Model Spiritual Servants, Part 3: Epaphroditus B

You have Paul, the sacrificial rejoicer. You have Timothy, the single-minded sympathizer whose interests were only the things of Christ. And now you have this loving gambler, Epaphroditus, who literally threw his life away, as it were, risking great danger to fill up that which someone else wanted done on behalf of someone else. What a man!

I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Lenny Scutnik was just an average guy, but he did something extraordinary on the afternoon of January 13, 1982. He jumped into the icy waters of the Potomac River and saved a nearly-drowned flight attendant. Though he received special recognition from President Reagan for his heroic act, it's safe to say that Scutnik's name isn't widely remembered today.

Time has a way of making even heroes fade from memory. Well, there are also heroes of the faith that we tend to forget, everyday people who God used for great things in their day and who He can use in your life today as you follow their examples, and today John MacArthur looks at one of those lesser-known heroes, a man named Epaphroditus. To continue his study on grace to you, titled Heaven's Heroes, here is John MacArthur. Let's open our Bibles for our time in God's Word to Philippians chapter 2. In this wonderful second chapter, the Apostle Paul selects himself as one model of a spiritual servant. Then he selects Timothy as the second, and as we shall see, the third is a man by the name of Epaphroditus. And we will look at verses 25 through 30 of chapter 2, and there we will come to know perhaps in a very special way this wonderful man named Epaphroditus. It's hard for us in this society to get in touch with a model of sacrificial living, and so we have been looking at Paul and Timothy and now maybe the richest of all of them, Epaphroditus. Just for sake of distinction, we call Paul the sacrificial rejoicer or the humble rejoicer. We call Timothy the single-minded sympathizer, and now as we come to verse 25 through 30, we see Epaphroditus, let's call him the loving gambler. Look with me at verse 25. I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier who is also your messenger and minister to my need. So he's quite a man, quite a remarkable man, unselfish, humble, sympathetic, compassionate, all of those things. He's a servant, he's courageous, he's godly, he built a strong bond with Paul, he worked fairly alongside of him and did his share, and he was a great soldier fighting the enemy. But with that in mind, go back to verse 25 and look at this. After all that commendation, verse 25, I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus. You say, why? Verse 26. Because he was longing for you all, because you heard that he was sick.

Now wait a minute, that's hard to believe. You heard he wasn't doing well. He knew you'd be sad, and your sadness has greatly distressed him. Isn't it wonderful to know that some people in the ministry are compelled by relationships rather than programs? There is still a place for that, isn't there?

Where you set aside something on your agenda to meet somebody's need? Verse 27. Now Paul's going to explain a little bit about him so that when he does show up, they don't say, what are you doing here? For indeed he says he was sick to the point of death. You mean to tell me this Epaphroditus is such a faithful brother, faithful worker, faithful soldier that he is nearly dead?

What do you mean here? He came near death. What kind of death? Doesn't say.

Doesn't say. He came near death. He got into a very traumatic situation. You say, is Paul sending him home because he wants to get him out of there before he gets himself killed?

No. Not at all. But when he had come so very near to death and the word had gotten back to the Philippians, probably through some traveler, they were so concerned that their dear, beloved Epaphroditus was near death that they got upset and grieved, and then when he heard back that they were grieved, that's how the cycle began. So listen to this. Epaphroditus isn't upset because of his brush with death.

Not at all. He's upset because they're upset. Notice what Paul says. Verse 27. But God had mercy on him.

Isn't that good? God spared him. In the brush with death, God spared him. Would you please notice that any time God spares anybody from death, it is mercy.

Do you understand that? The soul that sinneth it shall what? Die. The wages of sin is death.

And the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die. Folks, the very fact that you take another breath is mercy. The fact that I take another breath is mercy. I have long ago deserved death. That is why in the gospels you have so often mercy connected with healings, mercy connected with deliverance. You remember the blind beggars? Son of David, have mercy on us.

Why? Because we don't deserve justice. You never heard anybody cry out to Jesus, heal me, that's fair. It's fair that you deliver me. It's not fair that I die.

Oh yeah it is. It's justice that you die. It's justice that you be diseased. It's mercy that you live. It's mercy that you're healed. Mercy is always connected to deliverance and to healing and to restoration. So God sovereignly was merciful to him.

In other words, he went through some brush with death and God showed him mercy and delivered him from it. And then he says, verse 27, Not on him only, but also on me. Boy, when God spared his life, it was mercy for me.

