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The Gambler

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey
The Truth Network Radio
December 2, 2024 12:00 am

The Gambler

Wisdom for the Heart / Dr. Stephen Davey

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December 2, 2024 12:00 am

Epaphroditus, a little-known figure in the New Testament, took a dangerous journey to bring aid to Paul, risking his life for the sake of the gospel. In Philippians 2, Paul describes him as a brother, co-worker, and soldier in Christ—a man who embodied humility and dedication. As we delve into Epaphroditus’s story, we’ll learn the kind of humility and faith that calls us to put others first, just as Christ did. Discover how Epaphroditus’s humble example can guide us today in our journey toward Christ-centered service.

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We're often quick to bestow honor on people for the wrong kind of characteristics.

Here's Steven Davey. The world today is quick to honor the beautiful, the powerful, the wealthy, the well-connected. But as Paul comes to the end of his discussion that I've sort of categorized under this term humility, he ends it by talking about honoring those who demonstrate humility. Which takes you back to the original illustration of Jesus Christ who demonstrated humility and then was exalted. Humility is a unique characteristic. We don't pursue humility to gain honor. In fact, we would say that if you do something for the sake of gaining honor, you lack humility. But interestingly, we should honor humility. As Paul concluded a section from Philippians 2 on the topic of humility, he gives one last object lesson. He tells us about his friend and fellow worker, a man of great humility. Paul believed that this man's humility was worthy of honor. This is wisdom for the heart. Today, Steven Davey concludes his series entitled Humility.

Keep listening. Dr. Harry Ironsides, the former pastor of Moody Church, once saw a church sign that he commented on in his little book. Church signs are interesting things, by the way. I don't know if you're like me, but I read them when I drive by churches. And I'm always fascinated by what someone might choose to put on a church sign. I subscribe to a journal for church leaders and they have this one little section I love to see called the church sign of the week. And sometimes you don't know whether to cry or laugh or whatever, but some of them are insightful as well and rather poignant. Like this one, I collected a few of them that I've seen. One church sign read this.

If evolution is true, why do mothers still only have two hands? It's pretty good. Another church sign sent a mixed message, unfortunately. It read, quote, We love hurting people.

Oh, boy. Another sign on a church lawn read, I love this one. God shows no favoritism. But this sign guy does.

Go Cubs. Another church sign read, Having trouble sleeping? We have sermons.

Come listen to one. I didn't think that was funny either. Another read, Don't criticize your wife's judgment.

Look who she married. I didn't like that one either. One rural church sign read, it's my favorite. Welcome, colon. Whoever stole our church air conditioners, you'll need them where you're going.

But welcome. Ironside, the pastor was commenting on what he saw, and he was concerned about the church effectively only caring about itself. Not really looking beyond its own walls, which, by the way, we have the wonderful benefit of doing in just the establishment of the seminary and the graduates you've seen. It is our commitment beyond these walls for the sake of the gospel.

This is one of many. But he said this church put up a sign that read Jesus only. A few days later, Ironside wrote the wind blew away the first few letters so that it now read us only. Just us. It's all about us.

Sounds like a pig on a plane to me. Paul effectively says Epaphroditus, my brother and my fellow worker, has decided to do something beyond himself, and you with him, bringing me both finances and sweet fellowship and partnership. Finally, verse 25, he calls him his fellow soldier. They have this common bond, they have this common mission, they also have common courage.

It's easy to miss. Here's a man who shows up at Rome, by the way, he's risked his life to carry a lot of money with him to give to Paul. Then he arrives in Rome to identify with a criminal who right at that moment is chained on either wrist to Roman soldiers, and he effectively says, I'm with him.

I'm with him. I'm here to serve him. He basically gets in the line of fire here.

Identifying with a man facing a capital crime. I think it's even more interesting that the word Paul uses for soldier is the same word used of the soldiers Paul is chained to. Epaphroditus is also that soldier, that fellow soldier, as if to say or suggest or imply I'm bound to these soldiers by chains of iron, but I praise God for the coming of this loyal, faithful soldier to which I'm bound by chains of love. Now several New Testament authors and scholars, and I'd like to throw my hat in the ring with them and intrigue my thinking, that the apostle Paul is writing this in anticipation that Epaphroditus is going to face criticism.

