Amen. I hate to do this, but I've got
to. Turn in your Bibles, if you will,
to Philippians chapter 1. I find it amazing that how songs
can move us. And if we're not careful, we
can be moved wrongly. Philippians chapter 1, we've
been here today, counts week 8. Week 8, if you can believe
that. And you're thinking, wow, we're
only in verse 14 or 15, so what's going on? Well, Francis is going
to move very quickly once we get out of this introduction
after this week. It dissatisfies me to start and
just, it seems like we should just preach the whole letter
at one time every time we're together. And so that's why I
continually put on your hearts and your minds to read the letter
throughout the week. So that when we are together
as a people, you have a point of reference from which the text
is coming. Instead of looking somnopically
at the text that we're on during this day, you'll see it in the
whole. Not just from what we've already
learned, but also for what Paul is about to teach. Because there
are things that he says today that just stands on the edge
of the cliff and is in the locked position ready to jump and just
soar, and then we just sort of stop. We're going to have to
stop. And so that's what you're going to feel when we get through
today. You're going to be like, yeah, wait a minute, we didn't
finish that. But it's okay. Because I think it hopefully
and prayerfully it will create a tension there to go, wow, I'm
going to go home and just eat this myself. Then you come back
and then we will agree together when we're in Philippians again,
rather than you waiting to hear what I have to say. Maybe you
could say, well, that's what I saw. Because it is what you
should see. Also, most importantly, as we
preach and as we study the Word together, it is not for us to
have an occasion to fill the Lord's day. Remember, it is for
the sake of the growth of the body. It is not for small ministries. It is not for us to do the things
that we do apart from the world that we live in. It is so that
we as a people are equipped, unified, worshipful, expectant,
so that God will do a work in us and through us and among us
as a people who will be seen as a glorious display of his
work. That's what Paul is arguing here as he begins to develop
this letter to these Christians in Philippi. That God has began
the work, that he is aware of it, he sees it, he knows that
it's there, and he is trusting in the sovereignty and the faithfulness
of God above all things to continue to complete the work. to continue
to bring that partnership, that partner in grace, that partnering
in suffering, that affection that is holy and supernatural
for each other, the concern for the proclamation and defense
and the advance of the gospel that will continue to be there
because God is faithful. Do you ever get to the place
sometimes in your life where you think, I have really got
it together? You ever do that? If you have, just share with
me how you did that. But some of us may. Especially
as we're younger, you're thinking, you know, I haven't sinned in
a couple of days. We just did. By thinking that we've been sinless.
And, but if you ever contemplate the reality of our faithfulness,
no matter how faithful we are, no matter how zealous we are,
no matter how driven we are, we find those moments in our
day where we're not praying, where we're not focused, where
we may become downtrodden, where we may, you know, under our breaths
be curses on those people who drive around us in Pula. I was
there Friday and it was a very dangerous place to be. Very dangerous
place. Y'all moved out at just the right
time. There were 65,000 people in front of Sam's. I swear. And each of them were driving
two cars apiece. But you see, you find you're
thinking, why am I so frustrated at these people? Why am I frustrated
that they dared come to the same place that I am? They're probably
frustrated with me. How dare I ever look into the
mirror and say, James, you've got your spiritual life. You
are solid. When a car. A redneck next to
me would cause me aggravation, not anger, not road rage, I didn't
pull a gun, I didn't swerve, I didn't catch anything on fire,
didn't curse, scream. Oh, but had he had he got out
of his car. The vision that would have What
would we do? Why does it aggravate us when
things don't go our way? Why is it that if we go and we
order a sandwich at a restaurant and we see that it's not exactly
like we wanted, we are angry in our spirit. We are embittered.
Well, that's a little harsh, isn't it? Come on. Let's call
it what it is. It's anger and embitterment.
It's self-entitlement. It's one of these things... Well,
this is really a great sermon. We're just going to be beat up
before we get started. No, I want you to understand that we are
in this together and that we are learning here. through this
letter to the Philippian church of just how together we are in
everything. That we are together in our sufferings, we are together
in grace, we are together in the gospel, we are together in
our communities, we are together in our battle over sin, we are
together and the only hope we have is the faithfulness of God
to save us. And in that understanding, we are driven to become a people
more and more holy, more and more righteous. As we looked
at two weeks ago, to be filled with all the righteousness of
God, filled with the fruit of righteousness. Paul prays to
the Ephesian church, I pray that you may be filled with all the
fullness of God. We learned. that that fullness
of God is the fullness of righteousness that comes from Christ alone.
And so I want you to be encouraged, church. I want you to be encouraged
that your spiritual walk is not yours, though we are in it, though
we are pressing, though we are fighting, though we are the ones
who are every day getting up and making decisions to either
follow Christ or to follow our flesh. It is powered by God's
grace. And we are empowered by God's
grace. We are empowered by the gospel.
And so when we feel faithless and unable to continue God's
gospel, as we as a people are looking and studying and eating
and living, we then walk together in one accord for the glory of
God, to the praise of the glory of God. And Paul has instructed
these Christians to not lose heart, but to understand, know
that the reason that he is imprisoned is because Christ has put him
there. Because he is a follower of Christ
and it is God's sovereign, eternal purpose to imprison him for the
sake of the gospel, because of the gospel. Now see what that
means. We see that Paul is understanding
that God has put him in prison and Paul knows that the reason
he's there is because he continued to proclaim the gospel of Jesus.
Now yes, can God even use incarceration for crimes for good? Yes, I think
he does. I know a lot of men who are out
of prison who would say, God used my prison time to bring
me to repentance. I know Brother Jesse and others
who are in the prison systems on a regular basis, they would
agree that they've met people like that. But Paul wasn't arrested
because he'd done crimes. Paul wasn't arrested because
of sinfulness. Paul was arrested because God purposed that he
would be arrested for the gospel. So that the gospel would explode
into the Roman area. So that the guards would hear.
the gospel, so that the prisoners would hear the gospel, so that
the people who were Christians in Philippi would be emboldened
to preach the gospel. And that's where we left off
last week. Look at verse 14. He says, And most of the brothers,
having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment. We see that God used the imprisonment
of Paul to give confidence to the Christians in Philippi. You
see that. They are much more bold to speak
the word without fear. Now we could do a little sub-series
here about speaking the word of the gospel without fear and
with boldness. And so I think it would be good for us if we
individually contemplated that. If we took some time in our personal
devotion to think, what would it look like for me to speak
with boldness in my life? And because all of us are in
different places during the day and in different avenues of our
life and different areas of these cities and these communities,
we couldn't come up with a list of how we could be more bold,
how we could preach the gospel. And I think it would be a failure
to do so in the context of the teaching of this letter. But
we all should take time out to ask ourselves, are we bold for
the sake of the gospel? And your boldness will not look
like my boldness. except we be in the same place,
talking to the same people. But the question then I would
leave you is, are you bold? And how do you know? And then
we'll move on. If you would say to yourself, I'm not bold, then
that's a good position to be in, that you would pray that
through the scripture, that through God's spirit, he would give you
boldness. Lord, give me boldness to preach the gospel. You would
be surprised just by praying expectantly what God would do.
