As we come to the Word of God this morning, we’re coming to the close of the epistle of 2nd Timothy, maybe two more sermons after this one, as the Lord would allow us to look at these sections. And I think there is much to learn from even the greetings and the conclusion of the epistle. As you know, in New Testament epistles, they usually put the greetings at the end.
Usually, expositors will rush through these sections. Even commentators, by and large, rush through these sections and almost, in an inadvertent way, consider it less useful. Definitely inspired, but somehow it’s not the best portions of the Scripture.
And I want to show you that in a different way, of course, there’s sometimes more meat on the bone in theological passages, but in a more different way, and even in a practical way, these ending portions of epistles are very useful to us. Today, we’re going to be looking at Paul’s depiction of different individuals that he had worked with in ministry, that even on one side were his loyal friends, and on another side were those that had abandoned him and left him alone. And you have both these kinds of people in ministry.
And Paul, realistically, is naming and even dealing with all of them. But the overall theme, I think, that comes out of this section, even before we read it, 2nd Timothy chapter 4, verses 9 through 13, is this. And it’s the idea of the friendships of a godly man, the friendships of a godly man.
We’ve been thinking about in marriage and family class about the friendship that exists between a husband and wife. But there is even a broader level to this, and that’s what we’re going to be considering today. And it’s the theology of friendships as an essential part of even doing ministry together.
And I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve considered. I don’t know if it’s something you’ve thought about. But it’s really something that you cannot live without.
Jesus himself, as he looked at his disciples in a fascinating way, he says, I call you my friends. Now, of course, he’s in a senior position. He’s lord over us.
But he seeks to have that kind of relationship even with those that were closest to him of partnering together and conversation and companionship, sometimes even practical things like eating together. It is rather significant when you study the word for friend, as you’re considering even the doctrine of friendship, that the word for shepherd that is used for Christ in Psalm 23, Roeh, is synonymous with the word for friend, Raya, that is used in Hebrew. In fact, it uses the same letters in the Hebrew.
And there is that sense in which a biblical friendship is not just going out and having chai, but it is even that idea of caring for that person like a shepherd would care for his sheep. That’s what friends do. Jesus is the greatest friend.
As he demonstrates those qualities to us. And so it’s with that in mind that let’s consider in a narrow focus, just this one passage that speaks to us about Paul’s idea of friendship and what that means to him as a godly man. 2nd Timothy chapter 4 and verses 9 through 13.
It reads like this. Be diligent to come to me soon. For Demas, having loved this present age, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
Crescens has gone to Galatia. Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me.
Pick up Mark and bring him with you, for he is useful to me for service. But Tychicus I sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak which I left at Troas with carpets and the scrolls, especially the parchments.
Paul, as he lies in a dungeon in loneliness, very much recognizing that death is around the corner. And it happens maybe a few weeks after he finishes the last words in this epistle, is lonely in a practical human way. Yes, he’s longing for Jesus, but human beings are not designed to be alone.
He does have one person with him, as we’ll consider in this passage. But he’s longing for all the partners and all the friends that he has. That comes out of his heart, especially those that are believers.
Those are the people that can comfort a lonely man in the hard times of life. This is a very practical passage. In fact, in this passage, it’s amazing, even as you go towards the end of this chapter, and we’re not considering all of it, but it’s amazing.
Just in a few verses, Paul mentions 17 people. That is probably a midst of so many other dozens and dozens of friends and companions that he worked with when he was doing the ministry for the Lord Jesus Christ, which shows us that sometimes, unlike us, Paul was a man that very much recognized the need to not be alone. We think, oh, he was a single guy, therefore he must have been very lonely.
That’s completely opposite to what the Apostle Paul actually lived like. Yes, he didn’t have a wife, but he had hundreds of friends and partners that he worked with in ministry. And he reaches out to them, even with the hearts of Christian gospel love, and says, I wish you were with me.
That’s the angst of this passage, because you expressed to me what it means to be a friend like Christ, ultimately. And so we need to consider what makes for Christian friendships that we would see Paul leaning upon and even getting strength from in this passage as he cries out, would you come and do this for me? Would you come and do this for me? Those are the things that a biblical friendship is supposed to produce that Paul is even even longing for in these moments. So I would say there’s three essentials of Christian friendship.
