Open your Bibles if you would
to Philippians chapter two. We'll continue our study in this
wonderful book. This is an epistle written by
Paul to the church at Philippi while he was under house arrest
in Rome. And he's very dear to the Philippians. He was the instrument that God
used to establish the church in Philippi. And so these saints
are very, very dear to him, like we have. Very, very close knit. And he loves them dearly. So much so that he's desiring
to send Timothy to them. And Timothy and him had an incredible
relationship. similar to like Jonathan and
David They had a real close relationship and he's gonna tell us in the
text that Timothy's like like a son to him and Isn't this amazing? I thought it was, I was telling
Jake about this last night. He called and we were talking
about what I was going to preach today. And I said, it's incredible
because in Philippians 2, we're going through and Paul's going
to tell him he's going to send Timothy. And then today we're
in Acts 16 verses 1 to 5, where Paul is introduced to Timothy.
Isn't that amazing? Where they first meet. And oh
my goodness, it's just incredible how the Lord has put those two
things together. And I didn't, I didn't plan it that way. It
just happened. Isn't that amazing? So Timothy
is a born again, blood washed saint. He has the same faith
we have. He's born again by the same spirit. He's a, he's a young
man who Paul will meet who, the churches at Lystia and another
place, I think it's Iconum. He's very well held in high regard
because of his faithfulness and his love for the gospel. And
he ministered to God's people each day. And we know that eventually
he became a preacher, didn't he? Eventually he became a preacher,
but he's very beloved by Paul look at this and the name of
this message is hope in Christ But look at this in in Philippians
2 verses 19 to 24 But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus
which is Timothy shortly unto you verse 19 That I also may
be of good comfort when I know your state So he's desiring to
send Timothy to them so he can know the state, know how they're
doing. Just like brother, when you go
down to south, I always ask you, well, how's everyone doing down
there? How's Frank and how's John? And we just desire to know
how each other's doing. So he wants to send Timothy to
Philippi to find out how the saints are doing. How are they
doing? How are they getting along? For I have no man like-minded
who naturally care for your state. So this tells us here that there's
no one else who Paul feels like he can send. Well, we're gonna
find that later. There's Epaphroditus, who's a
faithful minister. But he doesn't feel like there's
anyone else, because Epaphroditus was sick. He doesn't feel like
there's anyone else he can send that has the same care. And several
of the commentators bought forth that there was no other man that
desired to go to the Philippians, to go to Philippi and talk to
them. And Paul, again, his heart is to find out what's going on
with them. How are they doing? How are they doing? How are they
in Christ? Are they growing in Christ? Are
they rejoicing in Christ? Are they keeping their eyes on
Christ? And we know that's all by God's
grace, right? And look at what he says here,
for all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ. My, oh, my. What that means is
that they were just desiring to stay where they were. And maybe they were gaining popularity
where they were, I don't know. The one danger with the preachers
is, and we have to constantly tell ourselves this, is we don't
want to follow him, beloved, none of us, none of us. You know,
I preach the gospel. I'm one of you. I'm a born-again,
blood-washed saint of God. It's Christ who gets the glory,
isn't it? It's Christ who gets the honor. It's Christ who gets
the praise. And as I told you what Jean-Claude
told me years ago when I first came here, always remember that
Christ has the preeminence. Always remember he gets the preeminence.
Always keep that set forth. Because it's not hard for us
to get filled with pride, any of us, right? Any of us. And so the preachers are not
immune to that. We're just like everyone else.
Just like everyone else. So he's saying here, he got no
man like minded. They all naturally care for their
own state. For all seek their own, not the
things which are Christ Jesus. Maybe they're seeking a following.
