Fear Not Today

The letter of Paul to the Philippians chapter one, and we're starting at verse 12. I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really, really served to advance the gospel. So that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from goodwill.

The latter do so out of love, knowing that I'm put here for the defence of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes.

And I will rejoice. For I know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me.

Yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith.

So that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you, and that you are standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God. For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe in Him, but also suffer for His sake.

Engage in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have. So far the reading. This morning we're going to be talking about the concept of overcoming fear. Now this may not be something that immediately pops out of this passage as you read it for the first time, but hopefully as we work through it, we'll realise that Paul is actually trying to ease the fears of these Philippian Christians as he's communicating, as he's encouraging them to stay strong, to stay faithful, and to remember what they have received now that they are Christians. And so there are three main ideas or identities that Paul characterises in these verses, verses 12 through to 30.

As he explains how much, or how they can have confidence in situations that are less than ideal, even the confidence of a man sitting in prison and saying, I rejoice, I rejoice in this situation. Ultimately, Paul expresses a message of incredible courage to say to ourselves as Christians this morning, fear not today. Not today, fear.

I am a saved soul who cannot lose the battle, who cannot lose my freedom, and have a strength to keep fighting the good fight. And so those are the three, I guess, ideas that we'll explore this morning. The first one that Paul wants to say to his people there is that we are saved souls on a side that cannot lose. As Paul writes to these Philippian Christians, he addresses their very real fear in life. Paul had been taken prisoner.

Paul, the great apostle to the Western world, had been taken as a prisoner and was limited. The man who travelled across much of the known world at the time, Paul, who was the all-star on the team, he was the number one quarterback, point guard, opening batsman, opening bowler for the team. And he is taken captive.

He's taken off the field. Who watched the rugby last night? The South Africans are pretty cheerful this morning with the draw against the All Blacks. My heart was a little bit nervous when our scrum half, the Clerc, was concussed and was taken off and he couldn't come back. And I thought, oh boy, our playmaker against the best team in the world, the All Blacks, halfway through the match.

How are we gonna go? We won. We drew, which for me is a win against them. But yeah, that nervousness.

And this is Paul. He's being captured. He's in prison. He's not doing the work that he's supposed to be doing, which is sharing the gospel. And so they have Paul captured.

The story, if you don't remember, is he is caught in Jerusalem. The Jewish leaders there, they are very powerful and want to execute him there. Paul appeals to the emperor as a Roman citizen and says, I want my trial, my case to be heard by the emperor himself, and is transported from Jerusalem, Judea, to Rome for this trial. Along the way, Paul's enemies actually lay in ambush to kill Paul as he's going there, and that is foiled. And time and time again, you just hear of the incredible way that God rescues Paul as he journeys to Rome.

Now the Philippian church, who have been personally supporting and praying for Paul this whole time, are worried about Paul. But Paul assures them that everything is all right by saying that he is a Christian and that means that he is on the side that cannot lose. That's what he says here. You see, the fear of Paul's captivity, the fear that this might be a sign that God might somehow be losing the war, that you know, one of his star players has been taken out of the equation.

The most influential apostle of the time. What will happen to the spread of the gospel now that Paul is in prison? But Paul assures the Philippians in verse 12, and he says, what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. And Paul explains how amazingly, even the gods who are looking after him, the imperial gods, the gods, in other words, who have direct access to the emperor, have heard about Jesus Christ through this, that the household of the emperor himself have heard and perhaps some have responded to the good news of Jesus.

Surprisingly, through Paul's capture, the gospel has reached the most powerful man on the face of the planet. Imagine that. This religion that only thirty short years before started in a backwater place called Judea, where a carpenter's son died a robber's death, and from this flea-bitten backwater place all the way to the marbled halls of the Roman Empire, the gospel has travelled in thirty years. Who in their wildest dreams could have thought that this little movement started back there could reach the emperor of the largest superpower of the world?

And so the question is asked, is God's plan being foiled? Has God's enemies really won by capturing Paul? And Paul says, absolutely not. And that even as he is proclaiming and sharing the gospel to just his guards around him, the people that he's with all the time, the Christians in Rome are hearing about Paul's confidence and courage. And they themselves are becoming emboldened to start sharing the gospel in Rome.

And so the streets of Rome are reverberating with the sound of the gospel. Has God's plan been foiled? Paul says, don't fall into this fear, friends. We are on God's side and He is very powerful. What this means for us is that we can find a courage of being souls who are saved by a very, very powerful God.

As a Christian, you've been the object of His saving grace. You've been the recipient of His salvation. He has chosen you.

He has offered that sacrifice. He has paid that debt. It is done. It is finished, Jesus said Himself. But this is the confidence.

