Title: The Unstoppable Gospel
Scripture: Philippians 1:12-18
Speaker: Nate Pickowicz
Well, in his letter to the believers in Rome, the Apostle Paul wrote the following words. He says, I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. This one conviction drove his ministry, the conviction that the message of the gospel, the good news of the cross of Christ, is powerful to save despite any and all obstacles.
It really is an unstoppable gospel, and yet so many try. Throughout the course of history, beginning even in the days of the early church, one strategy for stopping or trying to stop the gospel was to silence its messengers. And for Paul and the apostles, that strategy resulted many times in intense persecution.
However, in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, Paul expresses his encouragement in the ministry despite opposition. I just want to read these verses to you from 2 Corinthians 4, as Paul gives his perspective on his gospel ministry. He says, therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.
But we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in craftiness or adulterating the Word of God, but by the manifestation of truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as bondservants for Jesus' sake.
For God, who said, let light shine out of the darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure and earthen vessels so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck down but not destroyed, always caring about in the body the dying of Jesus so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. Then he concludes this, so death works in us but life in you. Remarkable perspective from the apostle Paul.
Persecution destroyed their bodies, but it also bolstered their spirits. They knew that despite opposition, and oftentimes because of opposition, the gospel was advancing and accomplishing its work. And the question might be, well, what is the gospel's work? It is to liberate the slaves of sin and death by delivering the message that Jesus Christ has come into the world, died to redeem sinners through His substitutionary atoning sacrifice on the cross, and then rose again the third day to bring life.
And even in the face of death, God grants eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, and it was for this very gospel that Paul lived, it was for the gospel he suffered, and ultimately it would be for the gospel that he died. But somewhere right around the year 61 AD, Paul was imprisoned in Rome, and it was during this long imprisonment that he was visited by a man named Epaphroditus, who was the Philippian church leader. And upon receiving the full report on Paul's situation, Epaphroditus returns to Philippi with a letter in his hand, and that letter is going to be our focus this morning.
And so, if you haven't already turned to Philippians chapter 1, please do so. In Philippians 1, remember Paul begins with a lengthy greeting. We spent four weeks on this greeting alone, but he's expressing his thankfulness to God on behalf of the Philippians.
But more than thankful, Paul's actually joyful. He's joyful. He's joyful because of the church's participation in the ministry of the gospel, verse 5. He's joyful because of the genuineness of their salvation and their spiritual growth.
It's in his joy that he prays earnestly for their fruitfulness in the Lord, but now, after this 11 verses of introduction here, the greeting, it's time for Paul to give an update. He wants to let them know how he's doing, and I want you to keep something in mind here as we're reading this letter here, that they knew that Paul had been arrested. That was pretty much news around the entire Roman world, but they didn't know what happened since the arrest, because his ordeal began in Jerusalem.
If you read Acts 21, it progressed over many months, and now he's bounced from city to city. He's gone from governor to governor. First, he appears before the Jewish Sanhedrin in Acts 23, and then he gets bounced over to a governor named Felix, and then he gets bounced over to Festus, and then he's forgotten about for two years, sitting in jail.
Eventually, he's transferred over to King Agrippa, but then he appeals to Caesar, and once he does that, they put him on a ship, which then has a shipwreck off the island of Malta, and he's trapped there for a bit, but eventually, after all these trips and ordeals, he lands himself in Rome, and he's put under house arrest, and he's chained to a Roman guard where he remains for two more years. So, by conservative estimates, this whole ordeal has lasted upwards of three to five years, depending on the time he's writing this letter, and at that point, the believers in Philippi are starting to be eager to know, what's going on with Paul? Are we ever going to see him again? Remember, there's no phone call, there's no FaceTime, I mean, there's no postal service that's efficient still, but anyway, I mean, how do you get information city to city? You don't always know. I mean, there's even reports of people trying to find somebody in a city with no way of connection.
