A Few Good Men

A Few Good Men - by Rev Paul Tan

Sermon Text: Philippians 2:19-30

16 October 2005

19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. 20 I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. 21 For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 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. 23 I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. 24 And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon.

25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. 26 For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. 28 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. 29 Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him, 30 because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me. (Philippians 2:19-30 NIV)

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA--

A huge U.S. book chain, Barnes & Noble has opened a $6 mill, 60,000 Sq ft bookstore cum coffee house in Siem Reap. Siem Reap was the capital of the ancient powerful Khmer kingdom, which stretched over Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. It is also the site of the Angkor Wat, a world famous historical site. Well, at the store's gala grand opening, thousands of Cambodians massed outside as early as 4 a.m. The instant the doors were unlocked, thousands of eager new customers charged through the doors to browse the latest best-sellers, check out CDs at the music section's 35 listening stations, and wash their clothes in the men's room urinals.

Reviews have been very positive. "There is good water here," said Lon Nai, a Batdambang-area farmer who journeyed 150 miles for the grand opening. "I can keep my pigs free of the sickness with this water."

"It is always the same temperature in here, not like the tent where my family lives in the jungle," said Pursat resident Chun Baro as he browsed in a secluded spot deep within the bookstore's "Wellness And Nutrition" section. "I do not care if I am executed for being in a book store, as my father and three brothers were in 1979. I am cool and dry."

In addition to the low prices and friendly atmosphere, Baro praised the store's convenient hours, open until 10 p.m. weekdays and Saturday. "Nightfall is the worst time," he said. "That is when the death squads come out."

Speaking from Barnes & Noble's New York headquarters, John Day, company vice-president in charge of overseas expansion, said that Cambodia represents an outstanding new market for the book chain. "Cambodia has all the signs of being a book-friendly country," he said. "Did you know that only one Cambodian in 10,000 has a television set? That, to me, is the hallmark of a literate culture."

Despite the company's enormous size, Barnes & Noble is very much committed to the communities in which it does business, Day said, and Siem Reap is no exception.

"The Cambodian government has established many exciting-sounding 're-education camps' where both intellectuals and everyday citizens can be sent at any time," Day said. "Well, we at Barnes & Noble have always supported re-education in America, and we intend to extend this policy to our new customers." For every hardcover book sold, Barnes & Noble will donate a dollar to the Cambodian government to help re-educate local children.

The store has also worked hard to be accessible to everyone, offering a ramp at the front entrance for its many legless customers.

"It's a helping hand, sure," Day said. "But we believe that a helping hand is just plain good business."

As at other Barnes & Nobles, the Siem Reap store has a Local Authors section, which is dominated by the political tracts of noted late-'70s writer Pol Pot.

"So far, there hasn't been a whole lot of customer traffic going through the section," assistant manager Ken Woodson said.

"Perhaps we need to publicize it more. We've tried to get Pol Pot in for a book signing, but we haven't been able to find him."

The community-centered approach is paying off: Shoppers have packed the store since opening day, taking advantage of Barnes & Noble's encouragement of casual browsing.

"This a friendly store," Woodson said. "Some places frown on what retailers call 'camping,' but we actually have a policy of putting comfy seats at the end of each aisle. They're very popular--I've seen entire families share one of our overstuffed sofas. Sometimes it seems like our regulars never leave."

So what books have been the biggest sellers at the new store? According to Woodson, most popular are 2,000-plus-page items, such as the Norton anthologies, the collected works of Proust, and the two-volume Riverside Shakespeare.

"I like this one," said Cheun Norresaprong of Phnom Penh, holding up David Foster Wallace's hefty, critically acclaimed novel Infinite Jest. "It will burn for hours, enabling me to cook life-giving grubs and twigs for my children."

Like Norresaprong, farmer Chira Samrong is also a voracious reader--and a serious lover of Tolstoi, to boot. Loading his ox cart with 54 copies of War And Peace, he said, "If I can obtain 200 of such books, I can build a house that will withstand the bullets of Hun Sen's guerrillas and Ranariddh's royalists. My wife was shot in the face last year.”

This is a fictional story, but it illustrates the condition of life in Cambodia. The modern history of Cambodia is tragic. For almost 40 years, after independence, Cambodians knew only war, ravage and suffering. It was only in the early 1990’s that a semblance of order and government came into being. By that time, the church was reduced to a very small group of believers, because of systematic killing of believers and destruction of places of worship.

Since then, it has experienced impressive growth in recent years. In 1990, only 1,000 Protestant Christians lived in Cambodia. Today, that number has mushroomed to 200,000. Over the last ten years God has been raising many missionaries to Cambodia. One major mission agency headquartered in Singapore has seen the number of missionaries going into Cambodia rise to more than 60, just over the last five years. However, 11 million Cambodians are still without Christ.

The Anglican diocese of Singapore started its church planting work in Cambodia about 13 years ago, beginning first with Rev Don Cormack and now Rev Mok Wai Mung and his wife Mee Hwa. Wai Mung is the present Dean of Cambodia. The Anglican Episcopal church of Cambodia has ongoing church planting work in many provinces. Wai Mung and Mee Hwa leads a team of khmer pastors and church workers. They also pastor the church in Phnom Penh, Church of Christ Our Peace. Besides the Khmer congregation, there is also an English speaking congregation in CCOP.

From the start, the first dean, Rev Canon John Benson had focused the Anglican effort on the priority of raising of properly discipled and tested Cambodian men and women. It was E. M. Bounds who said, "Men are looking for better methods while God is looking for better men and women."

