there is a type of artwork called anamorphic art. Now, you've seen this before. It's the type of art that you have to be in a very particular place for the art to make sense. It's a 3D sculpture collection. It might be multiple artifacts lined up in a very particular way. When you walk along the side of it, it looks like nothing. When you get right in a very particular spot in front of it and look at the piece, all of a sudden a picture comes into view. Have you seen these before? It's fascinating. For most of us, our lives are lived in those abstract places on the periphery of anamorphic art. It looks like a collection of nothing. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't seem coherent. It doesn't pull together. And yet, and yet, Something seemed to have happened with Paul. While in his chains, he now sees the whole thing coming into focus. He sees the chains, the tears, the chaos, the persecution coming into focus, and he sees something glorious. We have an opportunity to see with Spirit-filled eyes some of what Paul is seeing. So I'll invite you this morning to turn to Philippians chapter one. And if you would, turn to verses 12 through 18. Stand if you would. Let's hear the Word of God read. 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 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. Beloved, this is the word of the Lord. It is absolutely true and has given us this day in love. Let's pray once more. Father, by your power and your power alone, speak to us, we pray. Change us. Forgive the one who preaches his sins for their many. our desire to see Jesus in him only. And so we pray all these things in the name of Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Be seated if you would. So this text is gonna be hard for us to connect with, I think, and as I was preparing this, I think there are at least three roadblocks, three speed bumps, three things we're gonna have to get past in order for this text to be something that we are able to connect with. Here's the first thing. The first is the E word. Evangelism, if you were raised in the church, it is possible that you have had a very negative experience of evangelism. Either because you have been told that you must go up and talk to strangers, and if you don't, you're not a good Christian. or you don't feel like you can really kind of piece all of the thoughts together to talk to someone who's doubting and you're afraid that you're going to mess it up and you don't want to mess it up and so it feels very daunting to you. Whatever your situation may be with evangelism, for many of us, it's been one of those things that we kind of put to the side of our lives, right? We put it to the side and we either don't do much with it because it was a negative experience or we've reduced it to just taking tracks and going out visiting and knocking on doors, right? But for Paul, It was so much more than this. It was bearing witness to the glorious reality of the in-breaking of the kingdom of God through the Son of God to draw together from the nations, the people of God, to the glory of God. So that's one thing that we're gonna have to kind of navigate through. Here's the second thing we're gonna have to navigate through, and that is, the second thing that makes this text tough is because we have a deeply entrenched tribalism among us, right? Some might even call it contrarianism. I don't know. I've never been called a contrarian in my life, nor do I speak in hyperbole. As we're gonna see, there are people whose motives were terrible who are still accomplishing good for the kingdom of God. And that rankles us because we are self-righteous. And we don't like other people where we think that their motives are terrible actually being able to accomplish good things. Third thing that's gonna give us some trouble is probably the biggest one. And that is when we have a small view of the kingdom of God. What do I mean by that? So, even in the intercessory prayer, even in the hymns and songs that we've been singing, even in the midst of our theme verse, it is a calling for us to have a big view of the kingdom of God. The problem though, and again, so you've heard this language throughout these many weeks now, a heart-stretching love, this is what Paul is really encouraging the Philippians to have, that their hearts would be stretched by the love of God, that they would see that their call is to love one another, even when the likelihood of that love being reciprocated in meaningful, mutual ways may be very minimal, it's still this call to this overflowing, joyful love. Now, when you think about what does a small view of the kingdom do, here's what a small view of the kingdom does. When your view of salvation is God's rescue of you, and He's done that, then the kingdom is good, because you've got Jesus, your personal Lord and Savior. And I'm just gonna tell you right now, One of the greatest problems in the church is that too many people have a personal relationship with Jesus. Their view of the kingdom is tiny. It's their own. You have your quiet time and your worship time and your devotional time and your relationship with Jesus. When our view of the kingdom is small, our desire for the advance of the kingdom is gonna be small as well. When our view of the kingdom is heart-capturing and heart-stretching, it enables us to rejoice at the kingdom of