You don't know how they're going to get there. So, they don't know where exactly Paul is, how he's doing, what's the update? Is he still alive? Is he still preaching the gospel? Has he been beaten into renouncing his faith? They don't know, and so they would have been very eager to receive this letter, and even more encouraged by the news that they hear. And so, we're going to pick it up in Philippians 1, verse 12.
Here's the beginning of Paul's update to the church. Verse 12, he says, Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, and that most of the brethren trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill.
The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.
I rejoice. Now, we need to remember that this discourse, and we've paused halfway in the middle of verse 18 here, but this discourse actually stretches all the way to verse 26, and some Bibles will delineate here. Some Bibles actually will bold the number, the verse number, because in the original text that was a new paragraph, and so we do have a sense of the flow of thought based on the paragraph breaks.
There's no verse numbers in the original letters, and so there's a paragraph break right at verse 27. So, this discourse goes to verse 26 here. By chapter 1 verse 27, Paul is going to turn his attention back on the church in order to instruct them, but in this section, so verses 12 through 26, Paul is expounding on the progress of the gospel, and ultimately I believe the hinge of the passage comes to us in verse 21 where Paul tells them, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
I think everything else in this paragraph is kind of either pointing to or drawing from that sentiment, to live is Christ and to die is gain, because frankly, everything in life encircles that reality for believers. If you think about it, that's who we are. We're going to spend some time on that verse when we get to it, but here in verse 12, Paul is beginning his personal update.
Keep verse 21 in your mind as we're moving through this passage here, but I want you to look at where he goes here. What does he talk about while he's sitting in prison? He doesn't talk about his living conditions. He doesn't say, oh, the food's not that great.
My bed isn't so comfortable. He doesn't talk about that. He doesn't lament the slowness of the legal system.
Well, another day, another month, another year, he doesn't talk about that. He never complains about that. He also doesn't complain about his lack of freedom.
He doesn't complain about the guerrilla-sized soldier that's chained to him. He doesn't worry about any of those things. He's only thinking about the mission.
Well, how do you know? Well, look at the contour of the passage, even just these verses that we've read. What are the focuses? What are the foci? Is that a word, foci? Yeah. What's the focus of what he's trying to say? Just look at the passage with me.
Verse 12, his focus is on the progress of the gospel. Verse 13 talks about the cause of Christ. Verse 14, he's talking about the faith and courage of the saints.
Verse 15, he actually brings up the actual preaching of Christ. Verse 16, the defense of the gospel. Verse 18, he's rejoicing in the proclamation of Christ.
Just punctuated throughout the entire section. We're not even done yet. We haven't gotten to verse 19, 20, 21 and beyond.
His whole focus is on the mission of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I mean, this is frankly eye-opening. He sees his trials.
He sees his ordeal through the focused lens of the gospel. But I want to look at exactly what he says here. Look at verse 12.
He says, Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. Now, first he addresses the brethren, that is, the Christian believers who are in Philippi. He calls them saints early in the letter, but they are his brothers and sisters in Christ, the brethren.
And he begins to speak about his circumstances. Now, namely, he's under house arrest in Rome. He's awaiting trial.
There's a guard 24 hours a day. He's got all of them on a rotation there. But he's talking about more than just his imprisonment, because his circumstances also include the fact that he's not able to leave.
Now, he is free to move about the quarters that he's renting, but he's not free to leave. He can't go out and visit other churches. We know he doesn't go visit the church in Rome, because by the time he writes in the letter, he's never been there.
So, he can't leave where he's at. He's got to wait. We do know he was able to receive visitors, so that's good.
He wasn't in a cell or a dungeon like in other times of his ministry, but he's no less extremely limited in freedom. And remember, he's on trial for his life, because if the Caesar determines that he's a threat, off goes his head. And we know that a couple years later, that's exactly what happened.
And yet, all of this he sees in light of the mission. He's focused on the gospel mission. And so, far from limiting or even hurting his gospel ministry, he says, you've got to love this verse.
He says, my circumstances have actually turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. Think about that. This is fascinating.
The gospel is progressing further because I'm in prison. Of course, this isn't the first time the Lord has used adverse circumstances to bring about positive results. I mean, we see this in the Bible law over and over and over again.
