We see around us many examples of men and women who, when they determine to focus on one thing—maybe it’s their job, growing a business, a study, a sport, a skill, or some ambition—almost automatically use all circumstances in their life for one end goal. They value everything in life as it relates to that one goal. They achieve something in their life because they didn’t waste it on 101 things. That is at a worldly level.
When the Holy Spirit opens a person’s spiritual eyes to see the vanity of this life and to see the infinite glory of Christ, Christ said that person will deny everything and even himself and follow Me and be ready to lose everything for Me and My gospel. He will get the wisdom to see in life, “This one thing I do.”
We see Apostle Paul as a living example of that truth. In the most distressing, sad situation, this man is yet full of joy. The primary secret of his joy is that he lived for one thing and saw everything from that perspective. We see the ennobling power of a passionate enthusiasm for the gospel of Christ can do for a man. It lifts him above himself, the world, and all his difficulties. That absorbing, one purpose in him bends all circumstances to its service and values them only as instruments. The more I read and prepare, the more I am stunned at the spiritual growth and mature depth of this great giant in faith. The sad and superficial state of our Christianity in our generation is because we rarely see men with this kind of depth. If we just had 1% of his commitment and growth, our lives could be so wise and fruitful. No wonder the Holy Spirit used him to write most of the New Testament. It is so very essential and useful to study and understand this man. As we intently gaze upon a great model in Philippians, may the Holy Spirit transform us into his image.
After greeting, thanking God, and praying for the Philippians in verses 1-11, Paul, in verse 12 onwards, tells them how he sees his past, present, and future. He looks at all the things in the past that have happened, though personally very difficult, and doesn’t even list the terrible things. A big book can be written about his experience: the riot and beating in the temple, the arrest, the death threat by his nation, being sent to Caesarea under Felix and Festus for two years, being sent to Rome, the shipwreck, the snakebite, and two years in a Roman jail. He does not describe anything that happened to him. The only thing important for him is how these things have affected the gospel. This man’s life goal was the spread of the gospel above all else. If you ask Paul, “How are you doing?” he would say, “That is not important.” Ask, “How is the gospel doing?” If the gospel is spreading and progressing, “I am happy.” My happiness depends on that. He is happy in jail because the gospel is spreading.
He gives two proofs of how the gospel is spreading. Outside the church, among the unsaved, his bonds became manifest in Christ to all the Praetorian Guards and everyone in Rome. Guards were saved, and through them, even some in Caesar’s family. Many outsiders were coming to him in jail, hearing the gospel. The gospel is spreading. Not only was there an impact on the outside, unsaved world, but inside the church, believers who were fearful have now become bold to preach the gospel because of Paul’s witness. The gospel fire in his soul is spreading like wildfire in other believers’ hearts.
So Paul looks at all his past and rejoices because the gospel is spreading. Now, how does he see his present and future? Verses 15-20 tell us his perspective on the present and future. Today, let us look at his present in verses 15-18 in three headings, and next week, we will look at his future.
- Preaching Christ with wrong motives.
- Preaching Christ with right motives.
- Paul’s response.
In verse 14, when he said many brothers in the church have become bold to preach the gospel, he states they are preaching with two different motives. We have to understand he is not talking about false teaching or teachers here. What they are preaching is the true gospel. He makes that very clear three times: in verse 15, “preach Christ”; in verse 16, “preach Christ”; and in verse 18, “preach Christ.” “Preach Christ” means who Christ is and what He has done in the gospel as a mediator between God and man, the only savior of sinners. So their content is correct. They are preaching the true gospel. He is not talking about false teachers; in the same epistle, he will call false teachers “dogs,” and in Galatians, he will say if they preach some other gospel, “let them be accursed.” Here, the true gospel according to the word of God is being preached, but they are preaching with two motives with two different goals.
Preaching Christ with Wrong Motives
First, notice the motive in verse 15: “Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife.” Wow, some are preaching Christ because they are envious of Paul. That burning spirit of envy is a horrible motive that made the devil fall. It is the motive which led to the very death of our Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew said Jewish leaders wanted to kill Jesus because of envy. Here, some were envious of Paul, his popularity, his gifts, and his ministry, and that made them preach Christ. Then he says “strife,” which could be better translated as “rivalry,” that wicked desire to pit one man against another, a competition. They were envious, and they wanted to attack Paul, so that made them preach Christ in rivalry, so they could draw people from following Paul. They wanted to say, “We also preach the same Christ; follow us.”