Maybe they just wanna, maybe they're doing really well where
they are and they don't, ah, I don't wanna go out. I don't
know. But you know the proof of him,
that as a son with the father, he has served with me in the
gospel. They know his faithfulness. We're going to see that Paul
and Timothy are ending up there, they're going out on the mission
field. So they know, they know Timothy. They know who he is. Oh my, they know how close, they
know how close Paul is with him. Look at this. He has served with
me in the gospel. He's a faithful companion. He served with me. When I go
out preaching, Timothy's right there with me. Now, you guys
know Jake. Jake and I have that kind of
a relationship because when I was at West for seven years, he'd
go to the gospel mission with me. He'd play the music for me
there. So he was laboring with me in
the gospel. And so we got really close. And
for me, he's like a little brother to me, and I love him dearly.
You know, we call him family. He's part of our family. And
he's here with us, too. They tune in whenever they can,
and if they can't tune in, they listen to the messages through
the week, and they help us out with taking care of some things
that we needed. Just because they count this
as their home church. Because they don't have a place
where they can go to in Colorado. In the area that they're in. And so I understand this relationship. And I also have that with Norm.
I have like a Jonathan David relationship with Brother Norm.
So I understand how Paul felt here. You know, when I'm with
Norm, I feel like a Timothy. And we'll both labor together
in the gospel. Isn't that wonderful? It's amazing. Oh, it's wonderful. And now, here, I've been here
10 years. You guys are my family now. I count you all dear, Brother
Travis. And all of you, all of you, I
count you dear. Travis fills in, he's laboring
in the gospel with me by teaching sometimes and preaching sometimes. But you know what? We're all
laboring in the gospel together. Do you know why? Because every
one of us, as I said last week, have a part in this. Isn't that
amazing? Whether it be financially helping
the church or whether it mean giving your time to serve, We
all have a part of this. Isn't that wonderful? We're laboring
together. It's wonderful. The preacher
just gets to stand up and proclaim the gospel, which we love to
do. But again, we can't do it without
any of you. Isn't that amazing? Oh my. He says here, him therefore I
hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go
with me. But I trust in the Lord. Remember
we looked at that in verse 19. He's saying, this is my hope.
This is my hope. But you know the word trust here
in verse 24 is a different Greek word. A different Greek word. The Greek word for trust there
is persuaded in the Greek. Listen to this in the Greek literal
Bible. And I am persuaded in the Lord that I myself will also
come soon. He's persuaded. Now, we always have to leave room
though. Like James said, Lord willing. We may feel like, OK,
I'm going to go and do that. Lord willing. And that's for
all of us in our lives, isn't it? Lord willing. Well, we make
plans. Oh, I'm going to go here. I'm
going to do this. James says, say, Lord willing. Right? Vicki's mom had made plans
to go to Hawaii, wouldn't they? And she goes, I don't know why
I make plans to go off the continent because every time I do, something
happens and I don't get to go. She was telling me that. And
they get hit with a snowstorm and they had to cancel the trip.
But they had plans to go. Oh, we're going. Well, Lord willing, you are,
right? And the Lord didn't will it,
right? And so that's how we submit ourselves,
beloved, Lord willing. Our hope is in Christ. Our hope
is in Him. He's everything to us. And that's
when he says in verse 19, but I trust in the Lord. And then
again in verse, that trust in verse 19 is hope. He's saying
my hope is in Christ. And then the word trust in verse
24 is I'm persuaded. And we know, we know Paul would
be saying Lord willing. If the Lord wills, I'll see again.
The Lord wills, I'll send you Timothy. If not Timothy, well,
then Epaphroditus. Lord willing, right? My oh my. And all this here, remember too,
as we look at the letters of Paul, we can see a constant rest
and hope in Christ. Right? So this is normal verbiage. He says Christ is all. He tells
us we're complete in Christ, Brother Charlie. You know, he
tells us Christ is our all in all, Brother Travis. And that's
a hope. That's our hope, isn't it? We have a hope in Christ.
And you know, his hope, Sister Marsha, his hope is the same
hope we have. Same faith we have. Centered upon Christ. You know,
Detroit has, on their shirt, they have the winged, and the
Red Wings, they have the winged hub, right? I like that because
there's a hub. And then the spokes come out.