But one standout example would be the situation with Joseph. You guys remember Joseph from the Old Testament? His brothers sold him into slavery. He was later wrongly accused and imprisoned in Egypt, even forgotten about, just like Paul for a couple years.
And even though he has a series of providential events, eventually Joseph becomes the leader in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. And ultimately, he saves the nation and his own family from the effects of the famine. And after confronting his brothers, they confess their sins.
They're still nervous because they think he's going to retaliate when their father dies. But he forgives them, and he says very famously, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. You could maybe rephrase that to say, my circumstances in Egypt have actually turned out for the greater progress of the purposes of God.
God is able to use bad, even evil circumstances to bring about His desired results. Now, in Joseph's case, it was the physical salvation of Egypt. But for Paul, it was the spiritual greater progress of the gospel.
In fact, this word for progress in the Greek is prokopon. It denotes making headway despite opposition. It's progressed amid difficulty.
It's advancement in the face of turmoil. It's like when you're a freight train and you're just chugging along and you're plowing through brick wall after brick wall after brick wall, but you're advancing. That's the sense of it.
That's the progress that he's making. That's how God used Paul's imprisonment. It was a tool through which the gospel progress was coming.
And after all, you have to consider that even if the man of God is imprisoned, 2 Timothy 2.9 says, the Word of God is not imprisoned. That's what all these world leaders for the last 2,000 years have not been able to figure out, is that even if you enslave and imprison and even murder the ministers and the people of God, they can't stop the gospel. You look at early church history, the first three centuries of church history, fierce opposition, amazing spread of the gospel.
I mean, by the time...this is not my note, sorry, history lesson. By the time you get to the Edict of Milan in 313, okay, when Constantine legalizes Christianity and suddenly all these imprisoned, beaten, tortured Christians are now popular and accepted, there were reports, I mean, these people were coming in missing eyes, missing hands, scars on their back. I mean, their pastors were beaten and bruised and scarred for the sake of the gospel.
You cannot stop the progress of the gospel. It doesn't matter what you do. And in fact, again, this is only going to bring about progress.
Well, then we ask the question, well, in what way did this gospel progress come about? Look at verse 13. Paul says, he says that there's a greater progress of the gospel, verse 12, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and everyone else. Now he's making reference to the actual imprisonment, not just all the circumstances, but to the imprisonment itself.
The Greek word for imprisonment is desmos. It refers to bonds or fetters or chains. In fact, the NIV, if you use an NIV translation, they render this part of the verse, I am in chains for Christ.
That's a sense of it. But Paul identifies that his situation is well known. Everybody knows that he's in prison.
The whole region, the whole city knows he's there. And what's crazy is that no one is accusing Paul of an obvious crime. He's not in prison because he did something wrong.
He's not even accused of doing something wrong. Well, how do we know? Because if he were, the last three governors would have dealt with him as a criminal. Ever think about that? Felix, Festus, Agrippa, they would have been like, oh, that's a no-brainer.
You're going to prison or we're going to kill you. But they couldn't find anything wrong, so they kept on passing the buck to other people. The only crime he was guilty of was preaching Christ in a culture that regarded Caesar as Lord.
That's his only crime. And they all know it, but nobody wants to pull the trigger yet. They have to go to Caesar for that because he keeps on appealing as a Roman citizen.
He keeps on appealing. Look, I'm not going to talk to you. I'm going to go to Caesar and talk about this.
And so he says, my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known. Everyone is talking about this. They all know I'm here.
Particularly, he says, it has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard. Who or what is the Praetorian Guard? Now, many historians have tried to figure out the origins, the theory behind the origin of this guard, but it's generally accepted and agreed that this was an elite group of soldiers that were charged with guarding the palace, guarding the Roman government, guarding Caesar. Again, they were the top tier of soldiers.
