[0:00] So yeah, we'll be reading from Philippians 2, verses 19 to 30. Please stand for the reading of God's word. Verse 19.
[0:17] 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.
[0:30] For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven work, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel.
[0:41] 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.
[1:02] 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.
[1:24] 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.
[1:39] For he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated.
[1:53] Thank you, Kwabene, and good morning, everybody. Great to see you out here on the field, friends, old and new alike. Special welcome if you're visiting or to those of you who are online.
[2:10] Perhaps you're traveling out over the road. We're thinking of you today and are glad that together we get to sit under God's word. Let me just open with a word of prayer.
[2:21] Our Heavenly Father, we now turn our minds wholeheartedly to the attention of your word that we would live well for you and be encouraged in our family life together.
[2:36] And so we devote ourselves to careful attention to all of your words. In Jesus' name, amen. A common condition of the human heart is the loss of gladness.
[2:53] Gladness seems to be a temporal provision. And there are times where you're not quite sure when it got up, where it had gone off to, or whether or not you've got any means of getting it back.
[3:16] The common condition of human life is the loss of gladness. It's especially difficult when it happens to a local congregation, a collective loss of God's gladness.
[3:35] When I think of the opening hymn that we sang today, joyful, joyful, we adore you, yet wedded to those words, melt the clouds of sin and sadness, drive the dark of doubt away, giver of immortal what?
[3:56] Gladness fill us with the light of day. The church of Philippi, they were in a season where their commitments of gospel partnership were the cause of a loss of gladness.
[4:20] Just think about it for a moment, that small band of men and women and children. Their founding pastor was in prison, literally on death row, not knowing whether tomorrow would be his last day.
[4:38] Their fellow Philippians, who were not Christians, were opposing them along the way.
[4:51] Members were now suspect to grumbling, yes, even disputing. Long-time friends were in the midst of disagreeing.
[5:09] And a short-term missionary, Epaphroditus, whom they had sent to meet the needs of another, lay dying, only now recovering.
[5:21] And so Paul picks up his pen and begins writing. For what does one do to help this congregation recover gladness?
[5:39] What does one do when most likely Paul sat at a distance and thought, well, church attendance must be down. The desire for them to continue is now unwound.
[5:57] The gospel gladness has fallen flat upon the ground. What do I say to get them unstuck, to get them rewound, to enable them to pick themselves back up off the ground?
[6:13] And what do I say to you in this hour from this text? For it is the human condition to lose gospel gladness.
[6:31] Interestingly, to this point in the letter, if you've been in and out over the summer months, Paul's argument has been primarily to help them regain an eternal perspective.
[6:46] If I die, I die. It will be gained to me. If I live, it's Christ. It's Christ to thee. This eternal perspective ought to ground you in gladness.
[6:58] But Paul knows that more is needed. Notice the verse just prior to the one that was opening our text today.
[7:10] He has an expectation for gladness. He says, you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
[7:20] All right, Paul, then what are the means? Not just an eternal perspective, but from this text, an infusion, a fresh infusion of people.
[7:35] People are God's means of your regaining gladness. Verse 19, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon.
[7:52] Verse 25, I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus now. The sending of Timothy, the sending of Epaphroditus, are the means through which the apostle would hope to regain their gospel gladness.
[8:11] So let's take a look then at people and how people can restore your gladness. Let's take a look at Timothy first.
[8:22] Notice the paragraph breaks easily for him along the lines of verses 19 through 24. He writes, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you.
[8:36] For I have no one like him who will be generally concerned for your welfare. For all seek their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. But you know Timothy's proven word.
[8:48] How as a son with a father, he served with me in 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.
[9:01] Timothy. Timothy. This is Paul's preparation for the church through the consideration of a pastoral-like appointment.
[9:14] A pastoral appointment, given his pastoral absence, is what's needed for their recovery of gladness.
[9:28] There are ways for us to think about this, especially in light of the fact that Paul wasn't sure whether his absence was going to be a short time and he would actually be restored to them.
[9:41] But more than likely, what was already in the back of his mind, given what we read last week, that he wondered if he was already being poured out as a drink offering on their faith.
[9:51] That he was already standing on the verge of death himself. He was thinking about pastoral transitions, voicing now in his own mind for the first time the consideration of the welfare of Philippi if he indeed were to die.
[10:10] God recovers gladness in the local congregation given to partnership through the further appointment of pastoral leadership that will go on long after Paul's absence.
[10:30] Pastors, then, who are well-equipped to lead you are God's means of providing gladness back to you.
