October 11, 2026 | When Christ Reigns

When Christ Reigns | Philippians 1:12-18

Philippians 1:12–18

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.

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense 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 pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice.

Yes, and I will rejoice. (ESV)

In “When Christ Reigns,” Jed Gillis examines Philippians 1:12–18 to show how allegiance to Jesus transforms our priorities. Paul’s response to imprisonment and opposition demonstrates that the advance of the gospel matters more than personal comfort, the spiritual growth of fellow believers matters more than personal freedom, and Christ’s glory matters more than reputation or recognition. As the gospel changes us, it produces peace, love, and courage that strengthen our witness to others. Even circumstances we would never choose can become opportunities for ministry. Paul’s joy in Christ being proclaimed—even by those seeking to hurt him—challenges believers to surrender selfish ambition and defensiveness, treasure Jesus above themselves, and find joy in the work of their King.

Transcript of When Christ Reigns | Philippians 1:12-18

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Jed Gillis: I wanna ask you a question as we look at Philippians 1 this morning. What does allegiance to Christ do in your life? What change does it make? How is your life different because you know that Christ reigns, and you are committed to Him, than if you didn't know that or if you weren't committed to Him?

This is one of the themes as I've, as I've looked at this book, I keep coming back to these kind of amazing things that Paul says. These things that feel like almost superhuman or super Christian at least, where Paul says things like, "Look, I know how to have a lot of things and I know how to have very little, and I'm content." Does that feel hard to you? 'Cause it feels hard to me. Where Paul talks about things like, "Don't do anything out of selfish ambition." Does that feel hard? Feels hard to me. Where Paul can say things like we're gonna read this morning, like people are preaching Jesus trying to afflict me. And praise God, Jesus is being preached! There's some wild stuff Paul says in this book. Things like, "I count all things as loss, as garbage compared to the worth of knowing Jesus." Like, Paul says all these things that are, are huge. And I think as we go through this book, I hope and pray that God challenges you the same way he challenges my heart. The reason Paul can say that is because of his total commitment and allegiance to his King—to Jesus.

True Allegiance Changes Your Life

Jed Gillis: True allegiance to Jesus has an impact on you. Not just if you say, "Well, I'm committed to Jesus, but I don't treasure him." But the allegiance is more than just, "Yes, I'm on that team." It's a commitment and a treasuring of Christ. How does that change your life? You see, you can take your normal average life and you can add church attendance to it. You can take your normal life and add good works to it, and you could live your normal life the rest of the week exactly the same, really. You can't take true full allegiance to Christ and just add it on top of everything else and expect nothing to change.

I was struck this morning just as we sang how many times we sang the word Lord or Christ, both of which we run right past sometimes as if that's just part of Jesus' name, right? But it's, it's Lord, it's Master, the one who deserves all of my allegiance, and it's Christ, the King, the anointed Messiah. These are kingship words. These are allegiance words. And Paul's already illustrated this in the book. He said, "If your allegiance is genuinely to Christ, your relationships will grow to look like what we've been talking about." You'll continuously remember fellow believers with gratitude and with joy. You'll want to reach out and show costly initiative-taking love. That's part of what allegiance to Christ does. It transforms us in that way.

And as we go through this book, I want that question to always be every time you, you look at our bulletin, you look at our email, and you see allegiance written on there, that's the question I want in your mind like it's in mine. What does that allegiance to Christ actually do? How does it change me? How does it change us as a body?

And I wanna say again, I said this last week, I won't say it every week, but I'm gonna say it this week. When you hear things like this, every single one of us, if we're honest, we look at our lives and we say, "There are things in my life that aren't perfectly transformed like they should be."

There's not, like, a group of people in this room who need to beat themselves up, "Oh, I'm so terrible at this," and a group of people who go, "Oh, I got it. I'm-- I've kind of pretty much figured this out." That- that's not how it works. I believe that God uses His Word to bring conviction so that we will grow.

