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being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
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As a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ.
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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.
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It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry, but others out of goodwill.
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The former preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains.
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If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know!
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For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him,
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Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves,
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not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
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Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
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rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
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Do Everything Without Grumbling
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,
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for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
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so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky
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as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.
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For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
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Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow.
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because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.
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and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
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Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
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Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
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Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
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I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.
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Yet it was good of you to share in my troubles.
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Moreover, as you Philippians know, in the early days of your acquaintance with the gospel, when I set out from Macedonia, not one church shared with me in the matter of giving and receiving, except you only;
