Jesus Christ's Interests

Philippians 2:19-30 and the Mind of Christ

So, turn in your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Philippians, in chapter 2, and this morning, with God's blessing, we will attend ourselves to verses 19 through 30. There's been some times since we've been in this book, which we began before the pandemic, which caused us to no longer be able to meet in person.

I thought since we're finally back together again in this mode, it would be good to at least finish this chapter, which we so long ago left undone when all this started. So, Philippians chapter 2, and verses 19 through 30.

Let me read those, and then let's see what the Lord has for us this morning. Philippians 2, beginning at 19, is the word of the Lord. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I may be cheered by news of you.

For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served me 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. I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

Indeed he was ill, near to death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious.

So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.". May God bless the reading and now the hearing of his word.

What It Means to Have Interests

You know everyone has interests. We have those things that draw our attention, things that arouse our concern. An interest is something that you care about, something you're willing to sacrifice for. You are, for example, interested, or most of us are, in your health, your education, your job, and so forth.

We have interests in ourselves, we have interests in others. As employees, we are paid to have our employers' interests in mind and to work to the advancement of those interests. As husbands, loving our wives as ourselves, we have an interest in their well-being, physically and spiritually, and likewise, wives submitting to their husbands as to the Lord have an interest in their husband.

And so what I think this text asks us is, what are your interests? What are you concerned about? Where do your interests really lie? Are they your own interests, or are they the interests of Christ Jesus?

Now as we've been going through this book of Philippians, this idea of interests has been rising in prominence. Take you back to chapter 2 and verse 3, where the Apostle Paul says, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourselves.

Could we say, consider others' interests ahead of your own? Which is exactly what Paul's going to say in the next verse. Let each of you look out, not only for his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

And then we have in chapter 2, verses 6 through 11, that great Christ-Him, where Christ did not consider equality without something to be grasped, but emptied himself and became as nothing. He took on the form of a servant, and humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Can we say in this context, and I believe in context we can, that Christ looked out for interests other than his own? He was looking out for the Father's interests. Now those interests are really one.

I'm not trying to split Jesus and what his will is with the Father. But in economy, in accomplishing that will, Jesus set aside his own interests. Jesus set aside his prerogatives in heaven, and became to us in the form of a servant.

Looking out for the interests of others, I would say primarily the interests of God, his Father, and secondarily, the salvation of sinners. That's what chapter 2, verses 6 through 11 is about. In all this, he puts those interests ahead of his own.

And as I refer to that great Christ-Him, chapter 2, verses 6 through 11, remember that that begins, the introduction to that is verse 5, of course, where Paul says, have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

Because of his interest in the Father's glory, he took an interest in sinners, redeeming them by the cross. Have that mind. This is the command. This is Paul's point. Have that mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.

That mind of looking out for the interests of others. That mind of looking out for Christ's interests. And Christ's interests are what? They are his people. This is Christ's mind. And this must be your mind.

Timothy and Epaphroditus as Examples of Christlike Concern

So now we have these examples of exactly this demeanor, exactly this attitude, as these two men come to the fore in verses 19 through 30 of Philippians 2. We have Timothy, the Apostle Paul's son in the faith.

And we have this man named Epaphroditus, who brought the Philippians' support gift to Paul in Rome, where he was in prison. And I think these two men are presented to us not only as part of this travelogue where Paul is telling the Philippians where he's at, what he's doing, what he's planning on doing, when he's going to come, who he's sending, and all these details.

And this is part of his missionary update, as many of the commentators would have it to be. And I would agree with that. But these two men also stand out to us as examples of what it means to put others' interests ahead of your own, ahead of their own.

In fact, to have the interests of Christ Jesus as their own. They're an example to us of this. Timothy is the subject of verses 19 through 24, Epaphroditus of 25 through 30. Now Paul's going to send them both to Philippi at different times and for different purposes, and we'll come to that in a little while as we go through this.

And we're going to spend some time introducing these men to us. And one of the important points I want us to see here as we see their commitment, as we see their usefulness in the gospel, as we see these people, these men, Timothy and Epaphroditus, having the mind of Christ, putting others' interests ahead of their own.

