It's Life No.8 How to have real friends

In this lecture, I'm going to give you a brief overview of what I mean when I say that 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 who you sent to 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.

May the Lord add his blessing to this reading of his word. I've said before that often when I'm out in the east, I'm always appreciative of Fever Radio and their call sign, which is the first couple of bars of what a friend we we have in in Jesus. And it's a good thing to realize that we are not only friends in Jesus, but friends because of Jesus.

There's another verse that needs to be written to that hymn that we commenced with. There's only three verses, unless there were more in the original. A verse that speaks about the friendship we have because we belong to our Lord Jesus.

Look at verse 12 of Philippians 2. And as we start to talk about Paul's friends, and there'll be a bit of an overhead to help you this morning as I unwind and unpack what is found in these verses. But look at verse 12, because there Paul sets the scene, if you like, in terms of, though we've gathered it before, but now he plugs in and describes his attitude to the people who receive his letter. My dear friends, the apostle is a very warm-hearted pastor.

In the earlier verses of the second chapter, he's almost bringing to their mind the fact that they are his friends and asking them to do something that will warm his heart. I mean, if you're a friend, you can do that, can't you? You'll do it for me because. I mean, you men, you do it for your wives, don't you? And vice versa.

Do it for me. And because it's the individual who's asking, there's more likelihood for an affirmative response. Make my joy complete.

How? By being good friends. Good friends with one another. Good friends modeling your friendship on the character of the beloved Christ.

Look at verse 5, your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. And how do you sum up that great hymn that Tim was able to preach on some weeks ago? Well, our Lord Jesus went from the throne to the cross, and from the cross to the throne. And in coming from the throne to the cross, he gave an example of friendship in its absolute sense.

He waived his interests in the interest of his friends. Waived what was his, so that what was his could be credited to your account. From the throne to the cross, and then back from the cross to the throne.

Now it says the apostle picking up on that from verse 12, therefore, the reason why I've engaged in this Christological passage brimming with understanding of who the person of the Lord Jesus is, is so that you might be informed and great theologians and get a degree in theology. Not a bit. I don't think Paul would have been interested in degrees in theology.

Paul is essentially nothing if he's not an applied teacher. That's why every time he gives you a doctrinal passage, he'll follow it with at least twice as long a bit applying it. You see, Paul's like the masseur.

He takes the oil and he will massage into the body the ointment. So he gives his teaching and he wants to massage that into our bodies. The Lord Jesus is the Christian's model.

All right, says the apostle Paul, I'll tell you what. I'll give you an illustration of model Christians. And that's what he does, actually, in the 19th verse and through into the 25th verse.

On the streets of St. Petersburg, in the center of the city, any day you'll find a handful of Russian artists, and if you pass over a few roubles, they will, with the deft use of a piece of charcoal, within about five minutes give you a representation of yourself. Brilliant artists. Now this is what Paul is doing, actually.

He's taking a piece of charcoal, and by that I mean a few words. He's putting them carefully together, and the net result is that you get a picture of his twin friends Epaphroditus and also Timothy. Our Lord Jesus is the Christian's model.

Well, here I repeat, our model Christians. And this is what he wants you and me to be like. Now let me remind you, in case you've forgotten or you're just in at the tab for a passing visit, we're glad to see you, of the circumstances of Paul.

You see, he's not in a retreat, enjoying the rarified atmosphere of the Swiss Alps. No carefully trained British Airways pilot has got him safely to his destination, but Paul is in jail. He's in prison in Rome, and he's got other things on mind besides his own personal circumstances.

In fact, what's on mind displaces the honorable concern that he could have for himself. Paul is always a pastor, and his concerns are, well, these people at Philippi, who he has largely, with others, being used in leading them to the Lord, they need information about him, and he about them. And there is some information that ultimately they must have, and that is what happens as a result of the trial through which he's just passed.

But then they can't wait just for that. So, there's information they must immediately have. Now, as you will see later on, if I get time to get to this part in my address, the Apostle Paul does have a problem about friends, not the quality.

Well, yes, maybe it is the quality. You see, Paul doesn't have the number of friends that you might think he ought to have, being who he is, in whom he can invest full confidence. More on that in a moment.

What he determines to do is send two men, one immediately and the other ultimately, and both have a task to do. Immediately, he wants them to know about him, his present circumstances, and even more particularly, to know about their circumstances, and for that he chooses Epaphroditus. And ultimately, he wants to let them know as to the outcome of his trial, and for that he picks Timothy.

