What Does a Partner in The Gospel Look Like?

I'd like you to term with me if you would to Philippians chapter 1. We've been talking about the fact that God has called us to be partners in the gospel. If that's what our calling is, that's why we're celebrating it. They actually are third anniversary, our third birthday as a local church. The reason we exist, the reason that God and His sovereignty would allow a little church like us here in this particular place and bring about the blessings that He has in our lives and touching the lives of others as He has. The reason He has done this is because He's called us to be partners in the gospel. To be partners in the gospel, that is why He has formed us and that's what He's doing in our lives.

We've been seeing that in the book of Philippians and today we have a wonderful privilege of looking at the life of the Apostle Paul as He unveils how He is an example of what it means to be a partner in the gospel. It's always helpful to see a model. It's always helpful to see an example of something when somebody tells you, well this is what you ought to do, this is how you ought to do it. It's so much easier for them to say, just follow Him, do what He does. He's the model to follow. And so Paul gives us here, he illustrates with his own life what it means to be a partner in the gospel of Jesus Christ. He demonstrates how those principles for effective partnership with the gospel actually work practically in the lives of God's people and so He gives us these circumstances.

And by the way, these are very trying circumstances in the life of Paul. He went through things that were so difficult that to read the description of them is overwhelming. And 2 Corinthians chapter 12, as Paul begins to unveil what He has gone through as a partner in the gospel, it's overwhelming to read the circumstances He went through. And as He describes here, He's writing from prison, He's writing from a circumstance in prison in Rome where He has actually chained to guards 24 hours a day. Every shift of guards would take four hours and then they'd have a shift and they'd have another group that would come in and they would be chained to Paul. And of course, you can't even imagine what that would be like to be so in such bondage and not have any freedom whatsoever.

And yet in those circumstances, Paul says, God has used my circumstances not to depress me, but to use me to further the gospel of Jesus Christ in glorious ways. And the topic sentence of this passage we're going to look at in Philippians chapter 1 verses 12 through 26 is this, this little statement, Paul says, my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. That's a marvelous truth. Don't you wish you could say that about every circumstance in your life? Well, I've got good news for you. You actually can, if you walk according to the pattern of Paul, regardless of your circumstances, you can say, my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel.

If you live according to these principles, the key point in this book and the key point of this passage we are looking at is that as partners of the gospel, we can find our deepest joy in the progress of the gospel despite our circumstances. And so Paul shows us how to order our lives so that nothing will hinder and everything will advance the gospel, and that will bring great joy you will discover in your Christian life. Let me read the passage. Philippians chapter 1 beginning in verse 12, down to verse 26, Paul writes, 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 that most of the brethren, trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear, some to be sure preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but some also from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than from pure mode of thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

According to my earnest expectation and hope that I shall not be put to shame in anything but that with all boldness Christ shall even now as always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death, for to me to live as Christ and to die as gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which to choose, but I am hard pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better, yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. And convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith so that your proud confidence in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again.

What a heart this man had. This is one of the most astounding passages in all the Bible. And the Apostle Paul, as he is in prison and writing to this church family that he loves so much because they've been so instrumental in helping him and aiding him as he takes the gospel onward. And as he writes to them and shares his heart and bears his motivation, it's wonderful. And you'll notice, first of all, that he tells us here by being a model for us, that the gospel advances through the difficulties of the partners in the gospel. Actually, the gospel of Jesus Christ is not hindered by our troubles, but rather it advances through our difficulties and troubles. It progresses despite opposition notice.

When he talks about progress here, the progress of the gospel, he's talking about advancement through obstructions when there are roadblocks in the way. And it appears as though you can't get through them. The word progress means to break through those and to travel on in the first Thessalonians when Paul writes back to the Thessalonikans at young church that he had gone and preached the gospel there. And many people came to faith in Christ and just a short time later, they were going through great difficulties. And the persecution has just baby Christians, just weeks old in the Lord and they were being persecuted for their faith. And so Paul's very concerned about them. And when he writes to them, he tells them, he says, I want you to know my heart.

I tried again and again to come back to you, but Satan blocked our path. In other words, God allows Satan to keep Paul from getting back to the Thessalonikans. Well, the word progress here means to break through those kinds of barriers and obstructions. Some of you think because of your life circumstances, because of your personal characteristics, some of you like Moses, when God told Moses, I want you to go back to Egypt. And I want you to go down there and I want you to tell Pharaoh to let my people go. And some of you like Moses who said to the Lord, oh, get somebody else. I can't do this. I can't speak well. I stumbled over my words. I'm not a communicator. You need to get somebody else to do this.

And I love the way that God answers. His answer is this. I'll be with you. In fact, he says it to him three or four times. Every time he objects and he says, I just can't do this. This is over my head. God said, I'll be with you. You know, that's what he's saying to you this morning. He's saying, I'll be with you. He's called you to be a partner in the gospel and there are many obstacles. There are roadblocks. There are things that are in your path that you think I couldn't possibly be involved in the work of the gospel in a significant way because I've got these weaknesses and these problems and these obstacles. And God says to you, I'll be with you. And that's what was happening to Paul. Now you can imagine what the Philippians are thinking.

