SPEAKER_00: We are continuing our series through the book of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
SPEAKER_00: To live is Christ is the name of our series.
SPEAKER_00: And our text for today comes immediately after one of the most beautiful descriptions of Jesus in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Paul has shown us the humility of Christ, the one who he he thought he was, he was the one who I'm sorry, the one who though was in the form of God, humble himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient even to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: Then Paul turns to the Philippians and essentially said, Now live in light of that.
SPEAKER_00: Hold fast to the world of life.
SPEAKER_00: Let the gospel that you believe actually shape the way that you live.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, Paul is going to show us what that actually looks like.
SPEAKER_00: But before we jump into the text, let's go to the Lord in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Let's bow our heads.
SPEAKER_00: Father God, you are amazing.
SPEAKER_00: You are holy, holy, holy.
SPEAKER_00: And you are good.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that your words would go deep into our hearts, causing us to respond in worship to you, and that a heart of worship would lead us to share your message with others.
SPEAKER_00: To see that you are working through our lives in the way that we love to serve and love one another.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that your name would be exalted through the preaching of your word.
SPEAKER_00: For you were you are worthy to be praised forever and ever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: We pray all these things in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's turn to the book of Philippians, chapter 2, starting in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll give you guys a moment to get there.
SPEAKER_00: But as we read that passage, we might initially think that Paul is simply giving the church some travel plans.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy is going is going here, Hippophydus is going there.
SPEAKER_00: Paul hopes to visit later, but Paul is doing something much more significant.
SPEAKER_00: So let's read that together, starting in verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you.
SPEAKER_00: For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.
SPEAKER_00: For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: 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 surely I myself will come also.
SPEAKER_00: I have thought it necessary to send you to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier and your messenger and ministry, minister to my need.
SPEAKER_00: For he has been longing for you all, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed he was ill, near to death.
SPEAKER_00: But God had mercy on him, and not only him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow, I am the more eager to send him.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.
SPEAKER_00: So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men.
SPEAKER_00: For he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.
SPEAKER_00: Paul described the humility of Christ in those amazing lines in verses 5 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Then in verses 12 through 18, he calls the Philippians to live in light of what Christ has done.
SPEAKER_00: And now Paul does something incredibly incredibly helpful to us.
SPEAKER_00: He gives us two flesh and blood examples of what a Christ-shaped life actually looked like.
SPEAKER_00: Because sometimes we can talk about humility, sacrifice, and service and putting others before ourselves, and those things remain somewhat abstract.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul, in a sense, says, Do you know what it looks like when somebody actually lives like that?
SPEAKER_00: Look at Timothy and look at Epaphroditus, which is this is what this whole thing is about.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these are two ordinary men whose lives have been so shaped by Jesus by Jesus Christ that they begin to reflect the very pattern that Paul has been describing through this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Christ humbled himself, Christ took the form of a servant, Christ gave himself for others.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the three things that we have gone through so far.
SPEAKER_00: And when the gospel takes root in us, that same mind of Christ begins to reshape the way that we live.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the truth that I want us to keep coming back to this morning, and that's this that the mind of Christ is made visible in the life in a life spent for others.
SPEAKER_00: The mind of Christ is made visible in a life spent for others.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul begins showing us that kind of life in Timothy, and then he speaks of Epaphroditus.
SPEAKER_00: And we already know what he said about himself being poured out as a drink offering.
SPEAKER_00: We talked about it last week.
SPEAKER_00: So let's dive into the text and we're gonna go through it in two simple points.
SPEAKER_00: Two simple points.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is that a Christ-like life genuinely seek the good for others.
SPEAKER_00: A Christ-like life genuinely seeks the good of others.
SPEAKER_00: And number two, a Christ-like life willingly spans itself for others.
SPEAKER_00: A Christ-like life willingly spans itself for others.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's look look with me at verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: And we're as we're working through through that first point, genuinely seeking the good of others.