Paphroditus doesn't deserve to live and I don't deserve to have such a friend. But when God spared his life, he received mercy and me too because now I can have him as my friend. And then he says this, the end of verse 27, Lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. You know what would have happened to Paul if Paphroditus had have died? He would have had sorrow upon sorrow. You know what that means in the Greek?

It literally means wave after wave of grief. This man had endeared himself to Paul. As I say, he may have known him for a number of years, we don't know. But somehow he was deep into the heart of Paul, very deep. Because when he gets distressed about the Philippians, Paul can't handle his distress. And so he's got to send him home so he can get undistressed because Paul is distressed about a Paphroditus distress. And the only thing worse than that would be a Paphroditus death which would bring wave upon wave of sorrow to Paul. See, here's a man who deeply loved, a church that deeply loved, a servant of that church that deeply loved, such profound things, so elusive to us who have put objects in front of people. So God makes a sovereign decision, spares the life of a Paphroditus in the midst of this brush with death, and in so doing gives mercy to a Paphroditus and mercy to Paul who would be literally overwrought with sorrow if that man had lost his life. And by the way, that sorrow upon sorrow is very strong language, very strong.

Wave upon wave of grief, grief upon grief, rolling in. So God delivered a Paphroditus and God delivered Paul. As a servant of Christ, Paul was ready to face death. I think as a servant of Christ, Paul was ready to accept the death of his friend a Paphroditus. But he wouldn't have liked it personally because he loved the man. So he was happy to forego the pain of losing a Paphroditus to death. Now, he is rejoicing because his life has been spared. Then we come to verse 28. Therefore, I have sent him. Does it say reluctantly? No. I have sent him all the more eagerly.

Why? In order that when you see him again, you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you. Paul is not only concerned about a Paphroditus, but he's concerned about the Philippians being concerned about a Paphroditus, who is concerned about them. Do you understand a little bit more what Paul meant then in 2 Corinthians 11 when he said, The greatest burden I bear in the ministry is the care of all the churches?

Do you understand something of what was in the heart of Paul when he says in chapter 1 verse 8 of Philippians, God is my witness how I long for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus? This is a man with deep feelings. This is a man who cared, who loved deeply and profoundly. This is a man who hurt when the object of his love was in danger or distress or grief. All the more eagerly means without reluctance. I'm not grudging. He's not saying, look, I'm going to send him, but don't you realize that your sort of wimpy attitude is going to cost our ministry? Doesn't say that. Even though he needs him, fellow worker, even though he loves to have him alongside, fellow soldier, and even though he knows they sent him as messenger and minister to his need and he proves himself so valuable that it was mercy that spared his life, for Paul would have had sorrow on sorrow losing him.

That's how valuable he was. Paul says, in spite of all he means to me, I'm sending him to you. Why? Because I'm more concerned about your joy than mine. Magnanimous man. So he says, when you see him again, you may rejoice. And when I get the word that you've seen him and you've rejoiced, then I'm going to be less concerned about you. Now the only people who have to do all of this kind of stuff to get a burden off their back of concern are people who feel deeply, right? That's why Paul was so successful in ministry, because the people to whom he ministered knew where his heart was. You show me a man like in Acts 20 who goes from house to house, from house to house for three years preaching and warning people in one location, and I'll show you a man who loves the people deeply, and it's little wonder that the result of his ministry to those people was that those leaders, when he said he was going to leave and they wouldn't see him anymore, fell all over his neck, wept tears all over him and kissed him.

Why? Because the bond was deep. So these people loved greatly. And when you read in Paul's letters about loving one another and having affection for one another, this little scenario ought to somehow enrich that and act as a rebuke to our hearts for our indifference to relationships.

So really almost unbelievable, almost incredible. The Philippians are concerned about Epaphroditus, so he's deeply distressed about the Philippians because of their concern. So Paul's deeply distressed about his concern for their concern, and the action has nothing to do with what is most important for Paul. And here again you see his humility, and no complaining on the part of Epaphroditus even though he had a brush with death, no complaining on the part of Paul even though he's losing a choice partner. Really, the Philippians aren't even asking for Epaphroditus. They're in the midst of their own trials.

Chapter 1 says in verse 29 that they had been granted for Christ's sake not only to believe in Him but to suffer for His sake. Paul's got his own trial. Epaphroditus has just had a brush with death, but nobody's concerned with themselves. The Philippians are concerned with Epaphroditus, Epaphroditus with the Philippians, and Paul with both, but nobody with himself. There's that humility.

