It is an entirely normal reaction to lament our circumstances when we are in the midst of suffering, and all the more so when we feel that specific kinds of suffering—illness, injuries, or even imprisonments—keep us from the work that God has commissioned us to do. But, while such a reaction may be normal, Paul’s own reaction to his circumstances of suffering help us to broaden our understanding of what God is doing in and through our afflictions, even to the point of rejoicing in the way that God is working.

Certainly, Paul could have easily made the case that his greatest effectiveness for ministry would have meant getting out of prison and back on the road planting churches in unreached areas. Nevertheless, in Philippians 1:12–18, Paul instead rejoices. But it is not only the case that neither his personal circumstances nor his external enemies are capable of thwarting the progress of the gospel; even more so, Paul rejoices to see that God has in fact used both kinds of setbacks even to advance the progress of the gospel. Regardless of his miserable conditions, Paul insists that he will rejoice in the new ways that he sees Christ proclaimed.

We continue this morning hour sermon series in Paul's letter to the Philippians. Turn with me to Philippians 1:12-18, we'll be looking at those verses this morning.

12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much bolder to speak the word without fear.
15 Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. 16 The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. 17 The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. 18 What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.
Yes, and I will rejoice,
Philippians 1:12-18, ESV

This is the word of the Lord. As we start this morning, I want you to consider a situation that some of you may be able to readily identify with a situation where sometimes when I'm driving, especially in the summer where there's more construction happening, I see a sign. I mean, maybe driving in the right lane and I see a sign that says right lane closed ahead. Well, very dutifully and diligently, I very quickly merge over into the left lane and get in line, and I patiently wait there and you know, typically the pace slows to a crawl and I'm patiently, dutifully diligently waiting with everyone else in this line. Waiting my turn, putting in my time. Until I look in my mirror and see someone whom I shouldn't describe from the pulpit speeding ahead along the right side, having the audacity to try to merge in ahead of me. Now, if I'm going to stoplight and someone's trying to get in from a parking lot or something, I find that enjoyable. I mean, it's a nice thing to do, let someone in in that situation. When someone has the audacity to try to cut in, I never hug a bumper closer than at that time.

I discovered this week, that I'm wrong about that. There's something called there's actually research on this, it's called zipper merging. It just like what it sounds. What you're actually supposed to do, the state of Minnesota has been promoting this since the early 2000s, you are actually supposed to make use of both lanes for as long as you can. Rather than bringing the cars and forming one long line, you're supposed to make use of both lanes for as long as possible. Then just sort of allow each of the cars to merge together, zipper merging. That can save up to 40 percent of everyone's time. Think about that, 40 percent of everyone's time, in these situations that we have to put up with when we are merging in construction on the road. I read that this week in a part of me thought, I don't care. My personal ego is deeply wounded when I put in my time and someone cuts right ahead of me.

Paul is in a situation here where there's a lot going on that his ego is at stake. He's in chains, he's in prison. His personal circumstance is a deep blow against him and the effectiveness that he could be having if he didn't suffer this setback. Not only that, but he has these rivals, these opponents who are actually preaching against him. By the end of this passage, he says, well, what am I to make of all this? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed and in that I rejoice. His ego is not worth the advancement of the gospel he's seeing taking place in front of him. How do we get that mindset?

Let's look at what Paul does. He starts off here in verse 12, saying, "I want you to know brothers." Now what's important to understand is that everything before this point is sort of dictated by the form of ancient letter writing that was sort of universally understood and applied that you'd start with the greeting. We talked a little bit about this last week. You'd mentioned the sender, you'd mentioned the recipients, you'd give some kind of greeting, then you'd offer some type of thanksgiving for the people to whom you were sending the letter. This was sort of standard; everyone wrote a letter in this way.

Now in verse 12, now it's when it kind of comes to the free form section where you can write about the subject for which you set out to write the letter. Here Paul could be talking about his circumstances. In fact, we almost wish that he would, because we'd like to know a little bit more about his circumstances. He doesn't tell us about his circumstances. He tells us about something different. Now part of this is because the Philippine church knew a lot about his circumstances. The book of Philippians is actually a thank you note, at least in some sense, a thank you note for the gift that the Philippines had sent to Paul in light of his circumstances. If you sort of flip a page over in Philippians 4:18, Paul writes, " I have received full payment, and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God."