SPEAKER_00: And he reads, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by your news, by news of you.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is writing this letter from prison, as we know, and and he doesn't know exactly what is going to happen to him at this point.
SPEAKER_00: He does tell them that at the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to hear that they are standing firm.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon.
SPEAKER_00: Even that little phrase is worth noticing, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because he says, In the Lord Jesus, Paul has plans, Paul has desires.
SPEAKER_00: Paul knows what what he would like to happen next, but his plans remain underneath the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he says, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon.
SPEAKER_00: Now, while I was writing this sermon, I started thinking about my own life before I moved to America.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a little interesting bit, right?
SPEAKER_00: So there's a couple of things that people say back in Nicaragua that I never really thought much about while I lived there, but they were just part of how people talk.
SPEAKER_00: When you would greet somebody with a simple, hi, how are you, though in Spanish, people would respond by saying, Bien, gracias a Dios, which literally translates, I'm good, thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_00: This is super common.
SPEAKER_00: You ask anyone, hey, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing well, thanks to God.
SPEAKER_00: Or when somebody would like to tell you something about what they're planning to do, they would say, I'm going to visit my family next week, or I'm hoping to start a new job this week, or we're going to do this or that.
SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of their plans description, they would say, If God wills it.
SPEAKER_00: If God wills it, we'll do these things.
SPEAKER_00: If that's what God wants, that's what we're going to do.
SPEAKER_00: And people just say that.
SPEAKER_00: It just kind of rolls out of the tongue.
SPEAKER_00: And growing up, I honestly didn't think much of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I actually thought it even a little corny.
SPEAKER_00: Like, why do we have to say that after everything?
SPEAKER_00: Why do people say that?
SPEAKER_00: Even like the most like you know, strange people that you would think would say things like that.
SPEAKER_00: They do say it.
SPEAKER_00: But the more that I thought about it this week, the more I realized that there's something beautiful about that kind of language.
SPEAKER_00: Because whether the people saying it were consciously thinking about it or not, there's a deeple, a deeper biblical idea underneath.
SPEAKER_00: You see, my country, Nicaragua, was conquered by the Spaniards.
SPEAKER_00: The Spaniards were largely Catholics, and then that influenced the culture at large.
SPEAKER_00: So over time, people started picking up little things that became just part of the of the general vernacular, some things that people say.
SPEAKER_00: But that is what's so interesting because everything remains under the lordship and providence of God, and that's what they were taught, right?
SPEAKER_00: So James actually says something very similar in James 4, 13 to 15.
SPEAKER_00: He warns us against confidently saying, Tomorrow we're going to go here, we are going to do this, we're going to make money, as though tomorrow belonged to us.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, Instead, you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's not fatalism.
SPEAKER_00: We shouldn't be super depressed about it.
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh man, like I'm just going to think about dying all the time.
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't mean that it also doesn't mean that Christians shouldn't make plans.
SPEAKER_00: Paul certainly made plans.
SPEAKER_00: We just read one of them.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to send Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: He hopes Timothy will return.
SPEAKER_00: He hopes to hear good news.
SPEAKER_00: Paul has a plan, but listen to how he says it again.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I hope in the Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Paul makes plans with an open hand because his plans remain ultimately underneath the Lordship of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe there's something in there for us.
SPEAKER_00: We can fill our calendars, we can make plans, we can think about next week and next month, next year, but the Christian lives, I'm sorry, but the Christian lives with this quiet confession underneath it all.
SPEAKER_00: That if the Lord wills, we will do certain things.
SPEAKER_00: If the Lord wills, we will do certain certain things.
SPEAKER_00: My life belongs to Christ, my future belongs to Christ, and whatever he has for me, I want my life to be spent for him.
SPEAKER_00: That is what Paul is communicating, and that is how we ought to live.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the person Paul hopes to send is Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says about him in verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: For I have no one like him who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare.
SPEAKER_00: And that's an incredible statement.
