ES/PHIL/06 Philippians 1:19-20
Notes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
19 for I know that through your prayers and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance. 20 I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21 For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22 If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! 23 I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; 24 but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I will remain, and I will continue with all of you for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that through my being with you again your boasting in Christ Jesus will abound on account of me.
Paul had an internal struggle about what was better. To leave and go to heaven, or to stay and work for the Lord. The easiest option was to leave then there would be no further trouble, assaults, jail, problems and so on for they would be over. But to remain means there is work which means opportunity to bring people with him and strengthen the Church.
If we remember Paul is rejoicing that the Gospel is being preached even when it was being done with wrong motives. But this does not exclude the fact that Paul feels slighted, that he feels let down, put upon, and wants to be justified against all the accusations levelled against him. If he didn’t feel this way then he would have no emotion; no sense of injustice. But He was putting himself into the hands of the living God for only He can truly justify, only He can prove the justness of Paul’s cause:
‘For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance.’ Here Paul is quoting that great sufferer, the one who we all look to in times of trouble in the Old Testament, the man known as Job. Paul quotes from the Greek translation of the Old Testament from:
16 And this shall turn to me for salvation; for fraud shall have no entrance before him.
Job 13 is a rebuke of Job’s so-called comforters who are saying that the reason he is in the situation that he is in is because of some hidden sin. But Job turns to God for he knows that this is not the reason at all and pleads his innocence before God where he can be vindicated.
Perhaps we feel we have been unfairly treated or even accused of wrongdoing when it was not true. It is only God who can justify us.
Paul felt like Job. His situation was was also of suffering knowing God will save him in the end, justify him and the reason he was in prison which was for the preaching of the Gospel. He had done nothing wrong, he only wanted people to know the Good News of Jesus.
Paul is saying he does not want to be ashamed and that God be magnified in his body echoing the voices in the Psalms:
Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
I sought the Lord, and He heard me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces were not ashamed.
This poor man cried out, and the Lord heard him,
And saved him out of all his troubles.
And
24 Vindicate me, O Lord my God, according to Your righteousness;
And let them not rejoice over me.
25 Let them not say in their hearts, “Ah, so we would have it!”
Let them not say, “We have swallowed him up.”
26 Let them be ashamed and brought to mutual confusion
Who rejoice at my hurt;
Let them be clothed with shame and dishonor
Who exalt themselves against me.
We can see the depth of feeling in these Psalms that Paul alludes to whilst writing this letter. Again it is not wrong to feel hard done by if, in fact, that is the case. Paul deals with this by going to God who alone can justify and clear the mess up of the false accusers. Remember, though, that we may not be justified in this life, but we can entrust all things to Him against that Day when we come to our own tribunal before the throne of God.
Then Paul is asking the Philippians to join him in praying that God will save him out of his situation. In fact, from the context we understand that he knew they were already praying. Today we probably would have started a petition, called on the government to do something, written letters and emails but all this is absent here.
First and foremost we are to pray. Prayer is a powerful tool which we seem to lack any desire to use. Either we can’t be bothered or we pray prayers that lack substance by we are being too general or we do not pray with belief or we do not persist. Paul fully expects that the prayers prayed by the Philippians will lead to his deliverance. What does this say about our prayer life?
Well, Paul expected fresh supplies of the Spirit of Jesus to strengthen him because of the prayers of the Philippians. I, and the elder and deacons are in need of your daily prayers too for the work done among you and the people of Swansea that we will be effective and glorifying to Jesus. It is your prayers that will strengthen us. And that goes for those who are mentioned in the weekly bulletin and in our daily prayer guide.
Prayer is shown to be very important not only by the life Jesus lived here on the earth, making time to be alone with God, but also in the role He has assumed since ascending to the Father, as the One who is interceding for us continually.
But what is Paul really asking for here? Is he really asking to be saved from prison? As we continue reading on as well as reading what goes before we know that this is not the case.
Gordon D. Fee has paraphrased verses 19 and 20 into:
Paul’s Letter to the Philippians 1. Paul’s Ambition—That Christ Be Glorified (1:18b-20)
“This whole affair will turn out to my ultimate salvation and present vindication, when, through your prayers and the supply of the Spirit of Christ my earnest expectation and hope are realized at my trial and not only am I not brought to shame but in a very open (or bold) way Christ is magnified in every way—whether I am given ‘life’ or sentenced to death.”
It is through their prayer and supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ that he will be delivered. The prayer and supply is very closely linked in the Greek. Prayer will bring about the supply or support of the Spirit. The gift of the Spirit is what we are to continually pray for every day. There is no contradiction for Paul that he already has the Spirit and that he is to be filled with the Spirit. Paul needs a fresh infilling of the Spirit for Christ to be magnified in him in the upcoming trial.
