Reasons for Sending Epaphroditus

Introduction: The Rationale for Epaphroditus's Return

0:03 This sermon was preached on Sunday morning, August 2nd, 1981, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now will you follow, please, as I read from the second chapter of Philippians, and for any who are visiting with us, you may wonder if we have but one chapter in our New Testament. It just so happens that in the providence of God, in our practice of reading through the New Testament consecutively, our reading brings us into Philippians, and I am presently preaching through that book. I assure you that our life together is regulated by something more than this one New Testament letter.

0:44 But will you follow, please, as I read this morning Philippians chapter 2, verses 25 through 30. Philippians 2 and verse 25. But I counted it necessary. To send to you, Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, since he longed after you all and was sore troubled because you had heard that he was sick.

1:19 For indeed, he was sick, nigh unto death. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, that I...

1:30 I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. I have sent him therefore the more diligently, that when you see him again, you may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such in honor, because for the work of Christ he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking, in your...

2:00 in your service toward me.

2:04 One of the most amazing things about the scriptures is the fact that some of its most profound doctrines and its most practical instructions are tucked away in the most unusual places. Here in this section of Philippians, the great apostle Paul is writing to the Philippian believers concerning...

2:31 concerning the rationale for the return into their midst of this man, Epaphroditus, whom they had sent from their midst to minister to Paul while Paul was in prison at Rome. And as the apostle describes the rationale for the decision mentioned in verse 25, a decision in which he says, I counted it necessary to send Epaphroditus as he begins to unfold the reasons for that decision, I say there is in this very simple explanation a veritable goldmine of Christian doctrine and of practical instruction. We had occasion last Lord's Day as we began to study this passage to note that after stating his decision to send Epaphroditus, the apostle first of all gives a description of the man, Epaphroditus. And he is described in verse 25, first of all in his relationship to Paul as brother, fellow worker, fellow soldier, and in relationship to the Philippians, their messenger and minister to Paul's need. Now the second unit of thought begins with verse 26

3:57 and goes through to verse 28, and it's what I have called... the reasons for Paul's determination to send Epaphroditus.

Two Categories of Reasons for Sending Epaphroditus

4:07 That will be the focal point of our study this morning, and then he concludes in verses 29 and 30 with an exhortation concerning the manner in which the Philippians are to receive this gracious man of God. This morning, as I've intimated, our attention will be riveted upon verses 26 through 28, Paul's reasons for sending Epaphroditus back to the Philippians. You will notice that the verse begins with the conjunction, since, and the word since could be translated because, and hooks up directly with the first part of verse 25. We could leave out the descriptions and still have a very sound grammatical statement, I counted it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus because, and then there follows from the pen of the Apostle the rationale for this decision to send Epaphroditus. And as we study the verses, we notice that the reasons for the return of Epaphroditus fall into two categories. The first one is the actual condition of Epaphroditus, notice the language of the text.

5:34 Since or because he longed after you all and was sore troubled because you had learned that he was sick, for indeed he was sick, nigh unto death, but God had mercy on him and not on him only, but also on me that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow, I have sent him there for the more diligently, now here's the second category of the reasons, it pertains, to the anticipated result of his return both with the Philippians and with Paul. I have sent him in order that you may rejoice and secondly that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow. So Paul's rational process in coming to this decision, I must send Epaphroditus back to the Philippians was rooted in these two categories of concern. The actual condition of Epaphroditus as he beheld it and experienced it with unusual empathy and then the anticipated results of the return of this man of God. Now I want to open up the text as it comes to us in those two categories and then seek to show you some of the wonderful nuggets of great Christian doctrine and practicality and practical Christian instruction

7:03 tucked away in this explanation of the Apostle. First of all then, Paul sends Epaphroditus back because of the actual condition of the man of God. Now the condition is described and then the Apostle gives us the cause of that condition. Notice the description of that condition in verse 26.

Reason 1: The Actual Condition of Epaphroditus

7:29 Since he longed after you all and was sore troubled. I thought it necessary to send Epaphroditus because of his condition a condition described as a longing and as being sore troubled. Now what in the world was this condition? It was first of all his earnest longing after the Philippians.

