Turn now in the Bible to Philippians chapter 2. It's on page 981. I'm going to read from verse 19 to verse 30. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how, as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel. I hope, therefore, to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. I have thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother, and fellow worker, and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need. For he has been longing for you all, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed, he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, while risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me." Now there was a lot of I and me and you in that passage, a lot of I Paul and you Philippians. So how does that relate to us Philadelphians? How does this so personal a passage, written to 1st century Philippians, apply to 21st century Philadelphians? Let's notice that when he tells them about his plans for himself and for Timothy and for the guy with the funny name, Epaphroditus, he wasn't giving them information only. Nor was he really giving them introductions, because they knew Timothy and Epaphroditus already. No, he was giving them information, but he was also continuing to exhort them. He was continuing to encourage them to walk worthy of the Gospel, to have the same love, to have the same mind, not to consider their own interests only, but also the interests of others. He told us what kind of mind to have, the mind of Christ, who being in the form of God, became a man and poured himself out to death. And someone could say, well, it's all very well for Jesus to have that mind, but Jesus is God. Does any mere person have the mind of Christ? Are you giving me a doable instruction here? And so what he's saying is, it is certainly rare. But yes, there are people who have the mind of Christ, and so you can and should also. He's named himself. He's saying, even if I am poured out as a drink offering, even if I die next week, you should rejoice with me. And now he points out Timothy. You know Timothy, how he served me humbly, served you humbly. You know Epaphroditus. He risked his life and almost died for the work of Christ. He's saying yes. There are people who have the mind of Christ. You should respond in two ways. You should respond by having that mind yourself, a mind that considers others and puts their interests alongside of your own. And you should honour these and pastors like Timothy in Epaphroditus, not with words of reception only, but with imitation. Because when you honour others and when you consider their interests, you're not really imitating Paul or Timothy. really imitating Christ, as they imitate Christ. So the main point of this passage is that we should selflessly love and honour others, especially within the Church. And what we have here is particular details that come into play when you're talking about distance, when you're talking about travel, when you're talking about illness, when you're talking about relationships and so on. And so he says there in verse 19, the first paragraph, he says, I hope to send Timothy to you soon. He's giving them information, and he's giving them a two-fold encouragement. They didn't need to be introduced to Timothy, because Timothy had been with them when Paul and Silas first came there, and Timothy had already worked among them when Paul was in Ephesus in Acts 19 and 20. We read that Timothy and another man went into this region to go back to those churches and encourage them when Paul was detained elsewhere. That's why you can simply say, you know his proven words, because he's proven it to you by proving it among you. But he informs them of his hopes. I hope to send Timothy to you. And he's modest. I hope in the Lord. That is, if God wills, I will send Timothy to you. I might not, because I don't know exactly what's going to happen, but that's my intention. I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you. Here Paul does just what James tells us to do. Where James says, you should not say, tomorrow we will move to New York and make money. He says, no, you say, if the Lord wills, tomorrow we will go to New York and make money, because you don't know if they'll be alive tomorrow. Always, therefore, there should be that godly modesty that says, if the Lord wills, I will do so. And that's what Paul shows us. I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you. So he's being modest, but he is doing his best to inform the church of his movements and the movements of his associates. from which we can derive the lesson, husbands, that if Paul worked so hard to let them know where he was going, you can pull out the cell phone and let your wife know if you're going to be two hours late. Yes, children, you too can call. Information is a good thing. You can let people know where you are, those who care about you and will be worried about you. You can let them know where you are. But more important than just the information here is the encouragement that we derive from good news. they would have been encouraged to know Timothy was coming. Ah, one of our founding pastors. We will have reinforcements for our spiritual battle. Because we're in a spiritual battle. Notice Epaphroditus is called my fellow soldier. He wasn't a soldier in the army. Paul wasn't a soldier in the army. He calls him my fellow soldier. And it encourages soldiers when you know that reinforcements are coming. then you believe you can hang on if you're going to be relieved by that other battalion coming to fight with you. Of course, even better than the news of the reinforcements is when they get there. But just the news, just the encouragement that yes, the 82nd Airborne is coming to relieve you in the field, that would encourage you if you were out there under fire. So they are to be encouraged. I hope to send Timothy to you soon, and here is Epiphroditus. Of course, it also encourages them to repent, to hear that Timothy is coming. It's interesting that the Holy Spirit didn't just tell Paul everything that was going on at a distance. The Holy Spirit could have told him