Plans, Faith and the Future | Philippians 2:19-30

Philippians 2:19-30  |  Cody Hale

Transcript

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If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn with me to Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. And then we're gonna see what kind of trouble we can get ourselves into this morning. Philippians chapter 2, verses 19 through 30. It's really an unsuspecting text. But he has for us a really important message. And the sermon, actually, the song sets it up just right, as normal, my brother. Philippians chapter 2, beginning in verse 19. God's word says, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served me with the gospel. I hope, therefore, to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker, and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need. For he has been longing for you all, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men. For he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. We pray together. Heavenly Father, this morning we come and it feels like an ordinary day, and we're living ordinary lives. And Father, honestly, in the midst of what is mundane and typical, it can be easy for us to overlook you, to not see your kindness in every detail. And so, Father, I pray this morning that you would open up our eyes to see your fingerprints everywhere in our lives. I pray, Lord, that we wouldn't wait to one day to be faithful, but that we would be faithful today. I pray that we would be wise in planning for the future and present and active in the lives that you've already given. God, be with us, meet us, and give us a word through your spirit. In Jesus' name, Amen. You may be seated. So over the last year, I've wrestled a lot with the tension between being a person of wisdom who makes plans for the future and being a person of faith who knows that God controls the future. I've wrestled with it actually as intensely as anything I've ever wrestled with in my life. About 13 years ago, God called me to be the pastor of Iron City Baptist Church. It was the church where I was converted. It was the church where I was discipled. It's the church that you can blame for so much of who the Lord has made me to be. And when the Lord called me to be their pastor, I immediately made plans to be there for the rest of my life. Like that was my intention. And I wasn't shy about that. I would tell them clearly that this is the intent that I had, the goal that I had, that I want to grow, I want to grow old with them. In fact, on my 10-year anniversary as pastor, I laid out a 40-year vision and said that we had just come to the conclusion of the first quarter of a four-quarter ministry with one another. So last year, when the Lord began stirring in my heart and in my wife's heart the possibility of a new work, that he would take us to a new place, it was disorienting. It was shocking. I had big plans and big expectations for what the future held there, and I sincerely believe with all of my heart that we were just getting started in so many different ways. And so I had to wrestle a lot with what to do with the plans that I had made, and what to do with the intentions that I had stated, and what to do with the love that I have for all of the people there. Early in my ministry, an older pastor told me, he said that every Christian has two suitcases. One suitcase that you come and you unpack it wherever the Lord puts you, and you plan to be there for the rest of your life. The other suitcase stays by the door, always packed, always ready to get up and to go at moment's notice as soon as the Lord calls. That is, we make plans with our lives. We build a life. This is proper and right and good, but we recognize that those plans are not ultimate. We recognize that we hold all of our plans with open hands, ready to go wherever the Lord leads, as soon as the Lord leads us there. Paul is wrestling with this tension in the book of Philippians here. He's giving a missionary report that is completely different than the one that he wishes that he was given. He wishes that he was riding to the church at Philippi from a church plant that they would have helped started, that he was leading, that the Lord was blessing, but instead he's riding it from a prison cell that he doesn't seem to be able to get out of. He desires to go and to be with them, but quite frankly, he doesn't know if he's gonna have the freedom. He doesn't know if that's even gonna be a possibility at all. And so in verse 19, he kind of picks this missionary report up that he began in chapter one and put down for a brief excursus. And in the process, I think what he does is he helps us to understand how Christians think about plans, the future, and faith. That as Christians, first of all, we plan like the future is long. We plan like the future is long. I can't remember many moments in my life where I felt a deeper pit in my stomach than when I had to stand before this congregation that I love so deeply and tell them that I was leaving. They knew my plans, they knew my intentions. I had not been shy at all about sharing them with them. And so it was a surreal moment. They were shocked to be hearing that I was leaving, and I was just as shocked to be saying it. In that moment, I turned to to Proverbs chapter 16, verse 9. I have it at the bottom