. Do you understand that? Nobody else may see it, but Satan and his forces look at you and they go, “Oh my goodness, they’re not like us. They’re not like us at all. They really love God. They know God. They know that even when everything is confusing and everything is seemingly messed up God still reigns.”

I’m going to tell you something. It’s a lot easier to say that than for that to be your experience. She won’t like it, but Betsy is back there somewhere. She has answered phones here and been our front face for years. Betsy was diagnosed with cancer. I think this is the first time Betsy has been back since that whole cancer event.

We were standing in the foyer, and I was looking at Betsy’s smiling face, and I was thinking, “She doesn’t realize it, but she scares the hell out of the Devil.” They don’t get that, when we can look into the mess of life and say, “I don’t have any clue, but here’s what I do know; I know God, and God is going to turn this for the advancement of his kingdom.”

3. Why did this happen now? Why did it happen to me? We looked at our circumstances through the eyes of faith. We recognized that God can take even evil circumstances and work out every event for our good and God’s glory. Life would take on very different meaning. I would really encourage you… That first phrase in verse 21, everything else there follows that single phrase. What happened? Prison. Why did it happen? To advance the gospel. Why did it happen now? Because God has a plan.

4. How should we respond to “friendly fire”? This is verses 15-18. It’s an interesting thing here. He says, “Some preach Christ of integrity and some preach Christ of rivalry.” Paul makes this incredible observation. He says, “I don’t really care about your motives. What I care about is that the gospel is preached.”

Now that is unbelievably magnanimous because we often judge people, and sometimes we judge them wrong. I don’t know your motives. You don’t know my motives. God knows our motives, and we’ll stand before God responsible for our motives, and God will sort out our motives. Sometimes our motives are not even the best, and God changes our motives in the process. Have you ever had that happen?

Yes, you have! You’ve done it with your children. You’ve talked to your children and said, “Listen, if you’ll do your homework, I’ll take you to Bruster’s.” And so your child sits down and does his homework, not thinking at all, “I’m so excited about doing my homework”; they’re thinking, “Ice cream.” It’s external motivation, but hopefully somewhere in the process his motives get purified, right? Can you say amen?

Even in giving to the Lord. Here’s what God says, “Listen, if you’ll give me a tenth of your goods, what I’ll do is I’ll open the windows of heaven and give you a blessing you can’t even imagine.” That’s a motivation that is really external. Our motivation for giving to God should be pure gratitude, right? I mean, we should give just because God deserves it all! That should be our motive.

But God doesn’t say, “Well, you gave for the wrong motive. I’m not going to open the windows of heaven. I’m just going to crack it just a little bit. I’m going to throw a little bit down there.” He goes, “I’m going to teach you how to be a hilarious giver, and one of the ways I’m going to teach you to be a hilarious giver is when you give, I’m going to give back to you, pressed down, shaken together, overflowing.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I’m going to really do that.” Do you know what God says? “Test me! See if it won’t happen.” Now let me tell you something. God will not ruin his reputation on you. He won’t! He won’t. You’re going to get shocked and say, “Well, what if I do it with a bad attitude?” Do it anyway. He will absolutely keep his Word.

I’ve witnessed to people with a bad attitude, not wanting to do it but feeling guilty if I didn’t, and God has honored that. You say, “Well, that’s not right.” Grace is really a weird thing. Grace is so overwhelmingly beyond. There’s a wideness in God’s mercy we find not in our own. I’m done.

Do you want me to tell you a story though? If you’re bored, leave. I got this phone call one night. I promise you this is true. You can ask Jody. People say, “You make stuff up.” I did not make this up. I did not. I got this phone call one night. It was late. It was actually early in the morning. It was like 1:30 or something. He goes, “I need to see you.”

I said, “Like right now?” He said, “Yes, I need to see you right now.” I said, “Did somebody die?” He said, “I’m going to commit suicide. I’m going to kill myself.” By the way, this is good advice. I said, “Are you thinking about taking anybody with you?” Because if you’re going to respond to a suicide, you want to make sure it doesn’t become a homicide. Do you know what I mean?

He goes, “No, no, no.” I said, “Well, tell me what this is about.” He said, “Just meet me.” I said, “Okay, let’s meet.” I was thinking about where to meet, and he said, “Just come to my house,” and I said, “No, I’m not coming to your house. Meet me at the Waffle House.” There’s one in between everybody’s house. Do you know what? I read the papers. I’ve never read where anybody killed himself in a Waffle House. There’s like too much there to eat. “I think I’ll kill myself. No, I’ll have a waffle.”

So I met him in there, and he looked so bad. I mean, really bad. He hadn’t shaved in several days. His hair was messed up. He had these hollow eyes. I said, “What in the world is going on?” He looked at me and he leaned across the table and he said, “I got passed over for a promotion at work.”

I said, “Well, that stinks.” I mean, the guy made a lot of money. The promotion couldn’t have been that much. I said, “What else?” He goes, “What do you mean what else? I got passed over for a promotion at work. I’m going to kill myself.” I said, “I think you should.” He said, “What?” I said, “I think you probably should kill yourself. If the only thing you’ve got worth living for is a promotion at work, you don’t have a life anyway. So go ahead.”

He said, “You’re telling me to kill myself.” I said, “No, I’m not telling you to kill yourself; I’m just telling you if the only thing in life that’s worth anything to you is this promotion… I know your wife; she’s a sweet woman. I know your two children; they’re good kids. I know your father and I know your mother. And you’re going to kill yourself over this non-promotion?” He said, “What kind of counselor are you?” I said, “Listen, I am not a counselor at all.” He said, “No kidding.” I said, “All I can tell you is you don’t have any kind of life.”

Let me tell you something. If you put your definition of life, if you put into that blank some idolatry, sooner or later you’re going to discover the center just won’t hold. But if you put into that center Jesus, you’ll find that center always holds. Amen. Let’s bow our heads.

Lord, thank you so much for you, King of Kings, Lord of Lords. Lord, we pray that we as a church will not allow religion, buildings, programs, people, anything at all to be the thing we put our hopes into. Lord, we pray, and Lord, we even repent of times in our lives where we allowed our lives to go off course. Lord, we thank you for those times you draw us back and point out that reality that what matters is you.

With our heads bowed just for a moment, if you’re here this morning (I’m not going to draw this out), you may even be a really religious person, but you have never put Jesus the center of your life, the King and Lord, and you’ve never come into this kingdom of light and just acknowledged the reality of saying, “I want Jesus to be the Lord, King of my life,” and this morning you want to just say, “I need to do that this morning,” slip up your hand. I want to pray for you.

Amen. God bless you. Boy, this is the best decision you’ll ever make. “For me to live is Christ.” It’s the best decision you’ll ever make. For some of you right now, you’ve made that decision, but you really need to reiterate it. You need to renew that covenant of Christ being the center. You may even need to go to some people who you’ve tried to make the center of your life and repent because they aren’t capable of being… They may be a good person, but they can’t be God.

Let’s just take a few minutes. I know in your brain you’re thinking, “I need to go to my car. I need to get my kids. I need to go to the restaurant.” Listen, forget that stuff for a minute. Let’s worship. Let’s take Communion. There’s a prayer team on my right. Listen, we want to take a few minutes and respond to the God of the cosmos.

Lord, we pray this morning that you will re-center our lives upon what really matters. And we’ll be able to say with Paul, “What has happened to me is an advance, an absolute new territory taken for the kingdom because of this.” Lord, we commit this to you and to your name this morning and to your glory because you are worthy. In your name, we pray, amen.