everything, but didn't. He had to get his information and send his information, just like anyone else, by a person, to know that Paul would hear about them in the near future. That would encourage them to repent, to shape up, because Timothy is going to come, and then he's going to leave, and Paul's going to hear how you are really when Timothy's here in person. You won't fool Timothy when he's here in person. Now God's always with us, so we should always be encouraged to repent. But we know how lazy and complacent we are. So often it helps us to know someone is coming, to know that there will be an in-flesh accounting coming to us. As the Bible says, as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. We're an encouragement to each other. Sometimes we wake each other up with a sharp word. For a whole variety of reasons. We're helped by the actual physical presence of other people. And so Paul says, Timothy will come, so that I'm going to hear about you, and I hope to come to you myself. And that will encourage them to repent in the ways that he's telling them that they need to. So he's encouraging them to be like-minded, and not to be afraid, and don't be in factions, so that you won't be ashamed when your spiritual father comes. And so Paul's encouraging them to love by loving them himself. I hope in the Lord to send Timothy to you, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. He's saying, of course, I was cheered when Epaphroditus came the first time and I found out about you, and you no doubt will be cheered by hearing my news, and I will be cheered when I hear news of you. He's saying, I love you so much that it changes my mood, even in prison, even on trial, it changes my mood when I hear news of you. He's giving them encouragement by showing how much he loves them. And we also should be cheered by news of other believers, and we hear that they're doing well. It's very cheering when you hear about the news from the mission work in southern Sudan, not far from Darfur, that hundreds of people in this young mission of just a few years are worshipping God today, just like we are. They're not under buildings like this, they're under a tree. But they're there worshipping God, and they're suing these believers by the hundreds who've been baptized, and they're suing these pastors, and the word is spreading. And that's really cheering. When you see the children of the Church coming to faith, that is very cheering. And if you're not cheered by seeing good news of other believers far away or close at hand, then must you not have a very sad, narrow little soul, just concerned with your own interests? He says here, many have only their own interests at heart, not the interests of others. That's a sad and narrow self-centeredness. Paul says, Timothy, Timothy is different, and you also different. Paul said, I have no one like him to send, they all seek their own interests. He doesn't mean that every Christian in Rome was selfish. He means that of those that he could send, they were selfish. It's still a sad note, but that's not his focus. He moves on to move back to Timothy. He says, Timothy is faithful, and you need to set your minds on the good example. Set your minds on the good example, not on the bad examples. Because when you think lowly of others, and some people deserve it, but when you think lowly of others and highly of yourself, you weaken yourself in two ways. You weaken yourself by becoming proud, I'm better than them. As we know, pride goes before a fall. A proud heart is not a safe place to be. And of course you're weakened when you see other people's bad example and focus on it, and begin to think, well, if they did it, then maybe it's okay for me also. If you want to grow spiritually, you need to focus your mind on something admirable in the other, and be mindful of your own sins. Then you're strengthened by your own humility, which is not meant to lead you to despair, but to Jesus. Then you're strengthened by their good example, the example of Paul and Timothy and Epaphroditus and whoever there may be. Paul is going to say on the next page, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is pure and lovely and commendable, think about that stuff. Of course the greatest thing to seek is the Kingdom of God. As Jesus said, seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. So here we have the focus here. Focus your mind on Timothy, on things that are noble, on good examples. Seek the good of your fellow believers, not your own interests. Again, the Church Father said, don't seek release from your labours. One who seeks release from his labours is seeking his own interests, not the interests of others. So Paul said, I hope to send Timothy to you soon, implied his honour and imitates him, because he genuinely loves you. Have no one like him who has your interests at heart. He genuinely loves you, who is with you at the beginning of your church. He's been with you since then. He loves you. Doesn't that warm you, to know that the person loves you? But Paul makes that point, he loves you, and he makes this other point about Timothy. He's faithful and humble, you know his worth. It's humble for a grown man to serve as a son with a father. Especially when the older man isn't actually his father. For that reason, Paul says, I can't send him just yet. I can't lose him. He's too important to me. I have to see how things are going to go. As soon as I know, I'll send him. And you notice what Paul's doing. He's cutting away every reason for them to think badly of Timothy. And when he's done with that, he's going to cut away every reason for them to think badly of Epaphroditus. That's because he always is concerned to cut away every reason to doubt or to despise himself or his fellow pastors. Because the devil knows that if you want to scatter the sheep, you strike at the shepherds. And the devil is always attacking the church, just as he attacked Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. And so when the devil then attacked God's Word, he attacked God's truthfulness, he attacked God's character, He knows ever since that he does