If we were to say, well, God did it for me because I'm so cute and adorable, when we aren't very cute and adorable, we start thinking, well, maybe I'm not part of this plan. But this is also the far greater knowledge that we can rest in, and that is that God also knows who He is. God knows that He is glorious. He knows that He is worthy of all the honour and all the praise of the universe.

We read about that again in Revelation five. The whole world, everything in it, above it, underneath it, worships this God. He knows that He is worthy of this praise, and this is what Paul is starting to say to us. The gospel itself is starting to spread across the globe so that every people group can hear and respond. That more and more knees are starting to kneel to this great and awesome God who deserves the world's honour and praise.

And so as Christians, we need to remember that God doesn't simply save little old you, little old me. He is the God who is ferociously jealous for His own glory. And this God is busy, therefore, saving the whole world so that He might have all the glory. All the glory. He's busy saving nations.

He's busy saving people groups. He's busy saving and redeeming cultures. Entire families He can save. Do we believe this? Our fractured little group of Christians here with one believer in a family and a mum who believes and a dad who doesn't, or a sister who doesn't, but a brother who does.

Do we believe that our God can save our entire family? We might be tempted to fear, to think that our God is like this cheap, lazy Santa that we see every year at small little supermarkets, small little malls. You know the ones that come in the baggy, ragged, old Santa suit and they go up to kids who are at the supermarket and they hand them one tiny little gift, one tiny little prize, because that's all they can afford in this small little supermarket. And they give this lame little gift to all the kids there and then they sort of just shuffle out again.

That is not the God. That's not the image of the God we have. He is the God who lavishly gives the best. So much so that I'm sure as Christians, we've probably been at the receiving end and realised the enormity of God's graces, just the good things that He gives us, to the point where we say to God, enough. That's like too much. It's too much. There's just too much good.

That's the God we serve. That's the God who we love and who loves us.

He's not the stingy Santa of the cheap little mall. And so this God who is so big and so glorious cannot be frustrated in His plan to bring Himself the glory that He deserves. And Paul, a child of God and a servant of this mission, of this mission of bringing glory to God, is saying don't fear what is on the other side. Don't fear because we are on the victory side and we will not lose. And so the frustration that comes with fear, the thought that maybe God's will has somehow been frustrated, or the pain that I am going through now, which is not, I think, God's part of God's plan for me.

We can't think that pain can be part of the equation, or the disappointment I'm going through now, or the struggle of the gospel that's seemingly not taking root in our community. We think, maybe this God is frustrated. Maybe He is limited. Maybe God is losing His grip. We have to remember this morning that nothing is a foregone conclusion with our God.

All things are and will always remain possible for our God, especially when it comes to Him receiving His glory. Our God is a roaring, bellowing lion who cannot and will not be muzzled and cannot be resisted. And that gives perspective in the midst of fear. So we are saved souls on the side that cannot lose, but we are also saved souls with freedom that can never be taken away. Paul deals with perhaps the most significant fear we could all have, the fear of dying.

Perhaps not as a Christian. As a Christian, we feel that fear has sort of come down the ladder a little bit. But let's say generally, the fear of losing absolutely everything we have, including our life, having it all taken away from us. The fear of losing your freedom, losing the ability for you to choose.

And as he sits in prison, Paul thanks the Philippians for their prayers, saying in verse 18, the second half, yes, I will rejoice. I will be thankful, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the spirit of Jesus Christ, all of this will turn out for my deliverance. Verse 20, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be ashamed, but that with full courage now, as always, Christ will be honoured in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. And so Paul thanks the Philippians.

He says, thank you, that you are bearing this burden with me. He thanks him for caring about him. But then he says that he is confident of his deliverance. That word means being set free. And so you're thinking, well, maybe Paul has received some prophetic understanding that he's gonna be released from prison.

Maybe he sort of knows that, look, his trial is gonna go well and he'll be set free. No. He actually doesn't talk about physical freedom at all. Paul is actually using a bit of a play on words here to say whether I die here or whether I am released, I know that I am free in either case. I have been delivered.

I am confident of my deliverance, therefore, because I have been delivered from a fate far worse than death, far worse than incarceration. Whether I sit in this jail forever, whether I die as a result of my service to the kingdom, nothing can touch my soul which has been set free. This is encapsulated with that wonderful summary statement, to live is Christ, to die is gain.

It's like doing a coin toss game with a mate and saying, tails I win, heads you lose. Think about it. Tails I win, and if it's heads, then you lose. Meaning I can never lose. I will always win.

For Paul to continue living means that he will continue serving the God whose mission is to bring glory to Himself through the reaching of many people. It means that he will be a benefit to the Philippian church and the Christians there. It means perhaps that he, if he continues to live, might bring more people in Rome to Christ. But if he is to die, if he is to be executed, he would get to be with Jesus.

