Pawned – Part 5

And back to a section that we
focused on, spent some time on for the last four or five weeks. To a section of Scripture where
Paul was detailing his sacrifice for the Lord and for the Lord’s
work, a section that we titled Pawned, where Paul saw himself
and declared himself as one who had essentially been pawned for
the sake of God. We looked at that lengthy section
beginning in v. 12-21 where we saw that God had
benefited in a number of ways. We called it blessings that had
accrued to God’s particular account because of Paul’s sacrifice.
And we saw that Paul’s sacrifice led to God’s gain in the cause
of Christ In the proclamation of Christ and in the exaltation
of Christ, all of those were enhanced by the ministry that
Paul was undergoing, even a ministry of difficulty and trial. If you would, I want to pick
up and reread that verse, that passage, because it leads naturally
into the passage that we will consider today, beginning in
verse 22. if you would join me in verse 12. Now, I want you
to know, brethren, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater
progress of the Gospel, so that my imprisonment in the cause
of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian
guard and to everyone else. And that most of the brethren,
trusting in the Lord because of my imprisonment, have far
more courage to speak the Word of God without fear Some, to
be sure, are preaching Christ even from envy and strife, but
some also from goodwill. The latter do it out of love,
knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. The
former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, rather than
from pure motives, thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every
way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed.
And in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice. For I know that
this shall turn out for my deliverance through your prayers and the
provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest
expectation and hope that I shall not be put to shame in anything,
but that with all boldness Christ shall, even now as always, be
exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me,
to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” What then? Only that in every way, whether
in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in this I
rejoice. That’s how Paul ends up that
grand section. that in the midst of this situation
where he is literally being sacrificed for the sake of the Gospel, he
cares little that others are preaching Christ from some kind
of impure motive. He cares little that his own
life is threatened. Because he says at the end, to
me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. And it’s with those
words that we lead directly into verse 22. But if I am to live
on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me, and I
do not know which to choose. But I am hard pressed from both
directions, having the desire to depart and be with Christ,
for that is very much better. Yet to remain on in the flesh
is more necessary for your sake. and convinced of this, I know
that I shall remain and continue with you for your progress and
joy in the faith, so that your proud confidence in me may abound
in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again.” It’s quite possible, in fact,
I think it’s even likely, as you read through that entire
passage, that if Paul had stopped at verse 21 If he had done that
speech in public, the audience likely would have risen to their
feet, tears in their eyes, applause for this noble statement. I mean, think of it. Is there
any grander statement, even in all of Scripture, that is more
noble to say, for to me to live is Christ and to die is gain?
Bring on death. Because I can’t wait to embrace
the Savior. And as I said, in a public forum,
people might have risen to their feet in applause of appreciation
to God and what they’ve done through the Apostle in bringing
him to this point. And they might have also concluded
that that was his preference. That he was ready to go. Lord,
go ahead and let them kill me. I don’t care. I’m ready to go
and be in glory. But it couldn’t have ended at
verse 21. It couldn’t have ended because God wasn’t done with
him. And in a sense, in verses 22
and following, Paul comes back down to earth. Back down from
this rapturous claim that he had just made. Something directly
from his heart. But back down to earth to say,
yes, I can’t wait to be with Christ. To die truly is gain.
But it’s equally true that to live is Christ, and I need to
live a while longer. And in coming down to earth,
He brings the Philippians with Him. And as He comes back to
earth, He doesn’t leave them hanging. He doesn’t just say,
no, God’s not done with me. I’m going to be here for a little
while longer. He comes back, and as He does,
He extols the virtues of ministry. It’s not enough for him to just
even say, he could have said it in three or four words that,
you know what? God needs me here for ministry. That wasn’t enough. He wanted
them to understand the glorious nature of ministry. What Paul
presents to us here is three particular blessings of ministry. that we’ll see this morning.