that, that's effective. And if he attacks the pastors who bring the word, then he makes the word of God implausible and undesirable. The devil always wants you to despise whatever pastors you may have. I would rather if I had a guest minister preach this message, but it's what I have in front of me. It's always desirable for the devil to make the pastors be despised, so that people will listen to other voices and be scattered. Then the devil can come in and pick off the believers one by one, like a wolf or like a lion. Now God knows there are bad pastors, it says so right in this book. Some preach Christ out of envy or rivalry or so on. The church was safest when the good pastors were respected, and so that's why he's saying here, I love you, Timothy loves you, Epaphroditus loves you. That does much to calm your fears. And he also says, Timothy is a faithful worker. Epaphroditus is a faithful worker. They bring you the truth of God. Trust their teaching. If Epaphroditus seems slow in returning to you, it's because he was sick. If Timothy can't make it, it's because God detained him. But don't attribute it to some lack of love or lack of trustworthiness. And Timothy, or me, doesn't come to you. Everyone then who wants to see Jesus honoured and believers built up, wants to listen to good pastors. It's very easy to fall into a mindset of distrust, of saying, I know better, let me criticise. Speak the doubts and you scatter the Church. When the people of God are united, the wolf finds no strays. The united body resists the devil and he flees. So Paul goes on to say, I have sent Epaphroditus to you. The funny thing was, they sent Epaphroditus to him. You can see that most clearly on the next page, chapter 4, verse 18, when he lets them know, I have received full payment and more. I am well supplied, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent. Epaphroditus was their messenger to Paul. They had collected money to sustain him in jail, because jails back then didn't necessarily feed you. So they sent what Paul needed and Epaphroditus brought it. This is his receipt. I got it from him. It sounds like he did more than just hand him money and leave. He then spent time with him. He then encouraged him. He then was there physically in the presence, maybe doing things that Paul needed to be done for himself, given that he was in prison. You can tell that at the end of the chapter. We're told that he risked his life like it was lacking in your service to me. So their assignment had been, take our gift to Paul and help him. And then he shows up again. And their question could be, did you finish your assignment? Why did you cut out so early? And so Paul says, I sent him back. I thought it necessary. It's my decision. He hasn't remissed. It's on me that he's back to you. Then he makes the same two points about Epaphroditus and about Timothy. He loves you and he's a faithful worker. Love and faithfulness. You could call that love for God and for neighbor. You could call it love and truth. That's somebody who's well-equipped to speak the truth in love. Someone who loves you and is a faithful worker. I once heard a beloved pastor, now a retired pastor, being praised. And the person who was praising him said, I think this man's greatest strengths are he loved you and then he told you exactly what he thought. Can we talk to tell you exactly what you think? People often don't want to hear exactly what you think. That was this pastor's two greatest strengths. He loved you which made it impalatable when he told you exactly what he thought. Paul is saying, these are the kinds of men who can do this. They love you, and they're faithful workers. Epaphroditus isn't just a fellow worker, he's a fellow soldier. That is, he bears the burden, he bears the suffering of the fight. He loves you, he's longing for you all. He was distressed because you heard he was ill, and he was, and now he wants to go back so that you can be encouraged. I was up at Cambridge Church about six months ago, and I was sitting there before Sunday school started, and Martha Fisher walked in, and she got an ovation from the people who were there. And then I explained it to the visitors who I just met. Why would Martha Fisher get an ovation when she walked in? Well, Martha Fisher had gotten a lung transplant in Pittsburgh, so she hadn't even been to the church for the previous six months, and before that, when she was there, she came in in a wheelchair. So when she came in, she was back with them, and now in better health, better strength, she walked in. They said, Hooray! Martha is back on her feet. She got an ovation. Here our prophet wants to show them that he's better. He's longing for you all, distressed because you heard he was sick, and he wants to come back and show you that he is well, and you don't need to be worried about him. Now as Paul goes on about Epaphroditus, my brother, my fellow worker, my fellow soldier, you notice something interesting here. What a high value he sets on this man with the funny name. The name is derived from Aphrodite, the pagan Greek goddess of love. And he comes from the church in Philippi, which was a Roman city with so few Jews in it, there wasn't even a synagogue there. It means there were less than 10 Jewish men there. So here's this guy. He's almost certainly a Gentile by birth. He's a pagan by birth. He's got this pagan name. And here's Paul, the former Pharisee. How does he treat him? He says, my brother in Christ. We're one in Christ. He doesn't leave it at that. He's my fellow worker. We do the same job. He's my fellow soldier. I suffer and he also suffers. He's saying, respect him the way you do me. He says, I love him, if he died I'd have sorrow on sorrow. What a grief it would have been if he died having come to help me. It's very easy to ignore and scorn those who are different from you. Very easy not to cross over and talk to the person who is different from you. You see this everywhere. Greek speakers called everybody who didn't speak Greek a barbarian. Europeans, enslaved Africans, all over the world. People don't like, don't trust, don't respect those