of your screen there. It says, the heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. We make plans. This is part of what it means to be made in the image of God. And making plans is good. Making plans is wise, but our plans are not ultimate. Our plans are subject to the will of God. That Christians always write their plans out in pencil and never in pen because they may be erased at a moment's notice. That's the tension that Paul's living in. He's making plans like the future is long, but he knows it might not be. And so in verse 19, he says, I hope in the Lord. Verse 23, I hope, therefore. Verse 24, I trust in the Lord. He plans, but he's holding his plans with an open hand. He hopes and he trusts, but he doesn't know. He hopes and he trusts, but he doesn't know. And he wants the Philippians to know that in his intentions, the intentions that he has to come, the intentions that he has to send Timothy, in his intentions, he is revealing his desire for them. And he's revealing his love for them. You'll notice that he says it twice. I hope, verse 19, I hope again in verse 23. And he's not talking here about hope the way that Peter talks about hope in 1 Peter chapter 1, when he talks about our living hope. He's not talking about the hope that we have in the resurrection. That is a certain hope. That is a substantiated hope. That is a verified hope. It is a certain hope. Paul's using the word very differently here. Paul is talking about something that isn't a certainty, but an expectation. Something that isn't a guarantee, but is his intention. So it wouldn't be important for us to recognize that as he's making these plans, that he wants us to know that these plans aren't casual. These plans are very personal. That's why he says in there, I want to send Timothy to you, because Timothy is genuinely concerned for your welfare. And in other words, what happens to the Philippians is deeply personal to Paul. He wants to send to them, not just anybody, he wants to send to them the right people. He wants to send to them someone like Timothy, who's apparently they've requested, because Timothy has his heart for them. Timothy wants good for them the way that he wants good for them. And so it's this desire and care that is driving the planning that Paul is doing, the intentions that he has. When I stood before my congregation, I knew that I had to address the plans that I had made. I had not been shy at all about telling them. And so I knew that was kind of the elephant in the room because that's what I was wrestling with. I I intended to be there. I said I wanted to be there. I I did want to be there. And I knew all of them had to be sitting there and wondering, man, this guy has told us for 12 years that he's staying, and here he is, and he's leaving. The conclusion that I came to is that every time I said, I'm going to be here, I wasn't just expressing a plan. It was my way of saying, I love y'all. I love y'all. I desire to be with y'all. I want what's best for y'all. I'm committed to y'all. You know, sometimes I think that we spiritualize a poorly planned life as being a life that's defined by faith. We think, you know what, I'll just sleep in, I won't worry. The Lord is in control of the future. Who cares what I do today, right? But a poorly planned life isn't indicative of a big faith. A poorly planned life is indicative of a lesser love and a lower level of concern. That planning is how love prepares. Love leads to concern. Concern leads to planning. I think that's what we're seeing here with Paul in the plans that he makes. That he wants us to recognize that intentions reveal desire and then decisions reveal focus. It seems that the Philippians, I mentioned this earlier, they want Timothy. But but Paul can't send him yet. We don't know all the details, all the intricacies, all the ins and outs, but but for whatever reason, Paul can't send him that he deems Timothy to be mission critical for what Paul is doing there in the prison and what the Lord is already doing in his word. He says, I hope that it comes, I hope that I'm able to send him right now. I just can't. So Paul is doing one of the very most difficult things for a pastor or a missionary or a minister to do. He's choosing to disappoint people that he loves, people that support him, people that fund him, people that lead. He's choosing to disappoint them in order to remain faithful to the calling that the Lord has on his life. That often, more clearly than your yes, your no reveals whatever it is that you're focused upon. That focus is not doing anything and everything. Focus is not doing every good thing. Focus is determining what it is that is mission critical and it's focusing on those things and being willing to say no to all of the other things in your life. Even good things, even fair requests, even kind requests, like the one that we're seeing here from the church at Philippi. Author Jim Collins, you might know him. A lot of you probably read his book, Good to Great. He says that very often focus is mistaken for arrogance because focused people say no more than any other group of people. That's what Paul is doing here. That's what we see in Paul. His priority isn't here to keep everybody happy with him. His priority here isn't to impress or to meet the expectations of the church at Philippi. His priority is the