Speak the Word of God, Philippians, 1:12-14

Good morning. Now this morning I need to tell you that the projector here needs a bulbectomy. And we thought, well, how can we handle this here? Well, everybody get real close. No, we won't do that. Other than that, if you brought your binoculars, we could do that too. Actually, what we thought we'd do here is I'll go ahead and work off of here as much as I can. You actually have quite a bit on your handout. So we'll operate with that. If you really miss the overhead, hold it over your head, OK? All right. So we'll get there.

A few things to proceed with first here. One is we have started into this new quarter's electives, and we've got major Bible themes finishing up its last quarter, four quarters. And then who you are in Christ moving into the second quarter, and that I anticipate will be the last. First Peter, continuing on downstairs. After church, we'll be starting up the God's Design for the Family elective.

And what I've done, just so you get an idea of what the schedule is, I've got business card-sized schedules, so you can take one. They're on the cabinet, just as you exit, on the right. So pick that up if you're interested in participating with that. We're doing everything from child rearing and preparation for marriage with younger kids to dealing with extended family and a whole range of issues. So I think you'll find it real interesting.

Anyway, the information, just schedule-wise, is on the cabinet as you exit. The other thing to remind folks is it'll be next Sunday evening. We'll have the Lord's table, just to kind of fix that in your mind. And what we'd like to do is to have people just be kind of considering in advance what might you share about what the Lord has done for us at that time.

And any questions, call or see Hal. I'm sorry, I can't show you the little ringing phone, but you'll have to just imagine that. If you need to call him, he's right there, you can see him. The other thing that I wasn't able to show you on the overhead here, but it's real interesting, a couple weeks ago some folks thought, boy, it's sure a good thing that Vern is not over there in Iraq because he'd look at all these archaeological sites and get terribly distracted. Well, what I came across is some picture of a bunch of soldiers over in Ur, climbing the ziggurat there, so real interesting. They got distracted anyway.

Now what we want to do is move into our study of Philippians. We're in Philippians chapter 1, and as Doug read for us, we're now in 12 through 14, actually moving ahead here. And what's going on here, just to kind of keep the scope, in the first verses that we've looked at, the first 11 verses, Paul has kind of done the introduction.

He's talked about some key topics that he's going to keep bringing up. Topic of grace. Topics of prayer. And he's going to keep bringing those up later. But now he's kind of turning a corner here. And that corner that he's turning goes like this. 12 through about 18 is talking about the past and bringing things up to the present. From there, 19-26 goes from the present and moves into the future. So he's given this two-time perspective view as he moves into these verses.

I think one way to think about this is these people have been supporting Paul and participating in his ministry. In one sense, this is kind of a missionary letter to the supporters. That's kind of what he's doing here. This is what's going on. And it's got some unique features. Not too many missionaries are writing to their supporters and saying, hey, I'm in jail. But this is Paul's experience here.

Now, one of the things that he does is he starts off with this particular set of verses, I want you to know. Other translations will have, you should understand. But the idea is to make you aware. Have an understanding. And really interesting, as we look at that, Paul wrote this, I want you to know phrase, and he did it in 2 Corinthians 13, 6.

He wrote that there. He writes it here in Philippians 1, 12, and he's going to do it again in 2 Timothy 3, 1, those three passages. And each time he does it, he always follows it with something significant, as he does here, as we'll see here in a minute. But there's something else, again, one of the things I like to do is to bring up what does a typical letter in Paul's day look like? And how is it similar to what he writes? And how is it different?

You remember a few weeks back, I brought up this young soldier, his name was Theonis, and he writes home to his mother, Tethys. And he writes several things, and one of the things that he said that we reflected on before, he says, I always pray to the gods for you, right?

For your health and well-being. Well, he says something else that's very interesting. He writes, and let me just quote from what Fiona said, he says, I want you to know, as he's writing to his mother, I want you to know that the reason I have not sent you a letter in such a long time is because I am in camp and not on account of illness. Apparently she'd heard that he was ill.

So don't worry yourself about me. And as we look at letters from biblical times, that kind of a thing was common. You can imagine, you can't just send somebody an email or call them up on the phone. No cell phones. You can't say, hey, I'm alright. So sometimes weeks or even months would go by, and relatives, family members, friends would get real concerned. And no real quick way to get it resolved.