Responding to Conviction with Humility

Jed Gillis: Every believer here has areas in our lives that we can say, "I don't fully live out my allegiance to Christ in this area." Every believer has that. So I wanna encourage you, don't be so proud to think you have no areas to grow, and don't be so emotionally fragile that you can't look at something and say, "This isn't where it should be. God, help me." Or, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." You notice he starts that with Lord, by the way? Like, "I know You're Lord, I know You're the master, but I'm not where I should be, so help me." Let that be our attitude as we see Paul and what he says.

Scripture Reading: Philippians 1:12–18

Jed Gillis: Let's read beginning in verse 12. 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 more 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 it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense 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 pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that I rejoice.

When I get this glimpse into Paul, I'm, I'm amazed. That's not how humans normally respond. Humans don't normally take people who wound them and go, "Well, Jesus is preached." Humans don't normally say, "I'm in chains, I'm in prison," but people are growing and learning. People are speaking the truth of the gospel.

1. Gospel Advance over Personal Comfort

Jed Gillis: Paul's life has been transformed. So this morning we're gonna structure around just a few sentences to describe what happens when Christ reigns in your life. Here's the first one. When Christ reigns, the advance of the gospel is more important than my comfort. When Christ reigns, or I could say as your allegiance to Christ grows, when Christ reigns, the advance of the gospel is more important than my comfort. So we could ask, "Well, what is this advance of the gospel? What does that mean?" The word advance here is used sometimes to say progress. Take a couple mental images.

In ancient Greek, it's used to talk about the progress of moral development in a person. We would use a phrase like character development. So if you said character advancement, that's one of the ways it's used. In fact, it's used that way in 1 Timothy 4. Paul says to Timothy, uh, "Pursue these things, faith and godliness," and a list of things, and, and stay away from these other things, "so that all may see your progress" or your advance. Same word. Uh, this word's also used in the ancient Greek word, world for a Roman legion advancing.

So in modern warfare, we think, you know, the F-35 flies in and hits something from miles away and flies out, and nobody ever sees it, right? But i- in ancient warfare, when you had a Roman legion coming to besiege your city, you saw it a long ways off, and it just little by little, by little, by little, by little, by little kept moving. That's the word advance or progress. It's this idea of something you can see. It's not necessarily fast, but it's perceivable and it's feels inevitable: the advance of the gospel.

Now, in one sense, we could say that happens through what we call evangelism. You go and share the gospel with someone who is not a believer. And we could think this would not be a, an, a strange thought for the Philippians, right?

The Gospel Advances in Us and through Us

Jed Gillis: So especially for them, think back to the stories you know from Philippi. We have a particular character we talk about, the Philippian jailer. He knows what happens when you imprison Paul. Paul sings. And that jailer saw Paul and Silas first beaten, falsely accused. He saw them say, "Hey, we're here for Jesus." He saw them willing to suffer for Christ. He saw them have joy in difficult circumstances, and he saw God's rescuing power. All of that happened because Paul was imprisoned in Philippi. And at the end of it, the Philippian jailer in astonishment says, "What must I do to be saved?" So if you were just to say the sentence to the Philippians, "Imprisonment can help the gospel advance," they've got a category for that in their head. The jailer's probably sitting on the front row saying, "Yep, I know that. That's me."

But the story reminds us more than just evangelism because the story didn't start with Paul preaching and the Philippian jailer saying, "What must I do to be saved?" It started with all of those things I just described: suffering, unlawful accusation, being beaten.

And yet Paul and Silas weren't like other prisoners, right? The gospel had advanced not just to the jailer, but it had progressed in their heart, developing in them Christlikeness, developing in them trust for God even in difficult circumstances. The, the good news of Jesus had transformed them so much that they sung at midnight while they were chained up.

My family and I just went camping for a couple nights. I didn't feel like singing at midnight, and there were no chains involved. Kind of felt like going to a bed that would be more comfortable. Like, Paul and Silas had been so transformed by the advance of the gospel in their hearts that the jailer could see that, and that meant when they said, "Hey, what must I do to be saved?" He s- "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ." He says, "Well, if believing on the Lord Jesus Christ does that for you, hey, I'm here."

The, the advance of the gospel in Paul and Silas empowered or stood behind the advance of the gospel through Paul and Silas. If the gospel hasn't changed you and you try to tell somebody, "Here's the gospel of Jesus Christ and why it matters for you," they- they'll pick up on that pretty fast. The gospel advances in us and then through us.