I hope you wouldn't be surprised, but God, even when I expect it,
He surprises me. I never saw that working. I never
saw that working in that way. Boldness in our different areas
of life. Whether we hold a sign or speak
to our neighbor or talk to someone at the gas pump or the filling
station or the 7-Eleven or the grocery store or Walmart or wherever
it might be, are we bold enough to express ourselves in such
a way that the gospel can come from our mouths? Opportunity
to express the gospel with boldness comes every moment of our day,
especially when we're interacting with others, but also when we're
not interacting with anyone. There needs to be a boldness
first in our own hearts to hear the gospel and continually preach
the gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way to our own hearts
and souls that it empowers us to fight against temptation.
to fight against sin, to fight against apathy, to fight against
the bitterness or anything else that may run up in our hearts
and minds so that we can say, look, it is by God's grace I
have been revived, I have been made alive, I'm no longer a slave
to the sin of my flesh, so therefore I can put it away and put it
to death, for Christ has killed it. So if you find yourself bold,
then continue in that boldness. But continue in that boldness
and great humility. Find yourself in the hands of
God's grace alone so that you know that without a shadow of
a doubt that God Himself has given you the boldness that you
have. And so therefore, then you preach and you speak and
you live and you pray and you act in such a way that God gets
the glory for it, that God gets the credit for it. You notice
Paul never said to these Philippians, I have caused myself to be arrested
by being by being by ignoring the word of the Roman law, not
to preach anymore in the name of Christ, because I had a plan
that by doing so I would expand the gospel in this in this in
this prison and then also into the community. And because of
that, it would cause an uprising. And people would become bolder
and with less fear to preach the gospel because they would
see me sort of being a martyr for their count. Well, that would
have been a little pompous of Paul. Yes, it would have. But
I would suggest to you, before we move on, that that indeed
happens in all of us sometimes. I would say that in my tenure
as a pastor in the different types of churches, and I say
types of churches, I say that very quotes in the air type.
But in the ministries that I've been a part of, there have been
many opportunities where I've sat down to strategize on how
to do that which we've been called to do for the outcome that we
thought would be most successful. And I would say that every time
we've done it, we got the results that we wanted or that we thought
we wanted, which was more people. But we never got more Christians. People are interested in strategy,
interested in assimilation. They're interested in another
gospel and another Jesus that they're looking for. But only
those who are called by God to hear the words of Christ will
see the beauty of the true Christ and the true God and love it.
And so as we look at this today, He says in verse 14, much more
bold to speak the word without fear. And we talked about that
last week. And so today, this section, this
phrase moves in to verse 15, 16, 17 and 18. And so let's read
that together, starting in verse 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. Some indeed preach
Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The
latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense
of the gospel. the former proclaim Christ out
of selfish ambition not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in
my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every
way whether in pretense or in truth Christ is proclaimed and
in that I rejoice. Now do you see what's happening?
Paul is reminding them about what is happening in his imprisonment. Paul is expressly showing them
that there is boldness and lack of fear for the preaching of
the gospel in Rome. Now keep in mind that the church
in Rome was not planted by Paul. The church in Rome was not planted
by Paul. Paul came in later, after the gospel had already
reached Rome and that the church had started to flourish there,
as you see, as he writes to the Romans. And so as Paul was there,
Paul comes on the scene in Rome and Paul is known as the Apostle
of the Apostles. Paul is known as the guy with
the Gospel for the Gentiles. But yet there were some pastors
in this area who probably didn't like the fact that Paul was there.
Could you imagine that? What pastor in his right mind
would be upset that Paul would come to town? I don't know. Maybe
a pastor who had clout. Maybe a pastor who had sort of
been esteemed in such a way that Paul was going to sort of put
a shadow over his glory. Maybe a pastor who just didn't
want competition. You know what's silly about that?
Is that I think anybody, any Christian, any congregation,
any pastor, any ministry of any kind that feels threatened by
someone else preaching the gospel is no Christian, is no pastor,
is no church, is no ministry. How dare people who say that
they love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength,
who have been saved by the grace of God along through Jesus Christ,
who see someone else, another slave of Christ, coming into
their region to proclaim the gospel of Christ, and they get
jealous over it. What does it say? And you might
say to yourself, well, who thinks that way? You want to see? Meet me here tomorrow. I'll drive
you around and introduce you to 30 people within an hour.
I could introduce you to 150 people today. We could just interview
300, and half of them would be jealous of another ministry in
town. I say this not to cause any harm,
but I say this just honestly. When we came here, as a matter
of fact, before we came here to Plant Grace Truth, we were
told by the local association that this city did not need a
new church. And that if a new church ever
planted in this city, it would destroy the ministry that was
happening here. What ministry? What ministry? Well, we're coming
anyway. I appreciate your concern. And
when we came, you all know the headache. Why? And it's not the first time that's
been told. A church has not been planted in this city in over
30 years, 40 years. Not a church growth, not a church
split. Just passing sheep from one bowl
to another, from one pen to another, eating grass. Maybe it's good,
maybe it's not. We don't know because we've not
heard. But my question is, what does it say about us, even, if
we find rivalry at the core of our heart when we hear of other
ministries rising up in success? I'll tell this to you though,
it's not rivalry but discernment when it's fearful, when we see
false gospel coming, when we see ministries who are not truly
ministries at all, but rather these people who are proclaiming
themselves as ministers of God, who have no accountability with
other elders, other congregations, with their own congregation about
what they teach. Well, dare not question the pastor.