8:04 And this word longing is the one the Apostle himself used in chapter 1 and verse 8. God is my witness how I long after you all in the tender mercies of Christ Jesus. The same family of words is used in chapter 4 and verse 1. Wherefore my brethren beloved and longed and longed for.

8:32 So we see immediately that this word is a word which comes from the vocabulary of deeply felt affection. Paul speaks of the Philippians as his dearly loved ones over whom he longs. He says in chapter 1 that he longs after them with the very bowels the very viscera the very internal yearnings that are imposed hearted by the spirit of Jesus Christ. For you children it may interest you to know it's the same word used when Peter says as newborn babes crave the sincere milk of the word.

9:15 It's what a little baby feels when it gets a hunger pang and is rooting around for the bottle or its mother's breast and nothing will satisfy it but the taste of that milk. Well that's the word. And Paul says that Epaphroditus' condition which led to the conviction he had to send him back to Philippi was a condition of longing. Now remember this was not a man who was simply a mass of unprincipled emotion.

9:48 He is described as Paul's fellow laborer. He is described as a fellow soldier. He is described in verse 30 as a man who threw down his life who was willing to risk his very life for the sake of Christ and his servant Paul and yet such a man had this strong experience of the longing of love. The feeling of soldier experiences who's been away from wife and family six months at the front of the battle and now he's on the ship plying the seas as it returns home and in that journey of four or five years five days across the ocean day and night every waking moment he's possessed of one emotion a longing a yearning to embrace his wife and his children again. That's precisely what the apostle says was the condition of Epaphroditus. But his condition is described not only in terms of his earnest longing after the Philippians but also in terms of his crushing distraction crushing distraction with respect to the Philippians. Look at the text.

11:03 Because he longed after you all and was sore troubled. Now the word used here sore troubled is found in only two other places in the New Testament and both accounts have to do with the experience of our Lord Jesus Christ in Gethsemane. In Matthew 26 and in Luke and Mark chapter 14 the gospel writers tell us that our Lord began to be sorrowful and sorrowful and sore troubled. Mark says he began to be amazed and sore troubled and then went on to say my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. Now the word translated in Matthew and Mark sore troubled is the precise word that is in our text. Now it's obvious in Gethsemane that our Lord was not troubled with any physical affliction connected with his cross as yet. It was purely an internal anguish of the mind and of the soul.

12:18 It was a torture of the spirit. It was a torture that bordered on mental and emotional distress and Paul says I thought it necessary to send Epaphroditus to you because he was in a condition not only characterized by this holy longing after you Philippians but a condition described as sore troubled. He was brought to the place of mental and soul distraction and it's difficult to describe what this state of mental mind is. It's like trying to describe seasickness and homesickness. Only then what's had it knows what it is.

13:09 And if you've been seasick you know there's no way to describe seasickness. And if you've really been homesick there's no way to describe it. I remember my first case of homesickness. Twelve years old I was sent away to camp for a week and from the second night onward I cried myself to sleep every single night.

13:32 And I tell you sick. It was a sickness that went right down to my little toe and right out to the last hair on my crew cut. It hurt. It hurt.

13:44 It was real. Well that's something of this soul sickness of this man of God Epaphroditus. Paul said I thought it necessary to send him because I saw in Epaphroditus this man this condition described by longing after you Philippians and crushing distraction with respect to you Philippians. Now then he goes on in verse 26 to tell us the cause of this condition.

14:14 What brought Epaphroditus into this condition? Well look at the text.

14:20 Since he longed after you all and was sore troubled because here's the explanation you had heard that he was sick. This condition of Epaphroditus the condition of earnest longing and crushing distraction was rooted in the fact that Epaphroditus learned that the Philippians had received news concerning his grave illness. Now he did have a grave illness. In modern terminology he was on the critical list and perhaps for quite a lengthy period of time.