They were handpicked by the Roman emperor, and it's estimated they were between nine and ten thousand soldiers in the Praetorian Guard stationed throughout the whole city of Rome, and their job was to keep the peace, obviously, but also to protect the emperor. And so in the case of a political prisoner like Paul, again, politics being that he was a threat to Caesar being lord, he was assigned members of this guard 24 hours a day, and they were on four-hour shift rotations. So, every four hours, a new soldier would come in, and they would guard the apostle Paul.
While they were there, they would have seen him praying. They would have seen him studying the scriptures. They would have been there when he entertained friends and visitors.
They probably would have been engaged in conversation. I can't imagine they said very much to him, but you know that Paul said a lot to them, right? I mean, how could he not? And after two years, Paul was assigned a lot of soldiers. I just did some quick math because I was bored this week.
I did some quick math. There were more than 4,300 four-hour shifts in a two-year time period. 4,300 shifts.
Now, I'm sure some of these guys were on a repeat assignment, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that Paul could have personally interacted with more than half of the entire Roman guard during his imprisonment. Like a revolving door, these high-ranking soldiers are coming in and sitting with him, and as they leave, they're going out, and they're talking to other people. They're talking to other soldiers.
They're talking to other prisoners. They're talking to the people they're guarding. They're talking to the members of the government, because he says over time, they all begin to talk to one another, and Paul says, and everyone else knows about it, too.
It's like one big Roman gossip chain. They're just all talking about Paul sitting in prison, and you got to love this. At the end of the letter, chapter 4, verse 22, Paul tells the Philippians, all the saints greet you.
I love this, especially those of Caesar's household. That's Paul winking at the church, saying, the gospel's going out, guys. Even Caesar's household, there are believers now.
So, far from stopping the progress of the gospel by imprisoning Paul, they instead brought the most effective evangelist in Christianity into the nerve center of the Roman empire. Paul is a gospel Trojan horse. That's why he can say, my circumstances have actually turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.
Why do you think he keeps on appealing to Caesar? Because I want to go to the heart of this thing. They can kill me if they want. That's fine, but I'm going to get there, and if I don't, somebody else will.
That's what Paul's thinking, but there's another reason he gives as for the progress of the gospel. Not only is the cause of Christ becoming known throughout the upper echelons of Roman government, he adds in verse 14, he says, and that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the Word of God without fear. So, at this point, Paul shares something about the brethren who are in Rome for the sake of the brethren who are in Philippi.
He uses the same word, brethren. He's talking about believers now. So, now he's making reference to the believers who were in the city of Rome where Paul is, and he says that all the believers in Rome, he says, most of them now in their trusting of the Lord, and then he says they're trusting in the Lord in this way because of my imprisonment.
They heard about me being there, and because of that, they're now trusting in God. The Greek word is patho, translated trusting, but it denotes a confidence or a persuasion. It's a confident trust, and so what's happening is that they're hearing about Paul in prison.
They're hearing about his ministry of the gospel in their own city, so that while they're hearing about this, while he's imprisoned, the gospel is spreading like wildfire, and this convinces the believers who are already in the city of Rome of the power and the grace of God, so that they begin trusting God all the more, and then they themselves begin sharing the gospel. They're bolstered by Paul's confidence and boldness, and they say if Paul can keep doing it under the threat of death, sitting in prison, if he can keep doing it, I who am free in the city, I can do it too, and so now Paul's imprisonment is encouraging and bolstering the faith of those in the city, and Paul notes, in fact, that the whole episode is produced in them a zeal whereby they have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. See, persecution does something for the church.
Far from slowing or stopping the efforts, it actually propels it forward. Very famously, one of the early church fathers, I think it might have been either Tertullian or Origen, but he said that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Persecution propels the gospel forward, because when you see a faithful Christian standing for Christ, even when they're opposed, it emboldens other people.
Many of you are reminded of this this past week, a couple days ago on September 10th. The whole country remembered the death of Charlie Kirk. He was shot and killed literally in the middle of defending biblical morality, like mid-sentence, talking about causes in our country that were directly tied to sin, and he always would bring in the gospel, the salvation in Christ as the solution to these ails.
