Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Gracepointe Church (Dover, OH)
Philippians Series - Part 2 | Randy Garcete
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Paul’s Prison Letter Context
SPEAKER_00Number one, Paul writes this letter while under house arrest in Rome. So keep that in mind as we go through this sermon and this through the next uh this couple of months. Paul is writing from prison. He's under house arrest in Rome. That colors this letter. Secondly, Paul writes this letter to thank the Philippian church for their ministry partnership and support. So this is a church that has walked with Paul, supported him financially, uh, given him uh financial gifts, even when a lot of the other churches didn't. So they they they are very, very close to Paul's heart. And lastly, Paul covers three major themes through this letter. Uh, number one, joy and suffering. Number two, Christ's humility, and number three, how to live as citizens of heaven. This morning we're gonna be looking at verses 12 through 18 uh for this second sermon in the series.
The Streisand Effect Explained
SPEAKER_00Isaac, if you could put up the picture on uh on the PowerPoint, I would appreciate it. Can you guys see that? Okay. How many of you have seen this photo before or are familiar with this photo? Okay. So in 20 to in 2003, a wealthy actress uh and singer in California uh opened up a lawsuit against the photographer who took this aerial photo. It was one photo out of 12,000 photos that this this photographer took of the coastline along California to document soil erosion along the coast of California. She wanted to hide her home's information and protect her privacy, and so she sued him to try to get him to take this photo down from online. The lawsuit backfired on her uh after this, the lawsuit uh after she opened up the lawsuit, in the following month, uh 400 about 450,000 people uh downloaded or viewed the image online. And uh prior to the lawsuit, only six people had actually looked at the picture, and two of them were her attorneys. This lady uh was Barbara Strehand Streisind, and this became known as a Streisand effect. Um, and it's the the idea that the what the more you try to cover up or censor or hide information or a message, the the more unintentionally, the more interest you draw to it, the more uh curiosity is piqued from the very people that you're trying to hide it from. So this became this was a 7 million percent increase in visibility directly caused by her attempt to keep it hidden. This plays out especially online today, um and especially in in governments that try to censor or hide information from the public. And you see this play out in especially in book bands. Uh there's they they've documented a a pretty uh reliable um outcome of when a book is banned by the government. Typically, you can see a 12% increase in sales over the the following couple of months. Um in Argentina, there was uh the vice president in 2024 banned a book, relatively unknown book, and it is now uh on the bestseller list in Argentina.
Setback Becomes Gospel Momentum
SPEAKER_00So today we're gonna look at a similar dynamic that plays out in the life of Paul through his suffering and imprisonment in Philippi, or in the in his letter to the Philippians. What is meant to silence the gospel actually leads to its growth in spite of suffering. What looks like a setback for the gospel is actually a step forward for the progress of the gospel. Today I want to look at three ways that the gospel progresses through hardship. Three ways that the gospel progresses through hardship. Now, some of you here today are going through hardship right now. And so for you, it's not hypothetical. It might be uh illness, chronic illness, uh, pain. It might be uh financial, crushing financial burdens, uh, it might be relational pain, maybe in your family or in your uh in your employment. And it might be uh suffering that seems completely pointless. And like, what's the reason for this? What's the point of the hardship, the hardship that I'm going through right now? So I want to uh encourage you all, and I hope we can come away from this today with a renewed hope that your suffering is not in vain, that it's not meaningless, that God does have a plan for it, and that He does have a reason for our suffering. Maybe it might be the uh the cause might be through your own um through your own self, through your own consequences for decisions you've made. It might be through at the hands of someone else. It might be completely out of the blue. Let's look at verses 12 through 18.
Reading Philippians 1:12-18
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna read together and then I'm gonna pray. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has 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. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Let's pray. That was uh spoken so many years ago to a very specific church in Philippi. We thank you that these words have come down to us, inspired through the Holy Spirit, and that they can have a real impact on our hearts and on our lives today. I pray that you could uh through your spirit work in and through us, uh, and that your word might uh uh bring for bring about a big increase in our own growth and transformation as followers of Jesus. All this I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.
