Preaching Christ

We're down to verses 15 through 17 in Philippians chapter 1. Can I get someone to read verses 12 through 18 in chapter 1? That'll kind of give us the context of our verses for today. Verses 12 through 18. Do you want me to read it? Okay, thanks Doris.

But I would you should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace and in all other places. And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife, and some also of goodwill. the one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel. What then, notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached, and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. Great, thank you.

You might notice that the King James has verses 16 and 70 are interchanged. The King James has it 17... So anyway, I mean, it doesn't, you know, in the Greek it's the same, it's the same, it's the same verses, but they chose to put 17 in place of 16, 16 in place of 17, and the numeric has it the opposite. So, I'm going to cover it per the numeric standard, so, if that's, hopefully you'll be able to figure that out. It's not, you know, it's the same verses, they're not, they're not different.

Alright, so, maybe just as a word of introduction here, what we've been covering up to verse 11 was sort of Paul's introduction and his prayer for the Philippians. And then, starting with verse 12, which Bob started last week, he starts talking about his time in prison. So it kind of changes the focus. Before it was more general about the Philippians and praying for them and the Lord's work there.

Now he's going to talk about a very specific thing. His imprisonment and how that actually is a wonderful thing. A little bit different than what we probably would say if we were put in jail. We probably would not think it was a wonderful thing. But Paul, you know, it's just incredible.

He was excited about it and he saw an opportunity for the Lord to work. And he actually wanted the fellow brethren to join with him, to see that this was God's plan, and to suffer with him. As we talk about other parts of scripture, we're to feel the pain of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. He wanted other believers to enter in with that. We'll see that as we go through the verses.

That was Paul's desire. But we're also going to see that there were people that that were preaching the gospel that were, there was contention among the brethren. Some preached it from different, they had different motives. Some preached it out of good motives, some out of bad motives. We're going to see that too. So it's kind of an interesting section. So here are the verses. I just like to go on to this section, the third slide.

And this is kind of the context that, except for the very last verse that we read. And probably the most important transitional verse for our verses today is verse 14. which talks about, and it says, and most of the brethren trusting the Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear. So, because of Paul's effect on the whole Praetorian Guard from verse 13, they saw the Lord's working here, obviously, the message is going out, there must have been some fallout from that, and apparently that affected the brethren, and they were They were trusting the Lord more and they were encouraged by that which seems just so different than you know Any one of us? I mean, I can't try if we had someone that we cared about at some cause and it it was changing People's lives goes in prison. That's Highly unusual. So it's it's kind of neat thing.

So he's gonna go down and talk about We're gonna talk about the sums here. So me there's some good sums and some bad sums and I put sums plus and sums minus. Anyway, so we'll see about that in a second. Okay, so the first verse is verse 15. He said, sum, referring, that's one of my questions actually here.

Who are the sum, who are these sums right here? Sum, to be sure, are preaching Christ. The rest of it says from envy and strife, because sum also from goodwill. So who are the sum he's talking about here? Just look in the context of what we read. Who are the some referring to in this passage? Would it be others who are teaching?

Maybe here and there or in the same group. Well, if you have the Bible, just go back to 14. I believe it just ties right back to 14. It's a brethren, I believe. He's referring back to the brethren. But he's going to identify, I guess you'd say. Some of the brethren are doing it this way, and some are doing it that way.

They all seem to be preaching Christ, which is a wonderful thing. They're all preaching Christ, but their motives seem to be different. And I guess they're all believers. And it seems to be that's the case. I don't think, in the context, I can't say anything different. They're all believers, and they all seem to be preaching Christ.

And that seems to be a theme for these three verses. Christ is being preached or proclaimed but the motives are different. That's kind of a quick summary of the three verses, it's just that. Christ is being proclaimed or preached, and there are actually two different words for that, and we'll talk about that in a bit. Preaching or proclaiming. But there are two different motives, and so he kind of goes through those motives.

Here are the motives. And actually, you know, I think you could almost relate that to the church today. You know, we see a body of believers out there, and many of them are preaching Christ. But what are their motives? Are their motives to get more people in the door? To get more change in the, you know, to have a big building program, to be a big splashy church? Well, what are their motives? And he examines the motives of these people preaching Christ. Preaching Christ is wonderful, but what's their motives? And then he's actually going to, next week we're going to talk about, he says, I don't care about their motives.