He's the hub. He's the hub. He's the only way. All those spokes lead to one
hub, don't they? I got to talk to a fellow this
week, and I was talking with him, and he says, well, I'm an
ordained minister, and so I said, when were you born again? And
he said, well, when I was born, I should have died, and so I
was basically saved and born again then. I said, no, that's
not what that means. I said, you must be born again.
It's a spiritual rebirth. And Zane was there, too, and
so we got to witness to this fellow and just say, you know,
you have to be born again. And there's no other way to enter
into the kingdom of God, is there? You must be born again. He says,
well, I believe in Jesus. I said, yeah, but are you born
again? See, Catholics believe in Jesus, they say, right? I
used to say that. I didn't have a clue who he was. Right? Muslims say, oh, he was
a good teacher. They believe he was a real person,
but there's no saving knowledge there. You know, Seventh-day
Adventists, they say, well, we believe in Jesus. We even talk
about his blood. But they're Sabbatarians, and
they say that if you don't go to worship on Saturday, that
you took the mark of the beast. What? Come on. Those are all false
Jesuses, aren't they? And someone says, well, when
you're being hard on those folks, Did we not see Paul and Barnabas
in the council at Jerusalem stand firm in Acts 15, saying we won't
allow man's works to enter into the gospel, right? And that's all we do. When we
preach the gospel, brother Travis, we are setting Christ forth.
is the only savior of sinners. That's why I told this man, I
said, Christ is the only way. He said, I'm the way, the truth,
and the life. There's no other way. No other way but Christ. And Paul's telling us here, he's
my hope. He's my everything. So much so that I want to send
Timothy to the saints at Philippi to hear how they're doing, resting
and trusting in Christ. Because remember, there started
to be some disagreements in chapter two, in the first part of chapter
two. And what's he do? I love it,
I love it. He sets their mind on Christ. Vicki and I were talking
about that, the humility of Christ, the humbleness. God became a
man. God himself. And this morning
in my email from Grace Gems comes this amazing, I didn't mention
it to you, amazing email and it says, he took our eternal
wrath. And I started, it was from various
authors. And you guys have heard me say,
and this is something I picked up from the old time preachers
and stuff. In the 17, 1800s, they used to
talk about this. He took our wrath, beloved. He
took, think of that, the eternal wrath that was due you and I,
brother, that was due us. We earned it. Fell upon him. And I was thinking about this
as Vicki came over here to turn some stuff on, and I was still
at McDonald's, and I was thinking about that. I was thinking, oh
my gosh, the eternal wrath. That's never-ending. And he bore it. And he extinguished
it. He extinguished the eternal wrath
of God that was against us. No wonder Paul says, He's my
hope. He's my all in all. He's everything. He took it all, beloved. So much
so, so much so that God says, I don't remember your sin anymore. He's our propitiation, as John
writes in 1 John. He's extinguished the wrath of
God that was against us. You know, when they extinguish
a fire, there's still smoke coming up, right? Right? You see a fire, sometimes there's
smoke coming up for days. There's no smoke coming up off
this, this sacrifice. Perfect. Sin atoning work for
all his people. He came to save his people from
their sins and praise God, he did it. He did it. So we are, as I said
to Charlie earlier, we are therefore complete in Christ. There's an article in the Bulletin
on that. Complete in Christ. Complete in Him, beloved. The
perfect, sin atoning Lamb of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, God's
Son, who was sent by God. Now think of this. Let us marvel
at this. God sent his son to die in our
room and place so that his eternal wrath could fall upon him in
our room and place and be fully satisfied. Think of who Christ
is. Let us think about that. He's
God in the flesh. And his sacrifice is so satisfying
to the Father in such a perfect sin-atoning
work that we are completely forgiven of all our sins, and any wrath
that was due us has been extinguished." God's wrath that never ends has
been extinguished. Oh, what a Savior! What a Redeemer
is Jesus Christ our Lord, beloved! And so Paul wants to send Timothy
to born-again blood-washed saints who have been redeemed by the
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as we were, who've been
born again by God the Holy Spirit, just as we are. Right? You must
be born again. You have to be. Oh my. And notice the Lord's words,
you must. Not, well, you must be born again. And that birth is from above.
