Philippians 4, the last chapter,
all the saints salute you from Rome, from where he was in prison,
chiefly they that are of Caesar's household. Isn't that something?
That many of these people of the court heard this man preach. You see, he was in a, he was
there two or three years in a in a private, he was in prison,
he was incarcerated, but he was in a home so that people could
come to him and hear him preach. Philemon's servant, Onesimus,
came back. That's when he was converted.
He came and heard Paul preach there in that place where he
was in prison. But he was especially dear to
this Philippian church. Paul was especially dear to this
Philippian church. You remember that the Lord, he
started to go to two or three different places and the Lord
told him not to go. And that night there was a man
from Macedonia. Philippi is the chief city of
Macedonia. There was a man of Macedonia,
appeared to Paul and said, come down here and help us. And he
went down and preached. First place he went, Philippi
was down by the river to preach to those women. Women gathered,
and Lydia was converted. And then the demon-possessed
young lady was converted. And then they threw him into
prison there at Philippi. And the Philippian jailer was
converted. Remember? And God set him free. Philippi
was a tremendous revival in which Paul preached the gospel. And
these people loved him. And when, upon hearing that he
was in prison, they sent their pastor to visit him, Epaphroditus. You can't forget that name. They
sent him, Epaphroditus, to take Paul some chocolate chip cookies
or something like that the ladies had baked for him and all. But
they brought him some provisions, and he was so happy that they
remembered him. They sent him these things, and
so when Epiphadatus went back home to Philippi, God, the Holy
Spirit, led Paul to write this epistle, and he sent it back
to the church by that faithful pastor. And he wrote in here
the first few verses to express his love and affection for this
church. See here, he says in verse 2,
grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance
of you. He had some happy memories of
this congregation, these people. And always in every prayer of
mine for you all making requests with joy for your fellowship
in the gospel from the first day until now. being certain, confident of this
very thing, that he, God sent me down there to preach to you,
he said, and he which hath begun a good work in you, in you, will
perform it, perfect it, finish it, until the day of Jesus Christ. And then in the next few verses,
he assures them of his prayers for them. Brethren, Paul so many times
said, pray for me. Pray for me. Brethren, pray for
me. Pray that an effectual door will be opened for me to preach
the gospel. And he didn't forget to pray for them. He prayed for
the people of God. Samuel said this, God forbid
that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you.
You mean it's a sin not to pray for each other? That's what Samuel
said. Sin against the Lord, not to pray for each other. So he
assures this church that he's praying for them, and he says
in verse 8, verse 9, and this I pray. This is my prayer for
you. Now what's this? His prayers
aren't confined to material things. I wish we could get off this
materialistic merry-go-round we've gotten on
in this day, materialistic. Paul, this is what the things
that were the concern of his heart for this church. I pray
for you that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and in judgment, in insight. I pray you might have some insight,
some discernment in spiritual matters. And verse 10, that you
may approve, that is, learn to value. Learn to value things
that are excellent, that you might not only have a taste for
spiritual things, but learn to discern and value spiritual things. And that you may be sincere and
without offense to the day of Jesus Christ. That you, verse
11, might be filled with the fruits of righteousness, which
are by Jesus Christ under the glory and praise of God. His prayer and concern for that
church was that they might grow in grace, fruit of the Spirit,
love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, meekness, discernment,
understanding the things of God without hypocrisy, being filled
with the fruits of righteousness. We have a lot about which to
pray, don't we, for one another. In verse 12, and this is where
I want to begin our thoughts for this evening, and I would
you should understand some things. I want you to understand some
things. I want to help you understand
some of the trials and troubles that are happening to you and
to me. Trials and trouble was their
lot in the flesh. It was their lot, and it's our
lot in the flesh. and persecution from religious
neighbors because of the gospel of God's grace. They endured
much persecution for the sake of the gospel. And then here
their leader was in prison. They didn't understand this.
The servant of God was the man that taught them the gospel,
that brought them the good news of Christ. Here he is in prison,
suffering and mistreated. They didn't understand all this.
And another thing, there was friction among them. I read over
here where he turned to chapter 4 again. He was telling these
ladies, he said in verse 2 of chapter 4, I beseech you Odius
and I beseech Syntyche that they be of the same mind in the Lord.