I mean, why go on about his reputation? He's anticipating that back in Philippi, they're going to think that he cut short his mission and left Rome and came home to Philippi because he just wanted to retreat to safety. It just got, you know, too hot for him in Rome.

So he's anticipating people having conversations in the assembly. Hey, did you hear? Epaphroditus is back. Really? So soon?

Yeah, already he's back. I wonder why? Why would he quit? I guess he did quit. Who would have ever thought?

And then the rumors take root. These terms are carefully selected by Paul to support the fact that Epaphroditus has returned at Paul's command. He wasn't lazy. He wasn't difficult. He wasn't self-centered.

He didn't quit. He's my brother, my fellow worker, my fellow soldier. Oh, and by the way, Paul adds, he was everything he sent him to be for me. Notice, not only his reputation, but his responsibilities, which he fulfilled, verse 25.

He was also, he's also your messenger. He came as an envoy. In fact, Paul uses the word apostolos. It's a word that we use to refer, and they do in the New Testament, to those commissioned apostles.

A very small group. The word is used a little more broadly in places like Acts 14 and 2 Corinthians chapter 8 to refer to someone given a special commission. Paul could have used any number of terms to describe this messenger, but he uses this one, and many believe that he uses apostolos to add even more gravity to this faithful man. Paul implicitly ranks Epaphroditus with himself.

So, as if to say don't start throwing mud at him. Treat him like you would treat a special envoy with a special commission like you might treat an apostle. Paul adds another word here just in case they're a little slow back in the church in Philippi.

They're not picking up on it quick enough when the letter will be read to the assembly. Notice, he's not only a messenger, but he's a minister. A minister to my needs. William Barclay writes, Paul uses a magnificent word to describe him. A minister.

It isn't talking about somebody with a collar or somebody behind a pulpit. In fact, the word minister, like Torgas, was a person in the ancient days of the Greek city states that were so loyal to their city state, so faithful, so sacrificial to the citizens of that Greek city state that they would give of their own finances and their own energy and their own time to support perhaps a great civic event or as one illustration that comes from that era, one of them supported the athletes who were preparing for the Olympic games that would represent the Greek city state. Another literally built a warship and then paid the salary of the navy to defend them. These men were such incredible benefactors of their city. They were known as the leitorgoy ministers. Were they living in our culture today, they would be honored by the annual Kennedy Lifetime Achievement Award or given an honorary doctorate or given a medal from Congress or had a boulevard or a road named after them or maybe a building with their name splashed on the front. They would own a key to the city.

These were the revered leitorgoy, revered ministers of their generation. So Paul is effectively saying the man who's bringing this letter back to you happens to be a choice minister representing the kingdom of heaven. Okay, all that's introduction. Now we're going to get to the real issue.

All right, there's still this elephant in the room. Why did Epaphroditus leave Paul and return home? Why did he return home? Because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard he was sick. He left because he heard that you had learned he was sick. Well, we all get sick.

I mean, is that a reason to leave, Paul? I mean, how sick was he? Verse 27, for indeed he was sick to the point of death.

You could woodenly translate this. He was next door neighbor to death. He might say this way, he was at death's door. In other words, he didn't pick up a little cold or have an allergic reaction to, you know, Italian pasta. It wasn't the food.

He didn't accidentally drink the water. It wasn't that at all. This was a sickness.

In fact, it was long enough for the news to travel to Philippi and back again, which means it was at least three to four or longer months in duration. He is distressed because he doesn't want them to worry about him. By the way, that's worth pondering. That's a form of humility in and of itself. Not that it's wrong to have people praying for us, but here he is distressed that his sickness is causing them distress. But again, let's anybody think Epaphroditus is using some sickness to bail out. Paul repeats himself. In fact, go down to verse 30 at the end of the chapter.

Because he came close to death for the work of Christ, literally because of the work of Christ. This isn't a cold. This isn't hard burn. This isn't allergies.

This isn't fatigue or even a spell of fatigue. Epaphroditus literally had one foot in the grave. In fact, Paul assumed he would die.

How do we know that? Go back to verse 27. For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him. I mean, the only reason he's alive is because God wanted him alive.