Praetorian Guard And Key Terms
SPEAKER_00So, a couple things to highlight here. If you note in verse 12, he says, I want you to know, brothers, and that's Paul's way of saying, listen up, guys. What I'm about to tell you is very important for you to know. I want you to know, pay attention. This is a meaningful claim I'm about uh I am about to make. He says, what has happened to me has really served to advance. Uh that word advance means to progress, to grow, or to um, I guess to to to to push forward. And then one other uh term I want you all to uh to be familiar with is in verse 13, has become known throughout the throughout the whole Imperial Guard. The Imperial Guard was known as the Praetorian Guard, and the Praetorian Guard was an elite group of Roman soldiers that were tasked with the responsibility to protect the Emperor and to uh to accomplish the Emperor's uh highest priorities. This was a group of soldiers that was was uh highly respected. They were paid up to three times the amount of a regular soldier, and one of their responsibilities was to protect or to guard a political prisoner by literally being chained to a political prisoner under house arrest for up to four hours at a time. Uh this was a a I I I was I can't really think of a modern-day equivalent other than when I think of the U.S. military, maybe like the Navy SEALs. I don't know. That's what I it's not a great analogy, but this was a highly respected group of soldiers, uh directly answerable to the emperor. And they were often stationed uh throughout the Roman Empire, primarily in Rome, and that's uh where we see Paul writing from, very likely chained to one of these praetorian guards under house arrest. So the verse verses 12 through 14, he describes what he's going through and the effects of his suffering. Verses 15 through 17 through 18, he describes this dynamic that we'll get into a little bit later, of how this uh uh rivalry within ministry amongst the Christians uh was was playing out and how that was bringing him affliction, but that Christ is proclaimed nonetheless. All right, let's
The Gospel Advances Through Suffering
SPEAKER_00dig in here. Three ways that the gospel progresses. Number one, the gospel progresses through our suffering. The gospel progresses through our suffering. Some of you here who are actually going through hardship right now hear that, and and maybe it comes across as trite or you you don't actually know what you're what you're talking about. Um is is if you're in the middle of pain, in the middle of suffering, it can be difficult to truly grasp that idea that God actually uses our suffering and progress the gospel can progress through our suffering. He says, What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. Remember, he's chained to a Roman guard, he's suffered imprisonment, beatings, he's been uh chased out of cities by mobs that have wanted to kill him. Because of one thing, the gospel. He has a dangerous message, and it's a message that threatened to overturn the entire known uh social world. And the message is this it's the gospel that Christ is king, not the emperor, not Caesar, that through King Jesus' death and resurrection, the entire world, all who come to him, can have forgiveness of sin, can have their sins washed away, and can have uh can be reborn and renewed and transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit. That all who believe in him will be saved and are given a new set of priorities, the priorities of the King. Not the Emperor's priorities, but King Jesus' priorities, the priorities of the kingdom. That namely uh that living a life consecrated to God and spreading the good news of the gospel to unbelievers, that is our priority as followers of Jesus. This meant that for the average citizen in Rome, you could no longer participate in the worship practices of the Roman culture. Uh, you couldn't participate in some of the festivals of uh the pagan festivals and rituals of their culture. And it meant that the poor, the oppressed now had dignity and inherent value because of the gospel. It meant that you didn't have to be defined by your past shame, your past uh sinful life, but that you now could be renewed and redeemed because of Jesus. And this message of the gospel literally disrupted the entire world to where I believe it's in Acts, uh there's a verse that talks about where they're accused, the apostles are accused of literally turning the world upside down. Now, this that's what's happening with the gospel here in the early church. So, what is Paul's claim? His claim to the church is that what has happened to me, my suffering, is actually serving to advance the gospel. That prison was meant to silence me, to stop the spread, to intimidate other believers, that is actually uh meant to completely squash out this movement of God. But that the unintended consequences of this are that the gospel is actually growing. And it's growing in two ways. Number one, the gospel is growing amongst unbelievers. He mentions how that uh uh the entire Imperial Guard is finding out that I'm in prison because of Christ. This was a hard-to-reach group of people, hardened probably through years of battle. Uh and because of his imprisonment, they're hearing about the good news of Jesus for the first time. Secondly, the gospel is empowering believers. He says that the brothers are becoming confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, and now they're much more bold to speak the truth of the gospel. So nothing, not even chaining Paul to a Roman guard, could stop the gospel's progress. I think what Paul is saying here is that my suffering is not a setback, it's actually a step forward. My suffering is not a setback, it's a step forward for the gospel. This is not