That's God's work, isn't it? And we marvel. We marvel that
God saved us. We marvel that now we have a
hope. Did we have that hope before, sister? We didn't have that,
right? Now we have that hope, sister.
Now we have a hope, a hope in Christ that we never had before.
And it's given to us freely, all according to the grace and
mercy of God. my oh my what a savior let us
proclaim this wonderful merciful savior the lord jesus christ
oh my oh my so paul desires again he desires to send timothy to
the our dear brethren in christ what do you want he wants to
know if they're you know the harmony that's going on in the body He
wants to know, you know, how are they faring again? How are
they doing? You know, are they, again, as
we've looked at many times, humility leads to unity. Are they united?
Did they heed what I've, you know, what I'm writing? Are they
going to heed what I'm writing? My, oh, my. And he probably would have sent
the letter with Timothy, I would think. My, oh my. He's concerned with
their state. Just as every preacher's concerned
with the state of the church, that we have the blessed honor
of pastoring. My, oh my. And he wants to know, are they
being fed? Are they rejoicing in Christ?
It's wonderful. It's absolutely wonderful. You
can see the connection that they have together, can't you? My oh my. Let's read verses 20
and 21 of Philippians chapter 2. For I have no man like-minded
who will naturally care for your state. This is very sad, isn't
it? For all seek their own, not the things of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And this is a serious charge. But unfortunately, it can be
true. Not all ministers are generally
interested in the glory of Christ. They seek their own. Not all
are interested in the good of their congregation. They advance their own interests
above those of the flock. But Timothy had a heart and a
soul like Paul's. He preached the gospel of God's
grace and glory through the Lord Jesus Christ and his perfect
work. And he didn't seek his own comfort. He didn't seek praise. See, we're here, beloved, for
the furtherance of the gospel, aren't we? That's why we're all
here. We get the blessed opportunity to be together and have our hearts
knit together in love, which is absolutely amazing. But God
has placed each one of us here for the furtherance of the gospel. You know, when you all say, well,
I'm praying for you, Wayne, oh my, it makes my heart leap. I
love it. Please keep praying. And when
you say, well, we're praying for the messages as they go out,
praise God, keep praying. Pray for one another. Pray for
other preachers we know. We need strength, all of us,
right? Pray for one another, especially.
Pray for one another. There's a lot of times when we
don't mention things to other people. I have one of our sisters
say, you know, a lot of times I don't mention anything, but
when you say, you know, pray for unspoken prayers for people,
you know, she said, that's a lot of times I don't say anything.
And I'm like, well, that's okay. You know, that's just how, pray
for one another. There's a lot of things we don't,
we don't talk to other people about sometimes, right? Our struggles. That's between
God and us, too, right? We don't have to go around telling
everybody our struggles. Now, we can tell some things that
we struggle with. We all struggle with unbelief,
don't we? Right? We know that. That's universal.
But something, Brian, you might be strong and I might be weakened,
and vice versa. We don't know, you know? It's
just how it is. And as we know from Scripture, sometimes we
go through things where it says the God of all comfort. There's
a verse I think below that, and it's in Corinthians, and it talks
about how we go through things that we may sometimes comfort
others when they're going through those things. You ever had that
happen? It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. It blows
your mind away. You're like, oh, now I know why
I went through that. And you're able to help a brother
or sister in Christ. Because, and it always is, the
Lord took me through this. The Lord gave me strength to
be of good cheer. Today I woke up, and my back
was hurting, and my shoulder was hurting. And I had a friend
of mine in Oregon. We're gonna see this fella. He
was a believer. He was an amazing guy. He had
Parkinson's, in late stages of Parkinson's. And I'd see him,
I'd say, Dennis, how you doing? I'm doing good, man. Doing good. He used to be a naval aviator.