This is the man who brought the gospel to them. This is the man that they see as their spiritual father that they have been in partners with in the gospel. And here's this man who was out front leading the way, advancing the gospel and what in the world's happened to him. He's been thrown into prison. Everything's been taken away from him. I mean, imagine if you said to your, you're trying to witness to your friends and they say, well, what will this do for me? And you say, well, let me give you an example. For example, the Apostle Paul, the one who brought the gospel to us, this is what it's done for him. He's in prison in Rome. Everything's been taken away from him and he has a sentence of death over his head.

Nero wants to kill him so that the the Philippians are concerned. And this is one of the reasons he's writing to them. How could God allow this to happen to Paul? And what Paul does, he demonstrates the kind of discernment that he wants them to develop. He wants them to come to approve the things that are really of high as value. And so he demonstrates to them, he says his imprisonment actually is resulting in the progress rather than hindering the gospel and that's what's important to Paul. In other words, for Paul, if the gospel will be advanced by my imprisonment, I gladly will go to jail. And that's what he did. Now, there are two consequences of his imprisonment. Notice here in verse 13, for example, the gospel gains a wider audience.

He says my imprisonment in Christ causes many more people to hear the gospel. That's an interesting expression. My imprisonment in Christ, now he's in prison, but he says my imprisonment is in Christ. Quite literally, my chains have become manifest in Christ. My chains have become manifest in Christ. In other words, it's apparent to all who saw him in Rome that the reason he is imprisoned isn't because of any crime he's committed. It's not because of politics. He hasn't killed some abortion clinic worker. He hasn't caused a riot because the right guy didn't get voted in as president. The reason he is imprisoned in Rome is because he is in Christ. He's a follower of Jesus Christ. He's a proclamer of the gospel.

You should remember, by the way, whoever gets voted in as president isn't really the most important thing in the world. Most important thing in the world is the advancement of the gospel of Christ. What we should pray for is peace in our land so that we will be free to preach the gospel. I got an email just the other day from Nilo Sanchez in the Philippines that we've had here in our church. He was talking about, he basically was asking us to pray for him because the circumstances in the Philippines are so treacherous. The economy is falling apart. The people are rising up and they're trying to get this man out of office. I don't know. Perhaps they already have. I don't even know. But everyone is concerned because the whole country is falling apart.

But he says, pray for us that we'll have the kind of peace in which we can advance the gospel. And even if there's chaos, pray that God will use the chaos as an opportunity for us to advance the gospel. That's the kind of attitude we ought to have. That's the most important thing. Is the gospel of Christ go forward and many people come to faith in Christ and Paul says, my chains have become manifest in Christ. It is apparent that because of my circumstances that people come to know the truth about Christ through me. Now, notice the implications of this. I am in chains in Christ, which means I am in chains for Christ. His imprisonment has to do with the fact that he was a, he was a proclamer of the gospel, that he involved his life in preaching the truth about Jesus Christ, about salvation in Christ.

That's why he was in prison. But it also has to do with the nature of what discipleship really is to see Paul understood that to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, one at the heart of it, is to participate in Christ sufferings. In fact, that's what he says, notice in chapter 3, in verse 10, he says, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. See, the fellowship of his sufferings is a part of being a disciple. If you want to know what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, part of that is to participate in the sufferings of Christ, to suffer for Christ. Now that has been a known part of discipleship throughout most of church history.

It's only been in this very recent church history that we have a, we have people who are disciples of Christ and never suffer and praise God. I'm glad that I haven't suffered, but we may suffer because that's the normal part of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. And he says because of this, because of this suffering, the whole Praetorian Guard hears about Jesus Christ. The Praetorian was the Emperor's Palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome and he says that the entire Praetorian Guard has heard about Christ. Well, how many were there? Think about this for just a second. Paul, most of the churches, Paul went to the preach. They were churches smaller than this. They met in homes, there were no church buildings and so Christians met in homes so they couldn't be very large.

They were perhaps 40, 50 people in the largest congregations. And Paul would go and preach to those people. And then we have cases where he rents a hall and he preaches the gospel and he does that and probably maybe a crowd this big gathered to hearing. But he says the entire Praetorian Guard has heard about the gospel through my imprisonment. How many was that? 9,000. 9,000 guards heard about Jesus Christ. The way that this work was, since they changed guards every four hours and he had two guards with him and they changed every four hours, you could imagine how Paul saw this is simply rotational evangelism. This was an amazing thing. It's like some of you guys who work shifts work but imagine if your shifts were four hours and every four hours a new shift came in and you were chained to an apostle who preached the gospel.

When you like to change some of the guys you work with is someone like this and force them to hear for four straight hours the gospel of Jesus Christ and to see Paul as he related to other people because he had visitors all the time and as he talked to them about the work of Christ and about the glory of Christ and they had to sit there and listen to it. And so he says, I see this, this imprisonment that's been chained to guards as an opportunity to proclaim the gospel and you can't miss Paul's triumphant delight in regarding his arrest because at the end of the book the next of the last verse he sees the letter by sending greetings from all the saints, especially those who belong to Caesar's household.

