Deep Joy: The Message of Philippians #3: "Joy in Advancing the Gospel" (Phil 1:12-18a)

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Philippians in chapter one, the series that we've called
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Deep Joy, the message of Philippians, Philippians chapter one.
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And this afternoon, our text is gonna be verses 12 to 18, the first part, but so that we have it in its context, we're gonna have a slightly longer reading than usual.
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We'll be in Philippians chapter one, beginning in verse 12 and reading through to verse 30.
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Philippians chapter one, reading from verse 12, through to verse 30.
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If you grabbed one of the red hardbacks that we give away, that's on page 1040. Page 1040,
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Philippians chapter one, from verse 12 through to verse 30. If you're able to do so, can
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I invite you to stand with me out of reverence for God's word? We do this to symbolize that in this moment,
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God is speaking to us directly from his word. And so Philippians chapter one, beginning in verse 12 and reading through to verse 30.
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Brothers and sisters, these are God's words. Now I want you to know brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel.
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So that it has become known throughout the whole imperial God and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.
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Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.
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To be sure, some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.
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These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The others proclaim
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Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking that they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.
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What does it matter? Only that's in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed.
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And in this, I will rejoice. Yes, and I will continue to rejoice because I know this will lead to my salvation through your prayers and help from the spirit of Jesus Christ.
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My expectation is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage,
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Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For me to live is
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Christ and to die is gain. Now, if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me, and I don't know which one
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I should choose. I'm torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.
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Since I'm persuaded of this, I know that I will remain and continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, so that because of my coming to you again, your boasting in Christ Jesus may abound.
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Just one thing, as citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or I'm absent,
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I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel, not being frightened in any way by your opponents.
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This is a sign of destruction for them, but of your salvation, and this is from God.
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For it has been granted to you on Christ's behalf, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him.
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Since you are engaged in the same struggle that you saw I had, and now hear that I have.
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Pray that God would add his blessing to the reading of his word and give us understanding of it. Let's pray, ask for the spirit's help, and we will come to this portion of the scriptures.
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Well, Heavenly Father, we thank you so much once again that you have brought us, after another week, to come and to hear you speak to us through your word.
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Father, we acknowledge that in this time you are speaking to us, that we are, yes, hearing the words of a man, but as much as they are faithful to your word, we are hearing your voice.
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And yet, Father, we recognize just how difficult it is for us in our natural frame to hear your voice and to hear it well.
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And so, Father, I ask that you would help us that we would be able to hear.
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Pray for the work of your spirit, both in the speaking of your word and in the listening of it, that as you are preached, as your son is preached, as your spirit is at work, eyes would become ears, and that a great work would happen where we would hear a voice better than the human voice that we hear even now.
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Father, as we pray for our time together, we take a moment to pray for the brothers
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I had an opportunity to meet with this week down in Reading who are serving you faithfully in a variety of churches.
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Pray for all of them and the various ministries you've given them. Continue to encourage them, continue to strengthen them, continue to make their witness south of us, all the more fruitful for the glory of your name.
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And may that be the case for us even now as we open up your word. We ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen.
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Please be seated. Well, this afternoon, the theme that I want to take up with you is the idea of joy in the advance of the gospel, joy in the advance of the gospel.
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Chapter and verse divisions as we know them, some of you will know this already, but they're not actually original to the
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Bible. The Bible that you have today did not come with chapters and verses as we know them.
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Modern chapter divisions actually didn't start until a bishop from my home country, the UK, decided to include them in the
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English Bible in the 1200s. In fact, the first Bible to have chapters and verses the way that your
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Bible in front of you has chapters and verses was actually the Geneva Bible. There have been previous attempts that didn't really catch on, but really it was with the
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Geneva Bible that you had the first genuine work of including chapters and verses.
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I take you down the winding path of history for just a moment because while chapter and verses are useful for finding things, remembering where things are, that usefulness doesn't always translate to helpfulness when it comes to understanding the meaning of a passage.