There's that absence of complaint. There's that just working out of true salvation in the purest way. The whole scene is one of affection and love and sympathy and unselfish concern and seeking to comfort somebody else. And saying my needs aren't as important as yours, to put it very simply, go back to chapter 2 verse 3, do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

And who's the perfect illustration of that? Jesus Christ. So on the basis of all that, we come to verse 29. Therefore, Paul says, Receive Him in the Lord with all joy, and hold men like Him in high regard. Receive Him in the Lord. Receive Him really as if He were the Lord. Matthew chapter 18 says that we are to receive one another as little children. And it says there, whoever receives one of these little ones receives me. The word receive means to welcome, to open your arms and embrace, to take in.

So he's saying don't accept the fact that he's home as some indication of failure. I'm telling you, receive Him as if you were receiving the Lord. Then receive Him with joy.

Rejoice that He's back and that He's well and that He's healthy. And then hold men like Him in high regard. Don't just be happy, be respectful. Don't reluctantly say, well, it's obvious He failed.

No. Hold Him in high regard. Hold Him as highly prized would be another way to translate it. Hold Him as a precious man. Even best, an honored man. An honored man. And then he tells us why. Why should they honor this man? Obviously, he's a lover. Obviously, he has deep love for the Philippians.

But here's the issue, verse 30. Because he came close to death. What brought him close to death? What brought him close to death? The work of Christ. I love that statement, risking his life.

Can I talk about it for just a moment? Risking his life uses a very interesting verb. That verb is the verb that is connected to the noun parabola, which means dice. And the verb form means to roll the dice. It means to gamble, to play the gambler, to expose oneself to danger might be the best way. He exposed himself to danger.

That's what he did. He was so loyal and so faithful and so sacrificial, so humble, so uncomplaining. He just put his life on the line in an effort to do what the Philippians wanted done in behalf of Paul.

That's why I call him the loving gambler. He loved Paul. He loved Christ. He loved the cause of Christ. He loved the Philippians so much, he loved not himself.

He just gave his life away. That word, parabola, came to have some interesting usages. In the days of the early church after the New Testament era, there was an association of men and women who got together and took the name the parabola, which meant the gamblers. They took as their hero Epaphroditus, who gambled with his life. And it was their aim and their mission to visit the prisoners, to visit the sick, especially those with infectious, dangerous, communicable diseases. It was their mission to unhesitatingly, unflinchingly, and boldly proclaim the Lord Jesus Christ in every environment without any hesitation.

And they called themselves the parabola, the gamblers. It is also interesting to note that in A.D. 252, the city of Carthage had a terrible plague, and the heathen were so frightened of the germs that were in the bodies of the dead that they literally bagged them somehow and hurled them out of the city, not wanting to touch them for burial. Cyprian, the Christian bishop, gathered the congregation of the believing church together, and the church members took their bodies and, in a gracious act of human kindness, buried the dead bodies of the plague-stricken people. And according to the historians as well, they nursed even the sick people, coming close enough to them to touch them in that plague-infested city, risking their lives to save some in the city. And God used them as a tremendous potential, as a tremendous force, really, to reach people for Christ because of their love.

Whether you're talking about the parabolani who gambled with their lives in an infectious disease environment, or whether you're talking about Epaphroditus, their hero, who gambled with his life by going at a hostile culture with all he had in the service of Jesus Christ, that kind of self-sacrificing example is marvelous. Let me take you back to the name Epaphroditus. Remember I told you that it meant to be the favorite of Aphrodite? A little twist on that that must have been in the mind of Paul.

He's sometimes fairly subtle. Aphrodite was the goddess of luck. She was the goddess of luck as well as beauty. And when the Greeks rolled the dice in their games, their gambling games, the common word they used was they would roll the dice and say, Epaphroditus. In other words, they wanted favor from Aphrodite. So Paul is doing a little play on the name of Epaphroditus. He was a favorite of Aphrodite by name, and he gambled with his life. He risked his life. You say, yeah, but, boy, think of what he was going to gain, an empire.

No, no empire. Think of the fame. No fame. Think of the money. No money. Think of the popularity.

No popularity. He was a humble, behind-the-scenes guy who gambled with his life for the sake of somebody other than himself. Boy, that's character.

That's character. Do you need a better example than that of a sacrificial life? You have Paul, the sacrificial rejoicer, who rejoiced to pour out his life an offering. You have Timothy, the single-minded sympathizer whose interests were only the things of Christ and who would feel like Paul felt in his heart about other people. And now you have this loving gambler, Epaphroditus, who literally threw his life away, as it were, risking great danger to fill up that which someone else wanted done on behalf of someone else. What a man.

Can I personalize it as we close? What have you sacrificed in ministry to others? What, lately? What have you turned from in order to wholly focus on Christ? What of Paul is there in you who sacrificed everything? What of Timothy is there in you who turns from all of the allurements to focus only on the interests of Christ? What have you turned from to focus on the interests of Christ?

