So let's open our Bibles to Philippians chapter 1 again. Philippians 1, I'll read for us verses 12 through 18, the same set of verses we read last Sunday. But we're kind of breaking it up. Last Sunday was 12 through 14 that we focused on. This morning we're going to focus on verses 15 through 18. But these verses all go together, and I want to emphasize again, like I did last week, repeated mentions of the gospel and or Christ in each of these verses, there's some reference to Christ or the gospel. Philippians 1, starting in verse 12. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel so that it has become known throughout the whole Imperial Guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment are much more bold to speak the word, that is, speak the gospel, speak about Christ, without fear. Verse 15, some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Let's pray again together. God, we commit this time to you now. We pray for your guidance as we study these verses. Help us to have insights into what Paul is writing here by the inspiration of your spirit. May your spirit apply these things to our lives and help us to have the kind of gospel focus and the humble joy that we see in Paul's attitude. We pray this all for the glory of Christ. Amen. Well, last week, we learned how Paul's imprisonment was advancing the gospel. Directly, the gospel was advancing through Paul evangelizing the guards, and then also indirectly, the gospel was advancing as Paul's example while in jail was emboldening the saints. So evangelizing the guards, emboldening the saints, in these different ways, the gospel was continuing to advance not just in spite of Paul being in jail, but even through his imprisonment. And remember God's sovereignty in this. There's that reference in verse 12 to what has happened to me. Paul kind of uses this passive reference to allude to God's sovereignty in this. It's ultimately God who is in control of him being in jail in this time. And then also in verse 16, he says, In verse 16, he says that his friends, his partners, they know that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. Who put him there? Well, ultimately, it's God in his sovereignty who has Paul in jail here. So the sermon this week is part two of this section as we're working our way through Philippians in the sermon series. The gospel advancing through adversity, that's kind of the big, heading over this whole section, verses 12 through 18. And last week was the gospel advancing through his imprisonment, and this week it's advancing through Paul's rivals, okay? So verses 15 through 18 now speak of a different kind of adversity. This is the adversity of Christian rivals who are opposing Paul, undermining his ministry, wanting to bring him further anguish while he's in jail. And my hope and prayer this morning is that we'll learn some things about envy and jealousy and rivalry and the negative effects of those sinful attitudes. And then on the positive side, I hope that we'll be inspired by Paul's example of having such a laser focus on the gospel and also his example of humble joy. So the first thing we'll talk about are these two groups of people, his friends and his rivals. We'll talk about Paul's friends and Paul's rivals for a while, and then we'll get to talking about his gospel focus and then his humble joy. First, as we talk about Paul's friends and rivals, let's do what we can to understand the situation that Paul's describing here. And we can't know it as well as we might like to because Paul doesn't give us all the details. What he describes are these two groups, his friends, and his rivals. And notice the way he lays this out. There's an A, B, B, A structure to his description. You see this in verses 15 through 17. Verse 15 begins with the rivals. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry. And then verse 17 returns to describing this group who proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. Those are like the bookends. And then sandwiched in between is the description of Paul's friends who preach Christ from goodwill. And then continuing in verse 16, they preach Christ out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. Let's talk first about this group of friends, Paul's partners, his partners in the gospel, those who have goodwill for Paul, those who love Paul and who want to encourage him and promote his ministry. And they understand God's sovereignty over these circumstances too, as I already pointed out, that it's by God's design that Paul is in jail. Even though it's a hardship and not what anyone, not what any of his friends would have wanted for Paul, they yet can grasp Just what Paul was saying earlier in verses 12 through 14, that his imprisonment is advancing the gospel. These friends of Paul, they're being inspired by Paul's example, emboldened to speak the gospel without fear. These are among the blessings of koinonia, gospel partnership and fellowship. And Paul is so grateful that he has so many friends who care about him. and who really get what his ministry is about. Even though he's in jail, the ministry goes on both in jail as he's sharing the gospel with guards and outside of jail as his friends continue to proclaim Christ in Rome and Philippi and other cities all around. Well, the other group are the rivals. Verse 15, They're preaching Christ from envy and from rivalry. Verse 17, they're proclaiming Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but seeking to afflict Paul in his imprisonment. And this is where we're kind of at a loss to really understand the particulars. We ask questions like, well, why are they