So, the Philippians know that Paul is in jail, they know he's suffering, they know he has needs and they have actually reached out with this knowledge to support those needs through their gift. So they know a little bit about what's going on. What he says then, is not to give them more details about his situation and the disposition of his case. He says, I want you to know brothers that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. He says, I look at my situation, my personal circumstances, and eventually he'll talk about his rivals, his opponents, and he said, I'm looking at this and I'm overjoyed, I'm amazed, I'm blown away. Don't worry about me. Do you know what's happening? The gospel is advancing.

So he gives two ways in which the gospel is advancing through his own personal circumstances. One of those is in verse 13, he says, "What has happened to me is really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ." He says, through my chains, through my imprisonment, people have come to know that this is for Christ, that I'm suffering for Christ. What is happening to me is for the sake and the glory of Christ.

Well, he talks about the imperial guard of the Praetorian Guard. These were really the bodyguard of the emperor. They were an elite forces group. What this probably suggests, this is one of the clues that we have to read into this that Philippians was written while Paul was in prison in Rome, because the Praetorian, the bodyguard of the emperor, would have been stationed at Rome.

So he's here at Rome and the imperial guard, the Praetorian Guard, is in charge of guarding Paul. Now, what that would have meant is in six hour shifts, the Praetorian, these crackerjack elite troops would have been chained to Paul. Now Paul is looking at this and saying not how much his chains hold him back. He's almost saying, look at all of these people who are chained to me as a captive audience all day in six hour periods. The four people a day are a captive audience to me to proclaim the gospel to them. It's a total mindset shift. He looked at this as an opportunity and as all of these people have sort of worked their way through Paul duty, they've all heard the gospel.

It's a fascinating kind of a thing that Paul is talking about here, but then he says, and to all the rest now. We don't really know exactly who he's talking about here, but probably what he's talking about. He mentions later in this letter in Philippians 4:22, he says, "All the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household", the emperors household. Not family members of Caesar, but servants who served in the household of the Emperor. So these would have been cooks, these would have been cleaners, these would have been bookkeepers. These would have been anyone who served in the Palace of the Emperor.

He's saying through this, I have been able to preach the gospel so that it has spread about not just to the people, those poor saps who are chained to me, who have to listen to me, yammer about Jesus for as long as they are chained to me. Who think what a curious fellow who's so excited to be in chains for Christ. But the whole emperor’s household has come to hear this. All these other people have come to know about Jesus. This hasn't prevented me from preaching the gospel, it's been an opportunity that I never would have had without these chains, to preach the gospel to people I never would have come in contact with. It's a totally different mindset, a different view of this, and he sees it as a great honor.

On verse 14, he says it's not only that it's not only that I personally have been able to preach the gospel to the people chained to me, but in verse 14, he says, "and most of the brothers". So he said the whole imperial guard and all the rest have come to know that my imprisonment is for Christ. But now he says, well, not only that, but "most of the brothers, most of the fellow Christians, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment are much bolder to speak the word without fear." So there are other people who are looking at Paul's sufferings, seeing Paul preaching the gospel in the midst of his suffering, and by that becoming bold to preach the gospel themselves to speak the word without fear.

It's interesting the way Paul phrases that is, is that these people have become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment. My chains, humanly speaking, have been the instrument that God has used to make people bold to speak the word of the Lord. Warren Wiersbe, writes, "The same God who used Moses staff and who used Gideon's pictures and who used David's sling, all weapons, also uses Paul's chains. "The chains, they aren't holding Paul back. I mean, understand that Paul is the greatest evangelist and church planter the world has ever seen. These chains aren't keeping him from doing what God had called him to do, they are actually the means by which God gives him a different kind of ministry.

Now, this is fundamentally different than the way we often look at our suffering in our own personal circumstances. We say, why on earth is God brought this into my life? Why on earth has God brought that to afflict me? Well, notice again, Paul has this mindset shift. He's almost looking at his situation, not as something that is inflicted upon him, but is God bringing him a new situation, a new opportunity, a new place from which to do what he has called him to do, to preach the gospel. It isn't that Paul looks at this situation and thinks, well, this is a really good thing. In fact, frankly, Paul wants out of this situation. If you look over at Philippians 2:24 he says there, "I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come to you." In other words, I'm going to get out of these chains, and I'm looking forward to that. I'm trusting in the Lord that he's going to make this happen. What he's seeing is that this situation, even though it is a bad thing in and of itself, nevertheless, God is using this for the good of Paul and the glory of Jesus Christ by spreading the gospel through his chains.

