A Little Help from My Friends - Part B

All of us, all of us live in one of two places. We either live in Philippians 1 21 or Philippians 2 21. Philippians 1 21 reads, For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Philippians 2 21, you just read it, all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. You either live in 1 21 or 2 21. Think of it this way, you're turning 21. Which 21 are you turning?

1 21 or 2 21? Seeking your own, not Jesus, or for me to live is Christ and to die is gain. We all live in one of two camps. It's easy to have superficial friendships these days, especially in a social media world. Today on Connect with Skip Hightake, Skip shares from Paul's Epistle how you can be a true and loyal friend. Now we want to tell you about a resource that will help you grow stronger in your faith. Reading the Bible can lead to asking some serious questions like, Is the rapture real?

Or, How can I overcome anxiety? These two questions are among those answered in Pastor Skip's Picks, a new DVD of four impactful messages by Skip Hightake. Imagine knowing somebody who knows everything about you.

Now imagine somebody who knows everything about you and loves you anyway. That's what we're dealing with when we deal with the knowledge of God. This collection of some of Pastor Skip's most memorable teachings also includes What Most People Don't Know About Heaven. And it's our thanks for your gift of $25 or more to connect more people to God's life-changing word.

Visit connectwithskip.com slash offer to give online securely or call 800-922-1888. 800-922-1888 and request your copy of Pastor Skip's Picks. Okay, we're in Philippians chapter 2 as Skip Hightake starts today's study. It's a parable called the parable of the two servants. And Jesus makes this remark, Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find so doing. I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods.

Faithfulness leads to fruitfulness. The second parable in the next chapter, Matthew 25, is about the parable of the talents. Now don't think of talents as the ability to like sing and dance or something like that.

We're talking about monetary commissions. So he gave five talents to one, two talents to another, one talent to another. This is money, bags of silver or gold. Jesus said, Well done good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

You remember that? Enter into the joy of your Lord. Most people think that means heaven. But I think what it means is you've been faithful. So now you're going to be more fruitful and the joy of your Lord is expanded service.

That's the joy of your Lord. You get to do more. So the principle is the more reliable you are, the more valuable you become and faithfulness will lead to fruitfulness. So then the first quality of a mature friend is a good friend, a mature friend is reliable. Second, a mature friend is compatible. In verse 20 Paul says, For I have no one like minded, mark that word like minded, who will sincerely care or naturally care for your state. In friendships, in fact in any relationship, we talk about compatibility.

Are they compatible? What we mean is they're personalities that are better suited to other personalities and some personalities that just aren't suited to different ones. Even Aristotle, the great Greek thinker, notice that there is what he called a natural affinity in friendship, that people will get together or gravitate toward other people who like the same thing they like.

There's a compatibility of interest or a compatibility of goal. So Paul uses the word, notice, like minded. And the reason I'm having you notice the word is because the only single time it appears in the New Testament is here.

It's never used anywhere else. The Greek word isopsukas. Isopsukas literally means equal-souled or like-souled. We are of one soul, Paul is saying of Timothy. It's sort of like David and Jonathan. You remember in the Old Testament, 1 Samuel 18, we were told the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David. They were like-souled, equal-souled.

C.S. Lewis once wrote, true friends don't spend time just gazing into each other's eyes, but they face the same direction toward common projects, interests, goals, and above all, toward a common Lord. So get this, Timothy and Paul had the same goal. Their goal was to serve God and to serve God's people.

But here's what's remarkable. There were hundreds of Christians at this time in the city of Rome. And Paul probably knew a bunch of them. In fact, at the end of his letter to the Romans, Romans 16, Paul lists personal friends, personal names, 27 personal names.

So he must have known a lot of them. But what he's saying is, of all the ones that I know at Rome, there is only one person who shares the same soul that I do. We are soul mates in that he has the same interests and the same goal for Christ that I do. 1 Corinthians 16, 10, Paul describes Timothy, he does the work of the Lord as I do also. Twice in the very last letter Paul ever wrote in his life, 2 Timothy, he writes to Timothy saying twice, you have carefully followed my doctrine, my manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love, and perseverance. Those guys are like-souled, like-minded.

