Philippians 1.12, but I would
that you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened
unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel,
so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and
in all other places. And many of the brethren in the
Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to
speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even
of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. The one preached
Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to
my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the
defense of the gospel. What then? Notwithstanding every
way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and
I therein do rejoice. and we'll rejoice. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your word. Show us our Savior in this text,
Lord, and how preeminent and first in priority the gospel
is and how you use us in that, Lord,
to your glory and to our good I pray that would be the case
this morning, Lord, that you'd take the words of life and bless
each heart. Magnify yourself. Save and bless your sheep. In
Christ's name we ask, amen. Verse 12 again, I would that
you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened
unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel.
Let's try to sink into this scenario a little bit and get some perspective. The wording gives us that perspective,
but if we think about it, it will. You can imagine if the
preacher of the gospel that God was using in a powerful way in
our day, whoever that might be, if he even is in our day. But someone like Paul, which
nobody's ever gonna compare themselves in the way that God uses them
to the way God used the Apostle Paul, but you see the point. Somebody that everybody kind
of looked to and was instrumental in being a blessing in the gospel
to many. And they were convicted of a
crime and put in prison. That'd be discouraging. That
would be disruptive. The people of God would be sort
of confused by that. And as we do, you know how it
would be. Some, no question about it, would question Paul's innocence. He was convicted of a crime.
Maybe there's something to that. you know, and be discouraged
that way, that maybe he's an imposter, maybe he's really not
God's preacher. And as we often are also, many
would be confused as to why God would allow something like that
to happen to one of his preachers, you know? The work that Paul
had been doing also would go undone and so we would, be discouraged
by that. It would seem to be counter to
the success of the ministry for that to happen. So Paul makes
a point here. You see why he makes a point
of reassuring this church that God did this, and he did it for
a wonderful reason. It's not counterproductive. It's
for the furtherance. It's for the promotion of, it's
to the benefit of. the Lord's ministry. Just as
when the Lord Jesus Christ suffered, it was according to the foreknowledge
and counsel of God, and so it is with his preachers and all
of his sheep. As he is, so are we in this world. We're not left
to chance or to the whims of men. Just as when Pilate said, we
talked about a while ago, knowest not that I have power over thee
to release thee or to crucify thee? And the Lord answered this
way, thou couldest have no power at all except it were given thee
by my Father. That's how it is with God's sheep
too. That's how it is with God's preachers
and all of his sheep. Now, God did use Paul to minister
in person to many of the churches, and that wouldn't be able to
happen for a while. But God also used the apostle to write the
holy scriptures, inspired by his spirit. Was there a better use of Paul's
time than that? See how easy it would be to say,
well, he can't preach anymore, this is terrible. Maybe some didn't realize that
he was writing. what God was inspiring him to
write, and would save sinners through the means of. There's probably a whole lot
we don't realize that God's doing. I guarantee you this, it's all
good. He doeth all things well. It's all in spite of this wretched
world. It's all contrary to his enemies. It's all successful. He doesn't
try. the work of the ministry wasn't
being hindered. If anybody could say that, it
was Paul himself. I'm sure there were other things
he wanted to do besides sit at home, chained. And I know he
was under home arrest, house arrest, but couldn't leave. There was a guard there constantly. And Paul himself said, this is
good. This is for the furtherance of the gospel. It was not only
hurting the furtherance of the gospel, but it was helping it.
And just as when the Lord was crucified, apparently Satan imagined
that that was a victory for him. He bruised the heel of the seed
of the woman. but how wrong he was. God causes
his enemies to be caught in their own snare. Everything they do to hate and
despise and destroy and oppose God's truth, as Martin Luther
wrote, God's truth abideth still. His kingdom is forever. The fallout,
that's the name of the message this morning, the fallout. Paul
said this is fallen out rather to the furtherance of the gospel.
The fallout of Paul being arrested and detained is described in
these next eight verses that we'll look at briefly. And the
summary of it is that not only was Paul occupied with writing
the word of God, by inspiration of God, but the gospel itself
was preached more and more and with more boldness because of
his imprisonment. We see that all through this,
see? In this what God is doing in this world. This is the battleground. This
is ground zero. Spiritually speaking, we have
one commission from God as believers. Preach the word. Go ye into all
the world and preach the gospel. And he said, when we do that,
he'll do the saving and the damning. That's exactly what he said.
