Arline was one of my church members in a previous appointment. In her sixties and suffering from a cruel lung condition, her husband David was devoted to her care. But when I went to visit them, I habitually made them my final call of the afternoon, because although I went to pray with them, they always blessed me with their faith. I thought I had gone to encourage them, but I came away encouraged myself.
They asked me to conduct a renewal of marriage vows for their fortieth wedding anniversary. Arline arrived in her wheelchair and with her oxygen tank. But when it came to the actual renewal of their vows, she pushed herself up out of her chair to stand next to David.
Not a dry eye in the house.
Maybe you too have known people who radiate joy or peace or faith in the middle of extreme trials. What a blessing – and a challenge! – they are.
The Apostle Paul was one such person, too. Dictating his letter to the Philippians from his prison cell in Rome, he speaks of his faith and joy in today’s reading.
But why? Is he boasting about what a great disciple of Jesus he is?
No. Near the end of the reading we hear how he has learned that the Philippians are facing opposition and suffering for their faith. I believe he hopes that his example will be an example of perseverance for his great friends in Philippi (verses 27-30).
What is behind Paul’s strong faith in the face of adversity? It is his belief in what we call the Providence of God. He believes that God can and does still work out his sovereign purposes even when life is not what it should be.
Two thousand years later, the Holy Spirit can take his inspired words and use them to encourage us too when we face troubles, especially when they are related to our faith, but not only then.
Firstly, says Paul, God is at work despite the circumstances.
In verses 12 to 14, Paul tells us that his imprisonment in Rome is not an unmitigated disaster, because the palace guards have learned about his faith, and the local Christians have become more courageous in proclaiming the Gospel.
It’s an outworking of what Paul says in Romans 8:28:
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
This is divine Providence. God will make a way, even when it seems there is no way. Circumstances do not prevent him. He will be at work in surprising ways.
As many of you know, I have two Theology degrees. My second degree was achieved purely by the academic research of a thesis. My supervisor was a theologian called Richard Bauckham. At the time he was quite well-known in academic circles, but his career went into the stratosphere in his next appointment, where he was the Professor of New Testament at St Andrew’s University in Scotland.
Richard retired early from there to devote the rest of his life to academic research and writing, without the responsibilities of teaching and supervising students, let alone the administrative burdens of a professor.
So for him, working away reading and writing, and with a lifelong love of books, his eyesight was very precious to him. However, he suffered a deterioration of sight in his right eye, and by the time it was diagnosed it was too late to recover the loss. Then, around the time of the first lockdown in 2022, the same began to happen in his left eye. He was fearful of losing the ability to follow his calling and do what brought him joy.
Thankfully, despite an initial blunder by a doctor, he eventually saw a consultant who gave him some injections that brought back some of the sight in his left eye – but not all of it. To this day, he still sees straight lines as wavy lines. But he has been able to resume his scholarship.
He has written about this in a recently published book called ‘The Blurred Cross’. The title comes from him not being able to focus clearly on a cross in a hospital chapel, and his reflection on the thought that Jesus’ vision would have been blurred with blood and sweat when he was hanging on the Cross.
The book is worth the price just for the chapter on providence. He sees all sorts of reasons why he or others might reject the idea that God was still at work for good in his life, but discounts them all. His testimony through this traumatic test is that he was still held in the loving arms of God, and that God had good purposes in allowing him to go through this suffering. I am sure that part of those good purposes will be the fruit of this book, which I am sure will bring hope and encouragement to many people who are facing difficulties.
This is what Paul wants the Philippians to know. He is going through adversity, but God is using it for good. He will do the same for them as they face opposition for their faith.
This is the testimony of Richard Bauckham, too. God will still work for good in the bad times, even if what he does is not always what we would ask for. Our circumstances are no barrier to his good and loving purposes.
May that be our testimony, too.
Secondly, God is at work despite sin.
In verses 15 to 18a we have what always sounds to me a slightly strange passage. Unable to preach publicly himself due to his incarceration, Paul talks about those who are preaching while he is chained up. Some, he says, preach Christ out of goodwill, but others do so out of rivalry.