envious of Paul? And in what ways are they thinking they can afflict him further in his imprisonment? What's going on here? The first question there might be a little easier to answer. If you think about Paul's ministry and then you think of other preachers in his day in the first century, It's not too hard to imagine people being jealous of Paul's profound giftedness, his intellect, his wisdom, his insight, his apostolic role, planting churches and writing to these churches, instructing them, teaching them, admonishing them. I mean, the man's ministry by God's grace was uniquely so, so powerful. Unfortunately, the sinful attitude of jealousy can be so, so destructive. Where there's the potential for edifying gospel partnership, envy drives a wedge and creates rivals. What's amazing about Paul's attitude is that he refuses to play that game. But for these others, their selfish ambition puts them at odds with Paul. They want the authority, they want the influence that Paul has. And maybe they see Paul's imprisonment as an opportunity to try to get some of that influence for themselves. Paul isn't able to travel or speak openly during this time. He's on the sideline the way they see it. So it may be that their strategy is to undermine Paul's leadership in an effort to promote their own platform. This appears to them to be an opportune moment to get a larger following by persuading Paul's followers, quote unquote. I mean, Paul wouldn't see it that way, but if they're viewing it like Paul has his group of followers, maybe while Paul's in jail, we can kind of get some of those followers for ourselves. Like the situation Paul describes in the beginning of first Corinthians, look at this verse from first Corinthians one 11 and 12. For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul, or I follow Apollos, or I follow Cephas, or I follow Christ. Of course, Paul totally rejects that kind of thinking. He goes on in the next verse to say, is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? That's ridiculous. Paul's not going to play that game. But many others do play that game, and that's what Paul is referring to here in Philippians 1. Now, we do have to clarify an important reality of this situation. It's not the case that these rivals here in Philippians 1, it's not the case that they are false teachers. Paul had other rivals. He had plenty of enemies. and many others who were preaching a false gospel that Paul comes against that message. But here, this is a different situation. It's not the case that these folks he's describing here are false teachers. The people Paul describes here are preaching Christ in a way that Paul can rejoice in, right? You see that? They're not leading people astray in the substance of what they're teaching. So it's not like the problem that there was in Corinth where in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul talks about and comes against those who were denying the resurrection. That was an error. of subtraction, an error of taking away something critical to the gospel message. Nor was this like the issue in Galatia, where people were adding, this was a problem by addition in Galatia, they were adding something to the message, namely that you don't have to just, it's not just that you have to trust in Christ, but you also have to be circumcised and follow other Jewish laws. They were adding to the, message in a way that turned it into a false gospel. Paul makes that clear in Galatians 1.6 when he rebukes them. He says, I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. So in those types of situations, Paul saw that, that is a different message, that's not the gospel, that's a false gospel. And the point is, these rivals in Philippians 1, they've not subtracted from the message or added to the message like those other situations. They're on point, at least concerning the central message of Christ. Otherwise, Paul wouldn't be able to rejoice in their proclamation. If they were preaching a false gospel, Paul would point out the error and he would warn the churches of that error. But here, it's not the message that's the problem, it's the motives. Their antagonism toward Paul, that's the issue. James Montgomery Boyce sums it up like this. They were not, these rivals, they were not anti-Christ, they were anti-Paul, but they were anti-Paul with a vengeance. And so then we ask, well, what's behind that? the, the envy, the rivalry would, would seem to imply that these preachers wanted to be in the place of Paul. Not that they wanted to be in jail like Paul, but they wanted the, the prominence that Paul had among those churches. So they wanted to put Paul down to try to elevate themselves. Look at a couple more quotes here from other commentators on Philippians, trying to surmise what's behind this, what's going on, what are these motives about, and from a couple different perspectives here. On the one hand, they were probably trying to undermine Paul's authority. So as Stephen Lawson writes, he says, perhaps they were insinuating that Paul was in prison because of God's chastisement upon his life, that if Paul were truly walking with the Lord, he would not be in prison. So that might have been part of their thinking and part of their attack on Paul that, oh, well, Paul must, you know, maybe the Lord is probably disciplining Paul. That's what his imprisonment is about. Kind of cast suspicion on Paul's ministry in that way. And then on the other hand, they were, they were also wanting to promote themselves. So as Sinclair Ferguson writes, perhaps some were preaching in the hope that they would be able to usurp Paul's authority and gain