mission and the ministry that God has given to him. And he's committed to making his decisions accordingly. Here's the principle Your no reveals your focus. Your no reveals your focus. And your no reveals your focus more clearly than your yes. Paul's refusal to say to go and to capitulate to the desires of the Philippians, which is an honorable desire, a good desire. They were not making a malicious request of him, but his refusal to go was not from him a failure to care. In fact, it was an indication by him that he cared so deeply about the mission that God had placed on his life that he was willing to even not meet the expectations and the requests of others so that he wouldn't be distracted. So let me ask you this morning. What and who are you willing to say no to? What and who are you willing to say no to? We all live lives of high expectations, don't we? All of us do. You have the expectations of the school, you have the expectations of the team, you have the expectations of your boss, you have the expectations of your marriage, you have the expectations of your parents. Then you mix into all of that, you have your own aspirations. And what are aspirations? Aspirations are the expectations that you have of yourself for your own life to go and achieve and accomplish. Then you mix in that, you have expectations of your church, you have expectations of a devotional life with the Lord. So you can't meet all of those expectations. You already know that. That's why so many of us feel like we're spinning out of control, we're doing our dead level best to try, and it's an impossibility. So the question becomes who do you say no to? What do you say no to? Or maybe let's drill down a little deeper. How often does God get your no so that you don't have to disappoint someone else or not meet someone else's expectation or some other organization's expectations? You see, Paul can say no because Paul recognizes not everything is riding on him. He is responsible for his faithfulness and his obedience. God is responsible for the outcomes and the impressions. And so he's here and he's saying decisions reveal focus, and those outcomes reveal our confidence. Outcomes reveal our confidence. I trust. In other words, I intend, I expect, and then I am confident in the Lord. This is Paul's way of saying, I make plans, but I don't control the outcome. That is, Paul knows Proverbs 16, 9. He knows that the heart of man plans his way, but it's the Lord who establishes his steps. And so he's suddenly reminding the Philippians that it isn't ultimately up to him. He recognizes that they might be tempted to be frustrated with him. They might be tempted to be frustrated that he didn't send to them Timothy. They might be tempted to be frustrated that his ministry is not going the way that they thought it would go when they begin to fund him on his missionary journey. He recognizes that they might be tempted with the frustration, but he wants them to understand he made plans, but the Lord is the one establishing the steps. The Lord is the one that's bringing about all the things that are actually coming about, that Paul isn't going to confuse his responsibilities with God's burden. You see, if we're going to manage the tension between planning for the future in prudence and surrendering the future in faith, we have to understand, like Paul, the difference between our responsibility and God's burden. If you don't make wise plans, you aren't meeting your responsibility. The Bible is clear about this, it talks about the folding of the hands to rest and the wisdom of the ant and the faithfulness and the prudence and the laborious life that we're called to. So Paul, Paul is making plans. But if you try to control the outcomes of those plans, you try to control the outcome of your future, you're taking on God's burden as though God's burden is your responsibility. And if we as human beings take on God's burden as though God's burden is our responsibility, you know what's gonna happen? Every single one of us are gonna spin out of control, man. Because we can't carry that burden. We can't control the outcomes. We can't control the future. My grandparents, my great-grandparents, were farmers. And I grew up around their farm. You know, I'm certainly not a farmer, I was just around the farm. And if you spend any time around farmers, what you come to realize is they work really, really, really, really, really hard. They get up really, really early, they step really, really late. And despite all of the hard work that they do, they have almost no control over the outcome. They plant, they tend, they show up early, they stay up late, but y'all, they can't make it rain. And they can't control how hot it is, they can't control the drought, they can't control how early or late the frost comes. Only God can do that. And so farmers know the difference between their responsibility and God's burden. And so a farmer, and us as believers in Christ, live in this tension that we work faithfully, but at the same time we trust completely. We rust, we work faithfully, but we trust completely. A farmer knows that he better set his alarm clock. He doesn't get to sleep in by faith. If he does so, he is being negligent in his responsibility. But he also knows that the harvest is ultimately in God's hand. Do you know when the crop grows? The