Open your Bibles if you would
to the book of Philippians where continue our study. Now I was
going to do multiple verses today but as I went through this verse
and the topic is Christ is preached and so what I want us to do is
we're going to look at a few other places in the scriptures
in the New Testament where we see what the apostles did when
they went to different places. They preached Christ. They didn't
hold seminars on how to have a better marriage or or how to
be a, you know, better Christian, or they didn't write books and
publish them and put them out there. They went place to place
and they preached Christ. What's the one thing needful
for us? Christ. Yeah, He's the one thing needful,
Christ. He's the one thing that sinners
need, right? He's the perfect Savior. He's
the perfect Lamb of God. He's the only thing that, all
that we find, all that we need is found in Christ, right? Salvation, justification, redemption,
sanctification, wisdom. It's all in Him. He is wisdom,
isn't He? And then, see, I'm looking at
folks who are wise unto salvation. God's given you that wisdom. God gives us wisdom, right? God
gives us a gift of faith, we look to Christ, and then as we
grow in grace, which is, again, folks get all worried, am I growing
in grace? Is Christ more precious to you now than he was a year
ago? If you say yes, then you've grown
in grace. Isn't that wonderful? You've
grown in grace. Oh my, it's wonderful. So let's
turn to Philippians, or continue our study again in this just
wonderful book. Paul wrote this book while he
was in prison. And we've seen God's providence
worked out, haven't we? We've seen his providence worked
out, and how he's moving and working. And we've seen him,
he's moved Paul from Philippi, and now he's moved him over to
Rome, hasn't he? And now he's in Rome by the providence
of God, by the workings of God. And then we've seen that the
disciples or the believers at Rome were quiet because of persecution. Now they're much more bold. They're much more bold. And what
are they doing? They're preaching Christ. That's what's most important. They're preaching Christ and
him alone. My oh my. And not only have we seen the
church in Rome come alive again and preach Christ, but we saw
that through the Praetorian Guard, the gospel spread like wildfire.
Now that's amazing. And that all occurred because
God moved Paul from Philippi, and he moved him in chains, didn't
he? See, what man means for evil,
God uses for good, doesn't he? And he moved them in chains from
Philippi to Rome. My, oh, my. Actually, from Jerusalem. From Jerusalem all the way to
Rome. And the church at Philippi, which God used Paul to establish
that church, the church at Philippi is now very concerned about Paul,
because they hear he's in prison. And why is he in prison, Brother
Charlie? For preaching Christ, that's the only reason. And remember,
that was made manifest through the Praetorian Guard? The fact
that he was jailed simply for preaching the gospel? Simply
for preaching Christ? And so the Philippian church
sends Epaphroditus, their faithful pastor. They send him to Rome
to talk to Paul. Turn, if you would, to Philippians
chapter 2. But Epaphroditus, he comes to
Rome and he falls sick. He falls sick near to death.
Again, all this is by the providence of God. You know why? Because
now here's someone who Paul knows, and can be a comfort to him,
and we're gonna see that God in his providence used Epaphroditus
to be a comfort to Paul. Philippians chapter 2, look at
verses 25 to 28. Yet I suppose it necessary to
send to you Epaphroditus. Now, we can see with those words,
and we're gonna see Paul, Paul would have desired him to stay
with him, but that wasn't God's will. He says, yet I suppose it necessary
to send you to you at Paphroditus, my brother and companion in labor
and fellow soldier, but you're a messenger. See, they sent him
as a messenger. And he that ministered to my
wants, for he longed after you all. You know, I'll tell you
what, every preacher that's away from the flock, that he's been
set to preach before, feels that way right there. When I'm away,
I long to be here. I'm not away much, because you
guys, I take my calling here seriously. That's why I don't
go run around all different places across the country. I'm called
right here, aren't I? Now, here and there, I might
go out west and visit Vicky's family or visit my dear brother,
Norm. But other than that, I'm not
going very far. My, oh, my. Look at this. that ministered
to my wants, for he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness."