Paul and the Praetorian Guard

Jed Gillis: So that, and he describes here, many people, especially in, this text says the imperial guard, and it says to all the rest, many people in the imperial guard knew the reason for Paul's imprisonment. Says he was imprisoned for Christ. Uh, this, this idea of the imperial guard, it's described as the Praetorian Guard sometimes. Paul is likely, I think it's pretty, pretty certain, but there's a little bit of debate. You could go read it if you get into that kind of thing.

Uh, Paul is likely writing from Rome, and he's likely writing after he's imprisoned in Rome back to the church at Philippi.

So in Rome, there was this group called the Praetorian Guard, which were like the power behind the Roman Emperor's throne. About 9,000 men, give or take, kind of the hardened war veterans who have been out there, and they've, they've conquered people, and they have absolutely won their battles repeatedly. They protected the emperor. They were the reason the emperor could say, "Do this," and people did it because you didn't wanna mess with these guys. They also, if you know your Roman history, they also would occasionally decide, "You know, you're done being emperor," and the emperor would not be emperor anymore. That was the Praetorian Guard. It's like the, the Roman Special Forces, if you will. And those were the people who heard about the gospel.

And I want you to notice something here. The, the ESV translates this that the, his imprisonment was for Christ. Literally, it's the same word he uses when he talks about being in Christ. You could say his imprisonment was in Christ. I think he's saying more than just imprisoned for Christ in that sense. He's saying these people have heard about the gospel. You think about what they would often do. They'd have guards sitting outside Paul's cell.

Now, I think we know Paul's favorite topic of conversation. I doubt he was just small talking about the weather with these guys. I think he would probably ask them questions, and he'd probably find out a little about them, and then they'd say, "Paul, you're different. What's going on, man?" And we don't know exactly how that would have happened, but I can imagine one of those soldiers talking about Paul. Scripture doesn't say this, but use your imagination to think what would that be like? I can imagine one of these soldiers saying, "This guy Paul, he's not like the other prisoners." And think about it, a Praetorian guardsman, he knows what other prisoners are like.

Like, he's not like other prisoners I've seen. They're desperate. Maybe they're bitter. Of course, none of them ever did anything wrong. They're always falsely accused. Maybe they're entitled, "I deserve better than this." It's like that, that's what prisoners do. But this guy Paul, he, he doesn't just say he's in prison for Christ, he says he's in prison in Christ, and I'm like, "What on earth does that mean, Paul?" It... Somehow Paul talks about this like he is connected to his king. He doesn't just serve his king. The Praetorian guardsman goes, "I've conquered plenty of people who served their king." That happened all the time. But this guy Paul says he's, he's connected to his king. He's somehow, like, united to this king, and Paul says he's more powerful than this Roman emperor. Which of course, the Praeta- Praetorian guardsman might say, "Well, yeah, the Roman emperor doesn't have much power without me." But somehow Paul talks about this guy like he's more powerful than Rome as if that were possible.

And yet there's something different about Paul. He has peace while he's in the chains. Maybe the guardsman's thinking, "I don't have peace and I'm guarding him." Paul seems happier and more content sitting there in jail than I do. He sings behind bars. I don't think he only did that in Philippi. I don't know if he did it in Rome, but I, I like to think he probably did. He sings behind bars. Even some of his fellow Christians seem to turn on him, like, they, they preach out of rivalry. And he just says, "I'm in Jesus. What are you gonna do to me?"

I've seen plenty of prisoners come claiming to serve another ruler, and they always either break or want to die. But Paul doesn't break, and he's not afraid of dying, but he's also like, "No, I wanna be here to serve the citizens of my king." Like, can you imagine how strange that would be to a guardsman who's seen plenty of people be captured and beaten and killed because they served a king who got conquered? And now he hears this story and says, "Paul served this King Jesus, and it seems like he got conquered. He died." And yet Paul's in Christ, and it's totally changed his life. It, this is the kind of thing.

