All right, the furtherance of
the gospel, Philippians chapter one. You know, what is the mission
of Christ's church here on earth? Now we know the answer to that,
but it's good for all of us to be reminded of that. Me too.
The mission of Christ's church here on earth is to preach the
gospel. That's why we're here. To preach
God's Word, and everything we preach in God's Word is to be
preached in light of and built upon the foundation of that Gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace in and by the Lord Jesus Christ.
And we're never to forget that. No matter what we're thinking
of, no matter what we do, it's all to be in light of that gospel,
that good news. Paul mentioned that. He says
in verse 12 here, he says, what I would that you understand. I want you to think about this.
I want you to understand this and know this. Brethren, that
the things which happened unto me, what's happened unto Paul?
Well, in the providence and power of God, Paul was in prison. Now I wouldn't like, from what
we can understand historically, it wasn't like being in a jail
cell. He was in what they called his own hired house. This was
a house that the Roman government provided for people that they
wanted to stifle or stop. It's like under house arrest.
And he was there because they wanted to shut him up. They wanted
to stifle his message. Paul's message was the message
of salvation by grace. And that's what he was intent
on preaching. He wasn't a political zealot. He wasn't arguing politics. He was simply out preaching,
seeking Christ's sheep. Not to gain numbers. You know,
a lot of people think the mission of the church is just to get
people in and fill up, you know, gain numbers. But that's not
the mission of the church. We're to preach the gospel. God
adds to his church as he sees fit. And you see that in people. I know when I was in false religion,
we used to meet on Monday morning and then brag about how many
baptisms we had, or how many decisions. And I think about
Paul in 1 Corinthians 1, 17. He said, Christ sent me not to
baptize, but to do what, Paul? To preach the gospel. The results
are up to God. He says, not with wisdom of words,
lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. So we're
to preach the gospel. We're to feed Christ's sheep
and help all of us, preacher included, to grow in grace and
in knowledge of Christ, to become skillful in the word of righteousness,
to have our hearts established with grace. That's what this
is all about, whatever we think about it, whatever we do. And
so when Paul makes this statement in verse 12, he's talking about
the providence and power of God here, not the providence and
power of man. Paul didn't choose to be in prison.
He was just preaching the gospel. And what we learn here is this,
no one and nothing can stop the spread of the gospel where God
intends it to go for the salvation of his people, whom he chose
and whom he gave in Christ. I quote this all the time, I
quoted it earlier in our Bible study, where Christ said in John
6, 37, all that the Father giveth me shall come to me. And him
that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. He said, this
is the will of him that sent me, that of all which he hath
given me, I should lose nothing, but raise it up against the last
day. Nothing's gonna stop it. Over
in John chapter 10, when he was talking about he died for his
sheep, And he told his disciples that he's got to move on because
other sheep he had that are not of this Jewish fold, and he said,
listen, he said, them I must also bring. He had to bring them. It was his obligation. He engaged
to do that. He promised to do that. He set
his whole reputation on bringing the lost sheep into the fold.
And nothing could stop him. Over in 2 Peter 3 and verse 9,
people quote this verse as some kind of a universal salvation,
and it's not that at all. When he says, God's not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance,
that's talking about His sheep. God's going to bring them to
repentance through faith in Christ, and nothing's going to stop it.
If I run a wheel off, it's not going to stop it. If you run
a wheel off, it's not going to stop it. That's God's purpose
and his providence and his power. The gospel is the power of God
unto salvation. So Paul says, I'm set for the
furtherance of the gospel. And the fact that I'm in a confined
house, confined here by Caesar and his soldiers, that's not
going to stop it. In fact, it did the opposite.
It's worked out to the furtherance of the gospel because Paul was
unable to write letters from there, which we read today, like
Philippians, like Ephesians, the letters to Timothy. They're
called the prison epistles because Paul wrote them in prison. And
look at what we glean from those. How much we learn about Christ
and the church, the ministry of the gospel. What would you
do if we didn't have this? Well, I'm sure that wouldn't
stop God's purpose and power to save us. But boy, don't we
have a comforting word here that we can glory in. Paul said, I'm
not ashamed of it. And that's why he was in prison,
because he's intent on preaching it. Nothing's going to stop it.