crop grows while the farmer sleeps. It's out of his hands. He knows that he has to keep his responsibilities, but he also recognizes that ultimately he has to trust God to keep his burden and to bear his burden and to keep his promises. This is what Paul recognizes, and this is what all of us have to recognize if we want to live lives that don't feel like they're unraveling around us. You are responsible to make plans for your family, you are responsible to be intentional with your children, you are responsible to be purposeful with your ministry, but you don't control the outcomes, you don't control how your kids turn out, you don't control the scope or influence of your ministry, you don't scope, you you don't determine the long-term viability of anything that you start. Only the Lord does. So you plan, you hope, you trust, but God bears the burden. It's the only way that you can live your life without being totally overwhelmed by the life that you have. And so here's Paul. And Paul's looking at the request that they have for Timothy and says, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have intentions for that. I have plans for that. I have plans for the future, even though I'm here in this prison cell. So we plan like the future is long, but then we work like the time is short. We work like the time is short. A few years ago, Megan and I looked at our lives and we realized that we just had way too much debt. There was the house, there was the cars, there was the camper, there was the motorcycle, there was student debt. And what we recognized is that our stress levels were compounding faster than the interest was. Right? And so I remember us driving home one year one day from vacation and just being stressed out about all the things that we were coming back to and feeling just completely thin and un and we just started dreaming. Like, what would life be like if we didn't have all these doggone payments, you know? Like, like, can you imagine how free we would be? And can you imagine how much less our stress would be? Can you just imagine how much more generous with other other people we would be? The problem became that we knew and had the dream for where we wanted to be, but we weren't doing anything to actually get there. We we talked it to death and we talked about it all the time, like like, okay, maybe if I get a raise, or maybe if this thing pays off, or or maybe if this this thing changes. But you know what changed? Nothing. Nothing. Because life has a way of just always getting more expensive, doesn't it? And every raise you get, it just seems to evaporate, doesn't it? And every raise you think you're getting, maybe it doesn't come through sometimes, right? And you think this thing's gonna pay off, and then that thing tears up. I mean, you have you have just it's life, right? It's hard. And so one day we realized we're not gonna get to tomorrow's plans until we start doing something about it today, until we start acting today. So we stopped waiting and we started selling stuff. And by selling stuff, I mean like our dog was getting nervous. You know what I mean? Like she's watching all the things disappear, and she's like, okay, you know, like maybe I'm next. We had to learn the hard way that if we wanted a different life, we had to stop waiting for the future. That if we wanted a different life, we had to start doing something different now with what we have today, with who we have today. That's exactly what Paul is doing in this passage, y'all. That's exactly what Paul is doing in this passage. He knows what he wants to do eventually. Eventually, he intends to go to Philippi. And eventually, he intends to send Timothy to Philippi. It's just not possible right now, that can't happen. But he doesn't just sit around and think about what he can't do. He thinks about what he can do. What can I do today? Today I can't go. Today I can't send, I can't send Timothy. But what I can do is today I can send Epaphroditus. That is, Paul focused on what was available to him that day, not what was ideal in his mind. And that's what he's teaching the Philippians to do. I think that's what he's teaching us to do by his own example. That he wants them to be more willing to embrace the ordinary. Now, this is kind of an interesting moment. Okay? The Philippians sent aphroditus to Paul, it seems. The picture, the way that I read it is they put apaphroditus in the transfer portal, right? And they're like, okay, all right, Paul, we're gonna send you apaphroditus. We think he's high potential, you know, early round pick, but he's not developed yet. Could you send us Timothy in exchange? We don't really know all the reasons why he did that. Maybe they were wanting someone that had more credibility. Maybe they wanted somebody that had more leadership experience. Maybe they wanted somebody that was more uh renowned, had more influence. We don't know all the reasons why. But what we know is that Paul responds by taking him out of the transfer portal and sending him right back to them. And when he sends Epaphroditus to them, he heaps all of this admiration, all of this respect that Paul throws basically all of his weight behind Epaphroditus who was one of their own. You'll see this in verse 25. He he calls him my brother and my fellow worker and my fellow soldier. He calls him your messenger. The