Then in verse 16, he brings in some more vigorous language: “The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely.” They proclaim Christ from selfish ambition, for selfish gain, a name, fame, or popularity, not with the aim to do good to souls and glorify Christ. They are doing it for what they can get, solely for pay, working for hire, from a very low motive, a very self-seeking motive. They are preaching Christ with effort and eagerness. Why? They spent all their time promoting themselves, which is exactly what politicians do—total self-promotion based on self-ambition. Then he says, “not sincerely,” not with pure motives, but mixed.
Again, mind you, notice they preach Christ correctly, the correct gospel, but when you dig into the motivation, you find not only envy and rivalry but selfish ambition, not pure motives. Then he says in verse 18, “in pretense.” It’s pretending. They preach as if they are true servants of Christ with a motive to glorify Christ and save souls, but it was all a sham. It was a pretense. They were playing games. This is a sad picture of the wrongly, sinfully, wickedly motivated Gospel preachers. Their root motives are envy, rivalry, selfish ambition, insincerity, and pretense.
What is their goal in preaching Christ with these motives? Verse 16b says, “supposing to add affliction to my chains.” Supposing means “thinking,” it says, “planning,” “scheming”—one pinpoint of concentration—to add affliction to my chains. They wanted to attack Paul, and as if his suffering were not enough, they wanted to add more to his existing suffering, to intensify his pain. That is their goal. It is a very sadistic goal. He is already terribly suffering; the word is to increase “friction.” Chains were already rubbing his hands, feet, and neck, which was very painful. They wanted to make it tighter and see him suffer more pain, to rub him tightly and increase his pain. Wow. How do they want to increase Paul’s suffering? By preaching Christ. You know the saddest thing is this is not from people outside the church, this is from the Rome church. Even pastors within the church want to do this. Wow.
How and why? See what the terrible sin of envy can do. He doesn’t describe this, but we can assume. The Rome church was formed before Paul came there and was growing, maybe by Peter’s ministry before. Some preachers in the Rome church may have been very famous before Paul came and had been preaching for many years, and people listened to them and followed them. But one day, this Jew came, chained in jail, and in a matter of weeks, he was the talk of the town. The most top people in the country, the palace Praetorian Guards, were all listening and getting converted. Many in Rome were going in crowds to jail to listen to his preaching. People were always quoting Paul, praising Paul. Paul said this and that.
Even in their church, people are praising God for Paul’s great ministry, the revival going on in Rome. Maybe pastors there heard church people saying, “We went and listened to Paul. What preaching! I’ve never heard that, pastor.” Someone comes and tells me that. However saintly I am, it would be difficult to hear. Then the ugly sin of envy starts in the hearts of these leaders. “We are preaching so many years, this guy came yesterday, and all are following him.” They felt thrust into the background; their authority and their following had been reduced.
So they felt jealous that he was so praised and beloved. Paul’s giftedness, preaching, vast ministry, high esteem, and Paul’s success—more people followed him than them. Some of these preachers’ egos were wounded, their noses were bent right around the side of their faces. They were no longer the talk of the town. Paul was the talk of the town. And they said, “Okay, all right, he’s the talk of the town. He’s praised as a big preacher of Christ, even though he’s imprisoned. We’ll outdo him.”
They would show Paul and everybody else that they would preach Christ with such vim and vigor as to draw all eyes on themselves and away from Paul. And so they began to preach with renewed vigor and greater intensity. They were determined to get back their following. So they were preaching Christ more, maybe once a week before, now every day everywhere, proclaiming Christ.
And as a result of being jealous, they created “strife.” The word means “contention” and “conflict.” Envy always leads to a spirit of faction, rivalry, and attack. You don’t attack guys on your level. You go and attack the guy on top so you can be elevated above him. Paul is on the top. If you could just push Paul down and be thought of as greater than Paul, you’ve arrived at the top. Then, they did it with selfish ambition, not with pure motives and in pretense. They preached Christ and drew people toward them, and all for what? “Thinking,” it says—”planning,” “scheming”—as a way to “add affliction to my chains.”
How do they, by these things, add afflictions? In many ways. He is in jail as an accused man, and that is a great opportunity for them to pull Paul down and make themselves famous in his place. Firstly, maybe by their vast regular preaching in Rome, they would stir up the authorities. “See, all this more preaching of Christ is because of this man, Paul, in jail preaching Christ.” And so they may decide to increase Paul’s punishment and reduce his freedom to preach.
