How does Paul write a letter like Philippians that is drenched in joy even while he is locked in prison? Part of the key, we learn, is that he has arrived at a “mature consideration” (Phil. 1:12) of his situation. Unlike what we often do, Paul looks first to the Lord, then to his situation, and finally to his own reaction. How can we learn from Paul to look at our Savior first, then our situation, and then ourselves last?
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Jon Stallsmith
Series: Philippians: The “What Ifs” of Faith
September 22, 2013
Our Savior, Our Situation, Ourselves
Philippians 1:12-20
It’s been an interesting afternoon for me personally. My grandmother went in for a heart procedure earlier this week, and there were some complications, and so she actually has not fully revived yet from the anesthesia and everything else. It seems like her body is not responding very well to the procedure, and there’s a possibility she may pass away. She’s in Cincinnati.
I talked to her this afternoon, just a few minutes ago, not long ago, and just shared my heart with her, let her know how much I love her and how much I value the memories we’ve shared and just how grateful I am actually that Kroger’s, which is a Cincinnati/Louisville grocery chain, is down here. So we get to have Skyline Chili and Graeters, which are some excellent Cincinnati food products. If you’ve never had them, go over to Kroger’s and get some and savor some of my favorite memories of my grandma and my grandpa up in Cincinnati.
My reflection this afternoon honestly after talking with my aunt and my parents and my grandmother and just sort of thinking through the realities of death and eternity and how this whole thing works is I have no idea how one would walk through such challenging times without clarity and certainty about God and about the Word and to be able to know how God works, what his promises are, what the gospel really is, being able to know my grandmother’s faith is strong and secure. I mean, that is the thing you stand on in these times.
That’s what we’re going to be looking at actually. This passage all week I’ve been preparing for that journey myself even as I didn’t know about it, because what Paul writes about here is so helpful. So let me just read this. We’re going to read verses 12-20, and then we’ll just get right into it.
Remember, Paul is writing to the Philippians. As we saw last week, he has this deep connection, this friendship with the Philippian church. He’s praying for them that they would be tapping into the love that springs from Jesus’ own heart. He’s in prison as he writes. This is when he begins talking about his own circumstances.
In verse 12, he says, “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. 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. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:12-20)
How many of you guys are morning people? Wow, I mean, that’s a surprisingly high number considering you’ve come to the 5:15. I’d expect that choice to be more influenced by the fact that many of you are evening people. How many of you who are not morning people have been with morning people in the morning? A lot of you.
You kind of wake up, and it’s not even light yet, and you’re rubbing your face and trying to figure out where the light switch is early in the morning. You have the long yawns going. That morning person is just chipper, chipper, chipper. “Hey, what do you want to do today? Hey, did you see the AJC? It’s all about Atlanta public schools. Hey, do you want to balance the checkbook?”
You’re sitting there going, “Does anybody even balance a checkbook anymore? Aren’t there computer programs to do that? You are way too joyful right now.” We know this feeling, right? Even if you are a morning person, I think we’ve all had mornings when we’ve been too close to morning people too early.
Sometimes reading Philippians, particularly this passage, can be a little bit similar to that experience. You see, Paul is writing this letter that is drenched in joy even as he is locked in prison. It feels like the attitude and the energy, this joy coming out of Paul’s heart is completely inappropriate for the times. It feels like he’s in jail and there’s no way he should be so glad.
It’s kind of like reading you go, “Paul, you are way too joyful right now.” Yet maybe Paul knows something. Maybe Paul is working from a different kind of reality. Maybe he’s trying to help us see the world the way he sees it so we might grasp how to be joyful even when it seems inappropriate to the time, even when it feels like we’re in the bottom of a dank prison.
Here’s the thing. I mean, Paul is trying to help the Philippians understand their situation and his situation, why he’s in jail, what’s going on there. He’s trying to help them interpret the situation and their feelings and everything else. Here’s my typical pattern when I’m trying to get to that conclusion about my situation and my feeling and, “How do I work out where I am, what’s going on?”
I mean, even this afternoon I’m hearing this news about my grandmother and working out, “Okay, how do I think about this? How do I react in this situation?” We do this all the time, all of our situations. Typically, this is sort of my natural process. My first reference, my first little piece of processing is, “How am I feeling right now? Am I feeling down? Am I feeling discouraged? Am I feeling angry?”