I’ve placed not only the passage, but spots for notes there in
your bulletin. What you have here in these little
words is the blessings of Gospel ministry. These words that really
are seemingly kind of nondescript. In fact, the first time that
I looked at them a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself,
I probably should just roll this into that passage that ends at
verse 21. Because I really am not sure
what I would do with all of this. But such is the nature of God’s
Word that the more you focus on it, the more you look at it,
there is a God-given outline there. There is a message there.
And Paul, rather than in just passing fashion with just a few
words saying that he needs to minister, he uses this as an
occasion to augment, to encourage the Philippians in their view
of ministry. And what he gives us is three
particular blessings of ministry. First of all, ministry is fruitful. And it isn’t just that ministry
can be fruitful. Ministry by nature is fruitful. Jim Elliot, that great missionary,
said it well when he said that the Lord’s work done in the Lord’s
way will never lack the Lord’s blessing. Paul said it like this,
and he says it as a syllogism. It’s axiomatic. If I am to live
on in the flesh, and I believe that he wasn’t doubting, he wasn’t
wondering whether he would, he’s stating this as an axiom. If
I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor
for me.” Now, some would look at that and say, Paul is an egotist. Paul was a church grother, and
he thinks that logically, no matter what he does, his ministry
is going to flourish. He should be rebuked. Paul wasn’t
arrogant in this statement. Paul was trusting in a sovereign
God who had dispatched him into ministry, already placed him
in ministry, and already told him, as he tells all of us, that
ministry is by nature fruitful. God will bless. There are those
who will come to Christ. There are those who will reform
their lives. by grace over time. There are
those who will be benefited and will in time be called fruit
of the Gospel. This statement begins, as I said,
on the heels of his conviction that death was going to be a
gain to him. Some have even suggested that
it was almost a prayer for Paul. Lord, take me. But with this
axiom in mind, you can’t possibly conclude that there was anything
other than an incredible tension in Paul’s life, as we’ll see.
He saw Christ and the privilege to embrace Him for eternity on
the one hand, and the privilege to proclaim Christ, that same
Christ, to the lost and dying world, had guaranteed blessing to it. It was indeed a tension. And
so this little word that starts out this great clause, but essentially
introduces to us a new consideration in Paul’s mind. He stops, as
I said, this incredible thought. To die is gain. He stops it in
its track. And he says, to live on in the
flesh. After this statement, to die
is gain, to live on in the flesh. I mean, it’s plainly understood
what he means to live in his body. There’s something to that
for Paul. There’s something special to
that. Because it implies that there would be more time, just
a little more time for fruitful labor for Christ. And so he’s
in tension here between one happy thing and another. Both of them
to Him are glorious opportunities. When He says fruitful labor,
though, let’s pause there for a minute. That if I am to live
on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me. The gospel
is going to go forth. The gospel is going to touch
lives and some are going to come to Christ. He’s going to come
across people. He’s going to come across Christians
who are struggling. He’s going to take the same Gospel,
the good word of God’s grace, and there are those that are
going to reform their lives. That life in the flesh, that
prolonging of his earthly, bodily life would ultimately have fruitful
labor as a result. More opportunity for work for
Paul wasn’t It wasn’t an unwelcome thing
for him because it meant more service to Christ ultimately. By fruit here, it’s easy to come
to the conclusion that fruit here means souls that were one
for eternity. because of the preaching of the
Gospel, the building up and the edifying of believers, the strengthening
of the churches. Remember, that was Paul’s heart
constantly. He constantly wanted to go back
to where he’d been so that he could build upon that which was
already established. One said it this way, that Paul
would again avail himself of every opportunity to proclaim
the Gospel far and wide. What is more, he knows that his
work will not be in vain. In the realm of the spirit, there
is always fruitful labor. When one abounds in the work