He had a burden for them. Whenever a preacher, Norm Wells
and I have talked about this, whenever a preacher is preaching
somewhere else, they're, Brother Travis, when you're preaching
for me, my prayers are with you, and my prayers are for the saints
here. But the wild thing is, it's not distracting. to when
we go and preach somewhere else, because that's our mission, is
to preach Christ. But our heart is here. And we
see that with Epaphroditus. His heart was still with the
folks over in Philippi. And look at this, it was full
of heaviness because she had heard that he had been sick.
He was burdened at the fact that the little flock that he was
an under-shepherd to were burdened because he was sick. For indeed,
he was sick nigh unto death. See, God spared him. God spared
him, look at this. But God had mercy on him, and
not only on him, but also on me. But on me also, lest I should
have sorrow upon sorrow. My. He's already in prison. Right? For preaching Christ. And could you imagine? Here's
Epaphroditus probably coming to visit him every day. And they're
talking about the scriptures and rejoicing in the scriptures,
rejoicing about Christ Jesus our Lord. And here Epaphroditus
gets sick. And he's thinking, oh my. But
God had mercy on him, didn't he? My oh my. I send him therefore the more
carefully that when you see him again, you may rejoice, and I
may be less sorrowful. It's hard when two dear brethren
get together, and I feel that with Norm when Norm goes back
out west. But it's needful that he goes out there, back to the
flock in the Dalles, Oregon. But there's sorrow. He told me
a long time ago, he says, you know, I loved how close we were
miles wise when we were both in Oregon. But he said, I know
that the Lord sent you there to Almonte to preach to the flock
there. And he said, even though it's
hard for me, he says, I know it's for God's good. Isn't that
so? He felt the same way Paul felt. It's amazing. It's absolutely incredible. I
bet you Marvin's heart right now is set on the folks at KD.
He just wants to get back in the pulpit and preach Christ. My oh my. So now let's go back
to chapter 1. So Paul's told them we see over
there, and remember he sent this letter back with Epaphroditus
to the church at Philippi. He's taking this letter back
to them and they would read this letter here. And he's telling
them, he says, don't worry about me. Don't worry about me. Everything that's happened to
me has happened for the furtherance of the gospel. Think of the history of this
church. Everything that's happened within this church for the years
and years it's been here, since the 1800s, has all happened according
to the furtherance of the gospel. Right? All of it. This church was established,
and then there'd be, in would come some grace preachers down
the road. Sister, you've seen the transition. My oh my. You and Sister Linda. You've
seen three transitions now. My oh my. Because you remember
the pastor before Peter, right? Or did you? Were you here? Oh,
OK. Linda was here when the pastor.
OK. Linda was here. So she's seen the transition
of three different preachers. Yeah. Four. Four. Yeah, that's
right. Four. My. Amazing. Well, we're going to see here,
again in our text, and again context, context, context, like
you were saying, Charlie was telling me he's starting to look
at scripture and look at the two before and the two after,
and I said that's wonderful. Always, if you're studying a
portion of scripture, always look. You can even go back the
whole chapter if you want, but always look at the context of
verses. People pull verses out of context all the time. All
the time. And be a Berean, even with what
I preach. Be a Berean. Study to show thyself approved
before God. Study to say, okay, you know,
just because your pastor says it, right? Paul, remember Paul
commended the Bereans because they studied. They went and looked
at the scriptures. That's so important. That's why
I was rejoicing when Charlie told me that, because that's
so important. to look at the scripture in context. So we're going to read the verse
that we're going to look at in context here. Let's start in
verse 15, and we're going to read to verse 20, and our verse
will be verse 18. Philippians 1, 15 to 20. Some indeed preach Christ even
of envy and strife, and some some also of goodwill, the one
preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add
affliction to my bonds. And notice here too, Paul doesn't
say that those who are preaching out of envy are not preaching
the gospel. They're preaching the gospel,
because otherwise Paul wouldn't rejoice, right? We're going to
see in verse 18, he rejoices that both sides are preaching
Christ. If one was preaching a false
gospel, he wouldn't rejoice. We know that. We know that from
Galatians chapter 1, when he says, if anyone comes to you
with another gospel, let him be anathema, let him be damned.