God's expanse, wait for it, even if that means it is at our expense. Because if the kingdom's more than us, If it's more than just about us, that means that the kingdom's not complete yet until God says it is. So how can Paul rejoice in his chains? I'd be pitching a fit. Paul says, my chains, just one more avenue for the kingdom of God to expand. When your view of the kingdom is small, your desire for the expanse of the kingdom is also small. But when your view of the kingdom is heart-stretching and all-encompassing and vision-capturing, then your view of the kingdom is your desire for it to expand, even if that means it happens at your expense. So how do we get there? Two ideas. First of all, sometimes, Not all the time, but sometimes suffering yields fruit for the gospel. Look at what Paul says. He says, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. So just to catch you up, Paul is in prison, but it's not not jail bars, sitting in a cell, right? He's under what is probably house arrest. So Paul is in a rented room. He relies on someone to pay his rent, to provide his food, all those things. And as Paul is writing this letter, he's chained to a Roman soldier every hour of the day, confined to living quarters for which he has to cover the rent of and everything else, en route to Rome. He had endured an extended imprisonment in Rome's provincial capital on the Judean coast. And then an arduous and dangerous voyage that included storm, shipwreck on the island of Malta, and a venomous snake bite from which God miraculously healed him. You can look at Acts 27 and 28 to be reminded of that. So now Paul awaits the emperor's decision on his appeal of unclear accusations filed against him by the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. So the spectrum of possible outcomes for Paul ranges from vindication and release on the one hand to condemnation and execution on the other. This is not for him then a vacation, right? And yet, in the midst of all of this, Paul is overflowing with rejoicing and inviting the Philippian church to rejoice with him because he sees in the midst of his chains a clear advance of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The first way he's seeing the gospel advance is actually through the imperial guard itself. Look at what he says in verse 13. He says, verse 13, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. So Paul is capitalizing on his imprisonment by speaking to the guard about Christ. So the Imperial Guard, also known as the Praetorian Guard, constituted 9,000 elite soldiers selected for their skill, their loyalty, to serve as the emperor's personal security detail. So now, we don't know, because Paul doesn't tell us, if the ones chained to Paul in six-hour shifts were a part of this elite force or not. But it would make sense to conclude that the news about Paul and his imprisonment, for Christ's sake, had made the rounds through the captive audience of those who are keeping Paul company. I mean, you're chained. What else are you going to talk about? We can but imagine. the glorious declaration that Paul would delight in sharing, that the God of the universe, the God of heaven and earth sent his son, Christ Jesus, into the world to be one of us, to not only declare the good news of the kingdom of God, but to himself be the way into the kingdom of God through his death on the cross and resurrection from the tomb, and that through Christ Jesus, we can now be reconciled to God because of the debt of our sin has been paid and we can be remade from the inside out through the gift of the Holy Spirit that God through Jesus pours out on his people. Could you just, I mean, just imagine, just imagine this. Imagine Paul telling of his own conversion, how he was struck down on the Damascus road only to hear the voice of Jesus speaking to him, calling him to life and forever changing him. These soldiers had pledged their very life to serve Caesar as Lord, but Paul was speaking to them of a Lord far greater than Caesar. Paul spoke to them of Christ the Lord, the only true and rightful King. People are not joyful about being imprisoned, right? They're not sending postcards saying, wish you were here. Look at this. You know, you know that word had to be getting around of this particular prisoner, a particularly joyful prisoner who was particularly animated as to why he was imprisoned in the first place. And so because of Paul's chains, he was able to bring and proclaim the gospel of Jesus to places and faces that he otherwise would have never had access to. Beloved, it ought to cause us to consider how we greet adversity when it comes. How we greet adversity when it comes. But this involves a paradigm shift, you see, because it is not instinctive or natural for us to think that adversity is a good thing and should be welcomed. We see adversity coming and we run from it. But what if we were to greet adversity with a smile, knowing that this, in fact, may be the way that God is going to further advance his kingdom. That requires a large view of the kingdom, does it not? It requires a view of the kingdom that delights in its expanse, even if that means it's at our expense. There's another aspect of Paul's suffering that enabled the advance of the gospel. And that was because others saw Paul's suffering, and therefore they too became confident in the Lord to speak of his name and to speak of what he was doing. Okay? Look at what it says. 