It is not by mistake that Paul says all this. He knows that the Christian life is not lived and worked at alone. It is with the community of believers. Yes, Paul is the one in prison, but other Christians are bound with him in the Spirit and so assumes that their praying, with the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, will lead to Christ being magnified and glorified through Paul and his defence of the Gospel. It could not be done without them in Paul’s understanding.
This is the same kind of thing that is indicated in:
And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.
The whole Church is affected by the individuals that it makes up.
Paul then talks about hope-filled expectation. This hope is not some wishy-washy, perhaps it will happen, perhaps it won’t, as in the way we sometimes use the word ‘hope’ in the English language today: I hope that the weather will be sunny today (fine chance!); I hope the test results will come back good; I hope to win the lottery, and you have to be in to win so I hope that none of you are in. Is that hope justified? Well, this hope that Paul has is rooted firmly in certainty – this hope will happen. Now sometimes we are given the gift of faith to simply believe that something will happen with no doubts – and sometimes it is simply borne out of our experience of God.
Does our experience live up to the expectation that God will certainly bring us through all the different things that happen in our lives? What God has done in the past in proving his faithfulness is the very thing that gives us the confidence that in the future He will be right there with us bringing us through. Past experience of God proves His future faithfulness.
Paul is confident that he will not be ashamed – not ashamed in the sense that he has sinned but ashamed that he did not trust God in his situation. Those who trust God will never be ashamed because God always comes through. Paul is trusting that despite his being in prison he will not be ashamed as far as the Gospel is concerned but that Christ will be magnified instead.
He knows that in nothing will he be put to shame. Instead of shame, Christ will be exalted in him even now as always. One way or the other, this exaltation will come about—through life or death.
And, indeed, his prospects look bleak. Not being ashamed of God or His Gospel does not mean that there is safety. Instead of evaluating how much comfort and security there is in our lives we should be evaluating how much we are glorifying our Saviour or, on the other hand, bringing Him shame. If we base our lives upon exalting Jesus in and through our lives then all our life’s priorities change too.
The boldness that he speaks of here is openness with courageous speech so that when Paul eventually comes to trial he will plainly speak about the good news in a very public way. Clearly Paul doesn’t think that he won’t speak openly for he has always done so and will also now. Paul is not the shy retiring type but on every occasion makes Jesus known. As said before Paul is all about Jesus; for Christ to be enlarged and increased in stature.
Paul lived for the furtherance of the gospel.
Ever since his conversion he has only had one person in mind and that is Jesus and all he wants to do is make Him known. His passion for Him has led to the predicament that Paul was in. And even in prison he can only find praise and more reason to exalt Jesus and make Him known. His concern about shame, about having boldness, about Jesus being magnified in both his life and death was the lifeblood running through him – his only passion was for his Lord and Saviour.
Whether in prison or free, whether in danger or safety, whether in life or death he only wanted to make sure that Christ was the centre of everything. He was not so concerned with being vindicated himself but that Christ was vindicated to be the One that Paul had declared Him to be. His trial was looming large but as we read on it is evident he thought that he would be freed as God still had work for him to do. Paul was as single-minded as one can be – he only wanted the advancement of the Gospel. The upcoming trial was simply another opportunity that Paul relished because Christ would be glorified even further whatever the result: freedom or death.
Paul was utterly devoted to Christ. His concern was not for himself but only for the Gospel. There is no evidence that Paul cared about himself in this situation but that whether he lived or died Christ would be made known. Surely such a person does not exist today in our selfish world. Surely no one is so passionate for the Gospel willing to live and die for the cause. Why is that the case? Why is there none so consumed with proclaiming and defending the Gospel today?
Is it because this life takes its toll on us? Surely the same could have been said about Paul? Have we diluted the sense of our responsibilities that we are not fanatical as Paul was fanatical? Have we lost our first love? Have we forgotten that we are forgiven? Where is the single-minded, single-hearted person who would rather glorify Christ than live for themselves in this corrupt generation? Is Paul just a one-off? Well, yes, he is but is there no one to take his place in this part of the world, even here at Mount Calvary? Are we so consumed with self that we have no room for Jesus? Are we so watered-down that we have lost our saltiness? Do we want the same passion that Paul had? If we have lost our way then repentance is what is required.
Hear carefully the word of the David, another one whose heart was after God, and perhaps then we will gain a renewed passion for our God:
10 Create in me a clean heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
I want to be this person like Paul whose overriding passion is Jesus and the Gospel. Sometimes sickness or persecution is necessary for us to realise what is most important. We need to be single-hearted and single-minded for Jesus. We need to partake in the Gospel through prayer, word and deed.
When we consider the awfulness of the cross revealing the depth of God’s love towards us and all people it is time again to lay our lives at his feet for we are bought by the blood of Jesus. We can no longer live for ourselves but instead live it for the Gospel – we have put our hand to the plough – there is now no turning back.
Benediction
Benediction
I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.