15:03 Paul confirms that in verse 27 for indeed he was sick nigh unto death. Epaphroditus and death were in a very close relationship to one another. This was not a passing case of a local flu bug or a tummy virus. He came to the very door of death and we wondered if the door was to swing open and Epaphroditus was to be ushered in to the presence of the Lord.

15:35 And somehow word of his condition reaches the Philippians and somehow we don't know how. Word comes back to Epaphroditus and to Paul that the Philippians knew about his grave serious critical illness. But now what they don't know is the fact that God has shown mercy to Epaphroditus and to Paul in healing Epaphroditus. Now get the picture.

16:05 He's been languishing upon his deathbed and there in that condition news goes to the Philippians that Epaphroditus your beloved messenger and minister to Paul's need is there right at death's door. Then the Lord mercifully stretches forth his hand and brings healing to Epaphroditus. He's now off the critical list. He's now well again well enough that he can anticipate going back to his people serving his people and as he's well enough to begin to feel as only healthy people can feel.

16:44 His emotions are now strong enough to feel that yearning and that longing and that longing becomes such an obsession that he enters into this state of mental and psychological and spiritual distraction that Paul describes as being sore troubled and the thing that causes it is that he knows his beloved Philippians are still running to the mailbox every morning looking for a letter. Has he gone to glory or is he still with us? They keep waiting for the Western Union boy to drive up in his bicycle with a telegram and give some news about the funeral date or that God has intervened and as Epaphroditus thinks, my poor Philippian brethren, they're wondering am I in the presence of the Lord or am I still with them? Do I languish upon a deathbed or am I in the presence of Christ? As he thinks of what it must mean for them to be in the dark about his present condition, this thing so distracts him that Paul says there's only one thing to do. I count it necessary to send Epaphroditus back to them because of the reality of his condition, this longing after you and this crushing distraction with respect to you.

Reason 2: The Anticipated Results of Epaphroditus's Return

18:11 But then there's a second category of rationale for him sending Epaphroditus back. The first one you'll remember was the actual condition of Epaphroditus. We've expounded what the text says. But then there was also the anticipated result of his return.

18:29 Paul thinks through now what will happen if I actually send Epaphroditus back. And he says well at least two things will happen. One to the Philippians, one to me. First of all the result in the Philippians will be nothing less than increased joy.

18:45 Look at the text. He said I have sent him back to you. Why? In order that when you see him again you may rejoice.

19:01 This is the great epistle of joy. And again and again the apostle speaks of his own joy. He exhorts the Philippians to joy in the Lord. But now he says if I send them back I can just imagine what will happen when on that given day if the congregation is gathered together Epaphroditus walks through the door.

19:25 He will be like one who is given back to them from the dead if ever there be a hallelujah session. If ever there would be clapping hands for joy. If ever there would be a spontaneous breaking forth in the doxology it will be when Epaphroditus their beloved well proven trusted esteemed messenger and servant of Paul's need could come back to them. And as Paul thinks of how their joy in Christ would be heightened he says I must send Epaphroditus back.

20:00 Not only that he may give expression to his holy longing and find relief from his crushing distraction but that the Philippians may have their joy augmented and then he says there is a second anticipated result and this is a strange statement and that I may be the less sorrowful. As surely as the results in the Philippians will be increased joy . Paul says the results in himself will be lessened sorrow. Now isn't that a bunch of double talk?

20:39 He had just told us in the previous verses God had mercy upon Epaphroditus and healed him that I might not have sorrow heaped upon sorrow. Now he says I'm sending him away so that I'll get rid of some of my sorrow. Well Paul does Epaphroditus make you sorry or make you glad? First of all you say God heals him so you might not be sorrowful.

21:07 Now you want to get rid of him because you say if you keep him you're going to be sorrowful. Well does he make you happy or does he make you glad? Well Paul says it all depends how you look at it. From the standpoint that here at Rome I have no man of like mind except Timothy.

21:26 From the standpoint that all around me you'll remember chapter one people were preaching from false motives. Chapter three we read today he said I tell you now even weeping there are enemies of the cross of Christ as Paul's heart was crushed with the sorrow of these who were not preaching out of noble motives. As his heart was crushed that he had to say I have no man like mindedness Timothy. Everybody's doing his own thing seeking his own ends.