So what was it that Paul encouraged this church with? What's it all
about? Everybody's always asked that
question. What's it all about? The gospel's
being preached. That's what he encouraged him
with. Don't feel sorry for me. The gospel is being preached. The gospel of Christ. What is
it that God's doing? When Paul was free, what was
God doing? Paul said, always and in every
place, God causes us to triumph, because the savor of Christ is set forth in the preaching. Savor of Christ unto God, savor
of life and death, he always causes us to triumph. So what
was Paul's purpose in him being imprisoned? The gospel is preached
all the more. It doesn't matter what else God
is doing in this world, That's what he's doing. He's saving
his people by the preaching of the gospel. Everybody's always
talking about trying to, wanting to do the will of God. But have
you found out yet what the will of God is? This is it. This is it. This is what we're to do. This
is what we're to honor. This is how we honor him and
worship him. This is what we're to promote. This is what we're
to support. This is what matters in this world. If I go to prison,
if I'm incapacitated, the Word of God is not bound. And that's
all that matters. Listen to 2 Timothy 2.8. Remember
that Jesus Christ, Paul said to Timothy, wrote to Timothy,
that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the
dead according to my gospel. In other words, the Christ that
I preach is God. He lays down his life, he takes
it up, he gives life, he withholds it. As the father has authority
to quicken whom he will even so, the son has power to give
life to whomsoever he will. And in the last word there is
gospel, wherein I suffer trouble. In the gospel, I suffer trouble
as an evildoer. And some believers probably thought,
well, maybe Paul is an evildoer. Maybe there's something to this.
I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds, but the word
of God is not bound. Therefore, because the gospel's
going forth, because God doing what he does is always successful
and good and right, with me or without me, I endure all things
for the elect's sakes. What is it that is for the elect's
sake that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ
Jesus with eternal glory. That's what God's doing in this
world. And he doesn't need us to do
it. He'll set us free to do it. He'll put us in prison to do
it. He'll kill us to do it, if that's what needs to happen. God's word's not bound. And this
is all about the salvation. I endure whatever God sends,
that they may also obtain the salvation for the elect's sake.
God's saving his people. He has a world because he has
a people. That's what God is doing in this
world. And how is he doing it? What's
not bound? The word of God. The word of
God, the gospel. God's saving his sheep. Is that
going out of style? You know, a lot of people say
that, you know, you know, preaching in local churches, you know,
that's kind of going out of style. Is God saving his sheep going
out of style? Because I'm telling you right
now, and you know as well as I do from the word of God, this
is how he does it. This is how he saves them by
the preaching of the gospel. Though maybe enthusiasm is low
in our generation, maybe support for the gospel, generally speaking,
is weak. though there are many who are
not willing to truly join the church because of earthly cares.
We see in our text that though to all outward appearance it
may seem that a certain thing is contrary to the success of
the ministry of the gospel, it's not so. The word of God is not
affected by what men do or don't do. It's always a triumph. It's always a win, it's always
Right, it's always the best thing. And it's always successful. Look at verse 13. So that my
bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all
other places. He mentions the palace, but he
said it's manifest, it's open. People that didn't even know
who Paul was, now they did. And they knew why he was arrested.
Maybe they got interested that way. Maybe that was the way that
God got their attention. His trial and conviction had
caused the gospel, at least in a general sense, to be considered
in places it otherwise would not have been. That's what he's
saying. In all places, my bonds in Christ
are manifest. Everybody knows about it. Everybody's
aware of it. They didn't know who I was two
days ago. They didn't know what this gospel, what was going on
about that. But it's interesting though,
this is not that long after the Lord Jesus Christ walked this
earth. So people had heard of him for sure too, right? And
maybe they never saw him, maybe they were just kind of on the
fringes and maybe they just heard, this man's healing, he's raising
the dead. This man came from God. And maybe they thought, oh, that's
wonderful, you know, and then just got on with their lives. And
here's somebody that for preaching that man Christ Jesus, for serving
him, for his ministry and his glory, is put in prison now,
notoriously. And the fallout from that even
reached Caesar's own household. We know that from the scriptures
too. Philippians 4.22, in Caesar's own house, Some of God's elect were there. And God used it. If God put Paul
in prison to save one sinner, would that be all right with
you? Sounds like he used it to save
many. You see the circumstances, it
looks bad. Oh, Paul's put in prison. He's
the greatest preacher in the world. And we say stuff like
that. He can't preach no more. Does that hinder God from saving
his people? Does he need us? Jesus needs
a few good men. I love to refer to that song,
because it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. To say the Lord
needs anybody. How stupid is that? That's us
by nature. We'd be singing that if he hadn't
showed us who he is. You need him. We need him. He don't need us. But for Caesar's own household,
for there to be some saved in Caesar's own house, that's an
outcome that you could only see in hindsight, right? The Lord
reveals stuff like that to us after it's already happened.