[10:45] Three characteristics that ought to mark those kind of people, even in our own midst over the coming years. First, notice he's like-minded. Paul says in verse 20, I have no one like him.
[10:59] Literally, woodenly, I have no one of the same soul. The like-minded soul.
[11:09] Like-minded. Echoes in your mind, if you've been reading Philippians, of chapter 2 and verse 2. Chapter 2 and verse 5, where Paul has wanted us to be of the same mind in the congregation.
[11:24] Or if there's any same-mindedness among us, we ought to look like Christ. Well, in the appointment of Timothy to their midst, given his absence, he's saying, I'm giving you one who is like-minded.
[11:39] Someone who, it isn't just that he thinks exactly the way Paul does. He thinks the way Christ thinks. He has a unity in his mind regarding the Trinity and its conviction to grow the gospel in the world.
[11:54] I want to give you a pastor, he says, whether I live or die, that will be of one mind with my heavenly Father, Son, and Spirit.
[12:05] What a great conviction. Not only that, but the second characteristic, he will be genuinely concerned. Genuinely interested.
[12:17] He says, who will be generally concerned for your welfare. Notice the word interest. You'll be interested. Just as earlier, you are not to be self-interested.
[12:29] Just as earlier, if there's any interest in the gospel that we share, Timothy then is exemplifying all the characteristics of what Paul had wanted to embody the congregation.
[12:41] And he says, I want to give you a pastor that embodies all the things that I'm thinking about when I consider your welfare. Like-minded. Genuinely interested.
[12:52] Think of Aristotle and the three different convictions that were necessary to persuade anyone of anything. There was to be virtue, of course. There was to be kindness and welfare.
[13:06] There was to be goodwill. Goodwill by nature meant that he was not unwilling to tell you things that were good for you, regardless of whether those things were easy to be said.
[13:17] He says, if I could get Timothy in your congregation, I would have one who is out for your welfare. He won't shy away from what you need to know and that his love for you will be on display all the while.
[13:35] Like-minded. Genuinely interested. Three. Battle tested. Verse 22. But you know Timothy's proven worth.
[13:45] I was a son with a father. He served with me in the gospel. He wasn't going to send him a newbie. He wasn't going to send him someone that was inexperienced.
[13:56] He wasn't going to send him someone who was just getting their feet wet. Or like a young buck who still had moss on the antlers.
[14:07] No, no, in Timothy, he had a full-blown, well-equipped pastor who could lead them in his absence.
[14:18] People. In the first paragraph, the appointment, the right appointment generationally of pastors are required to help the congregation recover their gladness.
[14:31] And look, it actually recovers Paul's cheerfulness too. Verse 19. I too would be cheered by news of you.
[14:42] The pastoral position in Paul's mind for intergenerational influence is already here, even in the book of Philippians.
[14:54] I think of D.L. Moody this week. If you're not familiar with that name, Chicago has a storied institution called the Moody Bible Institute.
[15:07] Dwight Moody was an evangelist of the 19th century. Died on December 22, 1899. And as he was considering the generational movement, given the congregational sadness of his departure, you know what he did on the last night of his life?
[15:28] He did like Paul. His mind went to the appointment of people who would lead the work forward. In Lyle Dorsett's biography of Moody, he said, Moody's beloved son-in-law sat up with him all night on December 21st.
[15:48] And at 3 a.m., Will, that was his name, came in to take the next bedside watch until 6 a.m., where the ailing preacher roused from sleep in a slow and assured voice.
[16:02] He said, Earth recedes, heaven opens for me. I mean, it's almost an echo of Paul if I'm being poured out as an offering on the offering of your faith.
[16:15] But notice what he says. The nurse summoned the family as well as the doctor who was sleeping nearby. And when everyone gathered around, the venerable 62-year-old patriarch pronounced a blessing.
[16:29] And this is what he said. These are his dying words. I am leaving lots of work for you to do. Will, you will carry on Mount Hermon.
[16:43] Paul, you will take up the seminary when he's older. Fit, you will look after the institute. Amber, you will help him in business details.
[16:53] Then he makes a few more assignments telling Percy and daughter Emma about some of the things he would like for them to do at the Chicago Bible Institute.
[17:04] Like Paul, so moody. Like moody, so us. What will continue gospel gladness when we've lost it through the generations is the well-appointed people who serve in pastoral leadership to accomplish in and among you all that is to be done according to God's eternal plan through you.
[17:32] Amen. Well, let me apply it first by way of praise. We, Christ Church Chicago, have been used, even in these past months, quietly and through individual effort, to see God supply what other churches need through our own members.
[18:00] I see the Brockway family hiding under well-appointed umbrellas to keep them from the sun.