If it was something they heard, some impression that they had that there was a problem, it may be a long time. So frequently these letters would be sent to try to calm people, you know, it's okay, I'm fine, don't worry about it, what you heard isn't true, or it's not as bad as you heard, or something like that. A lot of the letters were like this. And it would start off with, I want you to know.

So Paul's doing the same thing, isn't he? But there's a difference. The difference is this. These letters all said, I want you to know, I'm doing fine. Here's the big difference in what Paul writes. I want you to know the gospel's just fine. Isn't that neat? He doesn't say, I'm fine, but he says the gospel's doing just great. That's the difference. So he borrows from the standard cultural practice, but he takes a real different turn. The gospel, he says, is just fine. Don't worry about it. Doesn't he bring up his own condition? Let's take a look at this a little further. As we step through this passage, there are a few key words we want to take a look at.

One of those is one you see on your handout, greater progress. Another one is gospel. And imprisonment shows up twice here. And the next one is become well known. We'll take a little deeper look at each one of those here. First one is this great progress. And this, I think, is really fascinating and I think, to me, it just really opens up the picture. This is a word, it's pro-copy. Now at first you might say, big deal. But here's what it is. It isn't just kind of progress in the way we think of. The word was used for guys who were sent ahead to clear a path for the Roman soldiers to go through. Through, say, a dense wood with a lot of brush and heavy, you know, vegetation, they'd go in there and clear the path for the soldiers.

Why? Two reasons. One is if they would clear a path for these soldiers, then the soldiers, for example, might not be ambushed because they'd go to a place where they weren't expected. Two, it might be a shortcut. So there are a couple of reasons for doing this. So Paul uses this word that was commonly used by the Roman army in terms of clearing this path through this dense vegetation. Now think about this for a minute. Why would he use this word? There's a couple of reasons. One is he's writing to the church at Philippi.

Remember, it was a Roman colony. A great many of the people at Philippi were either Roman soldiers, worked with Roman soldiers, did this particular thing here, did the path clearing, or were retired Roman soldiers. Actually the Philippi was kind of a retirement place for Roman soldiers that had retired as well.

Regardless, they knew what this word meant, that you'd go and clear the path ahead, cut down before, before the soldiers come through. So what does that mean? It means Paul's being imprisoned was clearing out a path for the gospel in places that were otherwise impenetrable. Isn't that cool? It's going in and just clearing out a path in a place otherwise you couldn't even get through.

And so he chose just the right word. Exactly the right word. Alright, now here's another word. This one we looked at before. I want to revisit it. Euangelia. And we have it here in Philippians chapter 1. It shows up, we've seen it in verse 5, it's the fellowship of the gospel. In verse 7, the confirmation of the gospel. And in 12, the greater progress of the gospel. This word, the clearing of the path for the gospel. And so we've now seen it for the third time.

He's going to bring it up three more times, Philippians 2.2. 4.3 and 4.15. This is another theme that he has introduced. It's like a thread woven through a tapestry, and he's going to keep coming back to it. It's a central theme to the book. Now, that's not all.

We have this word imprisonment. The Greek word that we've seen before is desma, and it really means bonds or shackles. And we'll visit this in a little more detail, but he was shackled. In other words, they would put a clasp around typically at least the hand, sometimes the legs, too. They would put a clasp, and then you would be chained up to a Roman guard, a Praetorian guard, and we'll revisit what that means.

So here's Paul. When it talks about him being imprisoned, it doesn't mean he's just locked up in a cell. It means that he's shackled up to a Roman guard, okay? And so here he is, if you look at Acts 28 16 through 31, it gives a description of that situation where here he is stuck to a Roman guard all the time, but basically under house arrest.

Now, the next one is become well known is actually the one Greek word funerals. It means to make shine or to cause to the appear with the idea of making something known to illuminate. And we might use a phrase in our language that would have a similar idea, to bring to light, to bring something to light. That's the idea, is to bring it to light, to bring it to the surface so it's known and apparent and visible.

That's what this word is communicating. Now, you have on your handout what I call a concise Philippians 1, 12-14. The idea here is to just kind of take it down to what is the real basic idea of the Greek. Not smoothed out words necessarily, but what's tightly communicated there. So it comes out like this. Now I want you to know, brethren, that the things of me, that is, the things about me, have turned out rather for the path-clearing of the gospel. So that the bonds of me in Christ have become apparent throughout the whole Praetorium and all the others. and that most of the brethren, having been made confident because of the bonds of me, are much more bold in speaking the word without fear." That's the tight, concise idea of what Paul is communicating. We'll get more into the full explanation of what that means.