When crowds come to them and are impressed with their preaching, they insult and attack Paul. “See, we are true preachers of Christ; we have all the freedom. But you know why Paul is in jail? God is punishing him and putting him there. Maybe he sinned; this is chastening.” Some, like prosperity preachers, would say the reason he’s in prison right now is because he doesn’t have the spiritual power to be triumphant. “If he is a big apostle, why can’t he do a big miracle and come out like Peter? He doesn’t have name-it-and-claim-it faith. He has sinned, and God has forsaken him. He is not able to tap the resources of God’s power. But see, we’re free because we’re triumphant. We know the power of Christ. He’s obviously impotent. He doesn’t know how to tap into divine resources, or he’d burst the chains and walk out.”
There could be neo-preachers. All the new young people are attracted to a new church with entertainment, music, and dance. “Old things are over; we don’t have to listen to the old generation. We are a new generation of God. Paul is the old generation. His time is over. He’s outdated. This is a new day, new blessing, and a new miracle. We’re the new men of God, and that is why God put him in jail, and he will soon disappear. So you don’t have to listen to him. We’re the ones you want to listen to.”
In another way, if people see they are preaching Christ for selfish ambition, for money, a name, or popularity, people will generally think that everyone who preaches Christ preaches for the same goal. If office people want to get more salary, promotion, and a name, they work hard to get that, and if someone else loves the company and works hard to improve the company, people generally think the guy who loves the company also works for money. Anyone who shows eagerness and ambition, people will generally think, “Ah, it is all for money.” Today, isn’t this what we face? We go and share the gospel with no selfish goal, but because most preachers do everything to gather a crowd and get money and a name, when we show earnestness and preach the gospel, people think it is for that same goal, that it is all a business for money. When people see some are driven by selfish ambition and envy, they attribute the same motives to anyone else doing the same work. So they would think Paul is also preaching Christ, even in jail, for selfish ambition.
So these could be some ways they were trying to add affliction to Paul by preaching Christ. They were speaking against him, attacking his integrity, credibility, and character. Their goal wasn’t to exalt Christ and save sinners. Their goal was to irritate the man of whom they were jealous—that’s their goal—and pull him down in the eyes of the people so the people wouldn’t believe him and wouldn’t trust him and wouldn’t go to him. And then they would be the preeminent ones. So we see preaching Christ with wrong motives.
Preaching Christ with Right Motives
Thank God not everyone was like that. He describes a second group who preach Christ with right motives. Verse 15 says, “some indeed preach Christ, even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill.” Some preach Christ out of goodwill towards Paul. The meaning of “goodwill” is the opposite of envy. They are not envious of Paul, but happy and satisfied with Paul as God’s apostle. They’re satisfied not only with what God’s doing with Paul but with what God’s doing with them. They’re sympathetic to me. They are partners with me; they encourage and support me. What a blessing and encouragement to have such people in gospel work.
Verse 17 says they preach Christ out of love. The root motive is that powerful, self-giving, principled, knowledge-guided, Godlike, agape love. The most essential element of effective ministry is what? Love. These people had great love for Paul. And then he says in verse 18b, they do it “in reality,” “in truthfulness.” They have the motives of goodwill, self-giving love, and reality. And what’s the desired end? Look at the text, verse 17, the ones who do it out of love, “knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.”
And, he says, “knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.” “They knew that I’m in prison because of defending the gospel. Set by God, I am appointed by God to defend the gospel.” “Appointed” is a military term, used for a soldier on duty. And he says, “They know that I have been appointed to be on duty for the defense of the gospel.” They were convinced that Paul was in jail not because he was unfaithful but because he was very faithful. Not because he failed but because he succeeded. God put him in a strategic place to make that defense before the authorities and hierarchy of Rome. He was the greatest living defender of the gospel.
Knowing this, they preach Christ with goodwill, love, and truth. These motives operate with a view to being supportive of the Apostle Paul in his great work for the apology for the defense of the Gospel. So these were preaching Christ with good motives.
So there are two groups in contrast, one with goodwill, loving me, they know that I am God’s man. And then there’s that other group whose real agenda is envy and rivalry, and they speak evil against me, wanting to tear me down so they can push themselves up. They are loveless. They have no good will.