And he says that is by far the better thing. Heads I win. Tails you lose. In either case, the Christian can't be beaten. Now this week, I've been struck by news of actually several church pastors who have on Instagram, no less, announced that they have given up on the faith.

They have walked away from it completely. Amazing. And I found the interesting thing that in both cases that I read about this week, not only did they walk away from their faith, but their marriages also broke down. Now one of these pastors was the author of a very influential book that you may have read once upon a time called I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which talks about how Christians have to be careful not to be consumed by the dating culture of the Western world, but must pursue lifelong relationships, e.g. marriage, with godliness, with self-control. And this pastor who wrote this in 1997 is now separated from his wife after nineteen years of marriage.

And I realise I don't have all the information to analyse this deeply, but I wondered whether there isn't a principle that relates to our topic this morning. Can you imagine what a hypocrite this guy must feel like after nineteen years to have an irreparable breakdown in marriage? Could it be understandable to think that it's almost easier to say, well, I don't believe in any of this stuff then, any of the things that sort of was keeping us together, and that is why my marriage failed, rather than to say, I messed up.

I'm the one that's broken. I'm the one that's to blame here. It's not the system. It's not Christianity that's caused this. It's not the Christian worldview that has failed me.

I am the one who is weak. I'm the one that is broken. But boy, whether I live or die, whether my marriage is a success or not, Christ is still mine forever. It's understandable to imagine that the thing that this pastor has built his entire ministry on, Christian relationships, successful marriage, if that goes, his identity goes. Who is he now?

It's easier to try and say, well, I'll get rid of the whole lot. I'll try and start fresh. And I wouldn't be surprised if someone would do whatever they can to claw their way out of that despair, even throwing God out of the equation. When we are faced with the fear of losing it all, and it is something, if you think about it enough, there will be something in your life that gives you that fear. If I were to lose this, it may not be the fear of dying.

It may be the fear of losing what you hold precious, what you put your hope in. The comfort of knowing Jesus is that you have already been delivered. You have already received that way out. You have already received a freedom to say those things. They don't define me anymore, whether I have it or I don't.

Paul sits in prison not knowing whether he's going to be physically released, whether he'll ever leave that place, and yet he can say, I am confident that I am delivered. Why? Because his soul has been delivered for eternity. For me to live is Christ. To go on even in the brokenness of a broken marriage, to live is for Christ.

And to die is gain. Heads I win. Tails you lose. I cannot be defeated as a Christian. And then thirdly, a saved soul lives with tenacity. Tenacity that comes from the reverse ethic of grace.

Now that is a strange sounding sentence. Let me explain. Paul also addresses the fear of the Philippians when it came to experiencing resistance from others. It's one thing to survive a bad situation, you know, physically uncomfortable and whatnot. But there's another element of pain though when it's someone that you know that is hurting you.

Someone that is resisting you. Someone that doesn't like you. You can kind of survive a bad judicial system that sort of, you know, bets against you. But rejection from people that are closest to you, that is a different story. And so here in verses 27 to 30, Paul encourages the Philippians that in all things, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, not being frightened in anything by your opponents. The fear of people who disagree with us is a legitimate fear.

Don't let any pastor say that the fear of not speaking out and talking about your faith and evangelising, you know, that's not a real fear. It is a real fear. Some of us are more stubborn or pig-headed, e.g. me, and care less about whether people, you know, are happy with it or not. I guess I've staked my flag down so they know I'm a pastor. I've got no other option.

I have to. But you might say, I shouldn't care or I don't care, but really, I do want my coworkers to at least not bully me, at least not reject me for being a Christian. I think that's where the real angst has come from with the Israel Folau case. I mean, Christians feel, can we really lose our jobs for believing in Jesus?

Can we be that ostracised by our society simply by upholding Christian worldviews that have been around for two thousand years? So perhaps it's not so much the fear of what we think might happen to us, but it's the fear of how we might be rejected. You fear the resistance of people. And perhaps you don't even fear it so much for yourself, and like you said, like I said, you might be stubborn enough to resist. But you might think, what about my kids?

What about my family? And what if this sort of leads them to undermining their faith so much that they might walk away? Paul accepts that the Christian gospel will bring division, however. He admits that. He, I think, he assumes that it will separate people along the lines of those who believe and are on the winning side and those who are not.

But against the backdrop of this division, Paul says to the Philippians, don't you become divided. Don't you become divided with one another. Verse 27, whatever happens, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that I might hear of you standing firm in the one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. There's a remarkable bit of wisdom in this. Paul is encouraging unity within the church.