He went on a 30-minute rant today about this or about that. Well,
you should question your pastor. You should confront him in a
loving way, just like you would want to be confronted. And at
the same time, that is part of how we grow. It's part of how
we know that the gospel is alive within us. And it's no different
today as it was in Paul's day. Probably a lot more intense in
Paul's day, because there's competition of ministry in a sense, is not
life-threatening here. It's not life-threatening. Do
you really think that the underground church in China or in Afghanistan
or any of these places, do you really think when another missionary
comes to town, those missionaries who have seen people die by the
hundreds are going, man, I tell you, this is making me sick?
I wish these people wouldn't come into town and preach the
gospel. I don't need help in the labor of grace. No, they
don't. Praise God, the last two guys
died. I might be next. At least somebody else will be
here when I'm gone. So Paul's imprisonment, as he says, is
for the sake of the gospel. Not only is it for the sake of
the gospel, as we've seen already, it is a means of joy. It is the
issue that gives Paul some of the greatest joy in his life.
It is caused by Christ and produces the growth of the gospel, therefore
it gives Paul joy. And so if it gives Paul joy,
Paul wanted his people to know in Philippi who were concerned
with him, who were ministering to him, who were partnered with
him in suffering and in the gospel, he wanted them to know that he
was joyful and that this was the plan of God so that they
would not be ill-informed. Either way, either way it was
looked upon, whether the way Paul explained it or the way
others probably saw it, Paul said that this imprisonment produced
a bold proclamation of the gospel with rivalry. He says it caused
rivalry. He said some indeed preach, verse
15, Christ from envy and rivalry. What do those words mean? Envy
is jealousy. It's sort of like looking at
someone else and seeing their ministry and going, I wish my
ministry was like that. I wish my ministry was like that.
And I'll confess to you that in my early twenties, when we
started out in ministry, it was exactly like that. You know,
you get your first church and you think, wow, this is great.
And then you pull back the covers and there's bedbugs and roaches
and rats and everything else lying on the bed with you. And
you're going, that's a metaphor. And you're like, where did you
live? But it's just bad. It's not what
you thought it was. I've got 600 in Sunday school
and 590 of them are wicked. They hate God. They hate Christ.
And I'm exaggerating. Wow, I thought the church was
supposed to get along. I thought the church was supposed
to have fun. I've been told in my life that
the minute, James, the minute you find yourself in a season
of ministry where you're not overly excited and having the
greatest time of your life and having fun, you should quit.
And I'm thinking, well, I should have never started. I should
have never started. What is going on with us when
we think that the reality of the gospel is supposed to give
us fun times and entertainment? I don't get it. I've never seen
it and I don't understand that type of thinking. It causes rivalry. Why? Listen to me. Because even
in the best of doctrines, even with the greatest of preaching,
even with the greatest of ministries and the truest of truth, there
is a human element involved. Did you hear that? And what you're thinking is,
and I've been in these meetings, church, I'm not making this stuff
up, I've been in these meetings with elders and church staff
and leaders, and we say, the church down the road has baptized
more people this year than we have. What are we doing wrong? Or better yet, oh, I know what
it is. They put in a play place. This is a conversation we've
had. They put in a half a million dollar play place like Burger
King. You know what I'm talking about? Let's do that and we'll
gain more families. Two years ago, a church growth
strategist told a local church in this area that if they wanted
to grow, the first thing they need to do is take the CD that
they had and take that money out and build a playground suitable
to attract families. And when they get those families,
that then they would see their church begin to grow in number.
Well, I can see that. Can you see that? Can you see
the family on their way to church after their fifth or sixth year
there? And they started going, and their
children started out playing on the playgrounds. Now they're
playing in the Xbox room. It's awesome, you know? Just
playing, playing, playing. And they're getting a little
devotion. They're getting a little Bible. They're getting a little three-point
outlines. They're getting all these cool things. And they're taking it
home, printing it out, putting it on their refrigerator. And every
day, the dad, who's the leader of their home, is spiritual and
he really loves everybody and loves the Lord. He said, OK,
son, now we're working today on covetousness. Remember, don't
covet. Tomorrow we're working on lying.
I'm just going to tell the truth tomorrow, OK? So this is what
we're going to do. And I'm going to be a good dad. So I'm going to
give time, and I'm going to give treasure, and I'm going to give
Tootsie Rolls, and then I'm just going to give treats. And then
that's going to make me a good dad. And then on the way to church
that Wednesday night, the whole family dies in a car accident and they
stand before the Lord. Just picture this. I'm imposing
a lot as an imaginative expression. And Christ looks at them and
the children say, I came on the playground. It's absurd, that is. I'm not
saying there's nothing wrong with playing. We've got one in
our yard. And you can come play on it anytime you want to. And
we can put one out here if you want to. People can play on it.
But Jesus is sitting in a slide. Jesus is not in a program. Jesus
is not in a retreat. Jesus is not at a camp. Jesus
is not even in a mission trip. Jesus is sitting in a worship
service. Jesus is sitting in a music or a guitar or anything.
Jesus is in the Word of God. And if I hand you a playground,
a banana, or a thousand dollars, and you're excited about being
where you are, and I open the Bible and I say, God is holy
and just, and He is right, and you are wicked and depraved and
dead, and you are a stain against His holiness, and in His righteousness,
He should smite you into eternal damnation, and that is just and
right and loving. And your only hope is to surrender
all that you love to the greatest treasure of the world, to die
to yourself, to repent of your sins and to believe that your
only option, your only hope, your only entrance into Escaping
the just judgment and wrath of God is to believe that Jesus
Christ took all of your selfishness, all of your covetousness, all
of your idolatry, all of your adultery, all of your hate, all
of it, and He put it on Himself and died that He would forgive
you for that sin and thus satisfy the wrath of God against you.
Are you willing? Are you able? Are you hearing? Do you see these words? This
gospel. If you don't love that gospel,
you hate God. How long will people stay? They won't. They won't. They won't stay because
the true Christ then is presented. And they're asked to do the same
thing that the rich young ruler was asked to do, the same thing
you were asked to do. And the rich young ruler looks
at his treasure, looks at Christ and goes, no way, not going to
happen. And the rich young ruler's treasure
was deeper than the money in his pockets. It was his power, his
prestige, his own righteousness. He kept the law according to
his own mind. Well, how did I, how did I do this? How was I able to see? Because God opened your eyes. He took the scales from them.