of the Lord, his labor is never futile. Not every seed germinates,
nor does every plant bear fruit. But it is equally true that by
no means all the seeds that are scattered are wasted. The word
that proceeds from the mouth of Jehovah never returns to him
empty. Living means working. Working means fruit bearing for
the Apostle Paul. And so life that is lived to
its fullest ultimately is a life well worth living. That’s the
simple axiom in these few opening words. I think I told you years
ago that we all go through this struggle in ministry where you
wonder if what you’re doing, no matter what element of ministry
it is, you begin to wonder if what you’re doing is accomplishing
anything, certainly anything of eternal value. It’s easy to
have those doubts from an earthly perspective. I don’t know that
I’ve shared this particular story, but I was Sunday school teacher
when I was a seminary student down in Dallas and I was out
cleaning a pool one day. In order to clean this particular
pool, I had to kind of sashay side by side out onto this brick
wall that had a pool behind me and a pool in front of me. The
pool was about 12 feet deep and I was on a high wall about six
feet above the pool, standing on a four inch wide brick wall. And if you know anything about
pool cleaning, use one of these collapsible poles. And just as
I pushed, the pool collapsed. And I was just about to go headlong
into an icy cold winter pool, when I caught my balance, and
just as I caught my balance, in the midst of my discouragement,
over how Sunday school was going. That week after week, I brought
the message to these kids. And week after week, they kind
of went on about their crazy little lives. And I wondered
if even what I was doing had any significance at all. And
as I caught my balance, I caught that verse. Be steadfast, immovable,
always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your
toil is not in vain. Whatever it is you do for the
sake of Christ, whatever it is you bathe in prayer and do as
unto the Lord, if not, will never be in vain.” Robert Johnstone, the great Neopuritan
commentator said it this way, in the spiritual sphere, there
is always fruit of labor. Though very often neither is,
neither as, nor where, nor when we look for it. Do you get what
he says? A lot of times we go looking
for results, and it’s neither as the results that we look for,
nor where we look for them, nor when. All earnest prayerful effort
after personal spiritual advancement succeeds. Fruit of this kind
is yielded to by every Christian effort in benefit to others.
Yet even where there is little or no visible fruit, still the
conscientious worker has abundant ground of encouragement. In essence,
what he says, even if you don’t see anything, just the fact that
you know that you’re laboring for the Lord should be enough.
You don’t need results. You don’t need proof. You don’t
need a gold star. You don’t need a ribbon or a
trophy or any kind of recognition because you have the great privilege
of serving your Lord Jesus Christ. Ministers, he goes on, casually
learn long after of spiritual good done through the work on
occasions when, for anything that appeared at the time or
immediately afterwards, it might have seemed that they had been
spending their time for naught. We all go through it. We all
go through it. Where time after time after time,
we give out these lessons. We work hard. We preach. We pray. We minister. We serve. and it seems worthless, but it’s
not. It’s not. Some of you know that I have
a curious hobby of growing trees from seed. I shared some of this
before, but there are particular seeds, you know, you think that
it’s a seed, I’ll just go plant it in the ground and that’s not
how it works. Some seeds need to be what’s called scarified. They need to have the hard outer
coating. It’s rock hard. And they need
to have that hard outer coating chipped away or either mechanically
or rubbed against sand or somehow mechanically softened. There’s some seeds that unless
they go through the digestive tract of an animal, a bird, they’ll
never germinate. And so it’s part of God’s design
that some seeds take a long, long time. Some seeds need to
sit in moist, freezing cold soil for a long time before it receives
a wake-up call from God. God does His work. God does His
work in His way. And we can’t. It’s foolish to
us to think that we can take a seed and go plant a tree and
sit and wait for it to bring us shade, at least in our lifetime, as it
is to expect that we can see every result of ministry. Death for Paul would bring, as
he said, that unspeakable, glorious, relationship with Christ forever.
