Scripture: Philippians 1:12-18 (NIV)

Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel. As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. And because of my chains, most of the brothers and sisters have become confident in the Lord and dare all the more to proclaim the gospel without fear.

It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill. The latter do so out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice.

“Look, I ain’t in it for your revolution, and I’m not in it for you, princess. I expect to be well paid. I’m in it for the money.” Han Solo’s entrance into the activities of the Rebellion was a purely mercenary one. Having been hired by Obi-Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker to help them get the Death Star plans back to Princess Leia Organa, it had turned into a rescue mission. Han, who had wound up agreeing to a low down payment with the promise of a big reward when the job was done, now was looking forward to collecting his credits.

Did that matter to the leaders of the Rebellion once he landed on Yavin IV with the princess? I don’t imagine it did. They were glad to have Leia back no matter what the motivations of her rescuers. And, of course, being around the Rebellion did something to Han as well. It wasn’t long before he was swooping in to save the day and throwing his lot in with this rag-tag group because he felt it was the thing to do, not because they could pay him.

From his prison cell, Paul talked about such things. He was glad that people were preaching Christ because they believed in the Son of God and were telling the things that He had done while here on Earth. He also recognized that some people were preaching for less than noble reasons. They wanted to see if they could make trouble for Paul or show him up in some way by preaching when he was unable to be among the people.

“But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached.” Paul didn’t terribly concern himself about why people were getting out there and telling people about the gospel. They were doing it and God was going to be able to take that message and use it whether the speaker was expecting that or not. The word of God was going out to serve the purposes of God, not the one that was speaking.

There are still problems with an insincere speaker, of course. We’ve seen over the course of the last few decades how a preacher who doesn’t live the life, who has a moral failing, can drive people away from the message because of the hypocrisy. We also know that a preacher that doesn’t appear to be sincere in this day in age can bring scorn and ridicule from some.

However, whatever your impression of some of the megachurch pastors that are in our culture today, they are the leaders of MEGAchurches. That doesn’t mean everyone in those congregations is a strong believer in the goodness of God or in the gift of His Son. The odds are in favor of someone, however, hearing the Word and making that change in their life. Even if you only reach 10% of that congregation, that’s a large number of people now following Christ.

Let us always be motivated by the right reasons to speak out for the Lord but let us also remember He gets His point across in many different ways!