If you brought a Bible, you take it out this time and turn to the book of Philippians. We have a number of provided Bibles underneath the seat in front of you, and you can turn there, take one of those and turn to page 980. We've actually had a two-week break from the book of Philippians for Missions Week, so we're returning to this book, as we entitled the series, The Fight for Joy. As you're finding Philippians chapter one, I failed to mention this, but yet another goodbye is upon us. We're having to say goodbye this morning to Eileen Epperson. She's been up here helping us with music on many Sundays, and she's moving to Atlanta for work. So, we're sad. We're not near as sad as Kevin and Kristen, but we're sad but happy for her as she enters that new phase of life. So, I'm sure Eileen will find reasons to come back and visit us. So, we're glad about that. Philippians chapter 1. We're going to look at verses 12 through 18 this morning. So, let me ask if you would to stand at this time as we read the scriptures that are to be preached this morning. God's Word. Hear it. 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 without fear. 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 proclaimed Christ out of rivalry, 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." This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Father, we come to you humble before your word, but also recognizing in our humility our great need We are broken, needy, bearing great burdens. We pray that Your Word would be preached with freedom and with power. Lord, what is important to be heard is Your voice in the Scriptures and not mine ultimately. So I pray that what is heard and what is spoken is Your truth. And to the degree that what is said is not in keeping with biblical truth, may it be stricken from memory. We pray all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Please have a seat. If you're playing Sermon Bingo, I've got a mention for you. I've been told that's a game that's been thought of by people whose, I'll just use their initials, Jessica Bermudez. who I discovered through the prayer is expecting. I didn't know that. That's kind of one of those moments in the prayer you kind of lift up your head like this. Good news. But I have certain things I mention regularly in sermons and so you could develop a bingo game and maybe develop it. Birmingham, Alabama is coming up this morning. First of all, I was born and raised there. I've got a lot of deep roots on both sides of the family, my mom and dad's side. But when I was age 12, my father was given an opportunity to take a job in Clearwater, Florida. And my brother and I, when we heard that this was a possibility, got really excited. And we began to pray. We literally began to pray that my father would take this job. And I remember we stayed with my grandparents one weekend while my mother and dad went to Clearwater to kind of check things out. And they came back, and he says, yes, I'm going to take the job. And we were overjoyed. And so we moved to Clearwater, where I envisioned life would be one constant party at the beach. This is going to be great. And so we moved to Florida, again in January, the middle of my seventh grade year, and we got to go to the beach a lot. And when people come visit, we take them to Disney World for the day. In some ways, it lived up to my expectations, but the longer we were living there, the more unhappy I became. I missed desperately my friends in Birmingham. I missed the school I was attending. I missed the church we had been a part of. And so, soon my prayers morphed and began to change, and I began to pray desperately that God would grant us to move back to Birmingham, which we did. We were only in Clearwater for a year and a half. And we moved back to Birmingham, moved back to the same part of town we'd been in, went back to our old church. I went back to my old school. I thought that Clearwater, Florida would be the source of everlasting joy for me, and really, it was quite the opposite. I became depressed and discouraged as a 12- and 13-year-old. I want to move back home, which, by God's grace, we're able to do. And I tell you that story because, in some senses, the opposite has occurred in the life of the Apostle Paul, because he's writing a letter from prison And he's writing to God's people, the church at Philippi, and yet he's finding joy there. This was no party. This was no picnic. This was not time at the beach. This was quite the opposite. Yet it's evident and it's clear that Paul is writing in the midst of these circumstances about his own joy, And He's urging us to experience, I believe, along with Him, a measure of that same joy. And so what we're seeing the Apostle Paul do is find joy in an unexpected place and through unexpected people. The Apostle Paul is finding joy in an unexpected place and through unexpected people. And that's the question I want to put before us today. How can we do the same? How can we find joy in an unexpected place? and through unexpected people. Because a lot of us are in unexpected places. By that I mean the screenplay that we have written for our lives, and we've all written