There was friction between them. He talked to them about working
out their deliverance with fear and trembling. Get some things
straight. There was problems between the preachers. You're
going to see that in this chapter here, that there was some differences
and division among some of the true preachers of the gospel
of God's grace. And so he begins here in verse
12, and he said, I want you, brethren, I would that you should
understand. Understand. Now here's the first
thing he deals with himself and where he is in prison. He said, I want you to understand,
verse 12, that the things which have happened unto me, if you
want to read sometime in the book of 2 Corinthians, the things
that happened to Paul. He was stoned two or three times,
stoned and scourged two or three times in prison in Philippi and
Rome and several places. hated, despised, driven from
place to place, and here he is sitting in prison. He said, I
want you to understand that these things that have happened to
me have fallen out rather under the furtherance of the gospel.
What he's saying is these difficult times and trials that have come
upon me and happened to me have actually served to promote the
gospel. to advance the gospel of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Have you discovered that in the
scriptures? If you haven't, turn to Acts chapter 8. In Acts chapter
8, all of these early believers, many of them were assembled in
Jerusalem. The church at Jerusalem had thousands
of believers and, you know, the Lord had told them to go into
all the world and preach the gospel. He said, you'll be my
witnesses in Jerusalem. Judea, Samaria, and the outermost
parts of the earth. And they were here in Jerusalem.
And this same fellow, Paul, arose. He was a member of the Sanhedrin,
a Pharisee, hated Christ. He was a strong Jewish ruler,
a graduate of the school of Gamaliel, a powerful man, a personal friend
of the high priest. And he hated the gospel. This
was before God made him on the road to Damascus. And it says
here in verse 1 of chapter 8 of Acts. And Saul was consenting
under Stephen's death. And at that time there was a
great persecution against the church, which was at Jerusalem.
And they were scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea,
Samaria, except the apostles. They stayed at Jerusalem. And
certain men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation
over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of
the church, entering into every house and hailing men and women,
committing them to prison. Therefore they that were scattered
abroad went everywhere preaching the gospel." So this is what
he's saying is that what's happened to me has advanced and promoted
the gospel. What happened here, turn to Acts
11, let me show you another illustration of this. Acts chapter 11, verse
19 and 20. Acts chapter 11, verse 19. Now, they which were scattered
abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, they traveled
as far as Pharnace and Cyprus. And Antioch preaching the word
to none but unto the Jews only. And some of them were men of
Cyprus, Cyrene, which when they would come to Antioch, spake
unto the Grecians preaching the Lord Jesus. And that's what Paul
is saying here. Understand that these things
that have happened to me have advanced the gospel. God used
it to take the gospel to Caesar's household. and dominion of others. And God's ways are not our ways. I want you to look at 2 Timothy.
Here's another scripture that Paul wrote to young Timothy,
young preacher, about this because Timothy, he was preparing Timothy
for the same experience. He said in 2 Timothy 2 verse
9, Wherein I suffer trouble as an evildoer, even unto bonds,
but the word of God is not bound. Therefore I endure all things
for the elect's sake, that they may also obtain the salvation
which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory." Paul didn't call
himself the prisoner of Rome or the prisoner of Caesar. He
called himself the prisoner of Jesus Christ. Do you know that
back many years ago, this is a fact, there were people
who actually sold themselves into slavery to preach to the
slaves? That's right, in those foreign
countries. I've read that about people that went into leper colonies
and lived to preach to the lepers. And missionaries do that, who
go into these, now it's not as difficult being a missionary
in some areas as it used to be, but back then, they went in some
terrible places, and identified with those people, preached the
gospel to them. That's what Paul's saying. Now look at verse 13. And he says, I want you to understand
that my bonds, my chains, for Christ's sake, are manifest in
all the palace and in all other places. God's ways are not our
ways, are they? You know, usually when, generally, when
people think about making the gospel known, they feel like,
well, if I wanted Caesar's household to know the gospel, I'd save
Caesar first and then let him preach it to them. Or maybe Caesar's
wife. Or maybe one of Caesar's chief
lieutenants in the army. Save the general and let him
preach to him. That's not God's way. That's
not God's way. God takes a prisoner called Paul
and preaches the gospel to him. A prisoner. Or you know, if we
were going to preach the gospel in a prison, we'd probably convert
the warden. Or we probably would convert
the chief, the meanest guard. That's a good idea. Take the
meanest, biggest, burliest guard that hates the prisoners. He'd
beat them and mistreat them. Save him and then have him preached
to them. But God's way is not our way. And God's way is to put this
treasure, listen to me, God's way is to put this treasure,
the gospel, the good news of Christ, in such a vessel that
no one will prefer the vessel above the treasure. Remember that. Don't put the gift in such
a vessel that they'll save the vessel and ignore the gift. That's in several scriptures.
