We are in the letter that Paul wrote to the church at Colossi, and last time, chapter four, we were looking at verses five and six, as Paul discussed bringing outsiders in through your walk and through your talk. The Colossian believers weren't to think that soul consciousness toward unbelievers was only Paul's business as a missionary and not theirs as members of the body of Christ. Anybody familiar with Christianity, and especially with its spread during that first century, has heard of the Apostle Paul. He towers as one of the giants of church history. As the apostle to the Gentiles, to the ethnicities, he's perhaps more than any other Christian who ever lived, the one who had the most profound effect on our ancestors, as those that are largely descendant from Europe, Europeans. But as Paul closes out his letter to the church at Colossae, he reveals that he is not working alone, not by any means. While we remember the apostle Paul is a great giant of the faith, there are a whole lot of other people that were making the ministry possible that he had. Much like a famous actor pulling back the curtain to introduce the people who work backstage without which the play would never take place. Paul mentions names, individuals here in this letter and other letters. people that God was using every bit as much as he was using Paul. There are servants of the Lord today that are household names for us. There are those of our own church family who work as evangelists or pastors or deacons or in some kind of public role. But the work of God is not limited to those that are doing public duties. Hampton Park, there are hundreds of people faithfully serving. Hundreds. And without them, much that happens here wouldn't happen at all. God is using them. And He is not so unrighteous as to forget their labors of love. He weaves that labor together and makes it eternally significant. In passages like this one, underscore for us the great value of all who serve in God's kingdom. We're looking at verses seven through nine this morning and would actually read seven through eleven. So that chapter four so that we get the overall picture here. First in verse seven we read Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He is a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant in the Lord. I sent him to you for this very purpose, you may know how we are and they may encourage your heart and with him an estimate are faithful and beloved brother, who is one of you, and that's the mess was originally from that area. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here. Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, greet you and Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, concerning whom you received instructions. If he comes to you, welcome him and Jesus, who is called justice. These are the only men of the circumcision. There are Jews among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God, and they have been a comfort to me. My fellow workers for the kingdom of God as an arresting phrase and arresting description of those who worked alongside of Paul fellow workers. for the kingdom of God and the list he gives us as we go through this would take us longer than just this morning, so we're just going to be looking at two of these fellow workers in verses seven through nine. This morning we'll be looking at Tychicus, who I'm dubbing the servant-hearted, although that probably could be ascribed to any of these individuals. And then Onesimus, the transformed, the servant-hearted and transformed, who are among the fellow workers for the kingdom of God. Before we go any further, let's just ask the Lord to help us to see what he has for us here, that we might conform to his will. Father, thank you for your word, and Lord, thank you for portions of apostolic correspondence like this that give us insight that sometimes we might miss in other parts of the writing, that let us see behind the scenes. to what serving the Lord is all about, and who all is involved. And Lord, I pray that you would help us make the clear bridge between then and now. And may we band together, and may we arise as a church, and put our armor on, and with the strength that God supplies, accomplish the mission that you've given to us, working together as comrades in arms, as fellow soldiers, fellow workers for the kingdom of God. Lord, we praise you for the privilege of even having that prospect of working for you and being part of an eternal kingdom. So, God, I pray you would impress it on our hearts today and that you would change lives for your glory this morning. