For The Sake of Others.

We are in our series walking through the book of Philippians. I love when we get to walk through scripture in this way together, because in so many ways scripture speaks for itself and preaches to the depths of our hearts. Last week we went verse by verse through scripture and broke it down more together, and we're going to do that same thing today.

We're going to be in Philippians 2, starting in verse 19 through 30. We're going to read it all together and then break it down a little bit verse by verse.

I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him who will show genuine concern for your welfare, for everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel. I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon. But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, who is also the messenger whom you sent to take care of my needs. For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. Indeed, he was ill and almost died, but God had mercy on him and not on him only, but also me to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore, I am all the more eager to send him so that when you see him again, you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. So then welcome him in the Lord with great joy and honor people like him because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.

Philippians 2:19-30

Paul gives us a little of his tone there at the end. You guys couldn't do it, so he risked his life. I love that sometimes, the tone of voice he gives us.

For the sake of others

Our main point for today. If we get nothing else from this passage, this is it: giving your life for Christ is giving your life for others. That's the title. For the sake of others. And then what do we do with this. We look out for the interests of others and we go and make disciples.

Paul is laying out what it looks like to give ourselves for the sake of others in the way that he is highlighting two key relationships. Now in the past, I've read some of these scriptures and I've missed some of the beauty in the relationships he's highlighting. Paul is talking about the people he was investing in, the people he was pouring into, the people he was taking with him on the journey. What we see is that giving our life for the sake of others means investing in others, prioritizing others, welcoming others, and taking risks for others. It's all for others.

In verses 19 through 21, that verse alone could preach for weeks and weeks and weeks. Everyone looks out for their own interests, but not those of Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself because as a son with his father, he has served with me in the work of the gospel. Paul is demonstrating here that he invested in Timothy's life. He made him a disciple and brought him along for the journey, but he was also generous in sending him out to continue to make disciples. Paul made sure to take people along with him on the journey.

So one of my first questions to you today is in your everyday life and the things that the Lord has placed before you, who are you inviting to take with you on the journey? Who is it that you are bringing alongside you and making a disciple of?

We talk a lot here at New Culture about this idea of being with Jesus, entering the process of becoming like Jesus so that we can then be transformed by him to do what he did, and that was to make disciples. Jesus offered the disciples a life of following and becoming like him. That means yes, at times it might be sitting down with someone and walking through the Bible with them. But it's also letting people just be a part of your life, letting them eat with you, having them in your homes, going to their homes, living life with them.

Paul highlights here that he's sending his best when he's talking about Timothy. What made him the best? What he's telling us is that Timothy wasn't looking out for his own interests. People of Jesus do not look out for their own interests. Now, does this line up with the message that we often hear or the message that we want to receive for our lives? Absolutely not.

The temptation to pursue comfort

I want to talk about this for a minute today because Paul talks about this in different places in scripture. Whether it's Bible times or today times or any times, there's always this temptation to pursue comfort. There's always this temptation to just become consumer-focused in what we do. Everything's about consuming and about feeding into our interests. Everything is about feeding into what we want.

But the Bible teaches us something that's a little counter-cultural. It's others first. And that it's not when you find yourself and you're good, then you can go be good. But it's when you lose yourself and then you truly learn to rely on Jesus for all you need, that's when you are who you were created to be.

Now here's the thing that I want to highlight: burnout is also not of the Lord. We know that burnout is not of the Lord, that God doesn't want to just use us, but he wants to do life with us and empower us.

But what I found many times is when people are feeling burnt out or when I'm feeling burnt out and tired, it comes down to one of two things. One, we're carrying the wrong things. Or two, we're carrying it on our own in the wrong way. There might be things in your life that the Lord actually never asked you to do that you need to release.

But I also want to talk about when we are in those moments and we're processing and saying, okay, why am I feeling heavy? Why am I feeling tired? Why am I feeling like I can't actually do things for the Lord? When we're just filled with worry and anxiety and we think, okay, I think it's because I'm doing too much. I think it's because maybe I've said too many yeses. There's then this temptation to just be like, all right, I'm done. I'm throwing in the towel. I quit. I give up and I'm just going to hide away.

But there is this level as people of Jesus to look at the character of Jesus and say, Jesus was faithful. Jesus followed through. Jesus has never, never forgotten one of his promises. So if you find yourself in a place today where you're thinking, okay, I'm feeling heavy. I'm feeling like I'm starting to just look out for the interests of myself and I'm in this survival mode. Take responsibility and learn what it looks like to invest in others and pass the baton.

I talk about it a lot in all the different teams that I've led through the years. Okay, we don't drop the ball. We pass the ball. You don't just drop the ball in the middle of the game, but you pass it to somebody else. You find somebody else to invest in.