I care about Christ being preached, which is pretty incredible. So I think, in a way, that's a good lesson for us, too, to think, well, you know, I mean, I agree with that body of believers, but if Christ is truly being preached, you know, I may disagree with their motives, but Christ is still being preached. That's pretty impressive, pretty interesting. Okay, so the word for preach is basically to herald, to proclaim, And I just put a little note, and every time I prepare a lesson, I usually go to either Vine or Zodiates to get the definitions. So there's some verses here that kind of talk about this word preach.

So, can I get someone to read 1 Corinthians 1.23? That we preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and unto the Greeks foolishness.

Okay, so basically this word, it shows up, I have three examples here, it shows up in a variety of places in the New Testament. It talks about basically preaching Christ. In the 2 Corinthians passage 119, it talks about that, let's just look at that, that's pretty close. 2 Corinthians 119, and that says, For the Son of God, Christ Jesus, who was preached among among you by us, by me and Silvanus and Timothy, was not yes and no, but yes in him." So, you know, it talks about Paul again preaching and, you know, this is a word that describes how he gave out the good news. And then in 2 Corinthians 4-5 it talks about not preaching ourselves, but preaching Christ Jesus as Lord.

So I had a question here. We've been listening to Vern in the main service talking about Gospels here, and this should be an easy one. So what Gospel is being preached here? Substitution. Right. So obviously this is not This is not the time period where, you know, that's described in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is not that time period where the kingdom of God was in view.

This is the gospel of Christ dying for our sins according to the scriptures and being raised. So that's the message that he was preaching and the other men with him. So that's the message that was being put forth here. Okay, so now that's just sort of the A part of the verse. Let's go on to the B part, actually the B and C part here. So he identifies some of these people from envy and strife.

And envy is a feeling of displeasure produced by witnessing or hearing of the advantage of others, has a desire to deprive another of what he has. When I was looking through what Vine had for the definition of this word, he pointed out, and actually I had not realized this, I didn't get a chance to check it in our English dictionaries, but he points out that the difference between envy and jealousy, does someone know the difference between envy and jealousy offhand? Or you have a feeling for one? In your mind, is there a difference between envy and jealousy?

Might be a better way to state it. I won't drag this out. This is not my main point. Just kind of an aside. Envy has a desire to, there's a feeling of displeasure about, you know, someone else has gotten a new whatever. And envy has the idea of depriving that person of that. Whereas jealousy is just simply, I want to have one of my own. Envy has the idea, I want them not to have it. which is kind of another notch up. There's jealousy and envy seems to be one up from that.

I want to have what they have, but I want them not to have anymore. I want theirs to break. I want an iPad, and I want their iPad to break. That's kind of the idea. Not a good thing. Not a good thing to have. I moved around so I could see everybody. What's Roger doing? He's going out the window here. We don't have to look at all these verses, but basically you might recognize the Galatians, and let's turn to Galatians 5, 19-21. And this ought to be a pretty familiar passage to you folks.

This is a passage that talks about the deeds of the flesh and contrasts that with the fruits of the Spirit. So could someone read those three verses for me? Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Great. Thanks, thanks Jim. So what's interesting here is that there's a list of things here and these are all, as we start in verse 9, these are all deeds of the flesh. They come out from the sinful nature, our fleshly sinful nature.

So what we see here is that both envy and strife, both occur In these passages, if you look at them, I put the same verses down for envy and strife. They both occur in those same passages. And there's a few passages that are unique to either envy or strife, but they kind of go together. They're a package deal.

They are attributes, if you will, of our fallen nature, of our fleshly nature. And what's being said here, I think, is that some people were preaching the gospel, which is a good thing, They're doing it on their own, so to speak. They're doing it out of their sinful nature. They had a good message, but the motive came from the wrong place. God wants us to respond to Him.

And we're going to see that in the last part of this verse. So that was kind of a neat thing. We see that envy and strife is motivating these folks. What was the focus, maybe, of the envy? And this is a little bit conjecture. What would you say in the context of what's going on here, what were they envious of, do you think? What would be a thing that might cause them to be envious? Would it be a thing, or a person, do you think? It seems like out of verse 16, that they would be envious of Paul's appointed apostleship.

That's what occurs to me. It seems like Paul is a focus, Here's this guy, Paul, and boy, he's getting all the bettings here. He's getting all, I mean, he's right at the top of the marquee. Now, of course, he's now in prison, which is pretty, but he, you know, it seems like they were envious of his ministry, of what he was doing. That's a little bit reading between the lines, but that seems to be, you know.