We'd already picked out the flowers and the coffin and the hymns to sing. But he recovered. Paul is clearly communicating that this wasn't a matter of Epaphroditus responding to medical treatment or some rest. No, he had been spared death by the merciful intervention of God. So the focus is God-centered.

I think he's making a point here, and I think it's worth pulling over for just a moment. There is no apostolic miracle of healing. There's no prayer of faith. There's no gathering of the elders. There's no intense intercession by the church. He was going to die, and everybody knew it, but God.

It's interesting. This is one more evidence that Paul is fading in his temporary apostolic power to indiscriminately heal. In fact, at one point as this dispensation of the church opened, God's Spirit validated this community by these signs and wonders. This too tells us insofar that Paul could walk by someone without even looking at them, without even praying, without invoking the name of Jesus or anything else, that somebody might come up with some kind of incantation. Just his shadow fell on them, and they were healed. They touched his clothing, and they were healed. He raised dead people. Now as his ministry is near its end, you see this miraculous gospel-validating apostolic power.

This era is nearly over. So Paul watches Epaphroditus nearly die. In fact, he'll tell Timothy in his last letter that he had to leave another ministry partner by the name of Trophimus behind in the town of Miletus because he too had become sick.

I mean, why not just heal him? Did he lack faith? No, there was a purpose in that apostolic power to validate the messenger, and that was being replaced by Scripture as it was being written. So Paul wants to obscure any and all possible idea that there was any human action or that he had anything to do with it. In fact, we're not even told that Paul prayed, although I'm sure he did. Only God's merciful action is seen. God had mercy on him, and not only on Epaphroditus. Notice what he writes in verse 27. But God had mercy on him, middle part, and not on him only, but also on me so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow.

You could paraphrase that to read, so that I would not have wave upon wave of grief. Thank you for writing that, Paul, with that kind of transparency. I thought spiritual people didn't talk about sorrow or grief. I just thought we ran around slapping Romans 8.28 on everybody's back. Here Paul is emotionally, transparently opening his heart to the Philippians, and he says something I think many Christians would think unspiritual or certainly not fit for the pulpit or even the funeral parlor.

If Epaphroditus dies, it's going to bring me just one more wave of deep grief and sorrow. But I thought to live is Christ and to die is gain. Paul wrote that too. Paul writes with the balance of Scripture as you compare Scripture with Scripture to come up with the right perspective. That we sorrow, yet not as those without hope.

1 Thessalonians 2 and verse 14. We have hope. We know where the deceased believer is.

By the way, they would never vote to come back. We have seen a bit of a description of their lives now and the place they live. But we sorrow. There is a grief that's deep and lasting. Because of the Gospel, we understand that we really haven't lost them.

We've just temporarily lost contact with them. One day our tears of sorrow will be forever dried away. So for now, Paul is saying, listen, this is one grief I just didn't want to bear and I praise God for his mercy in extending the life of my brother and my fellow worker and my fellow soldier, your messenger, the one who ministered to my needs. Now verse 28. Therefore I have sent him all the more eagerly so that when you see him again, you may rejoice and I may be less concerned about you. Receive him then in the Lord with all joy. You get the impression again that Paul is saying, now listen, listen, don't you complain about him. Don't you criticize him.

Don't you have little doubts, little conversations in the hallway that well, you know, he probably couldn't handle it. No, you receive him back without any complaint or suspicion or doubt. In fact, give him a rich reward. You know, as I read and reread and reread this text, it seems to me that Paul is sort of pulling back the curtain on all our future as believers. When every believer comes home, welcome Epaphroditus home with joy.

In other words, don't hold back. Celebrate his homecoming like the prodigal was welcomed home as well, obviously repented in his homegoing. Imperfect, even embarrassing, yet belonging to the Father. And he's welcomed home with joy. Not only welcomed home with joy, but honor him. Look at the text, and hold men like him, the end of the chapter, in high regard because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service. To me, he's not complaining about the Philippians.

He's saying, look, you couldn't come and join me as a church family. Epaphroditus could, and the deficiency of not being with you was made up with him. But don't overlook the fact that there's a tremendous amount of danger reflected in this terminology. Epaphroditus risked his life. The word Paul uses for risking his life is a word that had been used for centuries. It was found in one papyrus scroll that referred to someone risking their life in order to represent a friend in the court before an emperor. It was used of merchants who risked their lives to make their fortunes. It was even used of gladiators in the arena who risked their lives to be victorious. Risking, gambling, came to become a term and noun, parabellani. These people became known as the gamblers. The parabellani, which is the root word here, he's referring to somebody who gambles, as it were, everything, who risks everything for something of great value.

