"Christ is proclaimed"

If you're in the Philippians class, I know we have three classes, Philippians, Church History, and Identification Truths. This is the Philippians class that you're going to be part of this morning. You may have not planned to do that, but this is, and actually what we're going to do this morning is we're going to look at some passages that we've been studying in that class, and hopefully they'll be enlightening to you, and actually I found it kind of, as I look through these verses, I was preparing for the class this morning for the elective, and then also when Vern called me and said, oh, he first asked me to preach his message.

And I looked at the message and I said, wow, I think I'd rather preach my message. Not that they're not God's messages, but I'm just saying that I felt better prepared for this one. Hopefully this will be of value to you guys. So actually, I want to go on to kind of the overview here.

So Courtney read for us, starting in verse 12, he read for us talking about the, you know, in Philippians, the first chapter of Philippians, there's kind of a couple of sections. The first section he talks about just a greeting and encouragement in the Lord. And then he gets in, starting in verse 12, he talks about, let me just read a few verses here for it.

Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard and to everyone else. And most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear."

So the picture here is that Paul, and I remember when Verne taught this, he taught in Philippians about five, six years ago. He had an overhead, which I don't have, but it had Paul and he had this Roman soldier and they're chained together. all the time, 24-7. I guess that they actually took shifts. I hate to be a guard, but to be with Paul 24-7. Anyway, he had a guard chained to him 24-7, and so Paul took the opportunity to talk to this guy.

He talked to him about the Lord Jesus Christ. So when it talks about, in here it talks about, so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the Praetorian Guard, They came to understand about Christ. Here are these Roman people who have no understanding about Christ. That's a Jewish thing, right? Christ is a Jewish king. He's nothing to do with the Romans.

Well, Paul proclaimed Him. And so they became to know about Him. And some even saved, it seems like. So that was greatly encouraging to Paul. So here he is in prison, chained to the sky, and people are coming to Christ. And not only did it encourage Paul, but it encouraged others, other brethren, to speak, to proclaim the message of Christ. So that was really wonderful, and Paul was very encouraged by that.

But then what he found was, and we're going to kind of get into that, starting in verse 15, he found that, you know, it was a motivation problem, but a motive problem. You know, motive, you know, Verna likes to say you have means, motive, and opportunity, you know, the CSI formula or whatever that is.

But the motive of people proclaiming Christ was not the same. You would think that a person that was talking to others about Christ, they all would have godly motives. But we're going to find that the sum's negative and the sum's positive. There are some that proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, we're going to see. And in verse 15, some for their own, you know, to puff themselves up. Others proclaim them for good motives. So we're going to kind of step through that. kind of in detail, and look at some of the definitions of the words and other verses, and we're going to see what that has to say about their motives. And amazingly, Paul said, you know, the motive, even though I would like their motives to be Christ-like motives, to have Christ working through their life, I am more excited and more joyful that Christ is being proclaimed.

People are being saved, even through wrong motives. And wow, that's a message, you know. I struggle sometimes with looking at People, you know, I hate to look at Christian TV. I look at that and say, Lord, what's happening here? But Paul's approach is, if Christ is being proclaimed, I'm excited. I may not agree with their motives, but I'm excited. So we're going to see that as we walk through here. So let's just kind of jump into it here.

In verse 15 it says, Some, to be sure, are preaching Christ from envy and strife, but some also from goodwill. So who are the Psalms? If you look back in the context, the Psalms are brethren. They're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. They're not unbelievers, they're believers.

And that's what makes it kind of distressing maybe. You say, why are they doing this? Why are they proclaiming Christ from wrong motives? And preaching here, there are several words for preaching. This is one of the ones, to preach, to herald, to proclaim. There's actually two words that are synonyms in the Greek. This is one word, the other one is kathangelio, to proclaim, like at the Lord's table, we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. That's a very similar word, but basically it's presenting a message. And in the context, it's presenting the message of our Lord Jesus Christ. And there's several verses here, and I was just trying to think.

Like in 1 Corinthians 1.23 it says, But we preach Christ unto the Jews, a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness. So preaches, in the context of here, is preaching the message of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so Verne's been teaching. Here's a question. What gospel were they preaching? We've been studying that, right?

In Matthew? So is it the gospel of the kingdom? Or is it the gospel of the grace of God? Is it the gospel of substitution? And this is church age, so it would be, they're not preaching, he's preaching to basically Romans, this is the gospel substitution.