Then I tend to interpret my situation through how I feel, and then kind of step three, I start thinking about God. If you’re going to take that morning person analogy, it would kind of be like first you wake up and you’re not a morning person and you’re like, “I feel tired and cranky.” Then you interpret your situation through that tiredness and crankiness, and you’re like, “This person is driving me crazy.” That’s your interpretation of the situation. Then you turn to God and you’re like, “God, help me have patience.”
Like that. I mean, this is how we often process our lives. “How do I feel?” Interpret my situation through my feelings. And then kind of as a last-second resort like, “Help.” In fact, the song we were just singing, talking about that walking on the water, comes back from Matthew 14. You guys remember that story. This is Peter. Jesus walks up to the boat. They’re in the Sea of Galilee. Waves are going everywhere. Peter says, “If it’s really you, Lord, let me come out there.”
So Peter steps out of the boat and he starts walking on the water with Jesus, doing the same things Jesus does. But then what happens? First, he’s looking at Jesus, but then suddenly it says he saw the wind, which is an interesting study in and of itself. He saw the wind and he felt afraid. Suddenly, he’s putting his own feelings and interpreting the situation around him through that fear. What happens is he starts sinking and his last resort is kind of like, “Lord, save me!”
This is how we go through life. A lot of times just like Peter, “How do I feel? How do I interpret my situation? Help!” Paul here as we’re reading actually totally reverses that process. He works from the other way. He starts with the Lord. He starts with his eyes there, and then he interprets his situation through what he knows to be true of God, and then he comes back to determine how he feels himself.
It’s completely different than the way I usually do it. We just read how he does that. The way he begins is interesting. In verse 12, he says, “I want you to know, brothers…” I actually prefer the way the King James translates this. In the King James translation of the Bible, it doesn’t say, “I want you to know, brothers”; it’s actually, “I would ye should understand…” I just like that would and should rhyme, and the ye is in there. I mean, it just sounds cool. “I would ye should understand.”
But there’s an interesting thing going on there in the original language when he says, “I want you to know,” or, “I would ye should understand.” When he’s saying that, that idea of “I would” or “I want; my desire” it carries in it this idea that Paul has really thought about what he’s about to tell us. This isn’t something he has just arrived at, but it’s like he really has processed God, his situation, and himself. Now he’s sharing with them.
In fact, one of the scholars translates Paul’s words not, “I would ye should,” or, “I want you to understand,” he says, “After mature consideration, I want you to know this.” I love that, mature consideration. That’s what Paul is really after for us. As we’re interpreting ourselves and our situations in relationship to God, Paul is asking us not just to do it the way we’ve always done it or the way we’ve naturally done it, kind of arising up from our own emotions and what we can see and then, “God, help.”
He’s actually saying, “No, let’s bring mature consideration to our lives.” Now that’s wonderful. That would be a marvelous goal. If at the end of even this evening we would have taken a step closer to mature consideration of our lives in light of God and the gospel, it would be an enormous benefit to us as we line up our lives with what God has revealed in the Word.
That’s what we’re going to talk about. How does Paul do this? What’s going on here? Just for the sake of the letter s, we’re going to talk about first our Savior and then our situations and then ourselves. How can we follow Paul’s pattern of processing the world around him, the situation, the hard stuff, the things that just make us go, “What in the world? Why is this? How can you have joy at this moment? It seems impossible. It doesn’t seem to fit the time. It doesn’t seem to fit the place”?
1. Our Savior. Well, Paul seems to be laying out a pattern. He’s saying, “Look, have mature consideration. Think the way I think.” It starts with the view of God. Just like Peter looking to Jesus. It’s that grasp of the Savior. So as he’s starting off, he says, “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.” (Philippians 1:12-13)
He’s talking about the gospel and he’s talking about Jesus. He uses these words, Christ and Lord. It’s interesting. Literally, what he’s saying here is that everyone knows why he’s in prison. Maybe you guys subscribe to the ScanGwinnett email. You can go online, and for free it will email you everyone who’s arrested in your zip code, or you can ask for several zip codes. I would say just limit it to one or two zip codes though. You might be depressed if you had too many.
But ScanGwinnett every morning about 6:30 a.m. sends you four, five, six, or seven mug shots. Typically, people look very unhappy, which is understandable. It has their name and their address. Then it usually has why they were arrested. So you’re going through and you’re just like, “Oh, that’s Bob Such-and-Such. Theft by taking.” You scroll down a little bit further, and it’s like, “Susan Such-and-Such for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana.” It’s like, “Okay.”