And if we as people of God are always investing and making disciples, then we're not going to find ourselves always in this spot feeling like we're carrying the wrong things. We're going to have community. We're going to know and be able to follow the Lord's leading to say, who do we pass it to in this moment?

For me in my life, it's looked like at times when I've said too many yeses. I go, okay, for the next few months, we're going to take responsibility. We're going to be faithful because Jesus was faithful. We're going to be consistent because Jesus was consistent. Then we're going to make better choices moving forward and listen more to what the Lord is really asking of us. We're going to find ways to invest in others and to pass the ball, not drop the ball. And this is part of learning to invest in others.

Carrying our own burden

But then when it comes to carrying it on our own, that's another thing. Sometimes it might not be that what you're carrying is too much. As carriers of the gospel, living for Jesus is not promised to be painless. It's not promised to be easy. There is a cost to carrying the cross of Jesus Christ. There is a cost that comes with it. So just because it's hard doesn't mean it's not of God. Just because you are feeling a little heavy doesn't mean it's not of God.

But maybe you're trying to carry it all on your own. Maybe you're not living with this posture of surrender to Jesus. You're trying to do it on your own or to do it alone. Because we weren't meant to carry these things alone.

Yesterday, my lovely sister-in-law Elena, who is leading us on the keys here, we went to Hobby Lobby for their Christmas sale, 60 percent off. But we were trying to decide what we actually need to buy. And she's like, Nathan, my husband is going to kill me when I walk home today. And I'm like, buy it.

We're standing there and our arms are just overflowing because we didn't get a cart. Did we need any of this? No. Did we end up buying half the store? Almost. We're like standing there and we're like, okay, how do we do this? You take this, I take that.

And it was one of those moments where it wasn't that we were carrying necessarily too much. Like we were able to carry it, but we just had to shift the load a little bit. We had to be strategic. You take this, and if I don't have this, then I have this arm free to do this. And okay, yep, I got a hand to pull out my credit card and pay for all this.

But sometimes that's our lives, right? Where it's not necessarily what we're carrying, but how we're carrying it. Are we allowing ourselves to carry it in the context of community? Are we allowing ourselves to let Jesus ultimately be the one that carries it for us?

That's where we see the value of us always investing in others and doing things in the context of community. We're always learning who are we passing things on to, who are we investing in, who are we bringing on the journey with us.

Welcoming people on the journey

We also see Paul here talking about how he really welcomed people in. It is easier sometimes for us, and it can be tempting to journey alone. But he knew that it was good to have people along for the journey. He knew that it was good for them, it was good for him, it was good for the kingdom, because that was always God's plan. It would be through each and every one of us continuing to make disciples who make disciples that we would see his kingdom come and people return to relationship with him.

He welcomed others in a way where he was willing to continue to send them off to other people. I was thinking about this sometimes when it comes to the message of the gospel. We can be selfish with it without even realizing it. Part of Paul welcoming people and inviting them to partake in this kingdom mission was a posture of generosity. He recognized like this was so good. He recognized the hope of Jesus, the healing of Jesus. He not only gave his life, but he strategically welcomed others to join him on the journey.

And it causes us to think: what is stopping us from welcoming people to join us? What is stopping us from recognizing that the hope of the world is in Jesus Christ? And so we want other people to be a part of that. When we have good news, we should be eager to invite people to participate in what we're doing. And in that, we also receive because we have the joy of knowing more people have joined the family of God and are finding that hope and healing in Jesus.

In verse 23, he says, I hope therefore to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. And I'm confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon. I feel like this is kind of Paul's way of telling them, like, I'm not just sending them because I don't want to be there. Like, they're not replacing me. I want to be there, but I'm sending them first.

In verses 25 through 27, Paul is describing Epaphroditus. There's three different kind of special relationships mentioned here when he's describing Epaphroditus. He's saying he's my brother, he's my coworker, and my fellow soldier. My brother, my coworker, my fellow soldier. What we see here is Paul is giving us like a little piece of strategy of how he did discipleship, of how he invested in others, of how he welcomed others.

He's talking about him as a brother. Now that, I don't just throw that word around. I really only say that probably about my actual blood brothers, the ones that share my DNA. But when you say this is my brother, like this is someone I'm close to. That word represents a relationship of intimacy. It tells us that this wasn't just a stranger. This probably wasn't someone that Paul had just interacted with just a few times, but that he had a relationship of depth with. And we know that those types of relationships take history. They take consistency. They take investing in them. They take welcoming them to your table and into your life.

And so he's showing us a little bit like, that's probably what he did to get to that point to say, this is my brother. And it says coworker. I love that too. Coworker. He's like, we're on the same team. He has every right to just go on and be like, my understudy, like the one that comes below me or beneath me. But no, he doesn't do that. He's like, this is my brother and this is my coworker because he recognized that although at times we might all serve different roles, that we are in this together.

