To Live For Christ

To Live for Christ

Philippians 1:15-26

Good morning.

Jim Elliot was a passionate evangelist and a martyred Christian missionary.

The pursuit of his life was to intimately know the Lord, to tell others about Jesus, and to obey the call, Christ had for his life.

Jim Elliot committed his life to evangelism and international mission work so, he attended Wheaton College to study linguistics, and there he met his wife Elisabeth.

Following God’s call, Jim and Elisabeth traveled to the Ecuadorian jungle to reach a secluded people group for Christ.

On January 8, 1956, while attempting to make contact with a native Ecuadorian tribe, Jim and four other missionaries were speared to death by members of that tribe.

But Jim’s legacy lived on through his wife Elisabeth, who moved into the same village with their young daughter, to live among those who had killed Jim and the other missionaries.

His life is a testimony to the world about the absolute worthiness of Christ, and the costly call of the Christian to follow Jesus.

Jim Elliott famously said, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep, to gain what he cannot lose.”

Please open your Bibles to Philippians 1, as we continue in our verse-by-verse study of Paul’s Epistle to the Church at Philippi.

Last time, we studied where Paul continued in prayer for the Philippians, and communicated that the Gospel being shared, is more important than the trials of this life.

The Apostle Paul was not telling the Philippians to have a blind love but rather a love based on the standards of God.

Paul said biblical love, is a love that has knowledge and all discernment, to approve of the things that are excellent, i.e., discern the things of God which are more valuable or different.

We learned that Paul’s arrest furthered the Gospel, as we discussed the age-old question of “Why do bad things happen to good people?”

Part of trusting the Lord is trusting Him during the trials and suffering in life. Sometimes the Lord removes the trial from our lives, sometimes He allows trials to teach us a lesson.

Finally, we learned that Paul’s boldness to preach the Gospel while under arrest, gave the other Christians around him confidence and boldness to speak about Jesus as well.

As Christians, we are left on earth to represent the Gospel and to fulfill the call of Jesus.

Today, Paul will teach about some of the adversities he faced in the ministry, as well as the importance of living for Christ.

So again, Paul’s boldness to preach the Gospel while under arrest, gave the other Christians around him confidence and boldness to speak about Jesus as well.

I. Motives while preaching.

Read Philippians 1:15-18

Who was Paul speaking about when he said, “Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife”?

There were some, who wanted to have a larger following than Paul and desired to promote themselves instead of Christ. These could also be people who were jealous of Paul’s ministry.

However, most commentators think Paul was specifically referring to the Judiazers.

Judaizers were a group of Jews who would accept Jesus as the Messiah but also believed that Christians needed to follow the Levitical laws of the Old Testament, as well as receiving Christ.

Judaizers wanted Christians to adopt some of the Levitical practices of observing the Sabbath and following certain dietary Laws, while certain extreme Judaizers denied the deity of Jesus.

Paul wrote to the Galatian church at length, about these men.

The Judiasers believed that a Gentile had to become a Jewish proselyte to Judaism first, to be circumcised, follow the other Mozaic Laws, and then they could come to Christ.

Paul asked the Galatians if they thought they could be right with God, by some work of the flesh.

Galatians 3:2 This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Galatians 3:3 Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? NKJV

In Acts 15, a council was formed to deal with this very question.

Acts 15:8 So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us,

Acts 15:9 and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. NKJV

Paul seems to point out that self-ambition, a desire for strife, or jealousy, as motives for some who were preaching Christ.

There are quote, unquote, pastors today who preach for selfish ambitions, and there are also some pastors who teach an all-emotional Gospel with wrong motives, as well.

The Lord will judge people for preaching with wrong motives.

James 3:1 My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment. NKJV