So then, so here's the motives kind of come along, from envy and strife. I kind of learned something when I went through this study, the difference between envy and jealousy. You know, at first I thought envy and jealousy sounded about similar, but envy is a step up. If you really want to, envy is not good. Jealousy is not good, but envy is really not good. So basically, it's a feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing or hearing of others' advantage or prosperity. And it has a desire to deprive another of what he has. So imagine a person has a new, I don't know, BMW. And you say, boy, I'd love to have a BMW. Well, if you envy that, you would take away his BMW and you would have that BMW. That's pretty bad. Envy is not good. So these people were doing it from envy? What were they envying?

I kind of thought about that. They apparently possibly envied that Paul was kind of the person that the Lord was using. He was the person that was presenting. He was at the forefront of presenting the message. He wasn't one of the original disciples, so maybe there's some envy there. Well, you weren't with the Lord part of the original twelve, you came along later, who are you?

They were envious. And there's some verses about that. And basically, another thing to think about, both this envy and strife, both of these, how are they produced? If a believer is exhibiting envy and strife, what's the source of that? The source of that cannot be Christ, right? So it's got to be His own nature. His sinful nature from Adam. So these believers were exhibiting envy and strife out of their own nature.

They weren't walking with the Lord. They had a good message, but they weren't walking with the Lord. And strife here is quarrels, rivalry, contention. And actually that verse, let's see. And for strife, let's see. There's one I wanted to point out to you here. But basically it says we're exhorted by Timothy and Titus, but to avoid foolishness and strife. They're not to be found in the believer's life. That's not part of our characteristics of a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so envy and strife. Those are the negatives.

But the encouraging side was there were some that were preaching Christ out of goodwill. so that they had the right motives. And good will is a sign of good pleasure. It came from the right motive. It came from the characteristics of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If you think about it, if you look in Scripture, you'll see the fruits of the Spirit. That was a motivation for them preaching Christ out of their nature from the Lord Jesus Christ. That's where that came from.

And in Philippians it says, for it is God who is at work in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure. So God is doing the work. We're allowing Him. That's the good works that have been ordained for us. That's the good works that the Lord wants to use us. He wants to use us for proclaiming the gospel.

So that was the positive side. The negative side was envy and strife. So we go on here. And I actually ask the question which I've kind of already answered. What's the source of the good will? The source of the good will is our very life in Christ. And so basically, and the latter do it out of love. So the latter, the goodwill comes out of their love for the loss, basically.

And then Paul goes on here and he says, they proclaim it, do it out of love. And let's just kind of move on here. Okay. Knowing that, So Paul had a view of where he was at. He wasn't uncertain. Some people say, I'm not sure of the Lord's will in my life. Maybe I should be a missionary. Maybe I should teach a Bible study. Maybe I should play the piano. Maybe I should do whatever. what he was about.

He personally, unlike us, he personally was with the Lord, and he personally knew his ministry. He says, for I know I'm appointed for the defense of the gospel. He knew his mission, and that was wonderful. And he trusted that the Lord was going to carry out that mission that he had.

Him he wasn't going to carry it out and say well Lord look what I did I get these great things for you He said Lord. I'm trusting that you will work through my situation Even though I'm a chain to a guard in this jail. You're going to work that situation for your glory and for the gospel And a point is to set I Had some verses there now if you're in Sunday school class that we go through me to read each of these verses many times so this is sort of the compact version and So the defense decided to make a speech, to answer questions, to defend. And the question was, was Paul's defense, and this is kind of rhetorical, his defense was not focused on himself. He wasn't, hey, I want to get out of this prison. I just can't wait to get out of this prison. No, it was totally the opposite.

I am excited that I'm in this prison, that I can tell these Roman soldiers about Christ. And the benefit of that will be other brothers and sisters will be encouraged so they can talk about Christ. So he said, wow, look at this opportunity that I have. And we think about that. Many times we have a situation in our lives and say, wow, this is really not good. I'm struggling with this. Why did this happen? I lost my job. I don't have a job. I need a job. I need this or that, whatever it might be.

Well, wow, maybe the Lord's using that for a purpose. So many times to look beyond the situation, Paul had to look beyond where he was at because it was not exciting. I just can't imagine being with somebody 24-7. It seems pretty uncomfortable. That might be an understatement.

So he says, a former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambitions rather than pure motives. So he does this contrast throughout here. He contrasts the good motives and the bad motives. So here's another kind of go around with this. Some are selfish motives rather than pure motives. And he's pointing out that the selfish ambition Is the idea of self-will underlying? Is the underlying idea of self-seeking, to promote yourself, not Christ? And then the pure motives. Actually, the pure motives come out of the word for holy.

