Model Spiritual Servants, Part 2: Timothy B

Nobody else was so consumed with the gospel extension as Timothy was. Sure, he learned it from Paul. He was a willing learner and a marvelous disciple of Paul. He lived for one great reality. Gospel advance. Salvation of souls.

I don't care what you do in life. That's got to be the underlying thing. It has to be. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Ever found yourself thinking about a particular standard in the Bible and you realized you're missing the mark? You're falling short of the standard. We've all been there. So you can see why a person who has a record of faithfully pursuing God's standards is exemplary. And John MacArthur calls the power of that sort of exemplary life the single greatest tool of spiritual leadership. So get ready now for a look at one of the Bible's remarkable leaders, a man named Timothy. John MacArthur will show you seven virtues of Timothy that elevated him to the ranks of the greatest heroes of the faith.

To continue his study called Heaven's Heroes, here's John. Let's open our Bibles to Philippians chapter 2. We're looking at verses 17 through 30 as the setting for our message. Philippians 2, 17 to 30 presents to us three model spiritual servants. As we look at Timothy, let me just remind you of a great general principle that comes through in all three of these illustrations in this text. Thomas Brooks said, example is the most powerful rhetoric.

And that's what we're seeing here. After many verses of duty, many verses that give us principle for living, we now have a model to follow. Let's look at verse 19 and meet Timothy, the single-minded sympathizer. But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. Now, since Timothy is going to the Philippians, he wants them to accept him. And he doesn't want any equivocation on that.

So starting in verse 20, he gives us a profile of Timothy. And it is beautiful. It is magnificent. And it is real. It is a pattern. It is an example. It is a model for us to follow.

This choice servant. And I want you to see seven features that Timothy models in the matter of spiritual living. He is a unique young man. He lived a sacrificial life for the sake of Paul, for the sake of Christ. And there are seven things Paul notes that mark him out as a model of spiritual virtue. Number one, let's just say he is similar.

Let's use the word similar only for the sake of S's. So we start with the fact that Paul said, be imitators of me, and that's where it all begins. We must imitate Paul. We must have his responses and his zeal and his passion and his attitude and his heart. And Timothy did. So he was similar to the apostolic model. Then we go on to a next quality. He was sympathetic.

This, too, much more specific than that general one we just mentioned first. Timothy was sympathetic. Please notice verse 20 again. I have no one else of kindred spirit, here it comes, who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. That means he was sympathetic, genuinely concerned for your welfare. The word genuinely, just what it says, legitimately, not spuriously, not hypocritically. He has the disposition of a true shepherd.

He cares about you. Would you notice also that the term concerned for your welfare is very interesting. It's a strong verb, very strong. It's used in chapter 4 verse 6. Only there it's translated this way, be anxious for nothing. We translate it under the idea of worry or being burdened in a very serious way. And that's what it is here. It could read, verse 20, who will genuinely be anxious for your welfare. Who will be burdened for your welfare.

Who will genuinely feel deeply your needs. That's the idea. You say, but how can Timothy be commended for being anxious and we be instructed in chapter 4 verse 6, be anxious for nothing. Isn't that a contradiction?

No. In chapter 4 verse 6, be anxious for nothing means not to worry about your own life circumstances. Chapter 2 verse 20, Timothy was compassionately, sympathetically concerned about someone else's spiritual needs. One is unselfish, the other is selfish, and that's the distinction. Timothy was a man of great sympathy and that's why he is a model for us to follow. A man of sympathy, a man of tenderness, a man of compassion, a man who carried burdens deeply and felt those burdens. There's a third characteristic of this young man. He was also single-minded. He was also single-minded.

I love this. In verse 21, for they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. For they all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus.

Did you see that? That's really kind of tragic when you think about it. Here's the apostle Paul, right? He's come to a point in his life where he's a prisoner. He has left a trail of evangelized individuals. There are many believers around him. There are believers in Rome in Caesar's household. There are believers in Rome beyond Caesar's household. There are the special brethren who are attending to him and serving him. And yet he says in verse 21, they all seek after their own interests. Now that term all excludes every exception. You say all the believers in Rome? All of them?

That's what it says. And again I remind you, it doesn't include Luke and Aristarchus and maybe some other brethren who had been dispatched to some other duty. But he's saying, I'm sending Timothy because no one else is as single-minded as he is. Notice it again. They seek after their own interests.

The idea is Timothy is consumed with the interests of Christ Jesus. This is a man who is single-minded. By the way, that phrase, they all seek after their own interests is in the present tense.

They all are continually seeking after their own interests. Isn't that sad? I think about the fact that when he came to the end of his life, he said, Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world. I can understand a man forsaking me.

