Click here for the Philippians 1:12-14 PODCAST
12 Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. 13 As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. 14 And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear. ~ Philippians 1:12-14
As we come back into Philippians 1, we must underscore the main theme in the book of Philippians which is joy. The Apostle uses the words rejoice or joy fifteen times throughout this book of 104 verses.
In v.12-14 we see that the gospel is advancing through Paul’s imprisonment. Although it would seem that imprisoning Paul would impede the advance of the gospel, it had the opposite effect. The gospel advances as the word of God is spoken.
In v.13, we read, "it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ." The Apostle Paul is a prisoner because of Christ. He wasn't a prisoner because he committed a crime. He was a prisoner because he preached Christ, because he believed in Christ, because he represented Christ.
Despite the fact that I have never been jailed like Paul, I still have my own prisons. And, God has always been good at using our prisons to advance the gospel. I have learned that the design behind our suffering is that it causes us to seek Christ more ardently. When we seek Him and find Him for ourselves, we will have discovered the lessons that when shared with others will help them in discovering a personal relationship with the Lord for themselves.
In v.13, we see the content of the gospel is the person of “Christ” which is the Greek translation of the Hebrew “Messiah.” Paul’s imprisonment is literally “for Christ,” the Messiah, the Jewish king. Caesar, who claimed the titles king and lord of the whole world, imprisoned the primary preacher of the Gospel, but the Gospel advances in and out of the palace.
The measure of a person's spiritual strength is best measured by what it takes to steal our joy. We can find out how spiritually mature we are by finding out the breaking point where our joy is lost and negativism begins to creep in and take over. The measure of our joy is how we react not to things the way we would like them to be but to things the way we wouldn't like them to be.
According to Galatians 5, Joy is the fruit of the Spirit-controlled life. There should be no point in the life of a believer where joy is forfeited to a victim's mentality because of some things that aren't the way we'd like them to be.
We know, according to John 16:33, "in this world we will have trouble" and we must expect that God has profound purposes for our troubles. In the book of Philippians, the Apostle Paul is our example because he is a man whose joy knew no breaking point. There is never a time in the New Testament when the circumstances in Paul's life impacted his joy. In fact, the greater the struggle for the Apostle, the greater the trial, the more insistent he was to articulate his joy.
So, here is a man who has negative circumstances beyond his ability to understand them, chained to a Roman soldier. And yet he's a model of joy, because his joy isn't related to his comfort. His joy isn't related to his freedoms. His joy isn't related to his success. His joy is strictly tied to the advance of the gospel, so he has joy in his ministry, in spite of trouble.
When we fix our hearts on the progress of the gospel, it will not matter what happens to us as long as we can see God's kingdom being furthered. If this is our passion, we're going to find that our joy will increase. When Christ's life becomes our life then our prisons will become our pulpits.
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