I want us to remember that they were just men. They were just men with feet of clay, men with families and brothers and mothers and sisters and all the rest of it. They had jobs, they had cities they were comfortable with, they had ambitions and aspirations, they had all these things, just like you do, just like I do, all set aside in favor of Christ Jesus, the Lord who saved them from their sins.

It's Timothy of whom Paul writes, I have no one like him who is genuinely concerned for your welfare. He says, I have no one like him is a very interesting word used only here in the New Testament, and it's a word that means one soul or one soul.

I have no one who is one souled with me like Timothy is. From deep within his person, you see, this young man, this Timothy, Paul's true son in the faith as he calls him, had caught the vision of the gospel, and he had caught it as deeply and as committedly as had the apostle himself.

And then we have Epaphroditus, Paul's brother, his fellow worker, his fellow soldier. Now, I'm going to give some introduction to these two men. I want us to come to know them and to understand them as best we can from what we have in Scripture, which is, we have to admit, pretty sparse, we don't have a lot of detail.

And as I introduce them, keep in mind that almost all commentators, in order to understand the placement of these verses in this letter, and the reason for the different modes of introducing and commending these men, most commentators, almost every commentator really, has to engage in a bit of informed speculation to explain why Paul describes them the way he does.

Some think even that the Philippians had expected Timothy to come, and they preferred Timothy to come, and so Paul's explaining why they're kind of getting second best in Epaphroditus, and like, they honor this man because he almost died for the gospel, so treat him well.

He's a gospel servant, he's my brother, he's my fellow soldier, he's a minister to my needs, and so forth. And so treat him well, don't treat him as second class compared to Timothy. I don't know how true that is, but it does have to, it does serve to explain this jolt that we have when also we have this difference between the two men, and this explanation as to why the one and not the others to be expected.

And all this is to say, as I introduce these men, as we give a little bio on these men, I want you to grant me a little bit of room for my own informed speculations, which will be lightweight speculations, and Lord willing, you'll see that they fit the context, and they make fair use of the facts that we have from Scripture.

And one thing we do know is that the Philippians understood what was in this letter. When they received this letter, when they heard it read to them, they understood what was going on. Now the key to the message this morning is in verses 20 and 21.

In verse 20, we read about Timothy, that he is genuinely concerned for the Philippians' welfare. And then immediately verse 21, for they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. Now who they all were is a matter of some difference amongst commentators and different scholars, and we'll come to them later.

But the point here is that Timothy is concerned for the Philippians' welfare, and immediately we find that they all, these other people, these self-seekers, if you will, are not concerned for the interests of Jesus Christ.

And I put them together to inform us that what Timothy is concerned for is the interests of Jesus Christ. And how do we understand those interests? The Philippians' welfare, the Philippians' good. The difference between Timothy and they all is that Timothy had the interests of Jesus Christ as his own.

What were, what are those interests? Well, it was, as I said, their welfare, the church's welfare. Those are Jesus' interests. As we take apart these verses, as we delve into them now, I ask you, are they yours?

I'll have you keep that question in your forefront as we go through this. We know very little about either of these men. We know a lot more about Timothy than we do of Paphroditus, but still quite little.

We know they were both useful to Paul in the Gospel. We know Timothy was like a son to Paul. We know that Paphroditus was a close friend, brother, and fellow worker. But who were these two? Well, they were you and me.

They were everyday run-of-the-mill sinners who by the grace of God came to faith in Christ, repented of their sins, as you all must, and, Lord willing, you all have. Everyday run-of-the-mill sinners, men with feet of clay, and by that same grace that saved them, they picked up their cross daily and worked all out for the Gospel of God that he accomplished in his son, Jesus Christ.

I say that by way of admonition, that as we compare ourselves, our commitment to Christ, whose interest we have at the forefront of our thoughts, that we not raise them up higher than we ought. That we not make them into super-Christians.

Timothy's Proven Worth and Background in Acts

We start with Timothy, and let me read again verses 19 -24. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, 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.

They all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served me 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.

So let's get a little bio on Timothy, let's understand who he is. He was the son of a Jewish mother and a pagan or a Greek father. We first run into him by name in Acts chapter 16, and that's where we learn that his Jewish mother was actually a believer in Jesus Christ.