And the strife, I don't know, the strife part, I had a little heartache, and that's contention or wrangling. And maybe it's like, well, I can do it better than Paul. I don't know. And some of you here were kind of trying to figure it out between the lines. And the strife part wasn't as obvious.

And we see that today. Some people, the major on minors, they say, well, this body of believers, they do it this way. And that kind of bugs me. I don't like it. And I like it the way this. And they'll just stir up things. you know, actually for no reason, for reasons that aren't, you know, important. They may just be, you know.

So it seems like that both envy and strife were going on, and he says, yep, Christ is being preached, but it's from envy and strife. So now the contrast to that is from goodwill. And it's basically, but some are preaching from goodwill, And good will here is good pleasure or literally it's good intentions. I have a couple verses here I want to look at. So this is kind of the opposite.

So we have, you know, and this is the thing that we see so much in scripture. The believer in the Lord Jesus Christ can be, because he has two natures, he can be motivated by those natures. He can be operating out of his nature, his sinful nature for Adam or he can be operating out of his his nature from the Lord Jesus Christ. So, in this case I think we're going to see a different motivation here. So let's look at Philippians, actually it's just down in chapter 2, Philippians 2, Philippians 2, in verse 13.

It says, For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work his good pleasure. So what do we see right off the bat here? We see God is at work, right? It's not you at work, but God is at work, and He's at work in you. And this word, good pleasure, is the same word as goodwill. It's the same word in the Greek. So it's God's working in you that produces. You don't produce it, but God produces it in you.

And then in 2 Thessalonians, we see it kind of again here. Actually the word desire kind of shows up as a synonym to all this. A good desire, a good pleasure, a good desire. 2 Thessalonians 1.11 And it says, to this end we also pray To this end we pray for you always that our God may count you worthy of your calling and fulfill every desire that's a good pleasure for you for goodness and the working of faith with power.

So it's a source in God. That's what I'm answering my question before I put it up here. I'm trying to show you this contrast here, so I've answered my own question. So what's the source of the goodwill? It's the Lord Jesus Christ. It's God working in you. And that's what Paul wanted to commend. He wanted to commend those who were preaching Christ, but from goodwill, from God working in them, not some other motive going on.

And that's kind of a, you know, I think, boy, is that, it's exactly parallel to today. It's just exactly what we see. Different motives. So I think, you know, it's kind of very up to date, as they say. Any thoughts or questions? Yeah, just a quick thought here.

What's neat about this, I think, is that the message of the gospel has a power in and of itself that is not necessarily related to the ambassador who shared it. I think there's a dual, not a dual blessing, but there's a dual impact for the believer who is sourced out of God's good will and who is also sharing a clear gospel versus one who is sourced out of the flesh and sharing a clear gospel. But it's neat to know that the clear message itself is not dependent upon its source. And that's something that really comes through.

And Paul's going to reaffirm that. We'll talk about it next week. And we'll mention it in verse 18. He's going to reaffirm that. That, hey, you know, I'm going to rejoice even though this guy had the wrong motives. I'm going to rejoice because Christ was preached.

The message got out. And now the motives, I've got a problem with that. But hey, I'm thankful that the message got out. And I kind of see that today. Sometimes I'll turn on the TV or I'll go past some of these programs and I go, oh boy, oh my goodness, what are they doing, this one, that one, I disagree with a lot of them. But sometimes there might be a nugget that'll come through, hey, that's okay, that's okay. So, I think we need, the Lord's showing us that that mindset is important. And it says, it's not I, but Christ. And it focuses, and it helps us that do want to have this relationship out of goodwill, to have the, you know, to be in that position. Okay, so let's go on.

Now here's where, if you have the King James, I'm going to cover, if you have the King James, I'm going to cover 17. If you have the Numerical Standard, I'm going to cover 16. So, it was a little bit strange. I'm going through studying this and, oh, that occurs in verse so and so. I said, it does? Wait, I said 16 in my Bible, so it got me a little confused at first there.

OK, so now he says, the latter do it out of love. So just get the latter do it out of love. So that points back to the previous verse. And I think that's possibly why they did that. The latter points back to the one doing it from goodwill. And it kind of makes sense. The latter do it out of love. goodwill and love kind of tie together, knowing that I'm appointed for the defense of the gospel.