Let me give you a couple here. First of all, in 1 Corinthians
1, 1 Corinthians 1, listen to this. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians 1 verse 26, listen. You see your calling brethren?
How that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called. But God hath chosen the foolish
things of the world. Now wait a minute. look at some of these fools on
television and say, well, now that's, I'm supposed to listen
to them because they haven't got any sense. No. God doesn't,
God doesn't use fools. He uses the things that the world
calls foolish, you know, the gospel. You see, the people that
preach the gospel are people who are wise in grace, wise in
the They may not be influential or rich or powerful or well known
or have a title and those things, but they're wise in grace and
wise in the gospel. That's right. And the world calls
them foolishness. So this is what he's talking
about here. God had chosen the foolish things of the world to
confound the wise and God had chosen the weak things of the
world to confound the things which are mighty and the base
things of the world. And things which are despised
hath God chosen, and things which are not, to bring to naught the
things that are. Listen, that no flesh should
glow in his presence. But of him are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom. Paul said, I preach
wisdom, not the wisdom of the world, which comes to naught,
but the wisdom of God. He gives us wisdom. righteousness
and sanctification and redemption. That according as it is written,
he that gloweth, let him glow in the Lord. Now look down at
chapter 2, verse 5, that your faith should not stand in the
wisdom of men, but in the power of God. That's the reason he
chooses that which is despised for the
world. that they shouldn't value the
vessel more than the gift, more than the treasure. 2 Corinthians
chapter 4 verse 7. Let's look at this. 2 Corinthians
4 verse 7. 2 Corinthians 4 verse 7. Now
listen carefully to this. But we have this treasure in
earthen vessels. that the excellency of the power
may be of God and not of us." And not of us. All right, back
to our text. You see, I would have you understand,
you know, you'd be amazed at people in religion, not here,
you know better, but people in religion who still want to use
the rich and the famous and the prominent I remember when I was
in school in Chattanooga that Billy Graham came to Birmingham
and he wanted to make an impact on the city of Birmingham. And
so you know who he solicited to help him? He got up and sat
up the first night on the platform with Barry Brown on one side
of him and Joe Namath on the other. Now that, you know, and
they came. You'd be surprised how the world
is. They get the idea that get the rich and the famous and the
prominent and the talented and the influential and the strong
to serve God. It won't work. It's adverse to the gospel. It's
contrary to the truth. Paul himself in Philippians 3,
turn over there just a moment. He said he was an educated, powerful
man. But he had ancestry, heritage,
prestige in front. He said, I had to lose every
bit of it. I had to be emptied before I
became poor. Look at Philippians 3. He said, verse 4, though I might
have confidence in the flesh, if any man thinks he has whereof
he might trust in the flesh, I am over. I circumcised the
eighth day of the stock of Israel. I was a tribe of Benjamin, Hebrew
of Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal,
persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in
the law blameless. But what things were gained to
me, I counted lost for Christ." I lost all these things. I count
all things but lost for the excellence and the knowledge of Christ Jesus,
my Lord. In spiritual matters, you become poor. to be rich,
you become empty to be full. You die to live. That's right. Now look at verse 14. I want
you to understand this. Now this is interesting. And
many of the brethren in the Lord, these are the preachers, and
many of the preachers, waxing confident by my bond, are much
more bold to speak the word without fear. Paul, he said, I want you
to understand that through my troubles and trials that God has made an impression
upon some of his servants. That the gospel that I preach
and the troubles that I have endured has not gone unnoticed
by God's preachers. And because of Paul's faithfulness
and patience under this suffering, he said, many preachers have
been encouraged and challenged to preach the gospel without
fear, boldly, boldly. He said many have become more
bold to preach the gospel regardless of the consequences, and this
is what they're thinking. If Paul will preach the gospel
in the face of the wrath of men and the persecution of the world,
and even prison and death, I can do it too. Isn't that what he
said? I can do it too. See, I want you to understand he says
that God moves in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.