God's purpose, God's command. I'm not ashamed of the gospel
of Christ. It's the power of God in salvation. to everyone
that believeth, to the Jew first, the Greek also, and the reason
it is is because therein is the righteousness of God revealed
from faith to faith as it is written, the just or the justified
shall live by faith. That means live by looking to
Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. What would we know
about the righteousness of God without the gospel? What would
we think? We'd be off kilter. But we know
what that is because the Bible teaches us. That's the merit
of our Savior, our Lord, that he accomplished on the cross
in his obedience unto death to enable God to be just and justifier
of the ungodly. And Christ himself, he said,
I'm going to build my church. And he said, the gates of hell
will not prevail against it. What makes man think that he
could prevail against it when Christ said the gates of hell
will not? Well, he goes on to verse 13, and he shows the spread
of the word here. Well, what do you mean the furtherance
of the gospel, Paul? How has it been furthered, been
encouraged? And he says, so that my bonds,
my chains, in Christ, or for Christ, are manifest in all the
palace and in all other places. Now, you may have a concordance
in your Bible, and that word palace there, it may say Caesar's
court. You know what the actual word
is, the palace there? It's the word praetorian. If
you're not familiar with that word, Caesar had a particular
guard, group of men, soldiers, whose one responsibility was
to protect Caesar. And they were called the Praetorian
Guard. And they're living, they made their living protecting
Caesar. That's why when you had an evil king who even killed
some of his own people, and of course all of them were evil.
There weren't any good ones and bad ones, they're all evil. The
Caesars, if you ever read the history of that, that that particular
guard would even protect a Caesar or a king that would kill his
own people because that's how they made their money. If the
king was gone, the Praetorian guard was gone. And I believe
what he's saying here is even in Caesar's guard, even in Caesar's
household, I believe this includes some of Caesar's servants, there
were few of God's people there, elect of God, who heard this
gospel. Think about it. You know what
that tells us, don't you? Tells us the reason God put Paul
in prison. And God did it. You know, I think
it's, I can't remember which epistle it was. It might be Philippians
later on. But Paul, when he calls himself
a prisoner, he didn't say I'm Caesar's prisoner. He says I'm
a prisoner of Christ. This is God's work. And so it's
the spread of the word. Paul's imprisonment is the cause
of Christ for the cause of Christ, and it became known throughout
the whole Praetorian Guard, the whole of Caesar's household,
and to everyone else in Caesar's household. And so, what we see
as a common theme in the New Testament, and in the Old Testament,
is that out of suffering, even unto death, comes life. Now,
of course, we can see that in the life of Christ, for the salvation
of his people. Why did he suffer? Why did he
bleed? Why did he die on the cross?
He died to save his people from their sins. And what a thought to know that
in that transaction that was accomplished by a sinless person,
the Lord Jesus Christ, God manifests in the flesh. Out of that transaction,
God is glorified. Sinners are saved. Righteousness
is established. Sins are put away and in a just
way, in a right way. And that's why, you know, when
we talk about the doctrine of imputation, that's why that's
so important. Our sins imputed to Christ, his
righteousness imputed to us, that's the gospel. And you take
that away, you don't have any gospel. That's right, you don't. Someone said this, that out of
the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Men and women who died for the
cause of Christ to spread the gospel throughout. And why is
that? It's because God has some people
out there. He has some elect people. And
he intends to bring, and Christ redeemed them. justified in God's
sight through the righteousness of Christ, and God intends to
bring them unto himself. Remember what he said there in
John chapter 10, them also I must bring. And that was certainly
true of the apostles and the evangelists who gave their lives
in the cause of Christ. Paul was not in jail for breaking
the law, he was in jail for preaching Christ. And then look at verse
14. Here's the inspired and renewed
confidence and boldness that comes from it. He says, many
of the brethren in the Lord, waxing or growing confident by
my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
What does that mean? It means that because Paul, even
though he was in chains, he's doing well. He's preaching, he's
writing letters, inspired by the Holy Spirit. People are coming
to him and he can sit down and talk with them. You remember
the book of Philemon? That little old book? It's a
