Sermon Transcript
We’re in chapter 2 and verse 19 to the end of the chapter. So I encourage you to just turn there or scroll there or some kind of get there. The message notes, I think, have that passage on it. And so you could pull out the message note sheet and look at that. Some of you know that I’ve taught seminars for Walk Thru the Bible Ministries for now about 30 years, which has been amazing to me.
I used to look like this picture right here 30 years ago.
I saw some pictures recently of my dad at the age that I am right now, and I remember thinking, Dad, you look so old. And now when I look at that and I’m the age that he was, I was wrong. He wasn’t that old. But anyway, so this is the picture that they took the first year that I was at Walk Thru the Bible back in Atlanta, Georgia. And they put me on as an instructor with them, which meant they would send me out to teach, walk through the Old Testament, walk through the New Testament events and other seminars.
And they would send along this picture when I was coming with a, you know, bio of me and that sort of thing. I would end up in different churches and schools and camps and conference centers and places like that, military posts or military bases. I Over the years, I’ve done several of those. Recently, I was sent to Fort Huachuca, which is in the middle of the Arizona desert. It’s a post there.
It’s an Army post. Hickam Air Force Base was one of my favorite places to be sent to because it was in Honolulu, Hawaii. Every time that they’ve sent me to Hawaii, I’ve said willingly, yes, I’ll be happy to go. You know, let’s see, Arizona desert or Hawaii, you know, I think I’ll work my schedule out and make this whole thing happen over here. Several years ago, I was sent to Western Theological Seminary up in Portland, Oregon to teach the Prayer of Jabez event.
It was actually during the time when the book Prayer of Jabez came out, and Bruce Wilkinson had written the book. And Bruce, of course, is the founder of Walk Thru the Bible Ministries and president. And so he was at the time being asked to go to several locations and teach on this prayer, the prayer of Jabez, and, you know, give his perspective on it and all of that. Well, he was so busy doing that that he couldn’t get all the appointments on his calendar, so Walk Thru asked me if I would go, which I thought was really cool that they would ask me. But then they told me that at the end of the event, after you finish teaching our live event seminar on the prayer of Jabez, at the end of the event they’re gonna have up on the stage a panel discussion.
So they’re gonna bring up to the stage a professor of theology, a professor of Old Testament Scriptures, a professor of languages, and I don’t know, a couple others. And then they also want you to sit on this panel. And I said, well, what’s that going to be all about? And they said, you’re going to actually have to defend what it was that you taught just before the panel happened. So I had to sit up there and take questions along with this panel.
And I remember having said yes to that, and as you you know, the date was coming for the event, I remember freaking out in my spirit. You know, my prayer life got so much better at that point. And you could just imagine, you know, the feeling of standing before a theological institution. And if you have read The Prayer of Jabez, the book, or you’ve gone to Chronicles, or you’re aware of it, you know that there was a good amount of controversy over whether or not this was, you know, this little simple prayer that you just repeat and God’s gotta answer the prayer, whatever it was. And so to be put on the spot in that kind of moment was kind of a serious type of thing, but yet at the same time it was an honor.
Well, when I was looking at this text in Philippians chapter 2, I started just thinking about the sendability matter or being a sendable person, somebody that is sent. Maybe you’ve had an experience like that on the job where you’re trusted by your boss or your team, and so they send you to a certain location to represent represent the company because of the qualifications that you have, because you’re the right person for the job. This goes way back in our homes. We can probably all think of a time where Mom sent us, you know, out to the mailbox. Go out to the mailbox, David, and get the mail and bring the mail back.
And, you know, she sent me, or she sent you, or whoever, because you were qualified at that point. I don’t know how old you were, or, you know, but she believed that you could go to the mailbox and come back and you and throw the letters away and everything would be okay. Or your dad sent you after you got your license with the family car to pick up your sister from soccer practice or to pick up your brother, you know, who was getting out of school or whatever it was. You were sendable. We’ve all probably found ourselves in circumstances where we were sent to do something that was important and somebody was trusting us.