Let me give an illustration a little later on if we fast forward the tape. In the third century, the word is used, it appears again, when a plague breaks out in Carthage. The unbelievers are terrified and they flee.

In fact, they leave behind desperately ill family members and even those who died, they lay unburied on the streets and in homes. Cyprian, the church leader, calls the congregation together and they together agree to bury the dead and nurse the sick, which was an incredible gamble, so to speak, the risking of life with such reckless courage because they did, they rescued untold numbers of people from death and saved the city from desolation and they were called the parabellani, the gamblers with great honor for their courage. So Paul is giving Epaphroditus the highest commendation.

He is one of the parabellani. He's gambled his life, so to speak. He's risked everything to come for the sake of the gospel and for Christ. No wonder Paul writes here, verse 29, to hold men like him in high regard.

There's somebody worth following. The world today is quick to honor the beautiful, the powerful, the wealthy, the well-connected. Not that they don't deserve honor or they should be punished because they are. But as Paul comes to the end of his discussion that I've sort of categorized under this term humility, it's interesting to me that he ends it by talking about honoring those who demonstrate humility, which takes you back to the original illustration of Jesus Christ who demonstrated humility and then was exalted, honored. Now he's showing us almost by showing us this man's life, our own future, by demonstrating humility, there is the coming day of honoring by way of encouragement. Some time ago I clipped an article from a journal that told of a man in Ohio about 24 months ago who was settling the estate of his grandparents. His aunt had lived in the home for quite some time. When she passed away, it was up to him to sort of clean everything out and get the house up for sale, and he was digging through the attic.

This is one of those stories that makes you want to go dig through attics. But he unearthed a soot-covered cardboard box containing 100-year-old baseball cards. The collection, the article said, was in nearly pristine condition, still wrapped and bundled in twine. Evidently it was part of a promotional deal between his grandfather, who was the local butcher, and a candy company that had given him a stack of cards as an incentive. Inside the collection were cards of Cy Young, Honest Wagner, Ty Cobb.

The collection of baseball cards was valued at $3 million. People who might have never made it into the spotlight here. In fact, outside this little letter, we would have never known what we know about a man named after a Greek goddess. Hidden away, for the most part obscure except for this, the rare treasure of a believer. Robert Murray McCheyne, and I close with this, a pastor I've mentioned before, his life was marked, and his life marked so many others since his passing in the early 1800s at the age of 30.

I believe he had just turned 30. He once wrote in his journal words that, to me, came back to my mind that described Epaphroditus and those like him. By the grace of God, you and me. He wrote this, live so as to be missed.

That good? Live so as to be missed. How do you do that? Risking all that you are, being willing to stand on the line of fire when you go out there for the gospel's sake. Being willing to be a messenger boy whose great delight is serving someone else. Becoming a fellow laborer around here and outside of here and representing Christ. Just being a faithful sister or brother to those in your family. In a word, humility. Humility guarantees that you will be living so as to be missed. Father, thank you for the testimony of a man we'd love to know more of. His story, his background, his service, his role in the church that seemed unofficial, a servant. Thank you for a chapter in a letter as we have so divided it that speaks to the issue that to this day, for all of us, is perhaps our greatest challenge.

To demonstrate the humility of Christ to one another and to our world. So thank you for the privilege of being able to study this text together. That was Stephen Davey and this is Wisdom for the Heart. This message is called The Gambler. Over the last several broadcasts, Stephen's been working through Philippians chapter 2 in a series called Humility. If you'd like information on getting a copy of this entire series on CD, give us a call today at 866-48-BIBLE. You'd also find this series in the resource section of our website, which is wisdomonline.org. Again, that phone number is 866-48-BIBLE or the website is wisdomonline.org. Starting tomorrow, we're going to bring you a series from Ecclesiastes. If you're interested in learning to live wisely, Ecclesiastes is for you. So join us next time on Wisdom for the Heart. .
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-12-02 00:27:27 / 2024-12-02 00:36:56 / 9

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