SPEAKER_00: Because Paul has encountered a lot of people in his travels.
SPEAKER_00: He's traveled with people, he's planted churches with people, he suffered alongside people.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, when Paul thinks about somebody to send to Philippi, he says, There is nobody quite like Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: That's high praise.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Apostle Paul we're talking about, the second most influential man in the history of the world, only after Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So why not because why why?
SPEAKER_00: Not because Timothy is the most charismatic preacher, not because Timothy has the biggest personality, not because Timothy has the most impressive resume.
SPEAKER_00: This is all a callback to everything that we went through over Titus, because Paul points to his character.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the Titus series?
SPEAKER_00: God is far more concerned with the character of a person than with the charisma of a person.
SPEAKER_00: That word genuinely matters.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy doesn't simply know that Christians are supposed to care for one another.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy actually cares about people, it's part of his character.
SPEAKER_00: Their burdens matter to him, their spiritual condition matters to them, how they grow in faithfulness matters to him.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a difference between appearing concerned about people and genuinely caring about them.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible to ask somebody, How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: and really just be waiting for an answer and making like a passing comment.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible to say, I'll pray for you, and never actually praying for someone.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible to serve someone while secretly hoping they notice that they're serving them.
SPEAKER_00: It is possible to do something generous and still make the whole thing about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not what Paul sees in Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: He sees genuine concern.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul tells us why that is so remarkable.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at verse 21, for they all seek their own interest and not those, not those of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've been with us through Philippians 2, that language should sound familiar because if we go back to verse 4, we remember that Paul's talking and says, Let's each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.
SPEAKER_00: So after he's just told the church and Philippi, hey, this is how you ought to be, he says, I'm gonna send you a guy that is exactly like I told you you should be.
SPEAKER_00: Paul said, Look to the interest of others, and then he points at Timothy and says, Here is a man who actually does it.
SPEAKER_00: Those two things are connected.
SPEAKER_00: When Timothy genuinely cares for the people of God, he is seeking the interest of Christ because these are the these are Christ's peoples.
SPEAKER_00: Christ loves his church, Christ gave himself for his church.
SPEAKER_00: So you cannot separate devotion to Jesus from the way that you treat people who belong to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot separate the devotion you say that you have to Jesus with the way that you treat people who belong to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we make following Jesus Christ far more mysterious than it needs to be.
SPEAKER_00: We make it too complicated.
SPEAKER_00: It's as simple as just loving and serving.
SPEAKER_00: We ask, what does Jesus want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: How can I serve Christ?
SPEAKER_00: How can I live a life that matters for his kingdom?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes the answer is sitting three rows away from you.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes seeking the interest of Christ looks like noticing the person who's hurting.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it looks like making a phone call, sending a text.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it looks like bringing a meal.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it looks like listening when you'd rather be talking.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it means giving up an evening because somebody needs you.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it's as simple as noticing that you hurt somebody's feelings and just simply say, like, hey, I'm sorry that happened.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm I'm gonna try my hardest to not let that happen again.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it means praying faithfully for someone who may never know how often you have carried their name before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Those things might never put your name on a stage, nobody may applaud you for them, but Jesus sees them.
SPEAKER_00: He sees your quiet faithfulness because a Christ-like life genuinely seeks the good of others, and that kind of concern doesn't appear overnight.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: It reads, But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I love Paul's language here.
SPEAKER_00: You know his proven worth.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy's character has been tested, his faithfulness, his faithfulness has been observed, and people had watched his life long enough to know that man is genuine.
SPEAKER_00: When he says that he cares, he truly cares.
SPEAKER_00: And that's important because Christian maturity is not just something that we claim about ourselves, it must be visible over time.
SPEAKER_00: It must be visible over time.
SPEAKER_00: You can say that you're humble or you want, you can say that you're a servant, you can say that you love people, but eventually life will give you an opportunity to put your money where your mouth is.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, somebody will inconvenience you, eventually, somebody will disappoint you, somebody will hurt you, somebody will it will cost you to serve somebody.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, nobody notices anything that you do.