He opened your heart that you could love Him and see that everything
else in this world is nothing but garbage. He opened your ears
so that you could hear the words of Christ and they became a fragrant
blessing to your soul rather than a tree, than a fence. The human element guarantees
envy. I don't care how saved we are. We can still have envy. We can
still have selfish ambition. And so Paul says there are these
two groups of people preaching in Rome. Envy and rivalry. Well, you know,
Paul's out of the picture. So now I can step up and be something. I can step up. You ever known someone who liked
to hear themselves talk? You ever been that person? You ever had the idea that if
you could just get your mouth engaged in someone's ear, you
could help them understand something? You know what? It's not true. I could stutter my way with the
greatest of Hick dialect through the reading of this text and
God could save you. And you can walk out of here weeping with
joy that came from the core of your soul. And somebody else
goes, I couldn't understand a thing that man was saying because he's
an idiot. Much like Paul said to the Corinthian church, didn't
he? I did not come with you with eloquence. I did not come with
you, come to you with this great oratory. I did not come to you
with the ability to speak. He said, I was barely able to
stand But yet I preach Christ and him crucified. He tells the Galatian church,
if anybody preaches anything but that to you, they're cursed,
they're cut off. I think it's a very good choice
of words, continuing with the context of Galatians. We have the same problems in
our world. Church, fight that in your own
way. Fight that together as the people
of God. Paul said there were people who
were emboldened to preach the gospel without fear. Some of
these who were bold without fear preached out of rivalry and envy. You see that. There's some strange
stuff happening here. But Paul's about to flush every
bit of this with verse 19, we're not going to get to. He presses into this issue saying
this boldness that God has created, he's even put it in the hearts
of people who are preaching wrong motives, with wrong motives.
He's put this boldness and this fearless into the hearts of men
who would rather see me suffer and take advantage of my imprisonment
so that they could become something great. But we know what happens
when we preach the gospel. They, in their blindness, did
not realize that it was Paul's boldness that put him in prison.
And if they continue in suit, no matter if the fact what they
wanted was to be like Paul, or to be greater than Paul, or to
have a ministry, to be looked at like Paul. If you want to be like
Paul, you're going to have to drink the cup that Paul drank. If you
want to be like Christ, you're going to have to drink the cup
that Christ drank. And it ended in the cross for
most of them. It ended in being fed to animals for fun. Being
beaten, set on fire. Look at the history. Look at
the history of people who are emboldened and fearless for the
gospel. I'm not talking about false gospel. Paul didn't even
mention these people yet. There's this bold and fearless
preaching of the gospel that is happening in the midst of
suffering, in the midst of great cost, in the midst of persecution,
in the midst of social strife and the like and imprisonment
and its boldness. God has worked it in this plan. People are bold for the gospel. And while we cannot judge another's
motives, we can judge the message. And Paul judges the message of
these two sets of preachers. And he says that the message
that they preach is a good gospel. He says it's a good gospel. That
this gospel is good. If we judge a gospel to not be
the gospel, then it's not the gospel. If we judge a good message
that results in a non-gospel application, then it's the non-gospel. The good gospel that the Judaizers
took to Galatia, I want you to hear this, resulted in the application
of circumcision as necessary for salvation, which is no gospel. They preached Christ plus. They preached Christ alone justifies
through his life, death, burial and resurrection by grace through
faith. But also this must happen. It's
no gospel. And Paul wouldn't put them in
this place. He's not talking about these people. He's talking
about people who preach a good gospel, bold and fearless preachers
who share the evangelism, the sharing of the good news. that share the gospel, and this
is good preaching. As we see that Paul would say
to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians chapter 11, he says that this
is not a gospel that is a new Jesus. It's not a different Jesus. It's the Jesus, the only Jesus,
who shows us fully the glory of God face to face. We see God
fully in the face of Christ. That's what he tells the Corinthians
in the second letter. It's a good letter. So he's not saying these
people are preaching a new Jesus. They're preaching the true Jesus.
He's not saying these people are preaching a prominence around
the law, like he told, like the Judaizers in Galatians 1.6 and
Galatians chapter 5 verses 1 through 6. He's not saying, look, you've
got to follow this and follow that and follow Jesus plus all
this. We don't ignore the law. We see the law. We're convicted
and we're guilty according to the law. And we cannot fulfill
the law. Christ has fulfilled the law. So our only hope is
to put our faith in the one who has fulfilled the righteous requirements
of God. And who then in turn, what? Gives us His righteousness
and imputes His righteousness. We are made righteous and declared
righteous and then we press into being like that in our righteousness,
in His righteousness, in this world, in this life. And no matter
how holy we are, we're still great chasms away from the glory
of God's holiness. But we will be made like Him
at the day of Christ. Just as a little plug, that's
why our end times doctrine, our eschatology, is important. Because
if we think differently, then we change what I just said. If
we don't think Christ is coming back, then we change every bit
of that. If we don't think there's a resurrection, then we change
every bit of that. If we think He's already come
back, then it's These two groups of preachers,
they're preaching the same gospel. That's the point that Paul's
making. That's the point I want you to understand. We're not
looking at people who are preaching wrongly. We're looking at people
that if we heard them preach, we would not know the difference
in the two groups. But Paul says that there's two
groups. Now, we know there's three groups of preachers in
Rome. There's these two groups and then the false preachers.
Okay? But these are not false preachers.
They're just ill motive and right motive. The ill motive are those
who have envy. They're jealous that Paul came
into town. They were jealous of his ministry. They were jealous
of the... Listen what they're jealous of.
They're jealous of the grace of God in Paul. They were jealous
of the power of God in the life of Paul. They were jealous of
the amazing outpouring of the gospel from Paul's ministry and
the effectiveness of Paul's ministry by the hand of God. So in other
words, they hated that God did work through Paul. So what do
they do? They're jealous of God's work. They wanted that for themselves. Does this sound familiar? Does
this sound like Luke 15 to you? I'm not going to misapply that,
but I hear those two sons in my head and I know the purpose
of that text is to understand Israel has always been with God,
yet they hated Christ. Everything I've ever had has
been yours, the father says to the oldest son. And yet your
younger brother who was dead is now alive. Do we not celebrate
that? What's wrong with you? in the same type of inner spirit,
consciousness, same type of frustration, this rivalry. Wow, Paul's in
prison. Now is my turn to shine. I'm going to hit the streets.
Because, I mean, can you imagine if you're out there preaching
on the same corner that Paul's preaching? Come on. I mean, Paul just came and did
a tent meeting in Evans County and you're going to do one the
week after? You see the difference? It's like, you know, John Piper's
going to be at McDonald's doing a lesson on the Trinity, and
then I'm coming next week to do the same lesson. You're not
coming. I'm like, well, still my thunder. It's not our thunder.