You keep scrolling down, and it says, “Jose Such-and-Such for driving with no driver’s license,” and so on. You just see all these things. But if Paul had been on the ScanGwinnett email, as you’re scrolling down, it would’ve been, “Paul, the apostle” (I guess; we don’t know his last name), with his address as “Tarsus” (I suppose). Then it would’ve said, “Public proclamation of another King.” That’s why he’s in prison. It’s not theft. It’s not driving without a license. It’s because he is going around proclaiming there’s another King who actually rules. That’s what’s going on here.
Paul has been put in prison for the gospel and really for proclaiming the gospel. It’s interesting because that word gospel when it comes across your ears and into your mind, it probably draws out all kinds of different ideas. Maybe it makes you think of a moment at camp or maybe it makes you think of the end of some worship services you’ve been to and it’s like there’s a whole sermon and then at the end it’s like, “We’re giving the gospel, and it’s decision time.” Every eye closed. Every head bowed. Slip up your hand if you… You know, maybe you’ve encountered that.
A lot of us when we think of that word, the gospel, we can trace it back to an event or a certain persuasion actually. Oftentimes when we hear the word gospel, we think of people persuading us to decide something in relation to Jesus. Usually we think of Jesus’ death and we think of our own salvation. All these things come out.
But here’s the truth about the gospel as Paul talks about it here. It’s interesting because he doesn’t spend much time in the book of Philippians explaining the content of the gospel. He does that in other places. First Corinthians 15 is a great place. Maybe we’ll read there in a second. Romans talks about it a lot.
But for the Philippians, it seems like he’s confident they understand the content of the gospel. But what is this gospel he’s talking about? Very literally for Paul, the gospel is a proclamation. It’s not a persuasion. It’s not like he’s coming in trying to talk you into something or make you make a decision about something or even making you feel guilty about something or something else so you’ll do this or that. It’s not at all what he’s doing. For Paul, the gospel is very much a proclamation…a proclamation of something that is true.
When he talks about the gospel and preaching the gospel, it’s almost like… An example could be if you’re watching the 6:00 news and you hear a reporter giving the events or the facts of an event, it’s just a proclamation. He’s just telling you, “This is what happened. This is what’s true.” Or maybe another way to think of the gospel as a proclamation is if you’re walking through a market in the Middle East…
In Jerusalem actually, they have a lot of open-air markets. Everybody is selling… There are little suitcases. There are fruit stands over here. People are selling meat over here. I don’t think most of the meat is properly refrigerated, but that’s another issue. Hey, it’s hanging out there, and they’ll just cut you some meat. But anyway. So these vendors at these places are literally just communicating, “This is how much it costs to buy an avocado.” It’s a proclamation of something that is true.
Now there is a little personal connection that perhaps if I hear this truth I will want to come buy an avocado, but primarily what the vendor, the salesman, is doing is just telling us what is true. That’s what Paul is doing here. This is what he’s talking about. “I’ve gotten in trouble. I’m in prison because I have been proclaiming a certain truth. I’ve been living by it and I’ve been announcing it.”
What is it? What’s the content of this truth? If you look through this passage, it is full of references to Christ and to the Lord. The announcement, this gospel proclamation, what Paul has essentially just been saying out into the world and the reason for which he is in prison is because he has been saying that Jesus is the Christ and Jesus is the Lord. These are the two words that appear throughout the book of Philippians.
What does that mean when Paul says Jesus is the Christ? How does that relate to this idea of the gospel? Remember that word Christ in Greek is the same as the Hebrew word Messiah. It just means anointed one. Messiah in Hebrew, Christ in Greek. It’s not Jesus’ last name. It’s just really a title.
That idea of anointed one goes back to the Old Testament. We’ve talked about it here at 5:15, but it’s the idea of being chosen, set apart as the true King, the true Priest, the true Prophet, the One who is fulfilling actually all of these dreams and destinies of the Old Testament. All these promises of God, of salvation, of working in the world, of bringing forth a new creation, all these things are coming together in Jesus who is called the Christ. He is the One. He’s the chosen One.
Maybe you guys saw that movie, The Matrix. If you haven’t, it’s okay. You don’t have to see it. In the movie, the idea is that everyone is kind of caught in the grip of this sort of program. Everybody is walking around just kind of in their minds just living out life and all the rest. The machines have taken over earth. I know it’s kind of an outlandish premise, but the machines have taken over earth. They are essentially keeping humanity captive by getting them to buy into this whole other mental realm.
