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Philippians 2 .4 says, let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Now that's not just how we deal charitably with those who are unbelievers. That's also with how we minister to one another in the household of faith when we understand the text.
This is when we understand the text. My name is Pastor Gabe. Good to be along with you here as we've been studying through the book of Philippians together.
And this has been such a delight for me. I think I learn better by speaking the words of God than just silently reading.
I do. I do my silent reading and then I'll walk around in my study and be speaking the words of God as I go.
So this has been edifying for me and I've even been learning as we go through these scriptures together. And I hope that it has been a benefit to you as well.
Thank you so much for listening and thank you for telling somebody else about this broadcast as well. I know that as the listenership spreads, it's not just because people are automatically becoming more and more aware of the ministry that is when we understand the text, but because somebody else told them about it.
And so thank you for letting somebody know about this program and our commitment to digest the scriptures and read them in context so that we might come under the full authority of the word of God.
Toward the end of the program today, the last third of this particular broadcast, we're going to take a question related to the disciplinary procedure that Jesus gives in Matthew 18, 15 through 20.
So that'll be coming up here in the last third of the program. If you have a question that you would like to submit to this broadcast, go to our website, www .utt
.com and you will see the latest episode there on the right side of the page along with an email link underneath it.
Email is the best way to get a question to us and be sure that we are going to read it. So www .utt .com.
The text today is Philippians 2 verses 19 through 24. Before we go to the text, why don't we go to the
Lord in a word of prayer? Our great God, we thank you so much for giving us the scriptures, giving us this word that we might meditate upon these things.
And I pray that we take it seriously because what we have in front of us when we read the Bible is the mind of God.
We get to know the mind of God when we read your scriptures. And so I pray that we commit these things to memory, that they become imprinted on our minds and on our hearts so that we are changed more and more to have a mindset that is like that of Christ Jesus.
Lead us today in this text and let your spirit be with us as we read. And we pray this in Jesus name.
Amen. Philippians chapter two, beginning in verse 19, I hope in the Lord Jesus, Paul is saying to the
Philippians 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 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 to you also. I had a pastor friend of mine say to me once that every pastor needs two kinds of people.
And really, I don't think this is just limited to pastors either. I think that that this could be the case with every believer in their walk of faith.
Every Christian needs two kinds of people. They need a Timothy and they need a Barnabas.
A Timothy would be a disciple, somebody to disciple and somebody to grow and educate and help to learn the things that that person has been learning according to Jesus Christ.
For the Apostle Paul, he had Timothy as his disciple. He also had a Barnabas.
Now, Barnabas was a kind of a person who but also became somebody who would contend with Paul and wouldn't just necessarily accept everything that that Paul said as exactly the way that it needed to be.
They contended with one another over John Mark and whether or not John Mark was fit for a particular gospel mission.
Paul said that he wasn't. Barnabas said that he was. So, the two of them went two different directions and the gospel ended up going out even further.
We have evidence in Scripture that Paul probably regretted that situation. And of course, he reconciled with John Mark because he says later on in 2
Timothy that send Mark to me because he is useful to me. So we know that that Paul and Mark eventually got reconciled.
But Barnabas contended with Paul, would not just accept every or, you know, just did not just worship the ground that Paul walked on.
That was not Barnabas's approach to the Apostle at all. And so everybody needs a
Timothy, somebody to disciple and a Barnabas, somebody who would disciple them, but also would not let them get away with just anything and not just let every word pass as gospel.
You'll pardon the expression anyway. So here we have Paul presenting
Timothy to the Philippians. He presents his good servant, and this is a great honor for the
Philippians to be able to receive Timothy because Paul thought so highly of Timothy.
It was like the next best thing to receiving the Apostle Paul himself was to have Timothy there. You know, when
Paul wrote to the Ephesians, there seems to be some kind of an indication that the Ephesians were disappointed when instead of Paul showing up,
Timothy showed up instead. But Paul said to the Ephesians, I sent Timothy to you because I love you.