It's very clear as we read through these three verses that Paul's primary concern is not his own comfort, he's not primarily concerned about his own personal prospects, He's not really looking for the esteem of others. It's very clear he's looking for the progress of the gospel, the path-clearing. That's what's central in his thinking, isn't it? It's like that letter that Sionis wrote to his mother, except that Sionis was saying, I'm fine. Paul is very clear in saying, don't worry, the gospel's fine. Let's take a look at what were Paul's circumstances.

This is on your handout there. First he had bond, these shackles. We talked about these basically, typically at least being at the wrist and sometimes ankles too, chained up to a Roman guard. And that shows up actually four times there in this first chapter. So he keeps revisiting that theme. Apparently those things are pretty present and visible. It's kind of hard to forget them. Constant company, you know. The next thing is constantly chained to the Praetorian guard. We'll get into that in a minute.

And then he's dealing with the legal system. That's something that becomes clear as you look through the New Testament. Paul frequently uses legal terms. There seems to be a good deal of evidence that the book of Luke and the book of Acts were actually Luke's submittal to the Roman legal bureaucracy. And again, you see a lot of legal terms and a lot of description of Paul's interaction on behalf of his legal case.

And so more of that, and that comes out in verse 7. Then, one of the things that we'll see in weeks to come here, there are some there who are preaching the gospel with mixed motives. And he describes that and what that's like and what the issues are. Finally, he makes it clear that he enjoys and thanks the Lord for the support that he has from this Philippian church. So he's got this mix of circumstances, doesn't he? That's what he's trying to say is all these things have worked out. It's all worked out for the path clearing of the gospel, for cutting a path through what was otherwise impenetrable.

Now, It's clear Paul makes multiple references to his being in prison. Book of Acts, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 2 Timothy, Philemon, and others. So this is not something he only did once briefly. I'm afraid he was in jail numerous times or imprisoned in this way under house arrest numerous times in situations. Now, the progress of the gospel is measured by the fact, and this is also in your handout, first slide, His imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard and everyone else.

What's he saying there? This is summarizing the impact upon the spread of the gospel to those who haven't heard before and who have not, therefore, believed. So that's his first half of this statement. But he goes on to the second half. He says, Most of the brethren trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. In this case, he's generalizing the impact upon the body of Christ. So between the two, he's talked about the impact upon unbelievers, and he's talked about the impact upon believers.

That's what he's summarizing in these verses. Now, just to kind of get a sense of what's going on, think about this. We're in a place where we think, oh gee, there's different churches around, There's other believers and I can go down to the store and buy a Bible or download it or whatever. He's in a place here where this gospel is just brand new.

By the end of the first century, only three-tenths of one percent of the Roman Empire was Christians. To give you some sense, that's about three out of every 1,000 people is a Christian. That's not very many. By and large, people outside of that group really had not heard of this thing of Jesus Christ. It was all new. We have some records of the Romans and all their back and forth, you know, the bureaucratic writing back and forth. And it's interesting that it was a while before they even had any idea what this Christianity thing was all about.

So Paul is introducing something that is completely new. He's not just walking into a situation where There's something there. He's starting afresh. He's plowing new ground. Now, aside from this geographical progress of the gospel, something else I'd like to focus in on here for a minute.

Paul's presence with a Praetorian guard opened up an area of contact that was likely very limited if it existed at all before. This Praetorian guard was a special class of Roman soldiers that we'll look at. So this is why he would use this word Procope, which is a path clearing, and say, you know, this is a unique introduction into this particular group and into Caesar's household even. And because if this had not taken place, if I had not been imprisoned in this way, chained to a shift of Roman guards We would never have had this opportunity. We just wouldn't even get in contact with these people Now What happened this this these Praetorian guards were originally?

Designed by Caesar Augustus. He was the one who was Caesar at the time when when Christ was born and The one who set out the decrees, okay This he set these Praetorian guards in place and they were originally designed to to protect the Emperor and the Emperor's household. And they had from somewhere between 10,000 and 16,000 of these guards at various times to protect the Emperor and his household, if you can imagine that. They also had various other duties, but that was the central duty that they had.

This word praetorium, and that's the Greek equivalent of what shows up here in the New Testament text, was used in the Roman Empire to refer to various classes of buildings. Typically it would include the palace, it would include court buildings. So, for example, you went into any kind of a court situation, that would be included. It also included the highest officer's quarters, or the quarters of this particular elite group. So that word praetorium has several different applications, but the idea is clear here.