There could be more, but three essentials of Christian friendship. That is a precious thing. That is a gospel reality that we can consider in this passage to even think about who are your friends? Are you becoming, at PTS even in this season of life, more alone with only the Greek New Testament as your companion and nobody else? And is the academics even driving you to become anti-social in a sense? It could.
Is it even causing weaknesses to come forth if you’re married in your marriage? Is it causing you to become less able to have relationships in ministry, even while you’re here at church? If that is so, then that is something that you need to forsake. And you need to consider that while you pursue the ministry, one of the key ingredients of ministry along with the doctrine and along with the theology is good robust relationships and friendships. Paul shows that to us.
Three essentials of Christian friendship. I think the first one is where he spends a lot of time on. And then the last two will be briefed towards the end.
We’ll see how it goes. But verses 9 through 11 shows us the first essential of Christian friendship. As Paul cries out to Timothy, he says, Be diligent to come to me soon.
Do you see that command even there? But it’s not a command that a superior is giving to an inferior, but it’s of a friend calling out to another one. I need you. I need you.
I’m lonely. And more than, you know, things. I need my friend.
And who is that? Timothy. He’s calling out to him. And you can see even in verse 11, we have a description of a guy who abandoned him.
That’s the bad friend, right? But overall, the atmosphere is what are good friends like? They come when you call them to serve you, to minister to you. If you look at verse 11, Only Luke is with me. But what? Bring Mark also.
And there’s a whole history there that we’re going to consider about even the ups and downs of friendship sometimes. But he’s saying right now he’s useful to me, and I want to have useful people around me to just talk to them, pray with them, and consider how we can bear one another’s burdens. We need friendship.
We need friendship. And so the first essential of Christian friendship, I think, is a sense of partnership. A sense of partnership.
And what are the different ideas of partnership that are produced in this section, verses 9 through 11? I think there are two basic ideas, or three basic ideas of partnership that we can draw out of this section. The first idea of partnership, and here, isn’t this interesting? We’re not thinking about marriage, but even outside of marriage, and even including marriage, if you’re married, you should have these kinds of relationships that exist to help you to become a whole person in ministry and in the gospel. Paul says the first idea of partnership that he longs for is just this idea of companionship.
This idea of companionship. And that we find in verse 9, as he says, make every effort. Make every effort.
The idea is, I don’t care what you’re doing, Timothy. Some of your translations might say, be diligent. Drop whatever you’re doing.
Sacrifice whatever other interests you have, and would you come to me as soon as possible? Cut out everything that is blocking you, and be extra diligent to focus. I may not have more than a few days left. I want to see you before I go to see Jesus.
You know, that’s kind of the love that Paul has for this brother. Sometimes we don’t see those kinds of things in the text, but there was an actual love that they had for one another. And this is completely gospel-like and appropriate, that men would have this kind of love for one another.
It’s a Christ-like love. He’s saying, I long for your companionship. Email doesn’t do the same thing.
WhatsApp is useless. I want to see your face. I want to have, you know, a warm, just embrace from you, brother.
Be diligent. Be diligent. To do what? To come to me.
To come to me. The idea is to be face-to-face with me. That idea of companionship.
And to come to me quickly. In fact, he says in verse 21, which is not part of our section, but you can just look at it very briefly. He says in verse 21, be diligent.
Just the first part, to come before winter. Winter, and you can see some practical respects, is the time where in Rome, and down in that dungeon, it could get to minus 12 degrees centigrade. But I think there’s a little bit more than that.
Even as Paul is saying, Timothy, would you come quickly? He’s saying, there’s even a spiritual winter here. You know, I have no church. I have no ability to preach.
I have no ability to hear preaching. I need, before the winter comes, to have just that warmth of Christian conversation with people. Luke’s with me, but I need more.
I need more Christian friends. Paul, as he’s writing from this cold, dank dungeon in Rome, he longs for the presence of his, used to be this disciple-y, former child, but now his friend. Now his friend.
Remember having conversations, even with my dad, as I travel with him. And many times, we just talk this way, our relationship has changed. It used to be father and son.
I mean, it’s still father and son, but now we’re friends. Sometimes, I don’t know how, but sometimes in some strange way, because of the word of God, my dad says he’s learning from me. Many times I’m learning from him.
And there’s just that wonderful relationship. You’ll see this even over time. I see this with my students even.
As you grow, as you mature, some of you don’t grow and mature and we’ll spank you, but as you grow and as you mature, I learn from you, you know. And I’m longing for that day. I don’t want to always be your professor.