precious book, isn't it? And that's the story of Philemon
who had a household and in his household he had a servant named
Onesimus. And Onesimus robbed Philemon
and took off and escaped. And by God's providence, he ended
up in Rome in Paul's household. And Paul preached the gospel
to Onesimus, and he told Onesimus, now you do what's right. You
go back to Philemon, and you return to him what you stole,
and you offer him your service, do what's right. And Paul wrote
that letter to Philemon. He said, I'm sending Onesimus
to you. And he said, you receive him
now as a brother in Christ. God saved him by his grace. And
you remember in that little book that Paul wrote, that letter
that Paul wrote to Philemon, we have one of the most glorious
pictures of the doctrine of justification by an imputed righteousness that
you'll find in the Bible. Because you remember what Paul
said to Philemon? He said, if Onesimus owes you anything, put
it on my account, I'll repay it. And isn't that what Christ
did for us in the everlasting covenant of grace before the
foundation of the world? Our sins run up a debt. And as
I said in the Bible study, in the everlasting covenant of grace,
here's what was needed. One whom God has appointed to
take our place under the law and satisfy its justice, well,
whom did the Father appoint? He appointed the Son, Jesus Christ. And then we needed one who was
capable of paying our debt. No use appointing a substitute
who couldn't pay the debt. That's why a sinner cannot die
for a sinner and bring salvation. One person who owes a debt cannot
stand surety for another person who owes it. Christ is capable
because of who he is. He's God, manifest in the flesh.
And then, thirdly, one who is willing to do so. Just like Paul
said, I'm willing to do this. If he's wronged you, if he owes
you anything, put it on my account, I'll repay. And that's what Christ
is for us. He's a willing substitute. I love those passages where he
said, nobody takes my life from me, I lay it down of my own accord.
And he did that for his people. He did that for the glory of
his Father and the love of his people. And here they saw that
Paul was doing well even in his chains, and that inspired them
with a renewed confidence and a boldness. They saw how the
Lord God was working all things for good. You know, sometimes
we can see that. Sometimes we lose sight of that.
Romans 8, 28. All things work together for good. Sometimes
I lose sight of that. I say, how in the world can this
be working for good? Because it don't feel good. It doesn't look good. It's a hindrance. I was talking about this Wednesday
night with some people on the internet about where in Hebrews
12.1 it says, lay aside every weight everything that would
hinder us. And a man asked, he said, well,
what does that mean? I said, that's everything that would
hinder me or you from focusing our attention and our eyes squarely
on Christ as the author and finisher of our faith. Because that right there is our
salvation. Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our
faith. And when we get our eyes off of Him and onto other things,
most of the time we get in trouble. And most of the time there is
trouble. Well, here they saw this in action. And I've seen
it too. You've seen it in things that
you've gone through. You've seen firsthand how God
is truly working all things together for good. You go back and look
at your life leading up to the time that God brought you under
the preaching of the gospel. I look at that. And I say, God
brought me through that, and it was a terrible time in my
life, but God brought me through that to bring me right here. And he gave me eyes to see and
ears to hear. Isn't that a glorious thing?
Well, they saw this and it brought a renewed assurance that God's
will is being accomplished even against the opposition of all
enemies, even the capital of the Roman Empire, Rome, even
in Caesar's household. So look at the next verses now.
Now to say that these next verses are difficult is an understatement.
I know what the main lesson is here. And I hope we can get that. We may differ on how we view
some of this, but I'll show you what I'm talking about. He's
talking about people being, growing confident, more confident, more
bold to preach the gospel when they see what Paul's going through.
And Paul rejoices in that. But then he says in verse 15,
some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife. Now one thing
I know right off, envy and strife are not good things. Envy and
strife are not good motives. Then he says, and some also of
good will. That's a good motive. What is
a good will there? What's a good motive? The glory
of God. What are we here for today? What's
our motive? The glory of God. To worship
Him. To exalt Christ. That's what
I want to do from this pulpit. I want to exalt Him. I don't
want to stand up here and talk about me. And I don't want to
talk about you. I want to talk about Christ.
That's where our focus is. That's what holds us together.