SPEAKER_00: And in those moments, what is actually inside of us begins to come out.
SPEAKER_00: And Timothy had been through those moments.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul could say, You know this man, you have seen his character, you have seen his faithfulness, and you have seen his concern for others.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul says, As a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And the final word there is in the gospel, right?
SPEAKER_00: Timothy isn't building Timothy's kingdom, he's not out there to get his own popularity or just trying to do nice things or caring for people to, you know, elevate his name.
SPEAKER_00: Paul isn't building Paul's kingdom, they are serving together for the advancement of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and that's ultimately what makes this kind of life possible.
SPEAKER_00: Knowing what is the why.
SPEAKER_00: Because if my life belongs to me, then every interruption feels like an inconvenience.
SPEAKER_00: If my life belongs to me, then serving someone else feels like I'm taking something away from me.
SPEAKER_00: If my resources belong to me, then generosity feels like a loss.
SPEAKER_00: When you're generous, you feel like ah I just lost some money.
SPEAKER_00: If my reputation belongs to me, then I need to be recognized by what I've done.
SPEAKER_00: But if my life belongs to Christ, it's the complete opposite.
SPEAKER_00: My time belongs to him, my resources belong to him, everything belongs to my gifts.
SPEAKER_00: We can go from what do I want to how can what Christ has given me be used for the good of someone else?
SPEAKER_00: How can what God has given me be used for the good of someone else?
SPEAKER_00: That is the mind of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Remember how this chapter began?
SPEAKER_00: He says, Do nothing from selfish ambition or concede, but in humility count others more significant than yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul told us, told us, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy shows us what happens when that stops being something written on a page and starts becoming a pattern in someone's life.
SPEAKER_00: The mind of Christ is made visible in a life spent for others.
SPEAKER_00: And Timothy shows us that.
SPEAKER_00: He shows us that a Christ-like life genuinely seeks the good of others.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul isn't finished giving us examples because genuinely genuine concern doesn't remain merely a feeling.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, love becomes costly, it costs us something.
SPEAKER_00: And for that, Paul turns our attention to another man in this mission.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Epaphroditus, which brings us to our second point this morning.
SPEAKER_00: A Christ-like life willingly spend itself for others.
SPEAKER_00: Willingly spans itself for others.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Epaphroditus is a very interesting character here because we don't really know much about him.
SPEAKER_00: He's not one of the 12 apostles.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a book of the Bible named after him.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a record of great sermons he may have written.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have like a ton of quotes, really.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have hard, we have hardly anything.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, listen to how Paul describes this man.
SPEAKER_00: He says, He is my brother, he is my fellow worker, he is my fellow soldier.
SPEAKER_00: And now Paul gives us the scripture, the picture of someone standing shoulder to shoulder with him in the struggle for the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, he says, Your messenger and minister to my need.
SPEAKER_00: The Philippian church had sent Epaphroditus to Paul.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Paul is imprisoned, and this church loves Paul.
SPEAKER_00: They want to care for him, they want to support him, so they sent one of their own to minister to Paul.
SPEAKER_00: And the man they send is Epaphroditus.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what Paul doesn't mention.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't tell us how talented Epaphroditus is or how gifted of a preacher or charismatic.
SPEAKER_00: Paul instead describes him by his relationship to his service.
SPEAKER_00: He called him his brother, worker, soldier, messenger, and minister.
SPEAKER_00: His life had been intertwined with the lives of the people of other believers because he was willing to serve them.
SPEAKER_00: And somewhere along the way, that service became incredibly costly for Epaphroditus.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 26 and 27.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, he was ill near to death.
SPEAKER_00: Epaphroditus almost died in this whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever illness he experienced was not mine, or Paul said that he was near.
SPEAKER_00: To death.
SPEAKER_00: But then there's something in verse 26.