Don't think that like I have no time for you guys. And so that's why I sent Timothy. I sent
Timothy ahead of me because I love you so much. It was a great honor for Timothy to be sent ahead of the
Apostle Paul. He thought of a church very, very highly if Timothy showed up there. OK, so now he's promising
Timothy to the Philippians. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you.
So Timothy has a couple of objectives in coming to the Philippians. Number one, he's there to encourage them, just as the
Apostle Paul is doing with this letter. He's there to teach them, to educate them, that they would grow more and more in the knowledge of God and the things of Christ.
But he's also there to collect information from the Philippians to see how things are going so that he might deliver a report to the
Apostle Paul on how the Philippian church is flourishing. You know, and that's
OK. That's not gossip. I think that we sometimes will excuse a report about a church's behavior as being something that is gossipy.
And we need to be careful about that. If we're talking about the past, that's more than likely gossip.
If you're talking about the way people used to be and, oh man, they were just terrible when they were like this and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, or something that they did.
If you're talking about that, then it tends to be gossip. But if you are, if you are explaining a present state about something, then that's something that can turn out to be more edifying.
I think even there we need to check our motives. But but the present state of a person, of a church, of of an individual who is growing in the faith and reporting on those things for the purposes of edification, for growing them more in the faith, that's when it becomes more deliberate and intentional, out of good will instead of ill, not not a selfish report on somebody else and saying,
I just don't think that they're doing right because I heard that they were doing this. You know, when you get into hearsay and stuff like that.
But Timothy would be an eyewitness to the to the behaviors of the Philippians. And so an eyewitness account that he would deliver back to the
Apostle Paul on how things are going with them so that Paul can rejoice. He can be cheered by the news of what's going on in the
Philippian church. He goes on in verse 20, continuing to talk about Timothy in this way. I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare.
And this goes back to what we said in Philippians 2 for let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Paul is essentially saying to the Philippians, Timothy models that he's coming to you, looking not out for his own interests.
He is there for you, OK? This is this is not to deliver to me a bad report.
He's not the teacher's pet. He's not there to tattle on you guys. He is there for your benefit.
He is looking out for your interests and also for my interests. The Apostle Paul is owning to that. So again, as we report on somebody's behavior, as we would consider their walk in their way of life, are we considering them according to an interest in them or is it according to our own interests?
Are we reporting on that person or that church in a way that serves us like somebody would think great of us because we identify this about this person or this church kind of I'm struggling here to to give this to you generally instead of using a specific example.
I don't want to I don't even have a specific example in mind, but more or less,
I'm trying to check our motives when it comes to how we consider others. Are we reporting on their status of faith to be a gossip or do we really care for that individual?
And the same goes for a church. Are we talking about a church in our community in such a way that we're trying to be a benefit to that church and grow them?
Are we just gossiping about that church? Is it just complaining and arguing or bickering and grumbling about a particular church, in which case it would become gossip instead of something for the purpose of edification?
OK, so are you tracking with me on that? So as Paul is sending Timothy to report back to him the things that are going on in the
Philippian church, he wants them to understand that his being there with them is for their benefit.
It's not for Timothy's benefit, and it's not to be a tattler or a teacher's pet and come back and tell the apostle
Paul things are really bad over there. Timothy is coming to be a benefit to the Philippians and also to the apostle
Paul so that he might be cheered of the news that he would receive from the Philippians.
Verse twenty one. Hang on. Let me go back to verse twenty again so I can put twenty one in context with that. I have no one like him.
Paul saying of Timothy, I have no one like Timothy will be genuinely concerned for your welfare, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.
Those that I cannot trust to come and talk to you seek their own interests, not those of Christ.
The apostle Paul said to Timothy in Second Timothy, chapter three, that a time was coming when people would look after their own interests instead of the interests of others.
In fact, let me just go ahead and I'll flip right to that so I can read that in context. Paul talking about difficulty that is coming in later times.
In the last days, there will come times of difficulty for people will be lovers of self. Lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self -control, brutal, not loving, good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
Having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power, avoid such people.