But then Keanu Reeves is Neo, and he’s the guy who can step into that false reality and convince people of what is really true. They use this phrase to describe him. Laurence Fishburne I think is in the movie. He has this idea that Neo is The One. Do people believe Neo is The One or is not The One? Is he really The One? There’s this language. What does that mean, The One?
The idea is that he is kind of the one, the chosen one who can show up and can lead all of these people into real truth and out of this false, broken reality. What happens? Well, in the movie, the machines, the bad guys, the computers, and everything else, who want to keep humans locked down not thinking well, they realize that Neo walking around in the Matrix helping people see what’s really true is a huge threat. So they all go against him. They’re like, “Hey, we have to shut down Neo.” So they send Mr. Smith after him. There’s a great showdown in the subway system in the first movie. Then the next two movies are really convoluted and hard to understand.
But there’s this idea. When Jesus is called the Christ, it’s like Jesus is the One. Jesus is the One who steps onto the scene and is able to bring people real truth about the way the world really is. He’s the One who steps onto the scene and is able to offer people salvation, freedom, liberation, power, life, love, fruitfulness, real joy. Jesus is the One who steps into that broken-down system, and he really is the One.
The people around look at him, and if they have anything to lose because they’re so invested in this broken-down system, they oppose him. So here’s Jesus walking around. This idea of the gospel as a proclamation is really the story of Jesus showing up on the earth, fulfilling all of these promises of God through the Old Testament in his own life.
When Paul writes about this in 1 Corinthians 15, he says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to [Peter], then to the twelve.” (1 Corinthians 15:3-5)
This is what he says in 1 Corinthians 15, “This is the gospel. This is what I received and this is what I’m passing on to you.” Notice it’s actually a sequence of events. It’s not a persuasion. It’s not trying to talk you into something. He’s telling you, “Here’s what I believe to be true, these historical events. Let me communicate them to you.” He’s proclaiming them.
What is it? Four big pieces. Christ died, was buried, was raised, and then he appeared. These pieces. Then if you continue on into the end of 1 Corinthians 15, some would say that Paul would also add a fifth element which is that Jesus is returning and will redeem everyone. This is the gospel. Jesus has fulfilled this. This is the proclamation. This is what Paul is living by.
In another way he’s saying it. He’s like, “By coming, dying, rising again, appearing to many, and the promise of his return, he is in fact the absolute true King of the cosmos.” This is what Paul is saying. So when he’s writing about the gospel and he’s writing about Christ and everything else, he’s saying, “I am in prison because I am convinced and have been telling others that in spite of what they see or maybe believe about the world right now, there is a true King, and he’s on high, and he has become the King because he came to Earth, died, rose again, and appeared to many.”
Why does that matter? Well, a lot of times we hear the gospel and it’s presented to us more like a plan of salvation. The big emphasis. We saw those little lists of things Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15. The big emphasis is Jesus died for your sins. Jesus came, died, buried, rose again, appeared to many for your sins.
We take this big huge cosmic story that God initiated at creation and has been working through Israel in all of history and headed toward a beautiful new creation that encompasses this massive vision for the planet and for all the redeemed, we take all of that huge story and we tend to just not tell that part and bring it right down to where you and I are living on an individual level.
It’s true. That story links very closely into the personal plan of salvation. It’s important that we grasp that, trust that sacrifice Jesus made, live in that sacrifice as individuals. But the problem is if we reduce this great big cosmic proclamation down to this little individualistic personal plan of salvation without seeing the big picture, then if this is all we have, when we encounter trouble in our situations, when the world around is kind of messing up, all we have is this little bit of the view.
We can’t see the whole big picture, the fact that Jesus died, was buried, rose again, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and is ruling on high. In fact, he has say and influence and capacity and power to influence all these other areas. It’s crucial for us to have a big view of the gospel that encompasses everything God is doing through Jesus and then find our own sense of salvation and latching onto it as individuals in the midst of that.
Because if we just have the little piece, when we come across hard times or end up in prison or try to figure out what’s going on in this situation, and all we have is this little bit, we don’t really have a good framework to understand what’s happening out here. Does that make sense? So we have to see the big picture of salvation.
