Those who are on mission for Jesus cultivate courage, rooted in eternity, that allows them to advance the mission regardless of personal consequences.

2015, Peter Jasek that worked as Voice of the Martyrs regional director for Northern Africa. And as he was leaving Sudan, he was arrested at the airport. And he was just doing what he’s supposed to do, making disciples, training leaders in the church. But they arrested him on a bogus charge of espionage and sentenced him to life in prison. In his testimony, Peter recalls a very surrealistic moment as they were closing this heavy prison door behind him. He said, I knew this door. I knew the door. See? Two and a half years earlier, Peter had a nightmare of a prison door exactly like this one. In his dream, he was being arrested and the door was the same. I think the average person would just pass this off as a moment of déja vu. Or perhaps just a coincidence, but Peter said that he knew that it was an indication right from the very start of his incarceration, that this was God’s plan. But here’s the thing. On the inside of the door with him were ISIS soldiers. It’s not exactly the fiery furnace of Daniel’s friends, but for a white Christian from Czech Republic, it’s pretty close, right? At first, they didn’t harm him. They asked him for news from outside of the prison. And when he told them the story of a hundred people that had recently been killed in France in an attack, these guys started celebrating.

And that’s how he knew that they were terrorists. And then they turned on him. They threatened him constantly. They made him clean the toilet with his hands, and they beat him, pulverized him. They made him sleep in the dirty corner by the toilet. At one point, there were 50 other people packed into this cell. Can you imagine it? Small cell. 50 other people packed into it. Peter said that he heard the small voice of the Holy Spirit in that moment. Go share the gospel with them. Go share the gospel with them. And he did. And as he started to talk, 12 of those guys listened to him. Most didn’t, but 12 listened to him. And when he asked if they also wanted to follow Jesus, all 12 said yes. And the next day, all 12 were moved to a different prison. And he never saw them again. Thankfully, Peter was released after just four months of his life sentence. That is how we have his testimony that I can share with you today. But the reason I share this story with you to begin our time in God’s Word this morning is not to highlight his release. See, thousands of people die every year for proclaiming Christ. Oftentimes in prisons, just like this one. I share this story with you because of what Peter said about his own mentality while he was going through this, while he was sitting in that prison.

Because of that nightmare and because of the prison door, Peter entered prison on alert for God’s plan. And when the time was right, the Holy Spirit moved Peter into action like a well-placed pawn on a chessboard. Right? That’s been just sitting there the whole game. And now it’s time to spring into action. He was waiting for the perfect moment. And when God moved 12 of his sheep into that prison cell and Peter heard the Spirit, he responded by sharing the gospel in a space filled with ISIS terrorists. Have you heard what Islamic terrorists do to Christians? It would have been a badge of honor for any one of those guys to have killed him right there on the spot, and they wouldn’t have gotten in any trouble for doing it. But Peter was willing to endure whatever resulted from his obedience to God’s plan. I want you to listen to him describing his own thought process. Okay. This is what he’s thinking. He said, what would be my four months being in prison, or even four years, compared to the weight of eternity they could spend with the Lord Jesus. Church, I want to take us on a brief journey this morning into the mind of a missionary. What makes a missionary mentality? Those who are on mission for Jesus cultivate courage that is rooted in eternity, that allows them to advance the mission regardless of personal consequences.

That’s a missionary mentality. And I want to show you from the Apostle Paul’s own words in Philippians one, that the courage needed to carry out God’s plan does not come from within us. You don’t you don’t muster up this kind of courage. That’s not the way that it happens. Instead, it is rooted in a view of eternity like Peter Jasek had in that cell. Now, why do we need this? Why do we need this? Is this just to satisfy our curiosity about how missionaries have to think in order to do their jobs? No. No. Church. This is for all of us. You and I need to be cultivating this mentality. More on that here in just a little bit. But for now, don’t approach this morning as an outsider looking in to see the thought process of elite Christian warriors. Approach this as God’s instructions for how your thinking needs to change and transform. Here’s how we’re going to do this. Paul sets up Philippians 1:18-26 in a logical flow of his own rationale. And so I’m just going to flow through the passage, focusing on the parts where he describes what’s going on inside his mind. And he starts with rejoicing over his deliverance. Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.