I've had that happen. I prayed with a man every morning for over a year. And at the end of that time, he left his wife and left his children and denied the faith and has to this day. He was a man that was as close to me as any man in those early years of our ministry here in the first two or three years. I mean, I understand that for me, but for Paul, you know, you sort of have the idea that Paul would have such a convincing life that nobody would ever turn out anything but monumentally successful in reproducing the model. Some sense you see the humanness of Paul and the sadness of ministry. Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present world. And then there is his statement in 1 Timothy where he says, At my first defense no one was at my side, but all deserted me. Another place, he says, all in Asia have forsaken me. I mean, the very people from whom he expected help in his trials and in the hard times of his life were bailing out when the pressure was on.

And as he stops to think about who he might send, he says, I have only one who is of kindred spirit. All the rest care about their own things. They have a lack of genuine interest. So we're not really surprised to see verse 21. It was a part of his life.

It's a part of my life. It's a part of the life of anyone who ministers and it's tragic and it's disappointing. But he says, I do have one and that's more than many can say, I think. I've often said if God just gave me one Timothy, I would have had a life worth living. Timothy was single-minded, moving from the ones that he couldn't send to the one he could. They all seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. That last phrase applies to Timothy. He seeks the things of Christ. In other words, he lives with that single-minded devotion. Few and far between are such. When I was young, I remember my grandfather saying, Johnny, do just one thing, one thing well in your life and you'll be way ahead of most people.

I've never forgotten that. And if I appear to be a rather one-dimensional person, blame it on my grandfather or blame it on single-mindedness. A man can destroy his life in three ways. The first is to give in to his lazy, slothful nature and do nothing. You know, that's the guy that buys a guitar, puts on a pair of shorts, goes to the beach in sunny California and lies around frying in his own fat. Great way to waste your life.

There are a lot of other forms of it, but it's the same basic thing. Just waste your life. The second way to destroy your life is to give yourself to a goal. Fail down that goal, find that goal, identify that goal and go for that goal all your life, only to find out at the end, wrong goal. A lot of people have poured out tears and bitter regret over that kind of thing.

And the third way to ruin your life and destroy your life is to dabble in a whole bunch of things and never do anything. And that's where most people fall. I see young men in the ministry and I have a great burden for that because I see them dabbling and not focused on one thing. What made Timothy so special in ministry was he was utterly single-minded. While everybody else had a lot of interest, he had only interest in the things of Christ Jesus. As John Calvin wrote, involved in their own private affairs, people are the more negligent to promote the church. For it must necessarily be that one or other of two dispositions rules us. Either that overlooking ourselves we are devoted to Christ and the things that are Christ's or that too intent on our own advantage we serve Christ perfunctorily."

He's right. The church is made up of the perfunctory servers for whom Christ is one of the items on the agenda and the consumed people who make the difference. Timothy was one of those similar to the apostolic standard, sympathetic and compassionate toward the church, single-minded in being interested only in Christ. That's like Paul, isn't it? I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ. The fourth thing about Timothy that makes him a good model for us is he was also seasoned.

He was seasoned. Verse 22, Paul says, you know of his proven worth. Just that phrase, you know of his proven worth.

This is not an unknown quantity here. Timothy's integrity was well established. You know, ginosko, by experience is the implication. You've experienced his validity, his proven worth, dakimin. That word from dakimas, a familiar New Testament word, means to be approved after testing. He has passed the test. He was proven, please note, not by school, but by service.

Not by a test, but by testings and trials. Previous ministry on a number of occasions had provided evidence of Timothy's spiritual character and maturity. As I noted, he was there when the church began in Acts 16. You read Acts 19, Acts 20, you'll see again that he intersects with the Philippian congregation. They knew, you know, by personal experience, the proven worth of this man.

He was known to you from the start. By the way, 2 Corinthians appears to have been written from Philippi also. And as I mentioned earlier, Paul and Timothy were together in the writing of that epistle.

And so he was there even at that writing and certainly was well known to them. This unique servant of the Lord was a seasoned man. You'll remember that in the qualifications for elder, 1 Timothy chapter 3, it could not be more clear as to what the standard must be. The apostle Paul writes to Timothy that this man who is an elder must not be a new convert, lest he become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil. And then in verse 10 regarding deacon, he says, Let these also first be tested. And the also means that the elders had to be tested just as the elders are tested also, the deacons have to be tested. In other words, they have to be dakimas, proven after testing. And again I say, not proven in school, but proven in service. Not proven by a test, but proven through testings. This is a man who is a model spiritual servant because he is seasoned.

He has been proven. Then there's number five. The fifth characteristic of this model servant, he was submissive. He was submissive.

