When It Looks Like Losing : Philippians 1-3-30

When It Looks Like Losing

Philippians 1:3–30

There is a particular kind of grief that comes not from losing something, but from watching something you love appear to lose.

The Philippians knew it. They had given Paul their money, their messenger, their prayers, their hearts. And what did they have to show for it? A letter with a return address of prison. If you had loved the work of the gospel as they loved it, you would have asked the question they were surely asking. Is it over? Has it failed? Were we wrong to give ourselves to this?

Hold that question, because Paul knows they are asking it. Listen to how he answers.

“I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has 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.” Philippians 1:12–14, ESV

Look closely at what Paul is describing. The chain that should have shut the gospel in is the very thing carrying it out. Paul is bound to a soldier of the imperial guard, and then to the next, and the next, and the message walks straight into the household of Caesar one guard at a time. The believers who might have gone quiet watched their leader in chains and grew bolder instead of more afraid. The very thing the church counted as the end of the advance was the means of it.

So here is the first question the text presses on us. What if the thing you are grieving as a setback is, in this case, the road the gospel is actually traveling?

Paul is not finished, and what he says next is harder. It would be one thing if every preacher rallied around him. They did not. “Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry … The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment.” Philippians 1:15, 17, ESV

Men were preaching to wound him. They saw a chained rival and reached for the advantage. If anything could have soured the man, it was this. And here a word appears that does not belong.“What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.” Philippians 1:18, ESV

Rejoice. From a prison cell, of all places, about preachers trying to hurt him.

Now we have the thing we cannot explain. Joy in the wrong place. Not denial, because Paul names the rivalry plainly. Not even a brave face, because he keeps coming back to it through the whole letter. The chains are real. The rivals are real. And the joy is real, right there alongside them, refusing to be moved.

So the second question is sharper than the first. Where is his joy coming from, if it does not come from his circumstances and cannot be killed by his enemies?

The answer is in one of the most weighed-down sentences Paul ever wrote.

“For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor 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.” Philippians 1:21–24, ESV

Set Paul’s two options on the board the rest of us spend our lives playing, the one where we move from square to square trying to land on winning and stay off losing. You know the squares. Comfort over hardship. Freedom over chains. Life over death. Put Paul’s reckoning down on that board and a square goes missing. If he lives, that is Christ and fruitful labor. If he dies, that is gain, because it means being with Christ, which is better still. Imprisonment cannot defeat a man like that. Rivals cannot wound him in any way that lasts. Death itself has stopped being a threat, because for Paul it only means arriving where he most wants to be. When Christ is your life and not merely your help, the worst the world can do to you is send you home.

That is where the joy comes from. Not from the circumstances changing, but from the circumstances no longer being able to reach the one thing that matters. It is worth being honest about how hard this is to accept. Reading “to die is gain” on a page is one thing. Meaning it when the loss is yours, and the comfort has not yet come, is another. Paul did not write it from a study. He wrote it chained to a guard, with the trial’s outcome still unknown. Whatever settledness lives in that line was not cheap, and it does not arrive quickly. It is intentionally expensive to hold. And underneath even that, there is a quieter sentence Paul set near the top of the letter, one the Philippians needed more than they knew. “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6, ESV

The work in Philippi was never theirs to complete, and it was never theirs to lose to a Roman chain. The One who started it is the One who finishes it. He is at work in them still, and He will go on working until the day of Christ. His confidence comes from somewhere a cell cannot reach: the faithfulness of the One who began the work. And that faithfulness is bound up with the call he is about to give them to stand firm.

So now we can answer the question the Philippians could not answer for themselves, the question we carry into every season that looks like losing. Has it failed? No. The chains advanced it. The rivals could not stop it. The God who began it has not let go of it.

And here is the command the whole passage has been leaning toward. It lands on us.

“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 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.” Philippians 1:27–28, ESV

The word Paul chooses for “manner of life” carries the sense of citizenship. Live as citizens worthy of the gospel. Philippi prized its Roman citizenship above almost everything. Paul tells them they hold a higher one, and it has a way of living to match. Stand firm. Stand together. And do not be frightened.

Notice that Paul even tells them how to read the hostility. What looked like the mark of their defeat was, he says, a sign pointing two directions at once: toward the destruction of those who set themselves against the gospel, and toward the salvation of those who stand firm. The verdict in both directions comes from God, not from the crowd that looks, for now, like it is winning.

Then he says the thing that turns suffering itself inside out.

“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.” Philippians 1:29, ESV

Look at the word he uses. Granted. Given as a gift. The suffering they had read as a sign that something was wrong was instead the mark that they had been counted worthy to share what Paul was sharing. The very hardship they took for displeasure was the proof that they belonged.

Here is why this church speaks now more than ever. We are tempted by the same arithmetic the Philippians almost believed. We measure the cause of Christ by the same numbers the age around us measures everything: visibility, comfort, momentum, applause, winning. By those numbers a half-filled room of chairs, a friend who quietly stopped coming, a gospel that costs you something at your job or across your own kitchen table, or in your failing body, all of it can read as decline.

I have watched this happen, and not only at a distance. Sometimes the thing we love that appears to lose is us. I have seen people of faith drift toward a counterfeit faith because they were reaching for a more comfortable life, one that tries to reduce the cost of being a disciple. I have seen the church get smaller, and watched time and materials seem to do different math than expected. In all of these things we must realize this: “to live is Christ.” Paul was right. No matter how rough things look, or are, or may be, “to live is Christ.”

None of this is new. Neither is the answer. The gospel was never advancing on that ledger, and it is not retreating on it now. Paul’s chains became the place Christ was preached from. The opposition the Philippians faced was the sign Paul told them it was, pointing to their salvation and their opponents’ ruin. And the God who began the good work has not set it down.

So do not be frightened. Not by the headlines, not by the empty seats, not by the cost, not by the rivals. Stand firm in one spirit. Live worthy of the gospel that bought you. And when it looks most like losing, remember the man in the cell who had already done the math and found there was no square left on the board where Christ could lose. To live is Christ. To die is gain. Stand there, and you cannot be moved.

Philippians 1:6  ·  1:12–14  ·  1:15, 17  ·  1:18  ·  1:21–24  ·  1:27–28  ·  1:29   (ESV)

Thanksgiving and Prayer

³ I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, ⁴ always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, ⁵ because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. ⁶ And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. ⁷ It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. ⁸ For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. ⁹ And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, ¹¹ filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

The Advance of the Gospel

¹² I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, ¹³ so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. ¹⁴ And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. ¹⁵ Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. ¹⁶ The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. ¹⁷ The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. ¹⁸ What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

To Live Is Christ

Yes, and I will rejoice, ¹⁹ for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, ²⁰ 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 honored in my body, whether by life or by death. ²¹ For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. ²² If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. ²³ I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. ²⁴ But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. ²⁵ Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, ²⁶ so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again. ²⁷ 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 that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, ²⁸ 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. ²⁹ 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, ³⁰ engaged in the same conflict that you saw I had and now hear that I still have.

Philippians 1:3–30, ESV