Technicolor Joy: Philippians 1:12-18
Gospel-Centered Ministry
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
5-14-2023
On January 8th, 1956 Jim Elliot, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and their pilot, Nate Saint landed near a river in the jungle of Ecuador. They had spent months learning the language and trying to make contact with the Huaorani Indians. What happened next is hard to watch. They were murdered by the Huaorani Indians they were trying to reach for the Gospel. As Steve Saint dies, he’s able to tell them “I am your sincere friend.”
Five young men with their whole lives ahead of them, with wives and children, had sacrificed their lives in Ecuador for the sake of the call of Christ.
Was it all for nothing? Did they die in vain? Did their deaths have meaning in God’s plan?
At the end of the sermon, I’m going to tell you the rest of the story so stay tuned.
Review
We have been going verse by verse through the book of Philippians over the last month.
Paul has celebrated their Gospel-driven fellowship that they share with him. They have supported Paul’s missionary endeavors for over ten years. They love Paul and he loves them.
Last week, we studied Paul’s Gospel Saturated Prayer:
“And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God.” (Phil 1:9-11)
Paul then moves on to a report on his Gospel-Centered Ministry, which we will look at today.
Turn with me to Philippians 1:12-18.
Prayer.
Paul rejoices that the Gospel is advancing despite opposition
"Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel.” (Phil 1:12)
The Philippians hadn’t seen Paul in years and they were worried about him. They wanted to know how he was doing.
They waited with anticipation for Epaphroditus to return with some news about Paul.
When he returned, he brought a letter from Paul to be read to the congregation.
When they heard, “I want you to know brothers and sisters…” their ears perked up and they got ready for a full rundown of the past few years.
Instead, he uses five words, “What has happened to me.”
Five words to describe:
going to Jerusalem and getting accused of starting a riot because people thought he had brought a Gentile into the Temple.
“Fellow Israelites, help us! This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people and our law and this place. And besides, he has brought Greeks into the temple and defiled this holy place.” (Acts 21:28)
The mob began to beat him and he was arrested for his own protection. He asked to speak to them and shared the Gospel.
He was brought before the Sanhedrin, he shared the Gospel and they couldn’t decide what to do with him.
there was an assassination plot against Paul and he was transferred to Caesarea at night.
Felix heard his case but decided to leave him in jail for two years.
Festus took over for Felix and asked Paul if he would be willing to go back to Jerusalem to stand trial.
Paul answered:
“I am now standing before Caesar’s court, where I ought to be tried. I have not done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. If, however, I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!” (Acts 25:10-11)
He was put on a ship bound for Rome and it sank!
He was shipwrecked on the Island of Malta for three months, where he was bitten by a poisonous snake!
He finally made it to Rome where he was held, in a rented house, chained to Roman guard twenty-four hours a day. He was awaiting a trial before Nero that would either end in being set free or execution.
Instead of taking pages and pages to complain and whine, as I would have, he summed up all the events of the past three years with “what has happened to me.”
This is Paul’s divine perspective. Everything that had happened to him “actually served to advance the Gospel.”
The word “advance” was a military term used for a special advance unit that cleared the way for the troops.
Paul’s circumstances, as frustrating and painful as they were, cleared the way for the Gospel to be preached in Rome.
Paul had always wanted to go to Rome and share the Gospel there. Rome was the center of the civilized world. If the Gospel could take hold in Rome, it would spread like wildfire.
Well, Paul did end up in Rome, not as a preacher but as a prisoner! And the Roman government financed the whole trip!
To Paul, the circumstances that he had experienced weren’t important, what was important is that the Gospel was advancing.
Paul uses the term “gospel” nine times in this letter. The Greek word means “good news.”
Before we move on, let me remind you of the acrostic we learned last year:
God created us to be with Him
Our sins separate us from God
Sins can not be undone by good deeds
Paying the price for sin, Jesus died and rose again.
Everyone who trusts in Jesus alone has eternal life
Life eternal starts now and lasts forever.