But it would remove him from the arena of ministry, labor
in the Gospel. He wouldn’t be able to teach
anymore or counsel. He wouldn’t be able to comfort
his Christian brethren. He wouldn’t be able to proclaim
Christ to the lost. And knowing the Apostle Paul,
you know that his heart was in his work He still had his mind. He still had his energy. And
he says, if the Lord will only give me more time, it will mean
fruitful labor. And no wonder, caught up in the
midst of this dilemma, he says, I do not know which to choose.
Now, Paul, please don’t get the idea that Paul was suicidal.
Please don’t get the idea that Paul here had a notion to take
out of God’s hands that which we never should. Life is God’s
prerogative, and death is God’s prerogative, and Paul knew it
well. It’s as if Paul says, if I were given the choice, I wouldn’t
even know what to choose. Paul said to die is gain, but
if he were given the choice, it would be a tough, tough choice.
for Paul. If he continues to live, so be
it. And it’s quite possible that
being under this strong pressure to depart, that he may have already
expressed himself too strongly in the minds of the Philippians.
And that bears reason for these few verses of balance in verses
22-26, where Paul kind of comes back in the other direction. One pastor said of this dilemma,
he said, it’s an entirely wonderful and Christian dilemma. The apostle
asks, which is most worth his while, to live or to die? Nobody
but a Christian can ask that question. The same question is
often presented to ourselves, and perhaps our reply has been
the same. But may we not have made it with
a far different reason? Life and death have seemed like
two evils, and we knew not which was the best. To the Apostle, they seemed like
two immense blessings. And he has no idea which one
is the better. To Paul, it was as if he cast
himself faithfully before the Lord, knowing that whatever the
Lord decided was the best. Either one were great and glorious
options. The privilege to go and be with
Christ for eternity, or the privilege to remain here a bit longer. We’re looking at three particular
blessings of ministry. Not only is ministry fruitful,
but ministry meets real needs. Ministry meets real needs. We are caught up. in this day
and age. And I don’t know that it started
when I was in seminary, but when I was in seminary was the time
when I first came face-to-face with this mentality that my job,
allegedly, is to go out and minister to young people’s felt needs. And I got called into the office
and chided for all the things that I was preaching about on
Tuesday and on Sunday that I really needed to be about building relationships
and ministering to their felt needs. And, you know, there was a little
bit of that youthful seminarian bravado, but I said, you know
what? I’m really not concerned with what their felt needs are.
I’m concerned with what God tells me their needs are and that there
is a cancer within them that needs to be cut out and eradicated.
I almost got kicked out of there. Ministry meets real needs. Look at what Paul says about
it in verse 23. He carries on this whole tension
into verse 23. He already says it’s a difficult
thing for him if he were to have to choose. But I am hard pressed
from both directions, having the desire to depart and be with
Christ, for that is very much better. Yet to remain on in the
flesh is more necessary for your sake. I’ll tell you why I mean that
ministry meets real needs in a minute. But let’s look at this
metaphor that he continues when he says that he’s hard pressed.
The word signifies to be hemmed in or confined, and it’s usually
associated with some kind of distress. This was not easy for
Paul. I mean, Paul saw that he was
literally at heaven’s gate. You know, at any minute, his
life can be dispatched. His work on earth is done and
he’s in glory forever. I mean, how cool would that be? One of the greatest, I think
I’ve said this before, one of the greatest privileges I have,
kneeling by the bedside of a saint, getting ready to go to glory
and to really be near somebody who has embraced that and really
can’t wait to be with Christ. This is where Paul is. He’s hard
pressed. Often it was used in pressure
of a disease, translated often suffering. This is an agony that
Paul was in, given this dilemma. It was also used of mental distress. Jesus used it of himself in Luke
1250. I have a baptism to undergo and
how distressed I am until it is accomplished. This wasn’t
an easy thing for Paul. This was gut wrenching. I guess the image that comes
to my mind is you remember in the spy shows some, you know,
good guy would be locked in a room and also the walls, right? They
start rolling and closing in. And well, Paul is, you know,
he’s got about eight inches left. You know, that’s how Paul feels.