22:00 And Paul thought of losing his own such a man as Epaphroditus. He said that would have been one more sorrow heaped upon all my other sorrows and God entered in compassionately and healed him and he relieved that possible sorrow. He gave me joy by letting Epaphroditus live. But he said once he was alive and got all his faculties back and began to think of you Philippians he began to long for you.

22:28 He began to yearn over you. He became so sore or distracted and distressed over you that I was getting sorry because he was so heavy hearted at not being able to go back to you. And if I kept him here my sorrow his anxiety would have increased so I had to get rid of him to lessen my sorrow. That's exactly what he's saying.

22:51 And as he anticipates his own response to sending Epaphroditus back though there would be the pain of the absence of that man of God there would be joy in the anticipation of all the joy that he would bring to the Philippians. And so we learn from the text that the second category of reasons for which the apostle deemed it necessary to send Epaphroditus back is a category that includes the anticipated results in the Philippians and in Paul. Well I've tried to open up the text in your hearing. I hope your consciences are convinced that I've been honest with the language of the passage and with the flow of thought. Now I said in the introduction that one of the most amazing things about the Bible is that some of the most profound doctrines and most practical lessons are tucked away in the most unlikely places. And this is just such a passage. And I don't know how much time I'll have to open up or to hold up in your presence some of these nuggets but as time permits let me begin to take them out of the folds of this passage and hold them up before you trusting that the Spirit of God will shine upon them and make them precious to your heart.

Nugget 1: A Vivid Display of Biblical Love (Empathetic and Sacrificial)

24:18 In giving these reasons for sending Epaphroditus back to the Philippians behold first of all in the text a vivid display of two major expressions of biblical love. Behold in this text two major expressions of biblical love. In pastoral counseling it becomes evident as one seeks to minister to people in their need that a question which plagues many Christians is this. What does it mean to love people?

25:00 I see that my Bible commands me to love God to love my neighbor as myself that love is the fulfilling of the law but where the rubber meets the road in actual human experience what does it really mean to love?

25:18 Well this passage demonstrates two of the fundamental characteristics of genuine biblical love. This passage teaches us first of all that love is empathetic. And that love is sacrificial. Now you kids don't say oh there goes one of those fifty cent words from pastor when he gives you a fifty cent word he usually breaks it down and change doesn't he?

25:47 Now the word empathy simply means the ability to share in another's emotions or feelings. When you empathize you feel as the other person feels. Suppose your brother or sister has his finger or her finger caught in the door. Well if you're empathizing you're able to feel the pain that they feel with the finger caught in the door.

26:17 Now you don't actually feel the pain because your finger's not in the door but it's just like you do feel the pain. And you feel frustrated and hurt and helpless until you can get their finger out of the door and until their pain is relieved. Well this passage shows us an amazing display of the empathetic quality of true love. A love that gave the Apostle Paul a set of censors that stretched all the way from a Roman prison across Italy, across two seas, all the way to the Roman colony of Philippi and those censors on the hearts of the Philippians sent impulses over 400 miles of the Apostle Paul and he could feel with the Philippians. He could feel something of their yearning and love and anticipation and apprehension over Epaphroditus. He could look upon Epaphroditus and he could feel the longing of Epaphroditus. He could feel the distraction of Epaphroditus and the Apostle Paul with that large heart, a heart filled with love, born of the Holy Ghost, shows this empathy for Epaphroditus, for the Philippian congregation,

27:47 and the judgment of his mind. And this is the critical thing. The text begins with the words, I thought necessary. Here was a man making a decision with his rational faculties, but not based on the white light of pure reason, but it was reason under the pressure of empathetic love.

28:18 You see, wherever love is operative in the heart of a man, a woman, a boy, or a girl, there will be some degree of this empathy, this ability to get under my brother or sister's skin and feel with his nerve endings, look with his eyeballs, hear with his ears. The scripture makes this empathetic dimension of love not a matter of personality, but of Christian duty. We are commanded in Romans 12, 15, to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. We are commanded in Hebrews 13, 3, we are to remember those who are in bonds and bonds with.

