11-25-12 A Strange Source Of Courage

We stopped in the middle of a sentence last week,

and this morning we’re going to pick up right where we left off.

We are studying the book of Philippians,

which is really a letter,

not a book,

written by Paul to his friends at Philippi

while he was in a Roman prison

waiting for his trial before Caesar

to determine whether he would live or die

for his involvement in this new Christian movement

that was causing such a stir throughout the Roman Empire.

Last week we looked at Phil. 1:12 in which Paul says,

Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel,...

And as we looked at that statement

I suggested to you that I believe

it is God’s intention to bring each of us to the point where

we can make that same statement

about every circumstance in our own life.

Obviously that’s very much of a “circumstance-by-circumstance” process,

but it is that process

that ultimately determines

whether we are in a growing friendship

with a real God

who is deeply involved in the details of our life,

or whether we are simply playing

some sort of religious game with ourselves.

Every single day we live

we must deal with some circumstances

that make no sense to us

when we first encounter them.

They are not the type of things

we would have allowed to happen

if we were God.

I was in a conversation with a young Christian some time ago

who, on the way to our visit,

had hit a pot-hole in the road

and spilled coffee onto his nice clean shirt.

As soon as we were together

he wanted to know why God would have allowed that?

To him it just didn’t seem right,

especially since he was on his way over to talk with his preacher when it happened.

A short while ago I noticed that the glass panes in our french doors had lost their seal

and they were fogging up inside.

So I ordered two very expensive safety glass replacement windows.

When they arrived I carefully got them home,

removed the doors,

then removed the trim and the old windows,

and put the new glass in.

On the first door everything went great,

but when I was replacing the final trim piece on the last door

I just barely nicked the edge of the glass with a tiny nail

and the entire window instantly shattered.

I just couldn’t bring myself to order yet another replacement,

so we now have one nice clear french door

and one sort-of, sometimes foggy one.

Every day we live

there are some circumstances

that look all wrong when we first see them.

Sometimes they are not just little things

like coffee stains on our shirt

or a foggy window,

sometimes they involve extremely painful events in our own life

or in the life of someone we love.

And when Paul says,

Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel,...

he is not trying to convince us

that the events are trivial,

or that very real evil does not exist

or does not impact our life.

Paul was in a very real prison,

with absolutely no control over his own future,

or even whether he would live or die.

But what he is calling us to

with this confident affirmation

that his circumstances

had turned out for the greater progress of the gospel

is an active ongoing interaction

with a very real God

who can take those circumstances

and reshape them into good in our life.

It doesn’t mean they may not hurt deeply.

It doesn’t mean they will just go away.

But it does mean that our Lord

has the ability to restructure those events in our life

in a way that allows Him

to accomplish things in us

and through us,

things that could never have been accomplished

had the evil not touched our life.

I think that’s part of what God was saying through the events

surrounding the crucifixion of Christ.

If we would have been alive in Jerusalem

at that point in history,

if we would have been Peter

or John

we would have seen men driven by evil,

plotting

and manipulating

and lying

and using the political power structure

to murder this Man

who was undermining their prestige

and stripping them of their control over the people.

They weren’t simply misguided

or confused

or mistaken.

They were evil,

possessed by evil,

driven by evil.

And their hatred brought about

what was obviously the greatest tragedy imaginable -

the death of the only truly good Man

ever to enter human society.

And yet God took that great evil

and brought from it

the greatest good

ever to enter human society.

Through the death of this one good Man

the payment for our sins

was offered once for all.

I shared with you last week

how I have seen the Lord

use my own difficulties with reading when I was younger

to move me into areas that perfectly suited the work He was seeking to do in me

and through me.

But to be honest,

the reading thing was a very minor work of God in my life

compared to what I have seen Him do

with my own failures, weaknesses, and sins.

Virtually everything I understand about God’s grace

and His love

and His strength

and His ability to heal our lives

I have learned through my weakness

and failures

and sins as I have brought them to Him

and acknowledged my desperate need

for Him to do in me

what I am powerless do to for Him.

It is one thing to be skipping through life

feeling like we are doing a pretty fine job

and hear God’s voice saying, “My child, I love you.”

But it is quite a different thing

to be face to face with the brutal reality

of how far short we fall from His perfection,

and how filled we are

with all sorts of crud and junk,

and then to hear our Lord say, “My child, I love you.”

I really do not believe it is possible

for us to discover the true nature of God’s love for us

until we discover that love

at the point of our failure.

Our world does not need some kind of tacky little deity

who wants everyone to go to church once a week

and give money occasionally

in order to keep him happy.

Our world desperately needs a real and living God

who understands the depths of human pain

and human evil,

a God who has the love to plunge right into that mess with us,

and who has the power to take

even the worst of human circumstances

and turn them to good in our lives

as we place them into His hands.

That’s exactly what Paul is talking about

in this 12^th verse

when he affirms with confidence,

Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel,...

He is talking not just about his circumstances,

but most of all he’s talking about his God.

Now let’s read on a few more verses

and see how his circumstances have turned out.