In other words, he says the gospel has penetrated to the very heart of the Roman Empire, to Nero's household. Nero made a law. He proclaimed that men must be willing to call him Lord and Savior, Kurios Sotere. And the apostle Paul says right there in his household, there are those who claim that Jesus is Lord and Savior. They bowed the need of Christ. So the gospel is gaining a wider audience, Paul says through my imprisonment than it did when I was free. And the second thing he says in verse 14, notice is that the gospel gains more courageous preachers. In other words, it emboldens those who are cowards right now. All of us are cowards to one degree another, some greater cowards than others spiritually.

It's one of the primary satanic, one of the primary attacks of Satan. One of Satan's primary attacks on your life as a Christian if you are a follower of Jesus Christ is he comes against you and he tries to fill your heart with fear and cowardice when it comes to being a bold witness for Jesus Christ. And when I say this, when I talk about a bold witness for Jesus Christ in my mind is not an image of somebody standing on the street corner down here and screaming at the top of their lungs that people should repent and believe on Jesus. When I consider to be a bold witness for Christ, to someone who boldly lives their life for Christ and is not afraid to speak up and give a defense of the gospel, give a defense of the hope that lies within them, to speak clearly about salvation in Christ, to love people, not hate them, not grab them by the collar and shake them and say, believe in Jesus or else, but rather who tell the truth about Christ to people as the love of Christ flows out of their lives, bold witnesses.

All of us are attacked by Satan to be cowards, but what Paul says here is, my imprisonment has emboldened spiritual cowards. People have become courageous because they've seen what God is doing in me. I think that happened at the hospital that night, as people begin to pray and the hospital administrator and her assistant and doctors and nurses and come by and talk to us and hear these little group of 20 Christians praying and they're actually saying, keep it up, keep it up, keep doing this. This is really something. It emboldened us to be bold to speak to them about Christ. And I think it emboldened those Christians in the hospital. The doctor stood there after the surgery and came on to talk to us and basically preached the gospel to us.

You see, when we see other suffer for the gospel and we see God carry them through it, we see them go into horrible circumstance and we go, oh, no. And then we see the glory of God come through their lives as they suffer. It will embolden us to be more bold for Christ. He says it caused them to be trusting which meant to be more confident in Christ, more confident that you can, you can trust Christ as you step out in boldness and speak the truth about him that he will, he will undergird you, he'll empower you, he'll enable you. It's an remarkable attitude that Paul has. He preferred freedom to preach the gospel but he recognized that God had used his imprisonment to prod others. So instead of one man out there preaching, there were many, many more.

Gordon Fee, as he reads in his commentary on this passage, he was talking about, you know, listening to Paul as he speaks about his hard attitude and his joy and his boldness while he's in prison and these horrible circumstances and Fee writes this. He says, my own experience is that not all are so generous, including the writer of this commentary. In other words, when I suffer, I'm not quite so generous, I don't see this as a blessing from God. In fact, I might get upset at God and then he makes this comment, this exclamation, he says, does this man always sing in prison? Do you always sing when you're persecuted? You always say, thank God, we were counted worthy to suffer for the name. You know, as I read about the boldness and suffering, as I get letters from missionaries that I know well enough to believe they're telling me the truth about the kind of persecution that people are going through in some parts of the world, it fills my heart with joy to realize that when persecution does come, the spirit of God is able to embolden believers and to fill their heart with joy for the privilege of suffering for the name of Christ.

And so he says, the gospel progresses, and in fact notice in verses 15-18 he says it progresses despite Christians who are wrongly motivated. Now you say, well, you know, the biggest problem that we Christians have is there are enemies out there who are enemies of the gospel and they try to prevent us from preaching the gospel, but the fact is most of us have not experienced that. Most of us have experienced the greatest acts of enmity from those who are Christians. That's an amazing thing. Most of them, and I know in the ministry, the things they've suffered in the ministry have come primarily from the hand of other Christians who are jealous of them in one way or another and try to stand in their way or try to get them out of the ministry.

And that's what Paul is saying here. He says, some of them who preach are motivated by good will and they see that what I'm going through is for the defense of the gospel. They see my imprisonment as God's opportunity to use me. The gospel is on trial and right there at the very center of the empire, the gospel is going to be defended by the most capable man in all the church, the Apostle Paul himself. But he says others are motivated by envy and strife. Strife, they are opportunists trying to take advantage of Paul's helplessness. And they want to step in, notice this in verse 15, some to be sure of preaching Christ from envy and strife. Verse 17, the former, those who preach from envy and strife proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition.

They see the preaching in the gospel as something that would be a means of them advancing somehow in a career. Gospel preaching is not a career. It's a life. And it's what all of you have been called to. You may not be called to preach before crowds. You may not be called to stand before a group and proclaim and get loud and shout and scream. God has called you to be a proclamer of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's why he saved you. And he says they were not, they're not motivated from fear motives. They think they're going to cause me distress in my imprisonment. In other words, he says I have enemies in the church. And he says they think it's going to cause me distress. The word distress here means to rub something raw and it's a picture, it's a word picture.

They think that as they do this, it causes the change to get tighter on my wrist for this to be a worse suffering. They want to cause me pain. But then he says this, what then? Verse 18, only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice. It's amazing to me in my past experience in getting training and seminars. I went to about eight different seminaries over the years for different reasons. One of the things I've noticed in some groups that their main thrust in ministry is to warn you about other men in the ministry who aren't doing it just right. There are people who write books against Billy Graham, for example. Now I don't buy any stretch of the imagination and think that Billy Graham's never made any mistakes.