29:16 To be empathetic is not a matter of native personality.

29:22 It is a matter of Christian duty. And though it is not native to us apart from common grace, for each of us looks after his own things, it is commanded in the previous paragraph or two paragraphs, have this mind in you that was in Christ, a mind in which he did not look always to his own things but to the things of others. You see, a heart all cluttered up with itself cannot be empathetic. The heart always filled with the thought, how does this affect me?

30:02 How does this impinge upon me? How does this influence me? Such a heart is so cluttered with self-centeredness it has no capacity to empathize.

30:20 None whatsoever.

30:22 How we need to cry to God as husbands we are to love our wives as Christ loved the church and that love, if it is anything else, is empathetic enables us to get, as it were, inside our wives and to look at her set of circumstances from her perspective, from the detached administrative perspective of the head of the household alone.

30:55 Would we want to run the household on the amount budgeted to her if we were her?

31:04 Would we want to be day after day, week after week, held in the grip of the mundane pressures of caring for the little ones with no break, with no opportunity just to go out and blow a few hours doing nothing for the sake of mental and emotional stability, well, if not, dear husbands, empathize with your wives and love them with an empathetic love that will see to it that they have those hours, that will see to it that the money allotted for the family budget is reasonable and in all of those ways that could be amplified many times over. You children, you need to learn to empathize with your parents. When you don't like this and don't like that, stop and think for a minute. What would it be like to be mommy and daddy and have all the responsibility of everything pertaining to the things you all take for granted? Very few if any of you children ever had to wonder will there be a meal prepared for me at such and such a time? Will there be clothes when the cold winter comes?

32:12 Will I have winter clothing provided? You've never had to worry about those things, children. Why? Because you've got parents who are acting responsibly and many of them in a self-denial and you need to begin to cultivate children, the ability to look at things from the standpoint of mommy and daddy to empathize.

32:32 Love seeks not its own, but then of course love is sacrificial and we see that in the passage. Oh how Paul must have loved his fellow soldier. He had to say as we saw several weeks ago, I have no man like-minded. Timothy is unique.

32:49 Everybody seeks his own things, but in that uniqueness Epaphrodite is shared. He was one willing to throw down his life as a gambler stakes his money. He shared something of my holy abandonment to Christ and to his work. Oh what it must have meant for Paul to relinquish such a man.

33:10 Some of us know the pain of relinquishing a bosom friend with whom we prayed and that when we're praying with that friend we know that everything we ask and he adds his amen, we are as one soul before God. What pain it is to relinquish such a friend. But Paul relinquished him. Why?

33:32 Because he loved Epaphroditus and he loved the Philippians more than he loved himself. Love is sacrificial. God so loved that he gave. The very essence of love is to sacrifice, to give for the sake of its object and to give at personal cost.

33:55 Now do you know something of that love? Again, it doesn't grow on Adamic soil. The fruit of the Spirit is love. Galatians 5, 22.

34:05 And if you're not a Christian, you will not know this kind of love. And this is why you need to be born of the Spirit. This is why you need what the Bible calls a new heart. You need the impartation of a new life with a new center, with the very dynamism of the power of God himself at work in you.

Nugget 2: A Major Contribution to the Biblical Doctrine of Human Emotions

34:25 Well, we must hurry on and hold up a second nugget that's in the passage. We not only see in the passage a clear example of these two characteristics of biblical love, but behold in this text a major contribution to the biblical doctrine of human emotions.

34:47 Behold in this text a major contribution to the biblical doctrine of human emotions. The few verses that we've expounded this morning are the words of human emotion. Look at them. Longing, sore, troubled, sorrow, sorrow, rejoicing, less sorrow.

35:13 All of those words are words describing human emotions. Now notice, human emotions that were not veiled. Paul could see the longing of Epaphroditus. Paul could visibly see that he was distracted and sore troubled.