one, we all envision how life will end up and how we want it to go as we plot through our minds a career path or as we think about who we'd like to marry and want to marry and the children we'll have and what they'll do and our relationship with them will be like and so on and so forth. The script that we've written rarely matches up to reality. In fact, I would suggest it never does, because we don't know the future. Only God does, and He's determined it. And what Paul shows us, even in the midst of his own topsy-turvy life, is the joy of a Christ-centered existence that he gives us, even in these verses, and we'll certainly see it throughout this letter. So I want us to consider first this morning how we can find joy in an unexpected place, an unexpected place. Now, we've taken a break from the book of Philippians. We've been gone for a couple of weeks because of Missions Week. So I want to review just real quickly the setting for this book. We'll touch on this a number of times, so we'll always keep the context in mind. But Philippi was a Roman colony. It was the site of a great Roman military victory. And this colony was afforded some great privileges. There were a lot, as I mentioned before, a lot of army veterans, a lot of Roman army veterans were living there. It had a Warner Robins type of feel to it. A lot of retired military people were living there. And so, Rome, it said, you're going to have the exact same privileges of citizenship as if you lived within the strict confines of Rome. So citizenship in Philippi was considered a big deal, and that will come out more in the letter. Paul writes this letter from in prison, most likely in Rome, and it's probably about 10 or 12 years after the church had been planted. In fact, he had been used of God to plant this particular church, so he's writing them. calling this series, The Fight for Joy, because joy is a theme of this letter. The word for joy or rejoice is used some 16 times in the four chapters of the book of Philippians. And we find that Paul is finding joy here, writing from imprisonment. Look at verse 12. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. What has happened to me, being put in this imprisonment, this confinement, has really served to do the opposite of what you would expect. It's served to advance the gospel. Well, how has it done that? Well, we're shown two ways. Look at verse 13. It has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, throughout the whole praetorium, and to all the rest, that my imprisonment is for Christ. So what's this imperial guard? What's this praetorium, as it's in the original language? Well, these are the emperor's bodyguards. These were the special forces, if you will. There were about 9,000 in number. And they were tasked with guarding the imperial prisoners, like the Apostle Paul. Listen, a few sentences on this. James Montgomery Boyce writes this. We must visualize the scene at this point. Paul is imprisoned in Rome, chained to a Roman guard. Ever since his arrest in Jerusalem, he had been chained to a guard, except for the moments on the ship carrying him to Rome. He is now in care of the picked troops who guard the emperor. Paul has some freedom of action. He may have visitors. For a while, at least, he lived in a private home, but always there was the guard. And these guards would have been rotated as they were chained to Paul. Being chained to Paul obviously meant you were confronted with the gospel. Being chained to Paul meant you were presented with the claims of Christ. And so the gospel was spreading like a virus through this whole imperial guard. That's what's happening. And they were seeing, according to verse 13, that Paul's imprisonment is for Christ. In other words, he's not there because he's espousing some radical political beliefs. He's not some insurgent, as he may have been labeled. He's not some Roman troublemaker of some sort. No, he's there because of his faith in Christ, because of his love for Christ, his loyalty to Christ. That's why he's in prison. And so in that way, the gospel is spreading. And there's another way in which the gospel is spreading. Look at verse 14. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. So other believers are seeing the Apostle Paul in prison. They're seeing his example. They're seeing even in prison, he's being faithful to Christ. He's even sharing the gospel in prison. And so they're being encouraged. They're being built up. They're gaining courage. to be bold for Christ. Now, I never mentioned this when they were with us. They being who? The Drown family. Brent Drown and his family, his wife Kimberly and their children. I didn't want to embarrass him, but I can say it now because he's in Mississippi, but Brent's maternal grandfather was Nate Saint. And a lot of you would know that name. He was the pilot who flew Jim Elliott and the others into that encounter that they had with the Alka Indians. He was one of the five that was murdered by the Alka Indians on their initial encounters. They tried to reach out with the gospel. His other grandfather led the initial search party to find and identify the bodies of those five. This occurred in