Paul is actually saying there's a good kind of worry, a good kind of pressure, a good kind of deep, intense concern over the spiritual progress and the spiritual fruitfulness of the church.
How often have we lost sleep over the church? This is the heart of a godly parent, a godly teacher, a godly discipler, a godly mentor. This is Timothy's devotion. This is his godly distress.
We want to be winners, so what does it mean to be satisfied with second place? In today's message, we'll explore the example of Timothy, a young man who spent his life advancing the gospel alongside the Apostle Paul. Like Edmund Halley, the unsung hero behind Isaac Newton's discoveries, Timothy was content to serve in the background, dedicating himself to the mission of Christ. Today, we'll be back in Philippians 2, where Paul describes Timothy's heart of humility and his genuine concern for others.
Listen to learn how to live a life devoted to Christ outside the spotlight. Every student at some point or another encounters some of the formulations of Isaac Newton. Newton was a 17th century philosopher, a physicist, mathematician, and more. He would play a leading role as one of the world's most influential scientists, in fact, of all time. Isaac Newton is typically caricatured and even to this day, as a man sitting under an apple tree, an apple falls from one of the limbs, hits him on the head, and he makes his discovery.
That's legend. In reality, Isaac Newton would make many discoveries in fields like optics, astronomy, geometry, natural philosophy. His inventions and his formulations of laws, his deductions would literally change the human race. Far less people have ever heard of Edmund Halley, a friend and peer scientist of Newton's. The truth is, if it weren't for Edmund Halley, the world might never have learned all that much from Isaac Newton. It was Edmund Halley who challenged Newton to think through his original notions. It was Halley who corrected Newton's mathematical mistakes and errors. It was Halley who coaxed his timid friend into publishing what would become a monumental work on natural philosophy. It was Edmund Halley, in fact, who edited that volume and supervised its progress through publication.
It was actually Edmund Halley who took money out of his own pocket and financed the publication of that monumental work so it would see the light of day. The only reason any of us know anything about Edmund Halley is because of the comet he discovered and charted, which would be named after him. Halley's comet is seen briefly every 76 years in its elliptical orbit and much like Edmund Halley, it then disappears into the vastness of the galaxy. I did find out that that comet was last seen right on schedule orbiting the sun on February 9th, 1986.
I don't plan to be around, at least from this viewpoint, to see it when it comes back again. Historians call the relationship of Edmund Halley to Isaac Newton, one of the most selfless examples in the world of science. Newton would go on to receive incredible public acclaim, which he certainly deserved, and prominence, but Edmund Halley would receive little credit for his work behind the scenes from his peers. In fact, one biographical statement about Halley quoted him as saying that he didn't care who received the credit.
His mission in life was to simply advance the cause of science. The apostle Paul is about to introduce to us his protege, a younger man who will never really quite make it out from underneath his shadow, but he wouldn't have cared. In fact, Paul is going to use young Timothy as an example of humility, a man who really didn't care who got the credit because his mission in life was to simply advance the cause of Jesus Christ. If you turn back to Paul's personal letter to the believers living in Philippi, we have been studying this for some time. We begin today a new paragraph, a great opportunity, by the way, for me to commend you as diligent, patient students of the Word. Most pastors after ten weeks start a new series. We start a new paragraph, and every so often we get to a new chapter.
Imagine that, and maybe a new book. I'll never forget when my oldest daughter was about eight. We were traveling along in the pickup truck, and she looked up at me and very innocently asked me, Daddy, what verse are you going to teach this year?
I didn't think that was funny either. Well, here we are at a new paragraph, but it's really the same theme which we've been covering. It's the theme of humility. And the first of several characteristics that I want to point out as we work through these verses is Paul highlights them implicitly, and the first would be Timothy's devotion. Let's pick it up at Philippians chapter two now at verse 19. 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. In other words, Paul is going to send Timothy from Rome to the church of Philippi to find out how they're doing. And why send Timothy? Verse 20. For I have no one else of kindred spirit. Nobody like him.
No one else that I can trust in his heart like I can trust him. You might know if you're old enough in the faith to know that Paul has spent years discipling Timothy. The end result of discipleship is reproduction.
Jesus said that after being trained, a student will be like his teacher, Matthew 10 25, and that causes any teacher to sort of shake in their boots. Over the course of time, Timothy came to think like Paul and relate to believers like Paul and unbelievers like Paul. He began to evaluate ideas and situations and trends like Paul.