35:37 Paul is unembarrassed to say that he would have had one more sorrow upon another if God had taken the life of Epaphroditus. He was unembarrassed to say that he was already becoming sorrowful as he saw the longing of Epaphroditus and he wanted that sorrow relieved. In other words, this is not a clinical description of the fact that emotions exist. It is a practical account of how those emotions were manifested and how they even entered into the decision-making process of an apostle.

36:16 And I say they therefore contribute much to a biblical doctrine of human emotions. Now granted, sin has so affected the totality of humanity that our emotions by nature are all twisted and perverted. We are all and we laugh at things over which we ought to weep. And we weep at things which ought to be of no concern.

36:41 But the emotions themselves are not sinful. And when God in grace lays hold of men and women and boys and girls and makes them new creatures in Christ, He does not neuter the emotions, but rather He sanctifies and elevates them and makes them one of the very channels of the by which His grace is manifested. And here we see this in the life of Epaphroditus. We see it in the life of Paul.

37:15 We see it in the life of these Philippian Christians. Now I don't know where the notion comes from. There are various theories. But one of the cursed notions that has taken root in much of our own Western society is that there is something inherently sinful in letting it be known that we are emotional creatures.

37:43 And so we veil our tears and we restrain our rejoicing to the place where one would hardly know that we had any tears to shed or there was any joy in our hearts. Our Lord Jesus Christ has forever sanctified the full range of human emotions and the full range of human emotions in visible concrete expressions. B.B.

38:14 Warfield has what to my judgment is one of his most masterful essays on this subject, The Emotional Life of Our Lord. And in it he demonstrates from the Gospels that every single human emotion from anger to joy to grief to sorrow all of them are not only recorded as being experienced by our Lord but manifested visibly in a perfect humanity. And now the Bible says he that saith he abideth in him ought to walk even as he walked. And there is something beautiful about human emotions from the full spectrum of the most crushing grief to the highest ecstasies of pure joy when those emotions are under the discipline of grace and are under the control of the spirit in a life that is walking by the norms of the word of God. My friend, what is your view of the human emotions?

39:23 When men cry in my presence they almost invariably begin to apologize.

39:30 I had the privilege this week of putting my arm around a man who said that he never wept in the presence of another man in 37 years of his life. And what a joy it was to put my arm around him and say let it go, let it go. There is nothing unmanly with tears.

39:51 They are part of our humanity and those tears become sanctified when they are produced under the discipline of the spirit. And it's not until there is no more occasion for tears that God will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Until now the Bible says thou has put all my tears into thy bottle. It's a beautiful picture of a near east custom at least this is what I've read.

40:17 That a person would keep a very expensive flask and if he really wanted to show intimate love and friendship when his friend would weep he'd take his little tear bottle and pluck the tear from off the cheek of his friend. God keeps all of our tears in his bottle. He draws near to us in our pain and in our agony when we've wept to the point where David says our moisture has turned to the drought of summer and the tear ducts will no longer spill forth moisture and all we have is the dry sobs of a broken heart.

40:57 And there's nothing unchristian about the dry sobs of a broken heart. And my friend there's nothing unchristian about saying with the 126th psalm when the Lord turned the captivity of Zion we were like unto them that dream. We were so full of holy joy we didn't know whether we were awake or asleep.

41:23 What a beautiful passage forever showing the sanctity of Christian emotions and even allowing the emotional needs of people to enter into administrative decisions concerning the work of the kingdom of Christ.

Nugget 3: A Crucial Contribution to the Biblical Doctrine of Sickness and Healing

41:42 But I must hasten on and hold up a third nugget and it's this. Behold in this text a crucial contribution to the biblical doctrine of sickness and healing. Behold in this text tucked away in this text a crucial contribution to the biblical doctrine of sickness and healing. Remember the facts.

42:07 Epaphroditus gets sick sick even unto death. Why? Because he was backslidden? No.

42:14 He was a sold out servant of Christ. He was doing the will of God. He wasn't a Jonah running from the call of God. He was an obedient servant doing the will of God.