It's God's thunder. It's not our thunder. It's God's
thunder. God's thunder can speak through the mouth of anyone. And you look at the result of
Saul, he wasn't even willing. God made him willing. God changed
him to be willing. God gave him a heart that was
alive in Christ, and he was willing. He wasn't just willing, he couldn't
wait. He's blind. Going to Damascus,
the place where he was heading, and instead of trying to arrest
and kill the disciples, he preaches. He's so zealous they have to
sneak him out of town. Dude, you can't even see and
you don't get killed, man. Leave! It's been asked of me
this week. Someone was in a conversation
with someone in the community at a business and this person
defended his position that not everybody is called to preach
the gospel, to share their faith. I thought to myself. The gentleman asked me, he says,
isn't the Great Commission, isn't that proof enough? I said, not
really, because people could argue that the context of that
was just those people there. It's not, but people could argue
that. But how about we're always to be teaching, we're always
to be proclaiming, we're always to be given a reason for our
hope. We're always to be teaching others
to grow into maturity in Christ. I mean, just in my bed Thursday
night, I came up with 30 different places in Scripture, just off
the top of my head, where the Bible teaches that one of the
main outcomes of the new birth is that Christ is always on our
hearts and minds. That the gospel is there. And
here's the bottom line. And I think it's one of these
things where we test ourselves. Jesus says, wherever your heart
is, there your treasure is also. Then he says, out of the overflow
of the heart, the mouth speaks. So you want to find out what
people love? What their life's all about? How they define themselves
and how they see themselves? What do they talk about most
of the time? These people talk about Christ.
Paul lived and suffered and died for the gospel. And these preachers
were not evildoers, as Paul is going to talk about in just a
minute, or dogs. And Paul said that these prominent preachers
had fear for him. They had fear because of them,
because of his ministry, because they had envy against the Lord's
grace given to him. But friends, none of them were
suffering as Paul was suffering. Paul was sanctified more and
more and more because of the suffering that he experienced
over and over and over again. Paul was telling the Philippian
Christians that he, though he was in chains, it was a chain
for the sake of the chainlessness of God's gospel. That Paul, though
he was imprisoned, it was for the sake of the going and the
sending and the advancement of the good news of Jesus Christ.
And because he was confined, it gave absolute power to those
who were free. But see, there's a mix here.
Because I believe that one of the hardest things to do with
this text is to send an application directly to our present situation. To our present lives. To come
in and say, okay, these are three or four things that we should
do in response to what we've learned about what Paul is teaching
right here. It's just not there. As clear
as we'll see in the next few weeks. In some other areas. And it's also not fluff. It's
not something that we should just include in another context
of another passage or another as an illustration of something
else. Though it is a causation of Paul's joy, we need to also
understand that there is a central heartbeat for Paul's joy. in
the midst of he's in prison, in the midst of the Philippians
are worried about him, in the midst of the fact people are
preaching out of envy, in the midst of the fact that people
want to help cause him harm by probably defaming his ministry.
Oh, you know, Paul's in jail. You see what kind of guy he was.
You know what I call, I call that the tabloid syndrome. We
see the people who are esteemed in life, and when we can see
them fail, it makes us feel good. Oh yeah, I saw that guy, you
know, I knew he wasn't perfect. It makes us feel better. We see
people who fall, and it gives us excitement. And that's a wicked,
wicked feeling. That's a wicked and sinful thing,
because we are enjoying the demise of other people. Even in the
destruction of the wicked, I think on this side of eternity, we
need to be weeping over their souls. And Paul is saying that some
of these people look at his chains as an advantage point. All the
while, the reason he was locked up is so that God would use them
in their sin to preach the gospel that was no longer chained. So
they're the suckers. They're the pawns in the hand
of God and they can't even see it. What is the wrong motive? What
does it look like? What is the core then of this
preaching? in reality. What is the envy
and the rivalry? What is the selfish ambition,
verse 17, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my punishment?
What does it look like? Well, you're skipping the good
guys. I'm going to them last. What does it look like? I think that
the right preaching with the wrong motives can be seen in
several areas. One is I think that some of these
guys thought, here's an opportunity. I know the gospel. I can preach
the gospel. And I've been struggling, man.
Being a Christian in Rome has been a rough time. Now's an opportunity
for me to get some of that Philippian money. Now's an opportunity for
me to get some of that clout. Now's an opportunity for me to
gain popularity, whether it be financial or just ego or popularity
or whatever. This wrong motive for some people
was an opportunity for gain, was an opportunity to be seen
as somebody. Can you see that? Can you see those things in our
own hearts? And friends, I hate to say this, but I've seen that
in the churches that I've served, among the churches that I've
served. I've seen it where a family would leave the church and the
persons that left would have an area of service as a servant,
as a slave to the church. And other people looked at it
as an area of prestige. And people would start jockeying
for that position. Oh, you know, I really wanted
to be director of missions. That's why I don't like titles. You want to do the job, do the
job. You call to do the job. When you're not called to do
the job, the job's over. Nobody does the job. We don't fill spots.
We affirm a call. We meet a need. You don't fill
spots among the people of God. You don't treat the church of
Jesus Christ like a business. It's deplorable. And nothing good comes from it.
It's an opportunity for gain. The motive was gain. What can
I get now? The motive was also an opportunity
for self-glory. To be seen as somebody great
and bold. It's amazing the number of people
who subscribe to certain things on the internet. of pastors,
businesses and companies and corporations who actually target
pastors on how to get their blog more people, how to get their
sermons more listeners, how to get their books more sales. We
just do like Driscoll did and just take all the budget out
of the church and just buy it and put it on the first, on the
bestseller list. And then ship them out in semi-trucks
and put them for sale in the back of the church that they
already bought and charge them again. Maybe we should do that. Self-glory. Pride comes before the fall.
It's like when I was working in my home when we first started
to renovate it, and I got the door, and it would never hang,
it would never close, it would never do anything. And I'd shut
it, it'd go, and I'd swing it shut, it'd go, and it would just
keep sticking, and it keeps, and I finally got it, and I shut
it one time, it goes click, and I stepped back three steps, like,
look at that, and I fell in the air vent. It was just a reminder. I was so proud of my door and
I fell. Pride comes. I skint my leg up
really badly. It's just a little reminder.