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That being said, I have to applaud whoever did the chapter divisions in the letter to the
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Philippians because I personally think they did a very good job. Each one of these chapters,
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I think, captures the thought that Paul has as he's moving along in this letter. And we've been in chapter one for the last couple of weeks and we'll be at least one more week in chapter one.
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And really when you look at chapter one, chapter one has one major theme to it. Chapter one has one very major theme to it.
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The theme is very simple. The theme is what does it look like for the gospel to impact the people of God and for it to produce deep joy?
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What does it look like for the gospel to impact the people of God and for it to produce deep joy?
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And as you look at chapter one, chapter one really can be broken up into three movements, three kind of scenes, if you will.
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To make this easier, I'll put this up on screen. Essentially, chapter one begins with this theme.
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You have introduction in verses one and two and then Paul jumps straight in and he starts with this idea of gospel partnership, which is what we considered last week.
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This idea of hand -in -hand joining together to see the gospel go out.
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Well, once there's gospel partnership, that should lead to what we're gonna think about this afternoon, gospel advance in verses 12 to the first half of 18.
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Where there is partnership and then gospel advance, there then should be gospel progress, which is the rest of this chapter, verse 18 to 30.
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And as you can see, I've said that gospel progress is the ultimate goal. This is what we're driving towards as the people of God.
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Partnership becomes advance and advance becomes progress. And as we walk through this first chapter and as we look at the example of Paul and the
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Philippian church, my hope is that we are going to learn as a body what the presence of the gospel does in the life of a body of believers.
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More specifically for Redeemer, my hope is that we will see that the presence of the gospel ought to move us from being a holy huddle.
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You know what I mean when I say a holy huddle? My past in London used to use that phrase. You know, the idea we come together, we do the worship gathering thing, we say hi to our friends and then break, go live our lives and we'll come back again the next
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Sunday and do the holy huddle all over again. Actually, if we understand
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Philippians one rightly, we'll see that the gospel ought to move us from just being a holy huddle, a people who merely have the gospel, but it more or less ends there.
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No, the gospel and the mission of God ought to move us from that view of the church to viewing ourselves as a team of gospel workers.
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A team of gospel workers who have found hope in the gospel and then proceed to share that hope with others.
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It should hopefully move us from being a people who have the gospel to a people who have the gospel and give it away to a world that desperately needs it.
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Well, like I said last time in our study, we were in verses three through eight and we talked about this idea of gospel partnership as we saw
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Paul's report of the Philippians and his response in prayer. This gospel partnership, this hand joined in hand around the message and the mission of the gospel, it was active, it was living, it was vibrant.
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Again, I won't give my whole sermon again. You can find that on our website, on our YouTube channel and in our church app.
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But this afternoon, we've talked about gospel partnership and what we want to do now is to take the next step in our understanding of how the gospel impacts people and produces deep joy because as you said, gospel partnership ought to lead to gospel advance.
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As we look at Paul's example in these verses, what do we learn about the pursuit of gospel advance?
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What does it look like when the people of God are committed to gospel advance?
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Well, here's my big idea for this message. It's very simple. We should seek for and rejoice in gospel advance despite challenges from within and from without.
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We should seek for and rejoice in gospel advance despite challenges from within and without.
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For the rest of our time this afternoon, I want to consider three unlikely ways that the gospel advances, three unlikely ways and three heart responses that should accompany that advance.
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If what we're saying is true and we should seek for and rejoice in gospel advance despite challenges from within and without, if that is true, how exactly does this gospel advance?
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That's the thought I want to kind of chase with you this afternoon and I think this text is going to help us to learn something of that.
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So we should seek for and rejoice in gospel advance despite challenges from within and without.
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There are three unlikely ways the gospel advances from this passage and three heart responses that should accompany that advance.
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If that's the case, then let's get to work. First of all, the gospel advances in difficult circumstances.
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The gospel advances in difficult circumstances. So don't be discouraged.
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The gospel advances in difficult circumstances. So don't be discouraged.