Right? So look at this. This is incredible.
The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add
affliction to my bonds, but the other of love. And we looked
at that, and I was blown away that that was agape love in the
Greek. And that's the love that comes from God. That's not natural
to us. So this is the love of God in
their hearts, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel.
And look at verse 18 here. What then? Notwithstanding every
way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. So
he's not saying, you notice that? You notice what he said there?
He's not saying one side's not preaching Christ. No, he's saying
they're both preaching Christ. See, what had happened is some
brethren took the opportunity to exalt themselves to preaching. ones who probably shouldn't have.
But we've learned, haven't we? We've learned that envy and strife
there is for self-seeking in the Greek, remember? They're
self-seeking. They're doing it for the applause
of man. They're doing it to gain a following. They're doing it to take an opportunity,
which is actually in the Greek, we're going to see with pretense.
They're taking an opportunity. They're seizing an opportunity
that they see. Well, Brother Travis and I can
tell you we don't self-seek when we teach and when we preach.
No. We want Christ to be exalted.
We may use things in our life that's occurred, but ultimately
the glory goes to God. Again, how can you tell if a
man is preaching Christ? Who gets the glory? Does man
get the glory or her? Christ gets it all, doesn't he
brother? He gets it all. So even though they were seeking
to add to Paul's bonds, they were still preaching Christ.
Otherwise Paul would have said, you don't have nothing to do
with that. Ah, my oh my. What then notwithstanding Every
way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached. And
I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. Now, he's not condoning
those that are self-seeking. That's not what he's doing. He
would never condone people self-seeking, preaching to gain attention.
I had a fella, I had a fella one time, every opportunity,
when I'd say I was gonna be away, he'd say, I wouldn't ask him,
he'd say, well, I'll preach for you. I'll preach for you. You know
what that does for me? You're going on the shelf, dude. You're not preaching. And I learned
that after I had let him preach a few times. And then after a
while, I went, nope. See, when I go to Travis and
say, hey, can you fill in for me? He goes, yeah, wonderful.
Send me some outlines. Right? Because I get outlines
too. Yeah. And it's awesome though. And
I send him a bunch of outlines and he picks whatever ones he
wants to preach and he takes them and uses them and owns them.
And that's what I do too. I find outlines all the time
and say, well, I got to preach that. Right? Because it's Christ honoring.
It exalts Christ. And it's all about him. It's
not about us. You know, I marvel what's going on in the internet,
but I told Zane the other day, I thank God that I haven't heard
back from a lot of those folks, because I don't want my head
to go like that. No, we know that God's using
that, right? He's using all those downloads
for his gospel to spread. Well, praise be to God. That's
what, that's what's important. We're here in this church for
the furtherance of the gospel, for the gospel of Christ to go
forward. My son asked me yesterday, we
were at a place, and my son asked me, we were watching, and there
was somebody, some politician at a church. And he said, Dad,
would you ever do that? I said, no, I don't care who
it was. The ex-president, I wouldn't
let him in here to get up and do a thing on the stage. He goes,
well, why not? I said, because the pulpit's for preaching Christ. It has nothing to do with politics.
It's for preaching Christ. And if I ever did that, I'd start
looking for another pastor. Seriously. Because that's not
what this church is for. This building, this pulpit, is
for the proclaiming of the Lord Jesus Christ and His perfect
work. Perfect redeeming work of shedding
his precious blood on Calvary's cross to redeem a people called
his elect We don't know who they are so we preach the gospel to
everybody and God does the saving doesn't he? Right It's all up
to him I Preach the gospel everyone I say hey whosoever will let
him come Come on flee to Christ Right? I'm not going to put no...
We don't put fences up, do we? And you know, Christ is able
to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him.
Why? Because he's God in the flesh.
He's not no mere man. He's God incarnated in the flesh.
That's why it's so important to preach Christ and not get
involved in anything else. Right? My oh my. We preach Christ and Him crucified.