You've all heard him say things that he shouldn't have said under certain kinds in certain circumstances. But can you imagine spending your time writing books and trying to convince Christians to stand against someone like Billy Graham, who preaches the gospel, or something like the Promise Keepers movement, where thousands of men get together and sing praises and have quite simple gospel messages, a preach to them, and glory in that. And people get all sideways trying to stop this movement because it isn't quite doctrinally like they think it should be. That always amazes me. And it amazes me how I could get caught up in that, because you can criticize anyone who stands up and tries to do a work for Christ, because none of us do it perfectly right.

None of us have a perfect theology. I strive to have a good theology, but I know I know as I live, as I have lived in the past, I live in the future. I discover areas of my belief that are not consistent with Scripture, I'll have to change. It's always a painful thing. I've been teaching the Bible for a long time, 25 years of great school of theology, and some of those early students who believe things that I taught them that I no longer believe. And I hate to argue with them about it, because I'm the one who taught them. But can you imagine spending your life fighting other Christians who are involved in the work of the gospel? So that's what they were doing to Paul. And Paul says, the most important thing to me is that Christ proclaimed.

The gospel makes progress. Now notice, in verses 19 through 26, this is an amazing passage. To me, this is probably one of the most amazing passages in all the Bible, when Paul talks about how the gospel advanced in his difficulties. So many of you are like me. You think it's not until God gets all the circumstances just right that you can really do something significant for the Lord. I don't mean significant in the eyes of people. I just mean significant that's going to have eternal value to it. Maybe nobody knows about it, but you're going to do something that's going to have eternal effects. And we think that our circumstances have to change. You know, if I used to think this way, when I was in business as a young man, I'd gone to seminary, but I had no confidence about going in the ministry, and I thought, well, I'm going to make a lot of money.

And once I make a lot of money, and I can live independently, then I'll give all my time to ministry. I'll do God a great favor. And I was about to buy a bigger house. We were doing really well in business, and I went out with this real estate agent, a friend of mine in the church, a believer, and we were out looking at big houses. And I wanted to buy a house with a big pool and a tennis court. My son was playing tennis, a lot of tennis, and I wanted to buy a tennis court. Swimming pool in a big house. And we're riding around looking at these houses. And I'm really all into this. And he says to me, I'm a little puzzled. I thought, you told me one time you'd like to finish seminary and really give your life to ministry.

It was like, you know, this worldly real estate agent here was confronting me about my priorities. And God brought me under such deep conviction. I got to tell you. I became so convicted. I began to repent before the Lord. And we took a year off, and instead of spending money on new house, we spent money on a theological education. I went to Southern California, finished my seminary training, and came back up and the next year went into ministry full time. And the reason is, is that God got my attention. And he opened my eyes where my real priorities are. And I discovered that I didn't need to get my life all fixed up and everything just in the right place so I could serve Christ. I can serve Christ in the mess I'm in.

And that's true of you. You may be in debt up to your nose and you think, oh no, we got to work hard and get out of debt because we're a bad testimony. Well, let me tell you, you can be a good testimony if you're in real financial ruin. It's start doing things the biblical way and start being a witness of bold witness for Jesus Christ as He pulls you through that. Repent. It's a simple repent and start walking in obedience and be honest about the mess you're in because you didn't obey the word of God and begin to boldly witness for Christ as those circumstances. Well, in fact, I discovered that in the time when I saw, I felt like the biggest failure in all my life, sitting on talking to people about a huge problem I had in my own life and I was able to witness to them about Jesus Christ.

I never would have talked to them about Christ. I've had been for that weakness in my life, for that problem I was going through that they were probably to be a part of the solution. So God can use you where you're at and that's what Paul is saying here that God, the gospel advances in our difficulties and notice this in verses 19 through 21, that God knows how to deliver His messengers from danger. He knows how to deliver you out of danger. You don't have to fear and keep your mouth shut until you're out of danger before you're bold about your witness for Christ. Listen to what he says in verse 19, for I know that this shall turn out from my deliverance through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ according to my earnest expectation and hope that I shall not be put to shame in anything but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now as always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death, if they kill me, Christ is going to be honored and glorified.

Why? Because to me, to live as Christ and to die as his game. Now think about what he's saying here, his earnest expectation. This is a, by the way, you could underline this, here is the biblical definition of hope. If you want to know what hope is, Paul puts this in a construction. It's actually called grandville sharps rule of syntax and that'll bless your heart. You could put that right there in the margin of your Bible. And those sharps rule of syntax is when you have this particular construction, two substances with one article connected by Kai in the same case, it means that both those things are speaking up, are referring to the same object. That is, his earnest expectation and his hope are the same thing.