the late fifties. Jim Elliott's a pretty well-known name, and so is Nate Saint for that matter, among believers, among Christians, for their sacrifice, their martyrdom for the faith. Now you need to know when that first happened, there were news reports that came out, I believe it may have been Time Magazine, wrote an article that basically said, what a waste. What a waste of these young men and their lives. But what's happened in the aftermath? Well, those people came to embrace the gospel. Another thing that happened in the aftermath, there was this surge of interest and commitment to the mission field. People saw the example of Jim Elliot and Nate Saint and those others and responded in boldness and faithfulness. That's what happens. That's what's happening here. So what are we learning here about Paul? having joy in the midst of His confinement in these things that are happening. Well, first thing we can see is that God can use the unexpected trials we face for His own glory. God can use the unexpected trials we face for His own glory. Now look, from a human perspective, One could look at what God was doing and say, Lord, what are you doing? Why are you putting the apostle Paul in prison? Look what a great church planner he is. I mean, he's an apostle. He needs to be out there mentoring pastors. He needs to be out there planning churches and preaching. Why are you putting him in prison of all places? You see, God's plans are so often not what we expect, maybe not even what we desire. I mean, think about when Paul's in prison. He wrote a number of his letters. He wrote Philippians, obviously. He wrote Ephesians. He wrote Colossians. He wrote Philemon. Those are considered his prison letters, his prison epistles. He wrote 2 Timothy from prison. That's considered a pastoral epistle because it's written to Timothy and giving him advice as a pastor. But nonetheless, so God uses Paul's time in prison to write letters. They're God-breathed scripture that the church benefits from for centuries, for thousands of years. God's doing the unexpected, but He's accomplishing His own purpose. And so it teaches us to expect the unexpected in our trials, that God's going to act subversively, so to speak. He's going to do the things that we don't expect, the things that are sometimes painful and discouraging and disappointing, to say the least. But He can accomplish a great purpose through those things. He's advancing the gospel of all things through Paul being chained to a Roman guard. The second thing I think we can learn here about finding joy in unexpected places is that we need to realize we need God's grace to seek joy in those places, not just circumstantial joy. That's what I want. I want circumstantial joy. I mean, what a beautiful day. Boy, that can give us joy. Circumstantial joy is when the career path is functioning well and my family and all are well and they're happy. There are no speed bumps in life. But yet Paul is finding real joy, obviously not tied to his circumstances. And so we ought to pray in the midst of these unexpected places where God puts us. God, would you please show your glory and advance your purposes even through this circumstance? And if you do nothing else, will you cause me to find joy in you? Not in my circumstances, but in you. And would you work in me that I might cling more closely to Christ? I mean, God does things in unexpected places. My mother shared this story on Facebook. I had to learn it on Facebook, which is a disappointment to hear. But anyway, it's a neat story. And my mother is so active on Facebook, probably most of you have heard this story or read it. That's kind of a joke in our family. My mother's very active on Facebook. And if you're watching this, Mom, could you edit that? Her grandfather, my great-grandfather, was a Baptist pastor, and he served a number of churches around the Tuscaloosa area. He was a bivocational pastor. He was a carpenter, and then he would pastor these small churches. It was kind of a revitalization ministry. He would go to churches that were struggling and so forth. Well, this would have occurred, I would have guessed, in the 20s or 30s, but he was actually hit by a car and spent several days in the hospital because it caused him to be disoriented, kind of out of his head, so to speak. And so here he is in this hospital bed, and in his delirium, he's preaching sermons in a very loud voice in the hospital. Well, there's a woman on the floor in another hospital room who was a patient of the hospital. She ends up getting converted and making a profession of faith because she hears his preaching down the hall. I mean, I just think that's fascinating. How God could put my great-grandfather in an unexpected place and yet accomplish something extraordinary. That's what God can do. And so we pray that He would do that. That God could use our disappointment. He could use our fear, our troubles, our past, our discouragements, even for His own glory and for our good. And could even use us in the middle of those things somehow to proclaim and share and live out the implications of the gospel. That's what God can do. How? It remains to be seen. But it's