a normal human response. For most of us, uh, I guess normal humans, you might say, um, our response to pain or to suffering is um confusion, discouragement, um, fear, fear of the unknown, fear of what might happen, fear of our worst fears coming to pass, anger, anger at the one causing me pain, maybe anger at God for not stepping in and stopping the suffering. This is what we tend to feel, and I think Paul felt some of these things as well. And I don't think he's making light of suffering, but I think his his message is incredibly hopeful, uh, at least in his own life, and I think by natural extension onto us, that God turns what looks like a setback for the gospel into a step forward for the gospel. And again, this is probably not a hypothetical for some of you all. You know what it's like to suffer. Um, and it's a hard truth to grasp. But I think uh Paul is illustrating that in his own life and to the Philippian church as well. The message isn't to paint on a smile and you know, how are you? Oh, just I'm fine, just dandy, just everything's great, and acting like everything's just fine. Um suffering is a big deal. But I think the hope here, the hopeful message is that God can use your suffering to further the gospel in your life and in the lives of those around you. I think the question that you and I must ask ourselves if we're in the middle of a period of suffering, is how can God use this to further the gospel? How can God use this suffering to further the gospel? And that might look like uh uh that might look like furthering the gospel in the life of an uh of an unbeliever that you're interacting with, uh opening up doors to share the gospel with people who might not have uh normally heard the gospel. It might look like encouraging the lives of believers in your life. Um and it might look like the Holy Spirit doing a work in your life through that suffering to bring about the gospel's uh work of transformation. Tertullian once said, uh, this is an early church father, he said, you guys have probably heard this quote, he says, The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. And it's sort of this idea that I talked about, the streisand effect, that the more you try to squash out something and kill something, the more it grows. That was the life of the church throughout history. This Toby talked about this theology of suffering that is evident throughout the the uh the New Testament, how Jesus tells us, rejoice when you suffer. Because I'm I'm up to something, I'm doing something through this. And it's it's a means by which the gospel can advance and grow in the world around us. There's a uh how many of you have the uh the songbook, the uh The Ausbund, sort of the the well-known Amish uh Anabaptist uh songbook. Uh I have one at home with English translations, and that that book is uh it's essentially a a songbook filled with the theology of suffering. For a lot of the early Anabaptists, uh this was core to what they believed about life in Christ. That we're gonna suffer for the gospel, but this is actually God's way to advance his cause. There's a a a verse in hymn number seven that says, The way to life is veiled in tears, still rest in this. Each pulsing woe shall bring thee more of God to know. Shall bring thee more of God to know. So the gospel progresses through our suffering.
Contagious Courage Defeats Fear
SPEAKER_00Number two, the gospel progresses through contagious courage. The gospel progresses through contagious courage. Look at verse number 14. Paul says, most of the brothers and sisters having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, so they've heard of his imprisonment, they hear that he's he's still he's not remaining silent, he's still preaching, he's still getting the message out there. They've become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, and as a result of that, they have become much more bold to speak the word without fear. Fear is paralyzing. Fear is paralyzing. Paul is supposed to be an example of what happens when you defy the laws of Rome. If you go against what what the Empire is is telling you to do, and you defy the laws of Rome, this is what's gonna happen to you. And you other Christians better pay attention because this is gonna be your fate as well if you don't shut up and be quiet. You are gonna be beaten, uh, you're gonna be imprisoned, chained to a Roman guard. Fear is paralyzing. And I think the the Christians who saw Paul probably had a lot of fear too. Um, how do you how do I keep talking about Jesus if I'm gonna end up in prison? Fear is paralyzing, but courage is contagious. Paul's boldness in sharing the gospel in prison filled the other believers with with uh with boldness and courage and saying, Hey, you know what? If Paul is Is doing this, we can do it too. There was an experiment done in the 1950s. This is called the uh the Ash Conformity Experiment. And uh this researcher recruited male uh college students for this study, and this was a uh it was a a vision test. And out of the out of the group of participants, uh everyone in the group was basically a um they were secretly supposed to answer the same, give the same answer to to to the question. And the question was this it was it was there was two cards. One card was uh had a single reference line, so just a line, and then the second card had three options with three different lengths of lines. And uh each everybody had to had to go around and say which of the the three options on uh on the on the uh on the second card matched the length of the reference line card. So what happened is that on the critical trials, okay, the first several rounds, uh the Confederates is what you you'd call the people that were all um supposed to answer the same thing secretly, they