42:26 Paul says in verse 30, because of the very work of Christ he came near unto death. But sickness came upon him. Not because of chastisement for unconfessed sin. Not because of disobedience to the revealed will of God.

42:43 Not because of unbelief. Sickness came upon him as it comes upon all people. This side of the consummation of the new age. Sickness is a part of life for saint and sinner alike.

43:03 Now get the picture. Here's this great apostle of whom it is said that in certain places God gave him such power that all he had to do was touch a handkerchief and you could run to your sick loved one with that handkerchief lay it on them boom they'd get right off their sick bed.

43:24 That's what happened at Ephesus. His special miracles were wrought by the hand of Paul. Another time Peter as an apostle all people need to do was get within his shadow. There's my shadow on the back wall.

43:36 If you were sick you could get close enough to Peter's shadow. Zap! You were healed.

43:43 Now this same apostle sees Epaphroditus with a raging fever. Sees him drawing nearer and nearer to the door of death. Does he have any power to lay a handkerchief upon him? No.

43:56 Does he have any power to rebuke the spirit of sickness? No. The apostle Paul was helpless to do a thing.

44:07 He said God mercied him. He uses a verbal form of the word mercy. God mercied him. Paul was shut up to the same means that we have.

44:19 He had to plead with God. He had to argue with God. He had to say Lord in the scales of your omniscient eye look upon me with all the griefs that are upon me. Look upon your servant Epaphroditus.

44:34 Lord do not add grief to grief. If it please you Lord show mercy. Show pity. There was no claiming of healing by Epaphroditus.

44:44 There was no evidence of a miracle of healing by the apostle Paul. He was shut up to the sovereign mercy of God on behalf. of Epaphroditus sickness which didn't come to him as chastisement for sin or for disobedience. And when these charismatic clowns tell you that sickness only comes as a chastisement for sin.

45:09 Don't listen to their rotten eminable destructive in any other heresy. They cannot preach on a passage like this and be honest with the text.

45:25 And when these healers tell you if only you have enough faith, if only you trust hard enough and only you believe strong enough, my friends, any doctrine of healing that will not be honest with this passage is not biblical. It takes sensitive Christians and brings them into bondage. They search their hearts. They ransack their hearts.

45:49 They keep looking with a light into the darkest crevices. Is there any unconfessed sin? Any unconfessed sin? Any , any unconfessed sin?

45:57 Oh, if only I could believe enough, believe enough. And they turn inward upon themselves and flagellate themselves. And as they come nearer and nearer death's door, all of Job's comforters gather around them saying, believe harder, trust harder, get rid of your unbelief, get rid of your sin. Many an earnest Christian has died in agony who should have died rejoicing because of a vicious, wicked twisting of the word of God.

46:26 It wouldn't be honest with a passage like this. That's not just an innocent aberration, my friends. That's a wicked teaching that dishonors God and brings his dear children into terrible bondage. Then I hasten on, though I did want to quote from John Stone, the great commentator on Philippians, but I want to hold up one or two more nuggets, so I pass the quote.

Nugget 4: A Pattern of Wise and Sensitive Administration

46:51 Behold in this text a pattern of wise and sensitive admissibility. Behold in this text a pattern of wise and sensitive administration. Paul said in verse 25, I counted it necessary to send Epaphroditus. That's an administrative decision.

47:14 But now what brought him to that decision? He didn't have a revelation. Now sometimes he got guidance by revelation. He said, I went up to Jerusalem by revelation.

47:24 I had a direct revelation from God as an apostle. That I should do something. He had no direct revelation here. He had to make a wise administrative decision with the factors that we have.

47:37 And what were they? He looked at the factors of providence. He felt, he felt empathetically the state of Epaphroditus. He felt empathetically the state of the Philippians.