So, find someone who pursues Jesus Christ as much as you do and walk into the future with that person. That's what I did with my wife. My wife Lenny and I, we're very similar in certain respects, but very, very different in others. But of all the differences that we have, and I remember at first in our marriage there were things that we did that sort of irritated us, now we sort of laugh at them and we enjoy them. We've learned to accommodate. But one thing we agree on, one thing we are like-minded on, and that is our pursuit of Christ. We are like-souled.

So, a mature friend is reliable, a mature friend is compatible, here's the third, a good friend, a mature friend is thoughtful. In verse 20 he says, I have no one like-minded who will sincerely care for your state, verse 21, for all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. Now we're back to that servant thing again, and Paul's been harping on that for several verses. And perhaps just when you thought it was over and you could move on, you were thinking, Skip, I remember we had a couple weeks of telling us that we had to serve one another and love one another and be humble with each other and all that stuff, and I'm just so glad we're done with that and we can move on to real life. Well, evidently to Paul, you're not done.

Because he keeps bringing it up and using example after example and application after application. And so he said, Let this mind be any which is also in Christ Jesus, but he said as his premise, Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility or lowliness of mind, let each of us esteem others better than himself. That's a wonderful passage. Trouble is, it's hard. That's difficult to actually esteem, prefer others more than ourselves.

Well, one who did that was Timothy. He will sincerely care for your state. In other words, he genuinely cares for your welfare. The word sincerely simply means he's the real deal. There's nothing fake about him. There's nothing phony about him.

There's nothing hypocritical. He actually cares. Timothy didn't plaster a fake smile on him so that he could sell you something or that he'd get a bigger tip.

He actually genuinely cared. I think you can tell if somebody is sincere in their care. I mean, animals can. I found this funny little study, a scientific journal, where they took dogs and put them in MRI scanners with something to read brain waves. And they noted dogs care about what we say and how we say it. I found it fascinating that they can process word meaning and intonation. They have a big vocabulary, but they get the basic rudimentary commands and things that you say. But they listen to the words they're familiar with, but also how you say them. Now, this has nothing at all to do with my study.

I just thought it was fascinating. Except for this. I think if animals know and they can tell if we're sincere or not, certainly human beings can. And Paul knew that of Timothy, that he esteems others better than himself. He's not self-centered. He's not thinking, what about me?

He's thinking, what about them? So a friend of mine signed me up for this thing called 23andMe. Have you heard of that?

Do you know what that is, 23andMe? It was a gift that was given to me, and you send a sample of saliva in, and they test your DNA. They find out what your background is, what percentage of this ethnic group you are. And I thought, well, that'd be fascinating. But not only do they do genetic research, they want to find out behavior patterns, so they ask you a series of questions.

And they have sent me several emails. Could you answer these questions? Thank you. You answer more than a large percentage. Could you answer more questions? Well, I got one yesterday that asked me a few questions. I just wanted you to hear the first two. Number one, they said, how narcissistic do you think you are? That was the question.

And they give you different options. I'm not at all narcissistic, which only a narcissist would say. I am very narcissistic, which I don't know who would say that. And then something in there, I'm somewhat narcissistic. So I looked at it and thought, who is going to answer that honestly, ever? How narcissistic do you think you are? So I thought, you know, most people will probably say somewhat narcissistic.

That's safe. That's how I answered it, at least. Second question that they sent me was, on a scale of one to five, how much do you like helping other people?

And again, I thought, I wonder how many people are really going to be honest with this. Okay, so now look at verse 21. He goes from saying, I have nobody like-minded who will really care. Now he makes a contrast in verse 21. For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus.

That is an amazing statement. For everybody seeks their own, not the things that are of Christ. The Moffat translation puts it this way, everybody is selfish. The New Living Translation renders it, for all others care only for themselves. Now we're not actually sure who Paul was referring to here. But a surface reading of this, most of us would think, well he's probably describing the unbelieving world, the unconverted world.