Who could have ever foreseen that? We never know all that
God's doing as far as details and specifics, but we know what
God is doing. He's saving sinners. And we know
how, we know how he does it. And we rejoice in that. Maybe
one of your children, maybe one of your grandchildren, maybe
your sister or your brother or your husband or your wife is
the last sheep that God's gonna call home right here in this
place. Maybe, I don't know. That person is sitting somewhere
today. Is it all right if the sun comes
up another day? If it means your loved one is
saved and spends eternity with their
master? And notice Paul said, my bonds
are in Christ. In the books of Ephesians and
Philemon, Paul refers to himself as a prisoner of Jesus. God is not affected by what men
do as far as His purpose in this world of saving sinners by His
grace and the blood of His Son. And sinners don't have much of
a part in that. God just uses them. Paul wasn't
a prisoner of Rome. He wasn't a prisoner of Caesar.
He was a prisoner of Jesus Christ and he knew it. He knew it. Listen to this couple of verses.
This will be familiar to you. Listen to this in consideration
of how Paul characterized his circumstances there. I'm a prisoner
of Jesus Christ. My bonds are in Christ. Listen
to Proverbs 3.5 and think about that. Trust in the Lord with
all thine heart. and lean not unto thine own understanding. Is that what Paul was doing? God put me in prison, and his
gospel's being preached boldly, it's being preached far and wide, and it'd be easy to lean to our
own understanding and say, boy, this is a bad thing. What's the
antidote to that? Trust in the Lord. with all your
heart. What circumstance are you in
that you might think this is a bad, this is terrible? Trust
in the Lord with all your heart and don't reckon it by your own
understanding. Reckon your circumstances, your
situation, your affliction maybe, your pain, your trouble this
way. Reckon it, knowing what God has
revealed to you about who he is, what he's doing, and that
he can't fail, and that everything works for your good. That's not
your own understanding. That's God. That's what God said.
That's how we reckon things, by his grace. Trust in the Lord and listen
to the next word. In all thy ways, acknowledge
him. and He shall direct your paths. Acknowledge Him in it. It'd be
easy to just think of the earthly, look, I've been arrested, this
is terrible, it's not right, it was unfair, I've been falsely
accused, I've been put in prison, and now I can't do what I wanna
do. Acknowledge Christ in it. Where's Christ when that happened?
What's He doing when this happened? And He'll direct your paths.
You see that in our text. To live in the conscious reality
of God's sovereignty. He's the one that put me in jail.
To live in the conscious reality of his love for his own and his
providential power. No matter what, no matter what
it looks like, no matter what your own reasoning might be about
it, Verse 14 in our text, and many of the brethren in the Lord,
waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the
word without fear. That's an interesting fallout,
isn't it? He said, this has fallen out
this way. My imprisonment has fallen out this way. Some preachers
of the gospel are more bold and some maybe who didn't preach
the gospel. You know, the grace of God in his people results
in boldness for God's glory. God's preachers are not cowards.
Well, let me say this. So long as he gives us boldness
and he's gracious to do that, we're not cowards. Simon Peter
was a coward, wasn't he, in himself. Acts 5.29 through 42, let's turn
over there together, Acts 5.29. Simon Peter denied the Lord three
times because he was afraid he was gonna suffer some consequences
of knowing the Lord and being with the Lord. That's cowardly. But it wasn't long after that
till he was standing up in front of those who had the power to
kill him. They had killed many before him for preaching the
gospel. And he said to them, you crucified
the son of God. You killed the prince of life. That's the boldness that the
Lord gives to cowards. And that's what Paul is saying
here. He's giving many boldness by this. We don't cower when
the ministry's threatened, when there's setbacks. We don't get
discouraged by that and quit. By the grace of God, we don't.
That's not how God does business in his church. Look at Acts 5.29. Then Peter and the other apostles
answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The
God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you slew and hanged
on a tree. This is the one that denied the
Lord because he was afraid they were going to kill him too. After
he had said, I will die with you, these other disciples probably
won't, but I'll die with you. And then he couldn't even acknowledge
that he had been with the Lord because he was afraid he was
going to die for it. But then look what he says here. The God
of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you slew and hanged on a
tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince
and a savior for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of
sins. God gives those things. and we are His witnesses of these
things. And so is also the Holy Ghost
whom God hath given to them that obey Him. And when they heard
that, they were cut to the heart and took counsel to slay them."
Simon didn't care. He did a while ago, didn't he?