I’m longing for that day where I can visit your church maybe somewhere and just say, wow, that was a fantastic sermon. You did a way better job than me in that sermon. And I just love sitting in your family at your dining table and just learning from you.
Right now you’re learning from me, but hopefully one day it continues to the point where you become a pillar in the church. And Paul is looking at Timothy in this way. He’s saying, it’s just good to spend time with you.
You’re a godly man and I long for you. Generally, it is not good to be alone. It’s not just true, Genesis 2, 18, in terms of finding a wife, but it’s also true in ministry.
And I think you will see this. Many men graduate from PTS and they die on the vine because they don’t know how to work with teams. And this is a deficiency that can exist in some of us because we have gifts and we have skills in preaching.
And then we even maybe have pride about our MDiv degree that we got from PTS, that we find it very hard to work with men that don’t have an MDiv, that might actually have more wisdom than us. And if you don’t know how to be a friend and if you don’t know how to be a team player, you’re going to actually get very spiritually dry. Paul is showing us that he’s getting spiritually dry.
He’s saying, I need other godly men around me. I can’t survive like this. And do you think that you can survive like that? Who are going to be your team members? Even right now, you should be thinking about that.
You should never do ministry alone. That’s why plurality, you know, sometimes I think plurality of elders, it’s not just a doctrine. I think it’s a necessity.
It’s something we can’t live without. I praise the Lord for plurality of men that can hold the pulpit for me, right? Sometimes if I’m busy or if I have an emergency at home, I know there’s somebody else that can hold the ropes in ministry. But it’s more than that.
That they can even when there’s something happening in my family, I know they’ll drop everything to come and help me. And I know I will do the same for them because we love one another. We’re not just working together.
We’re brothers and sisters together, right? We’re family. We love being together because we’re the family of Christ. Sometimes we love one another more than our own family because some of our family members aren’t believers.
That’s the kind of friendship that God produces in the church. Proverbs 27 verse 9. If you can’t find it, you can just listen to this. Oil and perfume make the heart glad.
So a man’s conversation is sweet to his friend, especially Christian conversation. Isn’t that true? Sometimes you’re going through a hard day and you just have a prayer time with a brother. It’s like getting a head massage with oil.
That’s what the writer of Proverbs is saying. You know, with that cooling oil. In ancient times, they used to do that.
They used to put oil and essential things on people that were sick or wounded and it would cause a weary body to get strength. He’s saying, my friend’s conversation is like that to me. It’s like a massage on a tough day.
That’s what it’s like. And so there’s a sense of partnership that comes from companionship and depth of companionship. You have those kinds of friendships in your life.
But Paul goes on to say, not only am I longing for you, Timothy, and other friends for companionship, but I’m also longing for you, Timothy, and other friends because you produce partnership not just in companionship, but you produce partnership secondly in ministry. Ministry is better when you have other friends around you. Ministry is better when you have other team members around you.
No ministry is good when it’s solo ministry in the Christian church. Maybe in the world, it’s fun. But in the Christian church, all the joy goes out of it.
Eventually, it becomes dead and anti even the lordship of Christ. The best kinds of ministry is ministry that exists in teams, in partnership with one another. Even in simple things, right? I remember when I was in seminary, we used to go out and share the gospel as our apologetics class and go out on the streets.
And we would always go in groups of two or three. One person is sharing and the other person is praying. Or one person, when he gets stuck, the other person comes in and helps them.
It was just, I mean, we grew to just love one another through the process of sharing gospel with unbelievers. You know, even in simple things, you can go from those simple things to bigger things, whether it’s, you know, serving in a Sunday school or administrating a church or just thinking about the worship team of chapel and things like that. Just those conversations of working together in ministry produces so much growth.
Yes, studying the word of God produces growth, but then wrestling through it together in ministry with other people also produces growth. It’s joyous to have team members in ministry. It’s a struggle to be alone in ministry.
That’s what Paul is saying. And he speaks about both sides of the coin. He says, you know, there are some faithless friends in ministry.
We must avoid them. It’s hard to discern sometimes, but don’t put people in your team that are not faithful. And Paul says, I made those mistakes also.
And he’s very honest. He gives, he says, as we’re talking about ministry partnerships, let’s be careful to remove the bad guys out first. Right.
And be very careful. A man of many friends comes to ruin. We’ll talk about that proverb later.
