The Apostle Paul wrote his most joyful letter while chained to Roman guards. He was confined to house arrest for over two years. But instead of whining and complaining, Paul declared that his captivity had accelerated the spread of the gospel instead of hindering it. Today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindahl continues his biographical study of Paul. In this next message, we'll examine several verses from Paul's letter to the Philippians.
Along the way, we'll discover four essential attitudes for living above our circumstances. Chuck titled his message, Arrested, Confined, But Still Effective. For the next few minutes, let's think about the people who make a difference in our lives. Not just the world at large, but the people who make a difference to us. To drive home a point, let's begin by taking a quiz.
No pen and paper needed. You can do this quiz in your head. This quiz comes in two parts. Let's start with this part first. Name the five wealthiest people in the world today.
Question number two. Name the five Last Heisman Trophy winners. Number three. Name the five winners of the Miss America contest in the last five years. Number four.
Name 10 people who have won either the Nobel or Pulitzer Prize. Try four. Five, name the last half dozen Academy Award winners for Best Actor and Best Actress. Just five. Number six, name the last decade's worth of World Series winners.
or if you prefer, the most valuable players. Of the last 10 World Series.
Well, how'd you do? You flonk just like I flonked. You could probably not name three to say nothing of ten. Or two to say nothing of five. Why?
Well, obviously These are no second-rate achievers. They're the best in their fields and. In fact, They are award-winning individuals, but Unfortunately, awards tarnish and memories fade.
So let's try the second part of the quiz and see how you do. Name two teachers in your life who made a difference in your educational journey. Just two. Second. List three friends who were there for you during a difficult time of your life.
Next. Name a mentor or two who believed in you. Um thought of you as someone worthwhile. which you will never forget. Number four, think of five people you enjoy spending an evening with.
Just because they're fun to be with. And you admire them so. And Finally, name three or four heroes, living or dead. whose lives have inspired you and encouraged you to do better.
Well, how'd you do? Ha ha ha ha. Don't you love the last part of the quiz? I mean, it's a, you made an A. Matter of fact, if I'd given you time, you could have named more than two or three or five.
Why?
Because the people who make a difference are not those who have the most impressive credentials. Are those whose financial portfolio Is significant in the eyes of the world, or even those who have won the most awards. They don't make a difference. In fact, They are forgotten so quickly, you can't even name them a year or less later. The people who made a difference in your life are those who have pulled up close and personal.
They are folks who have become for you Not only friends, but in some cases, You're heroes. And you know me when it comes to heroes, I believe in them. With all my heart. We never grow too old. that we no longer need them.
Isn't it interesting that with heroes, their looks don't matter? Doesn't make any difference what their IQ is, or for that matter. How well they did in school or their educational accomplishments, what degrees they have earned. Their popularity, their financial status, that's never important. You not only aren't impressed by it, you don't even care about it.
What you care about is that there was something about them that made them so effective that your life was made different because of that. In fact, age didn't make any difference. As they got older, they just stayed. as effective as ever. Why?
How does that happen? What will it be after you're dead and gone, and your name is preserved only on a granite stone? What will it be? that will be remembered. What single, if I could limit it to one, what single element will be there?
that will cause individuals to say that person was effective. in my life. In answering that question, I invite you to turn to the little letter named Philippians in the New Testament. It's one of the smaller four chapter letters that Paul wrote. Locate Philippians, and when you do, stop at chapter 1, verse 2.
Yeah. Just that one verse. Then we'll look at a couple of them in chapter 4. Philippians 1.12 He gets pretty personal. He has just talked about how much he Thanks God for them, and he remembers briefly how they came together and what the circumstances of his writing the letter were all about.
But he gets to verse 12 and he says, Now I, sort of a transition into some very personal remarks.
Now I want you to know, brethren. that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel. Hold your place there and find chapter 4. Verse 11. And the verse that follows.
4.11. Not that I speak, once again, very personal, Paul writes, not that I speak from want. For I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means and I also know how to live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of being filled.
and going hungry. Both of having abundance And Suffering need. Stop with that period. Three verses. In each verse, the same interesting word appears.
Go back and look. Chapter 1, verse 12. It appears. Chapter 4, verse 11, it's there. Chapter 4, verse 12.
It reappears. Circumstance. Interesting, there is no Greek word for circumstance. Sure. It's the whole idea of What has happened to me?
The situation in which I find myself. Where I am. Look again now with that in mind. I want you to know, brethren, my circumstances have turned out for the. greater progress of the gospel.
Verse 11. I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances. Verse 12. In any and every Circumstance.
So there's no condition, there's no restriction, there are no boundaries built around it. This is regardless of what has happened to me. I'm living beyond that. I'm living above that. I'm living in a way that transcends that.
That's why he was such an influential man. That's why the heroes of your life have influenced you as they have. Not one of them was the type that found himself or herself in the. Pitiful vice of victim. I mean, if you knew how hard I had it, you wouldn't be able to rise much above it either.