So you kind of even have to wonder here if who Paul is talking about are those that might display godliness, may have even served with Paul in some capacity, but he doesn't trust them enough to be able to send them to another church and believe that they would have that church's best interests in mind and not their own.
Because there are people out there who will be lovers of self and they will be lovers of money. One of the qualifications for or a couple of the qualifications rather I guess you could say for an overseer of the church.
We see this in 1st Timothy chapter 3 and in Titus chapter 1. They must not be lovers of self and they must not be lovers of money.
If a pastor or a teacher, a preacher, an elder, an overseer, if they come into a church as a lover of themselves or as a lover of money, then they would be willing to compromise sound doctrine in order to make a buck.
It compromises the genuineness by which that they would be delivering the gospel and so therefore they might even want to consider compromising the gospel if it means that they would benefit from it somehow.
You would never be confident about their motives if they were in it for money. Even when you're talking about a pastor who is just trying to make a living, if that's the reason why he's a pastor is just to make a living, then he's not to be trusted.
First and foremost, a pastor, an overseer in the church, an elder, a person like Timothy who would be doing the work of an evangelist coming there to the
Philippian church, they have to have the interests of the congregation ahead of their own or you would not be able to trust the words that he would share with them.
And so we know that Timothy happens to be a person genuinely concerned about their welfare.
There are others that are out there. Paul is saying that I don't trust to come to you because they have their own interests that they are seeking rather than those of Jesus Christ.
I think Paul is being very discerning here also when it comes to sending Timothy to them and not just anybody.
So the Philippians can be all the more encouraged in this. Hey, Timothy's coming. Timothy's coming to see us and he's coming ahead of Paul because Paul is also talking about coming and visiting them.
He's talked about that previously and we see that come up here as well. Verse 22, you know,
Timothy's proven worth. How as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel.
Just reminding the Philippians, you know, Timothy, you know the guy, you know that he's here with me because we've seen this previously too, right?
The very beginning of the letter, Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ Jesus. Timothy is with Paul writing this letter to the
Philippians. It's likely that Paul is dictating it to him and Timothy is the one who is writing it down.
So Timothy is already there and Paul is saying, you know, Timothy, you know, his proven worth. How as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel.
So as Paul has been thrown in prison there in Rome for preaching the gospel, he's been placed under house arrest.
He can't go anywhere. People can still come to him and he can continue to preach the gospel to them, okay?
So as the Philippians have heard about this situation with Paul, and they also know that there are some preachers out there contending with Paul, trying to make things hard on him.
They show their loyalty to Paul and how they are sufferers with him for the advancement of the gospel.
They've taken up a collection, they've sent it with Epaphroditus to encourage Paul in his ministry work.
Epaphroditus almost died on the way there. And in fact, that's what we're going to be talking about tomorrow. When we get in verses 25 through 30, we'll talk about who
Epaphroditus is and the risks that he took for the Philippian church to take that money to the apostle
Paul and be an encouragement to Paul. So as the Philippians wanted to show their support of Paul in his ministry work, even though he had been thrown in prison for it, they weren't disassociating themselves from him, which was likely what these other preachers were doing.
Oh, if the apostle Paul got thrown in prison, he must've done something really bad. He was preaching the gospel.
That's why he was thrown in prison. So the Philippians show their support and Paul is putting Timothy right there with them by mentioning him here in this context.
Hey, you guys have shown your support of me. Guess what? Timothy's here. Timothy is here with me.
I've already identified him at the start of the letter. You know, you know, Timothy has proven worth how as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel.
He's serving with me right now. He's writing these things down as I am telling them to you. Verse 23,
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. So again, and we've seen this previously, how
Paul says that convinced of this, this is, I'm sorry, I didn't give the reference Philippians 1, 25 through 26.
He says, I am convinced that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith so that in me, you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again, he is sure that the spirit of God is going to deliver him from where he's at right now.
The trial that he is under being placed under house arrest for preaching the gospel so that he could be with the
Philippians again. And he is sending Timothy ahead of him to encourage the Philippians.