I hope you know that proverb. So Paul is even saying there were some friends that I had that proved themselves to be fair weather friends. And he mentions one right now.
He’s going to mention Alexander the Coppersmith later. We can see here. Paul took some risks sometimes.
And unfortunately, some bugs got into the light. John MacArthur always says this. One time when a guy came in to church to try to kill him because he was upset with some counseling or something like that.
This happens. John MacArthur, we had a staff meeting. Some of those staff ladies were scared.
You know, the guy actually came to church and he tried to kill Pastor John MacArthur. What’s going on? He just made a simple statement. He said, light attracts bugs.
The more we preach the gospel, the more bugs will come in. You know, you just got to be ready for that. But we got to be discerning and we got to drive them out fast.
And so Paul had a bug that worked with him for a while. What was his name? Demas. And he mentions the faithless aspect of some fair weather friends that you cannot depend on in ministry.
They create problems in ministry. And in a sense, it’s almost a reason for the apostles feeling of loneliness. He’s saying some have betrayed me at this moment.
Probably especially because of me being in prison. There are some kinds of friends and you’ll only find this out when you go through difficulties. When you’re going through good times, the church is growing.
People are coming. Offerings are wonderful. They won’t show themselves in their true colors.
And the moment you have church split, you know, suddenly not enough money to survive. Boom. Where are they? They’re all gone.
You know, you’re just left holding your wife’s hand. And then you begin to realize, you know, I didn’t really have good team members. Good team members are those who stay with me when the times are tough.
Demas sees Paul in prison. And what does he do? I, I’m going to go. I got a business opportunity, brother, in Thessalonica.
You know, I used to be IT. You know, those days are calling me again. And I love you, brother.
See you later. He’s gone. No emails, no WhatsApp, nothing.
That’s what Paul says, right? Demas, having loved this present age, he doesn’t say has deserted the church. He says, has deserted me. So there was some personal thing that he saw Paul in his struggles.
This is not my cup of tea anymore. Now you think about this. It’s in the context of Demas was not just any guy, but he was a fellow that had gotten very close to the apostle Paul.
He was part of the core team of missionary workers that Paul had. He was in the group that was doing the frontline works of the missionary journeys. How do we know this? We can see him mentioned in Colossians and Philemon, especially during that season of ministry, especially Colossians chapter four, verse 14.
When Paul was speaking to the Colossian church, he says, Luke, the beloved physician, sends greetings and also Demas. So at least during the first three, two or second or third missionary journey, Demas had been working alongside Paul in the team. But it would seem that in this Roman imprisonment, Demas had seen what happened to Paul.
Maybe he was there when Paul was arrested. Maybe he saw the dungeon that he was in. He said, if I get thrown in there, it’s a little bit too risky for me.
Can’t afford to lose my reputation, become a criminal. I had a better life before. Boom, he’s gone.
And he abandons Paul. Paul says, why even? He says, having loved this present world. Literally, he fell in love with the world.
He fell in love with the world. A love for maybe the materialism of the world, a love maybe for the status of the world. How can I be a prisoner? I can’t be a prisoner.
And then the sad statement, he has deserted me. Literally, the verb used in the original implies that Demas had not just left Paul, but had abandoned him, given him a dhoka, you know? Maybe at the time when Paul was being arrested or something, he just kind of ran away. When Paul was looking for some support, some help or something like that, in that moment, especially, he just betrayed him.
It could be, and we’re guessing here, we’ll find out only in heaven, that maybe he actually delivered him even. Over to the enemies, so that he could be saved. Who knows? But it’s not just a physical abandonment.
That’s clear from this terminology. It’s a spiritual abandonment. Spiritual abandonment to the Lord Jesus Christ and to the church.
And he’s gone to Thessalonica. Did he leave Rome because it was a dangerous place? Probably. And he tried to go to a smaller city which Thessalonica we know was a business city.
So most likely he left the exposure of being a church worker and being enemy of the state in Rome. And he’s seeking to hide in a smaller place where he can start some business and get some money. Maybe he had friends, maybe he had relatives.
We don’t know. We just know that he showed himself to be the Matthew 7 kind of person, right? You know, Lord, Lord, we planted 100 churches. We spoke in tongues.
We did miracles. We did this. We did that.
And what does Jesus say to them? Depart from me. I never knew you. And so he was an apostate.