The praetorian guards living in command quarters is likely what Paul is referring to here, because what would happen, this scenario, okay? Paul is under house arrest, as we see at the end of Acts, he's under house arrest, and so what would they do? They would say, okay, Paul has got to be chained to a Praetorian guard all the time. So the Praetorian guards, they don't like this duty, right?

Who wants to be chained to some guy all the time? It's as bad for the guards as it is for the prisoner. So what do they do? They take turns. And I'm sure they weren't fighting over who gets to do it, at least at first. So here's this Praetorian guard, and he's got to stay chained to Paul for his shift. And when his shift is done, then the next guy comes. And he unshackles himself, shackles Paul to the next guy, and they're taking shifts. So here's Paul nonstop shackled to this Praetorian guard. That's what he's talking about here.

Now, This was a very special category of elite Roman soldiers. What they would do is they would have the soldiers, the very best selected out from the entire Roman army, and those were the ones that would be in this praetorian guard. They would get to serve a shorter than the usual period of time for a Roman soldier. Their pay was up to six times as much as a normal Roman soldier's pay. So this was something that any Roman soldier who was good would want to do. And then, at retirement, he got paid a large sum on top of that. So this was the elite corps of the Roman soldiers. Now, why was Paul chained to this particular group and not any others?

Acts 28.16, this is on slide 2 of your handout, Acts 28.16 says that these guards were chained to Paul, and what would happen? They'd be chained one at a time. They'd go through shifts.

Why was that? The reason was this. If you were a Roman citizen, and you appealed to Caesar, or if you had a legal case and you could appeal to Caesar, the plus side is you could appeal to Caesar. The downside is you get locked up to one of these Praetorian guards until you get to see him. Okay? However long that is. So, that was the downside. This was standard legal procedure for any Roman citizen, and Paul was, who appealed to Caesar.

You get to be chained to a Roman guard until you get to see Caesar. After that, we'll see whether you get to keep your head, but at least you're chained to him up until that point. Now, one thing to keep in mind, just because you're chained to this guy who is part of the elite Roman Military Corps does not mean it was pleasant. We have a record. There's a Christian leader called Ignatius that about a half century later was also chained up to a Roman guard. He was chained up night and day like Paul, and here's how he described it. It's like being chained to wild beasts who become worse when treated well. Let me describe for you what this might be like.

Paul says to the Roman guard, I need to go visit the restroom. Tough. I'm a little tired. Could we move over there? I'm cold. Tough. This chain's a little uncomfortable. Can you loosen it? Yank! The guard was under no obligation to be nice. So it could be tough duty.

And then besides that, Paul was constantly chained, so he got worn out by it. The guard, however, could take shifts. So they would get fresh guards in to be freshly nasty, if they wanted to be. Now, the next thing besides this Praetorian guard, Paul says it's well known to the Praetorian guard, my condition of being chained constantly to a Roman guard, is well known, of course, to the Praetorian guard, but also to everyone else.

And so the question, we covered on side two of your handout there, is who is this everyone else? Well, scripture lays out what a lot of that means. One is servants. Remember, one of the things we talked about earlier is servants had all sorts of duties. And you can imagine things like food preparation and dealing, okay, here's your, you know, fresh clothes and all that. All those kinds of things were things that the servants of Caesar's household were brought in to do. And so here's Paul chained to this Roman guard, this Praetorian guard, and here the servant comes with food for both of them. Here the servant comes with the fresh clothing or whatever's needed.

So now there's interaction with these servants constantly who are moving in and out of Caesar's household. That's one. The next, we have it clear from Acts 28, 17 through 29, that there were unsaved members of the Jewish community. Furthermore, as Philemon 10 makes clear, there were also Gentiles and fellow believers in the mix too. So you have all those different categories of people that Paul had contact with as a result of this being chained to the guard constantly.

Now, these opportunities with the Praetorian Guard and others of Caesar's household gave Paul the basis for saying in Philippians 4.22, we're going to get there eventually, decades from now, all the saints greet you, especially those of Caesar's household.

How about that? This imprisonment that Paul was going through was not a nice thing, even though it was house arrest and not being stuck right then in a prison cell. Yet, just the same, Paul could say, the saints of Caesar's household greet you." Isn't that a marvelous thing for the Lord to have worked that out?