If you think about it... Oops, yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes, yikes. Oh my goodness. Well, you can see a rookie's at the controls here. Well, that's a little comic relief here, right? I don't want you guys to fall asleep. Okay, I'll try not to do that again.

Pure motives are godly motives, and actually the word for pure is from the word hagios, for holy. And you know, it's amazing, the Lord says, Be ye holy, for I am holy. You know, you think about that verse, you say, that's absolutely impossible. But he says, be ye holy, for I am holy. Holy motives can only come from a person who knows who Christ is and who is trusting and resting in what he has in Christ. That's the only way you can have pure motives or holy motives. So once again, that's a characteristic. Paul's contrasting the characteristics of the believer walking with Christ, having holy motives, versus the believer with selfish motives, not walking with Christ.

But they're both proclaiming the right message. So that's kind of the paradox here. And a paradox is not a paradox. OK, hey, you got that. That's good. That's my one joke for the day, I guess. OK, here's what's interesting is. It wasn't bad enough that they were doing it from their selfish ambitions. They were doing it to cause me distress in my imprisonment. And this word, distress, is this idea, and our brother Hal had a wonderful picture. He had this picture of a vice, and he had somebody's head in the vice, and the vice just kind of squishing that person's head like that.

That word, philipsis, is a pressure. It's a pressure. So they were putting that pressure of causing Paul hardship, or causing him distress, was pressing in on him. That pressing feeling. I think we all had that. When something comes along, you think, I can't handle this. I can't do this. But we're going to see that Paul relied upon the Lord.

He didn't let that distress or that pressure get to him. And actually, I kind of answered the question. What was his response? And actually, his response is going to be answered in the next verse. What then? Only in every way whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I rejoice. Yes, I will rejoice." So he wasn't concerned. He was concerned about the wrong motives, but he was concerned that the message was going out and Christ was being proclaimed. Okay, so we're going to kind of dive into these and kind of walk through these here. And I kind of went back and let's just look at a little bit of a review here.

In verse 15, 16, and 17, we already just finished covering those, but look at here. The word proclaimed appears in verse 15, preaching Christ. Remember, preaching and proclaimed are virtually the same idea. Preaching Christ in verse 15. The latter do it, preaching Christ out of love. Then 17, the former, proclaim Christ.

And all the reds there are the negatives. They're the negative aspect, out of envy, strife, out of self-ambition. All the blues there are out of goodwill, out of love, out of pure motives. So quite a contrast. But then in verse 18 he's going to kind of sum it up. He calls it pretense or truth. So he kind of sums up those negatives into a group he calls pretense, and then the other group are in the truth. So what then? And actually, I asked the class, what then is an idiom? And Margaret actually answered it right, I think. She got a gold star. Actually, a couple of gold stars in our class. Wayne got a gold star, and Margaret got a gold star. So that was kind of good this morning.

That was in word only, not actually physically. So what then is an idiom? It's a group of words. Example of an idiom. Someone says, it's raining cats and dogs. How many cats and dogs have you seen coming out of the sky when it's raining? Maybe some off a roof, maybe. I don't know. Anyway, that's an expression that has a meaning outside of just the words.

And some verses that are given there, I won't look at those. But maybe an alternate translation would be, what does it matter? So Paul's saying, what does it matter? only in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, that Christ is proclaimed. So what then is an idiom of the day, and it's actually used maybe about 20 times in the New Testament in various places. Only in every way is not exactly an idiom, but it's another kind of expression. So long as in either way.

So the first kind of phrase here in this verse 18 kind of talks about, you know, what does it matter so long as that Christ, in pretense or in truth, is proclaimed. So that's kind of the introduction here in that verse. So whether in pretense or in truth. So pretense is an outward show, you know, I'm pretending to be someone I'm not.

And we see that in our world, we see that all the time. And there's an example that we can read in scripture where it talks about the Pharisees And it says, beware the scribes, and it lists a whole bunch of things that they do. They have these long flowing robes, and they have all kinds of accoutrements, and they have little things on their things, how much they pray. But they say they get these long prayers, and it's an appearance thing. They're appearing to be something they're not.

So he says, that's not the motivation again. That's not the motivation for proclaiming Christ. Not out of a pretense. But it should be out of out of Aletheia, truth. And truth is a word that's used 110 times, I counted. I didn't count it, but my computer counted it. So it's used a tremendous amount.