And the former, so I guess you could do it either way. So in the King James, they put the former first and the latter, so either way. Anyway, so we're going to do the latter first. These are the good sums. The latter sums do it proclaiming Christ out of love. So they're doing it out of love for the Savior. So there's some verses for that.

Let's look at Romans 10.1.

Can someone read Romans 10.1?

Brothers and sisters, my heart's desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved. That's a good thing. You have Israelites in there? Interesting. Mine says, my heart's desire and my prayer to God is for them, is for their salvation. In context, I guess that's right.

Anyway, back to the point here. This idea of desire here is this idea of goodwill That's the same word. Like I mentioned, sometimes that word goodwill will be translated desire. So there's that word that shows up again. So it's not only that this is the desire of Paul. His desire is that, and his love and desire for his brethren.

And then another one is in 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. Yeah, Bonnie, could you read that May 2 and 3 there in verse chapter 1? We give thanks to God always for all of you, making mention of you in our prayers, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and the presence of our God and Father.

So I was kind of focusing on the labor of love. So love is an integral part of this, And once again, love is involved with the good intentions out of love. And then actually, I had a verse here that I got out of Wiest. Actually, it's a little bit hard. After putting it up there, I kind of wondered about it. It's a little hard to read. It actually might be.

Why don't we turn to Philippians 2.1.

And in the New American Standard it reads, if therefore there is any encouragement in Christ, if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, maintain the same love, unite in the Spirit, intend upon one purpose. I read way beyond that. Anyway, I kind of like the idea that kind of the second part of what Weiss did, he had since there is a certain tender persuasion that comes from divine love. That kind of caught my eye in terms of this out of love as a motivation. Good intentions out of love. So that kind of describes it. So we described that. And now he's going to kind of switch here.

The B part of the verse he's going to say, that these people that are walking in the Lord, out of good will, good intentions, motivated by love, they know something. And here's where it seems like, out of these group of believers, it seems like that they identified with Paul very closely, knowing that he was appointed. And I want to show here that when we look at the word appointed, It's an interesting word, and we think of, well, how many people, who's appointed in scripture? There's kind of some interesting things about that.

But these people, they knew something. And that know, let's go and look here. Well, let's look at appointed first. I'm getting a little ahead. Well, we'll talk about know. I'm going back and forth again. That's not what I want to do here. OK, know is the idea, it's oida. It's factual knowledge or full knowledge. And so they knew something, and they knew it. It's in the perfect tense here. It's the participle in the perfect tense.

They knew it in the past, and they continue to know up in the present, on in the future. So they knew this, that Paul was a special person appointed for defense of the gospel. So that's why they had no problem with Paul being elevated among them. They said, well that's what God is doing here among us. They recognize it.

Others apparently did not. And this word appointed is to be set. Sometimes you'll see it used not in terms of appointed. It would just be to set something or to fix something. But I have a couple of verses here. Let's look at the Luke passage and the Thessalonians passage. So someone could read Luke chapter 2 verse 34. So in this case, it's going to be translated appointed, I believe. Anyone? I'm sorry, did I say 34? Oh, excuse me. Good. 34, excuse me. Okay. Thanks so much. Okay, I have to correct that in your, yeah, carried away there.

34. Then Simeon blessed them and said, to marry his mother. This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against. So here we see obviously Christ was destined or appointed for a certain task, obviously. He's going to come as a Jew. He's going to be rejected. So he was appointed for that. And now let's look at the other one I want to look at. It's one in Thessalonians. And if someone could read, I like to read the first three verses. First Thessalonians 1 through 3. I'm sorry, 1 Thessalonians 3, 1 through 3. I didn't say it right today. Therefore, when we could endure it no longer, we thought it best to be left behind at Athens alone.

And we sent Timothy, our brother and God's fellow worker in the gospel of Christ, to strengthen and encourage you as to your faith, so that no one would be disturbed by these afflictions. For you yourselves know that we have been destined for this. Okay, and again it's translated destined, it's appointed, same word as we have in our passage here.

Appointed or destined for defense of the gospel. So, we see as believers, what is, maybe this isn't your favorite thing to be appointed to, right? You know, if you think, wow, guess what? I'm appointed. I'm appointed for trials and suffering and afflictions. Actually, I have a thought along that line. We'll come here in a little bit here.