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No doubt the Philippian Christians, as we come to verse 12, no doubt they were worried about Paul and his house arrest.
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Was Paul okay? Was this going to be the end? I mean, he's in Rome. This isn't exactly the most friendly place for a
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Jew, let alone a Christian to be. What about the ministry they had partnered with? This is a man they had said, no, we're joining hands with you,
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Paul, in the ministry you do. And now you're in Rome on house arrest. This doesn't look too good. You can just imagine the worry that they had.
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Was this imprisonment going to shut down the ministry of the gospel? I mean, these are reasonable questions.
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You can't fault them for asking them. And you can understand why the Philippines would ask them. These are difficult circumstances.
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And it's the fact that these are difficult circumstances that makes Paul's response all the more astounding when you read it.
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So look at verse 12 with me. What does he say? Now, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel.
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In essence, Paul says, I wouldn't be too concerned about what's happening to me right now, because actually this has served the purpose of the gospel advancing.
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I said last week that the message will be sponsored by the phrase gospel partnership. Well, this week's sermon is brought to you by the word advance.
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The word advance carries this meaning of a movement forward to an improved state.
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Mostly in our Bibles, it's translated as progress, as advancement, or furtherance. Well, okay.
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What was interesting was that this word was used, in fact, here's how one dictionary defines it. It was from a Greek word, which means to cut before.
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And it's thought to have been used of an army of pioneer woodcutters who would precede a regular army, cutting a road through an impenetrable forest, thus making possible the pioneer advance into regions where it could not have gone before.
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So you just picture the scene. An army is advancing, and they hit this forest. Well, they can't go through the forest, and it's not the kind that you can go around or go over.
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You've got to go through it somehow. So what did they end up doing? They would send a team to go ahead, and what would the team that went ahead do?
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They would go and cut a path so that this team, this army, could move forward.
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And Paul essentially says that the events that had happened to him hadn't curtailed his work of proclaiming the gospel.
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If anything, it had created a clear path for it. When we say gospel advance, what do we actually mean?
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I think it might be good for us to actually define this term. Very simply, gospel advance is what happens when gospel partners work together to ensure the good news of the gospel reaches more people who need to hear it.
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Gospel advance is what happens when gospel partners work together to ensure the good news of the gospel reaches more people who need to hear it.
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Like I said a few moments ago, it's not enough for Christians to have the gospel. The gospel is not an accessory to be clutched tight and never let go.
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No, God's intention for us as we hear the gospel is for us to hear the gospel, to treasure it, and to guard it for the purpose of giving it away.
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And in Paul's understanding, this advance, this furtherance of the gospel into pioneer territory, that didn't get put on pause just because of a little thing called house arrest.
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You know, Paul could have said, you know, I'm here in Rome. I've got a court case that's pending.
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It's kind of a big deal. I mean, I'm gonna be standing in front of Caesar. I might need to take a break so that I can focus on that.
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But let me take a break, and then I'll get right back to it. That's not Paul's response.
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Paul's response is, yes, even in my imprisonment, the gospel is still being advanced. It's like what one writer wrote.
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Evangelism was Paul's meat and potatoes since he believed not only that the gospel is God's message of truth, but it thereby contains the only good news for a fallen, broken world.
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Paul valued this gospel so much that he was not willing to say, my circumstances dictate that I need to think about something else.
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For him, there was nothing else. Paul gives off this sense of almost, you really thought a house arrest was gonna put me off, seriously?
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Guys, guys, guys, this is not how we operate here. Paul had eyes for gospel opportunity, even in difficult circumstances.
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And so he still is having this witness for Christ, and his witness for Christ is so effervescent, it's so obvious that it reached some pretty important people.
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Look at verse 13. He says, what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, verse 13, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard.
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Some of your translations will say the praetorian guard. The praetorian guard were kind of the elite troops.
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They functioned something like the secret service for the emperor, essentially. They were tasked with the emperor's protection and with his general well -being.
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And since they were stationed in Rome, what often happened was when people came to present their case to Caesar, depending on the nature of why they were there, they have the function of guarding those who came before Caesar.