But basically, truth, if you think about it, the definition in Scripture we have of truth is our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He says, I am the way, the truth, I am the singular truth. Truth is defined by our Lord Jesus Christ. So we who are in Christ, we can do things motivated by truth. And that's what he's saying. Or in truth. You're doing it in truth or in Christ. That truth is coming through you as you trust in Him. So that's a motivation that Paul is looking for. It's a truthful presentation of Christ being proclaimed. And a bunch of verses for that. Yeah, and what we found here, actually, in the Ephesians 5, let's just read that. Ephesians, if you have your Bibles, Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5, verses 7 through 9.

So this is going to talk about a characteristic of a believer. Therefore, do not partake with them. You formerly were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. So what we found as you look through scripture, when you see operating out of truth, it's kind of packaged. You get the very life of Christ. You get his attributes, his righteousness, his holiness. That's why the Christian life is an impossible life, right? Because we cannot live it. We cannot live it. Because it is Christ's life. We live it by trusting Him, by walking with Him, in fellowship with Him.

So that's what Paul's saying. That's the motivation that he's looking for. But he says here, but then he comes back to this theme again. Christ is proclaimed, and in this I rejoice. So that's what he's focused on. Proclaim here is the other word I mentioned, cathangelio, to declare. And rejoice is to be glad, expressing joy, What's interesting here, he's joyful, he's rejoicing in Christ being proclaimed. And then the last little part that, yes, and I will rejoice, we're going to see in the next little section, it's going to talk about he's not only rejoicing in the fact that Christ is being proclaimed, he's actually rejoicing in his circumstances being in prison.

That's pretty amazing. I mean, that's like saying, you know, I'm here in this bad situation. Boy, I know the Lord has me right where He wants me. And it's not a fun situation, but that's what He wants. And that's what Paul's saying. And if you look in Philippians, he rejoiced in this being proclaimed, Christ being proclaimed. But many times you'll see in Philippians, you'll see a phrase, rejoice in the, what's the, rejoice in the, thank you, rejoice in the Lord. That's what you'll see so many times in Philippians. You'll see Paul wants us to rejoice in him. We're not necessarily to rejoice that something bad is happening. We're to rejoice in the Lord who's using that situation for his glory. So the focus is to be on the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord.

And that's all through Philippians. And if you come to the class, you'd see that. He says, yes, I will rejoice, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance. So now you're thinking, this is an additional, and in addition I will rejoice. So in the future he's rejoicing. So one of the questions is here, what is this referring to? And it seems like, for I know that this will turn out for my deliverance, it's on his whole situation in prison.

He's rejoicing in that situation. and he says it's going to turn out for my deliverance. So your first thought is, great, he's waiting for an earthquake. Earthquake's going to happen, he's going to be out of there. He and the guard are going to split, and they're going to be on the road somewhere. Is that what kind of deliverance he's talking about? I don't think so.

He says, we'll turn out. This is kind of cool. If you're into going on ships, if you're into cruising, embarkation, disembarkation, we'll turn out is a word. There's some cool words in here. This is one of them. Metaphorically, it's the idea to come to or turn out. So if you embark or disembark. So he knows that it will turn out for my deliverance. And deliverance, actually the word deliverance here, this is kind of interesting.

You know, in scripture, soteriology or soteria is the idea of salvation or deliverance. So that word is used in a variety of ways. It's used for like the deliverance of the nation or salvation of a nation. Israel, for example, for the physical deliverance of a person out of something bad or destructive, and that it's used in the sense of our salvation as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, I think in this case, he's looking at it for his personal deliverance. And there's a verse that we read this morning. Let's look at Acts chapter 27. And this is going to be a case where it's for the personal deliverance. I think that's what Paul was focused on here, a personal deliverance, but it has a little twist to it that kind of makes it very unusual, because we probably don't think this way. So this is how it's used in another context. Acts 27, let's look at 31 through 34.

And this is a shipwreck that Paul was involved with, and it says, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, unless these men remain in the ship, you yourselves cannot be saved. The soldiers cut away the ropes of the ship's boat and let it fall away. And until day was about to dawn, Paul was encouraging them all to take some food, saying, Today is the 14th day that you have been constantly watching and going without eating and taking nothing. Therefore, I encourage you to take some food for this is for your preservation or soteria, for not a hair from your head of any of you shall perish. So basically, in that context, it was their physical well-being after the shipwreck. They were not going to die.

In this case, he's going to look at it in the long view. He's going to look at it, well, what's God's long view on my imprisonment? And we're going to see that his view of deliverance is different than the view right there, the physical preservation.