Right in the middle of defending biblical morality, he was shot and killed. What did that do for the cause of Christ? Well, first of all, it emboldened Christians to begin talking more openly about their faith, but secondly, it caused non-Christians to begin asking questions about Christianity. I want to be clear here, I'm not talking about conservatism and politics, I'm talking about Christianity.
Well, why Christianity? Let me just read this stat to you. According to the Wall Street Journal, hardly a sympathetic publication to Christianity, according to the Wall Street Journal, Bible sales surged 36 percent the month after Charlie died. 36 percent.
In October 2025 alone, 2.4 million Bibles were purchased. So even death can't stop the gospel. If anything, it propels it.
It moves it forward, and that's what Paul's reporting here. Far from scaring the Roman Christians into silence, Paul's imprisonment, his cause, is igniting their evangelism. Tomao in the Greek, it's to become courageous, to be bold, even to be daring.
Their boldness was producing a daring effort to the point where you don't even care about the opposition, you don't even care that you're going to be arrested, you don't even care of the blowback. It doesn't matter. Proving Paul's conviction, they were not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
It is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes. Again, persecution cannot stop the progress of the gospel. Now, in verse 15, Paul seems to pivot just a little bit, and it's interesting because he shares some information that you might not expect.
You read this verse, and you're like, well, that's an interesting thing to say. In the torrent of evangelism taking place in Rome, he notes that some of these people who are doing this, some to be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife. He addresses the motives of some of the preachers that were preaching in Rome.
Now, scholars have often wondered, and I read a whole bunch of commentary this week about the identity of who these people might have been, who were they, why did they do this? One theory is that these detractors were Judaizers living in Rome who were preaching a distorted gospel, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Well, why not? Well, for starters, because number one, Paul never identifies them as Judaizers, but secondly, if they were preaching a false gospel, he would have condemned them just like he did in Galatians 1.8, because when he hears people are preaching a false gospel, he says, anyone who preaches a false gospel is anathema, you're accursed. So, he doesn't blast them with a curse because they're preaching a false gospel of law-keeping.
By all accounts, these detractors are actually genuine Christians preaching a saving gospel. And so, while they're likely sincere Christians, they're also sinning Christians. Their motives for ministry are wrong.
He uses a couple words here. Phlanos in the Greek is envy, it's petty jealousy, and then eris, translated strife, means wrangling or contention. So, they were pro-Jesus, they were just anti-Paul somehow.
And we see these kinds of attitudes in other places. I mean, I'm just reminded of 1 Corinthians chapter 1, just listen to what Paul says about this problem in Corinth. He says, I've been informed concerning you, brethren, by Chloe's people that there are quarrels among you.
Now, I mean this, that each of you is saying, I am of Paul, I am of Apollos, I have Cephas, I have Christ, and he says, has Christ been divided? Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? The rhetorical answer, or the answer to that rhetorical question is no. Why are we splitting up and creating factions and squabbling and tribalism and divisions? Why are some of these Christians against Paul? Well, we don't know. I can speculate why they're against Paul.
Maybe they're jealous of his apostleship because Christ called Paul, and He didn't call any of them. People get very petty and jealous over things like that. Maybe they were jealous of his giftedness.
Maybe they were turned off by his methods, and they thought they could do better. And I'll tell you, this strikes a very real chord for all of us, doesn't it? And I'll admit to you, I remember being a young believer, listening to a preacher sitting in the pew, and I remember thinking to myself, in my foolishness, in my sinfulness, I could do better than that. Ever experienced that? Don't raise your hand, but ever experienced that? I could do better than that.
That's not so hard. And then you get into it, and you're like, this is kind of hard, actually. Do it for 47 years, Mike? Boy, oh boy, that's hard.
But it doesn't matter. That's not the point. The point is there's something that resides inside of us that sees someone doing something you want to do, someone doing well, and we kind of turn on them.
We get petty, we get jealous, we strife, we fight, and we bicker over, if you think about it, things that don't have any real significance. Whether you preach, I preach, they preach, you're fighting over something that's really foolish, and it's the wrong motive. And Paul says, regardless, they were preaching Christ, but they were doing it from envy and strife.