interesting thing about messenger is this is actually the same word from which we get our word apostle. It's almost like Paul is saying, you want somebody else. God literally raised up you, your very own apostle, just made for you, right? He says, your minister to my need. You want something better, but you already have something good. And if you're honest, that's us, isn't it? That's us. We're always looking out there, aren't we? We're always looking out there. Out there is always better. The grass is always greener on the other side. If I just had another job, if I just had more time, if I just had more gifts, if I just had more privilege, if I just had more opportunities, if I just had his parents, if I just had her looks, if I just had, if I just had, if I just had, then I could do really great things for God. Then I could do what I'm supposed to do, then I could have the life that I believe that I'm supposed to have. And all the while, what are we doing? We're overlooking what God has already put right in front of us. Don't see that. We tend to overvalue what's out there and underappreciate what's in here. We're always longing for something more impressive or someone more spectacular, but God doesn't usually work through the spectacular. God works most often through the ordinary. That's how sovereign he is. He works through ordinary people already in your life. He works through the responsibilities that are already on your plate, he works through the situation that you're already in. So here's what Paul is saying: don't wait until the conditions are perfect. Don't wait until ideal conditions arrive. Work with who you have and with what you have today, as faithfully as you can, today. Respond to who and what you have in the wisest way that you can. Don't take for granted a single detail. And don't take for granted a single detail, y'all. Because God is in every one of them. You ever read the dimensions of the of the ark? Like the Lord didn't just say go build a big boat, did he? He told him how big to cut the boards. He told him what kind of wood to go and get. Go and read about the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle. Not one detail is overlooked. Y'all, the devil's not in the detail, the Lord is. He's in every single one of them. He's in every job that you get or you don't get. He's in every struggle that you're facing or you're not facing. Every single ordinary detail is working toward God's will for your life, not against God's will for your life. Y'all, one of the reasons that I knew the Lord was calling me to a new place of service was because my wife's job changed. Feels really ordinary, doesn't it? Doesn't that feel ordinary? I I know that you want it to be more spiritual than that. That we want burning bushes and skyrider planes and you know, wet fleeces. We want all the things. But it's only ordinary if you don't recognize that there is no spiritual sacred divide, that God is in every single detail, and he is working through every single detail to get you positioned and placed where he has you to be positioned and placed to accomplish what he has for you to accomplish. Every single struggle, every single frustration, every single hardship is the Lord at work in your life to move you where he has for you to be, to do what he has for you to do. So here's Paul giving us the example. Embrace the ordinary, y'all. Embrace the ordinary because that's almost certainly where God is at work in your life. Oh, embrace the ordinary and then remain steady. Remain steady. Let me tell you what kind of man Epaphroditus was. The journey to go and find Paul was 1,000 miles, okay? There was no Mercedes-Benz, there wasn't even a Prius, okay? There were no Delta Sky Miles, there was no Pilots, there was no, there were no there were no loves, there certainly was not a Bucky's, right? There wasn't a Hampton Inn. There wasn't a Hyatt place. No, you just had to go. And not only did he go, he went on a thousand-mile journey with almost no resources, and he went on this journey and almost died, got sick on the way. And you know what he does? Maybe it's better to emphasize what he doesn't do. You know what he doesn't do? He doesn't quit. He doesn't quit, he doesn't back down, he just keeps going because he says he is committed to the work of Christ. He is committed to complete the mission that his church has sent him on. This is the most common description of the Christian life in the New Testament. The Christian life is not one for all of us that is gonna be day-to-day spectacular. The Christian life is one that's just steady and ordinary. Eugene Peterson, he frames it up like this He says, the Christian life is a long obedience in the same direction. A long obedience in the same direction. That lands with us, doesn't it? That lands with us because most of the Christian life doesn't feel like a highlight reel. It feels like going to a job that feels like it's dead end just so that you can provide for your family. It feels like staying in a marriage that is really, really hard to stay into and staying and trying to grow in godliness together. It feels like battling that same sin that your mind just can't seem to release over the entire course of your life. And it feels so frustrating that you can't seem to overcome it. It feels like opening your Bible when God's voice