Pride comes before the fall. Because I can promise you this,
God allowed these people to preach his gospel with wrong motives,
but their motives changed if they continue to preach the right
gospel. Because when they were thrown in shackles, and they
started to hear from the same guards that saw the witness of
Paul, and they started seeing the death of their brothers,
the death of their sisters, the death of their children, the
seizing of their property, they started to think, wow, Paul didn't
have a ministry of glory at all. Paul had a ministry of suffering
for the sake of preparation for eternal glory. That's heavy. Well, you get that, 2 Corinthians
4. I'm not making this stuff up. It's an opportunity for grief. If somebody's in our way sometimes,
somebody was in the way of these preachers, glory and gain, and
so they thought, well, what we can do now. And maybe it was
like so many people have done even among our ministry here. Young men in the area who would
come and they're here for a couple of weeks and God's called me
to preach, when can I preach? Two years? Maybe. How's two years sound? Well,
I'm called to preach now. You're not going to tell me I can't
preach to you. We're not preaching in here until we know you and until
you've shown yourself. You see what I'm saying? That
don't happen. I don't care if you've got a
national television ministry. You probably ain't going to preach
here ever. But it's grief. We'll cause Paul
some grief. We'll shine. You know why? Because
they imposed their own wicked hearts on Paul. You know what
we're going to do? He's going to see us grow in
popularity, and it's going to cause him to just be so sad. Oh no, they took my ministry
from me. They're doing better than I am, and now I'm in prison
and all. I just don't know what I'm going to do. I can't believe
I once was that. I once was this, I once was this
great. And they're thinking, when they
see, when Paul hears of us in our ministry, he's going to be
so jealous. We're going to cause him pain.
That's what he means there. To inflict me, afflict me in
my punishment. That's what it means to afflict.
Paul's thinking, I mean he knows them. He's thinking, they're
thinking Paul is the same way we are and we're going to make
him suffer even more because we're going to take his spotlight.
Now keep that in mind because it's important for what Paul
is going to teach at the end of this text and then the text following. Now let's look at the others.
There's people who are preaching like this and there are people
who are preaching for this reason, rightly, with right minds. Others
from goodwill Others who would think rightly about Paul and
say, while Paul is in prison, let us preach the gospel. Let
us do it for Paul so that it doesn't wane. So when he gets
out, he just picks it up. See, that's goodwill. We want
to think good toward him. We want to do what is best for
him. That's what camaraderie around the gospel is all about.
And it blows people's minds, where pastors of churches in
these communities, when you say, I want to go help your church
do this, and they go, oh, we don't need your help. And I'm
thinking, you've got enough people to do what you're trying to do. And you know, one of them even
asked, what's in it for you? I said, people will get saved.
That's what's in it for me. What do you want? Do you want
contract? Non-compete? I don't grasp it. I don't grasp it. And I'm going
to make a statement at the end of all this that it could be
wrong, but I want to suppose it. Proposition. Because I don't
know, so it's a thought. But these people have goodwill.
They do it out of love. They do it out of the love that
Paul has for them and they have for Paul because of the love
that Christ has for them and they have for Christ. Do you
remember those sermons? I say this as God is my witness. For God is my witness. I'm quoting
Gone With The Wind. For God is my witness. how I
yearn for you with all the affection of Christ Jesus. And it is my
prayer that your love may abound more and more with knowledge
and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent,
and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled
with all the fruit of righteousness that comes through Christ Jesus,
to the glory and the praise of God. And the point I want to
make that may be wrong, but I don't think it is, is that the people,
though they had a good gospel, may not have been born again. Because when the gospel is right
out of your mouth, that's good. But if the gospel is not right
in your heart, it's not in you. And I think that when the gospel
is in us, when the gospel power is in us, when God has done the
work that He alone can do, that it is an effectual work that
does not fail. So therefore, If these people
who preached the right gospel with the wrong motives did not
have love, then they did not approve what was excellent, they
did not have the wisdom of Christ, they were not pressing into the
righteousness to be blameless before God, waiting to be filled
with the fruit of righteousness that came from Christ Jesus to
the glory and the praise of God. I want you to hear that. Now I want you to think, well
maybe, maybe, because of the turmoil, maybe they were just wrongly
motivated for a season. Well, let me tell you this. I
think they were wrongly motivated because of their unregenerate
hearts. And that as they preached the
gospel, maybe, I'm saying maybe, maybe as they suffered, God brought
them grace. Maybe. Because I cannot fathom
someone in the first century seeing the suffering, seeing
the persecution, even with the right gospel, who would be born again and live
out an entire life of ministry with envy and rivalry and purpose
to do harm to a brother in Christ. I don't understand that. Because
it negates everything Paul said that he is confident in. What
was it? I am confident in this, that he who began this good work
of loving you will continue it until he comes back. So where
is the continuity? Now this is a great open option. It's what I think. Either way, the gospel is preached. Either way, the outcome is that
the gospel expands to more and more people, and the grace of
God is given to more and more people, to the praise and the
glory of God. God uses even hard hearts for
good, for the sake of His plan. No man can stop God. No heart
can stop God. No plan can stop God. No war. No hatred. No evil. Nothing. God has never come to
the drawing board and went, I have to revamp that. Never. He drew it before eternity. And it plays out as he purposed. So these who preach rightly,
it's an opportunity. And I think it's a threefold
opportunity that Paul gives us here in closing. First, it's
an opportunity for the gospel. It's an opportunity for the gospel
to explode. An opportunity for the gospel
to expand. Friends, the gospel of Jesus Christ, I prayed this
this morning. I thought, why is it that so
few people come to faith in this community? Why is it that after
dozens of people over a month's time that I know I have shared
the gospel with, never ever respond, come back, darken the doors of
our fellowship? Why is it that people can visit
a few times and then we never see them again? We see them in
public and they're sort of like, what are we going to do? Oh gosh. They don't want to be held accountable.
Why is it that God is not, you know what I used to do? I used to go, wow, I did something
wrong. I said something wrong. I didn't
do something right. I didn't say the right thing.
I didn't approach it the right way. And now God has helped me
see they don't love me. They hate my gospel. Don't, don't, don't misunderstand
and underestimate, do not underestimate the gospel of Jesus Christ. Do
not underestimate that only in suffering does the gospel grow.