Okay, so that's something that the Lord does. So Paul's just, he's saying some people seem to realize that, they knew that, they knew it in the past and continue to know it, that I'm appointed for defense, and defense is the idea to speech made in defense from when the word to give an answer to another speech in defense of oneself so it's like a defense attorney so and this is kind of a rhetorical question so what was was Paul's defense focused on his being in prison was that what he wanted to I apologize, it's kind of... Paul's defense was of the gospel. Right, absolutely.

So I'm just trying to make sure you stay on track with that. So I kind of put a red herring in here just to see if you're with me here. Yeah, he wasn't defending himself saying, I shouldn't be here. I mean, he probably had all kinds of things he could have said. And I haven't actually gone through and, you know, tracked through the history that I can actually go through and you can look.

But his focus was on defense of the gospel. And actually we read earlier, I'll just read a portion of it. Back in Philippians 1.7 it says, I have you in my heart since both in my imprisonment and defense and confirmation of the gospel. So Paul was focused on defending the gospel against anyone that would speak against it, or minimize it, or make it less than what it is. Let's look at 1 Peter 3. This is one I was thinking about personally as we think about defense.

And this is something that we as believers, the ordinary quote believer, 1 Peter 3.15, it says, but sanctify Christ Jesus as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence. So our defense is also basically the gospel. It's what Christ has done in our lives. His working out His purposes in our lives and saving us.

So we, in a way, share that same defense with Paul. We're ready to give an answer. A couple of thoughts, Roger. Sure, go ahead. That word apologia, the idea that we get our apologetics from that word. 1 Peter 3.15 is kind of one of those New Testament doctrinal basis for Believers should be equipped to have an apologetic or a defense for their the hope that's within them That's something I've dealt with quite a bit. On two different opposite ends of the spectrum, one person who is absolutely obsessed with apologetics and is constantly looking to find a way to argue their case. The other one who says it's not my role, it's my pastor's role. I think what we see here is that, specifically in the context of the gospel, If you want to use the term, the hope that we have within us, being representative of at least the core message of the gospel, that we're all called to be able to give a defense for that message. What about the creation story? Are we supposed to give a sound apologetic for the creation of it?

More and more, I think you're wise to do so. However, what's in particular concern, at least in these verses, is being able to defend the message of the gospel. And that there is no hope without it, because that is the hope that we have. And so, it's pretty personal to us all, and it's a balance between not saying go overboard a defense for every single point in the scripture, but be clear on the hope that you have. The most important content of your faith, you need to be able to stand and defend that message.

Where do we stand in light of that? That first Peter passage is pretty intense. Yeah, that's neat. I think you bring up a good point about you'll see various groups of believers and they want to focus on creation, for example, which is wonderful. I mean, we get wonderful truths. I mean, so much we know about, you know, but is that to be our main focus? And it's tough because... And many groups will go off that direction and say, well, that's going to be our main focus. And you think, well, wait a minute.

It's so tough, especially with the creation of it, because it is the seabed that makes the gospel. clear and understandable. And without a correct understanding of creation, you don't have a God who designed and created. And so the gospel ends up falling apart.

And that's the hard part about being a believer, defending their faith in today's world, is that you end up having to do more work to defend it than previous eras in time. Because there's more information The battle has come to a place where it's a scientific battle, it's a philosophical battle. It's philosophical for Paul, even in Acts 17 and so forth, but nonetheless, we still have a lot to deal with. It's a challenge. But it's the message of the Gospel here, and it's crazy to think about the gospel itself being like a domino effect. And if you tinker with creation, it's just going to domino effect all the way down. And so we have a high calling in today's world. But I think your point you made earlier that is probably good to remember, we shouldn't feel that we have to be experts.

I'm not an expert in You know, all the dating methods, for example. I haven't, I've studied some dating methods, but I'm certainly have, you know, somebody could easily probably, you know, any kind of discussion could say, well, you don't know what you're talking about dating methods. I can swing up this, you know, carbon 14, blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm personally, if I'm going to present the gospel and say, well, okay.

We may or may not understand that fully, but I do understand what God has revealed clearly, and focus back on that. So you stay with the message and not get deluded by, well, your carbon-14 dating thing is all, what you found out about carbon-14 is all messed up, therefore, the gospel is out the door. No, the reverse of that. We have a clear message from God on what salvation is and who is a... So we stay with the message, and I think you made that point. This has been such a huge thing in my life, dealing with these issues, and so that's the only reason why I'm kind of jumping in a little bit here because it's something I've thought a lot about, but you bring up that really important point is that carbon-14 dating and being able to defend that does not save you.

