Philippians 1:12-18: Advancing Gospel

Philippians 1:12-18: Advancing Gospel

Our Scripture reading this morning comes from Philippians 1:12-18. Hear now the words of the Living and True God:

12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. 15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

May God bless the reading of his Word. 

You have probably heard the phrase, “a hill to die on.”  “A hill to die on” refers to a cause or issue a person considers important enough that they would willingly lay down their life for.  While none of you here probably have a death wish, do you have a hill you would die on, a cause or issue you would willingly lay down your life for?  In the book, A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China, several Chinese Christians willingly risk their lives and livelihoods regularly to live out their faith in Christ.  Amid unyielding opposition, Christianity—a hill worth dying on—has, in fact, thrived in the largest Communist dictatorship in the world today. 

At its current growth rate, scholars predict that China will have 294 million Christians by 2030.  To give us some perspective that would constitute nearly 85 percent of the U.S. population.  Can you imagine 85% of our population having such a real relationship with Christ that they would willingly risk their lives?  Scholars further predict that China will have 579 million Christians by 2040: 579 million of its 1.4 billion people, an estimate of 40% of the total population.  Ironically, even many Communist party members have turned to Christianity for answers.  But it hasn’t always been this way.  In fact, Christianity in China spread most rapidly under severe persecution from the Communist Party during Mao Zedong’s cultural revolution beginning in 1966, a revolution known as the “Great Leap Forward.”  During that time, Mao sought to wipe away all traces of the “Four Olds,” as he called them: identified as old customs, old culture, old habits, and old ideas, which, according to Mao, had “poisoned the minds of the people for thousands of years.”  As part of this purge, Mao ordered the deaths of over two million people, with Christians especially targeted, under the slogan, “Beating down Jesus following.”  But in story after story, the church thrived under the trial.

In one such story, Communists imprisoned a Christian pastor by the name of Li Tianen during the crackdown.  Upon his release 10 years later, after experiencing extreme hardship and deprivation, Li immediately returned to both preaching and training upwards of 4,000 new Christian leaders.  Within five years, the Communist party arrested Li again, this time sentencing him to death.  Miraculously, circumstances—from natural disaster to internal Communist party struggle—twice-forced postponement of his execution date.  In fact, during that internal party struggle, Communists imprisoned one of their own, Li’s most bitter persecutor, Fang Iancai, who not only shared Li’s intended fate of execution, but also his cell on death row.  And in that cell, Li shared the gospel with Fang.  And God changed Fang’s heart, and he converted to Christianity.  Subsequently, the party released Li a few years later and they commuted Fang’s sentence to 15 years in prison.  After Li’s release he continued to preach and train new leaders.  Now his province has more Christians per capita than any other province in China, with 10 million belonging to Li’s church planting network alone.  Unfortunately, most of us have never even heard of Li Tianen.  

 With the apostle Paul, Li Tianen—along with a host of other Christians in China—found a hill to die on.  They can say with Paul in our text today, “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel...that my imprisonment is for Christ.”  Because of the gospel’s advance, Paul rejoices.  And so can we. 

Which leads us to the main idea of our text.  We see that God’s people can rejoice in the proclamation of Christ despite trial or motive. Meaning that no matter what we go through or what motive others have in proclaiming the truth of Christ, we can take joy that his name goes forth.

Paul, writing to the church at Philippi, expresses joy in exhorting God’s people in ch 1, vv1-11 to abound in love out of gratitude for God’s work in them and for the gospel partnership they share with one another.  Indeed, God’s people have great reason to rejoice, for God calls us to…

I. Proclaim Christ Despite Trial, 12-14

A. Paul’s imprisonment served to advance the gospel, 12-13

Again, “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.”  In other words, Paul’s imprisonment had the opposite of the intended effect.  Every guard in that prison knows why Paul came there.  He did not commit any crime, other than to proclaim Christ as Lord so effectively that it effected trade in Ephesus.  If you recall in Acts 19, when Paul preached in Ephesus many believed.  And when they did, they stopped buying the little idols of the cult of Artemis made by the craftsmen.  And that aggravated the craftsmen.  Paul cut in on their business.  His message affected their bottom line.  They did not give two hoots about the worship of Artemis.  They did not serve her.  They served themselves.  They worshipped money.  And Paul’s witness had toppled their god of money.  So, they started a riot.  And this landed Paul in prison.  And that prison sentence served to advance the gospel.