Now you can imagine that guy who sits with him for a few hours goes and he tells his buddy, and his buddy says, "Oh, I gotta, I gotta hear some of this. Let me take your shift next time." And Paul's like, "Good, new person." That's what he's describing, is that this has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. Paul says, "Look, I didn't think I would be here. I would not have chosen these circumstances, but this is where God has placed me." And look at how the gospel just continues, like a Roman legion advancing that's inevitable. That's the way Paul views this.

The Fruit of Allegiance: Peace, Love, and Witness

Jed Gillis: So I want you to think a couple things about this section. One, the effective advance of the gospel through you is built on the advance of the gospel in you. If the gospel is the good news of God's undeserved favor towards you through King Jesus, when that saturates you, when it fills all of your soul, it changes you. If the average unbeliever walked in off the streets in here and talked to person after person after person after person whose life just radiates peace, whose life just radiates, "I have God's favor towards me and He loves me." That would blow their mind.

Think about all the people you talk to who don't have peace. Their lives are full of anxiety. They're stressed all the time. Somebody walks in and sees, look at what the gospel has changed in this person or this person or this person or this person or this person.

The advance of the gospel through you is built partly on the advance of the gospel in you. So does your allegiance to Christ change the way you experience the stresses and the challenges of life? Ask yourself, can I clearly see the fruit of allegiance to Christ in my life?

Just to give a couple examples, I just said one, the rest and peace in your soul. But earlier in the chapter, the kind of initiating love towards other believers, even when they're not perfect, because they're not. Does that fruit of allegiance show up in your life? Do you see it? Do you share the truth of the gospel? Are you willing to talk about it? Are you willing to share, "Here's the good news of my king"? 'Cause we know this in other areas, by the way. When somebody has real allegiance to something, they share it. Think, maybe it's kinda waned a little bit, but a few years back, if somebody had a real commitment to CrossFit, they would tell you about it or really good coffee or certain kinds of organic food or take your pick, right? If you have a strong allegiance to something, you're like, "Hey, let me tell you this awesome thing." We share that. Does that show up in your life? And I want you to hear this clearly.

The solution to that, if you say, "No, I don't share the truth like I should. I'm not really willing to. Okay, I'm gonna try really hard this week to share the truth with somebody." You can try that. That's not really how this works for Paul.

His allegiance to Christ is what drives him. It's not a to-do list, "Oh, I did all these things." It's, "Am I really committed to my King Jesus?" And if you sit and say, "I don't do this like I should," then bow before your King's throne. Say, "You are my King, please change me. Please help me." If you don't have that rest and peace that comes from allegiance to Christ in your soul, if you feel like it wanes and goes up and down a lot, that's probably where most of us are, keep coming back to that throne. My allegiance is to King Jesus. King Jesus has more power than the Praetorian Guard, or the United States, or any country that's ever existed, or Satan. You come back, "My, my allegiance is to Him, that's why I have peace. Because my King is not conquered, and He's not going to be conquered." Is that fruit in your life?

Ministry through Unchosen Circumstances

Jed Gillis: And I want you to think of, uh, another sentence here. Paul's ministry was advanced in places he would not have expected through circumstances he would not have chosen. Think about all the circumstances in your life that you would not have chosen. You probably have a lot. What's your perspective on that?

Paul was in jail. He could easily have said, "Jesus, I was trying to spread your word to Rome and then beyond Rome to Spain, and I wanted to get the gospel everywhere I possibly could. Why'd you lock me in one place? I would not have chosen these circumstances." And instead, Paul says, "Hey, guess what? The Praetorian guardsmen who wouldn't have never talked to me, they're a captive audience." Paul's ministry was advanced in places he would not have expected through circumstances he would not have chosen. Where does God wanna advance your influence and your ministry through circumstances you would not have chosen? Can you rest in that? Because allegiance to Christ trumps circumstances. It changes your perspective on those circumstances, and it changes your experience of them. That's part of what changes within us.

2. Spiritual Growth over Personal Freedom

Jed Gillis: So when Christ reigns, one of the things that happens is that the advance of the gospel is more important than my comfort. Here's the second one. When Christ reigns, the spiritual growth of my brothers and sisters is more important than my freedom. Look at what he says. Verse 14, "Most of the brothers," probably this is the brothers at Rome, if this is where he's in prison, it's probably the Christian community in Rome is what he's thinking about, because they're the ones who would have heard mostly of what had happened. "Most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear."