The salvation of sinners. Don't we pray for that? Lord,
save your people. Use us. as instrument to speak
the message and save your people from their sins. Bring your sheep
into the fold. As I said, the mission of the
church is to seek his sheep. I want to preach righteousness
like Noah did. That's preaching Christ. And then to edify the body. We
want to be edified by the word of God. Other things won't edify
us. They won't. The body will be edified by the
Word. That's the glue right here. That's
the food that we feed upon. So that's the good motive. That's
when he talks about preaching out of goodwill. But envy and
strife? Well, he describes it here, verse
16. The one preached Christ of contention,
not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds. From
what I can understand in the original language, that's talking
about having some sort of competitive spirit, like a competition among
preachers. And boy, that's sickening. You know, you go back to 1 Corinthians
1, where Paul saw people dividing over preachers. Some said, I'm
of Paul. Some said, I'm of Apollos. Some
said, I'm of Cephas. That was Peter. And they were
dividing over that. And of course, the men that they
named, they weren't preaching out of envy and strife or contention. But you know, there's some preachers
who do. I was listening to part of the
TV program this morning. I made the statement, you know,
about John the Baptist. You think about John the Baptist.
If he was like most preachers today, Boy, he had a resume. He could have said a lot about
himself to draw people unto himself. I'm the last of the Old Testament
prophets. There's verses in the Bible that
speak of me in the Old Testament. Christ Himself, there's none
greater born of woman. I baptized Jesus of Nazareth. Well, he could have said all
that. But he didn't say any of that. He said, Behold the Lamb
of God. Don't look to me. He said, he that comes after me, he's before
me. I baptize with water, that's
all I can do. He said, but he baptizes with
the Holy Spirit. He said that I'm not worthy to
untie his shoes. That's what he said. And I love that passage in John
3 where it talks about I think it's John 3, but I'm getting
a little confused on that. But it's in John, where it says
that John had his disciples. And that doesn't mean that John
had those who followed John as a person or as a preacher, but
they followed his message that pointed to Christ. And he kept
telling, he said, I'm not the Christ. I'm not your savior. But it said, they heard John
speak, and they followed Christ. And that's what I want. You're
hearing me speak, but I don't want you to follow me. I want
you to follow Christ. Now Paul did say at one time, follow me
as I follow Christ, but that's what he's talking about. And
I made the statement in preaching that this morning. I said, the
worst thing that any preacher can have is a following for himself. So this may have been what's
going on here. They envied Paul. They were opportunist
in the sense that they preached the gospel, hoping, look at verse
16, the one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing
to add affliction to my bonds. And whatever was being, all of
this showing that they didn't have a good motive. And it says
in verse 17, but the other of love, knowing that I'm set for
the defense of the gospel, that's the good motive. Love for God,
love for Christ, love for the people of God, preaching the
gospel. Now the first thing we need to
understand here is this. Whoever he's talking about, with
the bad motive or the good motive, these guys were preaching Christ. Let me show you that, look at
verse 18. What then, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense
or in truth, Christ is preached. And I therein do rejoice, yea,
and will rejoice. Now, if these guys who had a
bad motive were preaching a false gospel, Paul would not have said
they're preaching Christ, and he would not have said he rejoiced.
How do you know that? Well, go to the book of, don't
turn there, but look at the book of Galatians. When those guys
were preaching another gospel, what did Paul say? He didn't
say, I rejoice. He said, let them be anathema. and go to 2 John, when John said,
if they come unto you and bring not this doctrine, the doctrine
of Christ, they have not God. So the question, this sort of
begs the question, well, what is it to preach Christ? Well,
it's to preach, as I said, the glory of His person and the power
of His finished work. It's to preach His righteousness,
not man's. His righteousness imputed. The
sovereign grace of God. All what we call the doctrine
of grace. The sinfulness of man. The total depravity of man. Unconditional
election. Limited or particular redemption.