So a quick word on context here. Paul is now sitting in a Roman prison. He’s waiting to hear his fate, and while he’s waiting, he’s writing letters to churches, including the one that he planted in Philippi, which is in modern-day Greece. And his goal in these letters that he writes to all these different churches that we have in the New Testament, his goal is encouragement and correction and instruction. And depending on what’s happening in that church, he might use a mix of all three. Most of the letters contain a little bit of a mix of all three. But this section that we’re looking at this morning is very much encouragement. And what he’s doing here is using himself as an example of the right mentality that everyone in the church should have, so that they are courageous in their ministry. If you have your Bible open, if you look down at verse 27, you’ll see that he makes a transfer from his own present circumstances to their manner of life. That’s his phrase for it. He’s looking at their manner of life. So he’s very much saying here is listen to the way I think about my situation so that you can live out your manner of life correctly. You will walk in the same way. And that’s why I’m saying that this is for all of us. A missionary mindset is a church mindset. It’s a Christian mindset.

And the first thing he says is happening in his mind is rejoicing. Joy is at the top of mind here. Now, that’s a very interesting first thing to say about your mentality when writing from prison. I’m not sure if that would be the emotion I would start with if I were in the same situation. And yet, here’s Paul, starting with rejoicing about what God is doing, and that’s what’s going on in his heart. How can that be? How can this rejoicing be what’s going on? Well, thankfully, he tells us, and I want you to notice that he doesn’t say, I’m really happy I’m in prison. He didn’t say prison is the source of my joy. He doesn’t say that, does he? No, no. Prison is the circumstance under which Paul experiences joy, but it’s not the source of his joy. See, suffering is not a good thing. No one wants to suffer. No one seeks out suffering. But suffering is an opportunity to turn your mind and to grab hold and to cling to a good thing. And that’s what Paul does here. The good thing here is Paul’s deliverance. That’s the reason for the joy. Because he’s going to be delivered. Because he has been imprisoned for his faith, which is not a good thing in itself, Paul is now in a position of experiencing God’s deliverance from this situation. So deliverance is to be rescued. It’s to be set free.

And that’s quite a way of looking at prison, isn’t it? Hey, now that I’m in prison, I’m in the perfect position to be released from prison. That’s not usually how we think about stuff. Who thinks like that? Well, Paul thinks like that, and it’s the source of joy for him. Why? Is it because Paul is crazy? Maybe a little. Maybe a little. But is he right? Is he right? Well he is if you have the mentality of a missionary. Notice the two sources of power that come together here to free Paul from prison. First, there are prayers. The prayers of the Philippian church. So God is going to work through their prayers to bring about Paul’s deliverance. It sounds counterintuitive to us, but Paul is saying that part of his joy stems from the fact that his imprisonment will cause the church to pray for him, and that God will work through their prayers. And the second source of power that will lead to Paul’s deliverance is the help that comes from the Spirit of Jesus Christ. This is Paul’s name for the Holy Spirit. He’s saying that the Holy Spirit will help him through this ordeal and bring about his deliverance from prison. So let me bring these two sources of power together and summarize. Paul’s argument is this. I am rejoicing. I am rejoicing in my heart because this terrible ordeal I’m experiencing means that God has me in the perfect position to be set free by the prayers of the church and the work of the Holy Spirit.

This is an opportunity for God to be glorified by His Church. That’s what Paul is saying. When was the last time you saw your terrible ordeal in life, a difficult situation that you were going through, and you saw it as an opportunity for God to be glorified by the prayers of the church and the work of the Holy Spirit? You thought this is terrible for me, but it’s going to be great for my church. They’re going to get to pray for me. We’re going to all grow in Christ together because of it. I don’t think most of us think like this. I don’t usually think like this. We don’t meet with pain and hardship and say, How’s God going to make me more like Jesus because of this? How is God going to display his power? How is God going to rally his church and build their faith because of my pain? We don’t think like this. And yet we see this exact scenario over and over again throughout Scripture. God consistently uses the ordeals of his people to enact his plan and to bring about greater faithfulness. Moses is chased by Pharaoh. David is chased by Saul. Joseph is thrown into the well. Daniel is thrown to the lions. His friends are thrown into the fire.

The amount of chasing and throwing in Scripture is high. Okay. It’s high. There’s so much of it. And yet, when the average American Christian has the tiniest speed bump, come along, we’re like, God, why me? Right? I’ve sat with so many people who profess faith in Christ. They just can’t fathom why God would allow something hard and painful to happen to them. And as hard as it sounds, and I know you’re not used to hearing me say hard things to you, but as hard as it sounds, if you can’t maintain your joy in the Lord through suffering, it’s because you haven’t spiritually matured yet to the point that you think like a missionary and have a biblical worldview. That’s why. And the first step toward developing the mentality of a missionary is to recognize that every situation where God puts you, even the hardest places, is an opportunity for the church to grow and for God to be glorified. Paul continues. As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed. So Paul’s expectation is that the church praying and God at work, he’s going to be set free from prison and will not at all be ashamed. Now we’ll see the positive side of this in a minute but here he’s stating the negative. He’s saying, here’s what’s not going to happen. He expects and he hopes that he will not find himself ashamed in the way this situation turns out.