SPEAKER_00: What is Epaphroditus distressed about?
SPEAKER_00: He's not primarily distressed because he's sick.
SPEAKER_00: He's distressed because they heard that he was sick.
SPEAKER_00: He's not stressed out because he's sick.
SPEAKER_00: He's stressed out because the people in Philippi heard that Epaphroditus was sick.
SPEAKER_00: This man has nearly died, and he was worried about the people back home worrying about him.
SPEAKER_00: And there it is again.
SPEAKER_00: The very thing that Paul has been talking about through this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.
SPEAKER_00: Even in his suffering, Epaphroditus is looking outward.
SPEAKER_00: His concern is for others.
SPEAKER_00: And church, that's where the second example takes us a little bit further than the first.
SPEAKER_00: Timothy shows us genuine concern.
SPEAKER_00: Epaphroditus shows us that genuine concern eventually costs us something.
SPEAKER_00: Because biblical love is not just a sentiment, it's not just something that we decide to feel in that moment, or it's just an emotion.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just feeling compassion for someone.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just saying, I care about you.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, love moves, it does something.
SPEAKER_00: Love serves, love's sacrifice.
SPEAKER_00: We have that example in Christ, and that is exactly what is happening to Epaphroditus here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul describes what happens next in verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: He says, But God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but also but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: I love Paul's language here.
SPEAKER_00: God had mercy on him, he said.
SPEAKER_00: Paul doesn't treat Epaphroditus' recovery as something that God owed him, owed him because he had been faithful.
SPEAKER_00: He nearly died doing it.
SPEAKER_00: And when he recovered, Paul says, of course, he didn't say, of course he recovered.
SPEAKER_00: Luke, all the good things that he's been doing.
SPEAKER_00: No, he doesn't do that.
SPEAKER_00: He says God had mercy on him.
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says God had mercy on him too, because losing Epaphroditus would have would have brought Paul's sorrow upon sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a wonderfully human statement.
SPEAKER_00: Wonderfully human statement.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we imagine Paul as this like theology, theological machine who simply moved from one ministry assignment to the next one, plant the church, plant the church, plant the church.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul loved people.
SPEAKER_00: The prospect of just potentially losing Epaphroditus hurt him.
SPEAKER_00: Notice something else here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul doesn't pretend that Christians don't experience sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Faith doesn't make suffering painless.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting God's sovereignty doesn't make us stop grieving.
SPEAKER_00: Paul knows that Christ is Lord, and Paul knows that to die is gain.
SPEAKER_00: He said that in chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, Paul can still say, if my brother had died, I would have experienced tremendous sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Those things are in contradiction.
SPEAKER_00: Christian hope doesn't eliminate grief, it changes the way we grief.
SPEAKER_00: It changes the way we grief.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.
SPEAKER_00: And that I may be less anxious.
SPEAKER_00: Again, everybody's looking towards everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: The Philippians care about Epaphroditus, Epaphroditus cares about the Philippians, Paul cares about the Epaphroditus, Paul cares about them so much, cares about the Philippians so much, he's willing to send Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: And you can kind of see the community the gospel is producing.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's at the center.
SPEAKER_00: They're looking towards one another, they're carrying one another, they're concerned for everyone else but themselves.
SPEAKER_00: And all of it is happening because Jesus Christ is at the center of it all.
SPEAKER_00: Remember what I said at the beginning of this series?
SPEAKER_00: I said, if you look at the book of Philip as a circle, everything points towards the center.
SPEAKER_00: At the beginning, points towards the kenosis, the middle of the kenosis or the hymn of Christ, and then everything else points back to it.
SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful when you go line by line and you start seeing that.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, okay, I see it.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is making a reference to what he said before, which is a reference to Christ altogether.
SPEAKER_00: That's what a Christ-shaped church looks like.
SPEAKER_00: We're always looking at the interest of others.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in verse 29, it says, So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men.