The longer I follow the Lord and the more I consider his work the more certain I am that God’s primary purpose is to raise godly men or women, that His church be led by exemplary men and women to serve Him and bring His gospel to the ends of the earth.

In this morning’s scripture text, the apostle Paul singles out Timothy and Epaphroditus, his fellow workers in mission, who were being raised to serve the gospel.

Paul does not talk about how many people these 2 have converted, how much funds they had raised, how many buildings they had put up or how many programs they had run successfully. Listen to how he speaks of Timothy –

20 I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. 21 For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 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.

Timothy was a man with integrity – Paul said, ‘I have no one else like him’; He was a man Paul could count on. He was a fully devoted follower of Christ. He was not a hireling, who was there only as long as things are good.

Secondly, Timothy had a teachable spirit, and he put himself in a position to learn all he could by following Paul. Paul said that "as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel." Paul taught him, challenged him, and even corrected him—perhaps even rebuked him a time or two. Can we imagine ourselves in a situation like that? Most people today would not tolerate a good rebuke. Indeed, today, we face a crisis of the loss of this kind of spirit in our society.

Thirdly, it is evident from our text that Timothy was selfless. But he was more than merely selfless for the sake of others. It was not just because he saw a need and gave himself selflessly to meet the need. His selflessness was a result of Christ being his top priority. He was reflecting the nature and character of Christ in his life – putting the interests of others above his.

Another quality that we see in Timothy is that his character had been proven through his faithful work with Paul. And the reason that it was proven was because he had persevered. Without perseverance Timothy could not have become the man he was–– a man of integrity, a true follower of Christ, with a selfless concern for others. Timothy hung in there. He refused to quit.

Perseverance is absolutely essential for Timothy in following Christ, because there were tough times. There were times of temptation. There were times of testing. Satan attacked him. People opposed him verbally and physically. At times like these, he would have felt like quitting. The tough times challenged him and made up grow up very quickly; he developed perseverance.

Now let’s look at Epaphroditus. Paul wrote:

We can clearly see that Paul valued him immensely. Epaphroditus ministered to Paul’s needs, and rendered valuable service to Paul. Indeed, Paul tells us how highly he thought of him by the terms the uses to describe him. He calls in his brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier. These terms indicate that Epaphroditus was a valuable asset to Paul’s ministry.

The Philippians sent him as a messenger to take care of whatever needs Paul had. He was chosen probably because he had the heart of a servant. He displayed a servant’s attitude in his behavior towards Paul, and it is a characteristic that should mark true servants of Jesus Christ.

Another quality we learn that Epaphroditus possessed is the quality of being willing to make a sacrifice for the sake of the gospel. Epaphroditus had this quality. He risked his life for the sake of the work of God.

He was willing to undertake the long journey to Paul, and was also willing to suffer whatever consequences came with the effort. He knew the risks, but he went anyway. He could have stayed home where he would have been safe and comfortable. But he knew Paul needed him. So he went to Paul and brought the aid Paul needed from the church in Philippi.

He gave up significant comforts and laid his life on the line for the sake of the work of the Lord. He was totally committed.

Friends, God has not changed his strategy to win the world for Christ. Jesus Himself chose just 12 men, discipled them and gave them a commission to reach the whole world by discipling others, by raising a few good men and women. This was how, today, the world has come to hear of Jesus Christ.

Let’s think about the raising of men and women in Cambodia. First, It is not employing men and women. It is the raising of men and women, who must be totally committed to the cause of the gospel, and possessing the qualities which we have seen were in Timothy and Epaphroditus. Secondly it is a process; it is not of going for lectures and passing exams. Rather it is hands on, it is on the mission field, it is transformation; it takes time. Thirdly, drop outs are those who choose not to be corrected and changed, who want the glory without paying the cost. The end result are authentic Christians who are trustworthy and able to raise other men and women in turn.

Having understood that these are the qualities that need to be inculcated in the lives of faithful Cambodian Christian leaders, how do we, ourselves, fare as candidates for the men and women that God is searching all over the world for ? How do we rate ourselves in integrity, in teachability, in selflessness, in perseverance, in servanthood and in sacrifice. Could we be entrusted to be faithful in receiving and in telling the gospel to the unsaved in our nation and the nations beyond?

Are we on the right track today? There may be some here this morning, thinking of quitting the Christian faith. There may be some who are being tried severely. There could be those who have been much wounded, and feel the joy of the Lord slowly ebbing out of their lives.

May I remind all of us that we are on a journey, we are all in various stages of the process of God’s training and transformation into authentic Christians. Nothing that has happened to me, from the day I received the lord into my life, had been an accident. God was in everything. God is also in our situation, our need, our struggle, right now. He is working out His purpose for each of us. May I encourage you with the words of Paul, Phil 3:13,14 “Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

It has been said that a failure is not someone who fails, but someone who quits. Some of the great inventors, like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, had thousands of failures before they had their breakthrough. Edison and Bell succeeded because they didn’t quit. Society is full of people who lack perseverance. They quit schooling. They quit their jobs. They quit their marriages. They quit their responsibilities to their children. They quit their church. To quit the journey of faith is equal to quitting on ourselves, because we are the losers, nobody else.

So hang on, standing firm on our beliefs, like Paul, give your worries and anxieties to Him, work with God and let him transform your mind and your heart –

Phil 4, 4-8, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Will we be counted as the few good men and women?

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