Moving Forward in Reverse

Pulses, I'm in prison and it's infusing the believer with courage as they see how I'm trusting Christ. See how God is opening opportunities through adversity for the Gospel. You ever been around a courageous person?

What does it do to you? Well, it makes you put them in the front of the line, of course, but you're willing to follow. Listen, what he's saying or implying is that fear is contagious. So is courage. Sometimes God uses the trials and difficulties of our life to move his plan forward. Things that seem like reversals to us are not reversals in God's plan.

Welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. Today, Stephen Davey begins a series looking at how God can use our adversities to advance his plan. The series is called Moving Forward and it comes from Philippians chapter 1. The lesson Stephen has for you today starts it all off and it's called Moving Forward in Reverse. In Philippians chapter 1, if you have your New Testament, this next paragraph we arrive at, beginning at verse 12, opens with Paul's reversed thinking, which is good thinking. Let's explore these next few verses together and I think you'll understand what I mean when I talk about moving forward even though it seems like we're in reverse. Let me just read the paragraph, 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 confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

What a wonderful perspective on life. Paul turns everything around as he interprets three different issues that would have brought most of us to some point of discouragement. In fact, let me rephrase as we work back through this paragraph what Paul has written with my own three statements to highlight how he is reinterpreting the events of life. The first statement I want to make is this, as I paraphrase what Paul is writing. I have suffered setbacks and the Gospel is advancing.

Those elements seem contradictory, don't they? I have suffered setbacks and the Gospel is advancing. He says something similar to the Corinthian believers where he says, I have this open door to me of effective service and there are many adversaries.

Now wait a second, it's one or the other, isn't it? Not to him. In 1 Corinthians 16, verse 9, Paul knows that he is reversing the normal way of interpreting the circumstances of life. So here to the Philippians, Paul does and begins in this manner. Now he begins, if you go back to verse 12, by saying, just looking at that first phrase, I want you to know, brothers. Now to the Greek reader that immediately puts you on notice, this was a common expression in Paul's day to call people to pay attention to something that was going to be surprising, something that would be perhaps difficult to understand. So in our contemporary vocabulary, Paul is effectively saying, now I'm going to tell you something that's going to be a little hard to believe. I'm going to tell you something that's going to be hard to buy into, so stay alert, stay with me.

Now notice what he says. What has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel. I have suffered setbacks. This is what's happened to me, but the gospel has advanced. Now Paul could have stopped here and written a volume on those things that happened to him, but he doesn't do it here.

More than likely because the Philippian church had been supporting him faithfully and praying for him and they already knew the events of his life that would have been calculated as reversals. I have suffered setbacks and the gospel is advancing. Let me make one more quick comment. He's not speaking with this, you know, pietism because he knows we're going to be studying his letter in church one day and he wants to look good. You know, I know it'd be better if I said this. He means it. He means it.

He only briefly alludes to the trouble. In fact, he uses a word that really sort of sums up the difficulty. He uses this word advance.

This has really served to advance. Pracape is the word. It means literally the cut through the brush. Just picture somebody in the jungle hacking his way through the underbrush in great difficulty and danger to forge a path. That's the word he uses here. When I studied that Greek word, I could just see Hudson Taylor. We often overlook the difficulty and challenge of this man who there on the borders of China is sitting at a desk in an upper floor apartment.

The temperature is well over 100 degrees and he sits there translating writing with one hand while in the other hand he holds a towel as he wipes the sweat that continually runs down his cheeks and drips off his chin for hours, 10 hours a day. The gospel is advancing. Have you found the Christian experience to be easy?

Or is it like hacking through underbrush? Notice he writes next in verse 13, it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. Paul effectively writes the whole imperial guard is actually hearing from me about the gospel of Jesus. Let me paraphrase this second statement to highlight his perspective.

Here's what he's saying. I have suffered setbacks and the gospel is advancing and now he's saying I am under military guard and they are my captive audience. Isn't that great?

I love it. I am under house arrest and these guards can't go anywhere. They are my captive audience. Paul isn't exaggerating. He writes here that the entire imperial guard has gotten the message of Christ. Let me tell you what this means.

It's staggering. Their name in Latin which was the official language of the Roman Empire was the Praetorium. It's not a reference to a building, a palace.

It's a reference to people, this elite guard. They were stationed throughout the empire to squash rebellion. Caesar effectively purchased their loyalty.