Paul's in jail. He's like, "I'm limited. I can't go out. I can't do all these things. My freedom is severely curtailed here. I'm stuck." And yet he goes, "Hey, God's people are growing. They're more confident to speak the word without fear." A- and he doesn't tell us exactly how that works, but, but we could guess.

They see God at work keeping Paul. Paul's safe. Paul's still loving Jesus. Paul's still content. Paul's still praising Jesus. They see God working through his imprisonment, not just in spite of it. It's not like, "Well, I guess he's in jail. Now I gotta figure out plan B." It's like, no, Paul says, "Hey, God put me here so Praetorian guardsmen can hear." They see God working in those difficult circumstances. If Paul has such great allegiance for Jesus that these circumstances can be sources of praise for him, then can I speak the Word of God with more boldness? That's probably what's going on.

Encouraging Others through Hardship

Jed Gillis: If God can work through those circumstances, can I trust him in my circumstances?

This is why, by the way, there's such value in knowing other believers who have difficult circumstances but who genuinely continue to trust and love God. If you say, "Hey, my life just is really, really difficult. My circumstances are really terrible," I'm sure Paul could've said some of the same things. And one of the things God does through that is he encourages and strengthens fellow believers. You need to know people like that. Paul's gonna say that later, by the way, right? Uh, keep your eyes on those who practice these things so that you imitate them. Follow me as I follow Christ.

Like, why does he say all that? Because he's saying, "Look, my allegiance is to Jesus, and the more you see that and see how it's worth it, the more you're gonna want to do the same." It's good for us to know these circumstances.

By the way, if you say, "Hey, my life's got some really hard circumstances, and I really wanna trust Jesus," sometimes I think we get so afraid of sharing our hard circumstances because we don't want to complain. That's a good thing. We shouldn't wanna complain. Paul has some things to say about that in chapter two.

But there are brothers and sisters in this body that encourage me because they share their difficulties, because they say, "Look, here's the circumstances that are really, really hard, but Jesus is worth it. Here's the thing that makes me wanna quit, but Jesus is worth it." That's not complaining. As long as we end with Jesus is worth it, it's not complaining. This text reminds us it's important to know believers who endure difficult circumstances because of their allegiance to Christ. Paul would rather see his brothers and sisters grow than be free himself.

Serving the Body beyond Our Preferences

Jed Gillis: How about you? If you lose the freedom of following your preferences, but brothers and sisters around you are growing as a result of what you're doing, do you rejoice?

Like, it's easy for us i- in a world where we're, we're busy, if sometimes gathering with, with God's people can feel like, "Oh, it's a, it's a restraint," like a "have to." Sometimes commitment to a local body or serving others feels like, "Man, that really kinda crimps my style. I can't do the things I wanna do." Our freedom is a little bit limited. Not anywhere near like Paul's, but a little bit limited. Does your allegiance to Christ make you eager to see the growth of your brothers and sisters even if it limits your freedom in some ways? It was for Paul. And it was the natural conclusion of Paul saying, "Jesus is Lord." If Jesus is Lord, then that's how much I love to see Jesus' people grow. So when Christ reigns, the spiritual growth of my brothers and sisters is more important than my freedom.

3. Christ's Glory over My Reputation

Jed Gillis: And then another statement, when Christ reigns, His glory is more important than my reputation or approval. See what he says in verse 15.

Look, some indeed preach Christ from envy. So some of, looking back at four- verse 14, the brothers, believers who were more confident to preach because Paul was imprisoned and they see God working, some of those people indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry. Some of the same group. Now, some of this group has great motives. He describes that, love and goodwill. Some of this group has terrible motives. He starts with envy. So this is probably something like a, a believer who says, "Man, Paul's success, and his influence, and his Instagram following," they probably didn't say that, "but his influence and his, his spread, it looks really good. Man, I wish I had that."