seems really, really distant to us. You know, I imagine. I imagine there were moments when apaphroditus wanted to quit. And I imagine, if you're like me, there are gonna be moments in which you want to quit. You want to pull up. You don't wanna get up, you don't wanna go to church that day, you don't want to open your Bible that day, you don't want to honor the Lord that day, you don't, you don't wanna stay in your marriage that day, you don't wanna go to your job that day, you don't want to work with your hands that day, you don't wanna deal with your kids that day. So, what's the Christian call in our lives? The Christian call in our life is just take one more step. Just take one more step, and then take one more, and then take one more. Just do just do the next right thing, just do the next faithful thing, because it's a long obedience in the same direction. That's what we see in Epaphroditis. That's what's being called out for us. That the Christian life is one limping, coughing step after another. That's what describes Ephroditis' faithfulness. This is why Paul is heaping praise upon him, and this is what the Lord Jesus will be talking about when he looks to you and he says, Well done, my good and faithful servant, when you enter before his judgment seat. A life worthy of the gospel usually feels different than we expect it to feel. It feels like Paul's anxiety in verse 28, it feels like Epaphroditus's distress in verse 26. It feels like you aren't going to make it, but just take one more step. Just press on and then be thankful. Be thankful. Ephroditus probably had to take this letter that was given to him by Paul to the church at Philippi, and he probably had to read it out loud to all of them. So I want you to imagine that scene with me. There he is, surrounded by the church that put him in the transfer portal, right? The church that says, Hey, we think we kind of like to have somebody better, right? He's road weary and threadbare from a 2,000-mile journey. Maybe he's still battling a cough or some kind of lingering effects from the illness that almost killed him on his way. And he gets to the part of the letter where Paul begins to talk about him. And I imagine that his voice cracks and his eyes well up with tears as he's remembering how much the journey has cost him and how badly he wanted to quit, and all of the effects and impacts that this has had on his physical health. And I imagine there are those that are in the congregation and they have this mixture. Like on one hand, they're they're a little embarrassed that they sent him away, and then on the other hand, they're just so proud of him, all that he's done, and that he's made it back with them. And then perhaps he's embarrassed by the flattery. But he gets to the part where Paul tells the church receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men. Receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men. Think about that. All joy. It seems that they were so anxious to enjoy what God would do in the future that they missed all the opportunities for gratitude in the present. That they were so transfixed on who they wanted and what they wanted to do that they weren't appreciating who and what they already had. It's a precious reminder for us, isn't it? It's a precious reminder. We get so wrapped up in what and who we want that we miss what and who we have. We so badly want God to come through in the miraculous that we miss his steady, abiding presence in the ordinary mundane grind of a Monday. So Paul is recalibrating them. And Paul is recalibrating all of us. He's saying, yes, yes, it is proper and right for you to plan for the future. Yes, long for what God might do next. Make plans, send letters, have intentions, have expectations, do all of those things, but don't you dare miss what God is doing right now. Don't you dare miss what's happening in your house and under your roof right now. Don't you dare miss what's happening at the orchard church right now. Don't you dare miss what's happening in your community group right now. Don't mat, don't miss what God is doing through your job right now. Don't overlook the people in your life. Don't overlook the opportunities in front of you. Don't overlook the ways that God is caring for you. No, no, no, no. Be thankful. Be thankful. Because you see, when you start to see the ordinary kindness of God, you start to realize that it really isn't ordinary at all. It's just that God is so good that his goodness is everywhere. And you've come to take it for granted that God's goodness is so common that it actually feels ordinary. See, the Christian life is meant to live in two directions at one time. On one hand, we live like the f we plan like the future is long. You think ahead, you prepare, you care enough to make wise plans, but then you hold them loosely. You write them in pencil and never in pen. And at the same time, you live like time is short. You don't wait, you don't delay obedience, you don't sit around waiting for ideal conditions, you act today with what God has given you, where God has placed you, with the people that are already in your life. Because, y'all, a faithful life isn't built someday. It's built through ordinary ones just like today. So plan. Plan this morning like the future is long. But live like today is precious. Can we pray together?