gave the they gave the uh the same answer, the correct answer. Um but there was one participant in the group that didn't didn't know that about this this uh this setup. What would happen is after the first several rounds of everybody giving the correct answer, the the majority of the group, the Confederates, would give the clearly wrong answer. And what they found is that the person who wasn't in on this uh would 30 around 30% of the time would would give the clearly wrong answer just because everybody else had given the wrong answer. Because they didn't want to be the odd one out. They didn't want to go against the flow, they didn't want to look like the like the like the moron. So what happened is uh about 75% of the participants over the the 12 critical trials at least once conformed to the rest of the group. But there was a really powerful factor that if even one of the Confederates uh disagreed with the majority and gave the correct answer, the conformity of the single person who was who was who wasn't in on it would drop from 32 to just 5%. Somehow hearing someone else go against the flow gave them the courage to also speak the truth as they saw it. One person's courage to be different than the group gave the others courage to speak the truth. This is what's happening here with Paul and with the Philippian church. It's pretty unlikely that uh any of us will be imprisoned for uh for the gospel anytime soon in America. I could I could be wrong about that, but it's it seems to be unlikely. But it does take courage to share your faith and to stand up for your faith uh when it's gonna cost you something. Maybe you're afraid of how your next door neighbor will react or respond if you talk about Jesus. Maybe you're afraid of offending uh your coworker if you talk about the gospel. And maybe in business, uh, if biblical faithfulness in business can cost you. So it takes courage to live out and to share the gospel. It can cost relationships, it can cost money, it can cost a lot of things. So it takes courage to go against against the flow. But I think there's there's something here for us in the example of of Paul and the Philippians that um being the person who has the courage to step out and go against the flow can inspire others around you uh to do the same, to step out in faith and in in uh with take a courageous stance. Know that possibly other possibly timid Christians are watching you, and that your courage can inspire them to live out a bold faith. The gospel progresses through contagious courage. I think of a man I met in in Tunisia, and this was a man from Armenia who owned a business, a tailor business. Uh he was a very good tailor, and his store was he said 50 meters from the the local police station. And the cost of sharing the gospel in Armenia, of of sharing your faith, is pretty high. I think he's actually in prison right now. 50 meters from the police station, but that didn't keep him from courageously sharing the gospel. People would come in, buy clothes from him, and he would just in the, you know, in the clothes aisles, he would, he would secretly ask them, Hey, can I pray for you? And his wife would do the same with the women that came in. And they had a little swimming pool, like a little kids' swimming pool in the back of their store that they would use for secret baptisms. Um that was in 2024, he's now in prison. But I hear stories like that, I'm like, what am How am I practicing gospel courage? How am I practicing gospel courage? If that man can do it 50 meters from a police station that is gonna throw him in prison, what am I doing in my neighborhood in Dover? So, my encouragement to you this morning, I think the the lesson we can learn from this here is courage is contagious. And let's let's uh watch courageous Christians and let's be courageous ourselves in how we spread the gospel.
Christ Proclaimed Despite Bad Motives
SPEAKER_00Number three, the gospel progresses despite impure motives. The gospel progresses despite impure motives. Verses of 15 through 18, just take a look down at that real quick. Paul describes an interesting dynamic that is happening in the ministry of various believers that are preaching the gospel of Christ. He doesn't give us a ton of details about who these people are. Uh, he doesn't seem overly concerned with sharing their identity or naming them. Most commentators agree that these aren't Judaizers, uh, but that these are actual Christians who are ministering out of impure motives. And he contrasts these two different groups of believers. And I'm just gonna, for the sake of clarity, call them Paul's friends versus Paul's rivals. Paul's friends, he says, they preach, they're motivated by goodwill. His rivals are motivated by envy and rivalry. Paul's friends preach Christ out of love, but his rivals preach Christ out of selfish ambition. His friends know that he's in prison to defend the gospel, but his rivals seek to afflict Paul while he's in prison. It seems like not every Christian appreciated or respected or accepted Paul's influence in the church. Maybe they in I don't know if they envied his influence. If maybe there was a uh this dynamic of jealousy. Uh maybe they wanted his authority or his the level of sway he held in the in the church. Maybe they wanted the financial support uh from the church like he had. We're not sure. He doesn't go into those details. But the point that Paul makes in these verses is this that despite this dynamic of rivalry, of envy, of impure motives, verse 18, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. In that I rejoice. I think this demonstrates a profound humility in Paul. Motives are tricky. Motives are tricky. Uh JP Morgan once said, a man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good