And then they say, "Hey, what? Paul's in jail? He can't post three times a week now? Well, I'm gonna take advantage of that. I'm gonna preach Christ, and Paul hasn't quite, you know, gotten the Church of Rome all on his side yet, so I'm gonna preach Christ and I'm gonna be the person who's in charge of Rome."

Rivalry, Tribes, and Selfish Ambition

Jed Gillis: There's envy towards Paul. There's, uh, rivalry, or some translations say strife or, or like factionalism, divis- divisiveness. It's probably like in Corinth when Paul said-- talks about them and he says, "Some of you say I am of Paul, and some say I am of Cephas, and some say I am of Apollos, and some say I am of Christ." They, they split up into all these divisions based on like, "This is the person I really follow." We do this all the time, right?

We have the internet and so we can watch all these different preachers. And so we have the MacArthur people and the Piper people, and we could go down the list.

Years ago, I saw a, a well-known preacher, watched one of his sermons on his website. He had an introductory video. One of the things he said I thought was fantastic. At the beginning of the video, he said, "We're really glad you found this sermon. We hope it serves you, but we cannot replace your local church. We can't replace a pastor who knows you. We can't replace elders who care for you. We can't replace brothers and sisters who love you and walk alongside you." At that time, at least, that was the introductory video to every sermon on his website. And I appreciate that.

He was trying to be careful to say, "I'm not trying to create this nationwide faction of followers of this person." But some of them were preaching out of that kind of rivalry. "I'm gonna get my people, my tribe."

Or he describes their motive again in verse 17, a little different word, "The former proclaimed Christ out of selfish ambition." They were eager to build their own ministry. They wanted to preach and minister so that it would benefit them. That was their whole point. They were comparing results with Paul more than they were trying to genuinely minister and care and love the people who were there.

This kind of comparison also happens in our digital world. Happens a lot. People build their, their digital reach by critiquing other brothers and sisters. Like, that's their main thing they do. Of course, this is challenging. Of course, there's a place for calling out false teaching. I don't have time to go down that whole sermon. Paul says, "Guard sound doctrine." That's all important, yes, but selfish ambition is easy to fall into by comparing and pointing and finding something you can criticize about that person and their ministry and their teaching. All over the internet.

And by the way, don't think Paul says, "Well, your motive doesn't matter," because if you turn over to chapter two and verse three, he's gonna say, "Do nothing from selfish ambition." That's the exact same word here. He's not saying, "That's fine that they have selfish ambition as long as Jesus is preached." That's not the point. But he's saying, "Even when I see bad motives in what they're doing and when those bad motives are directed at me, I can still rejoice in the good that's there through Jesus." That's pretty amazing. It says they preached from selfish ambition, and then he says, "Not sincerely."

This is like a summary term. Their, their motives were impure. Maybe they had some good motives mixed in, sure. But their motives were impure. They didn't preach sincerely, and he even tells you specifically the end of verse 17, "But thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment." Maybe they think, "If our following grows, Paul's gonna get more and more upset in jail that he can't get out and grow his following."

Maybe that's what's going on. We don't really know exactly how they thought it would afflict him. Maybe they thought, "Oh, it's a competition, so if I'm winning, Paul has to feel bad." Maybe they thought if Christianity grows and grows and grows, it'll make Paul's legal situation even worse. I don't know.

But here's what I do know. Paul could say under inspiration of the Holy Spirit, "They are trying to hurt me."

Now that triggers defensiveness, typically, right? It's not just, well, they're preaching and it happens to not be fitting with what I do. No, it's like they are actually thinking to afflict me. They're trying to hurt me.

Rejoicing When Christ Is Proclaimed

Jed Gillis: Verse 18: "What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed. And in that, I rejoice." As long as Jesus is held up as king and the good news of Jesus is preached, Paul says, "I'm gonna rejoice in that." Even when I'm sure he could write a strongly worded letter, he's already done that plenty of times, right? But he could write a strongly worded letter about their motives. He could correct them doctrinally on some areas. He could do all of that. But he could say, "Look, in the middle of all that, you are preaching Jesus." And his allegiance to Jesus is so strong, it impacts his life so much that it means that his King and Jesus' glory is more important to Paul than his tribe and its popularity.