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. The verses that we are leading off with, verse 7 and following, we are introduced to a man named Tychicus, and we're going to call him the servant-hearted, one who understood his role as a servant of the Lord and was willing to take on whatever needed to be done. I'm going to read verses again. In verse 7, Tychicus will tell you all about my activities. He's a beloved brother and faithful minister and fellow servant of the Lord. And I've sent him to you for this very purpose, that you may know how we are and that he may encourage your hearts. And then you find at the end of verse nine, a description that both applies to Tychicus and to Onesimus. They will tell you of everything that has taken place here. They were kind of the link between the apostle Paul, who's under house arrest and this little church in the city of Colossae. Tickets is mentioned four other times in the New Testament. Besides here, you might want to jot them down. I'll give you a summary of what these passages teach regarding him. We find his name showing up in Acts 20 in verse four and then in Ephesians 621 and then again in Titus 312. And then finally, in the last letter that Paul wrote before he was executed, Second Timothy 412. From these passages emerges a portrait sketch of Tychicus that's really helpful for us. In Acts 20, verse 4, we learn that Tychicus is among the small group of friends that accompanied Paul on his return trip from his third missionary journey. As he went from southern Greece, Achaia, up through northern Greece, Macedonia, across into Asia, And then from Asia, remember he met with the Ephesian elders, there Miletus, and then from there on to Jerusalem with relief funds for the saints. Tychicus and another man named Trophimus are mentioned there as being from Asia. And Trophimus, in particular, we're told is from Ephesus. And so some interpreters believe that Tychicus may have been an Ephesian as well, that both Tychicus and Trophimus were from that city. We do know this, that he was the one who personally carried not only this letter to the Colossians, but also Paul's letter to the Ephesians, according to Ephesians 6.21. And then in Titus 3, that was written between the two Roman imprisonments, we learn that Tychicus is still with Paul. So he's an associate of Paul that has stuck with him even after the imprisonment. And then we learn that he's also with Paul, still with Paul, in the final days of the great apostle. before he was executed, according to 2 Timothy 4. So here's a brother that really is a faithful friend to Paul, who had stuck with him on many a perilous journey. Tychicus learned by personal experience right from the beginning that serving Christ is no easy road. He saw firsthand the hatred from unbelievers, both religious and irreligious. He witnessed beatings and imprisonments undeserved. saw shipwrecks, perils of land and sea, bandits, hunger, thirst, nakedness. These things are things that Tychicus experienced alongside the Apostle Paul. In fact, it's very possible that one of his first experiences as a new believer was seeing the mob in Ephesus drag Paul into the arena, shouting, Great is Diana of the Ephesians there for hours. That may have been one of his first experiences. First introduction to what being a Christian is all about. Many, particularly in our comfortable, affluent kind of culture. Would have run from the danger and the difficulties. But when you run. When you run from difficulties and dangers, you give up some priceless treasures as well. Who would want to give up the privilege of being part of the team The team led by the apostle Paul, ambassadors for God that traverse throughout all kinds of countries and places, empowered by the Spirit, joyful in their Savior, even when they're suffering, and watching the gospel revolutionize people from diverse cultures and places, and turn even calamities into reasons for victorious praise. I mean, wouldn't you love to have seen it with your own eyes? In these verses in Colossians, Paul unveiled why Tychicus was such a trusted and valuable fellow worker for the kingdom of God. He describes this brother, describes his character in these terms. You see them there, beloved brother, faithful minister, and fellow servant in the Lord. First, consider the significance of Paul calling this Gentile believer a beloved brother. It really reveals as much about Paul as it does about Tychicus. I mean, the rumor that Paul had taken Trophimus into the temple at Jerusalem later, I mean, actually it was what led to his imprisonment in Jerusalem and then eventually to Rome. It was a rumor that he had taken a Gentile into the Jewish part of the temple, created a violent uproar. It created mob violence. They practically beat him to death there before the Roman soldiers rescued him. Well, that would have been exactly Paul's response. Before he was converted. Because he was he was dragging men and women into court, seeing through that they were executed, he was ravaging the church like a wild boar tears up things in the woods. And that was Paul's kind of attitude. And he he would have been first to defend Jewish honor and to attack those that would be Gentiles as outsiders. And now the man who would have acted that way, who was once a Pharisee of the Pharisees, calls this man from a city known for the occult. He calls him a brother. They have a common heavenly father. And he called him beloved. He is loved by God. And by the great apostle himself, I love this man and this man is my brother. You know, those those words, in a sense, are the are the gospel in a nutshell. The gospel says God loves his enemies and rescues them. And God, when he rescues them from sin and death, when he when he takes the blood of Christ poured out on their behalf to pay the wrath of God and reconciles them to God, he he gives him the Holy Spirit. He regenerates them. He makes them part of the family of God. They they take on new DNA, spiritual DNA that changes them from the inside out. Beloved brother captures that in two words. And Paul calls Trophimus