But soon he is sure that he is going to come and join with them also. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, because right now
Timothy is serving with Paul in his own home as he's under house arrest. So as soon as he knows what's going to happen, he's going to go ahead and send
Timothy ahead of him. And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also. So again, you see this, this beautiful, this beautiful affection that Paul has for the
Philippian church in the sense that he is promising to want to come to them again. And he is also going to send
Timothy ahead of himself to go to them because he loves the Philippians that much.
Timothy is such a wonderful servant in the Lord. Timothy or the Apostle Paul rather showed his affection for the
Philippian church in sending Timothy to them because of how much he cared for that church.
And so anyway, such a great joy that we know that the Apostle Paul has for this church.
And we need to have that same affection for the churches. If we ever have to correct a church for behavior, we do it out of love, not out of self -interest and selfish gain.
When it comes to correcting someone in the faith, we need to do it with their best interest in mind.
Not so we would be shown to be smarter or better than somebody else, but not to be justified in our own opinion of things for that matter, but that we truly desire that person to be in step with the gospel, to be in step in the faith and to show themselves a good servant of Jesus Christ.
We're going to talk about this a little bit more coming up as we're going to take a question related to correcting a brother or sister in the body that needs correction.
And that's going to be our question that we're going to address here in the last third of the broadcast.
But as we close out our reading of Philippians chapter two, verses 19 through 23 today, let us come to the
Lord in prayer. Our great God, we thank you so much for these words. And I thank you that we get to see the
Apostle's heart here, his genuine concern for the Philippians. We get to know a little bit more about some of these heroes of the faith that are the foundation of the church, as it says in Ephesians chapter two,
Jesus Christ, the cornerstone is chosen to build his church on a foundation of apostles.
And so I pray that we still continue under their authority even today, the apostles and what they wrote down in the new
Testament. Keep these words working on us as we submit ourselves to the authority of the word of God.
And we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. What?
Perhaps you've been in church or youth group or a Christian concert and someone gets up and prays, Lord, you have said where two or more are gathered.
There I am in the midst of them. It's a verse that gets used in Christian gatherings a lot, but let's look at the context.
Starting in Matthew 18, 15, Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a
Gentile or a tax collector. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my father in heaven.
For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them. The context is church discipline.
It's the body of Christ restoring to the path of discipleship an offending brother or sister. The concept of two or three witnesses goes back to Deuteronomy, where the testimony of two or three witnesses was necessary to charge a person with wrongdoing.
Jesus is saying in verse 15 that if it's possible to resolve a matter without getting others involved, we should try that first.
If that doesn't work, bring a couple of others along to ensure the offender knows their offense is serious. Then it needs to go before the church, and if they still refuse to listen, they should be excluded from the fellowship.
So where two or three are gathered, let there be unity with the mind of Christ when it comes to rendering important decisions, when we understand the text.
And our question today has to do with that video, Dear When We Understand The Text. Thank you so much for your video on where two or three are gathered.
I will be honest with you that until I saw that video, I did not know that verse, Matthew 18, 20, had to do with church discipline.
I always thought that it had to do with prayer. Anyway, I just wanted to share with you, I just wanted to share that with you.
Just that one video has taught me to study the scriptures more intently and helping me to read things in full context.
Because who knows, my understanding of a certain verse may have been wrong my entire life.
Blessings to you and your ministry, Bobby from Illinois. I know that's not as much of a question, but I think it kind of opens us up to talk about this a little bit more.
Thank you, Bobby, for your comment. Yeah, even though the verse was read in its context in that particular video,
I want to come back to it myself. Matthew 18, verses 15 through 20. If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
Gentile and a tax collector. And so basically as a Gentile or a tax collector, it means treat him as an outsider.
He is not one of you is basically how you would understand that. So Jesus is approaching this in this way.
He's saying, if you can, if you can come to an understanding of a disagreement between two people without getting others involved, then do that first.
