Sermon: "Co-Workers"

Fifth in the "Philippians" series.
Delivered July 16, 2006 by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8 / 9

Theme: Here in this passage we see model Christians who took Jesus seriously, and lived as servants of Christ.

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I would like to read with you a section from the Book of Philippians, from the 2nd Chapter and I am going to begin at Verse 19 of the 2nd Chapter. If you have your Bibles there you can open them up.

"I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. 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. And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.

But I think it is 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 am 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 the help you could not give me."

Let's pray. God, we thank you for your this word and pray that as we think about together you will open our eyes to whatever it is you need to show us and help us to respond in ways that bring you joy. For we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

For weeks we have been looking at this book, this letter from Paul to the Philippian church and in particularly the last few weeks we have been dealing with some profound theological themes that come from the second chapter of the Book of Philippians. And then this week we come in to this section and all of a sudden we are dealing with the mundane. Paul is just talking about the people who are there with him in prison. People have come to assist him and to be with him and in particularly he points out Timothy and Epaphroditus. Now it seems to be so different than the enormous themes we have been looking at. We are talking about Christ who gave up all the glory and honor, all the privilege that went with being God and became a servant, a servant to us and then now here we are and we are talking about a bunch of guys in prison.

But there is a connection between what's going on here in this section and what comes earlier in chapter 2, because earlier in chapter 2 we look at Christ and we see that Christ has laid a foundation for us. He has done what is necessary to reconnect us with God, but he has also lived out a model life for us and what we are looking at now in today's passage is the lives of model Christians, people who are taking seriously Jesus' model, what Jesus taught and are trying to live that out in their own lives and it has brought them to that particular place in life. It's not the sort of people you would expect to see together. They are not the same ages. Paul is middle aged, Timothy is quite young, Epaphroditus is somewhere in between. They are not from the same city. Paul is from Tarsus. Timothy is from Listra. Epaphroditus is from Philippi. They are not from the same ethnicity. Paul is a Jew. Timothy is half Jewish and half Greek and Epaphroditus comes from an entirely non-Jewish background. What unites them is their commitment to Jesus Christ and specifically their commitment to serving him in this world. That is what has brought them together and brought them to that place. And that is something that we need to remember right now as a church, is that that is what brings us together. It's not our backgrounds, it's not how similar we are, it's our commitment to Jesus Christ that unites us and specifically what calls us tighter and tighter together is our commitment to serve him. And so we want to be a church that can be as diverse as this group of people was or even more diverse. We are not good at it all of the time, but that's what we aspire to and that's what we want to be.

In particular in this passage, you see that Paul and Timothy have a special relationship. Timothy comes from a family where his mother and his grandmother had been God-fearing Jews and had introduced him to the scriptures from his earliest life and then his grandmother and mother became believers in Jesus Christ, perhaps one of the times that Paul was preaching in Listra. And then Timothy became a believer. And one time when Paul is going through Listra, this comes up in Acts, Chapter 16, Paul notices Timothy and as we find out from other spots in scripture, the Holy Spirit sets Timothy apart for special ministry and so from that time on Timothy and Paul are often together going to different cities to do ministry. And indeed later in his life, Paul entrusts some of the most complicated, heart wrenching situations to Timothy for him to work out in his place.