Then Paul writes this, most of the brethren, and it says here in the New American Standard, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the Word of God without fear. So here's the second half of what's going on. Not only are people being introduced to the gospel, for the sake of evangelism, but now it's having an impact upon the body of Christ, upon those who are already saved and believed. Now here it says, Brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment. The Greek here literally says this, Brethren, having been made confident because of my bonds. Having been made confident because of my bonds. And that made confident is in the perfect tense. And what that means is, they have been made completely confident in the past, and the results of that are ongoing into the future.

How about that? They're not just sort of getting a little more confident, it's completely confident. Here's the interesting part. Paul's response to his imprisonment became a stimulus to other believers to place their trust and confidence in the Lord. Okay. So here's what happens.

He says they have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. This phrase, have far more courage, means to be far more bold in action. We might get an idea from the English that it has something to do with something subjective inside. The Greek here has the sense of this is the external reaction. They acted boldly. They acted with boldness. That's what he's saying there.

Their trust and confidence in the Lord because of Paul's imprisonment stimulated them to act with boldness. Their trust and confidence in the Lord allowed them to act in the midst of threatening circumstances with more boldness and unhindered by fear.

Now, this is contrary to the natural reaction you'd expect. Wouldn't you expect, oh boy, Paul's in prison, this is getting awful sticky, I don't want to touch that or get near this, so I'll just kind of back off. Wouldn't you think that would be the natural reaction? Instead, the way that Paul was responding in complete dependence upon the life of Christ emboldened the believers. They responded with more boldness instead of less. The next thing here says that when Paul is writing, it causes them to speak the Word. Think about that.

The Word of God in the time of the New Testament consisted of the Old Testament, which had been completed for four centuries, plus whatever of the New Testament had been written so far. And then the Church was given Gifts temporarily to help guide and direct them and provide truth in given situations Until the completion of the New Testament whereupon those gifts ceased but he's saying as you have the Old Testament word as you have The New Testament word as you have those specific and temporary gifts Speak those okay. He says but notice this is not a command. He's telling them This is how people are responding to my imprisonment. They're being emboldened to speak the word of God with action in those situations. Now to think about this, we think of the word gospel that's being spread here.

The gospel is not just what is necessary for evangelism and for a person to be initially saved, but it is also the truths We have passages that talk about the gospel being taught over a period of time to the same group of people. So it is truths that we live by and learn from, not just simply, okay, now you're saved and that's it. Both kinds of applications of the gospel were being carried out and conveyed boldly. Now, so let's take a look at side two of your handout There's a place where it says Philippians 1, 12-14, expanded and explained.

The idea of this is not to be necessarily a strict translation, but to carry across the idea of what the original Greek text is saying, and to give whatever sufficient additional explanation is necessary to make it clear. Let's read through it. Now I want you to be aware, my brethren in Christ, that my circumstances have worked out for the clearing of the way of the good message of Jesus Christ."

Have you ever been in a circumstance where somebody gives you some news and you say, oh no! We've been in that kind of thing. We hear something and it's like, oh no! People may have thought that when they hear, oh, Paul's in prison. Oh no! Paul's saying, don't worry, the gospel's just fine. Don't worry, the gospel is just fine. And let me tell you how it's just fine.

So that's why it goes on in verse 13. It says, So that my being constantly bound to a soldier in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard, and to others in Caesar's household, to believers, and to other Jews and Gentiles alike." It's been for the furtherance of the gospel. It's been the way-cutting. It's been clearing the path, he's telling them. And in verse 14, "...and that most of the brethren in Christ, having been made confident because of my being constantly bound to a soldier, are acting much more boldly, speaking the word of God without fear."

Now, notice He puts two parts to this. Acting boldly, and at the end he puts without fear. What he's doing is this, he's not being repetitious. The first part is talking about externally and objectively people are acting boldly. They're speaking the word of God. The last part is without the subjective and internal sense of fear. That's what he's saying. They're acting boldly on the outside, because inside, subjectively, they're without fear.

He's dealing with both the outside and the inside aspects of things when he's talking here. He's not just being repetitious and redundant. He's talking about the full scope of the Christian believer, what gets lived out as well as what gets lived in. Now, here's how it comes home to a believer. Think about this here for a minute.

Our trials and constraining circumstances, I know at times we'll teach, and very appropriately so, how those trials and constraining circumstances are being used of the Lord to conform us to the image of Christ. And we should teach that, and that's a good thing. But Paul's revealing an additional truth here.

