I guess we all know the difference between a pessimist and an optimist. A pessimist is someone who describes a glass as half empty while an optimist sees it as half full. A pessimist is someone who, on your birthday, will say: "May your day be better than it probably will be!" Some people are born like that. Others develop into it as a result of the various hardships they face in life. But how does that happen? We all face hardships of various sorts, some more than others. But some seem to be able to cope better than others. It isn’t the degree of trauma we experience. It’s doesn’t seem to have anything to do with our background, our education, our material well-being. Some of us find ourselves tied down by the past while others simply shrug it off and move on?
I guess one of the factors in this is that it’s always easy to feel sorry for yourself. I mean no-one else round here seems to feel sorry for me so I’ll have to. We look back on our past and can only see the hurt, or the failure, or the guilt. But let me suggest that there’s another way of looking at the past. It’s a way that will help us look at the present and the future in a better light. That’s the way that Paul looks back at his recent past as he writes this letter to the Philippians. What he does as looks back at his life is to look for God at work; to look for signs that God’s word is at work in the places and people that he’s come into contact with; to see God’s Spirit moving in people’s hearts either despite or perhaps even because of the things that he’s suffered.
I’ve summarised this under a number of headings beginning with ’What’.
What has happened to Paul?
He says "I want you to know, beloved that what has happened to me has actually helped to spread the gospel." What’s happened to him, of course, is that he’s been arrested in Jerusalem under false charges. He’s realised that he won’t get a fair hearing in Jerusalem, so he’s appealed to the Emperor. As a result, he’s been sent off to Rome, and on the way he’s experienced various hardships, including a violent storm at sea, culminating in a shipwreck during which he was almost put to death by his guard. And now he’s in prison in Rome, probably guarded night and day by members of the palace guard, awaiting trial and possible execution. But his circumstances haven’t worn him down. He’s still rejoicing, because of :
What has happened to the gospel.
Now remember, his Jewish opponents wanted to silence him. They probably thought he was out of the way and could do no further harm. But on the contrary. His imprisonment, far from stifling the preaching of the gospel, has actually advanced it. He says, "it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to everyone else that my imprisonment is for Christ."
Here’s one for the books! Far from the preaching of the gospel being hindered, it’s resulted in the elite regiment, the Imperial Guard, all hearing about Christ. You can imagine how it’s happened can’t you? Paul probably has a Roman soldier guarding him day and night. So what is their conversation going to consist of? "What are you in for?" "How did you get involved with this weird sect?" "You seem like an intelligent, educated man. Surely you don’t believe that this Jesus guy actually rose from the dead?" And so the conversation would go. And you can imagine the way the story would get around the imperial guard. It’d get so the soldiers would be vying with each other to get on the Paul shift, just so they could hear some more of this strange story: of people being healed, of snakes biting people and them not being hurt, of Gentiles being welcomed into what appears to be a Jewish sect. And I imagine before long, some of the guard are deciding to become followers of this Jesus Christ, as they hear from Paul how their sins can be forgiven and they can be made right with God; how they can come into a personal relationship with the creator of the universe. Being in chains, you see, is no impediment to preaching the gospel. It just means you have a captive audience!
You know there are people today who feel like they’re in chains. Not physical chains, but circumstantial chains. Chains that bind them to an office, or their house, or an invalid relative or some other responsibility that they can’t escape. But there’s no reason to let those chains stop you from preaching the gospel. Preach it where you are. Share the good news about Jesus to those others you come across who are equally bound down by the chains of life. See whether God can use your situation to grow his kingdom.
That’s what Paul found as he looked back, as he focussed, not on the hurts and hardships, not on the betrayals and disappointments, but on God at work in all his circumstances. Doesn’t it make a difference to how you read the past when you look for the way God has been at work in it? But it doesn’t stop there, because Paul then moves on to look at:
What has happened to the Church.
He says, I may be in chains, but look at what’s happening around me. "Most of the brothers and sisters, having been made confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, dare to speak the word with greater boldness and without fear." Again, the Jews probably hoped that Paul’s arrest would scare people off preaching the gospel, but no, the opposite is happening! Believers are looking to Paul as an example of someone who puts his faith on the line; who means what he says. They’ve actually been made more confident by his imprisonment, so they now dare to speak out with even greater boldness than before. Now why is that? Why is it that a leader being imprisoned would lead his followers to greater boldness than before? A hint of the answer might be found in vs27&28. "Only, live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that, whether I come and see you or am absent and hear about you, I will know that you are standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel, 28and are in no way intimidated by your opponents. For them this is evidence of their destruction, but of your salvation." What is it that’s evidence of the truth of the gospel according to those verses? It’s the fact that they stand firm against opposition. So too, as they see Paul standing firm, even though he’s in prison facing possible torture and execution, they’re encouraged that the message he’s been preaching is indeed true. That it is worth dying for. That they don’t need to fear human opponents.
But that isn’t all. He knows that there are some in the church, as well as outside it, who are opposed to him. But even that doesn’t bother him. He knows that there are some who are competing with him for popularity, but he isn’t going to play that game. He isn’t in it for the fame or the popular acclaim. What he cares about is whether Christ is being preached. If they work harder to preach the gospel out of envy or rivalry, well, at least the gospel is being preached! And on the credit side of the ledger, there are those who proclaim Christ out of love, knowing that Paul’s been put in prison for the defense of the gospel.