Do not underestimate the reality that we see throughout the entire
New Testament that when suffering and persecution comes, a people
grow hearty and deep and wise and holy in the power of Christ. When there is no suffering amongst
the people, there is no holiness. When there is no suffering amongst
the culture, the gospel falls on deaf ears. But it does that which was intended
to do. And these people who preach with right motives, the gospel
is going to do what it's going to do. And the others, they sat
around preaching a good gospel, bitter, frustrated, aggravated,
couldn't wait. They got up and their motivation
to preach was not for God's glory, was not to see people come to
faith, but their motivation to preach was for their own glory,
for their own selfishness, for the hurting of Paul, and to show
the people of Rome that they had arrived like most who claim
to be the gospel ministers of the day. And then there's others
who Could care less if they live or die, just like Paul is going
to teach us. Could care less if they succeed
today or tomorrow, but right this moment, this is the moment
that counts because the gospel is going to do the work that
it was intended to do. And it is going to have an effect
on our world, in the midst of the suffering of our world. It's
an opportunity for the gospel. Secondly, it's an opportunity
for the glory given to Christ. Because Christ does the work
when the gospel goes out. It's the words of Christ alone
that give the ears to the deaf. It's the words of Christ alone
that gives blindness, that gives sight to the blind, so that they
may see the truth of the holiness of God, the truth of their iniquity,
and the truth of the righteous and loving, and in some sense,
in our worldly way, unjust way in which God provided propitiation
through Jesus on the cross. He did not deserve it, He took
it. And these people preach because
it's an opportunity to give glory to Christ. Because then, how many of these
great preachers, who are ill-motived, are doing
all these things, and these other preachers who are rightly motivated,
with right motives, are preaching the same words, and in all reality,
the results could be the same. people. And I would suggest to
you that in the sense of following, there were a lot of people following
the more flamboyant, the more egotistical preachers in their
following, rather than following them for their gospel. Maybe. Why? Because it's evidence throughout
history. Just like people followed Jesus because they wanted what
He could give them. And then when He said, I'm going
to give you my body and I'm going to give you my blood. And you
get full on that. And they left. 20,000 people in Capernaum walked
away. All of them. I thought it was
5,000 men. He just walked away. He just
walked away. And finally, this right motive
for this right preaching is an opportunity. And this is where
Paul says it is. He says, the latter do out of
love, knowing that I'm here for the defense of the gospel. They
know why I'm in prison. They know why I'm in chains.
Because I'm standing for the gospel and the gospel is not
chained. So they're preaching. And what
then, verse 18, Only that in every way, whether
in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed opportunity for
the gospel opportunity for the glory of Christ. That's where
I got that. And finally, thirdly, and in that I rejoice. See, Paul is not rejoicing that
there's so many preachers on the street. Paul's not rejoicing
that these ministries are growing by leaps and bounds. Paul's not
rejoicing at the people. Paul's rejoicing at Christ. Paul rejoices because the Philippians
love him because Christ's love is in them. Paul rejoices, not
because of the gifts, because he rejects them just to show
them that his motives are true. He's rejoicing in Christ because
Christ has done a work. Paul is not rejoicing because
they're partnered in suffering and in the gospel. He's rejoicing
because God, Christ, did the work. You are God's workmanship
created in Christ Jesus to do good works. This is Christ's
work. So Paul rejoices in Christ. Paul is not rejoicing because
he loves these people with all of his heart. He's rejoicing
in Christ because the affection that he has is the affection
of Christ. He's rejoicing in Christ. Paul is praying that
their love for Christ would abound, in turn would give them a desire
for wisdom and growth and discernment, that they would approve what
is excellent and continue the work that God has done in them.
It is a rejoicing in Christ. Paul is rejoicing because what
they are doing is revealing the work of Christ, that they are
pressing into holiness, that they may be seen as blameless
in the eyes of the people of this world. And most certainly
they are seen as blameless in the eyes of God the Father. And
he rejoices in Christ. And Paul is rejoicing. Rejoicing
because Christ is depicted. Because Christ is proclaimed. Because Christ is preached. In that I rejoice. In that I rejoice. That Christ... I don't care why
they're preaching. I don't care what they want to
do at the end of the day with what they gain from their preaching.
I know God is working the gospel into these people's hearts and
eyes and ears. And it will produce all that
He intended for it to produce. It will be done and in that I
rejoice. Paul is satisfied. Do you see that? That's what
I hear here. Paul's like, I mean, think about
it. How are we satisfied, snatched
out of our ministry, imprisoned wrongly, beaten, rejected? The world's looking at you like
you failed. And Paul's like, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good with it. I'm good with
this. I rejoice in Christ. Because he's satisfied. He satisfied
Paul and Timothy, slaves of Jesus Christ, to all the saints who
were in Philippi and all the elders and deacons. Grace and
peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul's
like, I'm satisfied to be a slave for Christ. I'm satisfied to
be in chains for Christ. I'm satisfied. I'm okay. I'm satisfied to suffer for the
sake of the gospel. I would have nothing else. That's
what it means to be satisfied. Somebody serves you food, and
it's such a little portion, you're like, my stomach's growling after
I'm done. You ever been there? Usually
the most expensive food, smaller portion. You go to a nice restaurant,
it's anniversary, birthday, whatever, and you spend 20 bucks on a meal,
and it's like $2 worth of food. And then you're like, let's go
to McDonald's. Because you're not satisfied. The gospel, the
suffering, the Christ satisfies Paul. He sits in prison with
all the worldly needs, with all the things of this world that
he needs, and he says, I need nothing. That's how he closes
the letter. I'm satisfied. That's what he's
saying here. We just don't quite see it. Paul's grief in his satisfied
suffering is joy. Paul's not frustrated. Paul's not worried. Paul's not
downtrodden. Paul's not lowly in the sense
of his spirit. Paul's satisfied. Paul is rejoicing
in his grief because he knows that God is sovereign even over
the sinful motives of these men. And finally, I want you to see
this in some way. Paul, though he has been slandered
time and time again. Is vindicated. Because he is
satisfied in knowing that even those who slander his name are
in the hands of God's sovereignty and preaching a gospel that bring
people to faith in Christ. He's fine with it. And it proves
his humility. It proves that his motives, as
he says they are, are as he says they are. He's not just saying,
I want to be humble. Look at me, be humble. He's living
out his humility. He's living out the joy of Christ. So what is it that we should
learn? What is it that we should do
as we leave this place today? We should remember that God governs
the outcome. I want you to hear this, church.
God governs the outcome. He governs the steps and the
stumbles of our lives. Oh, this great plan that I have,
it didn't come because God did not allow it. Well, I can't wait. God may never give it to you.