The people generally in the world are selfish in their living. I don't believe he's referring to that. I believe that my strong conviction is, he's referring to Christian people. You know how I believe that? Because he has just written in chapter one, he said that some in Rome who were Christian people were preaching through envy and strife and selfish ambition.

He noted that, he said they're making it worse for me while I'm in jail. You see Paul had been around people, he knew people. And he knew that sometimes people, church people, just want you to think they're church people. They speak Christianese.

They got a down pat. God bless you brother, sister, praise the Lord. Hallelujah, thank you Jesus. I'm reading my Bible, they just say all the right stuff.

But they have their own agenda. And Paul knew from personal experience, I've got a group of people here in Rome, who are preaching from envy, strife, selfish ambition, for all seek their own, not the things that are of Jesus. Timothy however, really cares. Remember in the Gospel of John, Jesus was gaining a large crowd, and we are told this, many believed in his name, when they saw the signs that he performed. But Jesus did not commit himself to them, because he knew all men, and he had no need that anybody testify of man. I think Paul knew men too.

But he knew that Timothy was a breath of fresh air. Some of you may be familiar with the person I'm about to announce. He was a French cleric over a thousand years ago.

His name was Bernard, Bernard of Clairvaux. And he made some very interesting observations about us as human beings. He said there are four stages of Christian maturity. See if you can relate to this. Stage number one, love of self for self sake.

That's about as basic as you can get. It's all about me, I love myself. How do I look? How do I feel?

How do you make me feel? It's love of self for self sake. That's stage number one. Stage number two, love of God for self sake. Stage number three, love of God for God's sake. And stage number four, love of self for God's sake.

Now without going through all those stages, let me just say that my observation is that many of us Christians are still at stage number two. We love God for our self's sake. We love God because God makes me feel good. And as long as God keeps giving me what I think he ought to be giving me and blessing me like he ought to be blessing me, well I'm going to love him.

But if he doesn't, that may go away. It's love of God for the sake of myself, not for him, not for his glory. It's all about me. Think of it this way. All of us, all of us live in one of two places. We either live in Philippians 1.21 or Philippians 2.21. Philippians 1.21 reads, For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.

Philippians 2.21, you just read it, all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. You either live in 1.21 or 2.21. Think of it this way. You're turning 21. Which 21 are you turning?

1.21 or 2.21? Seeking your own, not Jesus? Or for me to live is Christ and to die is gain?

We all live in one of two camps. A gal by the name of Ruth Culkin wrote a piece that has stuck with me for years. Let me read it to you.

It's a prayer. She says, You know, Lord, how I serve you with great emotional fervor in the limelight. You know how eagerly I speak for you at a woman's club. You know how I effervesce when I promote a fellowship group. You know my genuine enthusiasm at a Bible study. But how would I react, I wonder, if you pointed to a basin of water and asked me to wash the callous feet of a bent and wrinkled old woman day after day and month after month in a room where nobody saw and nobody knew?

I was deeply convicted when I first read that and I still am when I read it now. Because only the Lord knows if I'm in 1.21 or 2.21. But I think we could all say I want to be in 2.21.

I hope that we're going from level two all the way up to three and four. Well, a mature friend is reliable. A mature friend is compatible. A mature friend is thoughtful.

Let me give you a fourth and we'll close out. A mature friend is loyal. I'm going to have you look at verse 22. Speaking of Timothy, he says, But you know his proven character, that as a son with his father, he served with me in the gospel.

His point is this. Timothy was not a novice. He was seasoned. He had maturity.