He did it like a couple of weeks or, I don't know, months ago,
years ago, I don't know how long it was. But when the Lord was
taken and arrested, He didn't want to die. But now they took
counsel to slay them. And look, this is what we talked
about earlier. This man Gamaliel stood up and
said, take heed what you're going to do with these now. And we
won't read that part because we just looked at it a while
ago. But look at the last part of this chapter. To him they
agreed to just let him go, because if it be of God, we don't want
to fight against God, and if it be of men, it'll come to nothing.
To him they agreed, and when they had called the apostles
and beaten them, That's just mention in passing, you know,
they took a beating like it was no big deal, you know. They commanded
that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them
go. They beat on them and said, you don't speak in this man's
name. What did they do? They departed from the presence of
the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer
shame for his name and daily in the temple and in every house.
They ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. They didn't
even try to hide it. They said, we're going to please
God and not men. You see what happened in our day? That's what
Paul's talking about. I'm in prison now, but others
are saying, that's not going to stand. They're trying to shut
the gospel up. Well, here we go. When God gives grace, his preachers
and his people are not cowards. But if not for his grace, then
like Simon, we'll stand up and tell those in authority, We don't
know him. But if he gives us grace, we'll
stand up and tell those they crucified the Son of God.
So part of the fallout of Paul's affliction was that God did give
boldness to others. To what end? Preaching the gospel. Ephesians 6 18, praying always
and with all prayer and supplication in the spirit and watching there
into with all perseverance and supplication for all saints and
for me pray for me that utterance may be given to me that I may
open my mouth boldly "'to make known the mystery of the gospel,
"'for which I am an ambassador in bonds, "'that therein I may
speak boldly as I ought to speak. "'The more chains they put on
me, the louder I'm gonna get.'" Verse 15 in our text. "'Some indeed preach Christ even
of envy and strife, "'and some also of goodwill. The one preached
Christ of contention. Now he's talking about their
reaction to his imprisonment when he's talking about contention
and adding to his affliction. You see, that's all directed
toward Paul, to add to my affliction. It's not that the gospel of Christ
was preached with contention. It was in an attitude of contention
against Paul. If they had preached Christ falsely,
And I don't think Paul would be bragging on him. He's talking
about how their attitude toward Paul. He said, what difference
does that make? They're preaching the gospel. Not sincerely, it wasn't they
weren't sincere in the preaching, but their motive, part of their
motive was foolish because they didn't like
Paul. And they wanted to show, you
know, that flaunt their freedom and sure they were bad-mouthing
Paul a little bit, but he said, I don't care what they say about
me, what are they saying about Christ? What are they saying
about the Lord? What are they preaching? But the other of love,
verse 17, knowing that I'm set for the defense of the gospel,
they know the reason. Some know that the reason I'm
in prison is because I'm set. Like the Lord set his face like
a flint to go to Jerusalem where he knew what was gonna happen
there. Paul said, I'm the same way,
I'm set. I count not my life dear unto
myself. I think I'm gonna read that in a minute, that I may
preach Christ. Some realize that and they love
me and they love the gospel. They love me in the gospel. What
then? Well, how am I going to react
to that? He said, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense
or in truth, whether people like me or don't, whatever their reaction
to my imprisonment is, if they're preaching Christ, that's a win.
I rejoice in that. And I will rejoice in that by
the grace of God. There's no pettiness. There's
no jealousy. There is on the part of some,
and that happens. Another consequence of Paul's
situation on the human sinful side of things is that those
who didn't like Paul, they secretly rejoiced a little bit that he
got arrested. Are we that petty? They secretly rejoiced a little
bit. Is there envy and strife? He mentions those two words there
among pastors of God's churches. If you haven't experienced that
or don't know about it, I don't want to say anything about it,
but yes. Yes. Nobody that's a true member of
God's church for very long has any illusions about preachers
being anything but sinners, just like everybody else. And I don't mean by that that
it's necessarily sin not to like somebody. That's not what I'm
saying. I'm sure there are plenty who
don't like me and it's kind of hard to hide sometimes, isn't
it? And they have perfectly legitimate reasons not to like me. What
difference does that make? I'm not here to get people to
like me. We're not here on this earth
for that. The Lord Jesus Christ was a failure,
if that's why he came, to get people to like him, generally
speaking. And the lesson of this passage
is so clear though, isn't it? It's not a sign of hypocrisy
when it comes to the gospel. We have this treasure in earthen
vessels. When you see the cracks in the
earthen vessel, That's not a sign of hypocrisy. That doesn't mean
I'm not preaching the gospel sincerely. It's an earthen vessel, but it's
a priceless, eternal, necessary treasure, notwithstanding the
earthen vessel. You see that? That's what Paul's
saying. There's envy and strife and foolishness and jealousy,
but the gospel's being preached. Can we say that? Maybe some of
you don't like me that much, but you love the gospel. Wonderful. I'm happy to worship with you.