Romans 1.10 talks about the gospel is the power to save. Exactly. And that's the message that has to be defended clearly. But we also have so many great resources today too to go to, so we don't have a really good excuse with just running and ducking and hiding either. But it's the message of the gospel that saves and that's That's the power of God.

I think Courtney said that he was saved that way. Actually, Courtney was at Colorado State. There was a creation conference at Colorado State in Fort Collins. He'll use whatever, but it's still the core message and that saves you. The creation may allow you to see how it all fits together and that God is consistent, but it's still the message of Christ's death on the cross. And that's what we're called to preach and defend. It didn't say that they, you know, getting creation up here. They were preaching it out of wrong motives or whatever.

Sure, no, that's okay. That's an excellent point. No, I think it's really important and I feel sometimes, boy, I wish I knew my... You know, I'm quite a scientist. I'm an engineer. I should know all this stuff. I should know carbon-14 like the back of my hand. I should have it nailed down. But I don't. But I do understand the message that will save people. And it's tough to get that message out because people don't want to hear it. They say, no, no Roger. I don't want to hear that.

No, I know what you guys are like. I had this, one of my favorite stories, I had this office mate. He said, he wouldn't let me get started. He said, I know I know what you're like. I know the kind of people you're like. He already had me pigeonholed. Even though I was previously not a believer, I had become a believer and I met him again after five years or so. He said, I know what you're like.

I don't want to hear your message. I don't want it. I just couldn't. I just astounded me that he would say, I don't want that. He said, basically, I don't want God. I don't want God or Christ. I don't want that. Because I know if I have that, I'll be just like you. I don't want to be that way. I mean, I didn't think I was that offensive. But I was offensive, right? The gospel, I mean, that's an offensive. I don't want to be the kind of person you are.

That's what he was saying. And I think that's a good point. He didn't want your message. And he associated that with who you were. But more importantly, you could walk away from that saying, OK, if you don't want the message, you don't want the message. I know. So I had to walk away from it. That's between you and the originator of the message. Not my problem at that point. I know. So I still see the guy occasionally. And he prayed for me. One of these days, he'll want the message. Yeah. That'd be wonderful. Anyway, OK. OK, so let's go on.

17. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives. So it's kind of a rehash of what we talked about a little bit. The former are the ones that are not the bad sums, the ones that are not trusting the Lord. They're doing it out of their own energy or whatever. And they're proclaiming. It turns out this word, proclaim, is different than the previous word, preach. And I notice that it's not consistent, like the same word isn't translated preach or proclaim.

They're kind of interchanged. And this is the word that we, the core word is angelio, or this is cate angelio. It's to bring a message. And we see it like in the Lord's Table, where we're to I can't think of the word, my mind is on lag here. We're to proclaim the Lord's message until he comes, basically. Proclaim his death until he comes. So basically, they're virtually equivalent from what I can see.

So you just basically say, in the form of proclaim or preach Christ out of selfish ambitions rather than pure motives. So basically the selfish ambitions are self-willed. It's kind of the idea of self-willed. There's some examples of that in Philippians. And we're admonished not to do anything from selfishness. And then actually this word selfishness, selfish ambitions shows up in the list of the deeds of the flesh. So it tracks back to that again. But pure motives, actually it tracks out of the word holy, actually, holy motives. Freedom from defilement is kind of the idea. So it kind of contrasts here. One proclaims it out of selfish motives rather than from pure motives.

And he says, what's interesting is here, that it's almost like this idea of the envy thing. They want to do something. They want to cause you harm. Because he said, thinking to cause me distress. And actually the idea of thinking to cause me distress is the idea of the cause is to raise up or rear up. And the word distress is this word philipsis. It's this idea of like a vice.

It's a pressure. It's a pressure thing. We're told not to be pressed into the world's mold, is the word used in scripture. It's this pressure feeling. So he says, they're trying to bring this pressure against me in my imprisonment. That's pretty heavy words for this group of people that are proclaiming the gospel, but their motives are all wacko. I mean, they're trying to cause Paul Well, maybe I'll put him down a little bit so I'll be able to kind of exalt myself. I'll be a better preacher of the gospel than he will. I'll cause him pressure while he's in prison. It's kind of a sad commentary.