And just as in the case of the Communists in China hoping to squelch Li’s witness, Paul’s persecutors had hoped to squelch his witness.  They wanted to snuff it out, to quiet the proclamation of the gospel.  Paul’s gospel proclamation imperiled their position.  It threatened their power.  As with Jesus’ witness, it would better serve these persecutors if one man should die—or at least, suffer—for the people, not that the whole nation, or their whole business, should perish.  But like Peter and John before him in Acts 4:20, Paul cannot help but speak of what he has seen and heard.  And he ends up in a place, speaking to a people who probably would have never otherwise heard the gospel if he had not endured such severe persecution.

I want you to notice what Paul does not say to the Philippians here.  He does not frame his letter in complaint or catastrophe.  Yet so often when we go through trial, we do.  We face a little hardship—mind you, hardship without beatings, imprisonments, or near-death experiences… in other words, without everything Paul experienced—only to frame our hardship in complaint and catastrophe, like a badge of honor.  As if to say, “Do you know how hard I have it?”  But Paul hardly mentions the extremely difficult circumstance he finds himself in.  He does not complain.  Instead, he simply sees opportunity in his trial: opportunity for more people to know that God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to pay for and free people from the bondage of their sin.  Paul has a love for Christ so deep that he forgets himself.  Do we?  Do we have a love for Christ so deep that we forget ourselves?  God, give me such mature faith.  Help me to get my mind off myself and off my circumstance.  Give me eyes to see every trial you allow as an opportunity to see your grace abound more and more.  Can we think like this?  Do we dare pray for this?  

Paul does not share all the gritty details of the hardship his captors undoubtedly would have subjected him to.  Instead, he speaks almost exclusively of the opportunity given to him to advance the gospel through hardship and persecution, which, consequently and consistently proves how the gospel advanced in the early church.  Which begs the question, does an unchanging God work any differently today?  Might I suggest that God often still advances the gospel in this way.  I can safely say that the world takes little to no notice of you standing firm in your faith in times of what Francis Schaeffer calls personal peace and affluence.  When the world has personal peace, unbothered by the problems around them, when they have affluence, distracted by the many baubles they own, they don’t need what you have.  

And they can attribute your resolve in those peaceful, affluent times as some sort of odd peculiarity about you, some idiosyncrasy where your religion “works for you,” but has no bearing on them.  They can attribute your resolve during times of personal peace and affluence to anything other than the power of God working in and through you to sustain you.  But when you faithfully bear up under suffering and faithfully bear witness to God despite opposition, they take notice.  We see in vv12-13 that Paul’s imprisonment served to advance the gospel.

B. Paul’s imprisonment emboldened other believers to advance the gospel, 14

“And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much bolder to speak the word without fear.”  Again, persecution had the opposite of the intended effect.  The persecutors believed, “If we imprison one of the shepherds, the sheep will scatter.  We can go on with business as usual.”  Not so.  Instead, Paul’s imprisonment gave them confidence in the Lord.  Paul’s imprisonment emboldened them to speak the word without fear.  With Peter and the other apostles in Acts 5:41, they would rather God count them worthy to suffer for the name, than sit comfortably in their disobedience.  But I am afraid that far too often we would rather sit comfortably in our disobedience, awkwardly silent, than risk derision, than risk discomfort, than risk any trial great or small for speaking up.  Now I am not suggesting that we embrace belligerence for belligerence’s sake.  Far too many Christians nowadays act like belligerent, confrontational brutes, boisterously engaging on every issue, dying on every hill, seeing smoke where no one lit a fire.  Far too many Christians nowadays go to two opposite extremes: silence or belligerence, when somewhere in between would better serve the cause of Christ.  In Matthew 10:16, Jesus calls us, “be wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.”  Wisdom suggests we die for our innocence, not for our sins.