You know, this goes back to the Sermon on the Mount also where Jesus said, hey, leave your sacrifice at the altar and go make right with your brother if your brother is holding something against you.
OK, so between the two of you alone, if you can, if you can handle this without getting others involved, do that first.
But if that doesn't work, so you've gained your brother. If that does work, but if that doesn't work, take one or two others along that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
And as was mentioned in the video, this goes back to Deuteronomy, how every charge needed to be established by two or three witnesses to that wrong that is being brought against that person.
Now, it doesn't even necessarily have to mean that those two or three witnesses recognize or those two or three witnesses saw the wrong that that person was doing, but rather they just recognize that this person is unrepentant.
They're not willing to admit that they did anything wrong and therefore change their behavior and turn back to the path of righteousness.
And so that is what those two or three witnesses are there to be able to, I guess, observe that there is not a repentant heart in this particular person when they do need to repent over this wrong.
And then if they refuse to listen, tell it to the church. And if they refuse to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a
Gentile and a tax collector as not one of us. They are not a member of the body of Christ because they will not submit to the authority that is being given to the church here is really what
Jesus is stating in this section of five verses. Because going on, he says in verse 18, truly,
I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
This is the same thing that Jesus said to Peter two chapters earlier where he says, I give you the keys of the kingdom.
So that authority that he was given to Peter, he's now giving it to the entire church. As we read it in verse in chapter 18, verses 15 through 20, basically, this means this, the church has the authority to determine whether or not a person truly is repentant.
Jesus is giving that authority to the church. And I want to say this as a tangent, just because I feel like I have to.
That's the only authority that Jesus is giving to the to the church. He is not giving the authority to the church to say to this disease, leave this person.
And that disease will leave that person's body, OK? Because Pentecostalism and charismatic churches out there will say that Jesus has given that authority to the church.
No, that is not said anywhere in the New Testament. What Jesus does say in Matthew 28 is all authority has been given to me.
Now go and make disciples of all nations, OK? Obeying all that I have commanded, baptizing in the name of the father and the son and the
Holy Spirit, that is what Jesus has commissioned us to go out and do, not to say to this disease, leave this person or say to this bone, heal yourself or anything like that.
That is not the authority that we have been given. There are some that have been given gifts of healing and not just healing in terms of physical healing, but healing in terms of emotional healing.
I think that a gift of the spirit upon a person, if if a person has a gift of the spirit that they can heal another person,
I don't think that's just limited to physical healing, which is the way that we tend to think of that gift of the spirit.
It's also mending a broken heart or a hurting mind. That's also a gift of healing.
And there are some people that just have that ability. I've seen that in people, and it's remarkable the ways that they just have that way of talking to another person.
You could just see their heart relaxing or their mind at ease. I don't have that gift. I really don't think
I do. But it's remarkable to me to witness that in another person, that the gift of the spirit works through them in that way.
But anyway, I'm just saying that as a whole, Jesus has not given the authority to a church to just command this, to do that, and it will happen.
What he has given the authority to the church to be able to determine is whether or not a person is truly repentant, whether or not they have received the forgiveness of God, because a person's repentance is given to them by God.
They don't manifest it on their own. It is God who grants repentance. You can read that in 2
Timothy 2, and it's also stated in the book of Acts how repentance was given to some who were
Jews. So anyway, so Jesus giving that authority to the church, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven.
Whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my
Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them.
I think that prayer absolutely does need to be involved when it comes to disciplining a church member, but ultimately that verse is not talking exclusively about prayer.
It's in the context of discipline within the church. This is the section that we have mentioned in our own church constitution about how to discipline.
It is the way that every Christian needs to follow. Thank you for your question Bobby. Come back again tomorrow as we continue our study of Philippians.
You've been listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. Pastor Gabe wrote a book for a Bible study at our church that has since been taught on two continents.
It's a study through the book of 1 Corinthians entitled To the Core, great for a group study or for personal use.
It is available only in paperback and you can find it on our website www .tt .com.
Be sure to let someone else know about our program. We'll resume our study of Philippians tomorrow rejoicing to hear