Sermon Tone Analysis

[In the animated movie Ice Age, when saber-tooth tigers attack a tribe of nomads, a mother and her baby attempt to outrun the man-eating beasts but are cornered at a raging waterfall.

The little boy is discovered by a wooly mammoth named Manfred, a sloth name Sid, and a saber-tooth tiger named Diego.

These three unlikely companions unite on a common mission to return the baby to his father.

[In the animated movie Ice Age, when saber-tooth tigers attack a tribe of nomads, a mother and her baby attempt to outrun the man-eating beasts but are cornered at a raging waterfall.

The little boy is discovered by a wooly mammoth named Manfred, a sloth name Sid, and a saber-tooth tiger named Diego.

These three unlikely companions unite on a common mission to return the baby to his father.

As the trio treks through a mountainous terrain of ice and snow carrying the baby, at one point the mammoth, sloth, and tiger realize they're on an erupting volcano.

The heat of the lava melts the glacier bridges atop the ice fields, separating Diego from the others.

Isolated on a quickly melting island of ice, Diego jumps to reach the others, but falls short.

Dangling from the edge of the ice field, his grip falters, and he falls.

Manfred, unwilling to let Diego perish, leaps into a chasm after him and tosses the tiger upwards to safety.

Diego, realizing the danger involved in the rescue, is moved by Manfred's compassion, courage, and sacrifice.

"Why did you do that?" he asks.

"You could have died trying to save me."

Humbly, the mammoth responds, "That's what you do when you're part of a herd.

You look after each other."

Amazed at the convergence of circumstances that has brought these three together, Sid muses aloud.

"I don't know about you guys, but we are one strange herd.”]

Introduction:

One strange herd!

Don’t you feel like that’s a great description of the church sometimes?

A mix of people with different personalities, different backgrounds, different ideas sometimes, who might never hang out together— except for the one thing that we have in common: we love Jesus.

And in one way or another, we have been transformed by His amazing love and mercy.

Because of that, we hang out together.

But even more than that, as the film illustrates in a cute way, as a “herd” of Christ followers, we look after each other—even if we might look a little strange at times.

When the church is working right, it becomes a place where our old nature and our old instincts begin to die and we start thinking completely different about the people around us.

People who we might never have associated with before, or people who we never would have thought we would befriend, suddenly become our brothers and sisters.

And we find ourselves wanting to bring in more and more of those who might not belong anywhere else—we find a place for them.

And our herd, our community, becomes a place of love and service; a place where people experience the transforming power of Jesus as work in their lives.

If there is one theme that permeates Paul’s letter to the Philippians, it’s this theme of sacrificial love and service.

It’s the way that Paul introduces himself and Timothy right in the first sentence in , where he says

It’s at the heart of ; the famous passage which describes how Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords descended to become one of us; even more than that, he descended to become our slave, serving us.

All this servant and sacrifice talk sets the stage for the section of his letter that we will read this morning where Paul talks about his friends, Timothy and Epaphroditus.

Please turn to .

All this servant and sacrifice talk sets the stage for the section of his letter that we just read where Paul talks about his friends, Timothy and Epaphroditus.

These are wonderful verses tucked away inside his letter that remind us that Paul was not writing some kind of theological dissertation.

This is a letter; a letter from a friend to a group of friends.

From a very real person with real problems, feelings and character, to a real group of people with their own unique character and issues.

These are wonderful verses tucked away inside his letter that remind us that Paul was not writing some kind of theological dissertation.

This is a letter; a letter from a friend to a group of friends.

From a very real person with real problems, feelings and character, to a real group of people with their own unique character and issues.

We know that when Paul wrote this letter, he was in prison.

But we don’t know exactly where.

Though we don’t know where he is, we do know that he is in a bad situation.

He is far from his home.

Far from his friends.

Unable to carry out the calling that he is so passionate about, which is to share the message of Jesus with whoever he can, wherever he can.

And in this prison, he feels an incredible sense of distance from his friends in Philippi , people that he cares deeply about.

But he has not been completely alone.

Things are not all bad.

What makes this section so meaningful is the impression that two of his very good friends, Timothy and Epaphroditus, have been around.

And what we see in these verses is how they have served as connecting points between him and the church in Philippi .

They have blessed him as friends right there in prison.

But they have also been a link between him and his faraway friends.

We see this in the way that Paul speaks about Timothy.

In verse 19, Paul talks about how he hopes to send Timothy to them as soon as possible.

You’ll notice that in his description of Timothy, the servant theme comes right to the front again.

Listen to how he talks about Timothy in :

One of the important pieces of background information that his helpful to know about the letter to the Philippians is that one of the issues that the Philippian church was struggling with was over bad teaching by self-focused teachers.

There were people at work in the community who were trying to gain power and authority over everyone and were willing to talk down Paul in order to get what they wanted.

His response to the leadership crisis in Philippi is to send two of his friends to them to address the situation.

In these two friends we see the ingredients of true community.

Timothy

The first is Timothy.

What you’ll notice about Timothy is that he doesn’t get sent to Philippi to help resolve their issues because he has such great credentials in teaching and leadership.

It’s not that he has more skills.

The one qualification that makes Timothy the perfect person to visit them is his character: he has a servant heart.

He is completely unselfish.

His main goal is not to focus on his own interests, but that of Jesus.

Timothy lives his life in complete contrast to the teachers in Philippi .

What you’ll notice about Timothy is that he doesn’t get sent to Philippi to help resolve their issues because he has such great credentials in teaching and leadership.

It’s not that he has more skills.

The one qualification that makes Timothy the perfect person to visit them is his character: he has a servant heart.

He is completely unselfish.

His main goal is not to focus on his own interests, but that of Jesus.

Timothy lives his life in complete contrast to the teachers in Philippi .

With just a few short words, Paul adds Timothy to the list of examples that he’s been using to teach the Philippians what servanthood really is.

He began with Jesus, quoting a marvelous hymn in

Then in , he gives his own testimony, talking about how he is being poured out like a drink offering, which is an incredibly vivid picture of suffering for Jesus.

And then points out Timothy, who truly takes an interest in their welfare and is focused on Jesus in everything.

It is the faith and character of Timothy that makes him eminently qualified to deal with the unbalanced leadership in Philippi .

They are out for their own gain and advantage.

Timothy is all about Jesus and only Jesus.

So the first example of community is Paul’s friend Timothy.

Epaphroditus

His second example of community is his friend Epaphroditus.

We know a fair bit about Timothy because we can read about him in other places in Scripture.

But this is the only place in the Bible where we read about Epaphroditus, so we know nothing of his background.

Timothy and Epaphroditus provide the perfect set of gifts for a hurting church.

In Timothy, we see someone who embodies Truth in a beautiful way.

Because of his character, he is the perfect person to model what it means to have the mind of Christ, to counteract the craziness that’s going on in the church.

Timothy doesn’t just know the Truth of Jesus, he lives it.

Well, if Timothy embodies truth, then perhaps we could say that Epaphroditus embodies love.

Specifically, he represents Paul’s love for the Philippians.

Going back to the idea of community, that we are one strange herd, brought together into unity in Jesus, Timothy and Epaphroditus gives us a beautiful example of what it looks like to help foster beautiful community.

They embody the two ingredients that help the church function at its best: truth and love.

Let’s take a closer look at just who Epaphroditus was and how he demonstrated strong Christian love.

Epaphroditus seems to have been sent to Paul by the Philippian church.

They were so concerned about Paul’s condition in prison, that they sent someone to go and care for him on their behalf.

If, as many believe, Paul was in Caesarea , than the journey from Philippi took more than a month, most of it by ship.