Now, he starts off by giving us a portrait of Timothy, the essential Timothy. From the 19th through to the 24th verses, he puts in the paintbrush, he uses the charcoals, and he'll tell you something about Timothy's personal curriculum. You know, the interesting thing about both these men is that not only were they honored by Paul, I refer to Timothy, and Epaphroditus, they are both unlikely characters.

Now, that, as I just break away for a moment, should interest you immediately, because so often, one has to try to disabuse from the pulpit the notion that God only uses special people who've been brought up in a special way, with special giftings transferred from their parents in order to serve him. And of course, that is an utter nonsense. So, I tried to say the other day, God has a spiritual aristocracy, but you get him not by birth, you get him by choice, determined by you.

Now, Timothy, he's a half Jew, therefore he's a bit of a mongrel, racially, and Epaphroditus, he's a Gentile. And there's hardly anything that's more compelling in Philippians than to realize that when the Apostle Paul has got a job to do of great significance, or two jobs, he puts one arm on a half Jew, and another arm on a Gentile, and says, fellas, I want you to do it. Turn the clock back, and he'd not have done that.

He wouldn't even have touched them, because the racism that there was in Paul's day towards the Gentiles, and the Jews with an admixture of Jewish blood and Gentile blood was equal to anything that you'll find in India. So, here is, I say, the essential Timothy. Timothy, I want to send him to you to let him know, to let you know eventually what is the outcome of my trial.

And as for his personal CV, well, Timothy was brought up. One, two Timothy, one verse five, we've got three, I think, on the overhead. He was brought up by his parents, at least by his mother and his grandmother, to place some confidence in the Holy Scriptures, and as a result, as a child, to make a commitment.

I've been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois, and in your mother Eunice, and now I am persuaded lives in you also. A child brought up to know something about God. When you look at the young man Timothy in Acts 16, you find that he is someone who has won the approval of the local church, and when you move towards the latter chapters of Corinthians, you will find that it's Timothy that Paul looks to, to represent him, as though if you listen to what Timothy has to say, we are so close together that you're listening to me.

I've no one else like him. He is the essential Timothy who takes a genuine interest in your welfare, which leads us on to think about Timothy's pastoral qualifications. He's naturally inclined towards people.

He is someone who thinks in terms of others, which is really a reflection of the Lord Jesus, isn't it, as we've already said. Why did he come on earth? Well, for the benefit of ordinary people like you and me, and if you partake of the essential nature of Jesus, then something of the concerns for others flows through you. Now, Timothy, he stands out.

No one else like him in the esteem of Paul because of his pastoral concerns. What's more, he's an intensively devotional man. He is one who wants to emulate the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's proved himself in the way that he serves me as a father in the gospel to him. He's a colleague. The apostle, when he speaks of Timothy, he refers not just to his pastoral qualifications, but also to his ecclesiastical ones.

Why will Timothy be accepted by the Philippians? Well, if you read historically in the book of Thessalonians, as well as backtracking to the Acts of the Apostles, you'll find that when Paul first went to Philippi, Timothy was there with him. So, his credibility stands tall in the eyes of the Philippians. Personally, pastorally, ecclesiastically, Timothy is fitted for the job.

But perhaps the thing that you need to underline more than anything else, which I've already drawn your attention to, is that when Paul looks at all the Christians who there are in Rome, he says, I've got nobody like Timothy. And yet the choice was unusual because of his admixture of Jewish and Gentile blood. So, a man who's got a friend like Timothy is indeed blessed.

And Timothy is going to go to Philippi as soon as he gets the nod from Paul in order to let them know just how it has gone with Paul. And Paul is hoping that very quick following the footsteps of Timothy, he will be able to go himself. Verse 24, I'm confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.

Well, the essential Timothy is followed in Paul's pen portraiture with a man I have entitled, I've described as the Honorable Epaphroditus. Now, he is honorable because the Apostle Paul says in verse 29 that he is to be an honored man for the things that he does. I've got a great friend in the Midlands who I respect a great deal, Roland Lamb.

He helped in the early days, at least in the midlife, I should say, of the British Evangelical Council as its general secretary for many long years. And he has the title, the Honorable Roland Lamb. I suppose that's something that's bequeathed through the Palace of Westminster and approved by Downing Street.

Now, no disrespect to anyone who bears that title, even more important is it for us to live in such a fashion that when the Apostle Paul draws the portraiture, he is inclined to do so in such a fashion that makes the man stand out, makes the woman stand out as an honorable person. Why is Paul so struck with Timothy and Epaphroditus? Some years ago, two to be precise, I stopped by in Lahore in Pakistan. I'd had some meetings in Karachi and I flew to Lahore.