If it were possible, he would be squished by the options. He
has no idea what to choose. He says, on the one hand, having
the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much
better. This little word depart almost is what you did on the
dock with a ship. You unloosed the ship, you untied
the ship and set it on their way. Or if you were camping,
you broke down your tent, you packed it up and you went. What
an appropriate image for Paul, remember? Because Paul said,
we know that if the earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down,
we have a building from God, a house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens. And he says, you know what? The
camping trip is almost over. One pastor said the utmost happiness
would be enjoyed when he would be with Christ, not only in his
presence, but also forever united with him in glory. This would
be an immediate union with Christ directly after death. There is
no mention here of an intermediate state of unconsciousness or sleep
of the soul, which Christ’s presence would not be experienced. You
know, there’s people that believe that. That’s why this commentator
has to say it. There are people that believe
that when we die, we lay there in the dirt waiting for Jesus
to awaken our souls. Soul sleep. Or that our souls do leave our
body, but they go to some kind of warehouse, some storage room in the sky
and wait for God to kind of enliven them again at the rapture. Not for Paul. He desires to depart
and be with Christ. It’s not that he desires just
to die like a tree. He doesn’t say it’s better to
depart. Look at this. He doesn’t say it’s better to
depart and go be with the angels, to go drink out of the river
of life or eat the fruits of paradise, as one said, wear the
crown of glory. He could have said all that and
more, but it was all summed up when he said what he does say,
to depart and be with Christ. There’s no mention here of some
kind of way station, some intermediate state. I mean, the whole thought is silly that
our souls go to sleep. The immediate consequence of
death for Paul was the presence of Christ. Paul didn’t think
of the intermediate state, the state before the rapture, to
be a time of unconsciousness. In fact, if you can imagine,
how would Paul have said that to go and be with Christ is better
than to stay and serve Christ and bring the Gospel to lost
souls? How would he have said that is
better if during that intermediate time, he’s asleep? worth less
to anyone. He would have pleaded and prayed
with God, Lord, give me every possible minute I can. Give me
more time. If he had looked at death as
just the beginning of a long nap until Jesus returns, there’s
no doubt in my mind he would have chosen life, even with all
of its difficulties and trials. The Apostle knew When his soul
left his body, his earthly body, it went immediately to be with
Christ. It doesn’t go out of existence.
It doesn’t disappear. It at once goes and enjoys the
blessed fellowship with our Lord Jesus. Second Corinthians 5,
7 and 8 says it simply. You’ve heard it before. We walk
by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage. And I
say I prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home
with the Lord. That’s what it was for Paul. Absent from the
body, present with the Lord. I mean, in an instant. Jesus said it to the thief on
the cross. Today, you shall be with Me in paradise. It’s not
that the thief on the cross was going to leave his body in the
ground and his soul was going to go to the warehouse to sleep
for eternity. Today, you will be with Me in
paradise. To step into death, said one,
out of the walk of faith is to begin to walk in the disclosed
presence of the Lord. Christianity does not, in the
presence of death, tell us of the splendors of the invisible
world, but it does far better when in three words it informs
us that to be loose from the shore of mortality is to be with
Christ. No wonder it was such a dilemma
for Paul. We don’t have to wait when we
die. We go immediately into the presence of God. But it was a
dilemma for Paul because in verse 24 he says, yet to remain on
in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. It was more necessary
that Paul stay and minister to the saints than it was for him
to go and begin to enjoy the glory of the Lord. That’s why I said that this is
ministry to real needs because Paul says it is necessary. Necessary. And I mean, get this. It’s necessary
like air, like water, like food. That’s what Paul, I believe,
means here when he says to remain on in the flesh, ministry to
you is necessary. That’s a profound statement.