that, and really, you know, before a person is born again, before a person receives the love of God and accepts it as directed toward him, he'll never be a fellow worker for the kingdom of God. He might do good works, he might be what passes as a moral man, but until he's born again, until he has life from God, until his sin is purged before God, he can never be part of the kingdom, let alone be one who's working for that eternal kingdom. And so, this first description is really critical. There's a vital connection between people who've been really born again that transcends every other distinction. These two men should have never been associates, but for the gospel, they wouldn't have been. He's a beloved brother, and he's a faithful minister. And there, Paul uses a term that actually has an official meaning sometimes. We have deacons in our church, and that's the term he uses here. Not that Tychicus was a deacon of some particular church, but he was a minister. He was a servant, and that's what deacons do. They serve. This happens to be the apostles' favorite term for themselves in relationship to other people. Remember in the Church of Corinth, they're all obsessed with following their favorite preachers. That's easy. That's easy to happen. Somebody, you read a book he's written, you hear a series of sermons, somebody disciples you, you come to appreciate a person's insight in theology, and sometimes you can just go, well, hog wild over just that one person, and you're kind of blind to the flaws, blind to the dangers, and unappreciative of anybody else. That's just carnal, that's not spiritual. That's not exercising self-control and wisdom. No man deserves that, and even the Apostle Paul says this of himself. The Apostle Paul had profound effect, obviously, at the Church of Corinth. He founded it, and then later Apollos, who was a mighty speaker and gifted in the Scriptures, He had a lot of input at Corinth, but there's a point at which Apollos wouldn't even go back to that church because they idolized him so much, and they idolized him in, you know, kind of in a party rivalry thing as pitted him against Paul. And so Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3 when he is addressing this fleshly kind of response to human leaders, he says, what then is Apollos and what is Paul? Servants. Deacons, ministers, through whom you believe is the Lord assigned to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither is he who plants nor he who waters anything, but only God who gives the growth. We come to worship, not men, but God. We're devoted not to a movement or even to a denomination. We are devoted to God and to Jesus Christ. And we have to always keep that perspective, a denomination, a local church, a brother in Christ. He's a blessing to us, so that denomination, that church is a blessing to us insofar as God is working through those individuals and those groups. 1 Corinthians 4, 1 and 2, Paul goes on to say, this is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Mystery being something that was once not revealed and now is. He uses two very descriptive terms, very helpful for us. One term he uses is very picturesque. The word servant literally means an under rower. And it comes from a term used to describe those on the galley ships, you know, on the galley ships with all the roars. If I say it right, not roars, not rows, but the oars rowing. OK, got it. I can't even say it, let alone do it. They would have often there be two decks. You'd have your upper rowers and you've had your under rowers. And when all those things got going synchronized, the ship could really move and really maneuver. And you've seen probably films where they try to recreate what that was like. Well, if you were on one of those ships, you really would prefer to be an upper rower. Because the under rowers, when you're in a battle, if the ship goes down, chances are you're not going to make it at all. You don't hardly have a chance. You're the under rower. You're the one that's going to drown. And that's the kind of term that Paul uses. He says, we're just low slaves. We're like galley slaves. A lot of times galley slaves were prisoners of war and other people that, you know, didn't have a choice but to work the galleys. And that's the way he describes himself. And then as a steward, a steward didn't own anything. He didn't own the household. He was responsible for it. He was he was answerable to the owner for the household and he worked for the owner. He was a slave overseeing his master's things. And that's really what anybody who serves the Lord is. We're we're just servants. You're just a servant. What you have is from God. And and we're not we're not big shot. There aren't any big shots. Who are servants of God. There aren't any big shots. And we're all answerable to God. We're not a law to ourselves. The more responsibility we have means that we can cut more corners and break more rules. That's not it at all. He that's greatest among you has to be the servant of all. We just serve more. And that's the way Paul looked at his life and that is why he calls Tithecus a faithful, a trustworthy deacon or minister, servant. There are a lot of people that will rise to a special occasion. Many that will do some great act of sacrifice from time to time. But real ministry demands day in and day out