Now, some of you who've traveled in the East will know that one of the great difficulties in getting out of an airdrome is trying to indicate to the 30 or 40 porters who grab for your luggage that however pleased you might be at their kindliness, you really don't want their assistance because they frisked you so much last time. George Verver has in his entourage, amongst those people who are part of his team, someone who he calls a gopher. Not a golfer, a gopher.

Go for me and do this. Go for me and, you know. And it's a very interesting apprenticeship that many a young man has served because working alongside Verver is an education in itself and helping him does advance the cause of Christ.

Now, I wasn't to know that dressed up as a Pakistani was Verver's previous gopher and I thought he was just a porter and he would not put my luggage down. And ere long I was inclined to go for him and tell him in very sweet terms that a long walk off a short plank ought to be perhaps something that he should consider. And when eventually I realized who he was, then I appreciated the embarrassing situation I would be in for the next three days as he reminded everyone in the conference of my rudeness to him when first he tried to offer me assistance.

Now you see this is precisely what Timothy and Epaphroditus are able to do for a man like Paul. Offer assistance, work as though it was Paul himself who was doing the ministry. So when Paul gives us another pen portraiture of his second colleague, he does so in very remarkable terms.

He witnesses to how Epaphroditus has conducted himself in Rome. Now you perhaps don't recall that Epaphroditus was a leading elder from the church in Philippi and they had sent Epaphroditus to Rome with certain material blessings for Paul. There is a sense in which he had become an apostle to Paul, bringing not the gospel, but the benefits, the presence, the material comforts of people who love Paul.

Well it can be dangerous traveling. And this man picked up some sort of disease and as a result he was in such an extreme condition Paul thought he might die. But he recovers.

And when Paul gives testimony as to the nature of the ministry of this man and its value, he calls him my brother, my fellow worker, my fellow soldier. The worker became a warrior and he took up the ministry of Paul. You know the annoying thing about the Bible is it's too short.

It really is. I mean you would like to know what Epaphroditus did. He obviously extended himself.

It seems not just because of the illness but also because of the work in which he engaged. At times he was dicing with death. I wonder if because Paul is imprisoned and therefore can't get onto the streets, if Epaphroditus went for him.

I wonder if he took the same risk as possibly that 11 year old Pakistani lad did in a mosque. Did you read about it? Mostly fully he's been released and they're not going to hang him. But he obviously did something positive for the sake of Jesus and the Mullers didn't like it.

Well Epaphroditus, he's here in Rome and I'm just conjuring up the scenario that he's working on behalf of Paul. He's on the streets. He's laboring for the gospel.

He's trying to encourage the people there. Says the apostle Paul, he was a great witness. My fellow worker was my fellow warrior.

And he's concerned. Well he's concerned for your welfare. He knows, verse 26, that you know that he has been ill.

Now illness is one thing but worry about someone who is worrying for you just multiplies the nature of the tension. He was ill. He almost died, says Paul.

God had mercy on him. Thank God that he did because I needed him. I don't want sorrow to be multiplied.

Now says the apostle, because of this, because of your worry for Epaphroditus, because of his concerns for your welfare, I'm going to send him to you. Now the apostle could have done with Epaphroditus there. You see he was one of his true men.

I mean Timothy and Epaphroditus, you hit them and they ring true, theologically and in loyalty. But no, says the apostle, he's got to go back because of you and because of him and because I want to hear news of you. Therefore I'm eager to send him.

Now when you receive him, give him a welcome. Verse 29, you don't get men like this often. Honor him, says Paul when he's writing to Timothy, at least writing the pastoral letter to Timothy.

There are people who we ought to honor. Why should we honor Epaphroditus? Verse 30, because well he almost died. He risked his life to make up for the help you could not give me.

And the verb there is an interesting one in the Greek. It's as a gambler who takes risks. There was a group of men in the early church in the first two or three centuries who were known as the paraboloni, the risk takers.

When a person was being martyred, they would get alongside them. When they needed to be ministered to, they would minister to them. Well this is really what Paul has in mind when he's writing the testimony of Epaphroditus.

He is one of the paraboloni. He comes alongside. He's a risk teacher.

He wasn't concerned about himself. He might well have been because he'd been sick. But even after his recovery, he was prepared to work valiantly for me.

So here's Paul, you see, and he's dispatching these two men. One immediately, the other ultimately to minister to and through the means of conveying news back to Paul as to how it was going at Philippi. Model Christians.

Now you've got to be careful when you handle the New Testament to ensure that the honesty of the New Testament stays with you. And thank God that it does paint the picture once and all. It wasn't such a wonderful time in New Testament experience in so much as there sometimes could be problems in the church.