That's what hope is. Hope is when you earnestly expect God to fulfill his promise to you. He has promised to be a father to you. And hope is when you have that feeling within you that he's actually going to fulfill that promise. I was talking to, to Mary and Bell this week, I wanted to see Bill and it's been wonderful to see him on his deathbed that God is manifesting his glory and Bill's life on his deathbed that he's a greater witness today than he's ever been of the reality of who God is. He knows God is his father like now. He told me like he's never known him before. And as we were talking, and I was talking to Mary about this in Romans 5, it says, the hope that we have, the hope that we have because of God's promise that he has come to us and he's given us his spirit and his spirit has witnessed to our hearts that God is our father.

That the spirit, the spirit of adoption assures our heart that God is truly our father. We can crawl up into his lap. We can rest in him. He will take care of us. He loves us this much and the Apostle Paul says this hope will not put you to shame. Now it's telling Mary and Mary and how, you know, it's kind of like a little kid, a little kid who's been abandoned by their father and their father sends word to them. I'm going to come and get you. I'm going to rescue out of that situation. You're going to come and live with me. Imagine what it would be like if that happened and then your father never showed up. Well, Mary began to cry and she began to tell me that's exactly what happened to her that you, most of you know her story that she grew up in a convent in New York and her mother basically handed it over to those nuns who raised her and she said she saw her father one single time in her entire life.

And she told me she's, I used to make up stories about my dad. I used to tell the kids that he was very important, very rich because he was so important and rich, even though he loved me very much, he couldn't come and see me because he was too important. And she began to weep and I began to weep and we began to weep together. Not the fact that we have a father who's not like that. We have a father when you hope in his promise you will never be put to shame. He's going to come through. He is going to deliver you. He is going to be a father to you. He is going to beat you what he has promised to beat you and that's what hope is. It's an earnest expectation that God will fulfill his promise. You know what this word is describing?

It's a word picture. It means to strain your neck to see it happen. You know it's like you, it's like the protocol, the protocol son's father. He heard that his son was coming and so he goes out in the road and he cranes his neck to look down the road because he knows his son's coming. Hope is that way. We earnestly expect God to fulfill his promise. He's promised to embolden you and empower you to do something significant with your life, not to throw it away, not to live for yourself, not to live your life accumulating things and piling them up but having no eternal impact, that stuff's going to rust and rot and fade away. But what you do for the kingdom of God is going to last eternity, it's going to last eternity.

I hear these little reports about some of the things you do, forgive me Greg for telling the story, but Greg Taylor is involved in the prison ministry and the guy that's over that prison ministry told me that Greg bought a whole bunch of Bibles, I mean not cheap Bibles, study Bibles, nice study Bibles for these prisoners in prison of a whole bunch of them. Guys he's telling me he's breaking down weeping because he says you don't know the kind of eternal effect that's going to have on these men, that somebody cared enough to buy them a Bible. See when you do things like that, when God, the Spirit of God moves you to act in that way, to say no to yourself and yet to the flesh and say yes to Christ Jesus, to pour out your life, to lay down your life for the gospel, that's going to have eternal effects, eternal effects.

And I know the things that are here and now have such power over us, the things that we can see now, you know, building up your Ira, your retirement program, having a perfect your time program, such a high priority, and I'm 57 years old, I'm thinking I don't know, I don't know how I'm going to make it if I can't preach, if I get to be, you know, 77 and I can't speak clearly and nobody wants to hear me anymore, I don't know what I'm going to do. My son's going to take care of me. But I learned a long time ago, in 1971 I learned a lesson that the most important thing I could do with my money, no matter how much I made, was to invest it in heaven. Because if I invested it in heaven, it will never rot, never decrease, it will only increase and have eternal value.

I can assure you of that. And Paul understood that. And notice, he says, notice what he says, the means of his deliverance is in this situation, in verse 19, the human means is the prayer of his partners in the gospel, they're going to, they're praying for him. Now, the word that he uses for prayer here is a very special word, there's a bunch of words in the testament for prayer, but this word, this particular word for prayer means to pour out your heart, to express your deepest felt needs. He says, you're so emotionally involved in my life and my circumstances that I know that you are crying out to God, you are offering up the aces, you're offering up supplication to the Father. You're pouring your heart out that he would deliver me.

And I know he's going to use that prayer to bring deliverance, but he says also the divine means is the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. I love this word, epicoregia, a choreography, a choreographer in the first century with someone who supplied all the needs of people in a troop who went around the country putting on plays and musicals and that kind of thing. The choreographer wasn't the guy who arranged the dance steps, he was the guy who supplied all their needs. He gave them money and the resources they need to do this. And he says that what has happened is Jesus has provided us the Spirit so we can do this work. Some of you think I'm not smart enough or I'm not dumb enough or I'm not articulate enough or I don't know enough or I'm too busy in my own pursuits, I can't really be an effective part of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I need this and this and this, I'm thinking about our church project. We want to build the church in downtown Nightson, right in the center of downtown Nightson. And so we're going to need a lot of things. We need money, we need a willing workers, we need all kinds of stuff, but what we really need is the supply of the Spirit. You see, Paul says the thing that's going to bring me deliverance is the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, he's given me a Spirit, it doesn't matter about anything else. He didn't have anything else. At the end of his life, all Paul has a cloak and a few scrolls and books, that's it. But he was well supplied because he had the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Now notice the meaning of his deliverance, the word deliverance here is Sotaria, salvation.

