In the 1999-2000 school year at TIU, some members of the football team were made aware of the fact that not many players were graduating – and more athletes were on the disciplinary list than any other group on campus.  After the season was over, several players went to a student conference in Tennessee with a couple of seminary students – and God grabbed hold of their lives.  So, they launched a “FAT” movement.

God put something on their hearts for our community and they set up a time to come and speak with me about it.  “We know we’ve been trouble for you, Prez.  We’ve been more of a problem for you than a blessing.  But, God has convicted us that this is not right.  We know we’re leaders.  We know we have influence on campus and that our influence hasn’t always been good.  At this conference we went to, we learned that we have to be committed to having the mind of Christ if we will change – and if we will be a blessing to others on campus instead of a pain.”

I’ll just tell you – that sounded good to me.  And the text we come to today is the one they told me God had used to speak to them at that conference. It’s about two young men: Timothy and Epaphroditus.  I pray that God will use it in your life as he did in theirs.

Where We Are in Philippians:

            I know that, on first glance, Phil. 2:19-30 looks like it’s only about travel plans.  Paul was in prison but seems to be expecting he will get out.  Two young men are with him as helpers. So, Paul writes that first Timothy and then Epaphroditus will come to visit them and bring them news about Paul. So, on first glance, this passage seems like trivial travel details.  But, it’s more than that.  You’ll see that Paul uses this newsgiving as a chance to teach them about what practical Christian living is like: “I want you to see what the lessons I’ve been talking about actually look like in every day life.”

I told you, Paul says, that you are to “do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.  I told you that in your daily relationships with one another, you are to the same mindset as Christ Jesus… (2:3-5).  Do you remember that?”

In this section, it seems to me that Paul goes on, “I can imagine some of you thinking, ‘Well, those lessons may be fine for apostles like Paul – or for pastors – or for “really good Christians” -- but, it’s not for the rest of us.’”  And Paul tells them here, “No, these lessons are for all who belong to Jesus – for me and for a young man like Timothy and for a fellow Philippian church member like Epaphroditus and – yes – for you!”  This is what the football guys at TIU saw so clearly.  They said, “Hey – this life-changing message is for us too!  And we are making a commitment to it!”  That’s what I want us all to do today.

So, we will look at what might seem to be two ordinary men (as the world looks at such things) who loved and served others and, through doing so, found life.  It is clear to me that they were two people who had the “mind of Christ” (cf, Phil. 2:5).  Look at what Paul says about them.

Christlike Qualities in Timothy and Epaphroditus

·      Timothy alone showed genuine concern for others’ interests and welfare (20).

·      Timothy “proved himself” to be a genuine servant of others (21).

·      Epaphroditus cared about others even when he was ill (26).

·      Epaphroditus sacrificed – even to near death – to serve the cause of Christ (30).

When the football players at Trinity saw these qualities described in these two young men in the Bible, they boiled them down into three commitments.  They believed God’s Word was calling them to be FAT:  faithful, available and teachable.

Commitments FAT Christians Make:

#1:  Faithful

Everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.  But you know that Timothy has proved himself… (21b-22a).  The word for “proved himself” means that he has demonstrated again and again that he “walked the talk”.  When he said he followed Jesus, it was not just talk but action.  Timothy had been a faithful servant – had never quit before the job was done – had remained faithful to his word.  He was a man who could be counted on.  When he gave his word, he would fulfill it.

            And then, also look at how Epaphroditus is described – Paul calls him a brother, co-worker, fellow soldier, YOUR messenger whom you sent to faithfully care for needs.  He was not one who showed up at your house and expected to be entertained.  He could be counted on to roll up his sleeves and get done what needed to be done.  The FAT leaders on campus told me, “This is the way we want you to see us!  We want you to be able to count on us to make sure that those who come onto campus are welcomed and cared for.  We want you to be confident that if people meet us, they will know something good is happening at Trinity.  Count on us to graduate – and until we do, count on us to serve others on campus.”