faithfulness because you're ministering to people that always have needs. You can't force ministry into the confines of convenience. You can't reduce it to the status of an occasional option as if it were a minor importance, kind of a side avocation. Our flesh often covets position while it chafes at responsibility. And that's actually backwards. Doing the job faithfully is what matters, not the position. The position at best is only a means to an end. If we have to be in the limelight to serve, then what we really want isn't service at all. We just want credit. And so, you know, as a church body, sometimes we get the idea that You look at a larger church, we talked about this some in Sunday school this morning. You look at a larger church and say, oh, you know, there's people here that have been teaching Sunday school for 30 years. I guess I don't have a chance to teach. Oh, they've got the deacon, you know, if you're going to be a deacon at Hampton Park, you're going to have to be attending probably five years for it. Now, people know you so that you can be elected as a deacon. I don't think I'm going to go there and can't serve there. Well, if that's what you're thinking in terms of service, if you're thinking in terms of a position to serve, you're not thinking biblically. You don't have to have a position. The only position you need to serve is to be in Christ, to love God and love people. And the fact is there was no position at all. If you just made it your life to every time you gather with God's people to make sure you minister to the people that are right around you. And then you moved around. You would have practically a full time ministry, you could probably might have to quit your job to tend to everything. I'm being facetious. I don't want you to quit your job and put you out there, but the fact is there's so much to do. Wherever there's people, there are needs, and we want to serve, and having a position isn't really the issue. He's called a fellow servant also in the Lord. A fellow servant in the Lord. The striking words from God's ambassador to the Gentile world, the founder of many churches, writer of 13 books of the New Testament, first to call himself Antiochus, a servant. And that sounds kind of soft. The word is bond slave. I'm a slave and so is he. And so his whole attitude toward the Lord is one of slave to master, and this is a fellow bond slave. Their duties may be different, but the relation to God is the same. We just need to remember the fact that sometimes we forget too easily for whom we are doing what we do. If you serve the Lord because you get paid, you're serving for the wrong reasons. If you, if you serve just to get along with people, you're serving for the wrong reason. Ultimately, the motivation has to be for God as God's bond slave, lifelong purchased by God. I'm alive to do this. When we drift into God forgetting service, we take the heart and soul out of our labor, small and great. We lose the power for service. We lose the purpose for service. We become much more vulnerable to the hardships of service because we're forgetting the great person for whom we do whatever we do. I remember when it dawned on me some years ago as a church planter that as the church grew, I realized that I was never going to please everybody, not even myself. And that ultimately I had to serve one person. or I would go crazy. Just one person. And that person was God. And if I could give to that flock the gift of an under-shepherd who really loved God and really spent time with God and came from God to them with the Word of God and was a real, a genuine man of God. If I could give them that, that was a life pursuit. That was all the job description I could handle. And in the final analysis, the only job description that would matter. And, you know, we're still working on being that kind of person, but a fellow servant of the Lord. There's several things that we learn when we look at the kind of service that Tychicus rendered here, some principles about that service that we want to spend some time on. I'm spending most of the time this morning on Tychicus, and then we'll wrap it up quickly with Onesimus. And one is this, and Alexander McLaren put it well, and he said, small things, done for Christ are great. Small things done for Christ are great, and I say that because of what this text reveals about Tychicus is he was doing what would appear to be a small thing. He's delivering this letter. He's delivering news from Paul to this church. Now, what good is writing a letter, even of the value of the book of Colossians, if you can't get the letter delivered? A small defect in the engine of a jet can bring the whole flying machine down with all its crew and passengers. The malfunction of a small organ in the body can bring a person down to the sickbed or to the grave. The neglect of small necessities in the work of Christ can cripple and in time destroy an entire ministry of a local body. and even send shockwaves beyond that local body throughout all Christendom. The fact is, there are many simple but necessary things that if they're left undone, that oversight will hinder and harm the work and harm people and disadvantage the world and dishonor Christ. In a church our size, there are so many jobs that need to be attended, that we've hired many employees. I mean, I could