And so he says, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, and
ye will rejoice. Let's read verses 19 and 20 to
see the context again. For I know that this shall turn
to my salvation. Now, salvation in the Greek there
is deliverance. Don't think that he's talking
about, we're going to look at that next week. In the Greek
literal Bible, it's deliverance. It was turned to my deliverance
through your prayers. Just to give you a heads up there
if you want to write that down, deliverance. It has nothing to
do with his salvation. Through your prayer and the supply
of the spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation
and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with
all bitterness, with all boldness as always, so now also Christ
shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by my life or by
my death. Oh my. What a Savior. What a Redeemer
is Jesus Christ our Lord. And then look at what he pens
by inspiration of the Holy Spirit in verse 21. For me to live is
Christ, and to die is gain. He's not living for himself anymore,
is he? We don't live for ourselves anymore, do we, Brother Brian?
We live for Christ. We seek the glory and honor of
Christ. He's the only Savior of sinners, isn't he? There's
no other way to heaven except through Christ. He said, I'm
the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. And we believe those words, don't
we? By God's grace. There was a time, Charlie, we
didn't believe those words. And Travis, we didn't believe them
at a time. Now we embrace them. We love those words. They're
wonderful. Think of when we were in religion, Sister Marsha. We
were just happy and content in our own little place. And the
Lord said, no, you're mine. You're mine. And oh my, there
was that time of love too when we heard the gospel preached,
didn't we? And it wasn't just preached for our hearing ears,
all of a sudden it became effectual. That's all by the power of God.
Remember, He's the Alpha and the Omega of our salvation. That
means the A to Z. Right? In all our life too now. So let's
read verse 18 and pray that God the Holy Spirit would teach us
the things of Christ. Look at this, what then, notwithstanding
every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached
and I therein do rejoice and will rejoice. Now see the words
there, what then, notwithstanding every way. He's saying what can
be concluded? What can be concluded from what
was said in verses 15 to 17? Is this, that this phrase is
bringing forth, what can be concluded? Well we know at the latter end
of the verse the answer, right? Christ is preached. And I therein
do rejoice. Isn't that wonderful? Oh my. Now look at what it says
here in the next portion. It says the one preached Christ
of contention. Not sincerely, supposing to add
afflictions to my, or let's say, what then? Notwithstanding every
way, whether in pretense or in truth. Well, pretense, we can
tie that back up with the verse before that, that they preach
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, see how it flows? He's bringing forth
again the two parties again before us. here in pretense. Not out of love. Not out of love. These folks here, they're not
preaching out of love. No. They're not preaching out
of zeal for the gospel. They're not preaching out of
zeal for Christ. These are the ones that are seeking to add
affliction to his bonds. No. They're not even preaching
for the good of lost souls, are they? No. No, they're self-seeking. Their
views of preaching are self-seeking. They want, again, as I said earlier,
the applause of the brethren. They want a following. Beware
of a preacher that wants a following. We preach the one who we're to
follow, the Lord Jesus Christ, right? That's who we preach. So they're not preaching out
of love. Their views were self-seeking. Again, they wanted applause.
They wanted praise. And they wanted that to the detriment
of the apostle's condition. They wanted to add affliction,
sister. They wanted to make it even worse for him, what he was
going through. My. My, oh, my. And this word, the
pretense can also mean by occasion, as I mentioned earlier. In the
Greek, it can also mean by occasion. The sense of it is that they
sought and seized the occasion to preach. It's not what they
had normally. They didn't have the occasion
to preach. But now they thought, well, I can do this. I can do
what that preacher does. Oh my, I remember when I was
in religion, oh, this just, oh gosh. I'm telling you, I'm ashamed
of it, but I was sitting one time with Vicky in religion,
I was listening to this guy, and I thought, I could do better
than him. Pride, pride, pride, pride. It's a slayer. Now I listen to gospel preachers
and I just want to hear the message. That's what I'm listening for.
Feed me Christ. Tell me about my king who bled
and died for me and shed his blood for me. Tell me how he
ransomed my soul with the shedding of his precious, precious blood.