[18:11] And yet, it was a few years ago and Brock felt called the ministry and began his studies in divinity, all the while holding down a full-time job and ministering with Christie as deacons in our congregation.
[18:28] Yet, a week ago, Brock was appointed, elected, and in the coming months will be installed as the pastoral leader of a congregation in McKinley Park, who has, in some sense, knows what we all know by way of human condition, the loss of gladness that can only be replenished by people and, in particular, pastoral appointments.
[18:56] I praise God for you, for your family. And for the joy it gives us to see the church elsewhere made strong as leadership is appointed.
[19:12] Think of it. If you've been in this congregation for any length of time, even during COVID, we've already watched Kevin and Alyssa Walker, this mature couple in our midst, leave our midst to pastor a church in Indiana, Klein Avenue.
[19:29] Why? Because God knows that he has to move the pieces around the board to keep the church moving on mission that the congregation itself would be replenishing in gladness.
[19:44] These are wonderful things to praise God for. Some of you don't know me very well, but we have five children, and our middle son, a little over a year ago, left business because he felt called to ministry, not yet knowing what that would mean, spent a year in preparation and in preaching, and was called, get this, to be on the pastoral team of the church that my wife became a Christian at as a grade school student.
[20:13] And some would say, how does that make you feel that you moved your family away from your roots, and now you have some being appointed to return, and they're going back, God forbid, of all places to the suburbs.
[20:26] And my thought has only been, I think, what Paul's would be, I am thrilled to be able to send a child back to a congregation who was the initiating financial and relational and prayerful base for the work that we started some 24 years ago.
[20:47] This is the way God works. Think of it in our own midst. This is Jeremy White, youth pastor, baptized him when he was just a little boy, watched him when he was an infant come into the world, and that God raising him up so that the church can have its proper gospel gladness.
[21:13] And it always comes, doesn't it, in the context and the condition of the loss and relational losses given people's normal gospel moves.
[21:33] So, if Paul's remedy for a church in need of gladness was the well-equipped appointment of pastors to lead them, then I would say you and I have reason to praise God.
[21:49] Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. May there be 50 years of people who are appointed from our own fellowship for the welfare of the gospel.
[22:02] Not only that, but pray. And praise God and pray to God. You know, you've got four members right now prayerfully seeking daily and interviewing candidates to join our pastoral team prayerfully by the year's end.
[22:22] Meeting with people even this week. Having sorted through dozens of applications. Because as our own go out to support the gladness of others, so we need gladness by God appointing who he has for us.
[22:41] Is that not the case? And so you need to be in prayer. Because we need God to send us someone that's equipped to lead us.
[22:53] Who's like-minded in the gospel with us. Who's genuinely interested in us. Who's battle-tested already for us.
[23:09] Pastors. Pastors. Well-equipped to lead. Are one of the means of the restoration of gladness.
[23:21] Second paragraph. Not only pastors, but laypersons who are raised up from our own midst to encourage us.
[23:32] Paul writes, I 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's been longing with you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.
[23:46] 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 more eager to send him therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.
[24:02] 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.
[24:13] Pastors who are well-equipped to lead us, laypersons raised up from our own midst, who their return will and even does encourage us.
[24:26] Notice what Epaphroditus would do. Number one, verse 26, For he had been longing for you. I mean, that would have restored Epaphroditus' gladness.
[24:37] But notice verse 28, I'm eager to send him therefore, that you may rejoice. Because Epaphroditus' presence to them would cause them to rejoice. And then third, it had a benefit to Paul, verse 28, that I may be less anxious.
[24:52] Paul's going to feel better. You're going to feel better. Epaphroditus is going to feel better. If one of the members who came from your church actually is in your presence, face-to-face, laboring with you in gospel work.
[25:10] Let me put it this way. Regaining gladness cannot be fully recovered until we meet again face-to-face. See, Epaphroditus, chapter 4, verse 17 and 18, had been a member in their church who actually took the gift to minister to Paul.
[25:32] They knew he was all right. They knew he didn't die. They knew he was recovering. But their gladness would not be fully recovered until they were face-to-face.
[25:45] See, this is what makes death so hard. Beloved, who have lost family members in the last year, you know that your gladness, even in the gospel, will not be fully recovered until you see them face-to-face.
[26:04] This is what makes departures so difficult because we know that gladness is not fully recovered until we are face-to-face.
[26:17] See, let me apply even before I should. When I consider the Hummersons who are preparing to move out of the city to be near family for the purpose of assistance and help, it will mean a loss of gladness in our midst.