It's one of the themes that we'll see comes out in the book of Philippians. But he's saying here where there is a fear of rejection, fear of reprisals from those who oppose the gospel, where that fear exists, Paul encourages as an opposite reaction, tenacity. Bulldog-like just sticking to it. He says, get on with the job. Listen to these words.

He says, stand firm. Strive side by side. Do not be frightened by anything. And all these encouragements are evoking strength and resilience. That's what it's meant to be doing.

It's meant to get us, you know, standing up straight. And the wisdom is found in this, that by staying resilient, staying united, we actually start pushing back against fear. There's a real sense that by drawing in closer together as a church, becoming more single-minded about the mission we should be busy with, reaching people around us for the glory of God and for Christ, staying focused on that task is the way that we overcome fear of resistance. Think about the church splits that you've heard about. Think about the times that there have been massive issues of division and disunity in a church.

Almost every time, it's been because people have lost sight of the big picture and they've started focusing on the lesser important things. When that happens, all sorts of issues start filtering through. Egos get bigger. Egos need to be protected. Irrational fears start popping up.

Self-righteousness rears its ugly head. And Paul is saying against these enemies that are seeking to divide the church, you don't become divided. You stand firm. Strive side by side. And the language Paul is using there is of the gladiatorial battles where these few people would be thrown into the circus and they would have lions and animals and other warriors fight against them.

And these poor warriors would have to back against each other, covering one another's backs, and face out and fight whoever is coming. Who's seen that scene in Russell Crowe's Gladiator where they have to do that? They have to at least come because that enemy can come from anywhere. Strive side by side, pushing back the enemies of Satan and sin and the world. And so Paul is not simply concerned in that language of defending, but also advancing.

He's saying the striving is an advance, is an attack against that resistance. And so it's not this defensive image of poor Christians getting hammered by enemies. Now Paul is talking about the advancement of the gospel, pushing back against the darkness, bringing light into those corners of society that really, really hate God's light. But this is the phenomenon. If Christians are engaged in that fight, unity is maintained.

Once we take our eyes off that fight, that's when we kick up internal fights. And even through the fear of rejection, the fear of failure, the fear of powerful enemies, there is no better way than to keep fighting. Keep fighting. To give up is to lose. The famed World War II general, George S Patton, the great tank commander of World War II, said this: courage is fear holding on just a minute longer.

And if you're into your World War Two history and you know about George Patton's role in World War Two, especially in Europe, you will know that his soldiers won battles by minutes. Just holding on just a little bit longer. It is literally the difference between victory and defeat. And so Christians must be tenacious, fighting and battling and resisting in this war for people's souls and hearts. But it's this tenacity that is given to us by this reversed ethic of grace, and that's what we'll finish on.

Paul begins that encouragement in verse 27 by saying, let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. And it sort of is almost the same as what we read this morning in Galatians 5:1. It is for freedom that you have been set free. You have already received the truth and the good news of the gospel. Now live up to it.

You have received the victory that you cannot lose. You have received the freedom that will never be taken from you. And now live with the tenacity and the courage, the fierceness of knowing that this is all yours. Friend, we live as Christians, or as souls that have been saved by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are like the soldiers who know or who know that they will win the battle.

We live and we fight as soldiers knowing that we've won. We live with the purity of a saint who already knows they have conquered every sin. And we live with the joy of a bird who has already escaped its cage. And so if you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ, you are a saved soul with nothing to fear. And we can say to fear when it crops up in our lives, and it does, not today, fear.

I will not entertain your thoughts. I will not welcome you in my heart. I will not be consumed by your lies. I will not be overwhelmed by despair or frustration, because I am a saved soul. And we can say, I'm a soldier who has won.

I am a bird who is free. I am a saint who is pure. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for your encouraging word this morning. It is exactly that, courage entering into our souls this morning.

We are brought to life through these words. We are given fresh perspective. We are drawn out of the downward spiral of looking in on ourselves. And Lord, thinking that if this was up to us, we would be hopeless. Thank you for the good news that we don't look to ourselves.

Thank you that you are the God who sees His glory as precious for Himself, God who will not have His plan, who will not have His glory be diminished, at least not for very long and certainly not at the end. We pray, Lord, that we may see ourselves, understand ourselves as part of this great, majestic plan of bringing glory and honour to You. We once again take up and confess our inability at times, our propensity to look away from that great mission, to look at ourselves or our surroundings.

And we confess that and we say sorry for that. And we recalibrate our eyes and our hearts again to focus on You. Father, help us to see that we are saved souls, free, victorious, and strong. Protect our church. Protect what we are trying to do here as Christians on the Gold Coast and in Australia.

And Father, help us to fight against those things that will try to rob us of the joy, the freedom that we have. In Jesus' name, we pray all these things. Amen.