But then he notes, there were some also who were preaching from goodwill. They were doing well. They did it joyfully, eudokia, good pleasure.
They were called to preach, and they got up, and they proclaimed the gospel, and they did it joyfully, happily, encouraged. They were doing well. They were sharing Christ from a pure heart.
And then he adds in verse 16, the latter, talking about those people out of goodwill, he goes, the latter do it out of love, knowing that I'm appointed for the defense of the gospel. Ultimately, their motive for evangelism is love. They love God, so they preach.
They love the lost, so they preach. They even love Paul, so they preach. See, they knew that Paul was appointed for the defense of the gospel, and they wanted to join him in that mission.
They saw that God had called them to something. They saw that he had been appointed, and they wanted to come alongside and aid him in the work. They had eternal vision.
God's using that guy, so you know what? I'm going to jump in because I want to be part of what God's doing. It doesn't matter who the person is that God is using for the work. It doesn't make a difference because that person's going to die, the next one's going to come in.
It's just a revolving door for the Lord. I mean, He uses all of us. Same is true here.
Someday I'm going to die, and this pulpit's going to be filled by somebody else, and he's going to die, and the next guy will come in, and all of you, you're going to pass on to glory. Your kids will be here, other believers, hopefully new believers. He's just going to cycle through, and he's going to keep the light of the gospel going.
We are kind of immaterial, frankly, but they saw that he was called and appointed for the defense of the gospel, and they wanted to join him, but here's the thing. For Paul, this wasn't optional. There was a call on his life.
He admits that he was appointed. The Greek word used here for the word appointed, it's a military term referring to the issuing of orders. You might even say Paul admitted that he was ordered to preach the gospel.
He says it elsewhere, Galatians 1.15, he tells the church that God had set him apart from his mother's womb and called him through his grace. I didn't choose to do this. I was called, I was set apart from birth to do this.
He recognized that later in his life. He was born for ministry. He was called from birth.
He's not just a preacher. Specifically, he's an apologist. He makes arguments.
He makes defense. That's what this word defense, apologia, means. He was called and commanded to defend the gospel.
He says it elsewhere, 1 Corinthians 9.16. He says, for if I preach the gospel, I have nothing to boast about. I can't brag to you that I get to preach the gospel. Like, I'm doing something.
He says, I can't boast about it. He says, for I am under compulsion. For woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.
There's something about God calling you. Now, I'm not talking about some elevated, famous, whatever, whatever. That's not it.
When God calls you to the ministry of the gospel, He doesn't just say you're called and tag you in. He puts a weight on you. And He says there's a weight of responsibility.
You are appointed for the defense of the gospel. You are not allowed to deviate from that appointment. And there is a holy drive that motivates you.
And you can't escape it. It's with you in the daytime. It's with you in the nighttime.
It's with you on the weekends. It doesn't make a difference. And at a certain point, and this is Paul's argument here, at a certain point, Paul's saying, I'm enslaved to the gospel because if I don't do it and I run away like Jonah, I'm going to drown.
He's going to kill me. I am required to preach the gospel. That's where Paul was.
Woe to me if I don't do this. You think I'm flustered by prison, Paul says? Prison is nothing. If I don't do my job, there's a greater consequence for me.
Roman guard, that's nothing. You should look at the angels. So Paul is in prison specifically because he was obedient to the gospel call in his life.
And he says some of the believers acknowledged that they joined him from goodwill. They did it out of love. They were joyfully joining him out of love for the ministry of the gospel.
Then he says in verse 17, the former, those who are doing everything from envy and strife, he says, the former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. Again, these detractors are proclaiming Christ. They're evangelistic, genuinely.
And yet they're doing it out of selfish motives. Eretheia is the Greek word. It's self-seeking, even rivalry.
It's when you're in it for yourself. See, we play these weird spiritual games. We manifest spiritual pride in doing ministry and service because what we do elevates the self.
And yet while we do it, we give lip service to the glory of God. And I'll tell you, believers, we all play this silly game sometimes. Why? Well, why do we all play this game? Because our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked.