Flew over 600 combat missions over North Vietnam. And I'd say,
how you doing? And he's like, I'm doing good.
I'm like, man, you're always up. And he goes, well, the Lord
saved me and I'm thankful. And he goes, and every time I
start to feel sorry for myself, I just go and see someone at
the hospital who's worse off than I am. Wow, so I'm sitting there thinking
today, well, there's a lot of people a lot worse off than me.
Dennis came to my mind and I'm like, that is a lot. Yeah, all
I got is a little shoulder pain, that's all. My oh my, it's all
perspective. Not negating what we're going
through, not at all. Not at all, because we all go
through things. But there's always someone who's
going through a more difficult period than we are. Isn't that
amazing? Oh, it's amazing. I just thought
when he did that, I was always amazed. He was just resting in
Christ and trusting in Christ. Look at this. Verse 21 again.
For all seek their own, not the things which are Christ's. We
went over that. We don't have to go over that
a whole lot because we're all sinners saved by grace. The wonderful
thing is Christ died for the ungodly, and we're the ungodly,
right? You know what we are now? We're
now sinner-saints, aren't we? Isn't that amazing? I'm looking
at a bunch of sinner-saints. We're sinners, but we're saints
of God. My! That's amazing! All by the grace
and mercy of God. Well, we were still sinners.
Christ died for us. When we're God's enemies, we
were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son. My! We were reconciled and didn't
even know it. Isn't that amazing? My oh my. Now let's read verses
22 to 24, Philippians chapter two. We will see here the special
relationship that Paul had with Timothy. And we'll see that his hope is
in Christ. But you know the proof of him, this is speaking of Timothy,
that is a son with a father, he has served me with the gospel.
Him, therefore, I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall
see how it will go with me. But I trust in the Lord that
I also myself shall come shortly." So Paul's bringing forth before
the church the value of Timothy, how he's valuable to him in his
ministry. And we know that that's true.
Paul wrote two letters to him that's in the canon of Scripture,
isn't it? that God, the Holy Spirit, had him penned and preserved. Isn't that amazing? And through
those letters and through the writings in Paul, when he mentions
Timothy, we see here they had a relationship like a father
with a son. Think of that with your son,
brother, right? And your son, right? You guys, all of us who
have boys too. And even if you have a girl,
think of that relationship that you have with your kids. You
love them. No matter what. No matter what. They're not blood,
but they have a relationship like we have with our kids. Do
anything for them, right? They need something. Have you
ever noticed it doesn't matter how old we get, if they need
something, we still help them out? Travis, you help your kids all
the time? Yeah, you went to Boston to help
your son, and you helped your daughter down in Athens. Because
you love them. They're our kids, aren't they?
You just, you do whatever you can for them. To help them. My oh my. So they have this relationship
like that. They love each other in Christ.
And he's like a son to them. Look at this, him therefore I
hope to send presently, So as soon as I see how it will go
with me, notice how Paul, his hope is in Christ. We know that
because of what he said earlier. So when we see the word hope,
he's hoping in Christ. That's why I named this message
that, because of that word right there, hope. In everything he
does, now think of this, and think of how this was the opposite
before we were saved. Sister, our hope is in Christ
now. Before we were saved, it wasn't in Christ. I heard something,
that little clip Josh played for us. And the guy said, hope
in yourself. Do you remember that, that fellow? Hope in yourself or have faith
in yourself. And I thought, that's the world.