positions of influence in the churches in his absence. As an analogy, think of the boss at work who has to undergo a serious surgery and is going to be away from the office for several weeks. And many in the office, they care about the boss and support the boss's vision and authority, and they want to continue to work hard, eager for the boss to return, and be pleased, hopefully, with how things are going. Others, though, see see this time as a chance to step into that leadership void while the boss is away. For others to kind of step into that leadership void and get some attention and some power for themselves. Their hope, in fact, would be to rearrange things such that they permanently take the boss's place. Or think of a sports analogy. The star player gets injured. Many of the teammates who are really team players, they're eager for their injured teammate to return. But there may be a couple of jealous players who have been on the bench, have been on the sideline, and they hope the recovery is slow, actually. In fact, they might even do something sinister to try to keep the teammate sidelined, even if it means that the team as a whole isn't going to be as strong as it was. They don't care about the team. They just care about themselves. They just want to be in the spotlight. That seems to be the kind of thing going on with these rivals. They're happy that Paul is in prison, and they're trying to use the situation to elbow Paul out of center stage and to take his place. Before we move on to the next point, let me just highlight a couple more things from the text that show the stark contrast between these two groups. In verses 15 and 16, it's envy and rivalry versus goodwill and love. The rivals see Paul as an opponent. On the other hand, the friends see Paul as their beloved co-laborer in the gospel. And then notice a subtle difference in wording between verse 16 and verse 17. The friends in verse 16 are described as knowing, note that word knowing, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. So their position is based on something they know to be true. They know that in God's sovereignty, Paul is there in prison for a reason, for promoting the gospel. But then in verse 17, the rivals are described as thinking Okay, so note that word, thinking, as opposed to knowing. They're thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. The word for thinking there could also be translated supposing. They don't know that what they're doing is actually going to have the intended result, and in fact they're wrong. They're supposing that they can kick Paul while he's down. but they're actually doing the opposite, because Paul doesn't care who gets the attention. Paul doesn't care who's in center stage, who's in the spotlight. As long as Christ is being proclaimed, that's all that matters. And so Paul's intentional wording here in these statements draws attention to the difference, yet another difference between these two groups, that his friends, his partners in gospel ministry, they're acting from an accurate knowledge of what's going on, while the rivals, they're acting from wrong speculation. They're supposing, they're thinking something to be the case that isn't. And then we see the contrast stated again in verse 18, whether in pretense or in truth, the rivals are acting in a pretentious manner. Their message is okay, but their motives are a problem. This word pretense, think of it like wearing a mask, not like the masks you're wearing right now, the COVID masks, but more like a costume mask, like an actor on stage wearing a costume, playing the part, pretending to be someone they're not. Paul's rivals were standing up, they were saying the right things, pointing people to Jesus, but behind the mask, underneath the costume, were motives that did not match the message. Self-serving, self-promoting, wanting to steal attention away from Paul and puff themselves up, the rivals were pretentious. But Paul's friends were grounded in the truth through and through. Their motives were true, as some translators have it in verse 18, whether by false motives or true. False motives are true. There's another distinguishing factor between these groups. So there's the two groups, the friends and the rivals. Even though there's still common ground in the gospel, the content of the gospel message, there's such a radical difference in their motives, and that has a huge impact on the larger Christian community. Instead of banding together to love and support one another, there's fracturing of the fellowship due to selfish ambition. Well, for our remaining time, let's turn our attention to Paul's response to this situation and what we can glean from his example. First, we'll talk about his gospel focus, and then we'll look at his humble joy. Gospel focus. Imagine the emotional anguish that Paul could have been going through given this situation. I mean, I'm sure at least to some extent it did pain him. that while he was in jail, there were other preachers out there in different places conducting their ministries with a view to stripping away Paul's credibility and usurping his authority and whatever else they were up to. And that's why it's so remarkable to see how Paul responds to this in verse 18 when he says, what then? Or another way to put it would be, what does it matter? To Paul, it's, what does it matter what their motives are? At the end of the day, Paul's not concerned about what's driving them to preach the gospel as long as they're preaching the gospel. Now, I'm sure if he was talking to those rivals directly and personally, he, I'm sure he would warn them that their, their