Now I want you to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, [13] so that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else, [14] 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.

When I first read those verses

my initial response was to think,

“Now, that doesn’t make any sense!”

It seems to me that Paul’s imprisonment would create fear

rather than courage

in those who were around him.

I mean, if they threw Paul into prison

what’s to prevent them from throwing

a bunch of other Christians in prison as well?

Then I realized that the courage

did not come from his fellow Christians

seeing Paul’s circumstances,

it came from them seeing his ATTITUDE.

He actually puts his attitude into words for us a few verses farther along

in Phil 1:21-24

21] For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. [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. [23] But I am hard-pressed from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better; [24] yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.

As Paul sat in that prison,

and as he had contact with his fellow believers,

the two possible options he saw ahead of him

were not LIFE or DEATH,

the two options he saw ahead of him were CONTINUED FRUITFUL LIVING

or TO DEPART AND BE WITH CHRIST.

And as he looked at those two

he told his readers, quite honestly -

“This is a tough decision - I don’t really know which to hope for.”

It was that attitude in Paul

that was so encouraging

and so infectious to those around him.

Here he is sitting in prison,

facing possible execution,

and his whole outlook on life is proclaiming,

‟WOW! I’m in a win - win situation.!!

This is GREAT!!”

You see, the first century Christians

had something that few Christians since that time

have ever regained -

they had an understanding of the resurrection of Christ

that transformed forever

their outlook on all of life.

They had seen

or talked with people who had seen

Jesus brutally murdered.

And then they had seen

or talked with people who had seen

this same Jesus on the other side of death

more alive

and powerful

and totally victorious

than He ever was prior to His death.

Paul himself had talked with Christ

at the point of his own conversion

on the way to Damascus.

And I’m certain that what he saw

was not some fuzzy, filmy,

ghosty thing floating in the air.

He saw Jesus -

real, and whole, and alive

and talking

and moving

and magnificent.

And somewhere along the way

we have lost this.

Oh, of course it’s part of our theology,

part of our doctrine,

and part of our creeds.

Jesus rose from the dead.

But about the only time we really focus in on our own resurrection

is at funerals.

That was not the way it was for the believers in the 1^st century.

For them the resurrection of Christ

changed everything -

it meant that no longer did they have to cling to this life at all costs,

believing it was all there was.

It meant that they no longer had to try to win the game in the first 80 years.

It meant that they could think in terms of

investing their life

rather than clinging to it.

Through the resurrection of Christ they had been allowed

to see just over the horizon of their own life

and what they saw was so much better than anything on this side

that everything changed for ever.

I think my first glimpse of this

came through a book I read

during the first year or two

after I came to the Lord.

The book was The Robe.

It has been forty years since I read it,

but somewhere in that book I recall a scene

between a Roman military leader

and one of his soldiers.

And the military leader was expressing his frustration with his soldier’s failure

to stamp out this troublesome little Christian group

that kept causing problems.

And in response the soldier turned to his superior and said,

“Look, sir, you can’t kill someone who won’t die!”

He was saying that all the normal threats don’t work on these people.

Any other decent group of troublemakers

draws the line at death threats.

Nothing is worth dying for.

But these idiotic Christians

actually believe they

are going to come popping out of the grave after they die

just like their Leader did.

Death is no threat -

it is an awkward inconvenience,

but it is no threat.

And the resurrection of Christ

is intended to have a very similar type of impact

on our lives as Christians today.

Just as the resurrection of Christ

guarded the first century Christians

against the normal types of threats

that worked with other people,

so the resurrection of Christ

has the ability to guard us today

against the normal types of deceptions

that end up causing most people

to waste their life.

Just as the resurrection freed the 1^st century Christians from the fear of death,

when correctly understood

the resurrection has the power to free us

from the slavery that comes with

an 80 year perspective on life.

We happen to live in a little pocket of history

in which most of us do not have to fear for our physical life

because of our commitment to Christ.

But we also live in a little pocket of history

in which our culture bombards us daily

with the lie that quality living

is measured by the balance in your bank account

and the titles on your door

and the number of people who know your name.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed,

but we have hit a point in our culture

where people will do absolutely anything

for a few moments in the spot-light.

If only I can get them to turn the camera on me,

or hold the microphone in front of me

or put my picture on the tube or the internet.

The slavery that comes

from such a value system

can be just as paralyzing

as the one that comes from the fear of death.

But we, too, have been given the privilege of seeing beyond the horizon,

and it is our Lord’s intention

that that view give us the freedom

to invest our life

rather than clinging to it,

knowing that all the scales

will ultimately be balanced by God Himself,

and in real life,

and I do mean REAL life -the one that never ends -

the good guy always wins!

Paul tells us in Phil. 1:13-14

that his being in that Roman prison

served as a tremendous encouragement

to his fellow Christians

because it helped to free them from fear.

Paul had seen beyond the grave

with a clarity that few men ever have,

and he made it clear

that for God’s people there is nothing over there to fear.

He knew the truth

and that truth was highly contagious

and tremendously freeing

to those who were infected with it.