I think one of the lessons we learn here is it’s so important before you choose friends to make sure you avoid friends that are in it just for the benefits and not for Christ. You have to be so careful before you allow people to be part of a core team. Even Paul made mistakes.
You will make mistakes and you’ll learn from those mistakes. But right now, learn from Paul’s mistakes. Don’t put people on the team that love the world more than Jesus.
Some people come into the church even because the church has worldly benefits for them. If the first conversations they’re having is about salary and money and all of that, you know you’ve got the wrong guy. If they’re not talking about loving people, serving people, working hard, you know you’ve got the wrong guy.
And you’ve got to be so careful even before you allow people to become your friends to make sure that they’re qualified. That they put Christ first, right? That’s why, isn’t it true that we cannot be best friends? Maybe we can have association but we cannot be best friends with what? Unbelievers, 2 Corinthians 6.14, right? Most people use that for marriage. I think it’s bigger than that, isn’t it? It can have application to marriage but it’s bigger than that.
I think it’s any close, deep friendships in life. If your best friends are unbelievers, you got some problems, man. You’re gonna get into problems.
And so be discerning. Proverbs 12.26. The NAS doesn’t translate it so well but a more literal translation is the righteous person, the godly person, spies out his friends carefully. He’s like a spy, a detective.
He’s very careful, the righteous person, who his friends are. Proverbs 12.26. For the way of the wicked, that is those that are hostile to God, will lead him astray like a drunk man. That you can create a lot of spiritual drunkenness, Proverbs 12.26, if you’re not careful to avoid wicked men and women in the work that we do in the church.
So I think we have to be very careful. We want partnership for ministry but first be careful that you don’t choose worldly friends, faithless friends. But on the other hand, choose faithful friends.
What are faithful friends like? Paul moves quickly to two faithful friends and he says, Crescens has gone to Galatia. Who’s Crescens? We have no idea. We just know that he’s a man that Paul had commissioned and sent to Galatia to minister in that church.
Why? Just think about it now carefully. It’s because that was a church that had been ministered to by Paul and had struggled, right? And so what does Paul do? He says, I want to find the best partner that I know to go and continue to minister in that church. It’s not enough to just write them a letter.
That’s a starting point. They need a friend. They need a pastor.
And so he sends them Crescens. We don’t know who Crescens is, but if Paul sent him to Galatia, which is one of the most challenging places to minister, not an easy church. Maybe you could say Corinth was one of the most problem churches.
Secondly, after that, Galatia, you know, with all their tendencies to legalism. So you choose a dependable guy. Who was that man? Crescens.
It’s the only mention of him in the Bible. But what an honorable mention, right? As opposed to Demas. When I tell somebody like Crescens to go to do a difficult ministry, no argument, no fuss.
I do it because those are the Lord Jesus’s people. Those are the kinds of partners we need, right? They’ll say, don’t give me the easy jobs. Who do you think I am? I love Jesus Christ.
Give me a difficult job, brother. I don’t want to choose Aram, you know, so that I can have lots of chai breaks. I want to die for Jesus.
Another man like this is who? Titus. Under Timothy, I think Titus was another man that just demonstrated himself to be a good friend who was faithful to Paul because he was faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. Where does Paul send Titus? He sends Titus to Dalmatia.
Now, we don’t know much about Dalmatia, except about this, that if the Corinthians struggled with quarreling with the Bible and being quarrelsome with one another, divisive. The Cretans, we know, which Titus had ministered in and planted a church there, book epistle to Titus, were known to be what? Liars, dishonest people. Well, the Dalmatians, not the dogs, OK? But Dalmatia was actually a city in Asia Minor, were known to be people that were very prideful and stubborn.
And sometimes there are these cultural issues of places that Paul ministered in. Dalmatia, by the way, is the southeastern part of Illyricum, which today is Croatia, Yugoslavia, you know, that portion of Europe, kind of a remote, cold, village-y place. And that’s where he sends Titus.
Isn’t that interesting? After being in the Mediterranean island of Crete, enjoying, if you will, Goa, he’s saying, go to Bihar. Guys say, absolutely, Paul, they need, they need, Crete is doing well. They need people there.
I go where they need people. I don’t go where I’m easy going. And Paul is just refreshed while he’s discouraged by Demas.
You know, it feels like a stab through your heart when you have a man that you invested in and you train. And then he says, I want to go and make money more than serve Jesus. He says, one fellow abandoned me, two people were faithful.