They have a special relationship and you can see a little bit of this in Verse 22. There is a special turn of phrase here that I want to point out to you. Verse 22 says, "but you know that Timothy has proved himself because as a son with his father" and I want to stop right there. As son with his father, the first thing you see if the distance between them, the age distance. It's a father son type relationship, but you also get to see the closeness because it's a family relationship. That is how close Paul feels to Timothy. But I want to point out is that when someone in Paul's time would have mentioned a phrase like this; this is probably what the person would have said. As a father with a son, or let me take the exact words here, because as a son with his father he has served me well. That is the normal way a sentence like that would have been completed. As a son with the father, he has served me well, because that was the obligation of the son, to honor the parents, the stay within the leadership sphere of the parent, to work for the parent's good and welfare of the parent and particularly as the parent got older, to honor that parent and that's a good thing. It's a thing that we seen in cultures all around the world, but that is not what Paul says. What Paul says is "as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel." In fact the term that Paul uses here is he has served as a slave with me. It's a strong word. They are co-slaves in Christ. Co-workers in Christ. And so, Paul's conception of himself and what he delights in as he looks at Timothy's life is that they are slaves together of the Lord Jesus Christ. So in Chapter 2 you have the example of Jesus Christ, where Jesus lays aside all the things that you could consider his legitimate rights and concerns and pours it all out on behalf of other people and becomes a servant and Paul picks up that model and says, "yes this is who we are. This is what I rejoice in. I am a slave. Like Christ, a slave of Christ."

Now Paul makes it real clear what he values in Timothy as a co-worker. Verses 20 and 21. "I have no one else like him who takes a genuine interest in your welfare, for everyone looks out for his own interest, not those of Jesus Christ." He takes a genuine interest in your welfare. He doesn't look out for his own interest, but looks out for the interest of Jesus Christ. This is really one thing. It's not two separate things. Paul gives us a picture here of the kind of servant he wants to be, and he rejoices that Timothy is, is someone who can put aside themselves as being the center of life, desire to put God first and expresses that desire in seeking the best welfare of the people around them. Now that is what Jesus did. That's the model we have because Jesus in his desire to honor the father, what does Jesus do? Jesus pours himself out to serve other people, even undeserving people. Put aside your own self-concerns. Desire to put the things of Christ first and express that by seeking the interest and the good of the people around him. This is what it means to be Christ-like.

I have a friend who lives in Florida right now, but I had met him in Baton Rouge. His name is David and David is an engineer. I met David when he was about 30 years old and by age 30 David had planted two churches in Russia. One of the churches he had planted had grown to 200 people and had planted two additional churches and one of the churches was planted in Israel. This is by the time that David was 30 years old. In addition, David was part of the mission team of the church, so he would help shape the mission focus of the whole church. He would lead short-term trips to Russia and he became a deacon and worked with visiting the sick people in the congregation; supporting the people who are in crisis. Then he became an elder just a few years later and then as an elder he took a key role in a mission study team that started to reshape the entire way First Presbyterian Church went about its ministry. Well David also had a wife and a family. He had a job that was pretty demanding. He also spent a lot of time in his neighborhood reaching out to friends in the neighborhood and he also took part in helping shape a post-modern service that that church began. Any yet through all of this David did not seem crazy busy, because he had a particular strength, a strength that I don't think I fully share, because David had the capacity to say no to all kinds of things, but he had the special capacity to say no to things that were unimportant in terms of the kingdom of God, in terms of God's will for his life. He said no to all kinds of things, so he always seemed to have a little bit of himself available to do something important in the life of the church or in the life of the outreach of the whole body of Christ. He was an amazing guy. And I am glad that I got a chance to serve together with him.

Well our mission at Central Presbyterian Church is, "Moving people toward Christ by being a community of faith, which loves, encourages and equips them in Christ sending them out to serve." What that means for us is that we have not finished our ministry with people until we send them out to serve. So we are not done. It's not enough that people come to faith in Christ. Obviously that is the most important step, but its not like "oh okay this person has made a decision, we are done with him." It's not that at all. It's not enough that a person comes to church regularly. That's great. It's not what we are shooting for. It's not even enough that somebody knows more about Jesus Christ. Of course, we want them to know more about Jesus Christ. We want to offer the best opportunities possible for people to build that knowledge, but that is not what we are shooting for. What we are shooting for is that moment in life or those parts in life where in a fresh way we make the decision to take ourselves out of the middle, out of the center of life and allow Jesus and his concerns to become first. That is what we are shooting for. People that can put aside themselves as a central concern and go all out for Jesus and go all out for serving the people around them. Love, encourage and equip them in Christ, sending them out to serve. In other words, what we are seeking is a whole body of maturing people who have become co-workers in Christ, co-slaves in Christ.