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. Okay? So rather than seeing Paul's imprisonment and say, I don't want that for myself, we should move. Instead, people are being emboldened, galvanized even to risk persecution and loss of freedom for the sake of Christ. Now, so this is important. It goes back to what we've been saying all along. Paul is not the exception to the rule. Paul is not the special one. The inspiring story that thankfully isn't us. You know you do that, right? You read an especially inspiring story, and on the one hand you go, wow, that's really inspiring. But then on the other hand, a little quiet voice says, man, I'm really glad that wasn't me. It's okay, you can laugh. We all do this. The meaning is clear. If others can be emboldened by my chains and risk their own chains, so can you. But how? How was Paul able to see the alignment of all these circumstances and see the beauty that God was bringing in the midst of hardship for him? Beloved, he had a heart-stretching view of the kingdom. It was something that was bigger than himself. It enabled him to rejoice in its expanse, even if it wasn't his expense. Dear friends, so part of it's getting to the question of what brings you delight? What makes you smile? What makes you just sigh a sigh of relief and contentment knowing that a job has been well done? What is it that brings you delight? And it could be any sorts of things. It's the question of what is the prism through which you see your life and you see your life and its circumstances making sense, okay? I mean, it could be any number of things. It could be, do you see life through the prism of your family? Do you see life through the prism of your career, your successes? Do you see life perhaps through your marriedness or your singleness? Do you see life through the prism of your wealth or from your poverty? Do you see life through the prism of your successes or through your failures? What is the optic? What is the thing? What is the prism that is making sense of your life, that's giving it meaning and value and purpose? Where is it heading? What's it accomplishing? Is your vision of the good life to be safe, to escape the world's corruption and to not be defiled by its influences? If that's so, I'm gonna tell you something, friends. Your view of the kingdom is likely very small. It's probably a bunker. If I and my nearest and dearest can be safe, then it's good. We just have to ride the storm out. I'm often struck by, when I leave Home Depot, the tornado bunkers that they sell. You've seen these, right? The large cylindrical tube that you mount on some sort of pad of concrete, and if there's a bad storm coming, you put yourself inside a tube. I don't like small spaces, first of all. and I don't like people that much, even if it's people that I'm nearest and dearest to. Like putting me in a small, confined space, I just feel like that'd be a bad idea. I'd rather ride the thing out on my Tempur-Pedic. Now hear me out here, because my thing is this, like if a tornado comes and mows down my house, I'm gonna go see Jesus, or it's gonna miss me, and I'm gonna be fine. Either way, I'm still in my Tempur-Pedic. Jen and I have not resolved this, by the way, in terms of a family philosophy. She sees it differently than me. You have a bunker mentality on Christianity. You wanna escape them rather than moving towards them. Or, to put it another way, you'll move towards as long as it doesn't cost you anything. as long as it doesn't cost you time, or resources, or status, or standing, or convenience. The challenge is What am I willing to do? How far am I willing to go to be stretched for the sake of the advance of the kingdom? I hope that some of you have been following what's been happening in China because it really is some of the worst religious persecution that has happened, gosh, in generations. A lot of it has to do with economics. China is having a hard time sustaining their internal economic growth. In order to preserve the regime that is in power, there cannot be any dissenting thought, right? Christianity says we don't bow to a regime, we bow to Jesus. But these are ordinary moms and dads, right? These are ordinary folks that got up, that had their breakfast, had some tea or some coffee, went about their day, their husbands, their daughters, their kids, taken to prison without charges, tortured in prison, and you know what they say? They say, bring it! So that Christ may increase. It's a view of the kingdom that says if this means that this is how Jesus accomplishes the ransom that he paid on the cross and sealed in his resurrection from the tomb, that he's gathering from every tribe and people and nation and tongue, bring it so that Christ would increase and we might decrease. Friends, that runs against an American ethos of comfort and safety and security. That's not safe for the little ears in your family, Christian radio. That's a view of the kingdom that says the kingdom of God must expand no matter what it costs me. But look, Paul doesn't stop there, does he? No, the stretching continues because Paul is also not gonna let tribalism trump the kingdom of God. Look very quickly with me at my next point here. Sometimes mixed motives yields fruit for the gospel. Look at what Paul says in 