He even began to pray like Paul. Now the word that Paul uses here for kindred spirit is a compound word from Isis, which gives us our word equal, emsuke, which gives us our word for spirit or soul. Woodenly translated, it means equal-souled. We might translate it of like-mind.
I'm not sure how your translation might read it, but that's the idea. In fact, this is such a rare word, this is the only time you ever see it in this form in the entire New Testament. Paul is saying that he and Timothy are effectively equals in their passion and devotion for the church. And it's easy, by the way, to miss the volume that that implies about the heart and humility of Paul. This great apostle says of this younger protege, you know, we're equal-souled. We're of the same mind.
I mean, just think about it. Paul is a converted Jew. He will describe himself as a Hebrew of Hebrews, a fastidious Pharisee among the Pharisees before he came to faith in the resurrected Christ. He would have been in rabbinical school.
He was trained and personally tutored by the famous chameleon, the elder. He would have gotten out of bed as a young attorney, and he would have prayed like any other faithful Orthodox Jewish man did in that day, and he would have said, God, I thank you that you did not make me a Gentile. Even more disdained than Gentiles were half-breeds.
These were babies born to either Jewish men or women who effectively abandoned their heritage and married a pagan, and then had a child, now half-Jew, half-Gentile. That was Timothy. He would have been the last person on the earth that anybody would have ever imagined Paul would have been interested in leading and discipling and certainly loving as his own son. And so this statement, and I say all that to tell you, this says something revolutionary has happened in the life of Paul over time, certainly in Timothy's life. We know from Scripture that Paul met Timothy on his first missionary journey, Acts 14.
As Paul preached in Timothy's hometown, Timothy was converted to faith in Christ alone. His mother Eunice was a Jewess who had married a Greek unbeliever, Acts 16. She would evidently come to regret the lack of a godly father for Timothy. In fact, soon after his birth, she takes upon herself the role of the typical Jewish father figure that so many godly women have done since her generation. We're told in 2 Timothy 3 that she and her converted father, Timothy's grandmother, Lois, trained Timothy early in his years in the Scripture.
So something happened to those women. The language implies there, in fact, that they taught him how to read according to the Scriptures. They taught him to read by teaching him to read the Bible, the Old Testament, Hebrew. Now evidently, we can surmise that Timothy's father allowed that instruction, but he put his foot down and he refused to allow Timothy to be circumcised. He wasn't gonna have any part of that. He probably said something to his wife like, Eunice, you can teach that boy your Old Testament religious stuff, but he's not gonna identify with the Jews. He's gonna stay Greek. How many husbands since that time have effectively communicated to their godly wives, listen, you take the kids to Sunday school and that's okay, but don't become fanatical.
Leave it there and now let's get on with our lives. I'd love to know more about the home life of Timothy, but the heart of his mother and his grandmother must have thrilled to see Timothy listen to Paul preach and then believe in Christ as they had evidently done earlier in 2 Timothy 1 verse 5 informs us of that. Now, the second time Paul comes back through Timothy's hometown, he has seen now this believer, this young man growing in his maturity. He is demonstrating leadership in the church and Paul does the unthinkable. To us, okay, he picks Timothy up and travels with him. Go back in time and you discover that the church is wrestling with Jewish Gentile unity. In fact, it almost destroys the church in Rome and Paul invites Timothy to become his partner in ministry. Let's see, I need somebody to take John Mark's place.
I'll take this kid and I'll train him. He spiritually adopts him and they will impact the church together. Paul refers to Timothy as my child in the Lord. 1 Corinthians 4 17, my true child in the faith. 1 Timothy 1 2, my fellow worker. Romans 16 21, my brother. 2 Corinthians 1.
That was dramatic language. Timothy will become Paul's troubleshooter, problem solver. He'll send him to Corinth to weigh in in a difficult church setting.
Macedonia, a difficult assignment. Paul will send him to Thessalonica and then on to Ephesus. Here we read that Paul is about to send him to Philippi and Timothy, by the way, will be mentioned 24 times in Paul's letters and he will be one of the few that sticks by Paul during his last days in a Roman prison before Nero orders the execution of Paul and Timothy will then go on to be the pastor teacher in the great church at Ephesus. Secondly, I want to point out his distress.