            And they were faithful to their word.  They showed up early each semester and helped others students move in.  When Chris and I had them to our home, they stayed until everything was cleaned up.  They wanted it to look better after they left than when they arrived.”

#2:  Available

Epaphroditus risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me (30).

            “Available” means that we live each day open to God setting our priorities and agendas.  We make a commitment not “to do what I want to do but whatever God wants me to do.” When that’s true, we will fulfill our commitments to be good workers, family members, church attendees and students (depending on the roles God has given us at the time).  But, we are always open to God’s leading.  And, as was the case with Jesus, our attitude should be that we are always looking for ways to serve others – and, you know, that often requires us to set our own agendas aside.  In his book Life Together, Bonhoeffer wrote about this:

 We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God, who will thwart our plans and frustrate our ways time and again, even daily, by sending people across our path with their demands and requests. We can, then, pass them by, preoccupied with our ‘more important daily tasks’, just as the priest – perhaps reading the Bible – passed by the man who had fallen among robbers (Luke 10:31)… It is a strange fact that, of all people, Christians often consider their work so important and urgent that they do not want to let anything interrupt it… They want to know nothing about how God often thwarts human plans… We do not manage our time ourselves but allow it to be arranged by God (from Life Together pages 99-100).

That’s “available”: available for service – to the Lord, to the church family and to those with needs.  That’s the life of a Jesus-follower.  And, when you live this way, you find enormous joy.

#3:  Teachable

As a son with his father Timothy has served with me in the work of the gospel (22).

            With this beautiful and very personal phrase, Paul highlights the qualities of the kind of person who always knows he has a lot to learn.  Timothy did not come across as a know-it-all.  This is such a beautiful trait, one that will keep us ever young and always vibrant.  We all know people who are 80+ but seem young because they keep learning.  They don’t just criticize the younger generation but enter into relationship together.  They teach and learn.  And, I imagine we all know people who are 20 and seem 100+ because they seem bored with everything and live only for themselves.

People with a teachable spirit keep learning and growing as long as they have blood pumping through their veins.  They seek to be with those who have experienced different things than they have.  They never say, “Oh, I’ve already read the Bible – I know what’s there.”  No, they know that there is always more to learn.  And, people love to be with people who are teachable.  Teachable people see every person as one with whom they can learn and grow!

            The word for Timothy in v 20 – isopsychos – “Equal soul” --one with the kind of soul that kind empathize – feel with others – adapt to see how others see.  This kind of person is one who is always learning from living life in relationship others.  It’s the quality that makes “life together” a joy.

            I learned something new about this quality last week at a college trustee meeting.  A study of college graduates showed that students who have global educational experiences do not usually have a greater understanding of other cultures or even of the world in general than those who have never been outside their own country!  Does that surprise you?  Some of us know that the same is often true of missionaries and diplomats who live in another culture many years.  They sometimes have the fewest cross-cultural competencies because they isolate themselves from others rather than adapting to them and learning from them.  Or, they view themselves always as the authority teaching others -- and rarely as the learner.  So, they don’t learn! 

I tell you – if you would like to be a person others like to be around, be one with a teachable spirit.  If you want always to have a young and resilient way of life, be one who has a teachable spirit.  View every relationship as one from which you can both serve – but also learn and grow personally.

            So, those were the qualities of life gleaned from Timothy and Epaphroditus by our revived and renewed campus leaders.  I pray you will make a commitment to them today too.  We need to make new commitments to being FAT – faithful, available, and teachable servants of Christ.

Suggestions for becoming FAT:

            I want you to notice again that this is not a message just for pastors – or for the really extraordinary church people – like Paul or even young pastor Timothy.  It’s for all who follow Jesus. “These are basics for all believers – not extra credit for overachievers!”  It’s for a regular member of the church like Epaphroditus.  It’s for guys on a campus like the football players.  This is what the FAT leaders had come to see, i.e., that it takes everyone in the community being committed to having the mind of Christ – to looking to the interests of others as greater than their own – for us to have a Christ-glorifying community.