And what he has brought me through has advanced the gospel. Even people in Caesar's household
have heard me and some of my brethren. have been encouraged
by my bonds and are much more bold, much more bold to preach
the gospel, much more. I want you to see something,
I want you to understand something else he says now in verse 15.
Now all preachers are not the same. I want you to listen to
me for a few moments here. All preachers are not the same,
even those who preach the gospel. Not the same. Even those who
preach the gospel. And these men did preach the
gospel or Paul wouldn't have rejoiced in it. The Apostle Paul
wouldn't rejoice in a man preaching free willism. These men preached
the gospel. I want you to listen to him now.
He said here in verse 15, some, there are men who preach the
gospel of God's grace, who preach Christ. Even of envy. They had a problem with envy. They had a problem with jealousy.
Over Paul's being used of God. Over Paul's success. Over the
power God had given Paul to preach. Over the ability God had given
him to preach. And these men preached Christ,
but they had a problem with envy and jealousy. And they had a
problem with strife. contention over insignificant
things. Debating and arguing. And you
find that even in this day. You find men who preach the gospel. They preach Christ. There are
men who believe in the fall. There are men who believe in
God's sovereignty. There are men who believe in the effectual
redemption of Christ and election. They believe in perseverance.
They believe all these things. But they're arguing over who
started the church. or who ought to come to the Lord's
table, and who ought not. Whether this is supposed to be
done, or church government this way or that way, over how to
baptize, strife over, you know, I could go on and on. There's
always something over the law, the place of the law, all this
sort of thing. And the Indians strive. And he
talks about them down here in verse 16. They preach Christ
of contention. They not only contend for the
gospel, they're contentious in contending for the gospel. You
know what I'm talking about. And these men preach Christ. All preachers aren't the same.
I want you to understand this now. Some indeed, verse 15, preach
Christ out of envy, jealousy, strife. arguing, debate, contention,
some of good will. These people that preach out
of Indian strife, verse 16, they preach Christ in contention,
not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds. You heard
old Paul, wonder why they do that. Well, you never know. The
thing is, like I'm saying, preachers are human, human beings. And then he said this other group,
though, they preach Christ out of love. They love me. They love the gospel I preach.
They love Christ. They know I'm set for the defense
of the gospel. They know that I'm dedicated
to preaching the gospel. I wouldn't compromise the gospel
of Christ. Well, what kind of attitude is
he going to take towards these men? These are men who preach Christ.
Now, I'm telling you, these are not false preachers, because
Paul would not have rejoiced in a false preacher. He says,
these are my colleagues and my brethren. They're men who know
the gospel, who love it, and preach it. But they're men, and
they have problems with jealousy and envy, and they have problems
with strife and contention, and they're just hard to get along
with. Not sincere sometimes. Maybe
they've got a bad motive sometimes. But what are we going to do about
it? All right, listen to it. Now here's the right attitude.
What then? Verse 18. Notwithstanding in
every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preaching. And I therein do rejoice and
I will rejoice. Christ is preaching. In other words, he says this,
and you run into it, folks hand you literature and so forth,
your pastor doesn't do this, doesn't do that, doesn't preach
this, doesn't preach that, and it happens all the time. But
this is what Paul said, whether in envy or jealousy or in love,
whether in contention or strife or confidence, whether they're
for me or against Whether they love me or hate me, I just don't
care as long as they preach Christ. That's right. Leave them be. Let's don't adopt the means and methods of those
who don't please Christ in means and methods. A friend of mine
told me one night, he said, why don't you have a debate with
people over the gospel? I said, if you get in a spitting
contest with a skunk, you're going to lose. There's no way to win. You just don't do that. All right, just ignore that,
will you? The judge says to the recorder,
make out like he didn't say that. Jury, forget that. All right,
just forget it. But he says here in verse 19,
I know that this will turn to my salvation. Of his soul? Oh no. Now listen, let me help
you a little bit. You read that verse, work out
your salvation with fear and trembling. The word salvation
in the Bible doesn't always talk about the redemption of the soul.
The word salvation means deliverance. And Paul said, I know that all
this shall turn to my deliverance. Deliverance, probably twofold.
Number one, everything works together for good to them that
love God. I know that, he said. I know that. It doesn't matter
what they do. It's like in this church or anywhere.