Easy to miss. Notice a little more carefully in verse 20, for I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. Paul is actually saying there's a good kind of worry, a good kind of pressure, a good kind of deep, intense anxiousness, but it isn't just over our life or our world or our address or our family or our job or our stuff.
Everybody naturally worries about that kind of thing to some extent. Here Paul is referring to anxious thoughts and concern over the spiritual progress and the spiritual fruitfulness of the church. How often have we lost sleep over the church? Paul is displaying the heart of a genuine shepherd who agonizes over the health of the assembly, suffers intensely from the pressure to see the young lambs protected and the maturing lambs fed and the older lambs displaying the ripe, rich fruit of the Holy Spirit. This is the heart of a godly parent, a godly teacher, a godly discipler, a godly mentor, godly elder, deacon, volunteer. This is Timothy's devotion. This is his godly distress.
Third, he points out Timothy's distinctiveness and he does it by driving home a rather tragic point. Notice verse 20 again, for I have no one else of kindred spirit who would genuinely be concerned for your welfare for they all seek after their own interests. They all seek after their own interests and not the interest of Christ Jesus. And when Paul says all, is he referring to the ones who are serving with him? We know that Aristarchus is there. We know that John Mark is there for a period of time.
We know that Luke is there, according to Colossians 4, 10 and Philemon, verse 24. Paul refers to the all here as, to give us a clue he's referring to because he then tells exactly we got to kind of put it together. He says they are seeking after their own interests. Well that takes us earlier into the chapter back to verse 4 where Paul describes the opposite of humility is in seeking your own interests.
So that ties that together. And then that's a description coming in from chapter 1 and verse 15 where he is actually referring to those who are preaching from their own selfish ambition. Timothy is genuinely concerned for the flock and Paul uses that categorical term, all the others in the city are really only after their own following. This is what sets Timothy apart. Timothy, the ministry wasn't about Timothy. Paul is implying that when Timothy comes to visit you in Philippi, you're not going to hear Timothy talk about Timothy. I want you to notice one more phrase here in verse 21. He writes, they all seek after their own interests. Now notice this, not those of Christ Jesus. Interesting phrase. It made me wonder, what is Christ Jesus interested in?
It would have been great if he had rattled off three or four of them to sort of summarize for us, but he doesn't. What's Christ interested in? It intrigued me. Well you could think of him as a shepherd certainly, wanting to care for others, wanting to seek those who are lost. Luke 19 says, that's why he came, to seek and to save those who were lost. So he's interested in the unbeliever. You could think of Jesus as a farmer, sowing the seeds, he calls it, of the kingdom, the gospel, wanting to raise a spiritual harvest. He's interested in spiritual fruit.
You could think of him as a potter, obviously, someone who takes crude material and fashions from it, something usable. He's, beloved, he's interested in you. He cares about you, Peter writes. He's interested in the lost. He's interested in the glory of his father, John 8. He's interested in the coming kingdom, Matthew 13. I wonder how many conversations we might have where we talk about our interest in lost people, where we talk about our interest in the glory of the father, where we talk about our interest in the church, where we talk about our interest in the coming kingdom. How interested are we in the things that interest Jesus? I think it's the humility of Christ, by the way, which is how the chapter opens, causes him to be this way, obviously, perfectly. It's the humble attitude of Jesus that makes him interested in us.
Are you kidding? He's interested in us. It's his humility that causes him to be interested in the lost. It's his humility that causes him to be interested in the glory of his father. It's his humility that causes him to be interested in the kingdom, which he will share with you. He's going to slide over as it were on his throne and say, sit here.
Let's share this. Timothy expresses then the humility of Christ. It defines his devotion.
It creates this genuine distress. It shapes his distinctiveness from other leaders around him. Paul goes on to give another characteristic in Timothy.
Fourthly, his dependability. Verse 22, we're told, you know, but you know of his proven worth. He's still sort of defending Timothy to this body. Now, obviously, if they know, they know him.
More than likely, he was with Paul when this church was established. You've seen him. You know he's proven. He uses the word dachamim, which refers to going through a test and passing it.
You've seen him tested. Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators, now with the Lord, was visiting Taiwan on one of his overseas trips. During that visit, he hiked with a Taiwanese pastor through one particular rugged area, hiking along a mountain trail. When they arrived, it had been raining and their feet were not only wet, but their shoes were caked with mud.