The salvation he's talking about here though is an eternal salvation, the salvation he's talking about, that I won't die a failure, that my death itself, in my death itself, Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. You want Christ to be glorified through you? You want Christ to be glorified through your body, through your life, through what you do. Some of you I know you have things in your life that you wish God would take away because you know they shame the name of Christ and you hope nobody ever even finds out about it. But I think all of you Christians here, you know that you want Christ to be glorified in your bodies. And that's what Paul want, because I want this deliverance, I want God to work in my life in such a way that Christ will be glorified in me, whether I die or whether I live.

And then notice in verse 21, the most amazing statement for me to live, for to me to live is Christ and to die as game. How could he say that? For me to live as Christ and die as game. He said, if I live, I want Christ to be glorified. For me to die is game. To die as game. How could he say that to die as game? Because he knew that death is to be absent from the body but to be present with the Lord. He knew that if he died, he would enter into the presence of God, into the presence of Jesus Christ. You love Jesus that much, that you could say to die is game. I know some of you do. Some of you love Jesus Christ that much. I know that because of what I've seen in your life, that to die would be game.

According to Hebrews chapter 11, we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. We have an army of martyrs who have gone before us. The word witness in the New Testament is the Greek word Martair, from which we get the word martyr, which means those who die for being a witness. And the reason it came to mean that was, in the first 300 years of the church, it was the most common thing in the world. If you were a true witness of Jesus Christ, your life was on the line. You could very well die for it. In 1555, I told you about this man before John Rogers was burned alive because of his testimony concerning Jesus Christ. And this is the most touching story as you read it because as he approached, as he went to the place, the stake where they were going to burn him alive, his children, they allowed his children to accompany him.

And then the children stood there and watched his young children as he was burned alive at the stake. And the story goes, as it is recorded, that through their tears, the children, his children kept pouring out their hearts with strong encouragement for him to stand true to Jesus even in his death. This great army of martyrs who have gone before us, they knew that Christ is worth more than life. They believe that Jesus Christ is worth more than falling in love, that Jesus Christ is worth more than marrying and having children. They were willing to die even though they had that in the future for the cause of Christ. They knew that Jesus was worth more than seeing their children grow up and become independent.

John Rogers never saw that. All he had to do was deny Christ and he could watch his children grow up. They knew that Jesus Christ was worth more than finishing their career and making a name for themselves, that he was worth more than a dream spouse and a dream house and a perfect retirement. They knew that Jesus Christ was worth more than life, worth more than their plans and their dreams. All the martyrs said, it is better to be cut off in the midst of my dreams if I might gain Christ. That was their heart. The stories of the martyrs, when you read them, and I suggest that you do read them often. The stories of the martyrs press a question home to our hearts. Do we love Christ more than we love life?

I have a young student in one of my classes at the School of Theology. His name is Angela Tarantino, young Filipino man. I have seen him over the years. He has saved his late teens and he has really grown in his middle 20s now and married. He asked the question in his class. There are three missionaries in this class who are taking courses and a bunch of other people in full-time ministry. He asked this question one day in class. He said, do you think we should want to die as a martyr? Should we want to die for Christ? I don't mean want to die, but when I die, I want to die for Christ. He said, do you think that we should? It was really an interesting discussion as these young and older people discuss this.

Do you want to die for Christ? Would you rather have a heart attack and drop dead or be burned at the stake? This day, a friend called me and he told me about a young man I went to school with in my freshman, my sophomore year in high school and I've known him for a long time. He's my age and real hot guitar player. This guy could really play guitar. And he dropped dead the other day of a heart attack. Boom, like that. He's dead. Would you rather die like that or to be somewhere where you're involved in the cause of Christ and you're persecuted and you die for Christ instead of eating too much hamburger meat? David gave his answer this way in Psalm 63. He was on the run in the wilderness of Judea and he says this, oh God, that was my God.

I seek thee. My soul thirsts for thee. Now you have to understand us in the context of him running for his life because God has called him to do something and he has real enemies. He says, my flesh faints for thee as in a dry and weary land where no water is. He said, I thirst for you like a man who's dying of thirst craves water. I crave you, oh God. Why? Why would you crave God that way? Because David knew something. He said, because I steadfast love, like I said, your covenant love is better than life. My lips will praise thee. As long as you give me life, I'll use my lips to praise you. The love of God is better than life. It's better to die for the love of God than to live without it. That's what David believed.

That's what the martyrs believed. That's what Christians believe who come to rest their faith in Christ. You see, Christianity is a religion of martyrdom. You do understand that, don't you? Not the kind of martyrdom where you go commit suicide, not hairy carry, but the kind of martyrdom that Jesus experienced in a real sense because he did the will of the Father. He spoke the truth. And so those who died for their faith throughout the history of the church, because they wanted to be a faithful witness for Christ, Stephen was stoned to death because he gave a faithful witness to Christ. You read the book of Acts and you read the account of his death, it's an amazing thing. The persecution that arose as a result of Stephen's death caused the church to scatter everywhere.