She's a Jewish woman who came to faith in Christ, and his father, as I said, was a Greek. We know that Timothy was a believer, that's Acts chapter 16 in verse 2, and he was a believer who the town folk and people who knew him spoke well of him.

It says in Acts 16 too, he was well spoken of by the brothers, in other words the believers of the church, in a place called Lystra, L-Y-S-T-R-A, Lystra. Lystra is the city that Paul and Barnabas came to in Acts chapter 14, and that may well be when they first met and ran into Timothy.

Now Lystra is where Paul healed that man who could not use his feet, that's Acts chapter 14, and he did that of course in the name of Jesus Christ. In Lystra he healed that man, he and Barnabas saw the townspeople, do you remember this?

They offered them sacrifices, they said the gods have visited us, and they called Paul Hermes and they called Barnabas Zeus, and Paul and Barnabas were horrified at this, and they said, man, brother, what are you doing, we're just men like you.

Don't do this thing. It was horrifying to them. They got the citizens of Lystra calmed down, they preached the gospel to them and everything seemed okay for a while, and then Jews from Iconium and Athens came and stirred up all those people again, and the men who they had thought to be gods, now they tried to stone them to death.

And all this is so we can see some of Timothy's background. His father may well have been one of those who offered Paul a sacrifice, and then later a stone. Timothy may well have witnessed all that, and praise God, as we look at this, we can say right away, praise God that Christ is bigger than culture.

Praise God that the gospel is bigger than our background. Praise God that he's bigger than our uppointing. Praise God he's bigger than our sin. And then there's Acts chapter 16 verse 3, where Paul circumcises Timothy so as not to hinder his ministry to the Jews.

There's a couple of points we need to make here, as we learn about this Timothy, who Paul has no one like him, who's genuinely concerned, who genuinely has Christ's interests at heart. A couple of points here from Acts 16 verse 3, is first, that could not have been easy.

I'm just going to leave a go at that, but that could not have been easy. But in Timothy, Paul had someone who could bridge the gap between Jew and Gentile. His name, Timothy, was Greek, so he was good on that front.

His mother was Jewish, so he's good there. He submitted to this operation for the good of the gospel. He did it because he sought the interests of Christ Jesus. He had really caught the fire, the apostolic fire of the gospel, that passion.

So that's one thing we understand about Timothy. And the second thing, and I just point this out here so you can make note of it, is at the end of Acts chapter 15, just before Timothy joins them, we read about that famous incident between Paul and Barnabas, where they were going to continue their missionary work, and Paul said, no, John Mark ought to not come with us because he's the one who left us in Phrygia, and Barnabas wanted to take him because John Mark was his cousin, maybe his nephew.

And so they split up. That's the end of Acts 15, and right away in Acts 16, who do we have to fill the void? Who fills in the gap left by John Mark? None but this Timothy. So there's a little bit of introductory material about Timothy, who he was, where he came from, what was overcome for him, not what he overcame, but what was overcome for him in his conversion to Christ Jesus, clearly through the apostolic preaching of the cross.

Paul wrote of his proven worth. Those two words in our English come from a single Greek word that means, quote, the character of someone who remained faithful despite hardships. The character of someone who remained faithful despite hardships.

Just one example of where else that's used is Romans chapter 5, verse 4, where Paul writes using the same word, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. Those words character produces a character that comes from remaining faithful in the face of hardships, and Timothy did face hardships.

One of them we have at the end of the book of Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 23, where it is reported by the apostle to the Hebrews, the author of that letter, that Timothy had been released from prison. So in body, in mind, in spirit, Timothy was what we today would call all in for the gospel.

All in for the gospel. I ask us, can we say the same, can you say the same, can I even say the same? All in, nothing held back. All in for the gospel. Christ's interests are my interests. Whatever Christ is interested in, I'm interested in.

What Christ sacrificed for, I will sacrifice for. Timothy was all in, and just this quick bio would tell us that. Can we say the same? In 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20, it says that we are therefore ambassadors for Christ.

We're ambassadors for the Lord. An ambassador speaks his sovereign's words wherever he goes. He represents him rightly. And wherever an ambassador goes, an ambassador is expected to advance the interests of his master.