Paul’s Response
Can you get into Paul’s heart for a moment and realize how painful it must be for him? One of the most painful things in ministry is when people attack you. In a way, an attack from the outside, we can understand and bear; the world in sin will always hate us and attack us. But those who call themselves believers, inside the church, even preachers, when they attack, it is unbearable. I can bear anything, but when we want to selflessly minister to people with good motives and people within the church attack, saying all kinds of lies about us, it is the most unbearable. Sometimes you feel like dying. It was unbearable even for Jesus; He Himself said if it were an enemy, “I can bear it, but you, my brother, who attack me, it is unbearable.”
It hurts me to even think about that. This dear man—I mean, as great a saint as ever lived—in his most difficult time, and he says, “I have no one who came to my defense,” at his first trial in Rome. He says, “All in Asia have forsaken me.” He says, “There’s no one of like mind with me but Timothy.” A man who selflessly gave his life for the gospel, lost everything, is in his most difficult time, in jail for four years, yet still powerfully preaching the gospel in Rome. How does the Rome church support him? Most of them want to attack him in envy and selfish ambition, saying all these terrible things about him. Is this what you get after a life of faithfulness? This is the church? People who want to attack you for the exaltation of their own ego? Pretty ugly. Personally, how painful and sad it must be for Paul. Very hard to deal with. The pain runs very deep. Other brother preachers from the church slander, misrepresent, criticize, accuse, oppose, and belittle a person’s ministry. They do all that to discredit your ministry. A man’s ministry is based on trustworthiness; an essential foundation for the ministry is trust. The first number of years in the ministry, your whole endeavor is to lay a foundation of integrity and credibility so that people believe you, so that when you speak they trust what you say. If people don’t trust what you say, you have no ministry. It takes many years to establish that trust, but one rumor is enough to destroy that trust. If these own church people go and attack Paul personally, who will believe him? How painful for him?
We saw all the past things, since they led to the progress of the gospel, he rejoiced. But what will be Paul’s reaction to the present trial, which is coming from inside the church that he loved most, and by using the ministry of preaching Christ for which he lived and gave his life? The most precious thing for him is the gospel; they use that to increase his suffering. What will be his reaction? What will be our reaction when we are in the most difficult situation and our close men attack us using the most precious thing we value?
Look at this man. Verse 18: “What then?” “What of it?” What’s my reaction to this? Now use your imagination. The person reading this letter in Philippi is reading this section. They may stop, maybe drink some water, and the whole church may be wondering, “Oh, this must have really hurt and upset our always-rejoicing Paul.” A brother can’t resist the temptation to lean over and whisper in his wife’s ear, “Paul gave good news so far, but now this is bad news. I bet he’s going to have to tell us now that the joy he experienced in the furtherance of the Gospel has been reduced now to see these preachers with wrong, wicked motives. This must upset him badly now. He must have written a scolding letter to the Rome church, ‘You are all believers! I am suffering already; you are adding insult to injury.’ We heard good news so far. Now let us listen to bad news.” And they prepare themselves for the worst.
Can you imagine the shock? Verse 18: “What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.” Wow. Rejoice. Has this man gotten the joy of the devil inside him? Rejoicing for everything? I rejoice. It is defiant language: “rejoice.” Hey, nothing in this world that people do can take this man’s joy. When there are preachers from inside the church using the most precious ministry of preaching Christ, driven by envy, faction, and selfishness, trying to increase his suffering, he has a glory-filled joy. He is dancing with joy. How? Oh, the ennobling power of a passionate enthusiasm for Christ’s gospel. When a man is absorbed in one goal with the full blazing light of the reality of motivation, it lifts a man above himself, the world, and all his difficulties. Whatever happens to him, he is filled with joy. “I exalt. My spirit is ebullient. It is bubbling up within me. I am rejoicing.”
Look at the language of the text. “What then? What does it matter if some preachers speak against me?” People don’t trust me, my ministry is reduced. “So what? It doesn’t even bother me… I rejoice because in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in this I am rejoicing.” You see, the basis of his rejoicing was that in the midst of all the outpouring of wicked motives, there had been no tampering with the substance of the message. And the Lord Jesus Christ was being preached with greater fervency and intensity at Rome than He had ever been preached before. And the apostle had such confidence in the power of the gospel that even when it was preached out of wicked motives, he knew that the light of the gospel would remove darkness in that terrible, idol-filled Roman world. That city where not even a synagogue was present when he came, now the gospel light is spreading.