SPEAKER_00: Honor such men.
SPEAKER_00: Every culture has people that it teaches us to honor.
SPEAKER_00: We honor celebrities, athletes, successful people.
SPEAKER_00: We honor people with enormous platforms and millions of viewers and followers on social media.
SPEAKER_00: We're seeing that now even more and more and more.
SPEAKER_00: We think that because somebody has millions of followers, then what they say must be true.
SPEAKER_00: If we're not careful, the church can begin borrowing the world's definition of greatness.
SPEAKER_00: We can become impressed by the same things the world is impressed by.
SPEAKER_00: But Paul says, You want to know who the church should honor?
SPEAKER_00: Look for the servants.
SPEAKER_00: Look for the people who quietly spin themselves for Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Look for the people who carry burdens.
SPEAKER_00: Look for the people who show up.
SPEAKER_00: Look for the people who serve when nobody's watching.
SPEAKER_00: Look for the people who aren't asking what's in this for me.
SPEAKER_00: But instead are asking, How can I serve Christ by serving his people?
SPEAKER_00: Honor people like that.
SPEAKER_00: You meet someone like that, shake their hands and just be like, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I see you, bud.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 30.
SPEAKER_00: For he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.
SPEAKER_00: Epaphroditus puts his life on the line for the work of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now Paul isn't telling every Christian that faithfulness requires recklessness.
SPEAKER_00: But he's showing us something about the value Epaphroditus placed upon his own effort, upon his phone, I'm sorry, upon his own comfort compared with the work of that Christ has given him.
SPEAKER_00: He's sacrificing his comfort to go out there and do the things that God has called him to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the same for us.
SPEAKER_00: Most of the time, we live at a time and the day and age where comfort is just normal.
SPEAKER_00: We live in comfort.
SPEAKER_00: It's our natural state.
SPEAKER_00: So how do we push out of that boundary?
SPEAKER_00: That's a question we all must wrestle with.
SPEAKER_00: Following Jesus has had become more important to Epaphroditus than protecting his comfortable life.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it means putting aside what I want because love requires me to consider what you need.
SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, we begin to understand what Paul has been teaching us through this entire chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Because before there was Timothy, before there was Hipphroditus, before there was Paul willing to pour himself out, there was Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The one who emptied himself by taking the form of a servant.
SPEAKER_00: The one who humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
SPEAKER_00: Church, Jesus did not merely tell us to span ourselves for others, he spanned himself for us.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us that example.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we cannot just simply say, you know, try harder to be more like Epaphroditus.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is that when we were living living for ourselves, Christ gave himself for us.
SPEAKER_00: While we were dead in our sin, in our trespasses, where we were just living like children of this world, he still died for us while we were still sinners.
SPEAKER_00: And now united to him, loved by him, forgiven by him, and transformed by his grace, we are learning to live differently.
SPEAKER_00: We serve because in Christ He already has.
SPEAKER_00: We don't sacrifice to earn our praise and place in his family, we sacrifice because he has already made us his own.
SPEAKER_00: And slowly, as the gospel changes us, we start asking.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me close this morning by telling you a little story about a guy named Augustine.
SPEAKER_00: Augustine lived more than 1600 years ago, and today we remember him as one of the most influential theologians and pastors in the history of the church.
SPEAKER_00: He was an early church father.
SPEAKER_00: But Augustine didn't start there.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, for much of his early life, Augustine lived for Augustine.
SPEAKER_00: He was incredibly intelligent.
SPEAKER_00: So he was ambitious, he wanted success, he wanted recognition, he wanted to pursue relationship and pursue sexual pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: He pursued different philosophies and ways of understanding the world.
SPEAKER_00: And all the while, Augustine was searching for something that could not satisfy him, something that could finally quiet his heart.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he was searching for.
SPEAKER_00: His mother, Monica, was a Christian and for years prayed for her son.
SPEAKER_00: She pleaded with God for him, but Augustine kept running and running and running.