Well, the passage we come to today has that perspective. It actually is focused on 2 different people. It’s focused on Timothy and it’s focused on Epaphroditus. And what’s interesting about this passage is it’s just a passage that has the qualities that are true of each one of these individuals. And so in looking at these qualities, I thought to myself, you know, this is the kind of person that God wants his children to be.
He wants us to be sendable. He wants us to be people that others can count on, that can be trusted. He wants us to represent him in the communities that we live, in the places of business that we work. He wants us to be people that others would want to be around, for that matter. And which got me thinking, if somebody was to send a letter in this case, this letter’s being sent to the church at Philippi, but if somebody was to send a letter about us and say, hey, so-and-so’s coming to town, would anybody want to show up?
You know, do we have the qualities, true, of a person that others would want to be around? So, as I was looking at this passage, I thought, well, this is a good opportunity just for us to think about our sendableness or sendability, or neither of those are words, so being sendable people, you know. Are we sendable people? And I would say probably all of us to some degree are sendable to some degree. So maybe we can build on that sendableness in the sense of saying, okay, so what more is it that God wants to do in us that would make us better representatives of him in the world that we live in.
Apostle Paul would have made this trip himself. In fact, right in the middle of the passage in Philippians chapter 2 and verse 24, he says, I’m confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon. And if you’re familiar with this book, you know that he can’t come right now because he’s in chains, he’s in prison in Rome. So he’s going to have to rely upon some others to take the work for him back to the church at Philippi. And the first one that he relies on is Timothy, and I want you to see Timothy first, and then we’ll work to Epaphroditus, and just look at a few qualities.
We won’t take long looking at this, but I think it’s very helpful. Philippians chapter 2, verse 19, I hope in the Lord Jesus, Paul writes, to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. Again, I want to just stop there and say something that I said last week, but I think it bears repeating. When you look at the Scriptures, joy is often connected to circumstances. There’s a misnomer out there that says joy is in no way connected to circumstances.
Remember, as I said last week, the Apostle Paul himself says in this book, make my joy complete by being of the same mind. So if Christians are getting along with each other, that actually elevates a person’s joy. And in this particular situation, if you look at verse 19, Paul’s going to be encouraged or he’s going to be cheered. There’s going to be greater joy for him in the report that he receives back after Timothy visits this church in Philippi and brings back this report of the spiritual progress that they are making. It’s going to elevate his joy, and Paul believes that’s important enough to send Timothy on an 800-mile journey.
Okay, this is before aircraft. This is before automobiles. He’s going to send Timothy on an 800-mile journey to check up on the church at Philippi that had been founded on his second missionary journey, to see how they’re doing, to bring a report back to the Apostle Paul so that Paul at least could be cheered. Very interesting. Well, go on.
I have no one else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare, for everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel. I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. So it’s uncertain the day that Timothy was going to be sent. Evidently some things were going on that Paul was uncertain about, and so he wants to wait and see how that works out.
But then he’s going to send Timothy, and he gives us basically 4 qualities that are true in Timothy which would make Timothy the right representative at this moment to be sent. Number 1, verse 20, he was a soulmate. He shared a unique relationship, it says, with the Apostle Paul. Paul says, I have no one else like him. That’s an amazing statement, isn’t it?
I mean, of all the people— if you’ve ever read Paul’s writings, he lists all kinds of people, and he says of all the people, there’s nobody else that’s like Timothy. Timothy stands out. And the reason he stands out— and there are 2 words that are used here— is because Timothy was a soulmate of the Apostle Paul. He had a soul-to-soul connection with Paul. Maybe you’re familiar with 1 Samuel chapter 18, verse 1, where it says, the soul of David was knit to the soul of Jonathan.
You’ve probably heard me say this before. This is really hopeful for us guys because this tells us, 1 Samuel 18:1, that it’s possible for a guy to have a soul-to-soul relationship with somebody. You know, we kid around about that because oftentimes we don’t wanna touch our emotions. We wanna keep it out of the emotional chamber, But David and Jonathan had a soul-to-soul connection, and in this particular case, we’re told that Timothy and Paul had a soul-to-soul connection. In fact, some of your Bibles use the words kindred spirit here.
