Today's scripture reading comes from Galatians 3, 1-14. O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It is before your eyes that Jesus Christ, made a public portrayal, was crucified. Let me now ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by the hearing with your faith? Oh, you so foolish, having begun by the spirit, you are now being perfected by your flesh. Did you suffer so many things in vain? Indeed, it was in vain. Does he who supplies to the spirit to you and works miracles among you, so by works of the law or by the hearing of your faith? Just as Abraham believed, it was counted to him for righteousness. Know then that is that those faith who is the sons of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God knew and justified the Gentiles by faith. Preaching the gospel beforehand, Abraham said, and you shall all nations be blessed. So then those who are in faith are blessed among with Abraham and the man of faith. verse 10 for they rely on the works of the law are under curse for it is written cursed is everyone who abides and all the things are written in the book of the law and do do them now it is evident no one is justified before god by the law for the law for the righteousness shall live by faith, and the law is not faith, rather than the one who shall live by them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming the curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. So Jesus Christ is a blessing of Abraham, might come to the Gentiles, so they might receive the promise through faith, through spirit, through faith. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Amen. Alright, turn with me, if you would, to Philippians chapter 1. We started our journey through Philippians a couple of weeks ago, taking a look at different people that were saved in Paul's ministry in Acts chapter 16. There was Lydia, there was a demon-possessed girl, and there was a jailer. Last week, however, we talked about how risking it all, in verses 1 through 11, risking it all, and you know, as I look at the book of Philippians, people have come up with different themes for it. For me, I believe the theme of it is risking it all for the joy of following Jesus. You know, Jesus said, if you're going to follow me, you've got to leave everything behind, right? And so many times that gets framed in terms of loss, and of course you do lose some things. It gets framed in terms of sacrifice, and you are making some sacrifices, but what you gain is joy. And so when you risk everything as we see Paul doing in the book of Acts and the book of Philippians. For the joy of following Jesus, it means we live a life to be proud of. And we looked at verses 1 through 11. We saw that that kind of life depends on God for what He has done, what He is doing, and what He will do. I want to, just by way of reminder, refer you to verse 11. I'm sorry, verse 6 of chapter 1. I am sure of this, that He, God, who what? He began, what did He begin? A good work in you. If there's a good work in you, it's not because you began it, it's because God began it. Amen. He who began the good work in you will bring it to completion, promise. And when God makes the promises, He keeps it. And so, what will that kind of life look like? Well, you get down to verse 10, or verses 9 through 11, it tells you, your love will abound more and more, but you won't be a squishy a squishy lover, you'll love with knowledge and discernment, those guardrails that guide you. You will approve what is excellent. You'll be pure and blameless for the day of Christ filled with the fruit of righteousness. So, risking it all for the joy of following Jesus means we live a life to be proud of. But here's what I think verses 12 through 18 tell us. I think it tells us that there's a gospel purpose in your pain. Because when you risk it all, is it all going to be unicorns and glitter? I tell her, mercy. She has bad dreams. I tell her, no, you're not going to have bad dreams tonight. What are you going to dream about? She knows the answer. Butterflies. What are the three things? No, there's another one. Rainbows, butterflies, and snowflakes. Bunnies, butterflies, and snowflakes. That's right. I tell her, you dream about bunnies, butterflies, and snowflakes. You can tell that to a three-year-old. You get older, and those kind of answers don't fly when life slaps you in the face. When you risk it all for the joy of following Jesus, yes, you get that joy, but there is still pain. Where was Paul writing from? prison. You think he enjoyed that? I don't think he enjoyed it. I think he had joy, and there's a difference. I believe the point of verses 12 through 18 is that risking it all for the joy of following Jesus also means we are single-minded in our devotion to the gospel, and when that happens, we find gospel purpose in our pain. just by way of setup, you look at verses one through 11, Paul's affection for the Philippians is clear, isn't it? I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. Verse three, in every prayer, making my prayer with joy, Verse seven, it is right for me to feel this way about you all because I hold you where? In my heart. Oh man, he loved the Philippians. He loved the Philippians. But it becomes clear when we go to