I love Mexican food. But when I look at the menu of Mexican food, I'm always surprised there's like fifty things on the menu. But there's only really four ingredients to Mexican food. Okay, there's a tortilla, there's meat, there's vegetables, and there's cheese. Now you can have it any way you want. But there's only four ingredients. Alright? So if you want it flat, you can have it…you know what that's called, right? A tostada. But if you want it smashed up and folded in half, it's a taco. If you want it rolled up, then it's a burrito. But now the burritos they have, they don't eat those kinds of burritos in Mexico. I mean, those burritos are so big. They're like a small newborn baby. There's just huge. So they have burritos. But apparently, someone dropped a burrito into a deep fryer in Arizona sometime back and now we have chimichangas that we can eat. If you don't like them rolled up that big, you can have them rolled up smaller and then they're called enchiladas. Right? And then if you don't want yours mixed up at all, you just want all the pieces you want to put it together yourself, that's a fajita. But anyway you do it, there's only four ingredients that they put together. Those four ingredients can be mixed up all kinds of different ways.
Now what does a burrito have to do with advancing the gospel? This is our passage today in Philippians 2. Do you see the word advancing the gospel there? What does that have to do? What does a burrito have to do with advancing the gospel? Well in the same way that there are only four ingredients for a burrito or Mexican food, there are three ingredients necessary to advance the gospel. And you might do it differently than you might do it. And you might do it differently than this person. And so it's different in those different places. But it's always the same three necessary ingredients that a person needs to advance the gospel. We're going to learn about that today.
The gospel is this package. It's this message that transforms a person's life. It's the message that God is in control and that people are sinful and that God wants to bring that together for this fruitful life. That's the gospel message and people need it. God wants that message passed on. And God uses people to pass on that message to other people.
Now there are three ingredients that we're going to look at today. You have those already. Now you and I might grow some more in those three areas. But we have those three ingredients primarily that any of us have and we're going to see those illustrated in two different guys (Timothy and Epaphroditus) and then, of course, in you and me.
What are the three ingredients? Well let's look at those just as a summary here. Three things needed in our lives to advance the gospel. Here's what they are. Number one: Compassion. Do you care? Number two: Faithful. Are you reliable? And number three: Available. Are you ready? Now if you have those three things…and you do! I'm not telling you go develop those things because you already have those. If you're a Christian growing in the Lord, you have those things already. God is looking for people who are available and reliable and who care to advance the gospel. He wants to give you the gospel to pass on to other people. We're going to look at two guys who did that.
Let's start with the first one in our passage, Philippians 2:19-30. Verse 19 says this: Now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon. He's going to be our first guy. Now Timothy is a young man who got saved in Lystra on the first missionary journey of Paul and his first mission station as they were going along is Philippi. So he was there in Philippi with Paul, so they know who he is. Timothy is going to be a guy who's eventually going to pastor a church. But right now he's this guy who's learning what it means to serve the Lord, learning what it means to follow Christ, learning all those things. So I want you to see how he's described in this passage.
It says – Now I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I learn how you are doing. So Timothy's job is to go there and come back and report how the Philippians are doing so Paul can be encouraged in Rome.
Verse 20 – I have nobody else like him who will genuinely care for your needs. So in the next slide have highlighted the words there which say genuinely care for your needs. This is our first ingredient. Compassion. Genuinely care for your needs.
Now this word care is an interesting word. I want you to note it because it is the word ‘anxious.’ He's concerned. He’s anxious. Now this is going to be very interesting when we get to chapter 4 and Paul says in chapter 4 – Don't be anxious about anything. It’s the exact same Greek word being used here. Which tells me there's a good kind of anxious and a not so good kind of anxious. That Paul is saying Timothy is one of those guys that he's concerned for you. That's what we're going to learn.
As I'm working with young people and helping them grow when they're faced with anxiety, one of the things I say to them is, “You know, this anxiety that you have is actually a good thing. You just have to learn how to manage it. Because anxiety helps you to be concerned about things. If you're anxious or concerned about your grades, you're going to study harder. If you're concerned about your finances, you're going to manage them carefully. If you're concerned about your health, you're going to eat well and you're going to exercise and so on. If you're concerned about others, you can have friendships because you're concerned about them.” That's what's happening here.