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Remember, that's why Paul's in Rome, Acts chapter 28. He appeals to Caesar and says, fine,
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I'm on trial. I have the right to talk to Caesar as a Roman citizen, so guess what? I'd like to speak to Caesar.
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And so he's in Rome, awaiting his day in court. And in this sort of detail, the praetorian guard, the troops would be swapped out every four hours.
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They would serve for four hours, and a new batch would come in. Now, we know from Acts chapter 28 that what is
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Paul doing while he's on house arrest? He's receiving visitors and he's preaching. So imagine this,
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Paul is preaching pretty much all day, every day, from what we understand in Acts 28. Paul is preaching, and yes, he has the people who've come to hear him, but it's not only them.
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You've got these soldiers who are hearing Paul preach every single day. Every four hours, a new batch are coming.
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You can imagine the conversations in the barracks that day. You'll never believe what we had to do today.
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We, yeah, we were on this Jewish rabbi. He's kind of short, that's what history tells us. He's kind of short, he don't really look that much.
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But he's talking about this guy called Christ all the time, like all day. And you just hear another team like, yeah, yeah, we were on him as well today.
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Same thing, all he does is talk about this guy called Jesus Christ. No wonder
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Paul could say that it's become known to the whole imperial God, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ.
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Just imagine that, the Secret Service, it would be akin to the Secret Service are asked to guard somebody who's on trial for something pre -major, but this guy happens to be a
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Christian. And the Secret Service, all of them, get to hear the gospel through this one person. It would be something like that.
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And in case you wonder, did this go anywhere? Keep a finger here in Philippians one, turn to the end of the book, chapter four, and look at verse 22.
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He says, all the saints send you greetings, especially those who belong to Caesar's household.
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I would venture to think that Paul's preaching had more success than even he planned.
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I would call that gospel advance, wouldn't you? See, this was a difficult circumstance for Paul, but the difficult circumstance hadn't discouraged him from the preaching of the gospel.
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And so I have to pause and ask for a moment, do you view difficult circumstances that way? Do you view difficult circumstances not merely as problems to be overcome, not merely as inconveniences to your program?
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Do you view gospel circumstances as the theater in which the power of God is put on display?
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The troubles of life aren't designed by God to turn us in on ourselves. Unfortunately, as human beings, we are very good at that, but that's not why
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God allows problems and trials and difficulties to come into our lives. No, the troubles of life are designed by God for our growth and for the furtherance of the gospel.
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If only we would let them do that. So the gospel advances despite difficult circumstances, and the result should be that we are not discouraged.
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We should be encouraged. Because God is at work. But there's also the reality that, point number two, the gospel advances through faithful examples.
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The gospel advances through faithful examples. So what should our response be? We should be inspired.
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The gospel advances through faithful examples. So be inspired.
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As word got around that Paul was being faithful so that even the imperial guard were hearing the gospel, an interesting thing started to happen.
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Look at verse 14. It says, most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly.
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The brothers I refer to here are the brothers in Rome. They were already believers in Rome at this point.
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And he says that the brothers in Rome heard what was happening to him and they became emboldened in their witness.
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A faithful example had inspired them to speak the word, the word here for fearlessly is very simple, it's literally just the word a and the word we got our word phobia from, same word, without any fear, without any trepidation.
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And it's interesting, when you read the New Testament, this idea of people being inspired by the example of others, it comes up over and over and over again.
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So again, keep a finger or a ribbon or a piece of paper here in Philippians. Flip a couple of books forward to First Thessalonians.
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First Thessalonians, a church that wasn't too far from the church in Philippi. And in First Thessalonians chapter one,
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Paul is reciting how it is that they had heard the gospel. And this is what Paul says,
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First Thessalonians chapter one, verses four through seven. It says, for we know brothers and sisters loved by God that he has chosen you because our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, in the
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Holy Spirit and with full assurance. You know how we lived among you for your benefits.