Some of you were in situations you don't necessarily want to be in. You work next to coworkers whom you feel chained to. Some of you may feel to your feel chained to your young children who are there always every day with so many needs, so many needs. If we feel chained to people, that's one outlook on life. Paul teaches us, what if we thought of this is them being chained to us as an opportunity, a place, a platform from which we can preach the gospel to them?

In the midst of our personal circumstances, God advances his gospel. God also advances his gospel through another means through what Paul calls his rivals. So not just in his personal situation, personal circumstances, but also through opponents who are antagonistic to Paul, whom he talks about in verses fifteen through seventeen. Look at what he says is that "Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry." Well, who is he talking about? Well, some refers back to the brothers, fellow believers, that he talked about in verse fourteen. Later on in Philippians, Paul is going to talk about people in Philippians 3:2 whom he calls dogs and evildoers and those who in verse eighteen walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. That's a totally different group of people than he's talking about here in Philippians one. In Philippians one, he's talking about people in his immediate context, namely in the church at Rome. In Philippians three, he's talking about people who are in Macedonia who are preaching their false, heretical doctrines over near Philippi.

Here when he says some, he's talking about brothers who are preaching Christ, but from envy and rivalry. The word envy is not so much I want what you have. It's that, frankly, I don't want you to have something that I don't have. I don't care if neither of us get it, I just want to make sure you don't have it. That's the idea of envy. The idea of a rivalry is to pit yourself antagonistic against someone else. In verse 17, the way Paul describes it, "the former proclaim Christ out of rivalry, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment."

So what's he talking about here? Well, there's two possibilities, really, of the kind of preachers that he could be talking about and we aren't really given direct information more than what we have just in this passage here. The word rivalry suggests we could be talking about a doctrinal rivalry or a personal rivalry.

Let's start with personal rivalry, because that's a little easier to explain. If it's a personal rivalry, understand, Paul did not plant the church at Rome. Paul, we know in Romans chapter fifteen, when Paul's writing to the church at Rome before he was able to come to the church at Rome, he said in Romans 15:20, "I make it my ambition to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on someone else's foundation, but as it is written, those who have never been told of him, we'll see and those who have never heard will understand." Then in verse twenty-two, he says to the Romans, "this is the reason why I have so often been hindered from coming to you." I've been hindered from coming to you because my job is to plant new churches, to preach to those who have never heard the gospel. That's why I haven't been able to come to Rome and he doesn't get to Rome until he comes in chains.

He didn't plant the church there, but so there's already people there. There's already built in power structures, formal or informal power structures. Here suddenly comes this apostle who's a martyr, he's suffering for the Cross of Christ. People start to pay attention to him, maybe. They start to listen to him and maybe those who had the power in the Roman church start to see their power being lost to this apostle who comes in chains. So when they preach, they might try to specifically undercut Paul for personal reasons. That's a personal kind of rivalry.

There are also doctrinal kinds of rivalries. Now this is important to parse out because we see this all the time in the current day and age. So it's important to understand that as Christians, we believe that there are essentially three tiers of how important a particular doctrine is. At the core, the first tier, these are essential, non-negotiable doctrines. So, for example, we can't align ourselves with Jews who reject the New Testament because the New Testament preaches to us the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus being God's son, the final revelation of the Father. Well, if they can't accept the New Testament, then we have to divide from them. We also have to divide from Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons, for example. They accept the New Testament to some degree, but they use it to try to preach a different god in a different gospel. A god who is not one god who exists in three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So the father is not the Son or the Spirit, and the Son is not the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father or the Son. We don't have three gods, but one God. That's critical to our faith, critical to what the message of the gospel is. We can't unify with people who have a different gospel, that's first tier of fundamental importance.