Timothy genuinely cares. The problem happens is when the emotion of anxiety starts to control you. And when that happens, it crosses the line. Then we need to try to make some changes in our lives. God didn't design us to be consumed by the anxiety. But we do want to have part of that. Because that’s what helps us be responsible so that we do get the good grades, or we do manage our finances, or do with our health. In particular, that Timothy is concerned about these people. We want to have that compassion. He uses the word genuine to describe that. This is the only place in the whole Bible this Greek word is used. It means true or sincere. Something that we all need in our compassion in our care for other people.
You see, what Paul is saying here is that one of the ingredients we need in order to advance the gospel is this idea of compassion, to think about other people. I would say it starts in our homes, of course. In a marriage relationship, a husband and wife can get sometimes rather busy with the functioning of the family and keeping the household going and doing all the things that are necessary. So we intentionally need to be concerned for each other's needs. We're also concerned for those within the fellowship. It's interesting that in Galatians 6:10 Paul says – Do good to everyone, especially the household of faith. I find that interesting. And so we of course at Calvary Chapel Living Hope we're concerned for each other, caring for each other regularly. I like that as part of our church design. But we're also concerned about others. Timothy is concerned about their needs. If you're going to advance the gospel, there's a sense of compassion that we have this care for people we don't even know. That we recognize that other people have so much that they need of the gospel. So compassion becomes very important ingredient.
Notice how it's described in the next verse. It says – For all the others look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. Notice the parallelism here. There's two groups of people. There's Timothy and there's the people who look after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But the point being made here is that if you're looking after the needs of Jesus Christ, the interest of Jesus Christ, you're going to be caring about other people. That's the idea. As Christians, we are looking after the interest of Jesus Christ, and in so doing, we're caring about other people in the process. There’s a genuine concern that we have. That compassion is nurtured. We see Jesus having taught that and we see Him having lived it out in the gospels.
There's one story where Jesus is in a crowd, and He's moving along, and He says, “Somebody touched me,” and His disciples say, “Well of course somebody touched you. You were in a crowd.” Like they’re saying, “Why are you asking that question?” And Jesus says, “Yes, but I know there's someone who has a need here.” And Jesus stopped what He was doing, turned around, and healed that young lady. Wow. That's the compassion. Compassion is your first ingredient.
Let's go on here into the next verse. In verse 22 it says – But you know Timothy's proven worth. He's faithful. That's the second thing. He's faithful. Are you reliable? Now the word being used here, the word proven worth is the word dokimé. It is the word that describes this proven character. The idea is present in the whole New Testament. This idea that we go through trials in order to strengthen us. That's the word being used here, dokimé. In Romans 5:3-4 the exact same word is used when Paul says – Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance proven character. That's the same word that's here. It's the idea that you go through the trials of life. And when you go through those trials of life, it builds your character. And the fourth word is hope. Where does hope come from? It comes from this proven character, which comes through perseverance, which comes through suffering.
The idea here is that you and I have suffering in our lives and it contributes to our proven character, to our growth. When we are allowing God to grow us and we're allowing Him to build us, then even in the common areas of life we're growing. We don't wait until we've arrived somewhere to say, “Okay, well I'll help other people when I get my act together.” No. The idea here is that in the midst of the growing that we do, we can also be caring about others. And that's what it said about Timothy. He's growing in his faith. He's reliable. He's faithful. You're not perfect. He's got a lot more he's going to learn and Paul is going to teach him a lot more. But right now he's faithful, he's reliable because he's growing. It's a very important part of who we are. If we're going to advance the gospel, God is looking for people who are compassionate and people who are growing, or faithful, or reliable. That's the second question that we have. Proven worth.
Well let's read on. It says – that as a child with his father he has served with me to advance the gospel. Verse 23 – So I hope to send him as soon as I see what happens with me. And I trust in the Lord that I myself will come soon. I hope to send him. This is where we get the idea of availability. Timothy's ready. In order for God to be able to use us to advance the gospel, we need to be ready. Are we ready to take it to the next place? Are we available? Timothy has arranged his schedule, he's arranged his energy so that as soon as Paul says, “Time to go, Timothy,” Timothy says, “Okay, I'm available. I'm ready.” So availability becomes this next piece here in Timothy's life.