When Paul uses that word Christ over and over and over again, it’s such a loaded word. He’s referencing that whole big story. He’s saying, “Hey, as you’re trying to understand my situation, if you’re going to come to a mature consideration of what I’m experiencing, remember that Jesus is the Christ.” The gospel hinges on the fact that Jesus, by what he has done and what he will do, is the true King.
Even more than that, he uses this phrase that Jesus is the Lord. He says in verse 14, “And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord…” This is one of Paul’s favorite ways of talking about Jesus’ role. He’s not just the Christ fulfilling the historic promises of God; he’s also the Lord in the sense that he is ruling right now. It’s this echo of what was going on in Rome at the time.
If you were growing up and living within the Roman Empire at that point, you would’ve really been buying into the fact that Caesar is lord. So the ruler of Rome, this emperor… I mean, all throughout the empire they would tell the stories about how Rome had brought peace to the world. Literally, they would talk about how salvation could be found in Caesar, how Rome had created this sense of unity out of all these different countries and brought them all together.
There was this sort of great sense of the emperor’s even divinity. When the emperors died (you may have heard this), they would actually be elevated. They would be considered to be gods, and people would sacrifice to them and worship them. So then the next emperor (the emperor’s son)… When this guy dies, he’s elevated to be a god.
Do you know what they would call the next one? The son of god. Right? So anybody who was an emperor had a divine father back then, and people would all worship this divine father. Interestingly, in the East, they would worship the emperor even before he died. It was sort of a little emperor cult. They’d go over and have sacrifices to him and things like that.
Philippi was in the eastern part of the Roman Empire. So we can safely say there was most likely in Philippi a huge number of people who would’ve said, “Yes, Caesar is lord,” in the sense that Caesar is divine. He gives salvation. He brings peace out of chaos. He provides what we need to eat. People are buying into this belief that Caesar is what they really need.
So Paul, when he’s writing, talking about the gospel, this is how we understand, this is why he’s in prison for talking about Jesus. It’s because Paul is going around and he’s saying, “Actually, Jesus is Lord. Jesus is the One who provides salvation. He’s the One who provides for our material needs. Jesus is the One who takes care of us. Jesus is the true Son of God.”
This is constantly in the forefront of Paul’s mind. As he’s interpreting what’s going on around him, he’s thinking through the fact… Everything he sees, the way he feels in his situation, everything else, is seen through this conviction, this reality that Jesus is not just his personal Savior, fire insurance for when he dies he’ll be in heaven forever, but actually that Jesus is on high, ruling, working things out. He’s greater than the Roman Empire. He is the true Lord and Caesar is not.
Sometimes it’s hard to relate to that because we don’t live in the Roman Empire. It’s hard to get a real good picture of what it would’ve been like 2,000 years ago with Caesars running around and a pluralistic, idolatrous society, but it’s not too hard to start drawing parallels to where we live now. If you look around American culture, what are the things we look to and say, “Man, if I just had a little bit more of that, I’d be all right; I’d be saved. If I just had a little bit more, we’d have enough around here. If I could just get a little bit more, then I’d really be at peace”?
For us, I think our Caesar is money usually, and we make sacrifices in our lives to earn more money. Not that money in and of itself is bad, but often we tend to live our lives as though money is king. Money is lord. So if Paul were around today, maybe he wouldn’t be saying, “Jesus is Lord; not Caesar”; he might be saying, “Jesus is Lord; not money, not your job, not…” You name it. Fill in the blank.
He’s declaring Jesus is Lord and everything he does, he sees and interprets the life he’s living, it’s always through the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the true King fulfilling the promises of God through history, and Lord, the One who is on high really working through our lives. So he’s a person. Paul is a person of the proclamation of the gospel. He’s a person who lives out that truth, and it’s crucial to understand this is the foundation of all of his thinking.
2. Our situation. So then the next piece. If Jesus is Christ and he is Lord, as Paul believes, how does that help us interpret our situation? For Paul, as he’s interpreting his situation, we see that he sees this gospel not just as a proclamation but also as like a real power. In Romans 1, he talks about this. He says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God to salvation. Everyone who believes, this is real power.”
You get a sense of this as he’s writing here and interpreting his situation, he says in verse 12, “…what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard…” (Philippians 1:12-13)
Then he goes down to verse 15, “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. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” (Philippians 1:15-18)
It’s like for Paul, this gospel is loose and it’s working and it’s powerful. So even though he’s chained up in prison, as he announces this truth about Jesus, it’s working all through wherever he is. It’s like this power that God is just moving and changing people’s hearts with. So this Praetorian Guard, the imperial guard, who are kind of keeping him, as emissaries of Rome… Here he is like literally under the thumb of the Roman Empire.