Often I find it funny sometimes when I tell people I'm a pastor, people will be like, oh, that's so cool. Your full-time job is to tell people about Jesus. I'm like, well, if you're a follower of Jesus, like that's your full-time job too. It just looks different. But we all have the same mission. We are coworkers in helping people hear the good news, the hope, the healing love of Jesus Christ.

And then he's a soldier. There is a mission, there's a job to be done to tell people about Jesus, and then there is a battle to fight. I love sometimes thinking about this. For many of us, we struggle with this word of soldier. But I want to talk about it today with the idea of Paul once again emphasizing that our job of following Jesus is not just to be a member of an audience, but it is to actually participate in the army of God. It is actually to be someone that is working towards that mission, that is working towards helping people find Jesus Christ. And we have a role to play in that that goes beyond just sitting here on a Sunday once a week, but it's every single moment and every single day. You are a part of something so much bigger than we could ever imagine.

So in relationship, we have to recognize with other people as we invest into them, as we welcome them, that part of what Paul is showing us now is that he prioritized them. He was spending time with them to get to the point to say, you're my brother, you're my coworker. We're in this together. We are a part of the same team, the same mission.

So we too need to look to have relationship with other people that are far from God. And we need to recognize that we are on a mission to bring them near to God. And we need to recognize that we're not just supposed to be a member of the audience, but active in the fight. And that they're not just supposed to be a member of the audience, but that God has a plan and a purpose for their life as well, to be a sister, to be a brother, to be a fellow coworker in spreading the gospel, the good news. And this takes community to do that. But Jesus, not Paul. Jesus, not Epaphroditus or Timothy. Jesus is the main character of this. And they're recognizing that they are all a part of God's ministry, that they are all a part of his mission.

Jesus modeled giving for others

Verse 29 says, So then welcome him in the Lord with great joy and honor people like him, because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me. Again with the sass. And here we see that we are living for Christ, and it's all for the sake of others. That it might take a little risk. It might take us doing things where we are risking some things in our lives.

Now, everything that Paul is highlighting here in the scripture was first modeled by Jesus. And I love in Ephesians 5, verses 1 and 2, where it says to be imitators of Christ as dearly loved children and to live a life of love as Christ loved us and gave his life for us. Jesus went first in all of this. He's not telling Paul and having Paul do something he hadn't done. Paul wasn't telling Timothy or Epaphroditus to go and do things that he had not done. Epaphroditus saw it modeled by Paul that the gospel, the good news of Jesus, was worth giving everything for. And Paul knew that it was worth giving everything for because they had experienced the transforming power and hope and healing of Jesus Christ. And it was modeled first by Jesus.

As I was praying over this message today, I just really felt that deep in my heart. Yes, we need to always live with that mindset that we are on mission to help people draw near to God, to help them find that relationship, to make disciples. We are on that mission together and it is going to take every single one of us learning what it looks like every day for us to invest into the people around us.

When we look around even this room today, we all tomorrow morning are going to be in different places, different offices, different buildings with different people that were all created in the image of God. And whether or not they can name it, they need a relationship with Jesus. And we have that hope that we get to carry. We have that light that we get to carry.

But as I was thinking about this, I just felt like we need to spend some time today remembering that Jesus is the one that went first. That Jesus died for the sake of others. That Jesus gave his life for the sake of others. That Jesus invested into others. We see that with the life he lived with his disciples.

He invested into them. He welcomed them on his journey. His journey of saying, come on, get on the boat and let's go fish together. He invested in them saying, hey, I'm going to this person's house. Come with me. Something that probably didn't seem like a high and holy mighty thing to do. He prioritized them. He made space for them. His disciples. He made space for them to come on the journey with him.

Jesus welcomed others. If you need to be reminded of the type of people that Jesus welcomed, just open the Gospels to just about any random page. The woman at the well. Everybody else said we shouldn't talk to her. And Jesus says, I'm going to welcome her in. Zacchaeus, the tax collector. People are saying, you're going to be seen going to whose house? Jesus, and he welcomed him in.

And Jesus not only risked his life, he gave his life for others. And I think sometimes we think of just the death on the cross, which yes, we're going to talk about that, continue to today and fix our eyes on that. But I want you to think of the other things that Jesus risked his life for and died for along the way. When he talked to people, he was risking his reputation. He was risking the opinions of other people.

Sometimes there's going to be things in our life and people that God is going to ask us to invest in that other people might not think they're worth our time. But if Jesus says they were made in my image and I want relationship with them, then it's worth it to Jesus and it's worth our time. There's so much that he gave along the way.

Center your life on Jesus

What does it look like for us to give our lives for others? What does it look like for us to constantly be thinking, who are we taking along with us on the journey? Who am I investing in? Who am I making space for? Who am I welcoming to my table? Or by welcoming, whose table am I going to and having a meal with?