envy and rivalry and selfish ambition was sinful and harmful first and foremost to themselves. I think he would want to warn them for their own benefit. Don't, don't be bogged down in these attitudes that are, that are, so harmful to your own spirituality and then also to others. He would lovingly seek to direct them away from those sinful attitudes. But looking at the main mission of the gospel going forth to the nations, Paul has this laser focus on the Great Commission. So that his main concern is not even what their motives are, even as their motives are directed against him and harmful to him, he says, what does it matter? only that in every way, whether by pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. That's the passion of Paul's life. He wants Christ to be proclaimed. The good news of Jesus' perfect life and his sacrificial death and his triumphant resurrection. May Christ be glorified as his people herald this good news. to the world. Christ died for sinners and he lives and he reigns. To think about the content of this message, think of Romans 3, 23 to 25, which gives us the gospel message in a nutshell, beginning with our sin. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith. We've all sinned. That's where this message begins, for us to realize that we've sinned in our actions, in our attitudes, in our motives, in our words, sins of commission, things we have actively done that have violated God's commands, And then sins of omission, things that we have failed to do that we ought to do. We have fallen so far short of God's righteous standard. We've disobeyed his commands. We've disrespected him in grievous ways, much of the time, not even realizing how badly we've behaved. And for these sins, we deserve eternal punishment. Romans 6, 23, for the wages of sin is death. That's eternal death that we deserve for our sins. But the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord. As I mentioned at the beginning of the service and in our call to worship, one of the passages we were looking at on Wednesday at our Bible study, We started out in the book of Obadiah talking about God's judgment, but then we also looked at 2 Thessalonians 1, which speaks of Christ's second coming and the judgment that he's gonna bring on that day. Look at these verses from 2 Thessalonians 1, verses 7 through 10. When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints and to be marveled at among all who have believed because our testimony to you was believed. This is part of proclaiming Christ to let people know that that our sin deserves judgment and judgment is coming. And that's an uncomfortable thing to talk about, isn't it? But it's a necessary thing to talk about when we're talking about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Notice that those who continue to reject the gospel, if they never repent and trust in Christ, they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction. Eternal destruction. Some people think that's totally unfair. How could God punish people? Period, some would say. God doesn't have a right to punish anyone. That wouldn't be fair. And even worse, how could God punish people forever and ever for sins committed in a finite amount of time? How does that make sense? How is that fair? Well, the biblical doctrine of sin teaches us that we're far worse than we could ever imagine. And God is far more holy and righteous than we can comprehend, which means that our sinful actions and words and attitudes do require an infinite penalty. That's the only penalty that would be right and just, given our deep depravity and God's perfect holiness and righteousness. And notice in that second Thessalonians passage, the description of the eternal destruction, that it's being cast away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might. That's what is so devastating about hell. of all the horrible things about hell, that's the worst thing, is being cut off, being separated from the glory of our Triune God. Our Triune God is the only source of eternal satisfaction. The only hope you have, the only hope I have of being eternally happy and satisfied is to be drawn into God's presence, and to have eyes to see the glory of His might, and to marvel at the goodness and the grace of Jesus Christ, to enjoy the beauty of His greatness, unhindered by sin, to be in His presence forever. And Romans 10.9 says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's the good news. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. So just to summarize again, God is righteous. We're sinful, deserving eternal punishment. Jesus then came and bridged that gap. He lived the perfect life that we're unable and unwilling to live. And then Jesus died on the cross bearing God's wrath against our sin. And Jesus rose on the third day, showing that he accomplished what he came to do. And now this offer, this free gift is held out to us so that everyone who repents of sin and rests in Christ's finished work on the cross will be forgiven and will spend eternity in heaven. I hope you understand how good this news And I hope you've been changed by this reality. I pray that the proclamation of Christ has penetrated your heart and that you've been born again by the Spirit. If this message is new to you, if that's not yet a reality in your life, I'd love to talk to you more about what it means to know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Listen, if Jesus isn't yet at the center of your life, then you're missing the point of this life. You're missing the point of everything. Don't go on another day without knowing Jesus and knowing the joy of