If there’s ever a time to admit Caesar is lord is when Caesar has you in prison. Yet here’s Paul saying, “Actually, Jesus is Lord.” That little message is like stealing through the whole community, and it’s able to transcend the apparent problems of the situation. It’s amazing actually. He’s speaking this truth right in the face of total opposition, and yet the gospel is so powerful that it’s transforming it from within.
This is both for his imprisonment, but also he talks about here some of these people who have been emboldened because he’s in prison. He says, “Some of the brothers have seen me in prison. They understand how I’ve been arrested for this. They’ve seen my leadership and they’ve said, ‘Wow, if Paul is bold enough, courageous enough to announce this gospel that Jesus is the Christ, that he is the Lord, man, we can do it too.'” So they start sharing.
Some people are doing it out of envy. There are a number of theories there about why or what people would be trying to stick it to Paul by preaching the gospel while he’s in prison. It’s kind of a funny thing to think about. Wait a second. Paul is in jail. It’s like, “Ha ha! I’ve got you now, Paul. I’m going to preach the gospel over here.” You kind of think, “Wait, how does that make sense? Why would that make Paul unhappy?”
Some of the theories about this, there’s not real great clarity. But some of the theories are that some of them wanted to make the gospel a little bit more Jewish than Paul had been preaching. Maybe they’re saying it a different way. Maybe they’re a competing group or something like that who are thinking, “Oh yeah, Paul didn’t like us, so now we’re going to grow our group while he’s in prison, and he’s going to be really upset.”
We don’t know exactly what this envy and rivalry is. Although if you look at the church today, there’s a lot actually, sadly. There’s a lot of envy and rivalry even between denominations and churches and things like that. But for Paul, the gospel itself is more powerful than all that stuff. The gospel of Jesus is so powerful that even if the motives are wrong the truth overcomes it.
So Paul, as he’s looking at his situation, he could totally be overwhelmed first of all by the fact he is locked up under the thumb of this Roman Empire, and second of all, he could be totally overwhelmed and discouraged and dismayed actually that he has enemies out there doing stuff intentionally to hurt him.
Maybe you’ve had that experience where someone in your family or your friends, someone you’re close to, maybe somebody you don’t know at all, they come up and they are doing things intentionally to hurt you, and it hurts because they’re trying to hurt you and we’re humans and we have nerve endings in our bodies, but also in our souls. They do stuff that hurts us, and that wound is there. They’re intentionally doing that.
Paul could’ve been so cut deeply by that, but because he’s looking first at the Savior, he has this gospel in the forefront of his mind, this proclamation, this truth, and he knows it’s so powerful, even though they intend to hurt him, it doesn’t. He says, “What they’re doing actually is going to announce the gospel more and more, and I’m grateful for that because the gospel is the power that once it’s unleashed cannot be squelched. It can’t be stamped out. It can’t be suffocated.”
So here are these two things. There are people around him and the imprisonment. I mean, really he’s dealing with some tough tragedy here. I was thinking about this. A couple of months ago, I had an invitation to speak. Amy and I together went and we spoke at this gathering. As a thank you, the hosts got us a couples’ massage.
This is what I’ve learned. Apparently, a couples’ massage (because we went yesterday afternoon) just means you are both in the same room getting a massage, which is nice, but it’s not like you’re really talking. If you’re getting your back rubbed, you’re kind of like, “I don’t want to talk to my wife. I don’t want to talk to anybody. I just want to lie here and enjoy this.”
As I was lying there, she was like rubbing my back or whatever. It was luxurious and wonderful and everything else. I’m going, “Paul is in prison writing this stuff, and I’m getting a massage today. How am I supposed to connect with this guy?” Sometimes it’s tough, but if we do the hard work of looking deeper into the text and seeing how Paul…
Yeah, he’s in prison, and maybe most of us have not been in prison for the gospel, but we have experienced hardship. We’ve experienced what it feels like to be trapped by people around us, not giving us any options. Like Paul, we’ve experienced what it’s like to have people do stuff that intentionally, it seems, is hurtful to us. If we start peeling back the layers a little bit, actually we can find ourselves in situations like Paul is here all too frequently.