They ran in every direction. You know what happened? The gospel went out. It went in every direction. That's how God did it. Martyrdom spread the church. The Apostle James, the first apostle to be killed, Herod put him to death with a sword. And there was this great outpouring of prayer for him and for Peter and you know the deliverance that came about because of that prayer. That prayer was a result of persecution and martyrdom or the Apostle John. He has a vision of heaven and he sees under the altar the souls of those who have been martyred and these, the souls of these martyrs cry out to God and they say how long oh God before you do something in response to this. And God answers in Revelation chapter 6, listen to the answer of God to these martyrs.

Then will you act on our behalf. God says rest for a little while longer. Why? He says until the number of your fellow servants and your brethren who are to be killed even as you have been as martyrs shall be completed also. You hear that? You hear what that passage says? It says that there is a number of martyrs appointed by the Lord. The number has to be fulfilled before the consummation comes. And so God says to them rest, the Lord Jesus actually, the Lord Jesus says rest until the number is completed who are to die as you have died. You see I have to understand, martyrdom is not something accidental. Martyrdom is not unexpected, it's not a strategic defeat for the living God. It may look like defeat but actually it's a part of the plan of heaven to advance the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are people, there are believers who are dying today. They claim that more people are dying today for the cause of Christ. More people are dying today because they are witnesses of Jesus Christ and ever before in church history. In the Sudan, hundreds and thousands of people are dying because of their claim to be followers of Jesus Christ. Is that insignificant? Is that a defeat for God? Not at all. Is it because these people aren't sophisticated enough? Is it because they're backward and they don't know much? No, it's because they are faithful witnesses of Jesus Christ and God the Father has chosen them for this assignment. And he has blessed them in the most glorious kind of way. When you stand in the presence of Jesus Christ and those thousands of Sudanese stand there who were killed because of the name of Jesus Christ, you are going to be overwhelmed with the glory of Christ that was settled upon their lives because they were chosen for this incredible privilege of suffering for the name of Jesus.

The death of James must have rocked the church, this steadfast disciple who was at the very center of the apostles like a foundational member of the church. He was brutally killed and yet because of his death, the gospel spreads. There may be persecution in the church in America. We never know. There's certainly a lot of problems in the church in America and perhaps God would choose, perhaps it's in his program and his plan that he will cause martyrdom to take place in our own country, in a country like this. You think, oh, that could never happen. Well, that's what the Christians intruded some thought, but for almost 300 years Christianity grew in the soil that was wet with the blood of the martyrs and it may happen again.

That's happening in other parts of the world. Listen to how one writer described those first 300 years. The last segment of that up until 311 A.D., the Edic of toleration. It was not only legal to persecute Christians, it was widespread. It was everywhere. If you name the name of Jesus Christ, you were in danger of having your life taken. Listen to this description of it, horror spread everywhere through the congregations and the number of lapsi, that is those who renounce the faith when persecution came and there will be those. I remember hearing a woman in an iron curtain country, years ago when I was a young boy, give her testimony, she told how before persecution came on the church, the churches were filled with all kinds of people, but she never really saw Christianity practice like the Bible said, but when persecution came, it thinned the ranks and the church met underground, but she said, for the first time in my life, I saw what real Christianity was.

He goes on, the lapsi were enormous, that is those who did renounce. There was no lack, however, of such as remain firm and suffered martyrdom rather than yielding, and as the persecution grew wider and more intense, the enthusiasm of the Christians and their power of resistance grew stronger and stronger. It advanced the gospel. The 300 years to be a Christian was to be, was to take an immense risk in that culture and life. Imagine some of you are trying to figure out whether you're really a Christian or you want to be a Christian, imagine what it would be like if in order to be a Christian meant your life was on the line and you could die for the cause of Christ. That's what you ought to ask yourself.

Would I be a Christian if I knew that my being public about it, naming myself as a follower of Christ, would risk my life? Would I follow Christ then? And you can tell the state of your faith. See God says that the role that martyrs have played in the church and planting and empowering the church is overwhelming. They had a special role in what they did was they shut the mouth of Satan because Satan is always saying, he is saying in our culture, he is saying in the newspapers and journals and everywhere else on TV, Satan says that people of God only serve him because life is better if you serve him. We even preach a gospel like that today. We tell people if you'll receive Jesus, you'll get rid of your ingrown toenails and you want to have any problems anymore and your finances will grow and things will go better with you.

Instead the Bible says, follow Christ but when you follow him recognizing, recognize this that he says, come and follow me, come and die. That's what he's calling you to. He's calling you to come and die, maybe not physically, but he's definitely calling you to come and die to yourself and live to Christ to say no to the flesh and say yes to the Spirit. God knows how to protect his people who are proclaimers of the gospel even when he allows their life to be taken because he usheres them into his very presence. They are privileged people. I had a hard time telling Angelo Tarantino what I thought, should we want to die as martyrs? I don't want to die at all, but I'd rather die as a martyr than I would to die as a fat old man on a golf course somewhere who just keels over.

I do the die for the cause of Christ. Angelo is in the Philippines right now, he's over there for two weeks. The first time he's been in the Philippines, he's teaching in the Mendenau and then he's going down to whatever that middle island is and finally down into Mendenau. Mendenau, there's persecution, there's persecution by the radical Muslims and there's persecution by these rebel communist fighters and he's going right into the middle of that. I thought as he asked that question and he was really wanting to know, should I want to die for Christ and I think about him and I pray for him as he's down there right now at this very day, he's down there preaching the gospel somewhere. God knows how to protect his messengers and he also knows how to make them the most effective whatever that takes.