verse 12 that they had a lot of affection for him as well. Look at verse 12, I want you to know, brothers, that what has served What has happened to me has served really to advance the gospel. You see, what's happening is, they know he's in prison, and Paul is responding to them. Maybe they wrote a letter, maybe Epaphroditus, the guy who's writing letters back and forth, they didn't have email, did they? Shoot, who even uses email anymore? I just message you on my phone. Man, to get a message back then, you had to send somebody a long way. Epaphroditus was this guy's name. And he went back to Philippi and said, Paul is in jail. And they got so concerned about him. Their hearts were breaking for him. And so he wants them to know, hey, I'm okay. They had made it known that they were very concerned for him. He was in jail. I want to show you something. In the ancient Roman world, it was customary, when writing a letter, they didn't write letters the same way we do today. When you write a letter, how do you start? Dear John. I hope none of you ever write a Dear John letter, unless you actually know it's my name, John. But you write, Dear so-and-so, then you get the body of the letter, and then you write, love or in Christ or however you sanctify the letter. Okay. They didn't do it that way. Go back to verse one. They start how we end Paul, Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ. Those are the authors. And then they go into the body of the letter. And the first thing, one of the first things that they always did is they included a salutation. That's what you see in verses three through 11 is a salutation. And then in verse 12, Paul goes to the next part that letter writers often did. They let the people know how they were. Because, I mean, communication was scarce back then. You couldn't get on the phone and call mama every day. If you wrote letters, you let them know, hey, this is what's going on. And when they wrote letters back then, they started with this phrase, I want you to know that. I want you to know that. And then they'd tell him how they were. Look at what Paul does, verse 12. I want you to know, brothers, I want you to know. He is getting ready to tell them how something is going. And what do you think they're expecting? They're expecting Paul, who they know is in prison, they know he knows they're in prison, he's in prison. They're expecting, remember, you've got a Bible right here in your lap, you've got one on your tablet, you've got one on your phone, you've got one on the internet. You know how they read the Bible? The first time they ever heard a Bible read was when somebody stood up and read it to the congregation. That's how they read it. So when the letter reader, probably Epaphroditus, is getting ready to read this, they hear the words, I want you to know, brothers, and they're like, oh, we're gonna find out how Paul is doing. But what does he tell them? They don't get a status report on how he's doing, but they do get a status report. What's the status report on? I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has served to advance the gospel. See, Paul wasn't all that concerned about himself. He knew that in his pain, there was gospel purpose. Here's a question for you. How do you normally respond to pain? If you're like most people, you either complain or you have a response like, well, it's just life. I'll get through it. I want you to understand there's a powerful lesson here for us. It's not that Paul was enjoying prison. He'd rather have been free. But for Paul, Christ and the good news about Christ was all that really mattered. Whether he was in prison or out, whether he was doing well or not, whether he had something to eat or not, it wasn't about him. It was about the gospel. What about us? I want us to read these seven verses together and I'll just throw them up on the screen as well. 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. 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. 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, the gospel is proclaimed. And in that, I rejoice. Father, bless this time we have together, this short time in Jesus' name. Amen. Here's a couple of points I want you to... These are the two main points I want you to get for the day. Number one, God can use your pain to give sight. and God can use your pain to grow spines. Obviously, I'm doing some plays on words here, so y'all follow me as we get through this. Number one, God can use your pain, your pain constructively, to give sight to the spiritually blind. He says in verse 12 and 13, I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me, what had happened to him? He was in prison. a painful experience. What has happened to me has served not to advance myself, because that's not what he's concerned about, but to advance the gospel so that it, the gospel, has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. Verse 18, what then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, code word, gospel, And in that, I rejoice. There is gospel purpose in your pain. One of those gospel purposes is that God can use your pain to give sight, but there's something we have to just come to terms with, and that is that pain is coming. Are you willing to come to