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Verse six, and you yourselves became imitators of us and of the
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Lord. When in spite of severe persecution, you welcomed the message with joy from the
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Holy Spirit. As a result, you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia, which would have included the
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Philippians and Achaia. They hear the gospel. They hear it even with persecution.
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What does the text say? They became imitators of Paul and those he had traveled with.
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And as a result, this church who followed Paul's example were now an example to other Christians.
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Flip over one chapter, chapter two and verse 14. Chapter two and verse 14, Paul says this, for you brothers and sisters became imitators of God's churches in Christ Jesus that are in Judea, since you have also suffered the same things from your own people, just as they did from the
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Jews. Again, this example of you've become examples and imitators of these saints who are being faithful, who are suffering the same things as you.
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Godly examples are one of the means that God uses to generate genuine gospel advance.
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And this has been the case all throughout history. If I say the Orca Five, are you familiar with who they are?
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If you're not, Orca Five, Jim Elliot, Nate Sain, Ed McCully, Peter Fleming, and Roger Udarian, five missionaries who went to the jungle of Ecuador.
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They were martyred. Some of you may know this, but there was a connection between these men and Wheaton College out there in the
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Illinois area. Wheaton College said that in the aftermath of the death of these men, the college saw a two decade increase in graduates going to the mission field.
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Two decades. Some of you may know the story of John and Betty Stamm.
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If you don't know that story, you should. John and Betty Stamm were graduates of Moody Bible Institute.
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Felt the Lord was calling them to minister to the people in China, so they went through the China Inland Mission to China. Unfortunately, before long, the
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Chinese Civil War broke out, if you know that story. This precious missionary couple were murdered on the mission field in China.
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Some of you will maybe know the story of their daughter, Helen, who was called the Miracle Baby. The China Inland Mission reported that when the news got back to America of what had happened to John and Betty Stamm, this was in the 50s, they received their, they reported that this was the highest surge of support they had ever received since the
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Great Depression. It was the early church leader,
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Tertullian, who said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Some of you have heard that phrase before?
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Why? This is the counter logical, to us anyway, way that God works.
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He uses the example of others, even the painful example of others, to inspire gospel advance.
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So for a moment, let me ask, who are the examples of gospel advance in your own life?
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Who are the people who inspire you to gospel advance? I wrote this message this week at one point in tears, because all
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I could do as I read this passage and I dug into it, all I could do was think of the men, living and departed.
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Who are my examples? Those of you who come to Redeemer know, I regularly talk about the man
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I consider to be my mentor, Pastor Nathaniel Ramshire. Man who mentored me and taught me the value of sound doctrine.
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He told me to go to a particular church in London, so I did. And I sat on the preaching of another man called
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Dr. Peter Masters, who modeled for me that you could have a high view of the sovereignty of God and salvation, and you could plead with sinners to come to Christ.
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Did it every week, still does, in his 80s. I think of the man who, to this day,
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I still consider my pastor, Dr. Tom Dreon, who told me that it is not enough to just teach people, that people don't just need teaching, they need shepherding.
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And as he would often say, especially when they think they don't. I think of men like Dr.
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Steve Lawson, who modeled for me the kind of expositional ministry of God's word that I wanted to do. Had the privilege of getting to meet him for the first time in 2013.
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I was 22 years old, sat in the church basement at the church in London we were at, and for an hour, he exhorted myself and my best friend,
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Kojo, and basically said to us, brothers, give everything to this. Organize your life around this.
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We need more men to proclaim the gospel. I think of a man called
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Tom Richwine. You've never heard of him. He was a businessman. He was a board member for the Banner of Truth.
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Came to a banner youth conference in Leicester in the Midlands of England. My friend,
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Olu, and I had gone up from London for this conference for the weekend, and we had the privilege of sitting with him,
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I think it was for lunch, if I remember correctly. Might not remember when it happened, but I remember what happened.
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As he got to know our story and the church that we were a part of, he sat and talked with us, and at one point, he got quiet, and I could see tears forming in his eyes, and he said, brothers, never settle.