That's not a hero. The hero is the individual who can say, in any and every circumstance, in whatever circumstance I am, and look at that list. A humble means Prosperity. Being filled. Going hungry.
Having abundance and suffering need. We're talking extreme circumstances. I mean the man's bulletproof. I think some of you may be tempted to think right about now. I wish I had been born with a temperament like that.
I really wish that I could have learned, as Paul must have learned from his mom and dad, how to live like that. Stop. This kind of thinking isn't in our genes. It's not part of our DNA. How would I see that?
Because more than once the apostle says, I have learned, verse 11 of chapter 4, I have learned to be content. I have learned. How to think like this. I have learned how to have an attitude that is above the realm of my situation. I've learned that.
It's a learned trait. The Greek term for learned means an entrance into a new condition. Says Kenneth Weist. Entrance into a new condition. Paul taught himself, if I may use those words.
Through the power of Christ to enter new situations without letting those circumstances impact him negatively. He rose above them. He lived beyond them.
Now, I've deliberately waited until now to tell you what his circumstances are. Maybe you'd forgotten. Or perhaps maybe you never knew.
Sounds almost like Paul wrote this while sipping iced tea through a straw on one of the islands of the Aegean, huh? Or maybe at his favorite vacation spot. Out in a desert location where he could be alone with his thoughts. Could it be that he was in a penthouse overlooking a lake where the sailboats are floating by? And who wouldn't be content in a setting like that?
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. First of all, he is in busy, overpopulated Rome. He is under arrest.
falsely accused. He is in his own rented quarters with a Roman soldier chained to his side. All through the day, And he's there for more than two years. during which time he writes this and three other letters, commonly referred to as the prison letters. A misnomer, he really wasn't in prison, though he was held prisoner in his own rented quarters.
I say that because of Acts chapter 28. Turn back there. Acts 28. And let me remind you when we turn to Acts 28, where we have been. The man is fresh off a shipwreck.
The smell of sea water is still pretty close at hand. He got out with his life and the life of the others who were on board ship. We looked at that last time, you remember. Not only that, he has spent three months on the island of Malta when they never planned to be there, but thankfully it was there, and there they recovered, found another ship, made their way through the toe of the boot of Italy around that area and up verse 16, I'm sorry, verse 14, the last four words. We came to Rome.
Verse 16, we entered Rome. We means Luke is included. He wrote this book. When we entered Rome, Paul was allowed to stay by himself with the soldier who was guarding him. Look across the page at verse 30.
He stayed two full years in his own rented quarters. He was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness. unhindered. I would venture to say you have never been confined anywhere for two years. Nor have I.
Some of us have been in difficult places and the common response is, boy, that week was the longest decade of my life. It just seems so impossible, so difficult. He's there for two years and there isn't one complaint. Not one. Not one.
Rome. First century. What was it like? John Pollock in his fine Uh Work on the life of Paul writes this, and I want you to listen closely. He sets the stage.
Paul was placed in custody in a house rented at his own cost. It was not in the slums. The labyrinth of narrow streets and flimsy dwellings from which The mob emerged for periodical riots, he would have had a home of reasonable size or small, but with a roomy garden. Just within the walls near the camp of the Praetorian Guard, at the north of Rome. The rumble of traffic down the narrow, cobbled street at night when the country carts were allowed to bring produce to the markets.
The babble of jostling pedestrians by day The distant roars of excited crowds in the Circus Maximus. During chariot races or gladiatorial combats. The stench of a great city, even in winter when Paul arrived, and the risk of malaria in summer, did not make for ease. or a luxury. And the regulations demanded the never-ending presence of a soldier.
to whom he must be chained. But he was not in prison. He could have friends at his side and invite all. whom he wished. Listen to the visitor's story.
imaginating, imagining it through the mind of Pollock. No one could leave that hired house untouched. if only to argue vigorously. It had an atmosphere of happiness with the music. And singing, which Paul mentions in both the chief letters he wrote from it.
His character had not been soured or hardened. by troubles. To judge by what he thought important, he was kind. tenderhearted Forgiving. Just at Christ, just as Christ had forgiven him, he walked in love.
the element which bound his qualities together. He was still the great encourager, welcoming a man who was weak in faith, but refusing to argue about secondary matters. The Romans learned that he lived as he had taught them when he wrote three years before. We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak. and not to please ourselves.
In that Roman house, Bitter people were softened. Anger, wrath. Clamor died away. Paul had more than ever a sense of his littleness. His unworthiness.
Less than the least of all saints, of the marvel of his being entrusted with a commission to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. He seemed to delight in the contrast between the majesty of the message. and the insignificance. of the messenger. Such a gentle little man now.
Yet with what steel and strength. Pollock uses the contrasting words steal. and gentle. I prefer the words grace. And grit.
Few people on the earth in the first century had a greater grasp of grace than Paul. Redeemed from a life of vicious brutality as a rigid legalistic Pharisee, the man turned the corner. Repented. and in Christ became a gentle soul. Gracious.
to the core. Understanding. forgiving. Approachable. Willing not only to reach the Gentiles, but to live among them.