And you might expect someone with the strong convictions Paul has to have something negative to say about those who preach the Gospel out of rivalry. Surely he doesn’t approve? Wouldn’t we expect him to be annoyed that such people are muscling in to the space he has had to vacate?
But no. Paul is just glad that Christ is being preached.
There are some modern equivalents. One would be when we see some of the dubious TV evangelists, especially those who rake in millions of dollars from poor followers, and who make questionable claims about people being healed. Perhaps surprisingly, though, what some of these charlatans say about repentance and the forgiveness of sins is relatively orthodox.
I get angry about the TV evangelists. Their exploitation of the poor so that they can have another private jet is especially egregious to me.
But yet I also have to admit that a good number of people have become followers of Jesus through their preaching.
It’s not that Paul is silent about wrongdoing. We know from other passages that he isn’t. But it is to say he is confident that God’s plans cannot be stymied by human sin.
Goodness and evil are not equal opposites in the universe. God’s grace and mercy are bigger and stronger than sin. A battle may be going on, but God will not allow sin to have the final word. The end result is certain, and it has been certain ever since the Cross, when God took the very worst of human actions, the greatest injustice ever, and used the death of this Son for the greatest good. If we believe that Jesus died for our sins, then we believe in a God who is at work despite sin. He will not be thwarted.
What is going on in our world today that discourages or depresses us? Is it Vladimir Putin and his war against Ukraine? Is it the conflict between the Netanyahu government of Israel and Hamas? Is it abuse scandals? Or two hundred and fifty thousand abortions in the UK last year – clearly most of them were not when the mother’s life or health was in danger?
Whatever troubles you, remember, along with Paul, that God can work despite sin, and he does work despite sin. The Cross assures us of that.
Thirdly and finally, God is at work through prayer.
From the end of verse 18 through to verse 26 we read of Paul’s confidence that God will work for good in response to the Philippians’ prayers for him. He expects he will be released from prison but realises there is still a possibility he might be executed. But no matter, he says: to live is Christ, and to die is gain (verse 21). However God chooses to respond to the prayers of the Philippians, and whether it is what he would prefer or not, it will still always be for the good.
But just because Paul doesn’t know for sure how his imprisonment is going to work out, and because he can see that either outcome could be possible within the will of God, he doesn’t want people to stop praying for him. He wants to be held in the loving embrace of the Father by his friends.
And likewise, I’m sure he doesn’t know how the trials the Philippians themselves are enduring will work out. He isn’t surprised they are suffering. For one thing, it was his own regular experience. And for another, more specifically, he and Silas had faced suffering when they first proclaimed the Gospel in Philippi. You may remember the story in Acts chapter sixteen where Paul casts a spirit out of a slave girl, and when her owners then lose the income they had gained from exploiting her, the evangelists are thrown into jail.
But Paul will not give up praying for the Philippians. He knows God can and will be at work through their persecution and despite it. God is not confounded by opposition to his will. In prayer, Paul supports the heavenly battle to oppose evil and bring good out of it.
This is good news for us when our lives are under the cosh or we are praying for others who are going through unjust pain. We may not know what God’s will is for the situation in question. We can seek to discern his will and then pray for that, but we still may not discover what God wants to do.
And if we are praying for a need where we do not know the will of God, we can still do better than praying something like, ‘Lord, please heal Mrs Smith – if it be your will.’ Sometimes tacking on ‘if it be your will’ to the end of a prayer is a lazy way out or a way of moving onto the next thing. Would it not be better to pray an honest prayer where we say, ‘Lord, I do not know what your will is for Mrs Smith, whether you want her to be healed or to endure her suffering and go to be with you. But whatever it is, I pray that you will be glorified, and that you will bring good out of this situation.’
I still have to learn to pray more like that. What about you?
Conclusion
Paul loves the Philippians so much that he wants to use his own experiences of adversity to encourage and strengthen them. They can have faith to believe that God is at work despite their circumstances, despite sinful opposition, and despite not always knowing how and what to pray for.
As we face challenges, both new and old, may we look to the Holy Spirit to help us follow in their footsteps.
Big Circumstance 
What Do You Think?