He knew that God, the Holy Spirit, was committed to honoring the message of His beloved Savior. And his heart is so taken up with that preoccupation with Christ that when the news comes to him that nobody’s twisting the gospel content but accurately preaching it, but some by base motives, others with noble motives, but his Jesus is proclaimed as the Christ of God, the only Savior of sinners, he had to say to his soldier chained to his arm, “Forgive me, my brother, I’ve got to dance a jig for joy. I rejoice. Why? Because Christ is preached.”
“They want to attack me, dishonor me, increase my punishment and suffering? What does that mean to me? Absolutely nothing. Only one thing matters to me. In whatever way, whatever method, whatever motive, ‘Christ is proclaimed,’ that is enough to make my heart dance in joy. ‘In this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.'”
Oh my, what a man, what a man! He’s a magnanimous man, isn’t he? Boy, single-mindedness is amazing. What a man. You cannot take away joy from such a man’s heart. Do whatever you want to this man: arrest him, put him in jail, make him starve, make him naked, increase his suffering. As long as he sees the gospel spreading, Christ preached, nothing in the universe can hinder his joy. In the midst of all his suffering, all the selfish cruelty that’s thrown at him, he is undaunted in his commitment. “As long as Christ is preached, that’s what I live for, that’s what I die for.” “In this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.”
So we see preaching Christ with wrong motives, preaching Christ with right motives, and Paul’s response.
Applications – What Lessons for Us Today
Behold the shocking depravity of the human heart. The Bible keeps saying our hearts are totally depraved from the beginning, but we refuse to believe and adamantly insist we are basically good. That lie is what makes unbelievers not come to the gospel and believers not grow in grace. Behold, this passage shows the utter depravity of the human heart.
If I ask what is the highest, most sacred, and noblest human activity, it is to glorify God. That is the chief end of man. The greatest way any man can glorify God is by preaching the gospel. The glory of God is most fully displayed in the gospel. It is through the gospel that God’s eternal attributes are not only revealed but experienced by sinners. So the highest and noblest activity you and I can be engaged in is preaching the gospel. That should be our highest priority in life.
But in this passage, that highest, most sacred ministry is joined to some of the most base and vile of all sinful motives. Motives that murdered even the Son of God, like envy, rivalry, selfishness, pretense, and sham, and all planned in an effort to increase the suffering of the most honored, God-appointed apostle of Jesus Christ. That too is done by men who are saved, part of the church, and have grown to an extent where they not only fully and accurately know but can clearly preach the gospel without any error, maybe even becoming pastors. The noblest of all human activities is preaching Christ, and His work of saving sinners from sins is done with the worst sinful human motives. What can be a more shocking revelation of the utter depravity of the human heart?
If you are here as an unbeliever, can you see the horrible nature of your heart from this passage? If saved people themselves sometimes struggle with such motives of envy, think of the condition of your heart, who are not saved. Think what drives your whole life, efforts, and time. You wake up every morning, go to work, running after 101 things. Those are the motives that drive your life. When God judges and weighs every man and woman’s life, every act will be judged based on the motive. If God digs and reveals those motives, what will they be? Honestly, will they not just be these lower, cheap, sinful motives of envy, pride, covetousness, lust, and selfish ambition? Your life rises nothing beyond that. You know why God will send so many outwardly decent people to hell.
Because the life you lived for 50, 60, or 70 years of life—the motives for all your life have been envy, covetousness, and selfish ambition. In that long life, you never for one minute lived for the motive for which you were created: the highest motive to glorify God. So all even outwardly greatest things you have done will be seen as sins in God’s holy eyes.
Even if you are here this morning for church, this will be only for selfish motives, not to glorify God. Do whatever you want, even go to church regularly, learn the Bible, even become a pastor, and preach Christ. Your heart will not rise above the lower, gutter motives of envy, pride, lust, covetousness, and strife. You can change anything in life; you cannot change your heart and those low motives. And that’s why you need something more than external religion. You need what? You need what the Bible calls a new heart. Only a new heart will make you rise above those low motives and give you new, higher motives.