Thankfully, some of these people were preaching out of good motives. And Paul says, i- it's interesting that the ... It's here in the English, it's emphasized a little more in the Greek. The first group, they think they're gonna afflict me in my imprisonment. That's what he says. But then he says of the group that spe- speak out of love, "They know that I am put here in defense for the gospel." It's like, "They think they're gonna afflict me. Doesn't work, 'cause I love Jesus too much for that. But this group who preaches out of love,

they know why I'm here. I'm here not to spread the gospel further at the moment, because I'm in prison, so I can't really go anywhere. I'm not here to go plant more churches right now, because, I mean, the Praetorian Guard's all I got to work with right here." But I'm here to defend the gospel at this point, not to advance it in the same way. They know why I'm here. And so Paul rejoices that Christ is being preached. Again, he's not saying motives don't matter, but remember, he's also not writing to the people who are teaching. He's also not writing to the church at Rome. He's writing to the church at Philippi who aren't hearing these teachers, so he's not addressing all of those things. He doesn't need to.

That's instructive for us, by the way. You don't have to address every error you find. Despite a lot of the interaction around the internet, you don't have to. He says, "Jesus is preached. Yes, I have a problem with their motives. Yes, there's some doctrinal issues. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, but Jesus is preached, and in that I rejoice."

Allegiance beyond Defensiveness and Hurt

Jed Gillis: And so Paul's allegiance to Christ trumps his defensiveness and his rivalry and his woundedness.

I want you to think about brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe sitting in the same room, maybe in Knoxville, maybe in the US, however far you wanna take that scope. But think about brothers and sisters in Christ. Think about how often we get defensive. "I think somebody's hurting me. I think they might be out to get me on something." Allegiance to Christ says, "But they're a brother who loves Jesus." We might have to have some hard conversations, sure. But they're a brother who loves Jesus.

Allegiance to Christ means I don't have to have that level of defensiveness. I don't have to have that level of woundedness. There's a whole lot of church hurt in our world. Some of that's really real; some of that really comes from major heinous, awful things. So do not hear me saying church hurt doesn't matter. But Jesus is a good enough king that if believers have hurt you, you can still love His people. My hurt doesn't trump Jesus. Ever. That's what allegiance to Christ does. It says, "I'm not king, so you might do something that hurts me in some ways." Paul says they're trying to, right?

I've been struck this week thinking about that, like, that is so hard. He's not e- just saying they accidentally do this.

They are trying to hurt me by preaching my King, so they can't touch me. That's amazing! That's somebody who is so not consumed with himself and so consumed with King Jesus. Allegiance trumps defensiveness, rivalry, and woundedness.

Conclusion: Three Tests of Allegiance

Jed Gillis: So I wanna go back and summarize three sentences again.

I want you I want you to ask yourself, "Is this true in my life?" And I know that if you're honest, you're gonna say it's not as true as it ought to be in every area. So we take that before our King and say, "Jesus, keep working in my heart. Change me."

First, when Christ reigns, the advance of the gospel is more important than my comfort. That's evangelism, that's also growth in character and discipleship. That's all of those things put together. The advance of the gospel is more important than my comfort.

When Christ reigns, the spiritual growth of my brothers and sisters is more valuable than my freedom. And when Christ reigns, the glory of my king is a deeper source of joy than the popularity of my tribe or my feelings. That's what allegiance to Christ does. None of those things will be true without a consuming, committed allegiance to Jesus Christ. None of them. If you are king in your life and your allegiance is to you, those will not be true of you.

But if Jesus is really your king and your allegiance is to him, then he will be working to bring growth in those areas.

Remember, we're not all there. But that's what Jesus wants to be doing within you: to transform you, to have that kind of relationship with Him so that you can love His people well and do His work here on this earth.

Personal Response

Jed Gillis: I wanna invite you to take a moment and bow your heads and bow your hearts before Jesus, our King. Ask Him to work in whatever area of transforming you. If His Spirit has laid something on your heart, ask Him to make you more fully committed as a servant of Jesus. Why don't you take some time and respond to the truth of God's Word, and then we'll sing together.