Three things, three questions that we ask. One is, do I care? Two is, am I reliable? And thirdly, am I available? Timothy has all three of those.
Well let's go on to another guy. Let's learn about Epaphroditus starting in verse 25. Now Epaphroditus was a man who got saved in Philippi through the church there. They decided when they heard that Paul had a need over in Rome, they wanted to send someone to Rome. Epaphroditus says, “I'll go.” Six-week journey, 750 miles from where they are back to Rome. When he goes there, he gets sick. But safety is not his primary goal. Ministry is his goal. So he goes there to serve Paul, but he got sick. Almost died he got so sick. But he's ministering to Paul, caring for him there, and good things happen in the midst of that.
So let's see how Paul describes Epaphroditus. We're going to start here with five words and all of these five words describe him being reliable. We're going to start with reliable, we’ll come to compassion second. Are you reliable is the question. Now I don't have time to go in depth there. I really wish I could preach a sermon on these five words because these are things we all need in order to be reliable. But let me just quickly go through them.
First of all, he's a brother. He's one that there's that family relationship. He loves Jesus. He loves getting together with other people who love Jesus, and that family relationship exists.
Secondly, he's a fellow worker. The Greek word here is sunergo, Sun means together and ergo is where we get energy from. So the word is sunergos, where we get our word ‘synergy’ from. Synergy. You know what synergy is. This person could produce three things and this person could produce five things, but when they work together, they can produce more than eight. They can produce ten things because of synergy. This is what a fellow worker is. This is why we work together in the body of Christ. We mutually encourage each other, and that energy that's provided through our mutual work increases the production or the ability to advance the gospel. He's a fellow worker.
Next is a fellow soldier, which gives the impression that we're fighting a war or a battle. And we are. Remember last week we talked about a crooked and twisted generation. We live in a world where the culture is attacking us and we must be on the offensive with God's strategies to be able to not only defend ourselves, but to win others to Christ. There's this battle that we're engaged in.
Fellow soldier, who is also your messenger. The word messenger is the word apostellein, where we get our word ‘apostle.’ Sometimes people ask me, “Do we still have apostles today?” It's kind of a trick question, really. Because on the one hand, we say, well there's no more creation of scripture. Nobody's writing any more books of the Bible today. Nobody's going to add to the scriptures as the authoritative standard. So in that sense, there's no apostle. But there is this sense in which were all apostles, we’re all messengers, we’re all apostellein, as the word is being used here.
That he is your messenger and minister to my needs. Now we're starting to get into the second one. That not only is he reliable, but he is compassionate. He's ministering to my needs. That becomes the second one.
But notice in the next verses, starting in verse 26, how many words he's emotionally connecting these compassionate feeling words are used. Let me read this. Because this is where we see that not only is Epaphroditus a reliable person with all those five words, but he's also someone who cares. Listen to the words. For he has been longing for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. He was sick indeed, nearly unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. So Epaphroditus is a guy who cares. He has this compassion. Remember, that's the second ingredient that he needed. So that's the second one. Now he has mercy on him, he has compassion.
Then notice, let's go to the rest of the verse in verse 28. He talks about how he's eager to send someone. He's eager to send Epaphroditus to these people. And again, he's available. That's the third thing. Are you available? So you see here, Epaphroditus is reliable, he's compassionate, and he's available. The same things that we need in our lives.
Let me finish the passage, and then we'll talk about it a little bit more. It says there – So that when you see him again you may rejoice, and I may be less anxious. There's that word anxious again. When we get to chapter 4, we'll do a theology of anxiety a little bit and we'll learn some practical things. But here's our word again.
Verse 29 – Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him, because he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for your deficit of service to me.
So there we have it. We have these two guys who had three qualities. Those qualities are compassion, availability, and reliability – the same things that you and I have. God is saying I want to pass on this message to you so that you can share it with others. I'm looking for faithful people, reliable people, I'm looking for people who are compassionate because I have a message called the gospel that I want to advance. I want to spread it around and give it to people. That's the message. Now the question is, are we in that place where we can take that message and run with it?