That is why Christ said, “Unless you are born again, you cannot even see.” Do not be satisfied with just external good works that do not reveal your heart. When you start looking at the motives of your heart, you will know there is nothing good there. Come to Christ in faith and repentance; He alone can change your heart. Come to Him today. That is the good news. You do not need to act with Him. When you throw away all external pretense and see your naked heart, you can come running to Him. Honestly, come as the depraved sinner you are, and He will give you a new heart. Christ came not to just change your outside acts, but to change your heart and motives. If you come to Him today, He will give you a new heart and a new spirit. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved from all your sins.
For believers, there is a warning and a great model for life. First, a warning to believers. Do you still believe in total depravity? Even though you are saved, your heart is still totally depraved with remaining sin. It may not be a reigning sin, but a remaining sin, but if you are careless, it can become a reigning sin. That is why the greatest work in the Christian life is found in Proverbs 4:23: “Guard your heart above all else, for out of it are the issues of life.” Why should you pray, read Scripture, attend church, and use these means? To keep your heart. If you truly believe in total depravity, you will be a believer who always guards his heart. When you grow careless in the keeping of the heart, even though you are a believer, or even a pastor, these vile, bitter, wicked plants will grow in your heart and spoil the good works in your life.
We also see a model for life. I titled this message, “Gospel above All Else.” That is how Christ wanted us to live. “If a man does not deny himself and everything for me and the gospel, he is not my disciple.” The gospel must be important to us above all else. Paul sees all past difficulties leading to the spread of the gospel, so he rejoices. And now, in the present, people may do 101 things to torture him, and yes, it is torture, but because Christ is preached, he rejoices. That is a truly spiritual and mature character. Paul did not care who got the credit. He did not care what happened to him. He lived for the gospel.
Oh my, how do we instill that in a generation today? How do we get that into the hearts of pastors and teachers and elders and deacons and church members in the church? This is a warning to us: when we preach Christ, let’s examine ourselves and beware of this cursed spirit of ministerial jealousy. If we have not learned like Paul to rejoice when others have greater gifts and greater usefulness than us, may God give us one purpose like Paul’s. Christ is so precious that if He is proclaimed by others more powerfully than us, and they are becoming more useful, may we learn to be satisfied and rejoice in that.
If a wrong gospel is preached—a prosperity gospel, psychological manipulation and self-help, name-it-and-claim-it faith—and the Christ of the Bible is not explained, we should not rejoice. We should have the spirit of Galatians 1: “Though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which has been preached, let him be anathema, let him be accursed of God.”
But when Christ is preached accurately, wherever we are, we should rejoice and leave the motives to God to judge. God will deal with motives on the Day of Judgment. When Christ is preached, we should be happy.
Can you say that with Paul, “Whatever people may do to me, if Christ is preached, I will rejoice”? Is the gospel above all else in our life? If not, we are not living as true disciples of Christ. Oh, may we learn how to be true disciples.
This passage not only reveals total depravity, but it also reveals the sufficiency of God’s grace for any present trials to keep us joyful. What are the trials you are facing today? Are they spoiling your joy? Learn from this passage that the grace of God has all sufficiency to keep you joyful in the midst of any trials. Paul was not an insensible man, a stoic, or a vegetable who felt nothing. He was very emotional; he said, “I long with the affections of Jesus.” He was sad about a few things. He says later on, “I’ve told you before, and I tell you now, even weeping.” This was no stoic.
How, then, could he say, “Therein I rejoice,” when people in the church were deliberately trying to increase his suffering using his precious gospel? As a natural man, Paul would have been mad, irritated, depressed, and discouraged. Naturally, we would ask, “Paul, how are you rejoicing now?” The reason he could rejoice is that he says in another place, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” It is the sufficiency of the grace of God that made him rejoice amidst these trials. Even when he had the most painful thorn in the flesh and prayed three times, what did God make him realize? “My grace is sufficient.”
Do you know the deeper worlds of the grace of God that you have never tasted? It is sufficient for all the trials of this life to keep you always joyful. Whatever situations and whatever others may do to us, grace can keep us joyful. And oh, dear children of God, it is that marvelous grace that is available to us freely in the Lord Jesus Christ. He has purchased that for you. Only when you know it can you appropriate it in faith. Believe this morning that the grace of Jesus Christ is sufficient for everything in your life.