certainly plain to see that's what He's doing here in the life of the Apostle Paul. And Paul is finding joy in that. There is joy in an unexpected place. I don't think Paul was necessarily excited about, isn't this great, I'm chained to a guard all the time and my movement's restricted. I don't think that was his attitude. His attitude was finding joy in what God was accomplishing in and through his son. So joy in an unexpected place, we can find it. We can also find joy in unexpected people. There's really something fascinating going on in verses 15 through 18. It's fascinating, it's sad. But it's fascinating as well, Paul faces some really strange opposition. Look at verses, let me read 15 through 17. What's going on here? Paul's got these opponents. They're obviously opposed to Paul. He says it really plainly. They're thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment, but they're preaching the gospel. They're being faithful to proclaim Christ. They've got the right message, but their motives are totally out of whack. Now, Paul's not one to dance around doctrinal purity. He's obviously affirming they're preaching Christ. I mean, listen to what he says about those who fail to preach Christ and fail to preach the gospel as it should be preached from Galatians. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. And I read you that because Paul's not putting these folky references in Philippians in the same camp as those that I just read from Galatians. These folks, they're preaching Christ, but they're doing it from envy, from rivalry. They're jealous of Paul's ministry. They're jealous of Paul's influence. They're jealous of his success. In fact, something interesting I found in one of the commentaries was one of the early church fathers, whose name is Clement, he references the tension and strife that came about from other Christians on Paul's behalf that resulted in Paul's execution. So this was real opposition. But Paul says, notice his reaction, verse 18, what then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed and in that I rejoice. That's Paul's reaction. Basically Paul is saying this is hard, this is painful, But as long as Jesus is proclaimed, as long as He's being lifted up and people are being called to faith and repentance in Him, I don't care. I rejoice that Jesus is being preached. I mean, that's extraordinary. What did we learn here? Well, a couple of quick things. We need now more than ever a true, we'll call it, kingdom mentality. We need to realize that our community, our state, our nation, our world needs the gospel, needs faithful churches. It needs faithful pastors, faithful leaders, those who will faithfully proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ. We need to pray against jealousy and envy of ministries that flourish. We live, if you haven't guessed it already, we live truly in a post-Christian culture. We need God to raise up faithful bodies of believers. Not that we're indifferent to doctrinal faithfulness. So here's how we ought to pray. To the degree that churches are faithful to the gospel and faithful to the scriptures, we ought to pray they'd be churches that flourish, that grow in their influence for the sake of the gospel. There's a saying, it's amazing what can get accomplished if you don't care who gets the credit. And we need that attitude among churches, among ministries. As long as Christ is faithfully proclaimed, we should rejoice in that. Now, I'll be the first to admit, you know who some of the most insecure people on the face of the planet are? They're pastors and preachers. And when I get together with other pastors and preachers, when someone begins to talk about how their church is just exploding and all this is going on, I'll admit in my sin, sometimes my first reaction is, why is that not us? Why is that not me, right? as opposed to thankfulness and gratitude that the gospel is being proclaimed. That's great for the kingdom. So we need that lesson from the apostle Paul. But another lesson we need is that we need now more than ever, not just a kingdom mentality, but a real joy that's centered in Jesus. A real joy that's centered in Jesus. Is there real, legitimate joy when Christ is proclaimed, when He's being lifted up in who He is and what He's accomplished? Do we take Jesus seriously? Do we regard the truth and the message of the gospel as the most critical and important message that could ever be proclaimed, ever heard, ever believed? Paul is taking joy in that. In that, I rejoice, he says. That brought him joy. Now, the gospel brings us joy because we know it brings us into a relationship with God the Father through what Jesus has done. We know we can't merit a right relationship with God through ourselves and through our performance and through our morality. That it took God sending His Son in His mercy and grace to come and live that perfect life we are incapable of living and then to bear the penalty for sin in our place on the cross. than to be raised again from the dead, so that we by faith now rest in Christ's record, Christ's righteousness." Our striving has ceased. We're at peace with God through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And