terms with that? I think oftentimes we go through life, we teach our kids, you don't always get what you want. There's even a famous song in the 60s by the Rolling Stones, said the same thing. You don't always get what you want, and that's painful when you're three, when you're 33, or when you're 93. When the cancer comes, that's painful. When sickness comes, that's painful. When people reject you, that's painful. Pain is coming, but here's what we often do. We talk about life as if, yeah, there's pain coming, but then when pain hits us, we act like three-year-olds. And we throw tantrums in different ways. Paul recognized not just that pain was coming, he was going through pain. The pain of loss, the pain of heartache. Paul wasn't the only one who went through pain on our behalf. You know that, right? We're called Christians, not Paulinites, because Christ experienced pain on our behalf. In fact, I read this quote from a theologian named Thielman this week. He said, the purpose of Christ's suffering was the advancement of God's redemptive work. And so it was an evil, the cross was an evil, through which God effected good for humanity. In other words, without Christ enduring that great suffering on your behalf, there is no good news, right? It's all bad news. It's all death, it's all suffering, it's all hell for every single one of us. And Jesus said, no servant is greater than his master, right? He wanted us to know that risking it all for the joy of following him means there will be pain. Now, Paul was put in prison, why? Jaywalking? Preaching the gospel. His pain was specifically gospel related. Yours probably won't be. We have freedom of religion in this country, don't we? You can even go out, you might get even preaching the Walmart parking lot. I don't know, would they kick you out? They probably would after a certain, maybe an hour or two. I don't know how long they'd let you be out there. But you're not gonna be thrown in jail for preaching the gospel, probably. But, do you experience pain? Work pain? Relationship pain? Financial pain? Each one of us. in different ways and at different times in our life and in different levels of intensity, experiences pain. It's how we respond to that and whether or not we see the gospel purpose in it that determines whether or not we respond correctly. Because anytime you experience pain, you have one of two options on one particular level, and that is whether or not you're gonna promote self or promote Christ. What did Paul do? Man, if we were writing that letter, I want to tell you that it's been hard. These guards aren't treating me right. They put me in stocks. Can you believe it? Stocks! They make fun of me. They say Jesus is just a Jewish myth. Did Paul say one word about how he was doing? He said, man, he took John the Baptist's Declaration, I must decrease and he must increase. He took that literally, didn't he? We can choose to promote ourself or we can choose to promote Christ. I thought this week, you know, some people have PhDs in moaning and groaning. They ought to be teaching classes. I went to church with a lady years ago. I won't say her name just in case one of her descendants ends up listening to this. Unlikely. But you ask her how she's doing. Every single time you ask her how she's doing, you get the same response. Well... Followed by moaning and groaning for about five minutes. You get to the point where you're like, I'm gonna say something else. I'm gonna say good day to you, madam. You know. I mean, you want to hear what people have to say, but it becomes clear that some people are all about themselves and how they respond. Now, should we bear each other's burdens? Absolutely. But, man, don't always be offloading. Be taking some on sometimes, all right? Pain is coming. I forgot to go to the next line. You can either promote self or promote Christ when that happens. Here's the third thing that God can do through your pain. God can advance the gospel, that is, give spiritual sight to the blind. You can either choose to po-mouth your circumstances or promote Christ in the gospel. Y'all know what po-mouth means, don't you? Y'all heard that word? Po-mouth is short for poor mouth. You never heard po-mouth? Man, y'all don't speak Southern. Look at verse 13. He says regarding the gospel, so that it has become known. I want you to underline that if you do that sort of thing. Become known is a word that is alternately translated make clear, make it transparent, make it obvious. See, Paul was saying here that his imprisonment and his response to the pain of that imprisonment is what made the gospel clear to the guards. Alternate question. Would the gospel have been made clear to the guards if Paul just po-mouthed all the time? It would not. But he didn't do that. And here's the encouragement for us. Your response to your pain. You probably won't ever get put in stocks, but you'll get pain of a different kind. Breakup, divorce, losing a child, losing a job, financial distress. Your response to these things can make the gospel clear to unsaved people. What that means is unsaved people are not just looking at the church service, what are they looking at? You, and you, and you. And they're looking at how you respond to pain, and they're saying, well, they