Now to get there Paul and Timothy needed each other. Paul needed Timothy because Paul had to recognize that one of his main roles was transferring this experience of Jesus Christ to a new generation. He could never get so busy and so filled with himself that he didn't make time for other people, younger people to help them walk with God, because that is the model that Jesus had. Jesus gathered 12 around him and as he did ministry, as they walked through life he helped develop the lives of the people around him. Paul knew that model. Paul applied that model particularly with Timothy. Timothy needed Paul. Timothy had an earnest desire to follow Jesus Christ, but he needed to have someone that showed him what it was all about, somebody who could let him know how to pray, show him how to share his faith, show him how to serve, somebody to show him how to suffer. And so, Timothy needed Paul.

Now across the last year one of the things that we have learned about ourselves as a congregation, is that we are not particularly strong in this area of relationships between generations of Christians. We have some wonderful fellowship going on in this church, but very often it's a group of people who are about at the same level of maturity, the same age and I am glad that we are doing that. It's good. It's not bad, but its not best either, because what's best is that some within each generation recognizes that either they need the help of someone ahead or that they have something to offer someone who is a step behind in faith and so we extend ourselves to one another. It is already happening here. There are a lot of good things going on. I know a number of women who are in their 40's who have had mentors among the older women in this congregation. Praise God. You can see the fruit of it in their lives. There are some elders in our congregation now who have made the special decision to form a group for young men who have just gotten out of college and so in that group there are three generations of people. Wonderful, as they encourage each other and strengthen each other in faith. There are journaling groups that involve people of different generations. The Habitat group has several generations of people working together and some of the small groups in our church have been formed with the specific intention of having an older individual or couple invest themselves in people who are younger. This is good stuff. And this is one of the areas where we need to consciously work together as a congregation, because this is what we see going on in the body of Christ at its earliest stage.

So it brings up three things that I would like us to reflect on about how we can apply this kind of passage in our lives. The first thing is, we need to aspire to be like Paul, Epaphroditus and Timothy. We've got to ask ourselves, do we really put Christ first in our lives or are we always thinking of ourselves? We need to grow in Christ. That's the calling. And so that means that we can't talk about Christian maturity if all of the things that we work for, all the things that we dream about, all the things we fight for are all about us. That is not what Christian maturity is all about. Remember a few years back during the 40 days of purpose, there was a book we used there, "A Purpose Driven Life", even though I wasn't here yet, I was studying it page by page the same days that you all were in hope of eventually coming here. And I remember the first words of the first page of the first chapter, the words are "It's not all about you." So we've got to struggle with this issue of Christ being first in our lives. We need to aspire to be like Paul and Timothy and others.

Okay, the second thing is we need to look to help a Timothy in some way or ask help from a Paul in our lives. In other words, we need to make some room in our lives for this kind of growth process by making it a priority. What's keeping you from helping a younger person in Jesus Christ, or what's keeping you from seeking the input of someone older? Now there's all kinds of barriers and we can't overcome all of them, but sometimes it's just that we are too busy and what I want us to remember from the example of David is sometimes we get busy with the wrong things, and like him we can say "no" to make room for the important things. Now this is not necessarily somebody who is a generation older than us. The first people I discipled when I came to work with InterVarsity were about eight years younger than me and one of the people in particular that I invested my life in is a man who is still eight years younger in me. That hasn't changed. It's amazing how that happens, but he has gotten a lot older. I don't know how that happened. But the person who discipled me was actually a year younger than me in age, but he had come from a Christian family and had a strong background and he had a stability that I sorely needed in those first early years and so we served Christ together. We went through this process together of growing and he was such a help to me and so he was my Paul, even though he in years of age was younger than me. We don't know exactly who this person will be, but we need to keep our eyes open and we need to be ready to invest ourselves in serving other people.