and a real one. And Agatha Christie says, human motives are generally a medley of feelings and ideas, and it is a very rare thing for a man to act from a single motive. Motives are tricky. If my motives are impure, I believe others can probably see it sooner than I can. We're very good at deceiving ourselves. We're very good at deceiving ourselves and making and believing the best about ourselves, even if our motives are impure. We believe what we want to about ourselves, and the reality is often a little bit crustier than our own perception. Do I minister out of a love for God and for people, or do I minister out of a desire for recognition from others? Do I preach out of a love for God and for people? Or do I like public recognition? Do I serve with a desire to see the gospel grow in the lives of people, or um am I motivated by money or pride? What are my motives? Do I rejoice when I see my quote competitors thriving? Or is there a twinge of envy when I when I see another church or another organization that is growing, that is thriving? Is there is there a twinge of jealousy or envy there? Now, Paul, he's not excusing impure motives. He's not excusing or making light of sin. He's not saying, hey, these guys are like they're operating out of envy, pride. That's no big deal. Like Christ is proclaimed, we can ignore that. No, he's saying God works through flawed and broken humans. He accomplishes his purposes despite our weaknesses, despite our own uh mixed bag of motivations. His mission will be accomplished regardless of my own flawed uh motives. The gospel progresses despite impure motives. To me, at least, that gives me hope. And it it gives me a sense of relief. If you're a follower of Jesus and you're seeking to serve him, God can use your own broken, flawed attempts at doing that, even if there's moments of impure motives. God can work despite that. It's not a license, but it is uh, I guess it is a sense of of hope that God is up to something despite my own attempts. There's a imagine two churches beside a busy, like let's say Interstate 77, and on one side of the of the interstate, you you have a billboard that that uh you know you see a church, a church advertised their you know, advertising their Sunday Sunday uh morning services, and he says, the real truth is found here. The next week you drive up past 77 and you see another church has put up a billboard on the other side of 77, and their slogan is we have the truth and better coffee. Their motives are clearly uh distorted and impure here. But maybe an unbeliever who's walked away from God for 20 the past 20 years is driving past there and sees one of these billboards, and as a result, ends up going to church, turning his life around, surrendering to Jesus. That's God at work despite impure motives. God at work despite impure motives. This is this did not actually happen. I'm just using this as an example.
One Pain Point And A New Lens
SPEAKER_00So in conclusion, we've looked at three ways that the gospel progresses through our suffering, through contagious courage, and despite impure motives. And I guess the big the maybe the big takeaway for us today is is as we as we think about all of this, is that um life is is unpredictable and it's full of circumstances that throw a wrench into our plans. Even if our plans are our noble, good desires to serve God. Um life has a way of of bringing up hardship, pain, illness, broken dreams in a way that just can really derail our plans. But the hope, I think, and the promise that I want you all to take away from this is that no matter what happens, no matter what hardship you face, God uh can use it for his glory. And he can take something that feels like a setback and actually turn it into a step forward for the sake of the gospel and for his plans. So as you go from here uh today, I would encourage you to think through what is the one what is the one pain point in my life right now? What's one pain point in my life right now, and how might I look? Uh how can I see God at work in that pain point to progress the gospel? Is it the gospel progressing in this through uh through my own life, the gospel working in my own life? Is it through uh through the people around me? Um, how is God using this pain point in my life to progress the gospel? And I think just like this the picture of that house, this the stress and defect, uh, what can seem like an attempt to uh set something back or to squash the effectiveness of the gospel, God can take something like that and bring exponential growth in my own life through transformation and in the lives of the people around me that interact with. Um I'm gonna turn the time over to uh actually let's stand for a word of prayer, and then I'll turn the time over to Kim.
Closing Prayer For Trust
SPEAKER_00Father, we come before you in Jesus' name this morning. We don't understand why we suffer. Uh we don't understand why we we go through the painful life circumstances that we do. Sometimes it feels meaningless, sometimes it feels pointless, and uh sometimes it just leaves us feeling um confused and maybe even angry. But thank you that uh you have a plan. You're not the author of pain, but uh you can take it for your own uh sovereign good and accomplish purposes that are so much bigger than us. I pray that you could help us to believe that today. And that for everyone here today who is going through a hard thing, who is suffering in some way, that you could help us grasp uh this truth that our suffering and our pain is not without purpose. It's not meaningless, but that you're up to something that is is bigger than ourselves. Um I ask that your Holy Spirit could bring an increase and that you could do a work in our hearts that only you can do in Jesus' name. Amen.