If what people do, it'll be for our good and His glory. But then
he, I believe he's talking about this too. You remember when Peter
was in prison? And they prayed for him and the
angel set him free. Paul said, maybe, listen, through
your prayers and the supply of the spirit of Jesus Christ, I
may get out of this place and preach again. I might do it. I just might get out of here
and come back down and preach to you. Work for my deliverance. My deliverance. All right, let
me give you this and I'll close. I want you to understand this,
he said, verse 20, let this be clear. Verse 20, according to my earnest
expectation and my hope, this is my hope and expectation, all
things considered, that in nothing I shall be ashamed. In nothing
shall I be ashamed. I'm not ashamed of the gospel.
It's the power of God and the salvation. I'm not ashamed of
Christ, though he would crucify. I'm not ashamed of God's sovereign
grace. I'll submit, and you will too,
I believe in the doctrines of God's sovereign grace to the
Word. I'm not ashamed. Not ashamed. In anything, I'm
not ashamed of Christ. I'm not even ashamed of my chain,
he said. He said, O Neciphros, my friend,
may God bless him, he said. May God bless him. May his household
find peace and joy in that day, because he wasn't ashamed of
my change. He wasn't ashamed of my change.
And I don't want to be ashamed. Secondly, but with all boldness,
as always, all boldness, I shall preach the gospel. And so now
also Christ will be magnified in my body whether I live or
whether I die. It doesn't matter whether I live
or whether I die, whether I'm in prison or free, my goal is
to magnify and exalt our Lord. I read a book the other day or
sometime back about an early martyr who was promised freedom. It was a woman. They brought
her to trial, and they promised her freedom if she would recant
and accept Catholicism, embrace Catholicism again, and deny the
grace of God. They said, we'll set you free.
She said, she replied, I didn't come here to deny my Lord. Word to God, we always had that
feeling. I didn't come here to deny my
Lord. I didn't. So for me to live is Christ. For me to live is Christ. He's
my life. He's the giver of life. He's
the sum and substance of life. In Christ, life has a purpose.
In Christ, life has peace. In Christ, life has joy. In Christ,
life has hope. He's the resurrection and the
life. So for me to live is Christ.
And for me to die is gain. Let me say something here. We weep when the Lord is pleased
to take away our loved ones and our beloved friends and church
family. We weep. We weep often. But we
don't weep for them. We weep for us. Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord. We don't weep for those who've
left this world, this terrible, terrible, terrible world. We weep because we miss them.
We miss their love and their fellowship, their presence. But
for the believer to die is all gain. There's no loss to it. We've lost their presence, but
they haven't lost it. Yeah, they've lost something.
They've lost this old flesh and gained a perfect body. They've
lost this old sinful mind and gained a holy mind. They've lost
all pain and all suffering and all disease and all death to
gain eternal health and happiness and joy. They've lost all their
doubts and entered into a full revelation. They've lost all
their ignorance, and they have perfect knowledge. They know
as they have been known. Can you imagine that? And you
weep over it? No. Won't weep for them. You
remember when Charlie Payne stood here and brought his last message.
You remember this? He said, don't weep for me. Don't
cry for me. We don't either. but we cry because
we miss him. See that? But he says in his
word, God will wipe all tears from their eyes, they not cry.
And there shall be no more death, and no more sorrow, no more crying,
no more pain, no more sleepless nights. In fact, there is no
night there, and no darkness, no weariness, No sadness. All things are new. So to die
is gain. No wonder he said in those next
verses, look, but if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit
of my labor, yet what I choose, I really don't know. I'm really
torn between the two. I'm in a strait between the two.
I have a desire to depart. I have a desire to depart and
be with Christ, which is immeasurably, unexplainably better Nevertheless, to abide in the
flesh is more needful for you. Is it worth it? It's not death to die, to leave
this weary road, and with our family on high to be at home
with God. That's not death. It's not death
to close our eyes long dimmed by tears. and wake in eternal
glory to spend eternal years. It's not death to bear the pain
that sets us free from dungeon chains to breathe the air of
perfect liberty. It's not death to fling aside
this sinful, frail dust and rise on angels' wings to live among
the just. Lord Jesus, thou Prince of Light,
Your chosen cannot die, for in thee they win over all the strife,
and will reign with thee on high. To me to live is Christ, to die
is gain.