having your sins forgiven through him. I pray God will give you ears to hear. And for those who have already been changed and who are walking with the Lord. Let's realize afresh today what an awesome message this is, the gospel of Christ. And what a privilege we have to proclaim it, to tell others about this. Paul was so riveted on the gospel of Jesus Christ and the mission of taking this news to the nations that it didn't matter to him if people were preaching Christ from wrong motives. At least the message was getting out there, and Paul trusted that God would use that, even if some of it was at the expense of his own personal reputation. So his gospel focus. And then lastly, in closing, I wanna focus on Paul's humble joy, his humble joy. We're in Philippians 1 right now. We're already anticipating Philippians 2, and at Christmas already talked some about Philippians 2 and that familiar passage about humility, pointing to Christ's humility. And I think Paul also was an example of this humble posture in his ministry. Turn the page there if you need to, to look at Philippians 2, verse 3, where he gives this exhortation, do nothing do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. These rivals who Paul describes, they were acting out of selfish ambition and conceit, but Paul counted others more significant than himself. He thought of those who needed to hear the gospel over and above any damage that might be done to him personally. As a closing application on this point about humble joy, I wanna share with you a couple things from Tim Keller's little book. Actually, it's more like a booklet. Maybe some of you have seen this. It's called The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness. The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness by Tim Keller. And Keller unpacks some verses from 1 Corinthians 3 and 4, and at one point, he draws on the insights of C.S. Lewis, Lewis's chapter on pride and near Christianity. where Lewis says that if you meet someone who is actually humble, that's not going to be the thing that really jumps out at you, really stands out to you. Tim Keller summarizing from C.S. Lewis, here's the way Keller puts it, the thing we would remember from meeting a truly gospel humble person is how much they seem to be totally interested in us. Because the essence of gospel humility is not thinking more of myself or thinking less of myself, it is thinking of myself less. So let that digest for a moment, process what he's saying there. Really being humble, it's not about whether I'm puffed up in pride or just thinking so low of myself. That's not really the gauge of humility, but it's just thinking of myself less. That's the freedom of self-forgetfulness. We don't have to be consumed with connecting this or that situation with myself. All those thoughts that can run through our minds. How are people viewing me in this context? Am I getting the credit for what I accomplished here? Is that person, you know, all the comparison, is that person better than me or more gifted than me or better liked than me? Those are the shackles that bind us so much of the time. Wouldn't it be awesome to be free of those oppressive thoughts? Keller gives this example to make the point. He says, wouldn't you like to be the skater who wins the silver and yet is thrilled about those three triple jumps that the gold medal winner did? To love it the way you love the sunrise, just to love the fact that it was done. For it not to matter whether it was their success or your success, not to care if they did it or you did it, you're happy that they did it as if you had done it yourself because you're just so happy to see it. That would be a beautiful thing, huh? And that's what we can experience as Christians, because our identity is not grounded in our achievements and failures. Our identity is in Christ, Him bearing our failures, Him bearing the penalty for our failures, for our sins. And then his achievements, his righteousness being credited to us by faith. One more quote from Keller. He says, you see, the verdict is in and now I perform not on the basis or excuse me. And now I perform on the basis of the verdict because he loves me and he accepts me. I do not have to do things just to build up my resume. I do not have to do things to make me look good. I can do things for the joy of doing them. I can help people to help people, not so I can feel better about myself, not so I can fill up the emptiness. And that's an awesome way to live. And it's possible because of Jesus. And it's what we see here in Paul's example, what Paul is doing here. He's not concerned about himself or his reputation or getting the credit for anything. Instead, he can rejoice in the fact that the gospel is going forth. Humble joy. Let's seek to emulate that in our lives as we experience the joy and the freedom of self-forgetfulness. Let's pray. God, thank you for these verses and just there's so much to glean as we dig into verse by verse through Philippians. I pray that you will instruct us and inspire us through Paul's example here. Thank you for the humble joy you gave him, even as he endured such adversity through imprisonment and then also from these rivals. And yet he saw all of it as gospel opportunities, to share the gospel with the guards, to be an example to others in other cities even who were enduring various kinds of persecution. And even those who were against him, he saw that too as a way that the gospel was going forth. God, I pray that you'll give us that kind of humble joy knowing that you are sovereign and your gospel is going forth. We pray it all in Jesus' name, amen.