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He said, brothers, never settle for ordinary in your Christian lives, and he took us to Philippians 3, a passage we'll get to in a few weeks, and said, keep pressing on.
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I think of the elders of our ascending church who have, in thousands, no, not even thousands, but hundreds of conversations
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I've had with them, reaffirmed my suspicion that I don't have to choose between being theologically faithful and pursuing tangible fruitfulness.
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They said, no, you don't have to pick. Both of those can be true. I think of all those examples, and many more that I could multiply, and I often think to myself that I would be mocking them in their example if I said, yeah, those men were all living and departed.
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Those men were and are, you know, they're 110 % in, but you know, things are a little different for me.
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I have a son. Things are different now. I don't have to do all that. I don't plan on being those men.
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God made me Kofi. He didn't make me anyone else, but I do plan on imitating their faithfulness, and I thank
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God that he brings those people, and he's brought more people since then, and continues to bring people in my life who inspire me to genuine gospel advance, and so I ask, who are the people in your own life who inspire you to that level of gospel advance?
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The gospel advances despite difficult circumstances, so we should not be discouraged. It advances through godly examples, so let's be inspired, but there's a third way that gospel advance is seen in our passage.
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The gospel advances even with mixed motives. The gospel advances even with mixed motives, so what should we do?
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Rejoice. The gospel advances even with mixed motives, so rejoice.
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Full disclosure, this is one of those passages that for years I really didn't understand. I'm gonna read it, and maybe you can see where my confusion comes from.
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Philippians 1, 15 through 18. I'm gonna read it in its entirety. Paul says, to be sure, some preach
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Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. These preach out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.
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The others proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, thinking they will cause me trouble in my imprisonment.
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What does it matter? Only that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is proclaimed, and in this
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I rejoice. Can you see where my confusion steps in?
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If not, allow me to walk you through this passage, and maybe you'll catch. Usually, I try to go the other way for people to go from confusion to understanding, but for a minute, let's flip that.
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Let me confuse you for a moment, and then come back and clear the confusion, hopefully. Let's start with the rule of two groups.
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He says that there are the group that preach Christ out of goodwill. They preach
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Christ out of love, and I take love there to be a reference both for Paul and for Christ, recognizing that Paul was chosen for the mission of seeing the gospel advance.
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In verse 18, he summarizes it as preaching from true motives, so that's group number one, and then there's this second group, and this is where the confusion starts for me.
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He says that this group was preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry, out of selfish ambition, thinking, it's interesting, he makes a distinction between knowing, with the group who are preaching from true motives, and thinking.
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He says, thinking they could stir up trouble for him while he was in prison. Paul summarizes them in verse 18 as those who preach from false motives.
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So far, so good. This is the part where I get confused. Paul says both groups preach and proclaim
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Christ. That's where I get confused. I always read this passage in the way
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I'd often heard it used. Maybe you've heard it used this way. Don't be so concerned about false teaching out there.
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Hey, as long as Jesus is getting preached, it really doesn't matter. Well, I get confused by that because the same
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Paul who wrote these words also wrote words like this. You don't need to turn there, but I'll read it. 2 Corinthians 11, 13, and 14.
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For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ, and no wonder, for Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
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Paul had no problem calling out people and saying that they are false apostles, deceitful workers, and that they are faking it as apostles of Christ.
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Paul has no problem calling out people, but here he doesn't do that. Yes, he mentions their motivations, but he says both of them are preaching
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Christ. They're proclaiming an accurate Jesus. So here's where my confusion is.
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How are you proclaiming an accurate Jesus with bad motivations? You may think, okay, Kofi, that's a lot simpler than you seem to make it.
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You all know me, I'm a simpleton. So again, indulge me in my simpleton -ness for a moment. How does one preach
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Jesus with the worst possible motives and Paul say, verse 18,
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I can rejoice in that. I mean, look at these motives. There's envy. Envy, the desire to deprive others of what is rightfully theirs.