Don't put your joy in that which you're waiting for. Put your
joy in that which has already come to you, which is Christ. We need to rejoice. We need to
remember that God governs the outcomes of our life. We need to rejoice in whatever
happens because Christ is risen. Christ is alive in us. He's not
a dead martyr for us to embrace as an example. He's a living
God who has rescued us out of darkness to take us into the
kingdom which He is preparing. He is arisen. Savior. This is good news. This is what
the gospel means. So we rejoice. Well, I lost my
arm. Hallelujah. Part of God's plan
for my glory. Lost my children. Hallelujah.
I suffer and weep because I love them, but there's a greater good
in it. It's like we spit in the face
of death. We spit in the face of sin because Christ bled on
the cross and was raised to life. We don't have to succumb to the
downtroddenness of our spirit, to the depression of our day,
to the destruction of our world. Even if we die in the midst of
it, we rejoice because Christ is risen in us and we are alive
in Him. For us, we also have an opportunity
to rest. I got on a kick on this about
eight years ago, and it seemed like every sermon that I preached
for a while was always following to the rest of God. Rest, rest,
rest. And it's because I wasn't sleeping,
I was always tired, so rest in the physical as well as the spiritual
was very abundantly needed in my life. And I've had small little
seasons since I've been back here, but those early days of
California, it was different. But we are given the opportunity
to rest in the sufficiency of Christ. It's not just rejoicing,
pretending we're happy. We really calm. Paul is at rest,
y'all. He's not lazy. He's eager. He's preaching. He's preparing.
He's writing letters like this, which are giving us joy now. But he's at rest. He rests in
the sufficiency of Christ. We can rest in the sufficiency
of Christ as we partner in the grace of God and in the gospel
ministry. Sometimes we don't find the rest
and the joy and the resolve, as we'll see in a minute, because
we're not actively involved in the gospel ministry. Our life
is not about the gospel. We do and think gospel on the
Lord's day and then that's about it. We also have an opportunity through
all of this to reveal the power of God through our rejoicing,
through our living, through our praying, through our proclamation,
fearlessly. How am I going to put that in
application? Let me just give you one opportunity. You get a report from your doctor
next week that you have cancer and you have six months to live.
I'm telling you now, and it may be crazy, and it's hard to empathize
in that context when you've never gotten that report, but I think
I would probably have a day or two where I was utterly fearful. And then when I came to the place
where God's grace was enough for me to take that I was going
to die, oh my goodness. I would pray that God would give
me the opportunity to reveal that rejoicing. You know why? Because family and loved ones
who have died through the years of that illness, people would
say, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm
so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And
I'm thinking, don't be. God is a God who hears the prayers
of His people and He answered them. And we ought to become
envious of those who go before us. I'm so sorry you lost your wife. Thank you. And I'm going to miss
her. But Christ is greater than that. That's hard to do. It's not something
that we can just go, you know what, I'm just going to think
this way from now on. This will be my thing. I'll put a little
sticker on my windshield and when I get in the car every day,
positively reaffirm my attitude towards suffering. It's not going
to work. It's in the midst of suffering,
listen, as the people of God are together, doing that which
they are supposed to do and empowered to do, as they're partnering
in the gospel ministry, where that becomes effective. If Paul
was trying to create a pizza parlor and got arrested, he would
not have that rest. Hear this. If Paul or someone
else, people who are arrested all over the world right now
as we speak, who are being invaded by folks who do not love the
gospel and are being put in prisons and cages to die, If they had
been arrested for trying to start a landscaping company, they would
not have an opportunity. You see what I mean? They're
not going to have the power. It's not for that purpose. I'm not to say that for any reason
we get arrested, we should have these things. Yes, but friends,
it is the suffering of the body together that brings this type
of reality to fruition. It is seeing Christ in the midst
of darkness. that brings that to truth. We also have opportunity to resolve
to allow those who hate us to be left to God. You have people
who hate you? Leave them to God. These people
hated Paul who preached against him and who preached in spite
of him or to affect him illy and yet Paul just left them in
the hands of the Lord. He rejoiced in it because God
was going to use them for his glory. Let them go. And finally, I believe, and I'm
going to make this a very pointed point in closing, we resolve
to allow those who hate us to be left in the hand of God, but
we also respond to good preaching with joy. We respond to the gospel
with joy. We respond to the gospel effect
to each other, to the children of God with joy. We respond with
joy. And in turn, when we see that
it is not the true gospel, we reject it. We reject it. And we reject it in as much as
we're able to for the sake of those who are hearing it. Well, where do we go from here?
I think we go from here where Paul takes us, and then I'm done. What then, verse 18, only that
in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed,
and in that I rejoice. Look at the next part of the
same sentence there. Yes, and I will rejoice, for
I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of
Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance as it is my
eager expectation and hope that I will not at all be that I will
not be at all ashamed but that with full courage now as always
Christ will be honored in my body whether by life or by death. And this is where Verse 21, for
to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And we'll get
there next time. But that's the point. The satisfaction
that comes from Christ alone is powerful in us. And it pushes us to a place where
nothing can shake our resolve, where we can stand. Church, that
is not about our faithfulness. Back to where we started. It's
not about our determination. It's about in the midst of us
trying to be faithful, in the midst of us wanting to be determined,
that we know that the only success we see in those things is that
Christ be with us and that we be in Him. Are you in Christ? Is your joy in Christ? Is your
hope in Christ? Is your future in the satisfaction
of Christ? Or are you seeking other lovers,
other hopes, other joys, and other ways to be effective in
your faith? Let's pray. Thank you so much, Father. for
your everlasting love, for your power in us weak and
frail and unable people to come and to see you and to believe
in Christ and to rejoice in suffering and to be bold for the gospel,
to love each other when we have reason for hate, to lay our lives
down for each other, even our enemies. We thank you, Father,
that you are a God of such greatness. Lord, let it be effective in
our lives as a people, as a congregation, as a community, as a culture
for all of us who are in Christ, Lord. We share that common bond. Lord, we pray not only for ourselves,
but for many who claim your name among many congregations in our
community. Lord, if nothing else, use us
up as a catalyst for great change and revival for your people.
Even if we die. The chances are we won't have
to. Lord, we pray for those who are
your people, Lord, that we would proclaim the gospel in a lost
and dying world. With no respect to power or authority
or family or economics. that we would proclaim the gospel
to everyone, even those who claim the gospel as their own already.
We would preach and share our faith as we are able, personally,
individually, corporately, knowing that you alone will bring the
fruit of righteousness through it. Lord, we are glad to be a part
of your body. Through Christ alone we stand.
In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.