 

*Serve – Set your mind on serving others (even find a place to serve at church)

            Mark 10:42-45: Those who are regarded as rulers in the world lord it over their people, and their officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.  The way you know a person truly is a follower of Jesus is that he serves – God and others.  Jesus lived a life of service and calls us to a life of service when we truly follow him.

You see, everybody is talking about community these days – but often people only mean that “I want a community where I feel welcomed or where I’m doing what I want to do.”  That attitude will never lead to community – because everyone will only want “what I want” and we will be at odds in our wants.  True community is forged when we serve alongside one another.  It’s what our music team in Thailand experienced.  Their lives were forged together as they served with one another, served with our Thai church family, and then served the people who came to their meetings as they could.  Talk with them:  They will tell you that service together bonds our lives and hearts to one another.

What the Bible talks about is a church family like ours being a community where we all serve one another – and then serve alongside one another in the neighborhood – in the cause of the gospel.  When we become a part of that kind of community, we give daily as we serve others -- but we feel like we are the ones receiving.  The Bible calls us to be a community, in which each one serves the same cause, i.e., the cause of Christ.

 

*As you serve, keep your eyes open for those you know you should be more like –then try to hang around with them.  Jeff Liou told us that he and Lisa, when they were newly married, saw a godly couple from different ethnicities in their church and longed to learn from them.  So, they hung around them – served alongside them – and a relationship was established.  Jeff said this was life-forming and marriage-enhancing for him and Lisa.  I’m quite sure the other couple would tell me that they gained more than they gave in the relationship.  That’s the way it is.  We serve – and we receive in the serving.

            “How does a person learn to talk Christianly, think Christianly, evaluate society Christianly, live in families Christianly, learn to give Christianly…  Many will find their lives shaped simply by reading and re-reading Scripture. I also will not minimize the powerful inner work of the Holy Spirit.  But the Spirit most commonly uses means, and those means are often the modeling that other Christians offer” (D.A. Carson).

I am sometimes amazed at how the wisdom of Scripture is recognized (perhaps unknowingly) by people in the world.  The wisdom imbedded in this week’s Bible text became the focus of a commencement address in this year’s graduation ceremony at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL – by none other than political satirist Stephen Colbert.  Northwestern University is his alma mater so, after spending the first half of the speech with a series of inside university jokes, Colbert took a serious turn. He encouraged the importance of adaptation, change and – especially -- collaboration. He emphasized that since graduating from college, his career has been a long sequence of changing goalposts, aided by the lessons taught by his background in improvisation. "But,” he said, “you cannot 'win' at life through improv. And life is an improvisation.  You must learn to walk with others – not beat them."  Colbert drove home the view that true and lasting satisfaction and success is born from selflessness, both onstage and off.  "No personal winning," Colbert said at the end of his speech. "No living for yourself.  Instead, love others and serve others, and hopefully find those who will love and serve you in return."

*Seek/pray to become a person others want to imitate.

This is a worthy goal.  I will come back to this point again in a few weeks but now I want to say that LAC will be a beautiful place when each one of us makes the commitment to be able to say to people, “Do you wonder what life is like if you follow Jesus?  Watch me.”  What would happen if all of us grew to the point that we could say as Paul said, “Follow me as I follow Christ”? 

Follow Christ -- Jesus had demonstrated a life of service and had taught that anyone who wants to follow him must rearrange all priorities of life – placing the needs and concerns of others first.   That’s what we see in Timothy and Epaphroditus.  Through all the troubles and disappointments he was experiencing in Prison, Paul was able to see the radiance of Christ reflected in the service and character of regular church people like these two young men.  When he drew their portraits in Scripture, he showed how ordinary people who serve as Jesus served change those around them – offer hope to others. 

            And that brings us to communion.  To follow Christ, we must fix our eyes on him.  And what we see is that, being in very nature God,
 Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
   by taking the very nature of a servant,
   being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
   he humbled himself
   by becoming obedient to death—
      even death on a cross!

From the first verses of this letter to the very end, the message is the same:  True Jesus-followers love and serve others because an Other lived, served, and died (even death on a cross) – for us.