So let's look here. Actually, there's a verse I wanted to... Let's turn to Colossians chapter 1 and verse 4. No, 24. 124. Colossians 124. And it will use some of these ideas we talked about. Could someone read that 124? Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church.

Thank you. What's interesting about this verse is that I've read this verse many many times. It's a really fantastic verse. Now I rejoice in my suffering. That's the message. People, it's interesting how we read past that. I'm not saying so much here at Holly Hills, but just in kind of modern Christian, we read past the suffering part. The Christian is to suffer, to suffer, or to rejoice in suffering. That word suffer is in there a lot of times. We just kind of want to read past that. We want everything to go swimmingly. And the Lord says, no it's not.

But what the wonderful thing here is that we're Filling up what is lacking in Christ's affliction. I mean that is an incredible statement. I mean, I just think Christ suffered for the sins of the whole world I am my little quote little I'll call it little may seem pretty big to me my little affliction. I'm going to add to Christ's suffering I'm going to add to the to completing the afflictions of Christ. I mean it just that's mind-boggling to me that my little I issue, and it may be not little, it may be family members, it may be children, it may be all kinds of awful things that are very difficult to deal with, that is going to fill up the sufferings of Christ. I said, wow, I have the sufferings of Christ, and here's where I just a little bit, it's going to slide in there.

That's incredible. That's an incredible thought to my mind. I just, wow, Lord, you're going to let my suffering be counted with yours? I can't believe that. I can't handle that. When you suffer for the sins of the world, you've got my little affliction. I don't know, that just really got to me when I was studying this.

Okay, and then lastly, to kind of close it out, let's go back to Philippians 1 and verse 18. This will be the starting point for next week. So actually my last question here, what was Paul's response? to these distresses. And I think verse 18 answers that. Verse 18 says, What then?

Only in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed And in this I rejoice, yes, and I will rejoice." So, boy, was he focused on the end goal, not to let these pretenses, not to let these strifes and envies and all these other things, and even people trying to add more pressure to his life, squeezing him down. He said, no, that in every way, in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. and in this I will rejoice." I mean, that's just incredible. It's cool. Flipping is a great one. It's just so uplifting and it's so personal too.

I don't know. That was my last thought there. Any additional things? We've talked about this before. Lacking in Christ's affliction. It's like, why does he have to have more? Why do we have to add to that is what you're saying? Well, I look at it as a privilege. I flip it around and say, wow, my affliction, even though it says that sometimes they're overwhelming.

But my afflictions are going to add to Christ. I look at it as being how gracious God is to allow our afflictions to be counted with Him. Just like we're counted, our identification, we're counted with Christ in the heavenlies. That's somehow figured into the equation. It is. I don't know. Our little affliction is figured into the equation. So it may be more significant than what we think really. So I think it's to encourage us when we have affliction that we can rejoice in that. Say, well wait a minute. I'm actually adding to Christ's afflictions. Wow. Maybe my affliction, even though it's beyond what I can... I wouldn't have chosen that. I wouldn't have chosen whatever happened. But that's going to add to what Christ has done.

That's pretty incredible. I'm a joint participant with Christ. Pretty powerful things. And then Paul's thing, he says, okay, all these guys, you know, we imagine, you know, I think we see it many times, we see people that oppose us or may put us down or whatever, and you know, but if they're preaching Christ, you say, okay, brother, Amen.

I know. Other stuff can fall by the wayside. That doesn't mean we don't stop pointing it out and saying the more accurate understanding is this, but we so rejoice in that. That's what Paul is saying, I think. Okay. Well, thanks. I'll try to move around over here next week. You'll find me going around the room. I'll say, Roger's going crazy in the red carpet room.

Dear Father, thank you so much, Lord, for this day. Father, we thank you for the blessings we have, Father, just for the wonderful truths that are in your scripture, Lord, about our relationship to our Savior. It's not just a even though we're your creation, you've included us, and we're joint heirs, and we're included with you in your suffering, Lord, which is just incredible, and you show us that we're to look at the end goal of Christ being presented and shown to be who he is, and not to let those who would bring strife and envy in there, not to let those upset us, but to stay true to the to what you called us to do, to present the Lord Jesus Christ and all that He's done. We ask it in His name. Amen.