Though he himself was a Jew to the very nucleus of his being. A man of grace? Yes. but a man of grit. No one that I know of stands even near his standard of enduring hardship.
As a good soldier of Christ. Never once is he complaining about this closeness of the soldier, never once about his tight quarters or his confined condition, never once the unfairness of his arrest. He lived above His circumstances. Before I go any further, let me just add a practical word. Many of you find yourself in a situation that is far less than ideal.
Uh Not only is it difficult and testy, for some of you it is becoming increasingly more miserable. And if the truth could be told, you perhaps have never known a more difficult time in your adult life than you are experiencing right now. The great temptation is to allow that to embitter you. To let that change you into someone Who lives under the pall of that kind of situation? You are, in that sense, confined and arrested.
But the good news is that if the apostle named Paul could live above it, So can you. What a change can come over you. If you teach yourself to live Above your circumstances. What a change. Your circumstances may not change, but you will change.
And it will come across to your children and to your family members and to your friends and your fellow workers. wherever you may be employed. And it will make a difference. And you will become For more than you could even imagine there New hero. But this isn't about you and me.
This is really about Paul. I just wanted you to have your foot in the door to understand where I'm going. as I'll talk about a few things. If we go back to Philippians, I find three results of living above his circumstances, and all three are applicable to our lives. Chapter 1 again of Philippians, verses 12, 13, and 14.
I want you to write them down somewhere in the margin or a piece of paper you may have handy, or perhaps on our worship folder. Locate a piece of blank. uh space and uh Make a note of what happens when you live above your circumstances. It happened to Paul, and it'll happen to you as well. Number one, when we live above our circumstances, the progress of the gospel is accelerated.
It's never delayed. That's verse 12. I want you to know, brethren, my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress. of the gospel. Repeat it again: when you live above your circumstances, the progress of the gospel is accelerated, it's never delayed.
I want you to know this, he says. My imprisonment, my arrest, my confinement. My living in this house and being unable to escape from the presence of this soldier. Turned out to the greater progress of the gospel. The word progress is interesting.
It's the noun form from the Greek verb that means to cut down in advance. It is the verb used for cutting away trees and undergrowth, removing the barriers which hinder the progress. of an approaching army. In other words, there were Obstacles and barriers that were standing in the way of the gospel reaching a greater part of Rome until Paul was in prison. Are held in this house under arrest?
Once that happened, it is amazing what occurred in the spread of the gospel. He claims it right here that it had a wider perimeter because. Of his circumstances. And let me tell you: when you live above your circumstances, you will have little trouble spreading the message of the gospel. Everyone near you will want to know how you're able to do that.
How is it that the other friends I have who are in a situation similar to yours? Art responding. What's the difference? You have some kind of empowerment? Ooh.
I'm glad you asked. And this is your opportunity because they have asked. for you to tell them the difference. Christ came into Paul's life in such a way that he claimed, he's empowered me. I can do whatever.
because of his presence.
So it'll cause the increase of the gospel, the acceleration. Here's the second: when you live above your circumstances, verse 13. The edge of the message is sharpened, never dulled. The edge of the message is sharpened. never dulled.
Look at the powerful penetration. that occurred Verse 13: So that my imprisonment in the cause of Christ. has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard and to everyone else. Paul cultivated a remarkable attitude even when shackled to the Roman guards. There's much more that Chuck wants to show us, so please keep listening.
The title of today's program is Arrested, Confined, But Still Effective. It's part of our in-depth biographical study on Paul's life. Keep in mind that Insight for Living offers a variety of study tools for this series, including a spiral-bound Bible study, a full-length book, and of course all the audio C D's containing Chuck's sermons. Chuck's study on the life of Paul concludes this coming Wednesday, so reach out and request these resources today at insight.org/slash offer. or call us at 800-772-8888.
Today I'd like to tell you about a brand new booklet we'd like to send to you. It features the written sermon Chuck presented on the weekend of his 90th birthday at Stonebriar Community Church, the place he founded and nurtured with a deep love. His booklet is called Look Beyond. In his final message to the church, Chuck implores each of us to hold fast to the timeless truths of the Bible. He reminds us that to lead well, we must first focus on eternity and the unwavering message of Christ.
You'll find his book both encouraging and challenging as we strive to walk boldly with Jesus. We'd be pleased to send you this booklet by Chuck Swindahl when you make a gift to support the Ministry of Insight for Living. Just ask for the resource called Look Beyond. To send a check and your request for the booklet in the mail, you can address your envelope to InsightForLiving. Post Office Box 5000.
Frisco, Texas 75034. That's Post Office Box 5000, Frisco, Texas 75034. To speak with one of our friendly ministry reps, you can call us at 800-772-8888. 800-772-8888. You can also give a donation and request the book online at insight.org/slash donate.
Oh yeah. When life is hard, how do we rise above our challenges? I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindahl provides a biblical answer. Friday on Insight for Living.
The preceding message, arrested, confined, but still effective, was copyrighted in 2001, 2003, and 2024, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2024 by Charles R. Swindahl, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.