Somebody said to me yesterday, my husband has another hobby, just what he needs, another diversion. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but how's your focus on Christ? And then in the case of Epaphroditus, what are you risking your life for? What are you laying your life down for?

What are you laying down that only the promise of Christ and the power of Christ can pick back up? You know, we really don't like risk, do we? First thing, we get saved. That eliminates eternal risk. Heaven for sure, no risk. Then we back into life and we've got to eliminate all the risk in life. No risk.

Insulated, isolated, comfortable, got all the money we need, got the burglar alarm working, got the fence, got the gate, got our life closed in. No risk. Given away absolutely nothing. That's why I say I've always been enamored with sacrificial people. And every time I look for them, I have to go outside our culture or outside our period of history.

We have so few. The Lord's convicted my own heart and I trust yours as well to think about how to be in Epaphroditus and give myself away for a cause other than my own fulfillment. I hate that stuff about self-fulfillment.

I think I hate it as much as anything because it's counterproductive to everything that God ever called you to do, which is to give your life away for the cause of Christ and for the service of others in humble sacrifice. Well, let's pray together. Father, we see in this man Epaphroditus humble concern for the needs of others.

He was so loving. And we see risking life to meet those needs, the loving gambler. Lord, help us to be like him. Help us somehow to put relationships above things and not to find ourselves forever and ever trying to insulate ourselves into comfort zones, but put us out there on the cutting edge where we risk, where we can see the mighty hand of deliverance in our behalf. Some of us don't even know what it is to be rescued because we've never been out there where there's any danger. We've never opened our mouth to speak of Christ.

We've never taken a stand. Lord, help us in the service of Jesus Christ to be sacrificial. And may we with humility and without complaint work out our salvation with fear and trembling. And may you be pleased with that which we offer you as the sacrifice of ourselves for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

That's John MacArthur, Chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, looking at Epaphroditus. John's current study on grace to you is titled Heaven's Heroes. John, at the end of your message today, that was a striking challenge that you gave, calling us to examine our lives and to see what we've been willing to risk for the cause of Christ. And that really brings us back to the idea of faith, doesn't it? Back to our willingness to take God at his word and to live with that eternal perspective in plain view.

Yeah, to the degree that you would make any temporal sacrifice for the eternal benefit. And I want to mention a book in which I include more heroes. The title of the book is Twelve Unlikely Heroes. Now, what do I mean by hero?

Well, certainly not what typically comes to mind today. Being a hero these days comes really cheaply. You achieve some level of success in sports or music or movies or social media. You generate some sort of a following and maybe you were even called an influencer or whatever that is.

That's kind of a popular term. And all of a sudden you're a hero. Now, there are occasionally some who are legitimate heroes in our time, as in all times, people whose efforts and sacrifices have eternal consequences, who God used to save people from hell, who God used to bring to the knowledge of the gospel, whom God used to advance his kingdom, alter people's destinies, change the course of history for the better.

Still, most of those people make life better only in this world, not beyond. The great human heroes are those whom God uses to change people forever for their good and his glory. And invariably, these heroes are the most unexpected ordinary folks, and they are so even today. So let me suggest you order the book Twelve Unlikely Heroes.

It's designed to fix your gaze heavenward and put your trust in God, as did the following heroes. Enoch, Joseph, Miriam, Gideon, Samson, Jonathan, Esther, Mark, and four more. Two hundred and twenty pages of real heroes available from Grace to You. Thanks, John. And, friend, this helpful resource is a compelling look at some lesser-known biblical characters.

It might be a great Christmas gift. To get your copy of Twelve Unlikely Heroes, contact us today. To order, call our customer service line at 800-55-GRACE or visit our website, gty.org. The title again to ask for is Twelve Unlikely Heroes. Again, to order Twelve Unlikely Heroes, call 800-55-GRACE or shop online at gty.org.

And when you visit gty.org, make sure you take advantage of the thousands of free resources available. That includes Grace Stream. It's a continuous broadcast of John's verse-by-verse teaching.

We begin in Matthew chapter 1 and go all the way through Revelation 22 and then start the whole cycle over. So whether you have five minutes or a few hours, log on and listen to the life-changing truth of God's Word. Grace Stream is just one of the numerous resources available to you free at gty.org. And to keep up to date on what's going on here at Grace To You, be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Remember to watch Grace To You television Sundays on DirecTV channel 378, or check your local listings for broadcast times in your area, and then be back tomorrow for another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.