One of the things that helps us when we’re feeling sorry for ourselves, when we’re feeling like victims is not just to look back at how God has been working, but also to look around us at those others who are working with us to further the gospel, to live faithful lives under God, to grow as Christians. To see that we’re not on our own, even if we do feel like that sometimes.
What about the Future?
One problem with being a pessimist, or living life as a victim is that it’s difficult to approach the future with any enthusiasm. If your whole worldview is shaped by the perception that you always end up as a victim, the future can only hold more hardship and suffering. On the other hand if we’ve looked back on our life and seen those times when God was at work, if we’ve made ourselves conscious of the good things that God has given us, and if we’re constantly looking around us at the way he’s still at work in our lives and the lives of our friends, then we can look forward to seeing him do even better things in the future.
Before I came here to Wattle Park I spent 7 or 8 months filling in time (or so I thought) in a locum at Montmorency. I remember when the Bishop first rang me to say he didn’t have a Parish for me to go to after my curacy, feeling very worried and despondent. And it didn’t get any better when he suggested that perhaps I could fill in for a couple of days a week at Montmorency. I thought, "How terrible! I’ll no sooner get to know them and I’ll have to leave. And what can you do in a few months anyway?" And I could have felt like that for the whole time I was there. Felt like a victim of the system. Felt like the Church had let me down. Felt it was unfair for them to expect me to live on a half stipend paying my own rent while I waited for them to get their act together. But you see, what I discovered as I ministered there for those few months, was that God had work for me to do. There were people there who’d benefit from my short time of ministry among them. The gospel could be preached even if you only had a couple of days a week to do it in, even if the congregation was small. What that did for me was to give me great hope as I came here, that the gospel could be proclaimed here as well; that I’d be able to minister here full-time even more effectively than I could part time there.
But Paul has other things in mind as he looks forward. For him there’s quite a bit of doubt about how long he has on this earth. There’s every chance that the Emperor could condemn him to death for his strange religious ideas. And so, although he says he knows that through their prayers and the help of the Spirit things will turn out for his deliverance, he doesn’t know whether that deliverance will be from death or through death.
Solzhenitzen, in one of his books about the Siberian concentration camps, makes the point that, for the Christian, death is the ultimate freedom. That’s the conclusion that Paul comes to here. He says, there’s no fear in death. For the Christian, to live is Christ but to die is gain. In fact to depart and be with Christ is far better than anything that we might experience in this life. Henry Venn was one of the founders of an influential group of laymen known as ’the Clapham Sect’. It’s said of him that when the doctors told him he had a fortnight to live, that fact transported him into such joy and excitement that he lived an extra 3 months! So to die is gain. Still, Paul says, "If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me;" and in fact is more necessary for his disciples in the churches. So he’s convinced that that’s what God will do. Note though that it won’t be easy. He says that courage will be needed. He implies that they should pray for him that he’ll have the courage necessary to stand up for Christ so that Christ will be exalted in his body. Finally,
What response should we have to life’s circumstances?
He concludes this section by saying: "live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." That could be our motto today couldn’t it. "Live your life in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." But what will that mean for us?
Well, it’ll mean the sorts of things he’s talked about already:
Loving with the love of Christ, as we saw last week. It’ll mean sharing in God’s grace. That means offering grace and forgiveness to others who have wronged us. It’ll mean rejoicing in God’s goodness to us, rejoicing in the way the gospel is bearing fruit, rejoicing that our Christian friends are growing in their love of God. It’ll mean growing in our own knowledge and love of God, in purity and righteousness. It’ll mean standing firm against the opposition of the world, standing firm against the temptation to waver in our commitment to God, or to waver from a Godly moral and ethical viewpoint.
Notice, by the way, as I pointed out earlier, that the very fact that we stand firm in our beliefs is a sign of the truth of the gospel, and of the false position of those who oppose the gospel.
Finally, it might mean sharing in Christ’s suffering. Suffering for Christ the same way Paul did, and the same way countless Christians down the ages have suffered on Christ’s behalf. But always with the sure knowledge that just as God saved Jesus from the finality of death, so too he will save us, raising us to eternal life with Christ.
The test of any aspect of the life we live is this: is it worthy of the gospel of Christ? Or to put it another way, does it commend the gospel? Is my life such that when people look at it they’re attracted to its source, the love and grace of God? Do people look at me and say "I’ll have what he’s having." Do people look at us as a church and see us standing firm in one spirit, striving side by side with one mind for the faith of the gospel. Does our unity shine out so that people want to join us and experience the fellowship that comes from being in Christ? That’s what Paul longs for his readers to experience in their Christian walk.
So the challenge for us today from this passage in Philippians 1 is to live lives that are worthy of the gospel. To look back on our past, not as victims, looking only at the hurts and disappointments we’ve experienced, but with eyes open to God at work in us. To be encouraged by the many ways that God has been active in and around us. Then to look at how God is at work right now in our own life and in the lives of our friends so that we’re encouraged and strengthened to move into the future with courage and a firm conviction that God is in control of whatever happens to us.