Tell me how he rose again from the grave. And he's right now
seated at the right hand of the Father. And because he's in glory,
we're going to be in glory. We who are his people. We who
are the redeemed of the Lord. No one can pluck us out of the
Father's hand. Or out of his hand, eh brother?
That's what Charlie and I were talking about this morning. That's
the words of the King. No one can pluck you out of my
Father's hands. were double-gripped, gripped
by the Father and gripped by the Son, and sealed by the Holy
Spirit of God. Oh, isn't it wonderful? I'll
tell you. Let's read verse 18 again. What
then, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth,
Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice. Yea, and will rejoice. See the words in truth or in
truth. These ones again are preaching
out of agape love. They love the gospel. They love
Christ. They love the scriptures. They're
preaching out of love. That love of God that's shed
abroad in our hearts, remember? It's not natural for us. And
now they're proclaiming Christ. Oh, as John Gill said, as hearty
friends of Christ. We were once enemies with him
in our minds by wicked works, and now he calls us friends. He calls us his bride. Oh, my. So they preach Christ. They preach the truth of the
gospel. The truth is Christ is set forth in the scripture. They
preach every truth of the gospel. We know Paul preached the election
to the Thessalonians, a real young church. And he wrote to
the Romans about God's foreknowledge and about the potter and the
clay, and the potter can do what he wills with the clay. It's
wonderful. They went around proclaiming
the truths of the gospel, that God is sovereign and that he
sent his son to save sinners such as we. I marvel that God
sent a Savior to save a sinner like me. Oh, and I still sin to my shame,
right? We all do. But praise God, we're
saved sinners. Right? What a blessing. And they didn't conceal any part
of the Gospel either. They didn't say, well, this part
might be a little too weighty for folks. No, they didn't conceal
it. They preached Christ. They preach
the full atonement in Christ. They preach the perfect sacrifice
by Christ, who is the God-man who did not sin. Right? The perfect Lamb of God. And
they preach salvation by a crucified Christ, without any contamination
by the works of man. No contamination by the works
of man. And they preached honestly and
truthfully in the uprightness of their souls. And this, I think,
is so important when preaching. They preached with sincerity. It was real. I can't tell you
about somewhere where I've never been, right? Christ saved my soul. I can tell
you about that. I'm still in wonder and awe,
are you? I'm still in wonder and awe that Christ saved my
soul. I don't know much, but I know that. My oh my. Now let's go figure
out a few different places where we will see the consistency of
what the apostles preached. Again, they didn't go around
starting marriage conferences and they didn't go around doing
these different conferences for these different things. They
preached Christ. The one thing needful for us
is Christ. And remember too, they did it, these who are preaching
out of love, they did it in the sight of man. They didn't hide.
And they didn't do it with selfish ambition. They did it to exalt
Christ, because Christ saved their soul. Let me tell you about
my king. Let me tell you about my Redeemer.
I wasn't looking for him. He found me. He saved our souls, Brother Charlie. And he did it 2,000 years ago.
We just didn't know about it. And then in time and space, God,
the Holy Spirit, reveals to us this wondrous salvation. See,
God planned and purposed it all. We didn't know that. Did we know
that when we were running around, Brian? We had no idea, did we?
I didn't have a clue that God did that. I had no clue. My, and then comes to find out
that he planned and purposed it in Christ Jesus our Lord in
eternity. And God didn't get caught by
plan B when Adam fell. No. No, he allowed it to occur. And what happened after that?
His son now is foreshadowed all through the Old Testament. Okay,
and remember too, when we look at these verses, they did not
have the New Testament. So every time we read here that
they preach Christ, right, they're preaching from the Old Testament
Scriptures. Okay, let's remember that. Let's
start in Acts chapter 5. Acts chapter 5. Ah, we preach
the only way a sinner can be saved is by the perfect sin atoning
work of the Lord Jesus Christ as our substitute. And His death
is our substitute. He redeemed our eternal souls
by the shedding of His precious blood. And this is what we are
told to preach to a lost and dying world. I don't know who
God's people are. I have no clue. I'll go around
and tell anybody who listens about Christ. Even some who don't,
they just turn away, right? But I'm not, you know, if God
gives me an opportunity, if He opens the door, please pray for
doors of utterance for each other. that God would open up a door.