That's why. And we do these things knowing they're going to elevate ourselves. So-and-so will see me doing this.
This will work out good for me. This will get me in good with this person. This will get me into a Bible study teaching or whatever the motive is.
And we say, well, yeah, I'm sharing the gospel. I'm doing God's work. And so there's sort of a dichotomous thing happening in our hearts.
And that's what's happening here. They're preaching the gospel. Hey, we're preaching the gospel, but they're doing it for themselves, selfish motives, self-seeking rivalry.
It's not from pure motives, Paul says. And yet in Paul's case, they weren't only preaching Christ out of ambition. He says, they were also thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment.
It goes even further. They weren't just doing it for themselves. They were doing it against Paul.
Now, you might be asking, well, how could preaching the gospel be distressing to Paul? Well, there's a lot of answers that have been offered to how this came about. One theory is that maybe they were bad-mouthing him or they were bad-mouthing his methods while they were preaching. I know you heard about the apostle Paul in prison.
Oh, we're not like him. That guy's crazy. No, let me tell you about Jesus the right way, disparaging him.
Or maybe they were just trying to rub it in his face that they were free. They had free speech. They could do whatever they want.
You're the one who's limited. Or maybe they were just undermining Paul's authority and preaching, even though themselves were disqualified as leaders, that Paul, he's some apostle he is. He can't even get out of prison.
I'm going to go do what I'm supposed to do, elevating the self. But we don't know how this came about. We don't know exactly the circumstances, but we know why they had it in for Paul.
Their ministry was in spite of Paul. Well, how did Paul respond? Did this preaching of the gospel bother him? That can play tricks on us, too. We see somebody else doing well in ministry.
They're preaching the gospel. They're doing well. Their church is growing.
They're doing whatever it may be. And we say, oh, gee whiz, I wish I could. We grumble about that.
Is that what Paul does here? Not at all. Look at verse 18. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice.
It doesn't make a difference here. Some have captured the sense of his phrase, what then? What does it matter? What do I care how this all comes about? The gospel isn't thwarted by human opposition. It's not thwarted by persecution, selfish ambition, adverse situations.
It doesn't matter in every way. I don't care whether it's through pretense, the wrong motives, whether it's in truth. It doesn't matter, right or wrong.
He says Christ is proclaimed. As long as he's proclaimed truthfully, accurately, biblically, the true Christ, the true gospel in the true way, he says if that's happening, I rejoice. I rejoice.
This word in the Greek is kairo. It's rejoicing. It's gladness.
I'm happy when people share the gospel. It doesn't have to be me, Paul says. I don't care if you're doing it.
I'm going to do it. You do it. We both do it.
If Christ is proclaimed, I'm happy. That's a good day. And so it doesn't matter who, doesn't matter why, doesn't matter how.
Isaiah 55 11, my word the Lord says, which goes forth from my mouth, it will not return to me empty without accomplishing what I desire and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it. In other words, God's going to get his word out. It's his prerogative.
We're just the vessels. We're just the tools. We are earthen vessels.
If we apostatize, he will move us out of the way and he'll bring someone else in to do it. If it's the wrong motive, still going to go out. The right motive, imprisonment, freedom, God's going to do it.
The gospel is unstoppable. And if the gospel is the power of God for salvation, not us. Well, how many people did you lead to Christ? Zero.
Yeah, but you've been preaching. It's not me. It's not me.
It's not you. But what if I mess up the gospel? As long as you get the essential parts right, you can stumble over your words and misspeak and trip up and what people get saved. I'm curious about a show of hands.
I won't do it for the sake of the spectacle, but I would wonder how many of you got saved through kind of a clunky, awkward presentation of the gospel. I bet it's quite a few. And we always do.
We do this. We finish talking to somebody and we go home and we, ah, I wish I had said this instead. I misquoted that verse, and I was nervous, and we beat ourselves up.
Now, I'm not saying that's not licensed to get the gospel wrong, but we're not perfectionist here. It isn't on you to save people. It's on the Lord through His gospel.