What does he mean by that? Well, in the first century, Christians were imprisoned because they refused to worship Caesar as God. In fact, the Christians were referred to by the state, by the Roman state, they were referred to as atheists. That’s what the state thought of them; that they were atheists. Isn’t that weird? Because Christians worship this foreign and strange God, Jesus. And the Romans thought that they didn’t worship any God at all, therefore. They didn’t have any temples. They didn’t have any altars. They didn’t have any statues. They rejected the Roman pantheon. They rejected Caesar as God. So they were atheists. And the Romans loved to get Christians to publicly denounce their faith in Jesus and affirm their allegiance to Caesar. And they did this by sticking them in prison and threatening them with death by crucifixion, death by being thrown to the lions in the Colosseum, some sort of public terrible death. Denouncing Christ to save your life is the shameful path to deliverance. And if you’re thinking, well, boy, I sure am glad that I’ve never had to face a situation like that. I’d tell you that you face that situation all the time. All the time. Every single day a Christian faces the opportunity to shy away from Christ, to hide gospel convictions. To live in a way that blends seamlessly with the world around us.

The stakes might not be as high. They might not be life and death. But the shameful route is the same. The mentality of a missionary, which again, is the mentality of all Christians, because we are all sent on mission, is to stand for Christ, whatever happens. It’s to live so openly and unapologetically for Christ. Not to cower and hide your allegiance to Jesus when it could cost you something. If we hide our profession of Christ, not only do we bring shame on the name of Christ, we short-circuit our own spiritual growth. I want you to listen to Paul. This is Paul explaining this process of shame and how you get there. In Romans chapter five, he says, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance. Endurance produces character. Character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Do you see how much good God does through suffering in a Christian’s life? How would you ever learn endurance if you never have anything to endure? How would you learn it? You couldn’t. Suffering is the spiritual gym where your faith gets stronger with the more weight and the more reps, right? You get stronger because of it. If you want to have a stronger faith and be transformed by the renewal of your mind and become more like Jesus, you need to welcome hardship as an opportunity to see God work and for you to grow.

Okay, so the mentality of a missionary so far is to rejoice because God is going to use the prayers of the church and the work of the Spirit to bring us through and deliver us from hardship without us falling into shame. Paul continues. But that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. Okay, here’s where a missionary mentality kicks into high gear. The opposite of shame is courage. Instead of slinking away from Christ, Paul says he’s going to push through hardship courageously. Now, is this a new mentality that Paul had to take on because of the new situation that he finds himself in? No. He’s saying, I’m going to act now, as always. Again, let me reiterate here, this way of thinking isn’t just for some spiritually elite special Christians. This isn’t just for the Green Beret Christians, right? Paul says what’s about to happen is just a continuation of the same way that he has followed Jesus up to this point. Now, as always, he’s going to courageously face what comes next, which is that Christ will be honored in his body. He says. Now let me pause here. Before we look at the more famous, quotable part of this verse, I’m going to get just a little bit philosophical here, but follow me. Okay. When it comes to ownership, when we think about ownership, it does not get more basic than our bodies, does it? Right, right. So so when we think of our bodies as ours, as mine. Me. When I think of me, I’m referring to this, right? Like this is me, right. And so, so Paul affirms that. He says my body. He affirms that part of it. But notice that he doesn’t then assume that he has a right to do with his body, whatever he likes. His body, now, as always, is an instrument to bring honor to Christ. His body is only his in the sense that he makes choices for it. But the body itself has obligations to the Lord. There’s a right use of the body. To put it another way. Our bodies are one more thing that we’re given by God as a gift and as a responsibility to steward for his glory. It’s easier for us to picture this when we think about stuff, we think about houses and cars and money and all that kind of thing. We think about that. We go, okay, I get that. I got to move that around. I got to steward that. I got to take care of that.