Sister, you had that happen with one of your workers. God just
opened the door for Sister Karen. She just told her about Christ.
Look at this, Acts chapter 5, verse 42. And gailing the temple
and in every house, they ceased not to what? Teach and preach
Jesus Christ. They didn't preach themselves.
You notice that? They preached Jesus Christ. Acts
chapter 8, turn there now. We'll just be doing a little
bit through Acts, and then we're going to go to 2 Corinthians
and 1 Corinthians. Acts chapter 8, verses 4 to 5. And there's
many more verses, I just took a few for us to look at. Acts
chapter 8, verses 4 and 5. Therefore they were scattered
abroad, went everywhere preaching the word. Then Phelps went down
to the city of Samaria, and what? Someone tell me what it says. Amen, Brother Thomas. He preached
Christ unto them. He didn't preach how to live
a victorious Christian life, did he? He preached Christ. See, when we learn about what
Christ has done, we realize Christ has already been victorious. And we just look to Him by faith,
and we walk. The love of Christ constrains
us from sin now, right? We desire to walk a holy life.
We desire to walk in the ways of Christ. Acts 8, 12. But when they believed, Philip,
the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ,
they were baptized, both men and women. Now turn to Acts chapter
9. Acts chapter 9. We just read about this in our
study in the book of Acts. And when he had received meat,
he was strengthened, Then we saw certain days with the disciples,
which were at Damascus, and straightaway he preached Christ. He preached Christ in the synagogues,
that he is the Son of God. Now turn if you would to 1 Corinthians,
chapter 1. 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. I'm out of time again. 1 Corinthians,
chapter 1, verses 22 to 24. For the Jews require a sign,
and the Greeks seek after wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified. Unto the Jews a stumbling block,
and unto the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called,
both Jew and Greek, Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God
and the wisdom of God. Now, 2 Corinthians chapter 4,
I love this portion. Because did you know the gospel
was hid to us at one time? It was hid to us. And everything
we know now, we only know because God's revealed it to us. Look
at this, 2 Corinthians 4, verses 3 to 6. But if our gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost. That was us in our natural
state, in whom the God of this world had blinded the minds of
them, which believed not, lest the light of the glorious gospel
of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus, the Lord, and
ourselves, your servants, for Jesus' sake. For God, who commands
the light, look what God's done. He commanded the light to shine
out of darkness, has shined in our hearts to give the light
of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. My, oh my. And then turn, if
you would, to Colossians chapter one. We're close with this. I've
got more, but I ran out of time again. Colossians chapter one. Verses 27 to 29. You know how
in Christianity they're always telling you, you gotta do this,
you gotta do that, right? You gotta be more joyful, you
gotta be more happy, you gotta be more, right? But I'll tell
you, we can't muster, I came out of religion, we can't muster
that up. We can't muster that up. And here's some verses, the
last verse, we'll bring that forth, look at this. Verses 27
to 29, Colossians chapter one. To whom God would make known,
see we don't know the gospel, what is the riches of the glory
of the mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope
of glory, whom we preach, you don't preach a bunch of other
stuff, right? You preach Christ. Warning every man and teaching
every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect
in Christ Jesus. Where into, look at this, where
into I also labor, so Paul's laboring in the gospel, he's
laboring, like we labor in Christ, right? We seek to serve Christ,
but look, look who's working in us, though. Where into I also
labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in
me mightily. Why do we love Christ? Why do
we love the gospel? Because God has regenerated us,
we're born again, and he's working mightily in us. That takes the
pressure off, doesn't it? We still seek Christ, we read
the scriptures, we desire more of him, and he becomes more precious
to us. It's glorious. It's absolutely
glorious, I'll tell you why. Brother Travis, can you close
us in prayer?