They had a kindred spirit, and it’s because of this sort of— they were on the same page, they’re pulling oars in the same direction. Because they had that kind of relationship, Paul says he’s the right guy to be sent. So, he was a soulmate. Secondly, verse 20, he had a genuine concern. Paul said, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare.
He was really concerned about people. He didn’t just ask, hey, like, how you doing? And then not listen. But he would ask, what’s going on in your life? Tell me about what’s happening.
Evidently he was close to people, not aloof from people. What a quality that is, willing to get close, empathetic. He was that kind of a person. Third, verse 21, he had a Christ-centered focus as opposed to a self-centered focus. You notice in verse 21, everyone looks out for his own interests and not those of Jesus Christ, but not Timothy.
Timothy is focused on the Lord, serving the Lord above everyone or everything else. He wasn’t doing it for what he could get out of it, but he was doing it for what the Lord could get out of it for what it could do for the Lord. That last song was just all focused on the Lord. This isn’t about us, this is about the Lord. And then a 4th quality that you find in Timothy, verse 22, is that he had a proven track record.
Paul says to the church at Philippi, you know that Timothy has proved himself. And the reason that they knew that, at least in part, was because Timothy was with Paul on the 2nd missionary journey when the church at Philippi was formed. And so they had some kind of relationship with Timothy. But Paul says, you know that he’s proved himself. And he goes on to say, because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel.
Kind of this father-son relationship. If there’s anybody that would know whether or not you have proved yourself, it would be your father. It would be a parent because they’re watching you all the time. And no doubt you’re working hopefully with them. And in this particular case, Timothy has worked now with the Apostle Paul for 10 or more years.
So, for 10 or more years, Paul’s had, you know, an up-close and personal relationship with Timothy. He’s watched him work. He knows whether or not he’s the real deal. And Timothy— and Paul says to the church at Philippi, this guy is the real deal. He’s proven himself.
By the way, When you’re thinking about sending somebody on a trip, or you’re thinking about somebody that you’re going to bring on your leadership team, one of the qualities you don’t want to skip is this one right here, right? You want them to be proven. So many times when we ignore this one, we end up experiencing the consequences of that decision later on. I was just speaking yesterday with a person who is in the middle of a church meltdown situation where this pastor did some things, and I don’t want to get into the whole story, but let me just say that yesterday this person said to me, he said, you know, this pastor resigned last Sunday morning to the entire church. And this person said to me yesterday, he said, you know, one of the things that we did was we ignored the resume.
And had we really paid attention to the resume, we would have seen that the average stay that this pastor had at the previous ministries that he was in was 20 months. And the fact of the matter is, is that he made it in this church for 20 months and then resigned. That was after a train wreck in the church.
One of the things that the scripture says, even with regard to elders and leadership, is that they must be proven, right? And if you’re bringing somebody on your team, you want to make sure this is a person that’s proven in some kind of capacity. You just don’t want to stick them on the team and then give them leadership responsibilities and just hope things work out. But Timothy was that kind of guy. Now, if you had received this commendation, because in some ways what Paul is writing here is like a recommendation letter, isn’t it?
It’s a commendation of Timothy, and he’s basically saying to the church at Philippi, this is a really good guy. You want to spend some time with him, and when he’s there ministering to you, pay attention to his ministry. I mean, this guy connects emotionally. He has a genuine concern. He’s focused on Jesus Christ, and he has a proven track record.
Earlier this year I got a letter from somebody and they said, you know, we’re going to be hosting an event where Hugh Halter is going to be speaking at this event, but the night before he’s going to have dinner with a few of us. And we were just wondering, Dave, if you would like to be a part of this dinner. And I thought, are you kidding me? Hugh Halter? Some of you don’t recognize the name.