You know, as a part of our church, we have what is called a rule of life. We have copies at our welcome table. Part of this idea of a rule of life is saying, okay, we don't want to just be going in all these random directions. But we want to start to set up our lives to have rhythms that form us into the image and likeness of Jesus every single day. And part of our rule of life is we have relational things. And a rule is essentially just a set of practices.

And we have relational ones because it's so important for us to remember that we weren't meant to journey alone, but that we were meant to do it as a community and always live our lives for the sake of others. To be thinking about, when was the last time that I intentionally said, okay, I'm going to invest in this person?

Before I even was in ministry and was a pastor, I remember the Lord just put on my heart. What would it look like if every single year you were a part of just helping one person come closer to God and come to know Jesus? And I remember as I started looking for jobs outside of college and doing these different things, some of them were like, okay, you can come do this and you can do that. And I just kept thinking a lot of them would be ministry roles. But I said, I just always want to be in a place in my life where no matter what I'm doing, that every single year I am personally a part of helping someone come closer to Jesus.

What would it look like if all of us said, okay, just one person that I'm going to pray for, just one person that I'm going to start to prioritize, just one person that I'm going to invest in, that I might even take some risks for in my life, for them to come to know Jesus?

What is the big takeaway from this today? Giving your life for Christ is giving your life for others. And it all starts with Jesus. Of remembering today that Jesus loves us. That simple truth that sometimes we need to remember. We can love because he first loved us.

That today, Jesus thinks that you, yes you, no matter what you walked in here with or how you view yourself in this moment, he thinks that you're worth making time for today. Jesus, the Son of God, wants to invest into your life. He wants to welcome you into intimate, deep relationship. He wants you to be whole. He wants you to be healed. And he wants you to join him in his mission to seek and to save that which was lost.

So what do we do with this? We start to center our lives and continue to center our lives around being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus so we can do what he did. We can look out for the interest of others. We can make disciples. So I want to invite you to stand and in just a moment, we're going to take communion together. And I just felt like I wanted us to do this tonight because I really felt as I was prepping for this that if we are going to continue to give our lives for others, we're going to have to continue to be reminded of the work of the cross, reminded of what Jesus gave for us, and reminded that as we invite others on the journey, as we invest in them, as we welcome them, that it's not from by ourselves, but it's because of Jesus, and it's for Jesus.

But I want you to take a minute today before we do that and just think of the relationships that you have. Who sits at your table? Who is near you? And to begin to think and ask the Holy Spirit to share with you today, how can you start to invest into them? How can you start to prioritize them? Make space. Make room. How can you take people on the journey with you?

So God, we thank you for this word today. And I just ask that even as we continue through this time of worship, that you would remind us that we can love because you first loved us. That you will remind us that you gave everything for us. That you loved us so much that you now invite us to participate in sharing your gospel, participate in imitating you and living a life of love. So we thank you for that, Jesus. We're going to have communion here on this table. I'm going to place the cups here. And whenever you guys are ready, you can come and grab a communion cup and just take it back to your seat. And then we're going to close in a time of worship. But I just want us to take a moment to remember what Jesus did for us on the cross to celebrate what he did for us on the cross. And so you can do that however you want, but I'm going to start by just reading the scripture in Corinthians 11:23-26, where it says:

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took the bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

As we drink this, we will be proclaiming his death until he comes. Until that day where we stand before him face to face. And you can go and partake in the Lord's Supper and then we're going to close with singing a chorus together and in prayer.

God, we thank you so much for your son Jesus. We thank you for sending him to pay the price for our sins, but before any of that, to just be with us, to walk with us. We thank you for your Holy Spirit that dwells in this place that we get to enter into your presence. And God, we thank you that we can leave this place giving for the living, for the sake of others because you gave everything for us. We thank you, God, that we can so freely welcome others because you welcomed us in all of our brokenness and all of our mess. And you said that we were worth it, that we were worth loving, we were worth giving it all for, we were worth risking it all for.

Jesus, we thank you for that. We thank you that you have invited us to join you on this journey of helping people experience your kingdom, of seeing heaven come down to earth. So God, would you help us as we walk throughout our weeks to walk with this sense of honor, this sense of responsibility, this sense of mission, this sense of knowing that you are with us. We thank you, Lord, for your love that we can love because you loved us. You are so good to us God. You are so faithful, so constant. And so we thank you for meeting us here in this space. We ask all this in your name. Amen. Amen.

Alright, well I hope you all have a wonderful start to your week tomorrow. Just want to encourage you, if you haven't yet, sign up for a time slot in the prayer room. Sign throughout your week your lunch break. Start your morning in that prayer room. Again, if you're new here, we'd love to meet you at the welcome table. Sign up to bring food to Friendsgiving so we don't all show up and starve. And everything you need to know is on our website. All right, we'll see you guys next week.