The Apostle Paul led quite a life. He
started out as a radical Pharisee, out to persecute Christians wherever he
could. Then he had his dramatic conversion, on the road to Damascus,
where he met Jesus Christ. Eventually, he became one of the leaders of
the early church, traveling far and wide to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.
If you’ve ever thought that becoming a Christian should
mean that you have an easy, carefree life, looking at the life of Paul should
make you get rid of that idea. When Paul was a Pharisee, he had the
respect of all the top people in society. When he became a Christian, he
became one of their main targets. And at the time he’s writing the letter
to the church at Philippi, he has been arrested for telling people about
Jesus. As he himself says, he is “in chains for Christ.”
Think about that. Paul has done nothing wrong.
All he’s done is tell people that Jesus is the Savior. And for that, he’s
in prison. He’s in chains.
And it’s important that we remember what prison was like
back then. Prison is not all that pleasant now, of course, but back then,
two thousand years ago it was a lot worse. The cells were poorly
ventilated. They were either very cold or very hot. As for the
sanitary conditions, well, let’s just say there was no such thing as indoor
plumbing. There was filth, there were rats, there were all kinds of
bugs. You got very little to eat or drink. And if you were in
chains, as Paul says he was, there was nothing you could do about any of
that. In many cases, the Roman government was spared the bother and
expense of a trial because people died before they ever went to trial.
How do you think you’d feel at this point, if you were
Paul? Probably not very good. You might be angry. You might
be bitter. You might dwell on the unfairness of it all. You might
wonder why God was letting all these things happen to you. You might even
start to feel like God had abandoned you. In fact, you might wonder if
God was even there at all.
None of that is how Paul felt. Paul says that he
rejoices! And he says he will continue to rejoice! That’s pretty
amazing, right? If I was in Paul’s situation, the last thing I would do
is rejoice. But Paul does. And he tells us why.
Here’s the first one: he says, “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 all the more without fear.”
In other words, Paul is saying that the way he is handling
this is an example for others to follow. Other Christians are watching
how Paul handles being arrested and thrown in prison for telling the truth
about Jesus.
What are they seeing? They’re seeing a few
things. First, they’re seeing someone who is not going to back
down. No matter what the authorities do to Paul, he’s going to continue
to tell everyone he can about Jesus. No threats, no earthly punishments,
no nothing can stop him or even slow him down. He has no regrets and no
second thoughts about telling people about Jesus. In fact, to the extent
he can, he’s still doing it while he’s in prison! Paul knows that seeing
that will help others do it, too. And that’s something for Paul to
rejoice about!
Second, they’re seeing Paul’s attitude about this.
They’re seeing that he is not angry or bitter. He is not sitting around
whining about how unfair all this is. He’s not scared and he’s not
worried. He’s confident. Paul knows he’s doing the right
thing. Paul knows he’s doing what the Lord wants him to do. And so,
whatever happens is what happens. Paul knows that he has no control over
what’s going to happen to him. But that’s okay. Paul does have
control over what he says and what he does. And he’s going to remain
faithful to God. He’s going to continue to have faith in Jesus as the
Savior, and he’s going to serve the Lord as well as he can for as long as he
can. If they kill him, well, then they kill him. But he’ll die
knowing that he was faithful to God to his last breath. And he knows
other Christians will be inspired by his example. That’s something for
Paul to rejoice about, too!
And that brings us to the other
thing Christians were seeing when they saw how Paul handled this. They
saw someone who was not afraid to die for Christ. Listen to what he
says: “I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers
and God’s provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ what has happened to me will
turn out for my deliverance.” And then Paul says this: “For to me,
to live is Christ and to die is gain.”
Paul says, I know I’m going to be taken out of this current
situation. And when I am, it’s going to be a win-win for me,
Because one of two things is going to happen. They’re going to let me go,
and I’m going to live and continue to spread the word about Jesus Christ.
Or, they’re going to kill me, and I’m going to go to heaven and be with the
Lord. The way Paul looks at that, either way, I win! And so, I can
rejoice!