Praise the Lord. Gives me a heart to live when I see this, these kinds of partnerships in ministry. Those are the kinds of friends I want.
Faithful friends. Friends who are willing to minister in hard places. Friends who are willing to minister in spiritually dry places where they don’t love the Lord Jesus Christ because they know the word of God can overcome those people.
And they want the challenges of ministry. Those are the kinds of friends I want. I want to work with those kinds of friends who would say, you know, even in PTS, it’s a tough class, brother.
Let’s work together on this tough class. Let’s not just seek easy things as we’re seeking to develop as men of God. For the word of God, we want to grow.
We don’t want to just stay at some stagnant level, but we want to push ourselves to do difficult things for the Lord Jesus Christ so that we may be excellent for his name’s sake. Faithful friends are companions, right? Faithful friends are partners in ministry. Let me just read, you know, again, in an interesting way, these texts are always read at weddings.
But if you look at the context, it has nothing to do with a wedding. I mean, it can be applied to a wedding, but it actually has to do with general Christian friendships. Ecclesiastes chapter four, verses nine through 12, just a wonderful depiction of why partnerships and plurality in ministry is good.
Two are better than one because they have more productivity in their labor. I could even say in their ministry. For if either one of them falls, the other will lift up his companion.
That’s why we need plurality in the teams of ministry that we do. But woe to the one who falls when there is no one to lift him up. I think just good practical counsel here from Solomon, right? Further, if two lie down together, they can keep warm.
But how can one be warm alone? And you can apply that even spiritually. You know, you will become as you’re preaching expository messages, you will become dry in your zeal for the Lord if you’re just preaching by yourself. But if you don’t listen to some other brother’s preaching, you’ll become even dried up and warm.
Lack of warmth because you don’t have other spiritual men encouraging you. Verse 12, when we’re facing trials and church splits, verse 12, if one Ecclesiastes four, if one can overpower him who is alone, it’s very easy to overpower a solo pastor, even if he’s trying to be godly. But two can resist him.
A cord of three strands. You remember this phrase? Can never be broken. And that’s why I think it’s speaking more than marriage.
It’s just speaking about have at least three elders in your church. Have at least three deacons in every team. Try to have plurality because you can face some of these difficulties in ministry and overcome challenges in ministry when you have plurality.
So Paul has a sense of partnership that is developed through companionship, that is developed through ministry. But then finally, that is developed through meeting practical needs, meeting practical needs. A small comment in the beginning of verse 11.
Only Luke is with me. There’s one man who’s with Paul. So Paul’s not complaining.
But he’s saying, I love Luke, but I love Timothy as well. I love John Mark as well. I want to have all my friends with me, but I praise the Lord that Luke is with me.
And Luke is a tremendous example of this friend that even in the thick of Paul’s imprisonment, and you know where he is, he’s in chains in the Marmatine prison that didn’t run away from Paul, but stayed with him. Most commentators would say this, and even studying the history of that time, it would probably be the case that Luke would also have to become a prisoner in order to be with Paul. He was willing to be thrown in the same dungeon as Paul so that he could be his companion in these last days.
That’s the commitment that he had to. Willing to be called a criminal, willing to be put in a smelly sewer because he loved the Lord Jesus Christ and he loved his brother. And why was he there? What was Luke’s profession? Yeah, that’s right.
He’s the beloved physician, Colossians chapter 4, verse 14. And I think one real practical reason why he’s here, in fact, he was here with Paul throughout his third and fourth missionary journeys because if you study the book of Acts, the we sections, who’s the writer of the book of Acts? Luke. All those we sections starting from Acts 16 show that Luke was with Paul every thick and thin, every shipwreck, every church planting effort.
He was there in the background. He doesn’t point and he goes, I was there. I gave Paul crossing at this time.
I was there. No, he doesn’t mention any of the things that he does. But we know that he was there with him to the tail end of his life and he was probably there with Paul the last few moments of his life even before he died.
Why? Because he said, God has given me wisdom and skills to do medicine. I want to give it all to my beloved brother, Paul, so that he can have some comfort even in this physical life before he goes to meet Jesus. That’s my service to him.
Using his gifts in that way. What a tremendous friend. Friends are not just good for companionship.
Friends are not just good for spiritual ministry, but friends are also good to meet practical needs. And we need to be honest about this sometimes, right? I have practical needs. Sometimes it could be money, you know, but it can be more than that.