And so, if anything, that should loosen the bonds for you. That should open it up. Just talk to people about Jesus.
Give them your testimony, how Christ saved you, called you out of darkness and light. This is who I was. I once was lost, now I'm found.
I once was blind, now I see. And that's testimony. We heard five testimonies two weeks ago in the water.
They were all different, different ways to talk about it, different experiences. Some of them were nervous, and you could tell they were a little bit nervous, but it was awesome, wasn't it? It was amazing. Not because we're amazing, but because of what God's doing.
It's His gospel that is the power of salvation. And so, in the end, this is not about pride. This is not about competitiveness.
This is not about selfish ambition. If the gospel's preached incorrectly, it needs to be corrected. But if the message is faithful, if the gospel's going out, it is cause, beloved, for rejoicing, to celebrate when the gospel's going forth.
I hear about the work that's happening in New England right now. I had lunch with a pastor who just got to Franklin. He was just called as a pastor in a church in Franklin.
I'll talk more about that probably in the coming weeks. But this was an old liberal church that was dying. They got sick of it.
They called a gospel minister. He's there now. I am so happy he's there.
It's awesome. Just to see this young guy. He's 26.
I'm like, oh, I could be your dad. That burns, man. Because I'm like, oh, we're the same, right? You ever play that game? I mean, he's there.
He's proclaiming the gospel. He's on fire. He's zealous.
He's excited. I'm like, praise the Lord. There's a gospel witness in Franklin.
And then he told me there's another guy in town that I know. He's preaching the gospel too. I'm like, I didn't know that.
That's great. Gospel ministry in Dover. Gospel ministry in Hampton.
Gospel ministry in Concord. Chichester. I don't care where.
I mean, it's so exciting. This is not all about Harvest Bible Church. This is about the gospel of Jesus Christ going forth in every possible town, corner, anywhere to see New England, New Hampshire revived for Jesus.
That's what this is about. We're just a small little piece of it. Let's just get this corner down, okay? The proclamation of the gospel.
God is redeeming the lost. He is building his kingdom. And guess what? We get to be part of it.
What a great joy. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word.
Thank you for the privilege of proclaiming the gospel. Thank you, Lord, that all of us have been called to participate in that ministry of the gospel. That we get to share with people that Jesus Christ saves sinners.
We get to share that all of us have sinned and fall short of your glory. That all of us have turned away from your law. We are wretched at heart by thought and word and deed.
None of us have obeyed you perfectly. And all of us, because of that sin, are worthy of death. And yet you have sent your Son, Jesus Christ, into the world, perfectly righteous, perfect God in human flesh, to give your life, O Lord, as a ransom for us.
To die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. To bring about forgiveness and reconciliation. To pay for our entire debt, past, present, and future.
All of our sins have been extinguished through your blood and sacrifice. And you died on the cross. You are buried in the ground.
And yet you rose again the third day to bring new life. And Lord, we're so encouraged to know that it is not by our works, it's not by our efforts, it's not by how good we are. Rather, we turn from our sins, we confess them to you.
And we put our faith, we trust in the promises that you've given through Jesus. We believe the gospel and the Bible says we're saved. So Lord, help us to be very clear and explicit about that message to other people.
Lord, help us to proclaim salvation for sinners through Jesus to all creation. Lord, let us start here in Gilmanton, but let us keep going. And Lord, I want to pray not just for our church.
Lord, you know I pray for this church, we pray for this church. But I pray that you would continue to raise up gospel preachers, and pastors, and evangelists, and elders, and deacons, and leaders, and missionaries. Lord, would you raise up leaders all throughout New England? Put them in dead churches to revitalize.
Plant new ones, Lord. I pray that you would just infiltrate the darkness with the gospel of Jesus Christ in such a way that there's not a single ear in this geographical region that has no idea who you are, that they would all know that Jesus Christ is Lord. Father, would you accomplish your work here? And Lord, would you be so pleased to do so through us? We thank you that the progress of the gospel cannot be stopped.
It is to your praise, and to your glory, and for our joy that we pray this in Jesus' name.