Ambassadors advance interests, interests of their master, the one who sent them. As did Timothy. At the price of great discomfort and being made acceptable to the Jews. At the price of divesting himself of his own interests in preference for Jesus' interests.

So what made him so valuable to the Apostle Paul? Well again, that's verses 20 and 21, because he had their welfare in mind, and again, 21, what is that welfare? What is it to have that in mind? It's to have Christ's interests in mind.

He was genuinely concerned for it. Concern is the word that we have sometimes as anxious, as in this very letter to the Philippians, chapter 4, verse 6. It says, be anxious, or do not be anxious about anything.

Jesus uses that word in Matthew 6, verse 25. He says, do not be anxious. Now those uses of the word have to do with worry. They have to do with fretting, as in Psalm 37, verse 88, where it says, do not fret, it only causes evil, it only brings harm.

When Paul commends Timothy over his concern, he means that like himself, his young protege places a high priority on the welfare of the church. That's his interest, that's his concern. If he has anxiety, as Paul says, he has, on top of all these other burdens that I carry, is my daily anxiety for the church, my daily burden for the church, my daily concern.

When worry, when it's not concern, when it's worry, we tend to stifle ourselves. We become so afraid of making a mistake, we can be stifled. We do nothing at all. When we're concerned in Timothy's way, in Paul's way, we're thinking of how to do good for someone.

We're concerned for their welfare, and that could mean physical welfare, food, shelter, clothing, and the like. But more prominently, and more in context here, is the advancement of the gospel in those people for whom you are concerned.

It's to see them growing, advancing, and not advancing through the ranks or getting promotions, but growing in holiness, growing in sanctification. We're concerned to see others become more and more like Christ Jesus and more.

Because that's Christ's concern. That's what Jesus is concerned about. If you go for your homework this afternoon and look at the seven letters to the churches in the book of Revelation, you'll find in each one of them, none of them are criticized for not being enough involved in political or social activities, though those are okay in their own parts and in their own context, but because of sin that they tolerate.

Because of their lack of growing into the image of Christ Jesus in holiness and in sanctification. This is Christ's great concern. And it must be our concern, just as it was Paul's concern, and just as Paul had no one like Timothy, because Timothy had this as his most prominent.

Was Timothy some kind of a superman of Christianity? Was he a superlative example, an exemplar, if you will? Well, he seems to have struggled with timidity in both 1 and 2 Timothy. He's told to stop letting domineering people in the church push him around, telling him what to do.

He said, don't let them despise your youth. Paul didn't give up on him, he encouraged him. He reminded him of God's work in his spirit. He reminded him of what the Lord had given him, a spirit of power and of love and of self-control.

Before we move on to Epaphroditus, after that quick bio of Timothy, and I hope I've stayed close enough to what we have in the text that you can see that this is a true bio of who this young man was, before moving to Epaphroditus, I want to give you my idea on why Paul wanted Timothy to stay with him.

There is some controversy about why Timothy stayed and why Epaphroditus had to go and why Paul had to recommend Epaphroditus the way he did, so that maybe the Philippians wouldn't be disappointed to see him instead of Timothy.

Verse 23 says, I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me. Timothy, again, Paul's true child in the faith, that's 1 Timothy 1 -2. Now what's Paul talking about here? It's from the beginning part of Philippians, in chapter 1 there, where Paul doesn't know whether he's going to be released from prison or executed.

And I think what he wanted was Timothy, his true child in the faith, to be there for him at the worst moment. That would make sense of the mutual cheering that he speaks of in verse 19, where he says to the Philippians, I'm keeping you here and I'm going to send him to you so that I too may be cheered by news of you.

You see, if Timothy brought the Philippians news of Paul's release, well, they'd obviously be cheered by that. And then, Timothy returning with a report of their obedience to this very letter would bring cheer to Paul.

That's why he says, I too, I also will be cheered. I'm going to hang on to Timothy, and when I send him, I'm looking forward to a mutual cheering that will happen. I think that's what it's about there.

That Timothy's going to stay until Paul knows what's going to happen with him. Lord willing, he'll be able to send Timothy to Philippi, and he will then bring news of Paul's release, cheering the Philippians, and bring back news to Paul of the Philippians' obedience, thus cheering Paul.