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You get the sense that these preachers were thinking that Paul has a position and a prominence that they should have, especially now he's in jail.
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Someone needs to take the spot. Rivalry, viewing Paul as a competitor to be squashed, not a co -laborer to be partnered with, excuse me.
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He says selfish ambition. Interestingly, this term became used of politicians in the ancient world, people who would campaign to give themselves a position.
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Paul says, these are their motivations. These are their false motivations. And yet he says that they're orthodox.
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They're preaching Christ. He doesn't say they're preaching a false Jesus. Paul has no problem in telling people they're preaching a false
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Jesus. He doesn't say that here. They were orthodox. They no doubt said true and helpful things.
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And yet below the surface, the motivations of the heart were less than noble.
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So, can I pause for a moment? I feel the need. Call this a pastoral health warning.
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We live in an age where you have more access to information than we have ever needed, in my opinion.
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Some of it good, some of it not so good. I can jump on my phone right now.
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Jump on my phone and I can hear preaching literally that will last me 24 hours within one day. Just go from this church to this church to this church to this church.
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I could do a marathon if I wanted to. Everyone's got a podcast now.
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I hate that everyone's got a podcast. That's a whole other conversation for another time. Everyone's got a
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YouTube channel. I like to read. There's never been more publishers. Everyone's publishing. If this was an issue, what
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Paul is describing here was an issue in his day when there was no Twitter, there were no podcasts, there were no Facebook, no
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YouTube. I'm sorry. You can't fool me enough to think that that's not happening today. That there are people who would say otherwise orthodox and true things, but are saying them with the worst possible motives.
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But I told you, that's not the part that, I can understand that. Preaching is great if you're a narcissist.
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You ever thought about that? If you are a self -obsessed person, preaching is wonderful.
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You know why? For an hour, every single week, I preach for an hour. If you're like me who preaches for an hour, you have an hour of people's captive attention.
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People even say nice things about your preaching once in a while. If you are a narcissist, preaching is great.
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If you are somebody who believes that they should be the center of attention, that the solar system should be renamed after them, preaching is great.
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That part I understand. But this is what shoots me up. Paul doesn't condemn this.
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Sure, he notices it, but he, in fact, says they're preaching
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Christ, and verse 18 in the Christian standard Bible is translated, what does it matter?
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In the original language, it's literally two words. What then? In fact, some of your Bibles will translate it as that. What then?
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Paul, in essence, says, I kinda don't care. That's the part that I have to admit confuses me.
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Paul essentially says, I'm not moved by this because even with the most impure motives, these guys are still preaching
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Christ. In fact, Paul could say, in verse 18, in this
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I rejoice. In fact, by the way, that's the first use of the joy term in this whole book.
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The first time Paul says rejoice in this whole book, he says it about people who are preaching
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Christ. Yes, from true motives, but also those who are preaching Him from impure motives. But this week, the confusion cleared up a little bit for me.
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As I got to sit with this text, by meditating on the Bible, not just studying it is good. As I sat with it, it hit me.
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Paul can feel this way because for Paul, the spread of the gospel was so important that he was willing to sit back and let these folks do what they did.
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Paul knew what their motivations were. But it's almost as though he says, the motivations aren't great, but you know what?
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God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick, amen? My friend,
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Barry King, Church Planter, he's originally from the US, now lives in the UK. Years ago, he used to use this phrase and it came back to me this week as I was studying.
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He used to call it gospel magnanimity. I can't pronounce that word to save my life, but you get what the word is.
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Largeness of heart where the gospel is being preached. So yeah, less than ideal.
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I would do things differently, but hey, Jesus is being preached and people are coming to faith.
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I can rejoice in that, even if I have my questions. What Paul is not saying here is give up your convictions or never say something is sinful when it is.
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Now, Paul will do that. In fact, he'll do a little bit of that in this book in chapter three. But Paul is essentially saying you and I and all of us who call ourselves believers need to be willing to rejoice in the advance of the gospel even when it is through less than ideal means.
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Can I talk to my reform folks for a moment? Our church leans in that direction.