That's what God's calling you to be a productive witness for Jesus Christ. If I would be the most productive in dying for Christ, I can say right now, not in the midst of pain, not in the midst of struggle, but in the midst of health, I can say yes, I'd rather die for the witness of Jesus Christ if it would make the gospel go out more effectively. Notice this, finally, in verses 23-26, God knows how to provide for his people. Paul was concerned about the Philippians because if he was to die, what would happen to them? He was concerned for them. He wanted to minister to them. And so he says in verse 22, but if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me and I do not know which to choose for I'm hard pressed from both directions having a desire to depart and be with Christ, for that's much better than it is.

It's much better to be in the presence of Christ than to be in Brentwood, California. It's much better to be in the presence of Jesus Christ than to be anywhere in this world. Paul knew that, but he says, yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. See, he had the heart of Christ in Philippians 2. How could Paul write these things? Let me close with this. How could Paul write these things? How could he have these sentiments? How could he believe like this? How could he think like this? Is this some super saint that nobody else will ever have a heart like this? No, there have been thousands and millions. How could he write this? How could he believe this? How could he feel this?

Three things, three reasons. First because he saw everything and everyone through the cross. He saw every event in life and every person through the cross of Jesus Christ. He saw the value of people based upon the work of Christ on the cross. Secondly, he was motivated by one passion and that was to make Christ known through the proclamation of the gospel. He did everything he did in light of that mission that he was on. That was his passion in life and he says, both in life and in death, I want Christ to be exalted and glorified because I have been apprehended by Christ as going to tell us in chapter 3. The last reason is that he was at peace with who he was. He was at peace with his own identity.

He saw himself as a disciple taking up his cross to follow the Lord. I find that the struggle for self-esteem and self-identity is as bad in the church as it is outside the church. That's why so many people in the church feel such a need for what the answers that the world has outside the church. Paul didn't have that problem. Paul knew who he was. He understood he was a disciple of Jesus Christ and he was taking up his cross every day to follow Christ. And I can tell you that Prozac may work and other psychological drugs may help. But I want to tell you what the cure is. I want to tell you what the solution is. It is being a disciple of Jesus Christ and taking up your cross and following him.

He understood the discipleship meant participation in the sufferings of Christ. And if he suffered, if people didn't like him, if people didn't love him, if people turned on him, that didn't throw him into depression because he understood he was a disciple of Jesus Christ. And it produced the feeling that he describes the 2 Corinthians chapter 5. In 2 Corinthians 5, he says, therefore knowing the fear of the Lord and what he means in this context, the fear of the Lord is knowing the fact that I'm accountable to Jesus Christ. I'm going to stand before him and give an account of my life and my privilege and my opportunities as a witness for Christ. And he says, because of that, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God.

And I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences. We are not again commending ourselves to you, but we are giving you an occasion to be proud of us that you may have an answer for those who take pride and appearance and not in heart. For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God. If we act like crazy minutes for God, if we are of sound mind, it is for you, for the love of Christ controls us. What does he mean by that? The love of Christ controls us. The love of Christ for us, not our love for Christ, but Christ love for us and for people. He understood that Christ loved people. God loves sinners. And every time he brings someone into your life who is needy and suffering because of the consequences of sin, he wants you to know that they are objects of his great love.

And that controlled his life. And so he says, I am willing to live or to die for the glory of Jesus Christ. And I pray that that will be true of us as well. You know, God has called us to a great work. I know this is a simple little setting. Here we are in a rented hall, a cafeteria, where there is a lot of flies and the heating isn't just right, and nothing greatly significant, nothing great about us, we are so simple. But like every other local church, we have been called to the most important work in all the universe, to be bold witnesses for Jesus Christ, even if it means suffering. That's what he's called us to. And I'm so glad I'm with you that I've been called to this alongside of you.

The greatest suffering you're probably going to experience is what you're experiencing this moment. You're thinking, you know, I know it's five, ten minutes past time to get out of here and he gets, can't shut up. I've sent them to those preachers too. They just can't land, they can't land the airplane. They just can't bring that boat into dock and they just keep talking. I'm just doing this to irritate you because I want you to experience a little persecution before you leave here. Let's stand with me and we'll close him for you. We're kind and gracious Father, we've gathered today because we believe in Jesus Christ. It is at the very basis of our trust and our hope and our confidence and our conviction.

We believe in Jesus Christ because we believe in Jesus Christ. We believe everything he has said about himself and everything he has revealed about you. We believe in his work and his resurrection and his ongoing work of saving people. We have seen you do supernatural things in people's lives. We've seen you deliver time and time and time again. I thought this morning as Jeff was reading the Bible, if his buddies on the street were to see it today, how could they explain this? How could they explain this change in this man? Nothing except the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so Father, we are committed. We are committed to be witnesses of Christ and we pray, Father, you'd give us the courage that you'd give us the wisdom, give us the power to be effective witnesses even today.

Help us to be as a local church to have a bold witness for Christ. We are partners in the gospel and we thank you for this great calling. As we leave this place, help us to encourage one another, to love and to be partners in this great work we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. We are suffering.