Our trials and constraining circumstances, the limitations, the things that naturally we might be inclined to say, oh no! Those circumstances can be used as God's instrument in our lives. They can be a point of encouragement and trust and growth and stimulation to action, empowered by the life of Christ in other believers. So those trials and struggles and constraining circumstances are not only to be a part of our being conformed to the image of Christ, but also in a further scope of that, that the Lord can be using that in the lives of other believers and in the lives of those who are not believers. The trials and constraints in our lives, rather than being a sign that the world is out of control, are intended by God to maximize our spiritual usefulness and to yield multiple spiritual benefits to others.

Have you ever run into a believer like that? Have you ever seen that? I think it's worth asking. You know, it's nice to say, well, this is Paul, and that's great. A fellow that, let's see, do I have enough time? Yeah, I think so. A fellow that years ago I knew. I was probably in the neighborhood of about 10 years old.

His name was Dick Kingham. And Dick Kingham had a degenerative nerve condition where he just had less and less and less ability to do anything. And I remember at one point my dad hooked up a little thing because he liked to write poetry. He could only move his head. So my dad hooked up a little thing so he could use a little attachment from his forehead and type out poetry on the typewriter because that was all he could move at the time.

But I remember just before he died he kept telling people, I'm going home. I'm going home. And of course the nurses and doctors at the hospital thought he was nuts. But he kept telling them, going home. And I remember going to his memorial service. It blew me away. The hallelujah chorus, you know. That was kind of the grand finale for his memorial service.

And people were just overjoyed. Because Dick was home. Dick was home. And you look at it, On one hand, somebody would look at Dick's life and say, oh, terrible, here's this guy, all he can do is move his head. He used to have this, you know, ability to move everything, and all of a sudden it got down to he could just move his head, and then he finally, the Lord took him home. And you might look at that as diminishing. But what happened is the Lord used that, in that particular church body we were involved with, dozens and dozens and dozens of people were profoundly and radically impacted by that man's constraint. because we could see the life of the Lord in him, the more his bodily ability was diminished. And it was an encouragement and a stimulation, and it brought people to look to the Lord and to glorify the Lord and praise the Lord for the constraining circumstances that he had, even to the point of his death. I think that's what Paul is trying to get across here. Look, you've heard that I'm in prison? The gospel's just fine. The gospel's just fine.

The Lord's going to use this, has used it, and will use it. So our trials and constraining circumstances may in fact be, this is the Prokopi, may in fact be cutting a path that is otherwise completely impenetrable. It is the way that the Lord has designed. to make progress for the gospel, either with unbelievers or in the lives of other believers. Those trials and constraining circumstances are the designed mechanism that God is going to use to take the gospel, and I don't mean just evangelism, although certainly that, to take the gospel, whether for initial salvation or for ongoing growth of the believer, into places where it otherwise could not go. The Lord must put those constraining circumstances in there. They are by His design, by His purpose, and in the eternal perspective of things, couldn't be any better.

And I think, you know, as we look at this, it's amazing to me, I look at this passage, and Paul doesn't, Paul could sit there and gripe about the food, he could say, boy, these shackles, my wrists are getting sore, bloody even, you know. And boy, that one guy that they chained me to, he's terrible, you know. And this place is not as nice as I thought it was, and the guy won't even let me get my coat. He could have spent four chapters griping. But what is he saying? He says, don't worry about me one bit. The gospel is doing just fine. Don't worry about me at all. Don't worry about the gospel. It's doing just great. The Lord's using these circumstances here exactly as He intended.

As a matter of fact, if you look at it, so much of what we have written in the New Testament is Paul writing from prison. I'm sure a part of this was just getting Paul settled down enough that he would sit down and write, so that we would have the words that we have before us. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at these things here, certainly none of us would say, hey, sign me up for this trial, Give me that constraint, or Lord, please give me that problem. And yet, Lord, the perspective that Paul presents here, it is that constraint, that trial, that difficulty, that limitation that provides the opportunity to clear a path in a way that is otherwise unreachable, unapproachable. It accomplishes what otherwise could not be done.

And so, Lord, we thank you for the the trials and the struggles and the constraints and the limitations that you have placed upon us because we know that you are going to conform us to the image of Christ, but you also, Lord, will use those trials as a way of speaking and emboldening and communicating and stimulating that could otherwise never be accomplished. And we thank you that these things that we wrestle with are things that you have allowed and even designed because you love each one of us. We just give you thanks. We know that these things are to additionally reveal your character, your grace, your love, your mercy. We give you thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.