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We love theology and doctrine and we love expositional preaching, but can we be honest and say that in our circles we're not often good at this.
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We can find ways to critique everything a thousand ways to Sunday. And maybe we could stand to learn how it is that we can rejoice that Christ is being preached even when we may have our questions and even when we may have our concerns.
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And in the course of my pastorate, my very short pastorate, I've come to the place where I can have my issues.
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I might say, yeah, I wouldn't quite do that the way they do that. I wouldn't quite say that the way they say that and still rejoice or at least do my best to rejoice when the gospel advances.
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Yes, I will still call out false teaching. You'll know me, I give it up as it is. I'll still call out the prosperity gospel.
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I'll still call out the New York Apostolic Reformation, all that social justice nonsense. I've still got time for all of that.
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But I've also got time for rejoicing when I hear that a church is reaching people with the gospel when people are being baptized, when it seems that the fruit of their efforts remain and people are coming to faith in Christ.
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Do I know who's real and who's not? I don't and neither do you. But when we don't know, maybe our leaning should not automatically be suspicion and asking a thousand questions.
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Maybe our first thought should be, praise the Lord, people are hearing about Jesus. Does that feel like a tough sell?
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Does that feel like, okay, Kofi, that's a big ask. I agree, but the gospel is a big message, is it not?
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Think about this message, a message that starts in eternity past as father, son and spirit come together and plan salvation.
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The father chooses the people, the son lives and dies for that people. The spirit says he will apply the work of the son to the people the father chose.
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The son enters into creation and he takes on a human nature. He faithfully obeys the law of God in thought and in word.
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And indeed he is so obedient that he willingly submits himself to death on the cross, taking on himself the penalty for all those that the father chose.
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And so he dies, but he doesn't remain dead. Three days later, he rises. And when he rises, he rises, the
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Bible says, with all authority and power. And in that authority, he commands those who don't know him to turn from their sin and to turn to him in faith.
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And he commands all of us who do know him to go into the world with this message.
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Yes, this is a big ask, but we have a big message that we have to preach, don't we? And if that's the case, then we can rejoice even when the motives are bad because God is bigger than us and his gospel is bigger than us.
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And that's really my take home point for today. If you don't remember anything else I had to say, remember this. The advance of the gospel is bigger than us.
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The advance of the gospel is the kind of big that you can invest your life in.
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As I've said each week, I leave you with a challenge question for you to go home and think about in light of this message.
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If this message is as big as we say it is, then here's a question for this week. In the next year, what one thing do
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I need to change to prioritize the advance of the gospel through me or my family? I don't think it was
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Paul's plan to end up in house arrest for two years. You get this sense, you read the book of Romans, his plan on going to Rome was very different, but here he was.
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And so what does Paul do in light of this? Paul's like, well, I'm in Rome, but while I'm in here,
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I might as well proclaim Christ while I'm here. I might as well see to it that Christ is preached while I'm here.
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Paul recognizes that, you know what, while I'm here, the advance of the gospel continues. And so I ask you, what one thing do you need to change to prioritize the advance of the gospel in and through yours because the reality is this gospel is big enough to deserve it, amen?
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And Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for the fact that your gospel does indeed advance, that it does advance in unlikely ways and in unusual circumstances and through the example of others and through difficult circumstances and even through those who preach it with impure motives.
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Father, help us that we would find our joy in the advance of the gospel, that we would rejoice when we hear that people are coming to faith in Christ, when we hear that people are growing in their faith, when we hear that people are turning outward from themselves and turning out to a world that needs to hear the gospel.
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Father, help us to have the kind of large heartedness, that gospel magnanimity, the kind that says, whether true motives or false,
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I can rejoice that Christ is being preached. And Father, as we come to the
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Lord's table, we come to this living picture of that gospel, this living picture of what you have done to reconcile sinners to yourself.
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Father, help us to find our joy, not just in the proclamation of the gospel, but even in that message itself. We ask these things in Jesus name and for his sake.