But Hugh is a guy who’s had an international ministry focused on missional movements, missional movements. He wrote a book that we read some years ago, us pastors read this book, a couple of his books actually, called Tangible Kingdom. And that Tangible Kingdom book and a conference that we went to got us thinking as a church about what can we do to have a greater missional impact in the Silicon Valley. And one of the things that came out of that was the establishment of some missional communities in our church And one of the books that we use to help launch these missional movements is the Tangible Kingdom Primer, which you can see up here. This little workbook has been outstanding in helping us get our focus outward.
So anyway, Hugh’s behind all of that, the writer of the Tangible Kingdom Primer. I think there are actually a couple writers that co-wrote that, but to receive an invitation to go spend some time with them, I immediately sent the email back and said, yeah, I’m in on this. Now when I got there, I was really delighted to find out that there were actually just about 5 or 6 of us that were going to be a part of this dinner at this restaurant, which meant it was going to be an intimate conversation. I had been a couple years before that at a dinner that I was invited to with Max Lucado. You heard of that name before?
It was another invitation I sent back, said, sure, I’d love to have dinner with Max Lucado. So I and about 200 others, you know, had dinner with Max Lucado. It was that kind of dinner, right? There wasn’t any kind of intimate conversation going on there. But at this particular one earlier this year, the others had already spent some time with Hugh, and they said, so hey, Dave, why don’t you just sit next to Hugh?
So Hugh and I sat next together— next to each other in this restaurant, and for the next 90 minutes, I just asked this guy as many questions as I possibly could. Could. I basically monopolized the conversation, absolutely, you know, and it was a fabulous experience. Hugh, to me, possesses Timothy-like qualities. He’s the kind of guy that’s proven in ministry.
He really has a genuine concern. He’s somebody that you can connect to emotionally. He’s somebody that’s out there doing the gospel work of Jesus Christ. Now let me just ask this question then. That being the case of Timothy, certainly the Lord would want that to be the case of us, right?
Am I like Timothy? And some of us will look at these qualities and say, yeah, I think that that’s true, and, you know, at least there’s a little bit there in that area. Hopefully there’s progress being made in all of these areas because all of these areas make a significant impact in the life of a person and the impact they’re making in the world that we live in, right? Let’s talk about Epaphroditus, second sendable person Paul brings to the forefront here. He says, but I think it’s necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus.
He says, I’m gonna send him back. So Epaphroditus was with Paul, but he had been sent from Philippi. So Epaphroditus was actually a member or some way connected to the local church at Philippi. And the church at Philippi had promised to send some financial support to help Paul in his ministry and while he was there in Rome. They were unable to do that for quite a period of time, but finally they were able to send the gift, and they sent the gift by Epaphroditus.
But again, listen, Epaphroditus had to make an 800-mile journey to take the gift. So, we’re— again, we’re talking about this was a significant thing. You know, for some of us, hey, would you like to go across town and, you know, help so-and-so? Well, I don’t think so. That’s way over there.
Kind of puts it in perspective, doesn’t it? This is a quality guy. So, let’s read again what this has to say about Epaphroditus. I think it’s necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill.
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. Therefore, I’m all the more eager to send him so that when you see him again, you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. Welcome him in the Lord with great joy and honor men like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for what— for the help you could not give me. Sendable Epaphroditus. 4 qualities I’ll just point out here.
Number 1, he was a fellow servant. Paul says, he’s my brother, he’s a fellow worker, he’s a soldier. He was a guy that evidently was willing to make a long trip like this to minister to the Apostle Paul, to help another brother. He was up to it. He stepped forward evidently and said yes to making this trip.
Secondly, he was a trusted messenger. Verse 25 says, who also is your messenger whom you sent to take care of my needs. So he’s carrying a financial gift. Evidently he was trustworthy enough to take the financial gift. He was going to deliver the goods, we would say.