I heard a man say this once. A pastor said this. “Oh we must share the gospel with others because we're only one generation from extinction.” In other words, we could lose the whole church in a generation if we don't share the gospel with other people. Now he's using that as a motive. His motive is fear. So in other words, you better share the gospel or we're not going to have what we want – this church in a generation. I think that's just plain bad theology. I just got to tell you, okay, that is not good theology to say that the continuing of God's church is on my shoulders and your shoulders. It is not. It's Jesus who said to Peter – Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell will not stand against it. This is God's church; it will continue whether I am faithful or not. Whether you're faithful or not, God's church is going on. It's His church. He's responsible for it. It's not going to die out in a generation because some people aren't sharing the gospel. A particular church may die. But God's church in general is going forward. It's His design. It's powered by Him. We do not share the gospel out of obligation. We share the gospel out of privilege and opportunity. We have the opportunity to be part of this big plan, this big adventure that God has created for all of humanity. And we have the privilege to be a part of it.
It's as if I were to say today, “We have a special guest today here. He's got an agenda. Jesus Christ is here with us. I'm going to hand the mic over to Him. And He's going to share with you now what He's got planned.” So Jesus steps in and says, “Thank you very much, Calvary Chapel Living Hope. I really like you guys. You're doing a lot of things that are well here. Hey, I've got to tell you about my big plan for the church. I've got all kinds of things planned and I'm looking for people who are compassionate, and reliable, and available. I know some of you are and you want to help. And so here, I've got some things. Would you let me know who would like to volunteer for this? I've got a couple that is struggling in their marriage over here. Well really, they don't know me yet. So I need someone who wants to take the grace… I'll show you. I'll give you the grace. All you have to do is share with this person a little bit at work. And when you do, that guy's going to come to Christ and through that it's going to start the ball rolling and their marriage relationship is going to get healed. Which one of you would like that opportunity?” And somebody raises their hand. “Okay, I'm going to give that to you. Your job is to share at work and just watch what happened. It's going to be amazing.”
God says, “Now I have another person, I have the next Billy Graham is going to come on to the scene here. I need a Sunday school teacher who's willing to work with this young boy in order that He might come to Christ. Because he's going to be the next Billy Graham. Who would like to be that person?” See I think every time you see the announcement about Sunday school teachers in the…it's not about oh we need Sunday school teachers. No, it's not obligation. It's this opportunity to meet the next generation and lead them. And Jesus says, “Now who would like to volunteer for that? Oh, good. We got a couple volunteers that are willing to do it. That's great.”
Or maybe Jesus says, “Now look, this church is a great church, but I think what you guys need is another building here. So I've got a million dollars that I would like to pass on to your church through someone. Who here would like to be the vehicle through whom that million dollar comes?” Let me ask you this. I mean, you know that God passes energy and time and money onto His church through people, right? Would you like to be a person that says, “Okay, Lord, I'll be that person. You give me a million dollars? I'll give it to the church. So I’ll advance your kingdom in that way.”
My dad lived that way. Every day my dad lived this way. Here’s what my dad said to the Lord. He said, “Lord, if you give me any unexpected money, that is money that I wasn't expecting to come into my life, I'll view that as you allowing me to be this grace tunnel and I'll pass it on to your work. That's what I'll do.” And my dad kept a journal every day of the money that came in, unexpected money. This is like if he did a job somewhere and they gave him a tip, that was expected, that wasn't counted. But if he found some money – “Oh look at that. There's some money. I found some money. That's great. I'll pass that. Thank you God for giving me that.” And he kept a journal these things. My mom has this journal today. “Found one penny at McDonald's. Found $1 in a parking lot. Found a quarter in a payphone.” I mean, it just goes right down the list. He said in one, he went to buy a refrigerator and the refrigerator cost $1,000. My dad, you know, dickers with them to get down to $1,000 because my dad likes to dicker with everybody. He gets the price down to $1,000 and he says, “Okay, I'll take that.” He starts to write out the check. The manager comes over and says, “Hey, what, we're going to give you another $100 off.” My dad says, “Whoa, there it is. There's $100 I'm going to give to the Lord that I was going to put on this refrigerator.” My dad gave thousands of dollars. He had a jar to put his pennies into.