Exhausted, they went nearly immediately to sleep in the quarters they were given. After a trip, he left. One of the believers asked this Taiwanese pastor, who had been that host of Dawson, what he remembered most about this great pioneer and leader of this global mission enterprise. He replied, and I quote, the morning after we arrived at the village, I got out of bed to get dressed and discovered that Dawson had awakened and dressed before I did. When I went to put on my shoes, I realized that he had cleaned the mud off my boots and then never said a word about it. Then he smiled and said, Dawson Trotman cleaned my shoes.
I'm sending someone to you. You have seen him. You've seen him clean up things as a humble servant. He's going to clean up some mud and some dirt. It's going to be a grueling trip, but he's worthy.
Receive him. By the way, this trip, can I just briefly give you the directions very quickly? It's going to be over land from Rome on the Via Appia to Brindisi on the southeast coast of Italy. That alone is going to be 350 miles. Then he's going to get a ship. He's going to board it. He's going to travel across the Adriatic Sea for 90 miles. Then after that, he's going to trek another 360 miles eastward on the Via Ignatia across Macedonia to Philippi.
That's one way. Timothy's probably going to celebrate his birthday sometime along that round trip journey. It'll be all by himself. What humility demonstrated in his dependability is proven worth. One more, his deference. Verse 22 again, but you know of his proven worth that he served with me in the furtherance of the Gospel like a child serving his father. Like a child serving his father.
Precious terminology. It makes it clear that this wasn't some cold, professional arrangement. He is my administrative assistant or he is my executive vice president. He's my son. The famous apostle who looked his way prompted by the Holy Spirit adopts this kid without a background and not much of a future.
Becomes a spiritual mentor and they become like father and son. Keep in mind how Paul puts this. You ought to circle a little preposition. Verse 22, he served with me. Paul would, you would expect, right, he served me. He served with me.
That preposition is critical to understand. For those of you who lead, and I know I'm speaking to a lot of people who lead a Bible study or a ministry or somewhere in the church, a team, just keep in mind this preposition. The people you lead are not serving you.
They are serving with you. Christ. How many churches can be destroyed by the lack of that preposition and how many ministries hindered? But still, it's father-son that does remain a shadow, doesn't it? That requires humility. Paul understood this and so did Timothy.
He writes here with loving terminology, but he knows he's always going to be the father and Timothy is going to be the son. And that's okay. You want me to travel 700 miles to check on an assembly that, by the way, I've been losing sleep over them too. I'm concerned. Okay.
I'll go. The humility in his deference to Paul is wonderful to see and Paul will tell the church, by the way, for those of you who are younger, treat the older ones in the assembly, treat the older men as fathers. Have that respect. Treat the older women as mothers. Just don't call them that.
Treat the younger men as brothers and the younger women as sisters in all purity. Deference. But that's most of Timothy's life. He will always be second in command.
He will be there at the quest of his father, Paul. How well do we take orders? How well do we stand in second place? That was Stephen Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. Stephen called this message Satisfied with Second Place. Timothy's life shows us the beauty of humility, devotion and faithfulness.
He wasn't after recognition or glory. Instead, he was focused on the interests of Christ and the well-being of the church. As we follow his example, let's strive to live a life that's satisfied with second place, advancing the gospel with humility.
Our office is closed today as the staff enjoys this holiday with their family and friends. I want to take this opportunity to make you aware of something. Stephen's passion for training men and women for ministry led him to found Shepherds Theological Seminary or STS. Graduates of that school are serving God across the globe, planning churches and pastoring established congregations. If you're considering ministry, STS offers a fully paid scholarship for qualified men pursuing pastoral work.
The program is full time, in person and takes three years to complete at the Cary, North Carolina campus. For details, visit wisdomonline.org forward slash STS. Even if full time ministry isn't your goal, STS can help you grow in your understanding of the Bible and theology. Many students take one or two classes just to deepen their knowledge without relocating or leaving their jobs. For those who prefer in person learning, you can find classes in Cary, North Carolina, Laramie, Wyoming, and Bryan, Texas. Stephen and the faculty at STS want to invest in you, equipping you to faithfully interpret and apply God's word. Learn more by visiting wisdomonline.org forward slash STS. I'm Scott Wylie, and for Stephen and the wisdom team, I hope you have a very happy Thanksgiving. Come back and listen next time.