He wasn’t going to rip the church off and, you know, run off and start his own thing. He was a trusted messenger. This couple years ago, I guess it was now, our mail, M-A-I-L, did not get to us like, you know, we typically just take that for granted, right? The mailperson just shows up, drops it in the box, and everything’s cool. Well, ours was— it wasn’t happening.
So, we started, you know, trying to track it down, file complaints, do all that sort of stuff. I don’t know what happened. All I know is in a couple weeks’ time they had a different mail carrier, M-A-I-L carrier. No longer that person was delivering the mail, and you kind of could understand that. Something went wrong.
We would say in the context of this, the person wasn’t a trusted messenger. But Epaphroditus was. He was a person that was trusted with a financial gift to get the gift into the hands of the Apostle Paul to minister to him in his time of need. He also, verses 25 to 28, he was a— he had a caring spirit. He had a caring spirit.
It just shows up in a variety of ways in these verses. Whom you sent to take care of my needs. Evidently he wanted to do that. Verse 26 tells us, For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. So he not only cared about the apostle Paul’s condition, but when he was with Paul in Rome, he’s now thinking back and caring about the people in Philippi and their condition.
And part of the reason why he’s concerned about them is because they heard he was sick. And their sick— them hearing about his sickness made him somewhat sick. He was distressed. He wanted to do something to help them with their feelings. Paul says he actually was ill.
He almost died, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me, to spare sorrow upon sorrow. Why would it be sorrow upon sorrow? Well, think about it. Paul’s already in a sorrowful situation. He’s in jail.
He’s chained to guards. He would like to be in a different situation. Yeah, there’s some pain connected to that. But if Epaphroditus had died because of his illness, it would have added sorrow to Paul’s sorrow. But he didn’t die, Paul says.
And so Paul says, Therefore I’m all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again, you may be glad. Here it is again, elevated joy connected to a circumstance, so that you may be glad and— where am I? And I may have less anxiety. And I think that’s interesting too, because Paul evidently had some anxiety. What was his anxiety related to?
Evidently it was related to their thoughts about his condition or his thoughts about their condition. He just wanted to clear up the story. So what you have here is an Epaphroditus who’s going to minister to them just like he’s ministering to the Apostle Paul. He had a caring spirit. That’s the point.
Now already what we’ve seen is that we’ve seen that Timothy was a guy who had genuine concern for people, and we’ve seen Paul who is a guy— excuse me, we’ve seen Epaphroditus who was a guy that was genuinely concerned for people. That would say those are 2 great qualities to have in sendable people, right? But there’s one more. He also Paphroditus, verse 30, he also was a risk-taker. He risked his life to make up for the help that you could not give to me.
And the help that they could not give was the promised financial gift that they were going to give to the Apostle Paul before now, but they were unable to do before now. So finally, Paphroditus is the one who brings the gift, but he brings the gift at great risk. Evidently, at that time, for a person to visit a prisoner, it put the person who visited the prisoner in great danger. So it’s not just the trip itself, 800 miles, that’s enough of a risk in itself at that time, but it’s also the fact that he was visiting a prisoner, a prisoner of Rome. In fact, the word that’s used here is the word parabolani, parabolani.
The reason I mention this this morning is because After this period of time, there was actually a group of Christians who banded together and they came to be known as Paraboloni, the risk-takers, the gamblers. They took Epaphroditus as their model and they visited prisoners, they ministered to the sick, they especially ministered to those who had dangerous diseases. They went to people that nobody else would go to. They were paraboloni, risk-takers. What a tremendous quality, right?
To have somebody on your team or you be a person who is willing to step out and risk. And the Christian faith would call this faith. In the world we call this courage, willing to step out, do what it is that God desires. Now, Epaphroditus Paul says, should be welcomed. Verse 29, he should be welcomed with great joy, and he should be treated with special honor.
Do something special, Paul says, to honor this guy for this incredible work that he has done. I started thinking about that, and I thought to myself, you know, we don’t do this as well as we should, do we? I mean, this is just a person who’s delivering a financial gift. Yes, he had to make an 800-mile trip, but after he makes the trip and ministers to the Apostle Paul, he gets sick. He almost dies.