We should not die on every hill.  But would we die on any hill?  Given the right cause, I think some of us would willingly die for our country, if called upon.  Given the wrong circumstance, I think most of us would willingly die for our loved ones.  So, we would die on some hills.  In other words, we would die for ideals and for people that will eventually die anyway, whether we die for them or not.  We would die for something temporal, and rightly so.  But would we die for something eternal?  The believers here certainly think so.  And why do they think so? —Because they can see spiritually, they can see eternally, they can see that heaven and hell hang in the balance for people.  They truly love others.  And they see their life here on earth as but a blip on the radar screen of eternity.  Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and their gratitude for the gospel—the reality that they no longer remain slaves to sin, because Christ’s atoning sacrifice set them free, transforming them—Paul’s witness emboldened them to speak the word without fear, not simply despite Paul’s trial, but because of Paul’s trial.  

Doctor Martyn Lloyd-Jones once said, “No man lives to himself in this world.  What you and I do in the time of adversity and trouble is going to affect many others.  Is not this the one way to face life and its troubles and tribulations—to see in it an opportunity of witnessing for Christ.  When the blow descends, say to yourself, here is a grand opportunity.  There will be people who are going to watch me, they know I am a church member and that I call myself a Christian, so they will look and say, ‘Let’s see how he stands up to this.  Let’s watch her, let’s listen to their words.’  And there is your opportunity to testify to the gospel.”Paul’s imprisonment emboldened them to speak the word without fear.  Which means they feared something or someone more than their persecutors.  They feared God.  Which begs the question, what, or whom, do you fear?  Do you fear man?  Do you fear what people will think of you?  Paul said he became a fool for Christ’s sake.  He did not care about respectability, as we so often do.  He cared about souls.  He cared about the proclamation of the gospel, no matter what trial it might bring.  Brothers and sisters, I pray that Christ would prove so real to us, that his presence would prove so felt by us, that we dare not deny him, as Peter did at his trial.  And perhaps, you, like me, have missed opportunities.  Fear got the better of you.  Perhaps you even went so far as to deny your Lord by your words or actions, as Peter did.  Fortunately, his denial did not have the last word.  He repented, going on to bear up under later trials, confessing his Lord.  And we can go and do likewise.  In vv12-14, God calls his people to proclaim Christ despite trial.

II. Proclaim Christ Despite Motive, 15-18a

A. Some proclaim Christ from good will, while others from ill will, 15-17

It says “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry.”  They had ill motive.  He goes on to say that they preach “not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.”  Some think they stand to gain from Paul’s hardship.  Envy and rivalry motivate them.  They envy Paul.  They want what they do not have.  They want what he has.  James 4:2 says, “You desire but do not have, so you kill.  You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.  You do not have because you do not ask God.”  They could ask God to give them the same success Paul has.  Rather than pray, they envy.  And in their envy, they probably fail to consider all the hardships that came with Paul’s success.  Thomas Aquinas describes envy as, “sorrow for another’s good.” Another says that envy can be thought of as the opposite of love… and there is no heaven that envy cannot make into a hell.

They saw Paul as a rival rather than as a brother.  They, perhaps, operated from a mentality of scarcity, as if the world did not have enough listeners to go around.  In their scheme, they did not look for a win-win scenario.  Instead, they look for a win-lose scenario.  Meaning, if you win, I lose, so you must lose, so I can win.    We see this sort of factionalism alive and well in the church today in all its pettiness, in all its earthiness: coarse, worldly, gross.  Pastor Kevin DeYoung says, “If we truly long for revival, we will rejoice even when it starts at the church down the road.”  Otherwise, we have the same envious, rivalrous mentality as those whom Paul mentions.  