This is so good. It says, He served with me. Verse 22, You know of his proven worth that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child serving his father. Now just take this much of that. He served with me like a child serving his father.

We'll drop that middle section out and consider it as a separate point in a moment. The word served is to slave. He slaved with me.

Sunimoi. Please note this. It doesn't say he served me. It doesn't say he served under me. It says he slaved with me. He's a fellow slave. Paul doesn't see himself as the master and Timothy as the slave.

He slaved alongside of me. Just like he said to him in 2 Timothy 2, Suffer hardship along with me as a good servant of Christ. He sees Timothy as an equal.

That's again his humility. He sees Timothy in the spiritual dimension as an equal. He slaved along with me. But from Timothy's viewpoint, his attitude was like a child serving his father. It isn't a master and a slave. It isn't a sergeant at a private relationship. He slaved with me with the mentality of a son serving alongside his father.

So that whatever submission was there was not a forced submission but an earned respect. Both were servants of God, both slaved side by side. But Timothy with the willing, loving submission of a son who honors and respects and wants to learn from the father of his love.

The word for son here is not wian, which is the generic word for son, but teknan, which means child. He served alongside me as if he were a little boy and I was his spiritual father. That's marvelous. Marvelous. Beautiful submission.

Wonderful meekness. He never competed with Paul. No more than a little boy competes with a father of his heart's affection. But he came alongside his father. From his father's view, they were serving together.

From the boy's view, he was lovingly and affectionately looking at his father whom he loved and honored and learning from him with joy. That's why he calls him my true child in the faith. Timothy was submissive, but not because he was forced to be, but because he so greatly esteemed his spiritual superior. This is a model of spiritual virtue. May God help us to have such a heart toward those who are over us in the Lord, to esteem them highly in love for their work's sake, as Paul said to the Thessalonians.

As Hebrews 13 says, to follow their faith. Model spiritual living demands that you come alongside those who are the fathers, the spiritual fathers, and look at them with love and esteem and respect and honor as a little fellow does the father of his love. That alone could heal congregations of immense difficulties. He was a model servant, similar to the apostolic model, sympathetic, single-minded, seasoned, submissive.

Number six, sacrificial. And now let me take that little phrase in verse 22, in the furtherance of the gospel. He served with me in the furtherance of the gospel. That points up to me, Timothy's sacrifice. I don't know what Timothy's plans were when he was picked up by Paul in Acts 16. He was there and a young man, no doubt he had some life direction.

I don't know what his father did either, but Timothy probably had some career goals in mind. The next thing he knew, he was called by the Apostle Paul to come along with him. There was the laying on of the hands of the presbytery to set him apart in the ministry, and off he went with the Apostle Paul on one unending, non-stop adventure.

And that unending, non-stop adventure ultimately landed, according to Hebrews chapter 13, verse 23, in prison for Timothy. He was released. We don't know what finally happened to him, but he lived a totally sacrificial life. Whatever his own agenda was, whatever his training was, whatever his plans were, he set them all aside and he slaved alongside of me for the furtherance of the gospel.

He was consumed to sacrifice his life for the cause of evangelism. As far as I know, he left his home. As far as I know, he never fell in love. As far as I know, he never married.

As far as I know, he never had a child. All the joys of life were forfeited. And the sacrificial character of Paul had so impacted him that he literally gave his life up for the furtherance of the gospel. That's why he's so unique, so unique. Nobody else had that kind of spirit. Nobody else sought only the interest of Christ. Nobody else was so consumed with the gospel extension as Timothy was. Sure, he learned it from Paul. He was a willing learner and a marvelous disciple of Paul. He lived for one great reality, gospel advance, salvation of souls. I don't care what you do in life, that's got to be the underlying thing.

It has to be. So we come with all of that to the last characteristic. And it really sums it up. Here is a man who is similar to Paul. He's imitating him. He is sympathetic for others. He is single-mindedly consumed with the interest of Christ. He is seasoned by experience and trials.

He is submissive by choice as a loving son is to the one who disciples him. He is sacrificial so that his life is focused on one thing, advanced the gospel in the hearts of the lost. And finally, because of all of this, can we say he was, number seven, serviceable, serviceable. Such a man is eminently useful. Such a man is greatly useful.

Anyone in the Lord's service would long for such a man. So he says in verse 23, Therefore I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me. He's so useful.

He's always useful. Paul says, Go, he goes. Paul says, Stay, he stays. Paul says, Come with me, he comes.

That was his life. Always useful. Always available. If I send him now, he'll go. If I wait a while, he'll wait. This is a very, very unusual man.