SPEAKER_00: He kept searching, he kept looking for life everywhere except in Christ until eventually God stopped him.
SPEAKER_00: Augustine describes this moment as he was sitting at a garden and he was overwhelmed by the conflict within himself.
SPEAKER_00: He felt terrible for the life that he'd been living.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing would satisfy him.
SPEAKER_00: He was horrible.
SPEAKER_00: He knew the life that he was living could not satisfy him.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that he needed to surrender to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he struggled to let that go and build, and he wanted to build something around himself.
SPEAKER_00: Then he heard the voice of a child nearby repeating the words that sounded like this: Take up and read, take up and read, take up and read.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, You know what?
SPEAKER_00: I will take up and read.
SPEAKER_00: And he opened his Bible and his eyes fell upon Romans 13, which read, Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.
SPEAKER_00: And God used his word to break through Augustine's resistance.
SPEAKER_00: The man who had spent years trying to find life by satisfying himself, by doing what he wanted to do, by only caring about himself, surrendered himself to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then years later, Augustine would look back over all of that searching and write one of the most famous lines that he wrote in his book of confessions.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Our hearts are restless until we rest in you, referring to God.
SPEAKER_00: Augustine discovers something that our world desperately needed to hear: that a life spent on yourself will never be enough.
SPEAKER_00: You can spend your entire life trying to satisfy yourself, more money, more comfort, more recognition, more experiences, more success, nicer things, more possessions, more attentions.
SPEAKER_00: You can build your entire life around the question, what do I want?
SPEAKER_00: And you may even get some of it.
SPEAKER_00: But eventually, you'll discover that the human heart was never designed to find ultimate satisfaction in itself.
SPEAKER_00: And if you keep listening to that, it will lead you away.
SPEAKER_00: We were made for God.
SPEAKER_00: And when Christ takes hold of a person, something begins to change.
SPEAKER_00: And the question slowly stops being, how can I get more out of this life?
SPEAKER_00: And becomes, How can I use this life that God gave me and belongs to Him for His glory?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we have seen through Philippians 2.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus gives himself, Paul pours himself out, Timothy looks to the interest of others, Epaphroditus risks himself for the work of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what happens when the mind of Christ takes root in the people of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So, church, perhaps the question we need to leave with this morning isn't just, am I serving enough?
SPEAKER_00: That's the most obvious one.
SPEAKER_00: Am I serving enough?
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing enough?
SPEAKER_00: The question is deeper than that.
SPEAKER_00: The question is, what am I spending my life on?
SPEAKER_00: What am I spending my life on?
SPEAKER_00: This precious time that I have, because every one of us is spending our lives on something.
SPEAKER_00: Every day we spend a little bit more of it, more of our time, strength, our attention, resources, opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: And none of it comes back.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard this said, like, we're gonna leave this life, not take anything with us.
SPEAKER_00: So, what are you spending yours on?
SPEAKER_00: Watkins Community Church.
SPEAKER_00: May we be a people who genuinely seek the good of one another.
SPEAKER_00: May we hold our plans with open hands and say, if the Lord wills, and may people around us be able to look at the way that we love one another and see something of the Savior who loved us first.
SPEAKER_00: Because if to live is Christ, then we cannot live for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, you are holy, holy, holy.
SPEAKER_00: You are perfectly set apart.
SPEAKER_00: We are so thankful for your mercy, your goodness, for teaching us who you are, for revealing yourself to us through your word, for compelling our hearts to live a life that is poured out for you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let us be ever mindful of your words.
SPEAKER_00: Let them take hold in our hearts, and when we feel tired, when we feel discouraged, just remind us to keep pouring.
SPEAKER_00: Keep pouring because a life spent in service to you is never a wasted life.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for your son.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for saving us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you are a rock and a redeemer.
SPEAKER_00: May all our days bring glory to your name.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I love the song.
SPEAKER_01: I love the weekend too.