take the whole day listing everything, all week listing the things that have to be done. But, you know, letters and files and accounting and cleaning and repairs and teaching and, I mean, the list is endless. But I think having gone from a church plant to a church that's been around a long time, Sometimes we think that because we've hired people to do some of the work that that's all the work that needs to be done. There was hire somebody as if we serve only for paid. Some of the most significant service you and I will ever render is what we're not paid to do. A word that Lee spoken. A deed kindly done. A gentle touch, a tear, an expression of sympathy, a helping hand, a funeral meal, visiting a shut-in, opening your home, teaching someone to read, giving a ride to the doctor, devoting yourself to prayer. Time studying the word so you can pass it on to others. Learning someone's name. Sharing the gospel with a friend. Making a stranger into a friend. Faithful giving. Showing up to worship and to work. Practicing your music so that it can be a blessing and not a hindrance. These are only, you know, as I start to make the list, I think I really should stop there. The fact is, there's all kinds of things that need to be done if our heart toward the Lord is what ought to be. Small things done for Christ are great things. And second, secular things done for Christ are sacred. The fact is, ministry for the Lord always involves tasks that are material and functional, not in themselves spiritual. Except that they're done for Christ and done in his power, I mean, Everybody has to brush their teeth. But when you get a witness to someone or minister to someone, it becomes spiritually significant to brush your teeth, right? I mean, the simplest things that are part of it, there are small things or things that have to be done that we don't like to have to do. But nonetheless, it becomes significant as we devote those things to the Lord. Let every necessary kingdom duty be rendered as an offering to the Lord, because all of life, not only the big tasks, but the details is supposed to be a liturgy of worship to God, according to Romans 12. Actually, it is paganism that divorces the ceremony of worship from the daily duties of life. We're not pagans, we're Christians, and it all integrates together. And then fleeting things done for Christ are eternal. Things that have no value, like the paper money that's in your wallet. I don't really know how valuable that is. It might be less and less valuable the longer we go. But compared to Rome and all its business and pomp and power, the errand that Tychicus was to accomplish may have seemed small, inconsequential. How astonished he would have been to learn that the two letters that he carried would outlast the empire itself and that his name, because he fulfilled his part in the kingdom of God, would be known far beyond the reaches of the Roman Empire. Generations, long generations later, in fact, till Jesus comes and then for eternity. I mean, even the church to which he carried this letter is gone. It swallowed up over centuries by Islam, along with other churches in Asia and the city of Colossus, little more than rubble in a field. But these letters. Now, minister the word of God to people like us living in lands that were utterly unknown in Paul's day. One man writes, Paul meant to teach a handful of obscure believers and he is edified the world. Tickets thought to carry the precious letter safely over the sea and he has helped to send it across the centuries and to put it into our hands. We all take a kiss today. So. Do the work that God gives you. Only eternity will reveal how far reaching is the impact of even the smallest job done for Jesus. I mean, I think about my years in high school. I was converted at four. I think back to the friends that I had. And I realized that so many of them, while I was in a Christian school, they really didn't know Christ. And I think if somehow I had my head screwed on right, I wonder what would have happened if I had ministered to them like a missionary, like an evangelist. And instead of assuming I'm in a Christian school, I don't need to worry about that. Instead of that, if I were looking at them and loving them and trying to help them, what the difference would have been? I mean, now that I've lived long enough to see the outcome of many of their lives and how so many of their lives were set, the direction they were going in high school. I think what a difference it would have made had I really been on fire for the Lord and really loved them and served them. Instead of just looking at them as competitors in school or in the sports field, our kids with bad attitudes are good. What a difference it would have meant. There's just so much of life that could be invested for the kingdom of God. Hebrews 6.10 says God is not unjust to overlook your work and the love that you've shown for his name and serving the saints as you still do. Now, very quickly, we need to look at Onesimus to transform because these two really fit together. We can't really serve faithfully until we've had this transformation. Look at verse 9. Onesimus, our faithful and beloved brother who is one of you, they will tell you of everything that's taken place here. Remember that Onesimus is a runaway slave who stole from his master when he fled, and