Could we go so far as to say there is no time in all the pages of the New Testament that you ever see Timothy with his own agenda? A very serviceable, useful, available man. Paul says, I need him right now. When I don't need him anymore and you need him, he'll come to you, and then when I need him, he'll come back to me. What a man. What a man. One of the hard things must have been for this man, the constant severing and aborting of relationships. Can you imagine what it would be like to be at the instant beck and call of someone all the time, going and coming and going and coming and staying, meeting new people and saying goodbye to dear ones, your whole life in motion, nothing like the comfort and the familiarity and the roots that we all celebrate as the best things of life. This is a peripatetic. This is a nonstop wanderer who doesn't even call his own life shots. Somebody else does it for him. But he's so serviceable, so available.

Where is the need? That's where I'll be. And he's not concerned about himself and his comfort and whether he's with the people he likes or whether he's in a new situation where he doesn't know anybody like he was in Ephesus. It doesn't matter to him. It only matters that he do what he was called to do. Paul says then in verse 24, I trust in the Lord that I myself shall be coming shortly. Notice the phrase in the Lord. That's where we started in verse 19. He's still in the Lord in verse 24. He says all this is subject to God's sovereignty. By the way, Paul did get released from this imprisonment.

I'm confident of that. Acts chapter 28, verse 30 says he stayed two full years in his own rented quarters and was welcoming all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all openness unhindered. I believe it was a two-year imprisonment. At the end of that time, he was free for a while. Later on was imprisonment and there he lost his life.

But when he was released, he may well have gone to Philippi. He may well have visited them before his final imprisonment and verse 24 may well have come to pass. And also chapter 1, verse 25 where he says I know I'll remain and continue with you all for your progress. So Timothy was a model, wasn't he?

A model for us to pattern our lives after. You're listening to John MacArthur, pastor, author, chancellor of the Master's University and Seminary, and his current study here on Grace to You is titled Heaven's Heroes. John, the aspects of Timothy's character that you looked at, including his submissive labor with Paul and his sacrifice for the gospel, those traits really point to an overarching humility in his life.

He's a man of faith. And humility is an essential attitude for serving God. And of course, throughout the Bible, there are good examples of humility that we can also learn from. Yeah, I think it was Spurgeon who used to say, there are only two kinds of Christians, the humble and the about-to-be-humbled.

Humility is the ultimate Christian virtue. It is. And that is because Christ is God.

It is. And that is because Christ gets all the glory. He is the one who is to be exalted. God even says, I'll not give my glory to another. And consequently, if all glory goes to God, all honor goes to God and to Christ, then that leaves nothing for me. And therefore, humility becomes the ultimate Christian virtue. In my book, 12 Unlikely Heroes, we're going to show you stories of people who were humble or were humbled by God.

And it's a marvelous, marvelous reminder that God has to humble people to make them truly useful. I can promise you that once you start reading 12 Unlikely Heroes, you will not be able to put it down. These are really compelling stories.

And, you know, some of the names, you know, Enoch, Joseph, Jonathan, Esther, John the Baptist, you say, I know those names. But we're telling you the story underneath the story, the story behind the story. And if you read 12 Ordinary Men, the accounts of the apostles, you know that we dug really deeply there and opened up some things that maybe most folks wouldn't have understood. Well, we've done the same thing in 12 Unlikely Heroes, 220 pages or so, available now from Grace to You, you can order it right away. But it's a story really of God using people who maybe wouldn't have been chosen for the role they played because most folks would have thought they were below the qualification level.

But after all, we're all below the qualification level, aren't we? There's none righteous, no, not one. We are recipients of grace, but in God's sovereign and wonderful and boundless grace, he does his work through unlikely people. He changes the course of history. He changes people eternally when he gets a hold of their lives.

He wants to do that with you. You'll find out more about it in the book 12 Unlikely Heroes. You can order it right now from Grace to You.

That's right. Thank you, John. And, friend, 12 Unlikely Heroes, an ideal book for devotional reading, to use with your small group Bible study, or you can give it to a loved one this Christmas. Order a copy of 12 Unlikely Heroes when you contact us today. Call us at 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org.

The price for 12 Unlikely Heroes is $10. To get a copy of 12 Unlikely Heroes for yourself or a few to give away, call us at 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org. And if you've been encouraged by John's current study called Heaven's Heroes, or if someone you know has professed faith in Christ through the teaching he or she has heard on these daily broadcasts, we'd love to hear from you. Include this station's call letters when you email your story to letters at gty.org, or send us a note in the mail to GRACE2U PO Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412. And thanks for praying that these radio programs will make a difference in people's lives in your area and in communities around the world. Now for John MacArthur and our entire staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be back tomorrow as John looks at another one of Heaven's Heroes, a man who may be unfamiliar to you but someone you'd do well to imitate. It's another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on GRACE2U.