But Paul recognizes the great man that this guy is, and when he hears that the church is sick over his sickness, he says, I’m going to send a Epaphroditus back so that Epaphroditus can minister to this church and his presence can bring them joy. And so Paul sends him back, but in sending him back he says, but I want you guys, when he comes back, I want you to throw a party for him. I want you to honor him. I want you to celebrate the good work that he’s done. I got to thinking about a friend that I went to seminary with.
His name is Hal Hayes. Hal Hayes has for the past 21 years ministered overseas in Slavic countries, in Western and Eastern Europe. He’s also ministered in the Mideast. He started in his first year of ministry— this ministry is called Encouragement International— he started in his first year of ministry just going one time a year into one country. Now he goes overseas 5 times a year on these short-term mission trips.
He goes to 14 different countries. He’s ministering to 42 different pastors who are pastoring a variety of churches in countries such as Russia, Belarus, the Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, France, Germany, Sweden, Portugal, and also in Israel and Turkey. And I got to thinking about Hal this week, and so I sent Hal a letter and just a note just to recognize the relationship that we have, and just to say, hey, you know, what’s going on in your ministry? What’s changing? What’s happening?
How are things going? That sort of thing. And then I asked him, you know, have you ever been sick? I said, I’m doing a study on Philippians chapter 2, and it says that this guy who was sent, he was sick on his journey. Have you ever been sick?
What do you think Al said? Are you kidding? You know, he said, the most recent time was when I was in the Ukraine, and I forgot that I could not use tap water, and he used tap water to brush my teeth. And he said that didn’t go well, because a few hours later the bathroom and I became good friends, and, you know, all of that kind of stuff. But he had to, a couple hours after that, get onstage and speak to 600 teachers in the Ukraine.
He said, so it wasn’t a good situation. In fact, in his words, it was very unsafe for me to be onstage at that moment. But they got a team of 50 people together, and with some medicine and this team of 50 people who started praying, he was able to fulfill his duties and, you know, things turned out really well. I asked him, I said, have you ever been in a risky situation? Besides that, he said, you know, I— yeah, I’ve been in a few.
He said, I can remember one time I was on an airplane and there was a guy next to me. I thought he was open to spiritual things, so I started to share a little bit of the gospel with him. And at one point I told him, I trust the Lord. And this guy said, you trust the Lord? Hal said, yeah, I do.
And he said, well, let’s see. And he grabbed Hal by the neck— this is on an airplane— and he started pressing with his thumb on his Adam’s apple. Hal said the guy at this point then said, so how much do you trust the Lord? He said, well, I trust him enough to, you know, sit here with you. And the guy said, well, let’s just see.
And the guy continued to press harder on the Adam’s apple. And each time he pressed harder, he would ask Hal, do you still trust the Lord? Do you still trust the Lord? After about 4 or 5 of these, Hal said, I got to a point where it wasn’t good anymore. I mean, I was beginning to, you know, struggle there.
And so at the point, he said, that that happened, he said there were 6 flight attendants that had gathered around this, you know, to watch this show, I guess, or, you know, you could imagine. And he said— so at that point, after the guy, you know, whatever number of times said, do you still trust the Lord? He said, yes, I trust the Lord, but I also believe you better get your hands off my neck. The guy pulled his hands off his neck, and evidently the rest of the flight was uneventful on this long flight overseas. Who knows the circumstances people get themselves in if they’re sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ?
But one thing that we do know When people get out there and they share the gospel, we ought to honor them. We ought to rejoice in the work that they’ve done. And every time we do that, maybe it’s just privately, you know somebody who’s out there helping others come to faith in Jesus, they’re sharing the gospel with others. Every time somebody does that, we have the opportunity to do what the apostle Paul is calling the church at Philippi to do. Honor that person with great joy.
Recognize the work that they’re doing. Now, what does this then say to us? Well, hopefully that we would be this kind of a person, you know, that we would be sendable and commendable. In fact, that’s kind of like the bottom line of what this is all about: be a commendable person, be a sendable person. You say, Well, how can I be commendable and sendable?