Sometimes it could be I don’t have enough clothes for PTS here, brother. I’ve got two pants. I just need one.
You take one of my pants, right? Don’t have shoes, you know, whatever it is. I’m just trying to be obvious. I’m sure you know more more things about each other as you live together, right? Some of you are too close to one another and you know, well, he has those needs.
He has that need. I have this blessing. I exist to meet those needs.
If you see your brother, in need and say, be warmed and be filled. God bless you. Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord. How can the love of Christ dwell in you, right? And Luke was not like that. He said, I’m a doctor.
I don’t want to have a big medical practice in Rome. I’m going to sit in a sewer with one man because he’s my friend. And give my life to him before he dies.
What a friend. What a friend. Paul needed a doctor.
Paul needed a friend. Paul probably even needed a secretary. We know Luke was the writer of Gospels.
Most likely, Second Timothy may have been written by him then because you know, Paul’s eyesight was bad. So not only was he a doctor, but he was also secretary. He was like, whatever you need, Paul.
I’m here for you. And I’m sure they talked so much and maybe that’s why Paul remembers all these ministry relationships because they had actually had all these ministry relationships together. It’s comforting to know that in the last days of Paul, I don’t know.
Church history doesn’t tell us. Did Timothy actually get to meet him before he died? It’s unlikely. But he had that desire.
Did John Mark come before he died? We don’t know. I hope he did. But it’s comforting to know that there was at least one man with him.
Just praying with him. Sometimes maybe even just holding him up as Paul was collapsing with his physical ailments. Maybe even bandaging him, dressing him at night.
Who knows? You know, acting like his nurse till the day he died to show him that we are not alone as we serve the Lord Jesus Christ. We need friends like that, right? We need friends like that. Proverbs 18 verse 24.
A man who was on Facebook comes to ruin. No, it doesn’t say that. A man who’s on Instagram comes to ruin.
But that’s the idea there. A man who has many friends comes to ruin. If you have 3,000 friends, I’m sorry, you’re going to ruin yourself.
You need to have just a few friends who are true and who are faithful. And that’s the idea that we find in the Bible. That’s why Jesus didn’t have 1,000 disciples, right? And even among those, one betrayed him.
He just said, why are you being so small? Because if you look at the reality of living in a fallen world, to have true, good discipleship relationships and friendships, you can only have a few. You can only have a few. That will stick to you like a brother, right? If you have too many friends, most likely they’re sticking to you for other things.
Ah, you know, he’s associated with American dollars or he’s got this, he’s got that. And you’ve got to be suspicious of them in a godly way and say, I want friends who are few and faithful. Are you even thinking right now before you go into church planting who those friends are going to be? I mean, besides your wife, besides your family, you can start there.
But who are those other friends going to be who are going to give you companionship, who are going to give you ministry help and who are going to meet practical needs when the time arises? Those are the kinds of people that you want to surround yourself with. So the first thing that we see with Paul, and I hope you’re learning that some sections of the Bible are just really real, you know, that’s what it is, just real, of real men having real struggles and just acknowledging their need for one another. I think we need to start there.
Do you even acknowledge that you’re needy? Or are you, you know, there used to be a song, a rock song, maybe only Stanley and Beulah might know this. I am a rock. I am an island.
And an island feels no pain. I mean, these guys were actually singing that. And sometimes as Christians, we feel that way.
I am a rock. I’ve been hurt too many times. I don’t need anybody.
And I can live by myself. You know, that’s dangerous. Paul reminds us that that’s not Christian thinking.
That’s not Christian gospel living. And it hurts the church when you start acting like that, even as a man that wants to do ministry. You need other people.
So a sense of partnership. I think as we move on, we see besides a sense of partnership, another ingredient of biblical friendship is a strength in depending on others, a strength in depending on others. Look at verses 11 through 12.
Verses 11 through 12. Paul recognizes the usefulness of others. He says, pick up Mark.
We already seen the beginning of verse 11. Only Luke is with me. And you go into the middle of verse 11.
He says, pick up Mark and bring him with you. For he is what? Useful to me for service. Now, as you know, and I don’t necessarily need to go into all the details, but just do a quick survey.
There’s a whole interesting history between Paul and John Mark, isn’t there? And just to survey it quickly, you know what happened. We can read this passage later, but the crux of the problem arose when the ministry team, that is Paul and Silas, and then who Barnabas and John Mark were on the other side, had a huge disagreement in Acts chapter 15, verses 36 through 40. And Paul said, because John Mark had abandoned us one time and went back home to mummy in Jerusalem and said, oh, mummy, I miss your chapatis.