God then sends His Spirit so that we can believe the gospel, that He can make us new people, not just nice, but new. So do you know Jesus this morning? Is that a message in which you can take joy? Is your hope and faith and confidence and trust in Him? Is He your King? Is He your Savior? Is He your Redeemer? That's the critical message. Because God's people can be, should be joyful that Jesus is proclaimed. Because when Jesus is proclaimed, He's lifted up as the object of worship and faith, and that should bring us joy. When Jesus is proclaimed, all that He's done for sinners is being held up, and we rejoice. That's what He did for me. When Jesus is proclaimed, the only hope I have in life or in death is being proclaimed to a world. And that brings us joy. It's a reminder for us. And when Jesus is proclaimed, God by His Spirit is at work. God is at work. You and I need a more Jesus-centered, Jesus-focused, a truly Christ-centered life. Let me tell you what we have. We have a comfort-centered life. We have a comfort-centered life. We affirm grace. We affirm it. We say it. But deep down, let's be honest, we think God owes us the classic, comfortable, middle-class existence. That's what we think. Nice home, nice yard, nice car. Once a year, we take a really nice vacation. And by the way, any health problem we have is going to get fixed with a couple of visits to the doctor. That's the way we think life should be lived and what we should expect. We like blessing. We like success. But we need to like, no, we need to love the source of all blessing. We should pray that the blessings that God may give us would point us back to their source. We need to love and rejoice in Jesus, and pray that He would do that. We are much like C.S. Lewis described. We're like children in the backyard making mud pies, and our parents come to us and say, hey, how about a vacation at the beach? And we say, no, no, no, I'm happy here. We're too easily pleased. We need to look to the source of all joy. You see, the Apostle Paul, while chained to a Roman guard, found joy. He found joy in unexpected places, unexpected people, because his joy was in Jesus. You know, we talk about unexpected places. I would think I'm not alone when I say that for many of you in this room, because there's only been a handful of you that grew up in this area, Never thought you would live in Warner Robins, Georgia. That's just the truth. I mean, if you'd come to me when I was in college and said, hey, you're going to spend a great number of years in Warner Robins, Georgia, I said, where's that? I mean, that's what I would have said. When I lived in Macon, when I moved there in 96, I had no idea what was down here. From 96 to 04, I knew there was an Air Force base down here. You know what I thought of when I thought of Warner Robins at that time, don't you? I thought of a certain restaurant out there on the interstate. Y'all know what I'm talking about. And thank God it's closed. That's what I thought about Warner Robins. And look what God has done. This is an unexpected place. I have basically raised my sons here. God has put me here and given me unexpected joy and blessing. I remember when I was, quote, being recruited, if you will, to come plant a church in Houston County, I drove to Perry. I took the interstate down to Perry, got off, went to Perry Presbyterian, met with Bob Wojohn, and Bob drove me up here to give me the tour. So we came up Houston Lake Road from Perry. And I remember coming, I mean, I'm talking right by where the church is now, and I remember having this, I remember I had this existential moment Man, this is really kind of country out here. That's what I thought. They got a Burger King around here? They got something? Me and my big city making ways, right? And look what God has done. An unexpected place. Now, your unexpected place could be something like a Warner Robins. You're just not really happy here. You wish maybe you were somewhere else. But let me tell you something, God can do extraordinary things in unexpected places to unexpected people. And we need to look to find the joy. The joy ultimately comes through His Son. Now, how did Paul find that joy? I'll give you the secret. I'll give you the key. And it's found in verse 16. He's speaking about those who preach for mixed motives. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here. for the defense of the gospel. God put me here. God is sovereign. He's in control. He makes no mistakes. This is no surprise to Him. So no matter where I am and no matter with whom the people I must deal, God put me here, and I can trust Him if for no other reason than He's proven that love and commitment and steadfast commitment to me through the cross, through the gospel. So wherever you are, with whomever you're dealing, look for the surprise. Look for the surprise, what God might do. Because here's the surprise. He talks about it. I want you to know, brothers, that what's happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. You're kidding, right? In prison? God can do extraordinary things in unexpected places and people. Let's pray. Father, we pray for your grace.