But he did choose them. In fact, Augustus was the first to enlist these men and create the Praetorian guard. They were the only military expedition or force allowed inside the capital city. Their chief role was ultimately to protect the emperor and the imperial family. Hand chosen by Augustus until he reached 10,000 troops. He paid them double pay.

In today's economy each of these men would have made somewhere between $90,000 and $100,000 a year in today's economy. They would serve for anywhere from 12 to 16 years and when they were tired they were automatically honored for their faithful service with Roman citizenship which was highly valued with many benefits and Caesar gave each of them a pension totaling in today's economy nearly $1,000,000. They would eventually become known as the Kingmakers. That would be their nickname because no Caesar could ever assume the throne without their approval and their protection.

These crack troops had earned the respect of their countrymen, loyal, hard working, well trained, skilled soldiers. Listen, in the strategy of advancing the gospel God knew that the Praetorian guard would make outstanding ambassadors and missionaries. We know from other passages that Paul was allowed his own private quarters where members of the Praetorian guard rotated shifts in guarding him. Get this, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Paul would be handcuffed with one hand and an 18 inch chain, with that Greek term we know that's about how long it was, to this Praetorian guard. Every six hours the shift changed giving Paul four soldiers every day, seven days a week.

I mean his attitude was bring them on, they can't go anywhere, they're handcuffed. And for six hours I get to deliver to them the gospel. Paul didn't complain about his chains, he consecrated his chains to God.

What are your chains? Consecrate them. Whatever that is, that reversal that ties you down, that's how you move forward in reverse. Now at any onlooker you're going in the wrong direction, but because of your trust in the character of God and the curriculum God has designed for your life, you actually make forward progress. And Paul got it, he interprets his house arrest as a setting where soldiers cannot escape.

I love this man, not an obstacle, it's an opportunity in real life. In fact my father, still a missionary today to the military, having founded missions to military when he called me this morning, he said, so what are you preaching? And I said, this text, and I knew this is one of his favorite texts. He reminded me this is the first military ministry movement in the history of the church. An incredibly fruitful field, Paul is going to deliver the gospel of Christ to these elite troops who shuttled into his apartment every six hours. Beloved, this means that Paul will have the opportunity when it's over to deliver the gospel to over three thousand soldiers at Rome's expense.

They sent him a new soldier every six hours. We don't know how many of them were saved, but we know when we get to the end of Philippians, Paul says, oh by the way, members of Caesar's household want to tell you hello, believers. Now Paul adds this phrase in verse 13, not just the Praetorian Guard, but notice all the rest he says.

Who are they? Well we would understand this process that will ultimately lead to the death of Paul, his execution. This would have involved government officials and attorneys who are presenting the government case against him. This would have involved Jewish scholars who are coming in to evaluate these doctrines to determine whether or not this sect is dangerous to Judaism and how it would relate to the Roman government. In other words, on the budget of the Roman Empire, all of these officials, all of these high ranking men are basically forced to study the doctrines of Christianity under the teaching and tutelage of the apostle Paul moving forward in reverse.

I am under military guard and they are all my captive audience. I have suffered adversity and the gospel is advancing. One more paraphrase from this text, Paul effectively says, I am imprisoned so other believers can experience freedom. Notice verse 14, and most of the brothers, this is a generic term, you could render it brothers and sisters, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear. By the way, that word to speak isn't referring to a sermon. It isn't referring to some elder getting up and delivering some message.

This is a word that refers to everyday normal conversation. The brothers and the sisters, when they see me in prison, are emboldened in their everyday conversation to talk about Jesus Christ. The implication here from Paul is that these believers, and understandably so, had been fearful, even reluctant to share their faith, there is a growing hostility. Paul says, I'm in prison and it's infusing the believer with courage as they see how I'm trusting Christ, see how God is opening opportunities through adversity for the gospel. Listen, what he's saying or implying is that fear is contagious, but so is courage. You ever been around a courageous person? What does it do to you?

Well, it makes you put them in the front of the line, of course, but you're willing to follow. Let me add this, unfaithful living in the church among believers is contagious, but so is faithful living contagious. As I reviewed the circumstances from Paul's life in the latter chapters of the book of Acts, I read about how he had this doomed voyage from Fairhaven, the voyage that eventually shipwrecked them all on the island of Malta. They set out from Fairhaven and it reminded me of something that happened nearly 11 years ago where I made some forward motion by way of reverse and it took place in Fairfield, New Haven. The only difference was I didn't have a good attitude about it until it was over.