So with that, I think we're ready to meet Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus. The one who bore the Philippians' support from Philippi to Rome. The one who will bear this letter from Rome back to Philippi. The apostle thought it necessary to send him for a couple of reasons.

And one we'll read in a moment was his concern that they'll learn that he, that Epaphroditus, was okay. Let me read verses 25 to 30 again. I have thought it necessary to send you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill.

Indeed he was ill, near to death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him, also it just happened there, but also on me. Leave it, Lester. I think I can do this. Intermission. Got it. We all have to learn in our new environments, don't we?

Where was I? Intermission's over. For he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. Indeed he was ill, near to death, but God had mercy on him, and not only on him, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.

So as little as we know about Timothy, we know a lot less about Epaphroditus. We know his name meant favored by Aphrodite, who was the Greek goddess of love. We know he was of great use to Paul by having brought the support and by bringing back this letter to the Philippians.

We have these five descriptors, one after the other. He's Paul's brother, fellow worker, fellow soldier, messenger, and minister to his needs. That he was very dear to Paul is clear when Paul says, if I had lost him, I would have had sorrow upon sorrow.

God had mercy upon him, upon Epaphroditus, by sparing him from death, but also upon me, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. We know that one sorrow would have been Epaphroditus' death. The other, we don't know.

We don't know what that sorrow that would have piled up on it would have been. Was it something specific, or was this just a Hebrewism, a Hebraism as we call it, where he's emphasizing something by his repetition.

It just would have been sorrow upon sorrow to lose to a man, or that would have been a sorrow piled up upon another sorrow that was already there. We don't know. But whatever it was, had it combined with the loss of this dear friend, it would have been like piling on, you know the way they do the guy at the bottom of the scrum, where everybody's trying to get the ball and they're piling on top of him, body upon body upon body, sorrow upon sorrow upon sorrow for Paul had the Lord not shown mercy and spared him.

He calls him a brother. A brother is one bound with another in their common faith in Christ Jesus. He calls him a fellow worker. A fellow worker is a brother with his shoulder to the same plow working towards the same goal and here's the ministry of the gospel.

He calls him your minister and speaks of a priestly service that he performed on behalf of the Philippians for the Apostle while he was in prison. You may have noticed that in that quick recap of those five descriptors I left out soldier and messenger.

And here I'm going to indulge in just a brief and hopefully limited bit of speculation. I trust that you'll see that it's informed by what we do have in the text and what we do know about the times and I think it's going to help us apply Epaphroditus as an example to ourselves.

See, Philippi was a Roman colony. It was one of its most prized colonies and in Philippi they did all they could to make the city look and feel just like Rome. Citizenship, which was prized everywhere in the empire was held as particularly and especially precious in Philippi.

And we're going to come back to that in chapter 3 verse 20 when Paul tells them that you are citizens of heaven. So that concept of their pride in Roman citizenship is going to rise up again. And Philippi was a favored place for retired legionaries.

Part of the pension for legionaries once they retired from the army was to be given land grants. And one of the favorite places to get a land grant, one of the best and most attractive was this place, this town, this colony of Philippi.

Philippi where in Acts 16 Paul ran into Lydia at the water front and started the church there, that entrance into Europe. Philippi that had some of the great roads that brought the commerce and made military maneuvering available for Rome.

Philippi was a very important city. They did everything they could to be just like Rome. This is where Paphroditus was from. Being a messenger of those days, Paphroditus was a messenger. He brought the gift, the money, from Philippi to Rome.

That was about a six week journey. And as well patrolled as Roman roads were, they were still very dangerous. There were brigands everywhere. And so we need to ask ourselves for a moment here, who could the Philippians trust with their valuable gift?

Who could endure roughly six weeks of hard travel and protect the gift and himself from the brigands? Could it be a highly trained ex

Soldier? Could it be.

A former one-time legionnaire that would fill the bill? One man who could be both messenger and soldier? Entrusted with his valuable gift going one way and then with a precious letter the other? I would guardedly speculate that that might be Paphroditus' background.

And that's why he's described as a soldier and a messenger. And that's why he could be trusted with excuse me that's why he could be trusted with not only a monetary gift from Philippi to Rome but this precious very important letter from Rome and back to Philippi.