It’s harder to see when we’re talking about our bodies, but our bodies are an item that we are to use for God’s glory before Christ returns. And the implications and the applications of that truth are massive and wide-reaching and encompasses human sexuality, abortion, euthanasia, health and exercise, elder care, war, persecution. Pretty much any biological ethical question concerning the body that you can think of. We obviously can’t talk about all of that right now, but think about it. If the human body is a gift given to us to be used for the glory of Christ, then there is no aspect of the human experience that that doesn’t touch. But let me stick to what Paul is talking about here this morning in this context. Here, it means that he’s going to courageously stick to his profession of faith in Christ, no matter what it means for his body. No matter what it would do to him physically. Even if it means getting executed, then Christ will be honored by his execution. Faith in Jesus means unwavering commitment to declaring allegiance to him. And if God chooses to end Paul’s life as a result of that, Paul is okay with it. Paul’s okay with that. It’s God’s body. He’s the one that made it. Paul’s job is to honor Jesus Christ for as long as Paul is given control of this body. Now, I recognize that there are probably a fair number of us here this morning that who have never really thought this way about our own flesh and blood.

I rarely do. But we should. Let me tell you, I believe one of the greatest hindrances to gospel expansion in the world today is a misplaced sense of self-preservation. We cherish our own lives, we cherish our own bodies, our comfort too much. And it is holding us back. If the choice is between low risk, low reward and high risk high reward, we choose low risk over, over and over again. Almost every time. We’ll just be quiet. Just stay quiet. Stay safe. Pray that others will incur risk, but not me. Right? But that’s no way to approach the world if you’re living on mission for Christ, and you understand that all of this that we’re experiencing is just a prelude for eternity. If you understand that, it changes our entire framework. And that’s why Paul says very famously, for me to live is Christ, but to die is gain. Now, some people might read the word deliverance, deliverance from prison here, as an open cell door, right? But Paul says there are two ways out of here, and they both honor Christ. One is to be unchained and allowed back into the world, still breathing. That would mean that God has more for Paul to do, he says. The other is to be delivered through death.

And if you’re thinking, well, that’s the worst possible outcome. We wouldn’t want that. That’s terrible. Then you’re already still not thinking like a missionary. See, Paul doesn’t see that’d be terrible. Paul sees gain. Paul sees gain. The end of his life is the beginning of his promotion. That’s how Paul sees it. The end of life is not the end of the road for a Christian. It’s just the next big step into an eternity that has spent joyously worshiping the Lord forever. So to recap, the mentality thus far, Paul rejoices because prayer and the Spirit will combine to deliver us from hardship by giving courage to honor Christ, whether that’s by living through the trial or dying because of it, while remaining faithful to Jesus through it. And there’s one more bit to add. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I’m 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. One more piece of this missionary mentality is that Paul doesn’t know which form of deliverance that he prefers. Now, I will say that Paul’s preference here is almost certainly influenced by his own life situation. Okay, so Paul isn’t married. He doesn’t have any kids. He knows he could have been married, but he chose not to be married because it gave him some freedom to do ministry in a way that he would not have otherwise been free to do it.

He’s also older when he wrote this, Paul traveled a lot, planted a lot of churches. So he’s not so young anymore as he sits here in prison writing. And he’s put up with a lot. That’s saying that’s saying it very lightly. He’s put up with a lot. Can you imagine going into ministry and getting shipwrecked? Can you imagine getting shipwrecked in ministry? Well, it happened to Paul three times. Three times the guy got shipwrecked. He was beaten all the time. He’s whipped, thrown in jail. So Paul’s desire here might not match up exactly with a younger person’s desire, who has a family and goals and other things that they want to accomplish in life. And that’s okay not to feel the same desire that Paul here feels as he faces this fork in the road. But it is important to understand that as Christians, we always sit at the same fork. We’re always at this fork in the road, too. Forever before us are two paths. As we are faithful, God will either give us more time or he will take us out. Those are the two paths. If he gives you more time, that means he has more for you to do. You are in the field, okay? He’s got you on the field.

You are not on the bench. You’re part of the army of Christ. You’re using your God given resources for tactical advance of the kingdom of God. If God gives you time. That’s all of us, by the way, right now, looking around looks like everybody’s alive. That is all of us. All of us are in that camp right now. And you will know that when you’re done with that mission because you will be dead. That’s how you’ll know. That’s how you’ll know. You’ll never have to guess whether God has fruitful ministry for you to do in this world. Death will be your signal that you are done. You’ll never have to wonder, does God really have something for me to do in his kingdom? Let me ask you. Let’s go down the checklist. Do you love Jesus? Can you fog a mirror? That’s it. That’s the end of list. That’s the whole thing. If your blood pressure is over 0.0, then God has fruitful ministry for you to do. The missionary mentality flows like this. I rejoice no matter how great or how terrible my circumstances are, because in every hardship, God will use the church and he will use the Spirit to build courage in me so that I honor Christ no matter what happens to me. No matter the outcome of that. And church, when you cultivate this mentality, you begin to see everything God brings you as an opportunity for the advancement of his mission.

