But look at Philippians chapter 1, I'm going to show you how unbiblical this attitude is,
that tries to basically exclude sinners from soul winning.
Where I say, I don't care how sinful you are, if you're saved, let's go soul winning.
If you got saved five minutes ago, let's go soul winning.
You don't get along with your wife, let's go soul winning.
You don't get along with the people who work, let's go soul winning.
You're a big jerk, great, get out soul winning.
And maybe you'll quit being such a jerk when you start doing something for other people
and loving other people.
Look at Philippians chapter 1 verse 12.
But I want you to understand, brethren, that the things which happened to me have fallen
out rather under the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in
all the palace and in all other places.
And many of the brethren in the Lord, waxing confident by my bonds, are much more bold
to speak the word without fear.
Now this is a very misunderstood passage, so I want you to pay very close attention
this morning so we can interpret this correctly.
The first point I want to make is who are we talking about?
Are we talking about people that are saved or not saved?
Look at verse 14.
Many of the brethren in the Lord.
These people saved or what?
Waxing confident by my bonds are much more bold to speak the word without fear.
Some, some of who?
Some of the brethren in the Lord, am I right?
It's a pronoun.
The antecedent is the brother in the Lord.
Some indeed preach Christ, even of envy and strife.
And some also of goodwill.
The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to
my bonds, but the other of love, knowing that I'm set for the defense of the gospel.
But then, notwithstanding every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached
and I there and do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.
So do we see the Apostle Paul saying, you know, ah, these people out-soloning with a
bad attitude?
He's like, great, great.
Are some people out-soloning for the wrong reason?
Yep.
Great.
What does the Bible say?
Great.
Hey, I rejoice.
And you know what?
I'm going to keep on rejoicing in the future as well, because I just want the gospel to
be preached.
I want people to hear the gospel.
I want people to get saved.
Now, here's how I've heard some people twist this passage or misuse it.
I've heard some people say something along the lines of, well, you know, even if false
religions are preaching about Jesus, that's still great.
Is that what this is saying?
Well, they're preaching about false gospel, but at least they're hearing Jesus.
They're hearing something about Jesus.
That's not what this is saying.
Or Oh, well, you know, Judas is scary.
It's out-soloding.
Great.
That's not what this says.
Okay.
This is talking about saved people witnessing.
Brethren of the Lord are witnessing boldly for Christ.
And the Apostle Paul says, this is a good thing that saved Christians are boldly out
there witnessing for Christ.
And he says, you know what?
I realized some of these people are just in it because maybe they just want attention
or maybe, you know, they're doing it for strife and envy or contention.
You know, they have an attitude problem or whatever.
But he says, either way, I'm glad that they're out there doing it, whether in pretense or
in truth.
Christ is preached and I therein do rejoice, yea and will rejoice.
And so here's the thing.
If somebody has a bad attitude or bad spirit, but they go out-soul winning, you know, obviously
they should fix their attitude.
Obviously they should fix their bad spirit.
If somebody is living a sinful life and out-soul winning, obviously they should get the
sin out of their life.
And we spend a lot of time preaching against sin and preaching against a bad attitude.
But you know what?
Even if they never get that sin out of their life and even if they never fix their attitude,
going soul winning is better than nothing.