Now, this is where I’m supposed to say we should look at
things this way, too. We should stay faithful to God no matter what
happens, even if it seems unfair. We should stay positive and keep
serving God no matter what happens. And we should not be afraid even to
die, because we know that by our faith and by God’s grace, when we die we’ll go
to be with the Lord. And we should rejoice through all of this, because
of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
All that’s true, of course. But it’s not all that
easy to do, is it? It’s easy to say. Lots of things are easy to
say. Doing them is entirely different. When we’re in a tough
situation, when things are going against us, when we don’t know what’s going to
happen to us, it’s pretty hard to do what Paul did. It can be pretty hard
to say, “I’m going to stay faithful to God and I’m going to stay positive and
even if I die I can rejoice about it all, because I’m going to be with the
Lord.”
It can be hard. But it
should be our goal. After all, what Paul did makes perfect sense for a
Christian. We should continue to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to
everyone, no matter what our circumstances are. We should stay faithful
to God, even if that faithfulness gets us into trouble on earth. We
should continue to serve God in every way we can, no matter what others may
think and no matter what others may do. And we should continue to
rejoice, even in the face of death, because of God’s promise of salvation and
eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ.
Those things that people saw in
Paul are the same things we should want people to see in us. After all,
in a town this size, most people know whether we’re Christians or not.
Most people know whether we attend church regularly, whether we claim to have
faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior. Because of that, when people see us,
they’re seeing how a Christian behaves. They’re seeing how a Christian
reacts to things. And especially, people who are not Christians, and who
don’t attend church, are seeing that. And what they see in us will be
what their impression of a Christian is.
We want them to see in us what
people saw in Paul. We want them to see someone who will not back down,
someone who has dedicated their life to Christ and will continue to do so no
matter what the consequences may be. We want them to see someone who,
when things go against us, is not angry or bitter or whiny or scared. We
want them to see someone who remains faithful to God and is determined to serve
God as long as they can and as well as they can, no matter what may
happen. We want them to see someone who can face even death bravely and
with confidence, knowing that when death comes we will have eternal life with
the Lord. We want them to see someone who can rejoice through it all,
knowing that God is always with us and that God will see us through. And
we want people to be inspired by our example, just as people were inspired by
Paul’s example.
It’s not easy. But it was
not easy for Paul, either. That’s a mistake we make sometimes. We
read passages like this, and we think, well, it was easy for Paul to feel that
way. After all, he was, well, he was Paul. He was one of the
greatest Christians ever.
But Paul was just a human
being, the way you and I are. He had all the feelings, all the emotions,
all the fears we do. It had to be very tempting for him to stop preaching
so forcefully about Jesus. It had to be very tempting for him to wonder
why God was allowing all these things to happen to him. It had to be very
tempting for him to feel like it was not fair, to get scared, to feel all the
things you or I might feel if we were in Paul’s situation. Being able to
rejoice in that situation was not easy for Paul, any more than it would be for
you or me.
How did he do it?
Faith. Paul had complete and total faith in Jesus Christ. Because
of that faith, he was able to keep speaking out for Jesus. Because of
that faith, he did not wonder why God was allowing these things to happen--he
knew there had to be a reason, even if he did not know what it was. And
because of that faith, Paul was not scared even in the face of death, because
he knew that God would take care of him regardless of whether he lived or
died. In fact, even facing the prospect of death, Paul could rejoice!
Paul had that much faith. And that should give us
confidence that we can have that much faith, too. Because, again, Paul
was just a human being, the way you and I are. If Paul, as a mere human
being, could have that much faith, then you and I, as mere human beings, can
have that much faith, too.
Jesus told us to spread the gospel and make disciples, just
as surely as he told Paul to do that. Let’s never back down from that, no
matter what the circumstances are. Let’s stay faithful to God, no matter
what may happen. And let’s rejoice, no matter what may happen to
us. Because God will always be there for us, all the way through this
life and into the next one.
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