his master was a member of the church at Colossi. His name is Philemon. We have the letter that Paul wrote to Philemon. Now Philemon had known Onesimus not as a beloved brother. He had known him as a rebel and a thief and a fugitive who buried himself in Rome to escape. But God knew where Onesimus was, even if Philemon didn't. and God saw to it that Onesimus found Paul, or vice versa. Paul was in Rome at Rome's expense and by the instrumentality of his most bitter enemies, but God wove together every evil intent, every hostile action, every fickle decision of self-serving magistrates, even violent storms of the sea, to bring Paul to Rome. He was there not only to testify before the emperor of the civilized world, he was there to see a slave named Onesimus. It was a divine appointment. Sometimes people talk as if those from certain races or cultures or backgrounds are somehow less suitable candidates for the kingdom of God. The fact is, only those who know themselves unsuitable are suitable. for the kingdom of God, they are the poor in spirit. Christ came to call not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. People remain lost more often because they think themselves too good than because they think themselves too bad. And the history of awakenings and revivals bears testimony that when God moves, it's primarily the great unwashed that find cleansing from their sins are regenerated and sanctified and become faithful followers of Jesus. while the respectable religious people remain oblivious to the workings of God, or even downright hostile to them. Christ lays hold of both Pharisees like Paul and renegades like Onesimus. And now Onesimus is a faithful and beloved brother. Faithful the very opposite of what he had been Formerly he was useless to you, Paul writes Philemon, but now he's indeed useful to me and to you. And he's beloved. I mean, Onesimus and Paul's backgrounds are about as diverse as you could get in the ancient world. And usually that kind of difference evokes distrust and animosity. Seneca writes, so many slaves, so many enemies. But all the differences between Paul and Onesimus or Philemon and Onesimus are trivial. because of the great common denominator they have, and that is Jesus Christ, their one in him. If God has accepted this man because he is in his beloved son, I, who by grace alone have also been accepted, am hard-pressed to turn him away. Paul loves Onesimus as a father loves a son. With great reluctance, he sends him back to Philemon because of the affection he bears this young man. I'll even 12 he writes I'm sending him back to you sending my very heart. Onesimus have been transformed. It's what God does with people through the gospel. I don't know who all you have relationships with but I know this. That everybody you know needs Jesus. And that no matter how messed up they are. He can fix them. and he can make them a beloved faithful brother. Perhaps you've heard the famous poem, The Touch of the Master's Hand. It was battered and scarred, and the auctioneer thought it scarcely worth his while to waste much time on the old violin, but he held it up with a smile. What am I bidding, good folks? He cried, who'll start the bidding for me? A dollar, a dollar, nearly two, only two. Two dollars, who'll make it three? Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three, but no. From the room far back, a gray-haired man came forward and picked up the bow. And wiping the dust from the old violin and tightening up all the strings, he played a melody pure and sweet, as sweet as angels sing. The auctioneer, with a voice that was quiet and low, said, What am I bid for the old violin? And he held it up with the bow. A thousand dollars, and who make it two? Two thousand, and who make it three? Three thousand once, and three thousand twice, and going and gone, said he. The people cheered, but some of them cried. They did not quite understand what changed its worth. The man replied, the touch of the Master's hand. Many a man with a life out of tune and battered and torn with sin is auctioned cheap by the thoughtless crowd, much like the old violin. A mess of pottage, a glass of wine, a game, and he travels on. He's going once and going twice. He's going and almost gone. But the master comes. And the foolish crowd can never quite understand the worth of a soul. And the change that's wrought. By the touch of the master's hand. These men are fellow workers. For the kingdom of God. Servant hearted. Transformed. Not because they knew Paul. because they knew Jesus. Let's pray. Lord, we have considered your word and it has found us where we live. So God, I pray by your Spirit because your word is alive and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword that divides between the thoughts and intents of the heart. It lays open before you. God, I pray that through your word. Now, as we've been opened up before you, we might respond and repentance and faith. We might turn from whatever is not consistent with what we've learned. Your will is for us. We might give ourselves. To your commands. I pray, especially for anyone I've heard this message who's not in Christ yet, but knows he needs to come to him and be saved. God, save that person today. Break down the barriers. Tear down the idols. Free that individual for the glory of Christ, I pray in his name. Amen.