Then we come, you know, we have to sadly distance ourselves and divide from the Roman Catholic Church. They would be in lockstep with us on the doctrine of the Trinity. I mean, you can read a book from a Roman Catholic on the Trinity and would probably be very profitable. We believe in the exact same way on the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet when it comes to the doctrine of justification, how someone is made right before God, we believe with Paul and the Scriptures, that gospel comes freely by grace through faith in Christ alone to the glory of God alone. Whereas the Catholics say, well, you have to have works in there too.

We believe that is a fundamental departure from the free nature of the gospel and we have to divide from that. We're much closer to the Catholics than any of those other groups, but that is so critical to the core, the essential parts of our faith that we cannot stand with them in unity. Those are the kinds of issues and errors that Paul is addressing in Philippians chapter three with the dogs, the evildoers and those who walk as enemies of the Gospel of Christ. People who undercut those fundamental core doctrines.

There's not only a first here, but there’s also a second tier. These are the issues that we believe are important, that are valuable for teaching. We have a particular viewpoint on them. The church has an official position on them. If I or any one of the elders, Tower as a pastor, or one of the other ruling elders or the deacons disagreed with those doctrines, we could not be officers here at this church. We see some room for difference. You can be a member here without necessarily subscribing to every one of the secondary issues. These would be issues like the nature of the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper. Some people are members here without believing that God commands us to baptize infants. That's OK. It's I mean, I believe it, the church teaches it, I believe the scriptures command it, and we practice it at this church and defend it from at this church. You could not be an officer if you disagreed with this, but you can be a member here, and we love that. We think membership should be as wide as the door to the kingdom of God.

This would also be issues of church policy. We're a Presbyterian church where elder run, that's important. We think the scriptures teach that. If you believe that bishops are the way to go or that congregational rule is the way to go. We understand we have relationships with other churches who hold those core essential first tier beliefs, who don't necessarily agree with us on that. Or the continuation of charismatic gifts, we believe that God ended those at the closing of the canon of scripture, but there are others who don't. All of these are secondary issues, they are important, they are valuable, we need to teach them, we need to shepherd people according to them. There can be relationships and we don't have to divide on the nature of those things.

If this is a doctrinal rivalry then what we are talking about here are people who have a theological hobby horse that is different and distinct from the pure gospel that Paul is preaching and proclaiming. Paul says on the one hand, they're brothers, on the other hand, they're preaching this and trying to antagonize me. They're trying to bring people in a different way and put down what I'm preaching while they are still proclaiming Christ.

Now understand this is a blow to Paul's ego. Someone is trying to merge at the last minute when Paul has been suffering for the sake of the gospel. Paul doesn't look at that to as an affront to himself. You know what he sees? He looks out on this and sees the gospel being preached. He sees Christ proclaimed. He sees the gospel that even though we are sinners separated by our sin from the holy righteous God of the universe, who exists in three persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This gospel that proclaims that the Father sent the Son into the world so that we might be saved through Jesus, his life, death and resurrection. This gospel is being proclaimed even if people are following theological hobby horses, or even if they simply just don't like Paul's presence there. Paul looks at this and says, I rejoice. Second tier issues, whatever, Christ is being proclaimed, the essentials are being announced.

By the way, that third tier, these are the issues that just aren't important. No one in this church is tested on whether they're Republican or Democrat or whatever. No one in this church is judged on whether they send their kids to public schools or private schools or home schooling. Those are issues left to your personal conscience. There may be parts of the Bible that inform sort of barriers and ways to think about that, but there is no one right answer. You have to look to your own personal conscience. We are not going to bind your conscience in any way for those third tier issues.

Paul looks at this situation, he sees that he himself is suffering and in chains, he rejoices. He looks out and sees people antagonistic preaching against him, either for personal or theological reasons, and he rejoices.

So the final question, the final issue, if Paul is able to rejoice despite suffering in his personal circumstances or despite suffering from enemies. We come then to verse 18 where he says, "What then only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed and in that I rejoice." He doesn't rejoice for the suffering that he is going through, per say, but he's rejoicing that through that the gospel is advancing. How do we parse that out? How do we gain that mindset?

When I was at my previous church, a sister church of ours, Redeemer in Lincoln. A very dear church to me. I was asked to preach one January evening, we met in the evenings, then in 2012. I had been preparing to preach from the gospel of John, kind of the middle portion of the first chapter where John the Baptist is speaking and addressing the fact that he is not the Christ. That he baptized us with water, but there was one coming after him the sandal of or the strap of who sandal he was not worthy to untie. He said, "I baptize with water, but you are looking for the one who baptized us with the Holy Spirit." That's who you need to be looking for. That's who the Christ will be.