He had mileage, spiritual mileage under his spiritual belt. He said he had proven character. Now that word, proven character, it's just a single word in Greek, docimene, and it means to prove something or make something known as valuable after it has gone through a testing. And so they would test metals or they would test horses. And once it was tested, then it was proven to be valuable because it's gone through the test. And today, everything's tested. Your car, they just didn't sell you your car and cross their fingers and say, I hope it runs. They took it to a factory. They put a dummy, not one of us, a crash dummy in it, and they rammed it up into a wall and they wanted to make sure the airbags deploy and the electronics work, et cetera. It was tested. Everything from toasters to toilets are tested.

And it's the testing that proves the worth or proves the value. So Paul didn't just add Timothy to his evangelistic team day one after his conversion. He waited a couple years until he came back through Lystra and Derby and saw him a second time. And we are told in Acts 16, Timothy was well spoken of by the brethren. It was that endorsement that caused Paul to say, Tim, I want you to join my team.

And so young Tim joined Paul's team and followed him throughout Macedonia and Corinth and then to Jerusalem when Paul brought a special offering of money for the suffering church in Jerusalem. The point is this. There must be waiting before there is working. There must be a testing period before there is a teaming up with another person, especially in ministry, because rapid advancement in ministry can cause someone to become proud. This is why Paul said, Timothy, he wrote to Timothy, 1 and 2 Timothy, he said, when you choose up leaders, make sure they're seasoned. His words, not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride, he falls into the same condemnation as the devil.

You know, I have noticed over the years that whenever somebody famous, some rock star, some singer, some actor, makes any overture of belief in Jesus Christ, the church wants to immediately platform them. Bring them in. Have them stand up and share his testimony.

No. Don't have him do that. Have him get rooted and grounded first and grow. Otherwise, he'll become a tree whose branches go out further than his roots go down and that tree will topple.

And when that tree topples, the world is going to look and go, aha, another fake one. So Paul made sure Timothy was loyal and that loyalty turned into a long-term reliability. And so he mentions him 24 times, Paul does, in all of his writings. And I love this relationship, how it's said, as a son is with his father. Paul thought of Timothy as his son in the faith. And he writes about that here, as a son is with his father.

I'll close with this. I don't know if you know who Henry Luce is, L-U-C-E. Henry Luce was the founder of Time Life Incorporated. So that great communication enterprise. Henry Luce probably influenced world opinion more than any single publisher in recent history. In fact, when he was alive, he was called the most influential private citizen in America. Well, he talks about his early life. He said he was raised the son of a missionary in China.

Raised in China, his father had enormous responsibility renting a school, running his mission. And he said every evening my dad would take me for a walk. But he said what was interesting is my father spoke to me as though I were an adult.

He said I was just a kid. Walking next to my dad and my dad would talk about the philosophy of education and things that I didn't quite know. But it just elevated me and I felt like, man, I'm not just a kid, I'm not just his son, I'm his friend. He felt so honored that his father made him a friend. What an honor to be called a friend of Paul the Apostle. It's an honorable title, just a friend of anyone, but a friend of Paul the Apostle. And do you know who was called a friend of God? Can you think of his name in the Bible? Anybody? Paul shouted out Abraham was called the friend of God.

Only one who had that title. What an honor, huh? For God to say, hey, do you know my buddy Abraham? My friend, my good friend.

Here's the truth. When Jesus Christ becomes your savior, he brings you into a relationship with his father so you become a child of God. But more than that, a friend. Jesus said to his followers, from this day on, I don't call you just my servants.

You're my friend. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from the series Technicolor Joy. Right now, here's Skip with an important message for you. Well, no matter how difficult life might get, you can still have deep abiding joy through Christ because when you invite Jesus into your life, he sets your heart free and fills you with his peace.

The Bible calls it a peace that passes all human understanding. We want to share that great news with so many others, and you can be a part of that today. When you give a gift, you help take the gospel of Jesus to more people all around the world. Here's how you can do that. Give us a call at 800-922-1888 to give a gift.

800-922-1888. Or give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate.

Thank you for giving generously. Tune in again tomorrow as Skip Heitzig looks to the Apostle Paul for insight on how you can treat others with the same love and compassion Christ showed you. You don't want to miss that. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on his word, make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.