Irresistible, invincible grace. Perseverance, preservation of
the saints. That's preaching Christ. So someone may ask, well can
a lost person preach Christ? Are these guys lost? I don't
know. Are they, we'll put it this way,
can a believer act or even preach with a bad motive? I would say
yes to that one. Because we're all sinners saved
by grace. And some of us preachers, we get quite reactionary. You
know how that goes. Sometimes you just get in a bad
mood or you get mad at somebody. And it's not right. I'm not saying
that's what we should. We should never do that. I know
this. Paul in 2 Corinthians 11, he
made this statement about Satan's ministers that they can transform
into ministers of light and disguise themselves as preachers
of righteousness. And that's not man's righteousness
because A false prophet does not have, or somebody said that
that's man's righteousness there. Well, a false preacher doesn't
have to transform to preach man's righteousness. That's what we
do naturally. So if they transform into anything, they have to use
the right words to preach the true gospel. Some people say,
well, a false preacher can never preach the true gospel because
a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Well, the bad tree there
is not the preacher. The bad tree there is the preaching
of a false gospel. And what he's saying there is
that no fruit of salvation is going to come out of that. The
good tree there is not the preacher who preaches the gospel, the
good tree there is Christ. And the gospel of salvation conditioned
on him, that's going to produce good fruit. So my point in all
of this is this, and this is what we're to learn from this,
whatever view you take on these preachers and what they are and
who they are, It doesn't actually say here, it just says they've
got a bad motive and they're envious of Paul. But here's the
point. Christ is preached. And we're to rejoice. Now if
they preach a false gospel, no, we don't rejoice. We expose them
for what they are. But if Christ is preached, rejoice,
rejoice. That's God's work. And sometimes
he might use a Balaam's ass to say the truth, but he'll speak the truth. And
when the truth is spoken, when Christ is preached, let's rejoice. Well, look at the last few verses here,
verse 19. He says, For I know that this
shall turn to my salvation through your prayer and the supply of
the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Some say there that Paul's talking
about salvation in the sense of a temporal deliverance from
his chains. I don't know that that's true.
That could be true, but he's talking about this. What he's
saying here is nothing is going to hinder our salvation. Whatever God does in our lives,
whatever trial we go through, it's going to work to our salvation,
friend. Nothing can stop it. What did
he say over in verse six of chapter one? Being confident of this
very thing that he which hath begun a good work in you will
perform it, complete it, finish it until the day of Jesus Christ. How can we be confident of that?
I'll tell you how. Because God will not and cannot impute our
sins to us. The only reason that any sinner
can die and perish in eternal damnation is if they die under
sin, having sin charged to them. And if you're looking to Christ
as the author and finisher of your faith, who can lay anything
to your charge? It's God that justifies. Who
can condemn you? It's Christ that died. You have
a righteousness that answers the demands of God's law and
justice. I have one too, even when I don't
act right. You have it too, even when you
don't act right. That doesn't excuse that kind
of behavior, but it's just true. It ought to inspire us to act
right, to rejoice together and think right. Right now, if we're
looking to Christ as the Lord our righteousness, pleading his
righteousness alone, looking unto Jesus as the author and
finisher of our faith, right now He's in heaven interceding
on your behalf. That when you sin, and you do,
and you will, and I do, and I will, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. We're accepted in the Beloved. He says in verse 20, according
to my earnest expectation and my hope. What is my earnest expectation? What is my hope? Well, I'm hoping
that if I do right, I'll make it to heaven. Well, I'm sorry. That's not a very good expectation
or hope. Brother Randy was telling me
about eating lunch with a few men. They got to talking about
dying and going to meet God. Both of them claimed to be Christians. And one of them said, well, he
said, I just figure if we try to do the best we can, that ought
to count for something. Randy said, I'm sorry, friend. That won't count for anything. What can wash away my sins? Nothing
but the blood. My hope is built on nothing less.
than Jesus' blood and righteousness. That's what Paul's hope was.
That's what our hope is. That in nothing I shall be ashamed,
but that with all boldness, as always. The Lord says that those
who come before God, a holy God, in the blood and righteousness
of Christ shall never be ashamed. Now when I look at myself and
I take inventory of myself, I've got a lot to be ashamed about.
But when I look to Christ, in Him I don't have a thing to be
ashamed of. He doeth all things well. And he says, with all boldness
as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body,
whether it be by life or by death. Whether I live or die, Christ
is gonna be magnified. And we'll start here next week,
Lord willing. He says in verse 20, for me to live is Christ,
to die is gain. Think about that. Can we say
that with all boldness and confidence? We can if we look to Christ and
rest in Him, for He is the Lord our righteousness. All right.