I love worshiping with you. We read in the scriptures of
various disputes between Paul and Simon Peter and between Paul
and John Mark and things like that. We also see this, of course,
in our own experience, this is not an excuse to despise the
gospel. This is not an excuse to get
discouraged in the church. God chose the weak and the foolish
and the despised that the excellency may be of God and not of us. The fallout of Paul's imprisonment
is not the envy and the strife that was already there. It just
came out on that occasion. The fallout of this move by God
to put Paul in prison was that the gospel was preached boldly
in some cases. And Paul was able to see beyond
the earthly foolishness and rejoice to see that God was glorifying
his son in the preaching of his truth. God can do that. Listen, God can do this. Listen
to Acts 20, 22, God's able to do this. And now behold, I go
bound in the Spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall
befall me there, save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every
place, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. They're
probably gonna try to kill me. That's what happened everywhere
else I've been. The Holy Spirit hadn't hidden that from me. But
none of these things move me. God's able to give us that kind
of confidence, that kind of sense of urgency with the ministry.
Me and you, He can give that. I count not my life dear unto
myself so that I might finish my course with joy. What path
are you on, Paul? And the ministry which I have
received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace
of God. Will God this morning give us
a sense of the privilege and honor, they
counted themselves blessed to be counted worthy to suffer shame
for preaching Christ Jesus the Lord. My life? People talk about my
life? How's that gonna affect my life?
Estrangement from close family? The ill will of neighbors and
former friends? That's a small, such a small
thing. Vicki and I used to wonder why
our neighbors, this is very personal, but it is what it is. We used to wonder why we always
see them talking to one another. And they hardly ever come up
to us. I found out recently. I was taught, I went up and introduced
myself to one of them not long ago. And he said, you're a preacher,
aren't you? I've never talked to the guy
in my life. You're a preacher, aren't you? Something tells me it wasn't
just the fact that I was a preacher. Something tells me he knew a
little something about what I preach. Who cares? Who cares? Literally. I'm not saying that because it's
bothering me. I'm saying that to show you none of that matters.
It doesn't matter. Forget about what people think
about that. I don't want people to not like
me because I'm an idiot or a bad word. But if you hate my Savior, I
can't do anything about that. He can. And Him doing something
about it may just include me making you hate Him even worse
for a while. Until you don't. Until maybe
someday you don't. The Gospel's bigger than all
of that. Could you give up a job that God gave you, by the way,
in order to honor Him with it? Could you give up a job to honor
him in supporting a local church? No. Then you don't get it. You're
not getting it. Nobody gets it unless God gives
it. With men, it's impossible. But God give us grace to rejoice
in spite of the bad stuff. Rejoice in the gospel of Christ
and God's saving sinners that way. Is there envy and strife in this
church? In churches that we know, in people, congregations, people
that we love in other places? I don't want to call attention
to it, but we need to learn this. Does Paul's experience and attitude
here have application to us? It's bigger than us. It's bigger than we are. Let's
be encouraged in this, that all of that foolishness
can go on and yet the gospel be rejoiced in, nevertheless,
together. Can we be encouraged in that
while at the same time striving not to be such idiots? Ephesians 4.29, let no corrupt
communication proceed out of your mouth. That doesn't mean
saying cuss words. It's a lot deeper than that.
But that which is good, to the use of edifying. Corrupt communication,
the opposite of it in that verse, is to say things that build up
the church of God, that build up the people of God, that encourage
them, that is a blessing to them, that
it may minister grace. You see what the opposite of
corrupt communication is? That identifies what corrupt
communication is. Because the opposite of it is
this, that the things that come out of your mouth may minister
grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit
of God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. That's not thrown in there willy-nilly. That's talking about what comes
out of our mouth, what proceeds out of our mouth. that it be
good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto
the hearers. Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God, whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all
bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking
be put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, Is it bad to give examples? I
don't think anybody would be mad at me for giving one example
in this church. God gave me a wife that's tender-hearted. Would you agree with that? She's
tender-hearted. Thank God for that. Forgiving one another. Everybody
loves the idea of forgiveness, don't they? Until there's something
to forgive. even as God for Christ's sake
hath forgiven you. We can mourn our own foolishness
and we can resolve to do what this verse just told
us to do, but also be assured and comforted that God's purpose
Grace the fulfillment of his purpose of saving and sinners
Saving sinners in this world the ministry of the gospel does
not depend on Us not being idiots. Aren't you glad? Let's pray