It’s a profound statement that he chooses this word because
in essence, he implies that ministry is as basic as other human needs. We need it. We need to be ministered
to. We need to be fed. We need to
be counseled. We need to hear God’s word and
we need to be ministered to. Paul’s stay on earth, he said,
was a necessity. that ultimately sprang from the
needs of other people, that it was absolutely necessary that
he minister to them. One Puritan said it this way. He said, so worthy a part of divine
service that we should greatly wrong if we did not esteem preaching
and ministry as the blessed ordinance of God, sermons as keys to the
kingdom of heaven, as wings to the soul, as spurs to the good
affections of man, for the sound and healthy as food, as medicine
for diseased minds. It’s absolutely necessary. ministry ministers to people’s
real needs. We take the Gospel to sinners
and to those who have come to a relationship with Christ. We
take them the Word of God to stir them up to love and good
works. We stir them up into a further walk of sanctification and growth
in godliness. In fact, I love the way John
Calvin said it. In our day and age where ministry
is for those performing it is, you know, occasional and optional. And where do they get that idea
but from those to whom they minister from time to time who take the
whole need for ministry as optional? I don’t really need it. I can
go get God in the mountains. I can take my Bible and go be
there. Really? John Calvin, Never one to mince
words, said it pretty plainly when he said, they therefore
are insane. Who neglecting the ministry of
the church hope to be perfect in Christ, as is the case with
fanatics. I mean, haven’t the most nutty
people you’ve ever met been those that I don’t need church? Look
what I discovered, though. And they come up with this ridiculous,
crazy nuance, allegedly from Scripture. They, therefore, are
insane who, neglecting the ministry of the church, hope to be perfect
in Christ, as is the case with fanatics who pretend secret revelations
of the Spirit and the proud who content themselves with the private
reading of Scripture and imagine that they do not need the ministry
of the church. They’re nuts. That’s. The modern day interpretation
of Paul’s or of Calvin’s statement there. They’re crazy. They’re
insane to think that you can grow in grace without the means
of grace, without the preaching of the word, the fellowship of
the Lord’s table, the prayer of the saints. You’re a victim,
you’re a casualty waiting to happen is what he says. It’s
absolutely necessary. Absolutely necessary. Paul looked at the Philippian
church and others, and he saw an absolute necessity
of staying on, staying a little longer for their sake. He saw going to heaven as being
God’s gain. Dying was God’s gain. That was
his heart’s desire. But the need of the church, the
need of the saints, that was his God-given calling. He couldn’t
turn his back on that. The church still needed him.
The young church was, you know, even just now coming out of heathen
lifestyles. And he sensed their need for
his guidance and help. He knew they needed God’s Word
and God’s grace. The Philippian church was a solid
church in many, many ways, but it had many weaknesses. And so Paul says, if it’s God’s
will, If it’s God’s will and I sense that it is, I see a need, I intend to work for God’s glory. Thirdly, the third particular blessing
of ministry that we see from this little passage, not only
is ministry fruitful, but gospel ministry meets real needs. And thirdly, gospel ministry
cultivates godliness. cultivates godliness. Look again
at the passage. Pick up in verse 25. And this
is where Paul comes to this just gentle conclusion. And convinced
of this, convinced of the fact that they were needy, convinced
of the fact that ministry was absolutely necessary, was a desperate
need. Convinced of this, I know that
I shall remain and continue with you all for your progress and
joy in the faith. so that your proud confidence
in me may abound in Christ Jesus through my coming to you again.” Paul says, I know. And I don’t
think that he had had some kind of a message, some kind of communication
from God on the matter. This was Paul stating that he
was convinced, based on the facts as he knew them, that it would
be just foolish to dispatch him this early that Paul saw so much
to do and that by God’s grace he had been faithfully used to
accomplish many great things. Paul comes to the conclusion,
I know that I shall remain and continue with you. A little play
on words there remain and continue to Greek words, one of which
is the root. menno and para menno. It’s like
saying, I’m going to come and hang out. I’m not only coming
to your house, but then when I get there, I’m going to hang
out. Paul says, look, I’m going to stay and I’m going to continue
on this work with you. And as I said, he’s not claiming
to have had some kind of divine communication. I think what he’s
giving is his own conviction and he’d done it before and been
somewhat inaccurate. It’s not like he’s claiming to
be a prophet here. Because he told the Ephesians
he knew that the Ephesians would never see his face again. And
he was wrong. Because by all accounts, he did
see them again. Paul says he will be with them
again. He has every confidence that he’ll be with them again. And you know what? We pretty
much based on what we know of the entirety of Scripture was
that his conviction was upheld, that he did get to see them again. He did get to further his ministry.