who are different from them. But Paul did not put down this Christian born pagan with a goddess's name. He treated him like Timothy, his own son in the faith. And so we're reminded that when the visitor comes, you're to go and greet the person warmly. And if you suspect there's a language barrier, you're to go and greet the person warmly, and not say, well, I can't talk to them. You're to go up and talk to them anyway. If Jesus came from heaven to earth, we can cross an aisle and say hello. Now there's a little bit of a question here. It says, God had mercy on him and healed him, so he didn't die. The poet already said, if I die, rejoice with me. So how is it merciful of God to heal a person if to die is gain? If to die and be with Christ is better, then why is it merciful to heal him? We notice, contra the heresies, life in this world is a good thing. The world's plenty evil, sure, and yet life here is still a good thing. So it's merciful when it's extended. versus those who might be, you might say, hyper-spiritual Christians and say, oh, be merciful to die. The same reasoning that Paul used for himself applies to Epaphroditus. If it is more necessary for you that I remain, so I will remain. He can say the same thing about Epaphroditus. Also you see the mercy in that. Epaphroditus was longing to see them. If he died, he wouldn't have seen them for a long time. God had mercy on him and let him live so that he could go back and see them again. God granted his wish. That was merciful. But when Paul says, lest I have sorrow on sorrow, when he says, so that I can be less anxious, we see what the Christian emotional life is like. It's not meant to be a stoical life where you don't grieve, you don't rejoice, you don't go up or down, you stay the same all the time. That's a stoic life. And you can Christianize it by bringing God's will into it and saying, I accept God's will so I never get high or low, I just keep plowing ahead. The Christianized version of the Stoic life. But that wasn't Paul, and it wasn't Jesus, and it wasn't Joseph, and it wasn't David. That's not what the Christian life should look like. The goal of the Christian life is not to squelch our humanity, but to renew and purify it. God made us human, so to be human is good. To be sinful is not good, but to be human is good. To be controlled by your emotions is not good, but to express them and bring them to God, that is good. So that we are not to squelch all sorrow. Paul wouldn't have written, I would have been so sorrowful. God's law is that we rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn. Not acting only, but in reality. Now how do we make this passage of scripture again useful in our own lives, with all the I's and the U's and the Epiphroditus and people who have been in their graves for 1900 years? How do we make this useful to us? Well first you see, let us selflessly love other believers, having the mind of Christ. That's why we hear about Paul and Timothy and Epiphroditus here. They're examples of those who have the mind of Christ. The implied word imitates such. Be like them, have the mind of Christ. Secondly, you can see that as Timothy was going to come, you could say as a roving pastor, as Epaphroditus was one of their leaders, he's saying, honor true pastors by imitating their faith and not tearing them down or despising them. But thirdly, did you notice why Epaphroditus was there? We read it at the end of chapter four, he went to take money from them to Paul. He went to bring him financial support. You'll see in your bulletin that there is a little flyer there of the one great day of sharing, referring to next Sunday. It has to support the denominational works. There's a list of them along the side. When we as a congregation give, and when you give to the denomination, you are helping the widows who are in the old folks' home. Last year we did special fundraising for global missions in Sudan. This year we won't have a special day. But we will have a day next week when we take up the offering. You can earmark. I want so much of this to go to RPM&M. If you want to know more about what the money will go to, I can tell you what each one of those things is on the list there. Sudan is our big mission field right now. But there are other things as well. Christopher, one more time, he said, when the king sends soldiers out to war, you've got to support them financially. And you do it as his slaves. He raises your taxes and you have to pay them to support the soldiers. So how, when God sends soldiers out to war, that is the missionaries, and he calls us as free men to contribute, how can we not give as well? He says, if the ancient Israelites, being subsistence farmers, could tie, how can we, being more wealthy, do less? So this is the last way to make this passage useful. As the Philippians had sent money to support the missionary Paul in Rome, Let us each give a special gift next week, earmarked to the work of the denomination, to the work of missions in Sudan, in Japan, and here at home. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you call us, not with general principles only, but also with details. We thank you that you teach us, not with abstract ideas only, but also with examples. And we thank you that the greatest example is the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. And most of all, we thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are not only an example, but that you are the Savior We thank you that when you died on the cross, it was not as an example only, but it was to give your life as a ransom for many. We thank you that by your blood you have paid for our sins so that we can stand before you. And so we pray, Lord, we pray that we would not go on heedlessly, but we would both believe in you and lay hold of the hope that is in Christ. And help us to be changed so that we would live as God originally intended us to live, putting him first. and caring for others as we care for ourselves. Help us, Lord, to have the mind of Christ and have ears to hear the true word that comes from you. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.