[26:45] When I consider the Bars who have been in our midst for some 20 years, departing to Georgia under God's call for David to enter into the classroom and preach and teach, I know that there is some church already there that's going to receive incredible joy and benefit and strength by their presence, but there is a loss here as members go.
[27:20] I could go on. I could go on and list other names, graduate students, families, who under God's time now are in transition to another part of the country or world.
[27:41] And yet what's needed, according to Paul, is I got to send Epaphroditus to you now. I have got to send people face-to-face, not just pastors, but not just someone to lead you, but someone that you already know has lived and lives among you.
[28:06] Look at the kind of person Epaphroditus was. Just as there were three characteristics of Timothy, there are three aspects of Epaphroditus by way of title.
[28:22] Verse 25, my brother. Isn't that great? Just even the two paragraphs, Paul sends them a son. Verse 22, he sends them a brother.
[28:34] Verse 25, there's something familial. There's something, I'm going to send you a sibling. I'm going to send you someone you already know. Not only that, brother, but fellow worker.
[28:50] This is a title that Paul uses for lots of men and women. Third John 8 actually uses this same kind of title, this idea of service for the men and women in the congregation who are giving themselves to the proclamation of the gospel.
[29:08] It's that kind of worker. It's someone who's serving. Notice it actually says he's your messenger. He was your minister to my own need. The word ministry there and service, which continues to come up, is a wonderfully chosen word by Paul that has dual meaning, both not only in a priestly service, but as a citizen of Rome.
[29:30] Listen to what one writer says. The designation used here from the Greek indicates public servant, often one with financial resources to fulfill his function.
[29:43] So Epaphroditus may have been not only the official of the Philippian church, but a person of means able to supplement the community's gift to Paul. In all likelihood, that little opening word he gave in chapter 127 about being worthy citizens of the gospel, Epaphroditus by this word is actually indicated as what a citizen ought to look like.
[30:07] It's someone who have their own resources, is committed to the welfare of others, so that even if the church could not make a financial gift to Paul, Epaphroditus stands up and says, let me take the gift.
[30:20] And then he goes to the other leaders and says, by the way, I'm writing the check. And off he goes. Lay persons who are committed to the welfare of the gospel, that's what fellow workers look like.
[30:37] That's what citizens of Christ's church ought to resemble. Brother, fellow worker, look at that last one, fellow soldier.
[30:53] I mean, if the first one indicates sibling, if the second one indicates service, fellow soldier indicates he's endured a little bit of suffering along the way.
[31:05] He's been in the battle. He knows what the front line looks like. And he's still standing. Christ Church Chicago.
[31:22] Paul knew that a prolonged absence on his part could only be remedied by the actual presence of men and women who are rising up from within our midst.
[31:39] Even while men and women from our midst, the Lettos, for example, make their way to glorify God and the gospel in a city such as Pittsburgh.
[31:53] He's going to give us equipped pastors. He is going to raise up within us people to emulate.
[32:09] That's the call for every one of us here. To raise your hand in your mind and say, Lord, make me an Epaphroditus. Lord, make me an Epaphroditus.
[32:21] Make me a brother or sister in the work of the gospel here. Lord, make me an Epaphroditus. Give me work to do.
[32:34] May I be a fellow worker? May I be all in? May I be living in such a way that others can emulate my own example? Lord, make me an Epaphroditus.
[32:45] I want to be a soldier, not merely carried to the skies on beds of ease, but one who's aware in the fight, laboring long for the glory of Christ.
[33:03] I open by telling you that the human condition, the common element of the human condition is the loss of gladness. I don't know where you're at this morning.
[33:14] Some of you might be happy as clams. Some of you may feel like, I got a sense of that. I got a sense of the loss of gladness.
[33:25] I've got a sense of the cost of gospel partnership now. I'm old enough to know that the cost of gospel partnership is relational loss.
[33:36] I know that relational loss gets meted out on the anvil of temporal change. And I know that Paul would have me be glad.
[33:51] That he would have me rejoice. That he would have our church continue in partnership, but be well equipped to do so.
[34:02] Well, if that's the case, we'll need an eternal perspective. But we're going to need people.
[34:16] We're going to need a lot of people. We're going to need you. Whether it's in the going, the coming, laboring, ascending, face to face, and where gladness will come.
[34:42] Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to sit in one another's midst today. And we now pray on this field. We pray for our own family.
[34:54] For those who are being appointed to serve elsewhere. For those who have returned to give us joy even by their presence for a week. For those who will come.
[35:06] And stay. Lord, may we who need people become a people who labor in partnership with you.
[35:19] In Christ's name. Amen.