By Mike Dawson
Pastor Emeritus, First Baptist Church, Columbia
Focal Passage: Philippians 1:12-26
Nashville publisher Bob Benson was a great story teller. I remember him telling about a friend who was recovering from heart surgery. Bob asked him, “Brother, how’d you enjoy your heart attack?” His friend replied, “Enjoy it? What do you mean, man? It was awful!” Bob continued with questions, “Do you appreciate your wife more than you did? Do you love your children more? Do you cherish your friends more than ever?” Each time, the brother answered, “Yes! More than ever in my life!” Bob continued, “So I ask you again, how’d you enjoy your heart attack?”
The Apostle Paul found ‘joy’ in adversity, and he tells us why in today’s text, Philippians 1:12-26. This passage could be labeled “Glorying in the Gospel,” because that’s just what prisoner Paul is doing:
1. Glorying in Gospel Problems (verses 12-14). A ‘jailbird’ can’t expect to do much flying, and the Roman government thought they had clipped Paul’s witnessing wings by locking him up. Yet Paul gloried in the situation. He turned his miseries into ministries (verse 12). Prison workers saw Christ in Paul’s adversity (verse 13), and some of his fellow believers were emboldened by his situation to speak the word without fear (verse 14). May others see Jesus in how we deal with mistreatment. [Read more…]