don't even know. They don't even know the question to ask. But when they see Jesus, When they see good news spilling out of your mouth instead of bad news when you're going through pain, you know what that does? That makes the gospel clear to them. They're like, oh, that's what it means to be a Christian. That's what it means to follow Jesus. And this happens when you recognize that your pain isn't ultimately about you. When people see you rejoicing in pain, they will be open to hearing your story. Can you imagine? Remember the book of Acts chapter 16? The jailer, it says, listened all night to Paul and Silas doing something. What were they doing? They were singing. Even though they were in jail, in stocks. You know what? The Philippian jailer is a great example of this. You know what Paul's response during that pain did for the Philippian jailer? It made the gospel clear. And it gave Paul a platform from which to speak. Because if Paul had just pulled me out all the time, the Philippian jailer wouldn't even listen to what Paul has to say. But when he listened to the glories coming out of their mouths, and then of course the earthquake releasing everybody, he says, what must I do to be saved? The gospel was already clear to the jailer. He didn't have to ask, who is this Jesus? He knew already because he'd been listening to him all night. Paul's response and Silas' response gave them platform with the jailer. If all people ever hear, however, is, oh, I'll get through it, there's no reason to listen to that. Everybody says that. Could you imagine reading Philippians? I want you to know, brothers, that I'm suffering for Jesus, but I'll get through it." I'm glad he didn't write it that way. God works in mysterious ways. I don't know why I'm going through this, but I'll get through it. That's our response a lot of times, and I'm not saying those responses have no value, but I'm saying, here's a better response. Worship Jesus. Even in the pain. Even in the loss. Even in the tragedy. Listen to this. I heard I heard this quote this week. Paul's imprisonment is not simply a result of his Christian commitment. We think all the time it's about the book of Acts. Paul's getting in prison. He's getting stoned. He's getting shipwrecked. And we think, man, that's the cost of following Jesus. And there's a certain element of truth to that, right? But listen, His imprisonment is not simply a result of following Christ, it is the necessary means through which Paul fulfills his calling. In other words, suffering for Jesus is not just what happens when you follow Jesus, it is the way Jesus makes the Gospel clear to the unsaved world. How you respond is everything, whether they see you whether they see Jesus. Your pain is not simply a result of life. It is the necessary means through which you fulfill your calling. Well, I said that God can use your pain to give sight. I also said God can use your pain to grow spines. Here's what I'm talking about. Verse 14 says this. Most of the brothers, that is other Christians, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Let's decode this. What's the word? The word of God, that's the gospel. So before, they were speaking the word fearfully, or they weren't speaking it at all. But because they see Paul suffering for speaking the word, that has emboldened them. It reminds me of a Well, I'll get to that in a second. I'm gonna show you a video in a second. God can use your pain to grow spines. These brothers that Paul is talking about were spineless before his imprisonment. When they see Paul in prison, they grew spines. They got tough. They became men for Christ. You know, it's difficult to be bold alone, though, isn't it? You know, Jesus said to the disciples, go out two by what? Two by two. I think one of the reasons he did that is because it's hard to do by yourself. It's hard to be brave by yourself. I remember a couple of months ago, I saw an illustration of this. I was watching YouTube. I don't know. You get on YouTube, one thing leads to another. You know how it is. And there was an experiment being done, a sociological experiment, where it was a doctor's waiting room. And everybody in the waiting room, about ten people, about ten people, nine of them were actors, and one was a legitimate person who was there to see the doctor. Now the one person, they had different people, and every person failed the test. What they did is they had the actors just, will this thing hold me up? Is this good? Okay. We'll see. Ah, good. Praise the Lord, Ricky. I'm not too fat yet. What they did is in a waiting room, you wait, you sit down. Well, so they wait till the real person comes in and she's sitting down. And after a while, one person would stand up and then they'd sit back down. And then another person would stand up, and they'd sit back down. And she's just, no reason for the standing up, right? Until everybody, except her, is just standing up at odd intervals. Not all at the same time. One person here, one person there. And she's looking at them. Guess what she started doing? She had no idea why. She was just following the crowd. It is hard to stand alone. even when everybody else has lost their minds, it is hard to stand alone. Christians, do you know that we are called