When we do, we need to know how Paul interprets them. He looks at our Savior first, and then he looks at our situation, and he knows the gospel is so powerful that it can transform even the worst stuff around us.
Now there’s something important that needs to be said here, because when we talk about Jesus as the true Lord, we talk about Jesus as the King, oftentimes the language we use is that Jesus is in control, or God is in control. Maybe you guys have heard that. “Oh yeah, it’s really cruddy right now, but God is in control.” I believe that is true. I believe God is powerful and Jesus is on high and he is working things out.
But there’s a very interesting passage in Hebrews 2:7-8. It’s talking about Jesus. It says, “You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.” (Hebrews 2:7) So it’s quoting back to Psalm 8 about Jesus. Everything is under his feet.
But then it says, “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.” (Hebrews 2:8) Does that make sense? What it says in Hebrews 2 is that Jesus is the true Lord, he is the true King, he is powerful and capable and he is set on high, but just because he is capable doesn’t mean he’s causing all the rotten situations around us. Does that make sense?
Just because he is on high and in a great sense is sovereign or in control doesn’t necessarily mean he is the direct causation of your situation. We do not yet see all things subject to him. There’s still evil afoot. It’s still a broken world. People are still sinful and they do really rotten stuff. There are still things around, kind of like Rome, that are opposing the life of the believer.
It’s not that Jesus is causing all the tough stuff to happen to us. Sometimes we do it to ourselves. We make mistakes. We make really rotten decisions, and when we sin, though there is grace from God, when we sin a lot of times there are consequences to that. And other times we do nothing wrong, absolutely nothing wrong whatsoever. It’s just the fact that we live in this rotten, broken world, and people are wicked, and Satan is awful, stealing, killing, and destroying. That’s not Jesus causing that.
The gospel is powerful, and when we say Jesus is Lord and when we say the gospel is powerful, we’re not saying that Jesus is causing everything to happen. Frankly, that’s unbiblical. We are saying that Jesus is capable of working redemption out of every situation. That’s what Paul does here. He’s looking past the challenge of this immediate situation.
“I have people over here who are trying to hurt me. I have a prison cell. I’m locked down over here.” He doesn’t say, “Oh, Jesus caused this.” What does he say? “Jesus is capable of bringing redemption out of this. Jesus is working even in spite of this. The power of the gospel is still moving through here.” That’s really important for us as we’re reflecting on our own lives.
A lot of times, we find ourselves in these really tricky spots or painful positions. We say, “God, why did you do this to me?” That’s kind of the wrong question. The right question is, “Lord, what do you want to do out of this with me? What are you doing? You’re the King on high. You’re capable of bringing good out of this. Help me to see it the way you see it.”
That’s what Paul does. He says, “I’m in prison, but the guards know about Christ. These guys over here are trying to hurt me out of envy and selfishness. To tell you the truth, the gospel is going forth.” That’s what brings us around to the last bit, because after Paul has said at the forefront Jesus is Christ. Jesus is Lord. He is the One. This gospel proclamation and this gospel power at work. He’s seeing the situation after looking at the Savior. Now he kind of zeroes in on himself. “How do I feel?”
3. Ourselves. Remember a lot of times our pattern is start with ourselves, interpret our situation, “God, help.” Paul is doing exactly the opposite. He says, “Here’s Jesus. He is the true King. Here’s how he’s at work in this situation. Now, what am I going to do? How do I respond to this?” Like that.
What did he say? Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. In verse 18, the second half, he says, “Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” (Philippians 1:18-20)
He looks at the Savior, looks at the situation, and when he has clear, mature consideration about these two things, when he gets to himself, what does he do? He’s able to rejoice. This is how Paul can write a letter drenched with such joy even while he’s in prison, because he’s seeing clearly. He comes to himself, “Yeah, I can actually have joy.”
He talks about two things specifically that help to sustain that joy. First, he talks about the prayers of the saints. The church is praying for him. He feels that. Maybe you’ve felt that, when you know people are praying for you, and you just feel that kind of spiritual lift in your situation. The second thing is he says, “With the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” He has this realization he’s not in this on his own, but Jesus’ own Spirit is sustaining him, carrying him, filling him.
I heard an interesting story of a pastor who was interviewing at a church. It was kind of a charismatic church. The elders had met with this pastor, and they were looking to maybe have him be the next pastor at this place. One of the elders looked at him during the interview process and said, “Are you filled with the Holy Spirit?” The pastor looked at him and he said, “Yes, but I leak.”