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. So one of the ways that the kingdom was expanding was the imprisonment and chains of Paul. and all the others that would declare the name of Christ and have their freedoms stripped from them. But there's another way, and it's in the verses that we just read. Some of those who are declaring Christ because of Paul's chains didn't exactly have kingdom goals as their primary motivation. There are those, to be sure, who are preaching Christ because they love Jesus, they're emboldened by what they see Paul experiencing, but there are some who are preaching to exalt themselves and humiliate Paul. Look at what he says again in verse 17. The former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. How would they be doing that? Racking up converts. Oh, Paul, look. Who's the greatest apostle of them all now? Do you see how Paul responds though? Look at how he responds. He says, rather than engaging in petty tribalism or conversion tallies, what does he do? Verse 18, he says this. He says, what then? Only in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Actually, the verb there, I rejoice, means I rejoice and I keep on rejoicing. It's the song of my heart. It's the song of my heart. Paul, now he would not be celebrating if they were going out and declaring a false gospel, right? You remember how he opened in Galatians, oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? He goes on and he says, if I or anyone else, even an angel from God comes and declares a different gospel, let that one be a curse. So they're not preaching a different gospel. They're just being snotty. Because for him, Christ is proclaimed. And that's all that matters. Friends, how do you get your heart stretched in this way, right? How do you find this as the thing, the prism that gives your life purpose and meaning and direction? Well, it's Jesus. Look, in this text that we've read this morning, it's all been about Jesus. Look back at each verse of our text. In verse 12, Paul talks about the gospel. Verse 13, Christ. Verse 14, the Lord. Verse 15, Christ. Verse 16, the gospel. Verse 17, Christ. Verse 18, Christ. Every verse is saturated with the point of every thing. the source of Paul's joy, the thing that is the ballast in the midst of the storms, the thing that anchors Paul so that whether in chains, in prison, whether being tortured, whether facing execution, whatever the thing may be, the thing that is giving Paul his anchoring is Christ. Let me remind you again of the definition of joy I shared two weeks ago. Joy is an understanding of existence that encompasses both elation and depression, that can accept with submission events that bring delight or dismay because joy allows one to see beyond any particular event to the sovereign Lord who stands above all events and ultimately has control over them. The way you get joy isn't by stopping feeling. It isn't by going numb to the circumstances of our lives. The source of Paul's joy is a person, not an idea or a philosophy, but a real person. And not just his memory, but his very present union with him. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, it was Jesus who was humiliated for us so that we would have the exaltation that was rightly his. Dear friends, Listen, listen. What is the thing that's animating your life? If you recognize that you have collapsed down into a tiny view of the kingdom that just says, well, we're good, my family's good, so everything's okay, can I ask you to consider that maybe today ought to be a day where you repent? That perhaps, just maybe, you have fallen into the trap of good old fashioned Western individualism. How can this be true for us? How can this reality that is Paul's be ours? Can our small kingdom walls be broken down and our eyes turn to a horizon filled with the glorious hope of the life of the world to come in breaking into the world that presently is? Paul is not promising that your circumstances will not be hard, even dire. I said at the beginning that this would be a challenging text because we don't like the idea of the inconvenience of evangelism. We don't like the idea of tribalism where people on the wrong side say right things. And we don't like our individualism to collapse. The only thing that can conquer all three of these things is a greater, more compelling love. The only prism that can enable you to see the disconnected, sometimes disheartening, sometimes disconcerting, sometimes distressing parts of life through a cohesive whole, that in all ways, in all places, in all circumstances, there are avenues for the growth and the gain of the kingdom of God is Jesus. That means even when hard stuff happens, even when painful stuff happens, and it doesn't mean that having a large view of the kingdom means that somehow your pain doesn't matter. The only hope that we have is that our pain matters because it has a greater purpose. Otherwise, God is just the trickster, the maniacal one, the one allowing suffering to happen because he was too lazy to come up with a better idea. No, in all things, in all things, in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Because our hope is not that our best life is now. Our hope is the life of the world to come through the Jesus who will make every sad thing untrue and raise us to everlasting life in him. And then, dear friends, is when the party begins.