And it's through your prayers. And one thing, how can Paul be so sure that this is God's will? He said, this is for my deliverance. And we're going to answer that question here in a minute. And it's through the provision of the Spirit of God. So it's twofold, through prayer and through the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. So one of the questions is, what is the Spirit of Christ Jesus? And actually, I think that's speaking of the Holy Spirit. We see that phrase in other places. I think it's speaking of the Holy Spirit. So, through prayer and the provision of the Holy Spirit, according to my earnest expectation and hope.

So Paul had an expectation. We have expectations. I have an expectation about this is going to be good, bad, and indifferent. This expectation is kind of neat. This word is kind of cool. It's this idea of eager longing. Have you ever been watching for somebody? You're waiting for them to come around the corner. Maybe you're looking out the window. Well, this picture has your strain. You put your neck out and you're looking as far as you can look, and you look, and you look. You're waiting for something to happen.

Paul had an earnest expectation. It was real. He was wanting that to occur. The earnest expectation. and hope. And so one of the questions I asked this morning was, what is the meaning of hope in the New Testament? And all good Hollyholites should know that definition. They should have that embraced. What is the meaning of hope? Because that's so important.

I'll give you option A. I hope it doesn't rain today. Is that the meaning of hope in the New Testament? Do I get a yes or no answer? No. Okay. Is it a confident expectation in the absolute certainty of God's plan? Hope is that meaning. It's incredible. Hope in the New Testament is incredible. God has a plan. We don't have to agree with it. We believe that plan. We say, yes Lord, I believe your plan. You will carry out your plan. You will take me to be with you in glory. I believe that. I have no doubt about that. I trust you for that.

Then you move from that situation, you move to the situation where Paul's at. I'm in prison. I earnestly, my earnest expectation, my straining looking for you, coming around the corner, and hope, this confident expectation, you will carry this out. And then he goes, I will not be put to shame. You know, Paul mentioned this earlier in Philippians. He talked about the fact that he didn't want to be put about being blameless at the Lord's coming. Well, what's interesting is in the way it's expressed here in this verse, it talks about an earnest expectation and hope That he would not be put to shame and it's not that he's going to try real hard. He's going to be on his best behavior He's always going to present Christ. Just right. He's not going to you know, do it, right? He's That actually isn't the meaning.

It's the idea that he is confident that God Plan will be carried out and won't be for his glory and there'll be no shame He might you might think that being a big in prison. Imagine if anyone was in prison You probably aren't going to get the best marks If you've been to prison, that's probably a pretty bad downer. If you're an ex-con or whatever. So Paul was, quote, an ex-con in a sense. He'd been in prison. So he did prison things, right? You're in prison, you're not a good guy. Well, God was not going to put him to shame as a result of that.

He can speak with boldness. He could tell them about Christ. So that's a really interesting thought there. And then lastly here, Christ will even now and always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. So here's the wrong view. Christ will be in the future, and this is in the passive. Paul isn't going to exalt Christ. Christ is going to be exalted through him. That's really so cool. Christ will be exalted.

I'm not going to get extra points because I did really, really well. God's going to carry out his plan and exalt Christ in his situation. in my body, now and always, this be exalted is made large, magnify, through life or through death. So it didn't matter.

Paul said, you know, I look at the situation, whether I live, whether I die, I will be delivered from the situation. That's incredible. When you look at that and you say, well, death doesn't sound like a delivery to me, it sounds like the end. But he looked at that as delivering him, whether by life or by death. For me to live as Christ, to die as Cain, both options were God's plan.

So that's really cool. And then the last part of this is we need to read the next verse. So if you have your Bibles, turn to Philippians chapter 1 and verse 21. Philippians chapter 1 and verse 21. And this kind of sums up where Paul was at in verse 21. for me to live as Christ, to die as Cain.

So that was his view. That was the long view. Christ was being proclaimed for motives that were not righteous and for righteous motives. But Christ was being proclaimed. He was excited. God was going to deliver him through this situation in the Roman jail.

But it didn't matter. The ultimate outcome, whether by life or by death, I think that's our view in our situations. Our situation may not be as dire in a sense, but they're to be focused on the Lord, rejoicing in the Lord for His plan and His purposes. Let's close.

Dear Father, we thank you, Lord, for our time. Father, we thank you for the blessings we have on our Savior. We thank you for the very life of Christ, Lord, that we cannot live this Christian life, Lord, and forgive us when we try to, Lord. We're thankful that you desire to live it through us, and as we know you, as we come to understand who we are in Christ, what you've done for us, and that we can trust you and that your life can be magnified and made great. And we thank you for that. We ask it in Christ's name. Amen.