He rejoices because the Gospel is advancing despite obstacles. Is he a nut? A glutton for punishment? No, Peter agreed;
“In all this, you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” (I Peter 1:6-7)
The NIV Application Commentary brings it home for each of us:
“When difficult, even life-threatening circumstances face us, we should take Paul as our example and look for how God might be working in such circumstances to advance the gospel either in our lives or in the lives of others”
John Bunyan was ordered multiple times not to preach. When he continued to do so, he was arrested and put in prison. He continued to preach in the prison courtyard and his voice was so loud he could be heard outside the prison walls and hundreds of people started showing up each day to hear him!
So they thought they solved the problem. They put in the very inner recesses of the prison in solitary confinement. He was done, or so they thought.
While in the cell, he wrote the greatest Christian book outside the Bible the world has ever known - The Pilgrim’s Progress. This book continues to bring people to Christ and encourage Christians to this very day.
John may have been chained but the Word is God is never chained! ?
Paul gives two examples of how these events have served to further the Gospel.
Outside the Church
As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. (Phil 1:13)
Paul was a political prisoner and Roman society loved political gossip. Everyone was interested in the happy prisoner waiting for Nero to cut off his head.
He was chained to a member of the place guard. This unit, like special forces, had 9,000 soldiers who were bodyguards for Caesar.
Paul was in a rented house and could have visitors. What do you think it was like to be chained to Paul for hours a day? What do you think they talked about? The Gospel!
Days were spent meeting with pastors, disciplining new converts, answering questions, or writing letters like Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, or Ephesians all while that guard listened.
How about when it slowed down and it was just the two of them? What do you think they talked about? Jesus!
These were men that Paul would have probably never been about to get to with the Gospel and now he is chained to a different one every six hours. That’s called a captive audience!
We know that some of these guys came to Christ because he mentions them in chapter four.
The prisoner was leading his guards to Christ. Do you know that still happens today?
[Phil shares his testimony - was led to Christ by a prisoner at the correctional facility he worked at].
You may feel like you are
chained to a desk. Chuck Colson was led to Christ by someone he worked with.
to a never-ending laundry basket. Suzanne Wesley had 19 children! I’m sure she felt chained to motherhood at times. But two of her sons, Charles and John, turned all of England upside for the Gospel.
or to a sick bed.
Charlotte Elliot was an invalid who was confined to a bed. What could she do? She wrote hundreds of hymns, including one of my favorites:
Just as I am - without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee,
-O Lamb of God, I come!
Point to Ponder: Is Romans 8:28 real to you? Do you really believe that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord? Do you have an eternal purpose that through the trials and tribulations of life God is working behind the scenes for your good and His glory?
B. Inside the Church
And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.
Paul was the greatest evangelist in the world and he was under house arrest. But that didn’t stop him from joyfully sharing Christ with as many people as he could.
His boldness was contagious! The Christians in Rome saw Paul’s courage and began doing the very thing that got him arrested in the first place - talking about Jesus!
This doesn’t mean that all the Christians were standing on the street corners asking people if they knew the Lord as their Savior.
The word “proclaim” means “everyday conversations.” Wherever they went, they brought Jesus into their conversations confidently and fearlessly. It doesn’t have to be weird.
I was with a missionary at Baby Bulls once and he asked the waitress, “Do you know why my friends are so happy? Do you know why they are smiling?” She shrugged and asked if we wanted coffee. He said, “They smile because of Jesus. Do you smile because of Jesus?” She shrugged and said, “Decaf?”
As I said, boldness is contagious. What if I said that we had buses outside waiting to take all of us to Walmart in Pontiac and each of you had to talk to three people about Jesus? Some of you just got excited. Others of you just threw up in your mouth a little.
But it would be easier if we did it together and encourage one another.
We used to take students to an evangelism conference in Chicago called Dare 2 Share. In the afternoon, we would take the students door-to-door and they would ask for food to support a local pantry and try to share the gospel.
One student was about to have a panic attack she was so afraid. Two other students grabbed her and they went to the door, rang the doorbell, and waited. No one came to the door and this student started jumping up and down for joy!
During the reign of Bloody Mary, two Protestant pastors, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, in Oxford were accused of heresy and burned at the stake.
It is reported that Latimer sensed that Ridley needed some encouragement and said,
“Be of good comfort, Master Ridley, and play the man; we shall this day light such a candle by God’s grace in England as shall never be put out.”