He was likely released from this imprisonment. He visited several
other churches, took up more missionary journeys. He was imprisoned
again later and then put to death, but not now. 1 Timothy 1.3, written after this. It says, I urge you upon my departure
from Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct
certain men not to teach strange doctrines. Repeatedly through
the pastoral epistles, it refers to these other trips that aren’t
recorded in the book of Acts. And so the probability is that
Paul was released from this imprisonment. He went on another fourth missionary
journey, possibly even to Spain. In fact, there are even some
ancient writers that kind of undergird this thinking that
Paul was released and had an additional ministry that we have
very sparse details of in Scripture. Eusebius, one of them said this,
he said, having defended himself successfully, it is generally
asserted that Paul went out again to preach the gospel. Later on,
went to Rome for the second time and there died a martyr’s death
under Nero. So it wasn’t for right now. He
says, I’m going to continue with you, stay here and continue with
you for your progress and joy in the faith. This is the fruit that he was
talking about earlier. Ministry is fruit bearing. This
is the fruit that he’s talking about, their progress and joy
in the faith. You see, ministry cultivates
godliness. If we were all the same spiritual
condition, all in the same spiritual condition 20 years from now,
Trey and I are abject failures. And all who participate in the
building up of the saints in this church are utter failures
if we’re no more godly 20 years from now than we are now. Have
we not grown if we look back five years, one year? Have we
not seen things and discovered things and removed things from
our life and embraced other good things? I hope it’s true. I hope there’s progress. I hope
there’s growth in godliness, because that’s what ministry
is and does or should. One said it this way, that in
the life of faith, growth, development and progress are indispensable. Did you get that? Growth, development
and progress are indispensable in the life of faith. In other
words, it’s grow or die. You can’t become stagnant. You
can’t stop growing. You can’t stop learning and loving
Christ. Knowledge of Christ and love
of Him, obedience to Him, trust in Him must increase. And the
growing faith had to be accompanied by joy as the natural sequence
of a sure and sound faith. Again and again throughout the
book of Philippians, we’ll see where Paul refers to this progress. Progress in knowledge and fruitfulness
and obedience. It’s growth that Paul came to
continue in the lives of the Philippians. It’s ministry that
cultivates godliness. It’s the ministry of the Word
that takes people where they are and brings them yet further. I get the idea that Paul couldn’t
wait to get back to work. He had every confidence that
God was going to release him. He couldn’t wait to embrace Christ.
And if he had to have the choice between Christ and more ministry,
he probably couldn’t have made a decision. But he had every confidence that
God was going to release him to more ministry. Because ministry
is fruit bearing. And ministry ministers to real
needs. And ministry cultivates godliness. Let’s pray. Merciful God, We
thank you for these words, which on the face of it look like just
transitional words to Paul’s next grand thought. But to us,
they are nourishment and food and great encouragement to roll
up our own sleeves and to get about the work of the ministry,
because you have promised to bless. You will bring souls to
Christ. You will change lives. Lord God,
we thank You and praise You that our own real needs were ministered
to by the Gospel and what motivation that is to us to take Christ
to others. Lord God, we thank You for Your
Word to us and we ask Your blessing on our day. In Jesus’ name, Amen.