You start to loosen your grip. These things you just grip so tightly. You got to keep them. You start to loosen your grip on your desire for safety and comfort. Because risking for the sake of God’s mission becomes more desirable than comfort. It’s nice to be safe. It’s nice to have comfort, but I don’t want to be safe and comfortable all the time because the world that needs Christ is not safe or comfortable. And when Jesus told us to go and make disciples among all people, he knew the risks. He had been making disciples and they put him on a cross for it. This doesn’t mean that we are to be foolish and to seek out danger, but it does mean that we need to be tactical and willing to risk our resources, including our lives, to take the gospel where it hasn’t yet gone. And to do that, we need to understand that there is nothing foolish or wasteful about exchanging our lives for the advancement of the kingdom of God. There was another man that was imprisoned alongside of Peter Jasek. His name was Pastor Hassan Abdur-rahim Tower. He also was found guilty of espionage. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison. When he was asked what was going through his mind when he was sentenced, he said, I just smiled I knew these charges were fake. He said he knew he wasn’t going to spend 12 years in prison. See, he was like Paul. He was confident that God had more fruitful ministry for him to do. And he was right. He spent about a year and a half in prison and then he was out. But it’s what his fellow pastors told his family that stands out to me. Pastor Hassan said that his colleagues went to his family and they comforted them like this. They said Hassan is in ministry. He’s on mission. And when the mission is over, he’ll be out. Church, we’re on mission. And when the mission is over, we’ll be out. Let me close this morning with just a few words about risk and fruitful ministry. According to The Joshua Project, which is an organization that keeps track of the needs of missions around the world, there are 2238 unengaged people groups. That’s different than unreached. There are more unreached groups. The unengaged groups are smaller. Unengaged means that there’s no reported missionary or church planting effort. There’s no scripture in the language that those folks would understand. There’s no access to the gospel for these groups. 2238 people groups. That’s over 284 million people spread across 80 countries. And that might seem like a lot, but there are roughly 80 million Evangelical Christians in the world. That’s 80 million people who believe Jesus when he says that the gospel will go to all the world, and then the end will come.

80 million people believe that. If 100 people mobilized to be a missionary team for each one of those unengaged people groups, it would take roughly 22,000 people, or 0.0275% of the followers of Jesus worldwide. How has this not been done? How has this not been done? How are we still here? We’re seemingly on the precipice of completion to reach every group of people. And yet the task remains. So I’ll say two things and be done this morning. One, Calvary is committed to putting our mission’s resources increasingly into completing this task. That’s where we’re headed. We are concentrating our resources on taking the gospel where it hasn’t yet gone. I delighted to listen to some of our workers in the world last night talk about the places where they’re going, where I’m telling you, church planting, disciple making among the hardest peoples in the world. It was wonderful to hear what is happening. You may not hear about this as much from the stage here. And that’s because these places we’re talking about, you can’t take a mission trip to the places that we’re talking about. You know, prison and death are not allowable outcomes for a youth group trip. You know what I’m saying? Like you don’t sign that waiver, parents. You shouldn’t sign that waiver. But you know what? There are people that are willing to go.

There are people willing to go where Christ is not yet preached, and they are willing to trade their finitude, their finite lives. They’re willing to trade those lives for eternity for other people. They’re willing to go. And in the years to come, we’re going to put more of our efforts into places like that. And two, have you considered if God is calling you to go to the front lines of the gospel advancement and to give your life for it? Have you asked that question of yourself? I mean, really asked that question? If you’re a parent, have you talked to your kids about this, and have you made it crystal clear to them that you’re behind them if this is what God wants for them? Have you had that conversation? Are you willing to have that conversation? You say I don’t have a Bible degree. Good. Most of these inaccessible places are far more open to people who know how to do business or medicine. These folks aren’t looking for a Hebrew scholar, I can tell you that. That’s not who they want or need. But a teacher or someone who can run a profitable business or a hospital, and they love Jesus, and they’ll make disciples, even be willing to die to do those things. That’s what these folks need. That’s what they need. Is it you? Let’s pray.