I mean it was wonderful in as much as uniquely God was pouring out His Spirit and there was a rapid growth and expansion of the church. But Christian people, well, as I was trying to tell you last week, God has not finished with me yet. There's perfections that still need to be brought to the surface.

And here is Paul and he's been singularly honest when he says in the 21st verse of this chapter, having made reference to Timothy or about to and the Paphroditus, everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. In other words, Paul doesn't have a queue of people in whom he can invest confidence. I've no one else like Timothy, for everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus.

You see there at Rome it wasn't all lovely as far as the Christian garden was concerned, was it? I mean the apostle tells us that there are some people who have been preaching Christ but out of envy. Verse 15 of chapter 1, others out of goodwill. Well, obviously he commends that but the form is a problem.

He gives you the impression that there are those with false motives, that not every Christian rings true like a Paphroditus and Timothy ring true. Not every Christian has looked to the Lord Jesus and in his reflection model themselves upon him. Now Paul is not only a good pastor, he's a human person.

In other words, he's got feelings and there are times when he indicates something of the nature of his loneliness. Go to 2nd Timothy chapter 4. Here he is still in Rome. It's not always too easy to be precise of the chronology but if this stems from the background in which he's writing to Philippi, then you can understand something of Paul's dilemma.

He says in verse 6, 2nd Timothy 4, using a similar sort of language as we've seen him employ in the earlier verses in Philippians 2, I'm already being poured out like a drink offering and the time has come for my departure. Well, all right Paul, what's your next instruction? Verse 9, do your best to come to me. Why Paul? Well, Demas, he's left me.

He deserted me. The Christians, well that's much more happy. He's gone to Galatia in service and Titus has gone to Dalmatia and there's only Luke, who actually wasn't present at the time when Paul was writing the Philippian epistle, nor Aristarchus.

Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you because he's helpful to me in the ministry. You see the point? I mean, it would be wrong to say and for us to give you the impression that the early church didn't know its difficulty.

They weren't all Timothys, they weren't all Epaphroditus's and Paul couldn't trust everybody. He couldn't have picked up that piece of charcoal and done this sort of caricature, character sketch of Timothy and Epaphroditus for everybody. Indeed, he's so pastorally discreet that when certain names seem to flow through his mind of those who he could have asked to have done these two tasks, he doesn't name them and he didn't ask them.

Well, why? Because they weren't prepared, presumably, to pay the price like Epaphroditus had. They were not pastoral. They were not mature as Timothy was.

So, let's bring this very practical study to its final application. If Paul was drawing you, what would you look like? Now, don't put yourself down. I really don't have much time for a pulpit that's always putting the congregation down.

I think that you need to thank God for the degree of change that you see in your own life since the day that you were converted. Remember John Newton's adage, I'm not what I should be, I'm not what I could be, I'm not what I will be, but thank God I'm not what I was. Now, where are you? Would Paul, and I think he would do, for many people here, take up his charcoal and paint the picture like that of Timothy and Epaphroditus, men, women, who could be trusted? Or would you find yourself in that category of people who know the Lord Jesus, and yet they can't really be given the task that Paul would like to entrust to them because they lack a maturity.

I conclude, the Christian's model is Jesus. Model Christians live like Jesus, from the throne to the cross, from the cross to the throne. So you go to the cross and you play your life out from there with the knowledge that Jesus is in control, and ultimately he takes you to be with him, to receive his well-done, good, and faithful servant, all that God will grant to us here at the tab.

Model Christians, people that Paul would have been glad to have called them his friends. Let's sing, O thou who camest from above, Jesus, confirm my heart's desire. That's why we selected it, to work and speak and think for thee, ready for all thy perfect will.

My acts of faith and love repeat. Make your response be the working through of the challenge from scripture this morning. Five, two, five.

Just listen to the correct verse that I wanted to quote from Timothy. It was wrong on the overhead. 1 Corinthians 16.10. Think of it as though it were yourself.

The inspired Paul writing, if Timothy, if Peter, if Sarah, if Barbara, if John, if they come, see to it that they have nothing to fear while they are with you, for they are carrying on the work of the Lord, just as I am. No one should refuse to accept them. Send them on their way in peace, so that they may return to me.

Father, we thank you that we can stand, not so importantly in the trail of the Apostle Paul, as that of our beloved Lord Jesus. Let this mind be in you. I have called you friends, because a friend does what his beloved one wants.

What a friend we have in Jesus. Lord, is it impertinent to suggest that we might be so close to you, that you might hum the tune? What a friend I have in him. What a friend I have in her.

What friends I have at Worthingtab. Grant it, Lord, for your honor and for your glory. And all the people of God say, Amen.

Amen.