What gets rid of the fear of persecution? According to John Piper:
Believing Jesus is real
Believing that my sins are forgiven
Believing that God is for me
Believing that God is Sovereign
Believing that glory awaits us
Point to Ponder: The writer of Hebrews encourages us: “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds…”. One of those “good deeds” is sharing the Gospel with others. Not just with unbelievers but also with each other to help us to be bold in our faith.
Paul rejoices that the Gospel is being preached, no matter the motives
“It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.” (Phil 1:16-17)
Paul is now going to give two examples of pastors that are preaching in Rome.
Before we begin this section, it’s important to point out that the people he is writing about are born-again Christians and they are preaching the real Gospel.
But the motives of these two groups of pastors could be more different.
There were some pastors that were telling their congregations that Paul must not have the blessing of God in his life anymore because he was in prison.
Paul was the most famous evangelist in the world. Rome was abuzz with talk about him. He planted churches and God had used him mightily.
They were envious of Paul. This word means not only to be jealous of another but to desire that other person to fail.
They preached out of rivalry. This word means to canvas support, like when running for a public office.
They wanted people to forget about Paul and give them the accolades they deserved.
They preached out of selfish ambition.
With Paul in chains, these pastors saw an opportunity to grow their own platform and fame.
They literally wanted to irritate and frustrate Paul. Talk about kicking a guy when he was down!
But there was another group of pastors that loved Paul and knew that God had him in that situation to further the Gospel.
With Paul in chains, they felt the duty to take up the slack and preach even more fearlessly to be an encouragement to Paul.
F.B. Meyer was a brilliant Baptist preacher who just happened to live and minister at the same time as Charles Spurgeon. Meyer would stand outside his church and watch the train of carriages headed toward Spurgeon’s Metropolitan Tabernacle.
Later in life, it happened again as G. Campbell Morgan’s ministry eclipsed his own. One time, they were both speaking at a conference and Morgan spoke to an overflowing crowd. Meyer was up next and watched as people filed out of the auditorium during his sermon.
He found himself envious and bitter toward Morgan and one morning God convicted him of those attitudes. He committed himself to praying for Morgan’s ministry and became one of Morgan’s biggest supporters.
I want to make it known that we are not in competition with any of the other churches in Chenoa. And there are people who come to Christ through churches that we don’t necessarily agree with and we celebrate that.
What was Paul’s response to these pastors that were preaching out of envy to make his life harder?
"But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.” (Phil 1:18)
Who cares! It’s not the messenger or the motives that count but the message. If Christ is preached, God can use pastors with mixed or even bad motives.
To Paul, the only thing that mattered was the Gospel and he rejoiced to see people coming to faith in Christ!
I’ve always remembered the message that Count Zinzendorf’s tombstone has on it (his life motto): Preach the Gospel, Die, Be Forgotten).
Point to Ponder: Do you and I look at our circumstances this way? Do we see that it really doesn’t matter what happens to us as long as the Gospel is advancing and people are getting saved?
The Rest of the Story
Three months after Jim Elliot and the four other missionaries were killed, Time magazine ran a ten-page article about them, with a picture on the front cover.
This led to one of the greatest missionary surges of modern times, with hundreds surrendering their lives to go and reach unreached people.
Nate Saint’s sister, Rachel, and Jim Elliot’s wife, Elizabeth, actually moved into the jungle to live with the tribe when they were hit with smallpox. They lived with the very men that killed their loved ones.
Elisabeth wrote:
“The fact that Jesus died for all makes me interested in the salvation of all, but the fact that Jim loved and died for the Aucas intensified my love for them.”
Today, this people group is no longer considered unreached because nearly the entire tribe are born-again Christians!
I love this picture. A replica of the yellow Woodbee airplane reminds all the people of that area of the five men that were willing to die to bring the Gospel to them.
Here is a video of one of the tribesmen that killed the missionaries sharing the Gospel with Nate Saint’s son, Steve.
Did they die in vain? NO! God used their deaths to call many to missions. God used their deaths to bring the entire tribe to Christ.
Would they have been okay with that? Yes. How do we know?
Because Jim Elliot wrote in his journal these now-famous words:
“He is no fool to give up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