47:50 He viewed objectively the factors of providence with regard to his own condition and putting together factors of providence, the strategy of the work of the kingdom, and this empathy with the servants of God and the people of God. He mixed them all up in the pot, and then he backed off and prayed over all of that, and then he said, I counted it necessary. What a beautiful pattern of wise and sensitive administration. We who are fathers, we who are mothers, you who are in any place of leadership in your place of business, we who are elders and deacons, this is the way we are to implement responsible administrative influence. Objective, yes, oh, there are times we need to have nothing but the white light of pure reason, looking at the facts, but remember we're not dealing with sticks and stones in the light of the church and our families, but people with feelings that feel pain, that have longings, that have yearnings, and wise administrators take into account all of those factors, but then I close on the note that to me is most precious in the whole passage, and that's why I've saved it to last. If we can take one more nugget out of the folds of this

Nugget 5: The Tender Heart of God Towards His Children

49:20 text, it is this. Behold in this text the tender heart of God, the heart of God, towards his children. Look at verse 27. For indeed he was sick nigh unto death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, that I might not have sorrow upon sorrow.

49:50 Paul says it's as though there was a scale, and in one side of the scale was the grace of God supporting a sorrowful and sorrowing servant of Christ in a Roman prison, and the other side of the scale was the full weight of his sorrow, and Paul says as he anticipated the death of Epaphroditus, that would have put such weight into the present mound of sorrow on the scales, that it would have tipped the scales, and the sorrow upon sorrow would have pressed me down into despair, but God who knew my frame, lest I should have sorrow heaped upon sorrow that would tip the scales, God mercied Epaphroditus and healed him. What a beautiful picture of the heart of God. Psalm 103 tells us, Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pities those that fear him, for he knows our frame. He remembers that we are done.

51:01 And amidst all of the sorrows that this servant of God bore, and they were many, for no servant of God will be long a stranger to sorrow. He said, God who had allowed these sorrows to come was not ignorant nor insensitive to the present measure of those sorrows. The heart of God is large towards his children, and it was large toward his servant Paul, but it is nonetheless large toward his saints. God displayed his heart to every Christian in the death of his son.

51:39 He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things? And we as the people of God should draw tremendous consolation when we've come into a crucible of heaviness, when there seems to be impinging upon us a combination of circumstances both from within our own hearts, our own families, and the circle of our acquaintances. It seems to be building up an accumulated mountain of sorrow that will crush us. Child of God, remember, God knows just how much his grace is able to sustain in you, and he will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able. And when he sees that one more gram of sorrow would push you over the hill, he will mercy you. In pity, in tender, fatherly compassion, God will intervene on behalf of your need. This ought to bring great comfort to some of us this morning who are in the midst perhaps of an unusual pressure of sorrowful circumstances.

52:59 God not only knows, but he feels. God is the great empathizer in all of their affliction. He was afflicted, the scripture tells us, and we should find our rest and consolation in the certain knowledge that in his own appointed time he will mercy us. He will bring that deliverance which will turn our night of weeping into a moment of peace.

53:29 He will bring that deliverance into a morning of joy, for this is the promise of the word of God. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. Now there are a lot more nuggets in the folds of that passage. You go root around and find them, will you?

53:47 I trust that these will be a means of encouragement and strength. And if you're not a Christian, I hope you've been made jealous this morning. What a wonderful thing to live in a world full of disappointment and in grief and sorrow and heartache, and to live in the knowledge that we have a God who cares. May he become your God in the only way he can become your God, as you seek him in the person of his own dear son.

Prayer

54:18 Let us pray.

54:25 Our Father, we thank you for all that is bound up in your title and in your relationship to us. As Father, we thank you that as a father pities, so you pity.

54:44 We thank you that you are to us what no earthly father could ever be, one who is omniscient and knows us all together. We pray that out of your perfect knowledge of us, you will minister to our hearts. Take the words of this text. Take the principles that have been underscored and amplified and, oh, make them profitable to every heart.

55:11 May we think biblically about everything from what love is to how we should administer responsibility to how we should express our emotions, how we should react to sickness. Lord, in all of these things, make us biblical Christians and purge from our minds all imbalance and all unbiblical thought. May our lives reflect the molding influence of Holy Scripture in every facet of our experience. Hear our prayer and seal the word to our hearts and be with us as we leave this place and further sanctify this day to our prophet and to your praise through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.