First, God’s grace is sufficient to protect and keep us joyful in the midst of all the wrong motives, words, and actions of people. You may be surrounded by people with all wicked envy and selfish motives. Sometimes you may even feel, “What kind of people are these?” Whatever people may do to trouble you, cause you pain, disturb you, or anger you—whether from outside or even within the church—people might do things to irritate and make us bitter. Practically, in our homes, our children can keep doing 101 things to irritate us. Wives, husbands, some relatives, and bosses can do and say 101 things that spoil our peace. We may feel, “Oh, what an irritation these people are.” We may even feel fed up. In fact, there are people among us who make us strongly believe in total depravity. They are stubborn, never change, and are purely selfish and unbearable.
Do you know that in the midst of that, God’s grace is sufficient to shield you from getting irritated, angered, and to keep you joyful and peaceful? Amazing. What good news for us living among people who always want to add bitterness to our cup by cruel words and unloving, selfish actions.
In fact, even greater news: the sufficient grace of God can use these people and the things they do to increase your joy. See here, these guys wanted to increase Paul’s suffering by preaching Christ with wrong motives, but you know what grace did? It used that and filled Paul with so much joy he said, “Excuse me to the soldier chained to my arm,” and danced before the Lord with joy. “In this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.”
My friends, that’s what grace does. Nature does not do that. Nature may help you to grit your teeth and bear it, but only grace can so work in the heart that you dance where, left to yourself, you would mourn.
Second, grace is sufficient for all your trials. See Paul in the midst of all his worst trials; he looks at the past and rejoices, the present and rejoices, and we will see next that even in the future he will jump and be joyful. People may do whatever they want, Providence may put me wherever, whatever circumstances may come, the grace of God will keep me rejoicing. He is in chains and yet the grace of God made him rejoice.
What are your jails in life? Is there a situation that is a bitter chain around your heart? You say, “If only I could get rid of that chain, then I’d be a joyful Christian.” Maybe your chain, you think, is your husband, your wife. The sickness God allows to come again and again into your household, the disappointments in your job, or in your career. Dear child of God, let me tell you, not like the false prophets, that God will break that chain. Your true growth in joy does not come from breaking that chain, but from using that chain as a means to enter into a deeper experience of the sufficiency of the grace of God. It’s allowing that chain to bring you closer to Christ and finding your sufficiency in the Lord Jesus. Stop this carnal desire, this itch for release from the chain, and go to Christ for the grace that is there to cause you to rejoice. It is an amazing display of the sufficiency of Jesus’ grace for any situation.
Do you sometimes see your life where on every side there seems to be a problem, no comfort from anywhere? You see family problems, children giving no comfort, job problems, financial issues, and health issues, like Paul, on every side. Do you wonder why God is allowing this in your life? Can I tell you this is ordained by God for you to realize the sufficiency of God’s grace? God is saying, “My grace is sufficient for you.”
Follow this thought: the worse the circumstances, the greater the opportunity to grow in true joy. Because as your circumstances begin to collapse around you and become sorrowful or negative, it pushes you deeper into your treasures and the wealth of God’s sufficient grace. That deeper experience can come only when you stop relying on the sensible world and go deeper in faith. The more your circumstances are difficult, the more you experience that true, unmixed joy that is not dependent on circumstances.
When everything is going well, you’re happy-go-lucky. It’s all the way you want it circumstantially. You’re not pressed to dig deeply for the joy of faith because you have a temporary, certain happiness in your condition. But when your condition is negative, difficult, and burdensome and you have anxiety and all those kinds of things, it presses you into the joy of faith that is far deeper and richer than the frivolous joy of experience based on circumstances.
So, in a very real sense, the epitome of joy is reached when the circumstances are ultimately negative, because that throws you totally on the joy of faith and the sufficiency of grace. It throws you totally on faith, and you extract nothing out of circumstances. You know the pure joy of a living relationship with the living Christ. That’s where Paul is. Chained to a Roman soldier for two years, no privacy, no freedom, all past things are difficulties, present preachers are preaching wrongly about him, the future is bleak. He dives deep into the ocean of grace and experiences true joy beyond circumstances. He jumps and sings, “In this I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice.”
Oh, what a wonderful grace of Jesus! It is sufficient to face and keep us joyful in any circumstance. He tells us that later on in chapter four, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me from within.” But, my dear Christian friend, you are joined in living bonds to the same Savior, and the same grace is available in Christ to you and to me. Go home today, whatever your situation, and dive deeper into that sufficient grace in faith. You will find it is more than sufficient for your situation.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 