TOPIC:‌“Turning Obstacles Into Opportunities”

                  by Rev. Dr. Reg Dunlap

 

TEXT:‌Philippians 1:12-26

 

“Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel” (1:12, NIV).

 

‌In the management of our lives on planet earth we must not overlook this truth: It is not the obstacles we face that matters most, but how we handle them. How do we react to them? It is in our response to these difficulties that we know how Christ-like we have become. Much like Ralph Erskine, that grand old preacher of England, as he was laid aside with wasting illness declared: “I have known more of God since I came to this bed than through all my life.” Erskine turned a difficulty into a door. An obstacle into an opportunity.

 

‌Here in the verses before us the Apostle Paul is an excellent example of what I am speaking about. He was tutored and taught in the prison house of pain. And yet, Paul turned such suffering into a service. He turned difficulties into doors of opportunities. Let me show you what I mean.

 

I.

 

‌Looking at Paul, this Christ-minded man who is presently a prisoner of Caesar, we think, first of all, of his MAGNIFICENT POISE in the midst of DISTURBING DIFFICULTIES. We read Paul's words in verse 12: “Now I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the Gospel.”

 

‌Here Paul writes to unburden the hearts of the Philippian Christians about his present condition. He lets them know that his confinement under Felix, his rough voyage to Rome, and his two year captivity in Rome, had not checked the progress of the Gospel. On the contrary! It had served to advance the Gospel. Paul's difficulties became doors by which the Gospel made steady advancement. So here we have God's poiseful man so in love with Christ and with Christ's followers that love enables him to rejoice so long as the Gospel is promoted and Christ is proclaimed.

 

‌Paul's splendid poise is clearly exhibited in the midst of two disturbing difficulties. Let us look at each one of them to find out how we would have responded under such hardships.

 

‌For one thing, there was Paul's PHYSICAL CONFINEMENT. Notice his words in verse 13: “I am in chains for Christ.” The New Living Translation renders it: “my imprisonment is for Christ.” In other words, Paul was not imprisoned for being a criminal, but on account of his faith in Christ and his stand for the Gospel. Imagine what this meant to this dedicated missionary of the Cross. After spending so many years traveling so extensively across Asia Minor with . . .