Christ condemns this rivalrous mentality in his parable of the tenants in Matthew 21, tenants who kill everyone the owner sends to them, including the son, to steal his inheritance, only to find that in the end God will take the kingdom from them and give it to a people who will produce its fruit.  Now my initial reaction to those preaching Christ with ill motive involves thorough condemnation and swift retribution.  “Paul, let us call out their sin.  Let us exhibit some righteous anger over it.  In fact, why don’t we call down fire from heaven to consume them,” as the disciples call for in Luke 9.  But Paul does not react that way at all.  

B. Paul takes joy that they proclaim Christ regardless of their motive, 18a

Now surely, he would prefer they preach Christ from good will, out of love.  Surely, he would prefer they would understand what and why Paul does what he does, and that they would go and do likewise.  And while we can safely say that he prefers that, Paul does not dismiss those with ill motive.  What does he say?  “What then?  Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.”  Now I could only imagine that I would have expressed my frustration if I had experienced this sort of pretense, where brothers in Christ made false claims about me as they preached the gospel.  But Paul expresses no such frustration.  Rather, he applauds the fact that they preach Christ, even if they make false claims against him.  

Despite their ill motive Paul says they proclaim Christ, and in that he rejoices.  While he questions their intent, he does not question their content, at least not their content concerning Christ.  While he acknowledges their false claims about him, he also acknowledges their true claims about Christ.  Which suggests that this rival group did not consist of false teachers, or Judaizers, elsewhere condemned and warned of—even in this letter to the Philippians—but brothers in Christ who had somewhat lost their way, but not their faith.  In other words, these envious rivals consist of sheep who bite, rather than wolves in sheep’s clothing who devour.  While we question their intent, we do not question their content.  They speak the truth about Christ, even if they speak poorly of Paul.

We see this same sort of idea in the book of Jonah, where God calls Jonah to go to the Assyrian capitol city of Nineveh to proclaim a message of repentance.  And what does Jonah do?  He gets on a boat and goes the other way.  And through a series of circumstances well known to most young child in nursery, Jonah ends up in Nineveh anyway and proclaims that message of repentance.  And their response, of true repentance, incites a terrible reaction in Jonah.  After all, these Assyrians had butchered, enslaved, and exploited God’s people, both physically and spiritually: forcing them into hard labor, stealing their resources, and demanding spiritual idolatry and allegiance in the worship of their false gods.  The Assyrians had acted like the worst sort of people.  How could God ask one of God’s people, Jonah, to offer repentance to them?  Jonah does not want them to repent.  You could say, he has an ill motive.  What then?  Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Jonah proclaims God’s message.  Except he does not rejoice, as Paul does.

I am afraid we look more like Jonah than Paul at times.  We do the right thing with the wrong motive.  We operate from a mentality of scarcity.  Others must lose for us to win: that’s envy, that’s hellish.  That sort of mentality does not truly demonstrate a love for God and a love for others, the first and greatest commandment and the second like it.  That sort of mentality does not recognize that we too have fallen so far short of God’s grace that we need the same mercy and grace that they do.  And only when we acknowledge that, will we have the wherewithal to forget ourselves, as Paul does here.  Only then can we extend the same grace and mercy that God extends to us.  And what does that result in? —Joy. —Rejoicing.  Not sulking under a withered plant in the scorching heat, like Jonah, thinking we know better than God as to who should get judgment or mercy.  But instead, joyfully proclaiming the message of salvation to all who would believe.

God’s people can rejoice in the proclamation of Christ despite trial or motive.  Perhaps, you came here today, unaware of the mercy and forgiveness that Christ Jesus wishes to extend to you.  Perhaps, you live in slavery to your sin—the hill you will die on, in an eternal sense—if you do not turn to Christ for your salvation.  Like the Chinese pastor, Li, and the Chinese Communist Party member, Fang, you too, can know the freedom that Christ offers, despite circumstance.  For Christ, himself, found his own hill worth dying on, Golgotha where he paid for the sins of his people, promising, “If the son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”  To tell the truth, “Beating down Jesus following” just doesn’t work.  For what has happened to the apostle Paul, to Pastor Li, to millions of Christians the world over, has really served to advance the gospel.  And in that, we rejoice.