That's the world. Our hope is in Christ. We stop
hoping in ourselves because we know we can't do nothing to save
ourselves. Our hope is Christ. Our rest
is Christ. That's the opposite of how it
used to be. Isn't it amazing how we've been translated from
the kingdom of darkness, hoping in ourselves, living in our sin,
loving it, to the kingdom of his dear son? Now our hope is
Jesus Christ, our Lord. Our hope is Christ for everything,
for salvation, for our lives, for everything we have. The very
air we breathe is his. And he gives us the breath to
breathe, doesn't he, Brother John? My. And then he says, but I trust
in the Lord. Him therefore I hope to send
presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me. But
I trust in the Lord, again that's persuaded. He's persuaded in
the Lord that I myself also shall come shortly. So Paul is bringing
forth the value of Timothy to the church. We're gonna see that
actually in our study in Acts this morning. That the church
actually tells Paul how valuable he is to them. How he's, they
love him. They love him. And then we see
him unveil here. We see Paul unveil after he spoke
about the value of Timothy. He unveils his relationship with
Timothy. And again, as I told you, that's
how Jake and I are. For me, he's like a little brother
that I never had. And I was telling Vicki, I have
older brothers, Brother Travis, Brother Charlie, all of you.
I have older sisters, because I never had an older sister.
Now I have a whole bunch of older sisters. I have moms. Dad's in the faith now. Isn't
that amazing? We're family. It is, it's incredible. It's incredible. I said to Vicki,
I never had an older sister. I got all kinds of older sisters
now. And my mom's gone and I got like four moms now. Oh, it's wonderful. And I got
a whole bunch of big brothers. Isn't that amazing? God is so
good to us, beloved. And this is that having our hearts
knit together in love that Paul talks about. And this is the
love of God that's in our hearts, beloved, that is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit of God. Right? We didn't have that before. And
I'll tell you what, what we have here is special, beloved. It
really is. And it's all God's doing. It's
all the Holy Spirit knitting our hearts together as we listen
to the gospel, listen to, hear about our wonderful, merciful
Savior. He died for us. Willingly. God himself. Oh my. Oh my. So Paul's persuaded, if
it's the Lord's will, that here go, here go, and here himself
go to Philippi. Turn, if you would, to Ephesians
chapter 4. I'm going to close with this. We're going to get...
Our Lord uses ministers, his preachers, to teach and to set
an order and lead his church. And of course, we're not to despise
those over us. God's people don't do that. But
to respect them and follow them as they follow Christ. And I
always say, let's you and I look to Christ. If you look to me,
I got a whole bunch of faults. I'm a sinner saint. I got lots
of faults. And it's not hard to find them.
It's not. But if we all look to Christ,
and if we see one another in Christ, Oh my. Oh, we're complete in Christ.
So when I look at you, Sister Barb, you're complete in Christ.
I'm complete in Christ. Let's rejoice. Isn't that wonderful? It's wonderful, beloved. It's
wonderful. Look at this, Ephesians chapter
4, verses 10 to 16. He that descended is the same
that also that ascended up far above all heavens that he might
fill all things. That's speaking of Christ. Look
at that. He came from heaven. He came from it and then he's
back up there again. And he gave some apostles and some prophets
and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers for the
perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for
the edifying of the body of Christ. That's what we're called to.
I'm called to preach the gospel for your edification and for
mine too. Because when I'm studying, I'm
getting built up. My. till we all come in the unity
of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect
man, that's when we're in glory, unto the measure of the statue
of the fullness of Christ. That we henceforth be no more
children tossed to and fro and carried away with every wind
of doctrine by the slight of men in cunning craftiness, whereby
they lie in wait to deceive. So the false teachers, they're
lying in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love,
that's what God's preachers do. Speaking the truth in love, that
in love may grow up in him, that we may all grow up in him, in all things, which is the head,
even Christ, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together and
compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to
the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh
increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love."
Notice who's doing the working? God's working in us, beloved.
God's working in us. He's conforming us to the image
of the Son. We don't see it a whole lot,
but you know, when we say, man, I'm more of a sinner than I've
ever been before, how do you know that? Because you're growing
in grace, beloved. You're growing in grace. That's
what that means. Because the more we grow, remember
Paul before his death? I'm the chief of sinners. The
more we grow in grace, the more we see our sinfulness, but the
more we see the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact
that he saved us with his precious blood and redeemed our eternal
souls so that we might be with him forever. Isn't that wonderful? Brother Charlie, can you close
us in prayer?