As a part of my preparation process, I studied a church father's sermons, his name is Augustine. He preached three sermons on that passage, but they all seemed to be on a very small, strange issue. It was over what historically is called the Donatist Controversy. So back in the early church, there was a time when there was severe oppression and persecution that broke out on the church. There were pastors, elders, deacons who handed over the scriptures to be burned to save their own lives. Our word traitor comes from a Latin word that means to hand over. It's the same word we get our word tradition. Tradition traitor comes from the same word. It's the idea of treacherously as a trader handing over the scriptures to be burned.

These Donatists withdrew from the catholic church, not Roman Catholic, there was just one catholic in the sense of universal, lower lowercase C universal church at the time. They withdrew, saying, look, these people did something that was unforgivable. All that they did in their ministry is tainted. Everyone they baptized, everyone to whom they preach the gospel, everyone to whom they administer the Lord's supper, every pastor they ordained. All of those things are rendered null and void. You can't have a church there because the character of those ministers is corrupt.

Well, Augustine said that's not the case. These are people who baptized with water, but the real ministry is from Christ, who baptized us with the Holy Spirit. That's what those acts of ministry point to the work of God, not our work, the work of God. So he says this is why even if the character of those ministers was a was bad, you can still trust what they did, it's not rendered null and void.

Well, I sort of dismissed that that wasn't terribly important, I didn't think until Saturday night I got a phone call that our pastor was going to be suspended for an act that had disqualified him from ministry. It's a really hard thing for me, I really wrestled a lot with it. Suddenly I remembered that I had read these sermons from Augustine from this passage I was preaching on about how it's not the character of the minister that's important, it is the gospel that is proclaimed that is valuable. Understand this is a man who had baptized children in our congregation. This was the man who presided at my ordination. If his character could bring down the whole ship, then even my own ordination was suspect.
So I preached on this point in the night went and it was a very somber, difficult time for our church there.

What I learned from that, what was reinforced for me through that situation, is that God is the one at the end of the day who advances the gospel. We look at our lives and our situation, we look at laws and legal situations that are on the horizon, and we think that these things will be setbacks for us. We think that we may be coming to a place of deep suffering soon and we think, how will the gospel advance? We look at pastors being disqualified, right and left, and we think, is this really possibly true? Paul here looking at all of this says, understand when the gospel is proclaimed, God himself will build his church. God himself will advance the gospel. God himself will build a church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. You cannot thwart that. Your situations cannot thwart that. Your enemies cannot thwart that. As Christians, we have to have a fundamentally different view than the world can have about how much our situations and outside influences can actually stop the true thing that has to happen in this world, the establishment of the kingdom of God.

Paul says all of that is just the theater for God's glory. These are just plot twists that God is using to bring about a grander and more glorious finale when Jesus Christ returns. When the work, the good work that God began, he will be faithful to complete on the day of Christ Jesus as Paul said in verse six.

Some of you are in really tough spots. I don't want to make light of that. I don't at all. Difficult things, things maybe that I can't even identify with. But Paul suffered incredibly deeply. If anyone is qualified, don't look at me, I'm thirty-two years old, I'm wet behind the ears, but look at what Paul says in God's word. That we don't have to rejoice over our situations, Paul wanted to get out of prison. But that nevertheless, if we look around and see the gospel advancing in that we can rejoice.

Pray with me. Heavenly Father, God, we have exceedingly small faith. God, we look at our situations and we despair and we become anxious and we worry. But God, your son, when he walked this Earth taught us that it's just faith, the size of the mustard seed that's able to move mountains. The size of a mustard seed that grows into a tree, the biggest tree in the garden where birds can rest in the branches. So we pray God, we believe, but help our unbelief. Father, we ask that as we do an incredibly weak thing as we preach and pray and receive your food at your table, that you would strengthen us and that the gospel would progress and advance. Build your kingdom through us, in spite of us, over us, under us, around us and let us rejoice. No matter what is happening, the gospel will advance as Christ is proclaimed. Through your son's name, we pray. Amen.