Well, really this kind of goes back to last week, doesn’t it? If you were here last week, go up to the verses in front of this. It’s the working out of what God works in. God is going to work in his children. God works in those who have come to the place where they’re connected to him through Jesus Christ.
He works in them through the work of the Holy Spirit. In fact, one of the matters that’s brought up here is this whole matter of the gospel. How Timothy was a comrade in spreading the gospel. What’s the gospel? Well, the gospel is the good news that God has made it possible for every one of us to have a relationship with him.
Our sin right now separates us from God, but Jesus made it possible for this sin gap to be removed, for our sins to be forgiven when he died on the cross. And when a person comes to receive Jesus Christ as their personal Savior, Our sin account is canceled. God actually cancels our sin. Our debts of sin are forgiven, and he writes on our account on this ledger sheet, he writes the word righteousness, and we are righteous because of Jesus Christ. That’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And at the moment that a person receives this gift, because it’s not something that you can work for, it’s not something that you can earn or deserve, it’s a gift that’s received. And it’s received by faith, by believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, if you will confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you’ll be saved. And at the moment a person is saved, the Holy Spirit comes to live within us and we’re adopted into God’s family. That’s the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And Timothy and Epaphroditus were out doing the work of the gospel. And in the same way, the obvious application here is simple: God wants us to do the same work, right? And he wants us to be people who are commendable and sendable, so that if somebody sent a letter about us that said, hey, so-and-so’s coming to town, there would actually be an interest in getting together with us. People might change their calendar and say, you know, that’s a quality person. As you look at the list of qualities that are found here, 8 different qualities we’ve talked about this morning, my encouragement to you is just simply this: all of us hopefully are making progress in our lives in some areas.
These are areas that it would be great to make progress in. And so as God works in us, he’s working in us this morning, he’s teaching us from his Word the kind of people that he wants us to be. As God works in us, as we said last week, let’s ask him to work this out through us. God, make me a caring person. I got big gaps in that area.
Make me a person who is somebody that is proven over years, periods of time. Give me the heart of Timothy. Give me the heart of Epaphroditus. Make me a sendable, commendable person. Let’s pray.
Lord, thanks for today. Thanks for this text. Thanks for how it speaks to us. And thank you for this incredible work that you have given to your children to spread the good news, to spread the gospel to people everywhere, that they might know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. And thank you for many of us that are here sitting here this morning, we have received that gift of life, and we’re grateful that you are working in us to change us and to make us the kind of people that are magnetic in a world that so desperately needs to see your grace.
They need to see the gospel. And so may the gospel be seen in us. May it happen in companies and neighborhoods and families and on school campuses and just every place we go. Where you want this message to be focused, please, Lord, work it in us, and may it be worked out through us. And Father, for any who are here today that have not yet received the gift of life in Christ, may this be the day of salvation for them.
May they say yes to you, to your work. May they respond to your desire to include them in your family. In fact, if that’s the desire of your heart, just tell God that this morning by faith. Receive the gift of life. Lord, I believe.
I believe that you are the Christ. You are the Messiah, the promised Messiah, that you came into the world to make it possible for people like me to have a new life now and forever. And in your own words, just ask God to give you that life. Lord, would you forgive me of my sins? Would you make me one of your children?
By faith, I believe Jesus is the Messiah, that he died on the cross, he was raised from the tomb, and there’s life in his name. And I ask that you’d give me that life even now. It’s in your name, Lord, we pray these things. Amen. Well, if we can help you— perhaps today you receive Christ, or you want to talk to somebody about receiving Christ— we’d love to talk to you.
So I hope before you go you just come and spend a few minutes with us talking about this brand-new life in Christ or the possibilities of becoming one of his children. If you’ve made a decision and you’d like to talk to somebody about whatever’s going on in your heart, we have people after the service that’d love to pray with you. We’d love to help you in any way we can.