You know, I was kind of embarrassed by this. My dad is writing down he found a penny and found a dime. He would say, “Scott, there's a dime on the ground.” “Dad, come on. It's only a dime.” He says, “If you can't be responsible with a dime, how is God going to give you $10,000?” So now I kind of feel this. Every time I see…I'm crossing a busy street and I see a quarter on the floor, I'm the one who's going to get hit by the car because I'm trying to pick up the quarter in order to be faithful. But the point is, God uses people to pass money on to His kingdom. That's what He does.
Oh here's another story I like tied in with this. This is a story about a Sunday school teacher. In 1858 in the city of Boston Edward Kimball was a young Sunday school teacher and he wanted to provide every one of his students that he worked with with the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. So he went to the place where this one young man was putting shoe boxes at the shoe store, putting them away. His name was Dwight L. Moody. He led Dwight L. Moody to the Lord in the shoe store. And he became one of the great evangelists of our time. D.L. Moody then preached in a little chapel pastored by a young man named Frederic Meyer. Just a small chapel, a preacher. He told him the story of his Sunday school teacher. And so Frederic Meyer accepted Christ and he became an evangelist. He preached in America and he preached in Northfield, Massachusetts. Wilbur Chapman was there and listen to him. Now Wilbur Chapman started sharing the gospel with people and became a Christian, loved the Lord. He enlisted the help of a volunteer that he had at these crusades. His name was Billy Sunday. Maybe you've heard of Billy Sunday. He went around and he did these different evangelistic services in churches. One time he had a guy come on his behalf. His name is Mordecai Ham, and he did these evangelistic services. A farmer says, “Hey, all you teenagers, come on, let's go listen to this evangelist.” So all of these teenagers get in this old guy’s big farmer’s truck, and they head out. One of those guys was sixteen years old and his name was Billy Graham. Of course we know Billy Graham. He becomes famous and he shares the gospel with people all over. It started with a Sunday school teacher who was willing to share the gospel with someone. No wonder. Now you know why I love kids so much. It's powerful to see what God does in the lives of people who are willing and available to pass in advance the gospel to other people.
Well, the story doesn't end there. Because there was another teenage man who sat in one of Billy Graham's revival services, his evangelistic services. As a teenager, he came to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. His name was John Turansky. That was my father. And when I asked the question, if somebody asked me recently, “Tell me someone who had a significant influence on your life,” I say, “Well it was my dad who helped me fall in love with God's church, to understand more about what it means to follow the Lord in my life.” I'm grateful for a Sunday school teacher whose name I didn't even know. His name was Edward Kimball, who shared the gospel. He was available, he was faithful, he was compassionate, and willing to pass on the message to others. Wow. That's where I want to be. I want to have those three qualities. I say, “God, give it to me.”
God is waiting for people. And He doesn't do it out of obligation. He does it through opportunity. Would you like an opportunity to advance the gospel? The answer is yes. This is the greatest adventure that exists in our world today.
Now, I don't know what God has planned for Calvary Chapel Living Hope. Maybe, you know, we’ll merge with another church somehow. I don't know. Or maybe, like, recently, I heard I think yesterday there's a church in Princeton that another church now has come in and taken over their building and kind of… I'm thinking, where were we? How come we weren’t in the line for that? I would have loved to be part of that and have that building. That would have been great. Or maybe there's another church that's kind of dying (can I say that) and they want to give up their building and the Lord would give that to us. That'd be great. Or maybe the Lord's just going to provide us with five million dollars so we can go out and build and buy our own place. I don't know. We are in the waiting-for-a-miracle stage at Calvary Chapel Living Hope. But we're not just sitting around. We are being available for God to use in so many different ways right now in the life of the church.
So hey, that's where I'm at. I'm in. Count me in, Lord. I want to be compassionate. I want to be available. I want to be reliable and growing in my life. I'm in. I'm ready. Use me. And I know many of you are there too. So I'm honored and grateful to be working with you in that regard. Let's see what's God's going to do? And would you stand up here and give a testimony of what He did do in your life? Opportunities to serve the Lord.
Let's pray together.