And the letter was precious. Remember that this letter was inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is part of our Scripture. And it was a letter that was crucial. This church this Philippian church was in danger of falling victim to Judaizers.

Those who taught some aspects of salvation by works. If not full on Judaism trying to bring people back to Judaism away from Christianity altogether as some scholars think. Now that will come up in chapter 3.

And so we're going to save most of it for that. My point is that this letter couldn't just be handed off to any old person. It needed to be somebody who was reliable. Somebody who could stand the rigors of a six week journey.

Someone who could protect himself and the letter even as he protected the gift from Philippi to Rome as he goes back from Rome to Philippi. While Paul held on to Timothy in Rome for a while, this letter though couldn't be delayed.

And now we come back to one idea for who are they all? They all have their own interests and not those of Christ Jesus. They all might be these ones that we're going to meet in chapter 3. These dogs, these mutilators of the flesh.

These ones who would bring you back to a works based salvation. And it was crucial to get this letter to them to at least put these things on hold or at least have some slowing down of that wrongful doctrine until such time as Timothy could come with apostolic authority to make the corrections that would need to be made.

I think they all would have been the men we're going to meet in chapter 3. God willing we'll meet them when we get to chapter 3 in a week or so. And I think this is why it was so important that this letter be entrusted.

I think this is why Paul was so relieved that Epaphroditus survived his illness. Because he needed this letter to get from Rome back to Philippi. Where Jesus' interests is in his church, any rival to pure and unadulterated faith in him does anything but advance his interests or your interests.

And as I said we'll save all that for Philippians 3. Hopefully that will whet your appetite. We don't know exactly what illness struck him. But it seems reasonable to think that Epaphroditus entered into the risk of it knowingly.

You see it didn't just happen. He went knowingly into danger. The late Scottish scholar William Barclay thought that he got sick with one of the contagions that were then known to come upon Rome very often.

Now add to that my idea that he was aware of the risks he was taking and we can guardedly speculate that he brought the Philippian gift in the face of one of those city-wide outbreaks. Maybe he saw people coming out of the city and he asked, why are so many of you leaving the city?

And he said, well one of those contagions happened again. And it could just be that Epaphroditus, knowing the risks, said that this gift is going to advance the gospel. This gift is going to advance my Lord and Savior Christ Jesus' interests.

And therefore, this gift must get to the Apostle Paul in prison. And this would also support the idea that maybe he was a retired soldier because Roman legionnaires held duty as more important than life.

Extending that just a little bit further, then perhaps the Philippians' distress in reports of his illness had as much to do with concern that Paul received their supporting gift as it did with Epaphroditus himself.

So certainly, concern for the man was not lacking. But there could have been a broader, or at least another concern, that hearing he was sick, but did he get the gift to the Apostle? Because everyone has what in mind.

Not that we don't care about Epaphroditus, we care more about Christ Jesus. Not that we're not interested in Epaphroditus' interests, in this case his health and recovery from illness, but Christ and the advancement of the gospel through the Apostle was more important.

That's the idea there. You see, the gospel ministry is a risky thing. We're not all called to minister to lepers. Some are. We're not all called to go into dangerous jungles or Amazon forests like Jim Elliot and his companions.

We all have our place. For Epaphroditus, he was called. I think there's a very good chance, and I say that guardedly and carefully, a very good chance he was called to go into a contagion just to make sure that the Apostle Paul had what he needed in order to continue to advance the gospel even while he was in prison.

The interests of Christ Jesus might cause us to need to put it all out on the table, as we say, to take risks. Paul wrote earlier in this letter that whether he lived or died, Christ Jesus would be glorified in his body.

Jesus himself found the Father's will more valuable than his own life, and he went to the cross in order to see that will accomplished. Paul wrote in Romans chapter 14 in verse 8, We live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.

So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. For to this end, Christ died and lived again, that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. Epaphroditus, as a soldier, would have died for his duty.

And as a Christian, we cannot hold him up as some superlative Christian, because he was a big, tough, rumble-tumble former legionnaire. Just a man with feet of clay, like any of you who today believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

A man who held duty to Christ as more important than his life. A man who looked the risks of delivering the gift to advance the gospel as more important than his health. We can be no less committed. As a Christian, he was no less committed than he had been as a soldier.