There’s this sense when you look at Paul here also that he is sustaining himself, he’s aware of the help, or some translations have the source or the supply, of the Holy Spirit carrying through this time, this challenge. That’s what we need to do when we get into these spots where it feels like we’re in prison or stuff is going wrong around us and actually it feels like Jesus really isn’t Lord, actually kind of Caesar or whatever else it is, sickness or tragedy or even death seems to be lord in this situation.
Here’s Paul saying, “There’s a Savior. Through the eyes of the Savior and the reality that Jesus is the true Lord, may we see this situation. Now from where I am, I can rejoice because the Spirit of God is supplying at capacity an ability to sing praise that I couldn’t otherwise have.” It’s interesting that phrase, “…for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance…” is actually a direct quote of Job 13.
Right after Job has experienced all this hardship and he has lost his family except for his wife. He lost his possessions and everything else. Even his health has been afflicted by Satan, the accuser, in that story in the book of Job. He sits there and he says, “I know this is going to turn out for my deliverance. Even if God were to slay me, I will still trust him.” It’s an amazing moment in Job.
Paul is even like echoing it almost word for word here when he writes this, “It’s going to turn out for my deliverance.” It’s the exact same thing Job says in Job 13:15-16. Paul just knows these Old Testament stories. He knows what it means that God is King. He knows how to see his situation through the lens of the sovereignty of God, and because of all that, he is able to in spite of all the odds, all rationality, everything else, he is able to rejoice.
I’ve just been thinking about that after talking to my grandmother a little bit today and thinking through death and everything. It’s one of those situations that needs some good interpretation. It was supposed to be a pretty simple procedure. We didn’t think this would perhaps end in death. Death is really sad, but it’s not something to be afraid of. Death breaks our hearts because it means separation from the people we love for a time.
But because of what’s true about our Savior and how that impacts our situation for ourselves, we don’t have to be afraid of death. Yeah, we can be sad. It’s proper to mourn, but we don’t have to be afraid of it, because Jesus conquered death. He’s on high, and he has made an eternal way for those who are in him through the gospel.
That final little bit there talking about this idea of how we ourselves interact with our situation and our Savior, the gospel is a promise. It’s something we can bank on. We can be confident. That’s what Paul says there. He says, “I am certain of this.” What then? “About myself I’m confident. I know that through your prayers this is going to turn out for my salvation.”
This brings us to the big what if. Our series is called The “What Ifs” of Faith. It’s the big massive what if that is behind this entire book…What if Jesus really is Lord? What if Jesus is the true Christ? What if Jesus did come, die for our sins, get buried, rise again and is at the right hand of the Father ruling and working good? What if?
Well, man, if that’s true, we can see our situations a whole new way. If that’s true, we can rejoice even when it feels like it’s not the right time. We can be way too joyful even though it feels like we shouldn’t be. This is what Paul is trying to help us understand.
As we close, let’s just pray together. We have Communion here at the front as we worship. You’re welcome to come receive of the bread, symbolic of Jesus’ body broken for us on the cross. The cup there. Just dip the bread in the cup and take it, symbolic of the blood Jesus shed for us. It really is kind of entering into that gospel story. Not just today as we take Communion. Not just as my personal salvation, though it is that. But when we take this Communion, we’re like remembering and actually proclaiming the truth that Jesus is the true Lord.
So God, we do thank you that you have given us another way to live, that we don’t have to guess if Jesus really is Lord, but we can with confidence say that you’re on high and you’re reigning. Though you didn’t cause every hardship we experience, you are capable of bringing forth beauty and redemption in spite of it.
Lord, I pray you would give us great perspective. I pray for some of us we would be able to see more clearly how you are our Savior. Let us understand your messiahship, your lordship on a deeper level, Lord. Let us align our lives with that proclamation of the truth. Lord, for some of us, the situations around us just seem overwhelming. I pray you would bolster our spirits with the truth of power in the gospel, that you’re transforming and you’re working. Even though it feels like we’re stuck or wounded, you’re doing things.
Lord, finally, just as we come to ourselves, help us to rejoice. We ask you for that fresh filling of your Spirit to help us, to supply us, to sustain us. Lord, help us through the prayers of the saints even right now, God, as we’re asking together that these prayers of the saints and the help of the Spirit buoy us into true worship and praise in spite of our situation because you are our Savior. In Jesus’ name, amen.