Perhaps you can identify more with me than the apostle Paul, but we can learn together. My wife and I and our younger daughter, who at the time was about 11, 10 or 11 years of age, we were traveling in our van coming back from being out of town and it was raining. We're on the interstate.

It wasn't hard rain, just misty, sort of, but everything was wet. I wasn't really concentrating as I was driving along, didn't really have a good grip on the steering wheel and I hit a puddle on the interstate and it jerked me left and I overcompensated and pulled the wheel right and just put us into a spin as if we were on ice. We went off the interstate backwards into the grassy slope and we crashed into the guardrail going sideways and we just went parallel with that guardrail, knocking one pylon down after another until finally, with all four blown tires, we ground to a halt.

We sat there stunned. God had planned for us to go through that without a scratch on us physically, but our van was completely, completely totaled. I visited a dealer in town to find another one like it as a conversion minivan. They don't even make them anymore and the sticker shock just sort of gave me a bigger heart attack than that accident and I thought, wow, has the price ever gone up over the years and so I went online and I found the exact van, just like ours, but it was located in Connecticut. I searched the history through the VIN number, saw that it was clean, low mileage, one owner. I called the dealer, negotiated over the phone with the price and agreed to buy the van. Wayne Witt, one of our elders, was building his air miles as an amateur pilot and he and another young man from the church flew me in their little plane, the Cheshire, Connecticut.

Cheshire. The fact that it was named after a cat should have given me my first clue this was going to be trouble. Big trouble. The salesman met us at that little airport where we inspected the van. My plan was to wrap up the deal and to get on the road to make it to my parent's home in Virginia by about 10 o'clock that night. I pulled away from the dealer at two o'clock in the afternoon.

Everything signed. Everything was working perfectly. I drove the van about 20 minutes south and then pulled over to a rest stop, a services exit to get some really strong coffee and some of those little chocolate covered donuts that are filled with fiber and vitamins and protein.

You know the kind I'm talking about. Anyway, when I went back to the van, I turned the ignition and nothing happened. Nothing happened except this strange sound.

Now you're like me. You've driven a lot. You've got your own car story and you've heard sounds. You know the click, click, click, click of a dead battery. Wasn't that sound? Wasn't the sound of a bad starter. It was this strange sound. So I got my cell phone out, pulled up the dealer's number and I called him and the first thing I said to him was, what did you sell me? Only my pitch was much higher. And he said, what do you mean? I said, it will not start. I'm only 20 minutes away. What did you sell me?

He said, well Steven, we went through the search together on the computer. It's had one owner. It's got low miles. In fact, we found that the only thing that was ever wrong with it was it needed a new headlamp and one of the locks on one of the doors malfunctioned. That's it.

This thing is clean. He said, you do have roadside assistance for free because it's under warranty. I thought, well that's thrilling.

I'll use it. So I waited for two hours. The wrecker finally came, towed me to a little town nearby, the town of Fairfield, Connecticut near New Haven. Fairfield. It was not fair and there were no fields.

Think of downtown Cary, just a little village, a little town. When we got to the dealership, it was after five o'clock and it was closing. One of the mechanics told me, look, I'll take a look at it and he did. He checked and he said, it's strange. It's got gas, spark. It's got good battery.

It's getting gas. I don't know what's wrong with it. Tell you what I'll do is I'll come in tomorrow morning and first thing I'll take a look at it. I said, tomorrow morning? He said, yeah. I hadn't planned to spend the night.

I hadn't packed anything. I asked him, is there a hotel within walking distance? He said, yes. There's the Fairfield Inn two blocks away and so I walk there to the Fairfield Inn. When I got there, I remembered my younger brother.

In fact, he's now with the Lord. He was a salesman, traveled all the time, had zillions of miles and he was part of the Marriott membership and so I called him. I said, Tim, I'm going to save the cash I've got.

I don't have much. Can you book me a room on your miles? He said, absolutely, no problem. So I stood in the lobby and waited and he finally called me back. He said, Stephen, I got the rep for Marriott here and there's no Fairfield Inn where you are at that address. I said, yeah, I'm standing in the lobby of the Fairfield Inn. He said, well, look, you hold on. Let me get the person back on the line. About five minutes later, he called me back. He said, Stephen, there's no Fairfield Inn where you're standing.