to stand against the world, to stand for Christ, to stand for the gospel? There is no better illustration of doing this when we are in pain, when life tosses fastballs and they hit us right in the face or right in the Adam's apple. How do you respond to that? The world responds one way. The tide of humanity responds this way. We are like a salmon swimming upstream saying, no, I'm gonna respond differently because Jesus, because I'm risking it all for the joy of following him. We don't say, I'll get through it. We don't say, I don't know why this is happening to me, even though those things might be true. We say, God will use this pain in my life to advance the good news about Jesus Christ. That's our response. I want to show you a vivid illustration of this. How many of you have seen the movie Braveheart? Most of you. If you haven't, man, put that on your to-do list. I'll guarantee you. I want to show you an example of men that didn't want to do something that were convinced to do something. Somebody get me a brick wall I can run through. Paul was Braveheart, leading the way. He said, my imprisonment has emboldened others to share the gospel without fear. You see how those guys were? They were like, we're running. We're fearful. Sometimes you're the one that needs to follow Braveheart. Sometimes you need to be the Braveheart. You need to be Paul. Leading the way. One of the things, I don't mean to embarrass you, brother, but one of the things I love about Walter is that he is steadfast in his commitment to walk that cross. It doesn't matter what city he's in. It doesn't matter what kind of opposition he faces. It doesn't matter what's going on in his life. He's walking that cross. He is leading the way. He's showing us how to do it. That's not to say that you have to make a cross and walk around with it. That's an illustration for what Jesus said. take up your cross, follow me. How can you do this? Guys, how you respond to pain will either deflate or embolden others to follow Jesus. If you respond to the pain in your life like the world does, they're not gonna be impressed enough to follow Christ. But if when you are experiencing pain, you lead the way and you say, I'm going to advance the gospel. You know how that movie ends, right? Well, if you haven't seen it yet, it's 23 years old. I'm gonna spoil it for you. William doesn't make it. Braveheart, his name is William Wallace. He dies at the end. But he dies on the altar of something that was bigger than himself. That's what God is asking for you to do. Don't live for yourself. When you live for yourself, pain is everything. That's why babies cry all the time. All they know is themselves, and when they experience pain, it's all about them. Knowing Christ, loving Christ, committing to Christ is about being committed to something bigger than ourselves, so when the pain comes, we still feel it, but we're able to redirect. to advance the gospel, so that we can lead the way like Braveheart did. You know what God wants to do? God wants to change some of your families. Yes, I'm pointing at every one of you, and I'm pointing at myself. God wants to change some of your families, and he wants to do it through you, Dad. He wants to do it through you, mom. He wants to do it through you, aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa. He wants you to say, I'm going to follow that guy. Jesus is our brave heart, right? I'm going to follow that guy. And I may have to lay down my life, but I'm going to follow him. And when it hurts, when the pain comes, I'm not going to react like everybody else does. I'm going to react like Jesus does. and I'm gonna give spiritual sight. I'm gonna strengthen spines. How do we normally respond? It doesn't matter, because today's a new day. Today's a day you can change. That's what the gospel does, it changes us. Speaking of the gospel, if you don't know the gospel, You can't respond like Jesus does. If you're lost, you can't respond with joy in the face of pain. Your only response is, well, it'll get better. Your only response is, I'll get through it. Your only response this morning, however, is to reject your sinful life. Trust the Savior. I'm gonna say it as if you've never heard it before. Did you know that something wonderful has happened? Jesus died for your sins. Is that wonderful good news? Even if it's the millionth time you've heard it, that is wonderful good news. You need to respond and trust Christ. Let today be the day of your salvation. However, if you are already saved, here's what you ought to do. Take inventory. When you face pain, do you promote yourself by pomalving? Perhaps, hey, we all do it sometimes, don't we? Let's be honest, we all do it. We all do it. Let's repent of that and begin allowing Jesus to use our pain to point people to him. Shall we pray? Father in heaven, may today be a day of change for your people. In Christ's name, amen. We're going to sing, I have decided to follow Jesus. If you've never decided to follow Jesus, today's the day. Come up here and get that right with God. If you have decided to follow Jesus, maybe In this particular area, when it comes to how you handle adverse circumstances in your life, today is a day you need to change. I'll pray with you as the musicians play.