The third thing, we need to honor our Pauls and our Timothys. That comes out of Verse 29 in this passage. "Welcome Epaphroditus 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 the help you could not give me." Whatever the people's ages are, we need to give those who are investing themselves in the kingdom of God, who are trying to grow, who are trying to follow the model of Jesus Christ, we need to honor these people. We need to know who they are. Epaphroditus was a short-term missionary. His community saw Paul who was doing mission work all over the empire, they saw a particular need at a particular time and sent Epaphroditus to meet that need for a period, probably knowing that Epaphroditus would then come back. Well we need to honor our short-term missionaries for their commitment to take that step. We need to honor our missionaries. Thankfully this congregation has a habit of doing that. We need to honor those who volunteer in community organizations to serve Christ there; people who volunteer to serve here in church, our deacons, our elders, and our staff. Particularly right now there are two groups I would like to single out for a little bit of attention. The first is the Franklin Graham team. Man, what a job you did. You did what you were supposed to do. Thank you. And then there is the group that worked with VBS this year. You know, our VBS, the children that came, half of them were not from this congregation, what a wonderful impact and I want to thank them too for the incredible commitment they made to that ministry as well. We need to thank these people. We need to get together with them. We need to ask how God used them, what God did. We need to work together with them and when they do something right and believe me they don't always do everything right, but when they do something right we should emulate them. This is what it is about. This is the kind of life that Christ is calling us to in his kingdom.

I want to give a final word though. When you hear about all of this and you think about these three guys there in prison, it's easy to think that what we are talking about in the Christian life is that we have to give up everything, we might as well go to a cave somewhere and just wear hair shirts and eat crickets. This is not what we are talking about. It's legitimate to have a life, to have concerns, to enjoy our family, to be concerned about whether or not we can pay the rent, to have concerns for friends or enjoy their company. That is great stuff. It just cannot be the center of your existence. Remember what Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and God's righteousness" and all of the other things that we need in life will be added to us as well. That's the kind of balance of life that Jesus taught us, that Jesus led, that Paul and Timothy and Epaphroditus are trying to live out. We cant' be the center, but if we step out of the center and let Christ be the center, all of life can be rich. It's a matter of trusting God.

Do we really believe that if we pursue God's kingdom in this world, if we pursue the things of Christ, if we pursue the welfare of his body, if we let God have more of us, like John was talking about earlier, if we let God have more of us, do we really believe that God will take care of all of the rest of life? All of our other needs, all of other things we get anxious about? Now I am not talking about that he will fix everything, but that he will be with us and he will strengthen us, that he will bring wholeness and joy in the midst of this. Do we believe that? I believe we can trust God with life, that God has made us. God has brought us in to fellowship with himself. God is working inside of us to trust him and to follow him and so I would like to suggest that you sit down and ask some man or woman that you respect and just ask him flat out whether they regret anything they have submitted to Jesus Christ. Go ahead and ask. I believe this is real. I believe it can stand the test. This is either real and deserves everything that we are, or it deserves no attention whatsoever. There is no in between. Paul understood this when he said that my calling, what I rejoice in is that I am a slave of Jesus Christ. It's so easy to go on living as if we really need to be the center of everything, as if serving Christ with all of who we are really doesn't work. It is very easy to stay in that place in life. But I believe that if we don't change, if we go on putting ourselves at the center and don't wrestle with this issue of letting Christ truly be Lord of our lives, that we may miss out on the best that life has to offer.

Let's pray. God, we thank you for people like Timothy, Paul, Epaphroditus and others. We thank you for the challenge that their lives pose for our lives and so help us now wherever we are in our walk with you, whatever our level of trust and understanding, you help us press on to move towards Jesus Christ, for we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2006, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org