I said, there is too. I said, no, wait a second. Wait a second. I walked outside, looked up at the sign and it said Fairfield Motor Inn and I'd noticed that there was no air conditioning in this hotel and the carpet was old.

It was that, you know, you grew up with that shag, red and tan and everything was kind of chewed up and I thought, oh my goodness. Well, he said, Stephen, if you can get, if you can get just 10 miles north of you to New Haven, I got a free room for you. Continental breakfast we paid for, of course.

You can stuff your pockets with apples and oranges and make it through. I didn't know why any of this was happening. Didn't like it at all. I said, okay. It's now nearly seven o'clock at night. I called the dealership. I got the only salesman that was left there and I explained I needed to get to New Haven.

Would he be willing to take me? He said, you know, I'm going to be here till eight and that's an hour round trip for me and I'm sorry. I just can't do it. I said, I understand. I really did and we hung up.

What do I do? I don't have much cash. I'm hungry. Those donuts have worn off hours earlier. My cell phone is running out of battery. My van is a lemon. What is going on? I was about to call another taxi and the lady at the desk said, sir, you have a call.

I went to the phone and it was the salesman. He said, listen, I've been thinking about you and I realize you're stranded and I feel terrible. Tell you what I'll do. If you can help me with a little gas money, I'll take you.

I'll take you to New Haven. And I said, thank you so much. A little after eight o'clock he pulled up in his car. We took off. His name was Michael.

He was in his early 70s, retired, but he started working a little bit, selling again to make a little money. You know, we had a little chitchat back and forth. I told him the story about the Fairfield Inn thing. He thought that was funny and by that time I'm chuckling a little bit too. Not much. At this point he didn't know I was a pastor or a Christian, which was good.

I didn't really want to act like one anyway. So we're driving along and all of a sudden he just kind of starts telling me his story. He's a quiet man, which was good, but he's telling me his story now.

And he begins to be rather talkative. He'd been in the military. In fact, he'd even been captured.

I found that intriguing. He spent time as a prisoner of war. After getting out of the military he'd married, but had divorced years earlier and hardly ever saw his two grown children and their families. He told me he'd gotten cancer a year or so ago, nearly died, but survived the treatment, then moved to Fairfield to be near his high school sweetheart, who is now a widow. And he said in a rather hushed tone that he had undergone a number of blood transfusions during his cancer treatment and as a result had contracted HIV.

By the time they discovered it, it was full blown. He had been told less than a few weeks before our visit together in that car that he had been given less than six months to live. I thought, here I am complaining about a broken down van and this man has had a reversal in his life like I can't imagine. He looked at me and he said, you know, I have never told anyone, anyone, that I have AIDS.

But then again, you're not from around here. He said, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to gather up just enough money and I'm going to move to Florida and I'm going to die in the sun.

I'll never forget that. I'm going to die in the sun. No doubt in my mind that every reversal of the last few weeks had been orchestrated by God so that I would be brought to a town in Connecticut to hear a story a man had never told anybody who was dying.

We sat out in the parking lot of the Fairfield Inn, the real one, in New Haven. And after a while, Michael bowed his head and put his faith into words as he trusted in Jesus Christ alone. We kept in touch periodically until months later when he did indeed die. He never made it to Florida. He didn't die in the sun, but he died in the sun.

S-O-N. In the embrace of his Lord and Savior. Now I was late in spotting this truth, modeled by the Apostle Paul. A change of circumstances, a set of them that seemed to be taking me in reverse was God's way of making forward progress.

It took me to Fairfield, Connecticut. It took Michael to heaven. The maturing believer is one, and this is so convicting to all of us, who learns to spot early on, to interpret the reversals in life as part of God's ultimate curriculum so that we end up not necessarily getting everything we want or think we need, but we end up where he wants us, and he receives glory and our deeper trust.

That was Stephen Davey, and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Today's message is called Moving Forward in Reverse. Stephen has taken this message and turned it into a booklet that you can read again or share with a friend who might be blessed by it. The booklet Moving Forward in Reverse is available in our online store. However, we're sending a copy as our gift to anyone who makes their first contact with our ministry today. Call 866-48-BIBLE or 866-482-4253. Call today, then join us next time back here on Wisdom for the Heart.