And he just left us in a time of ministry. He said, we don’t need people like this. And Barnabas was saying to Paul, no, and if you look at the Greek in Acts 15, it seems like it says Paul was insisting and Barnabas was speaking loudly.
It says there was actually an argument. The Greek is being very diplomatic, but there was some shouting and screaming going on between two godly brothers. You know, John Mark is useless.
Oh, brother, how can you speak that way? And by the way, Barnabas was actually his cousin. So he was like, he’s my family member. Don’t talk to about my family member that way.
He’s my cousin, brother. How dare you? It became so bad, even between godly men, that what happened? Because of John Mark, I don’t think Paul really had an issue with Barnabas, but because he said, Barnabas, you’re blind, man, about this guy. That they didn’t even work together after that time.
They went into separate ministry because of this guy and a disagreement about this guy. What happened? We don’t know exactly, but I think one thing that is obvious is Paul repented and admitted that he had made a mistake. And that’s so important, right? Sometimes we can be, as we’re looking for demises, we can actually find good guys who are immature, but need some time and call them demises.
So that’s the balance to the equation, isn’t it? While we need to be discerning and avoid bad guys, sometimes we can make the mistake and just call immature guys, who just need time, who need patience. We can call them badumashes and demises and Alexanders and say, I never want to work with him again. But as Paul began to see Barnabas becoming a pillar in the different ministries that he was involved in, he didn’t just say, I’m so glad that Barnabas is being used in DCC, but please don’t ever send him to Goa.
You know, he didn’t say that. He said, I actually made a mistake. And I repent.
I made an evaluation of a brother that was too quick and too fast. If I had given him some time, he would have proved himself. And that is evident.
And I repent of that. And I want to be a partner with that brother again. He ate humble pie.
Paul ate humble pie, you know? So that he could work with this man again. And we need to be willing to do those kinds of things. Sometimes we have to evaluate, are there some men or women that we’ve been too quick to throw away that have actually become useful to the Lord Jesus Christ? And we need to eat, you know, our statement and say, I am willing to work with them again.
I am willing to repent because in the end, I’m not infallible. Only God is infallible. So you see a wonderful example of recognizing the usefulness of others and even learning to depend on others that you had judged before by saying time has shown that I was wrong and they were right.
And so subsequently, we don’t know the exact conversation, but we do know that Paul repented. We can find that Mark is again in the company of Paul during his first imprisonment in Rome in Colossians 4.10. And then in Philemon. And then after that, I think after Paul dies, John Mark is with Peter.
In Rome. So apparently he did go to try and meet Paul and he begins to work with Peter in Rome and he’s forgiven of all the conflict that had happened early on. As Paul says, bring him with you again.
It’s this idea of I’m eager to see him for he is useful to me for service. He’s a deacon. He’s somebody that I can depend on.
I don’t know if this is the reason but most historians even say that this John Mark is also the same John Mark that wrote what? The Gospel of Mark. And you can see that ultimately, the way in which Paul, as he’s willing to recognize the usefulness of a former useless person, encourages him so much that he even becomes one of the inspired writers of the New Testament. That’s what happens when you’re patient.
You know, sometimes you can be so quick to judge about a friend and throw him in the cutthroat and you’re actually negating the patience that God has with you, right? Does God give up on you? So Paul teaches us that we must depend on others by recognizing the usefulness of even some people that have been maybe faithless before. Not only does he recognize and reappoint John Mark, but he also appoints dependable people. Look at verse 12.
He says, but Tychicus I sent to Ephesus. Now I heard, and Vijay can back me up, that because of some previous sermons that we’ve had on Tychicus, and you can do a character study on Tychicus, that Vijay, if he was going to have a boy, he was going to name him Tychicus. And I was just ready to have this little Titchy baby in our church, you know, because I’ve never heard that name being used before.
But he’s such a hero in the New Testament. It’s a good name to name your baby if you’re going to have any babies. First, get married.
But if you’re going to have any babies, this is a great name for a child because Tychicus was just a man who again shows in Paul’s team this sense of being dependable, the sense of being reliable. He’s a Greek convert through Paul in Ephesus. So he’s one of Paul’s spiritual children.
And he became a friend of Paul and a teammate in his third missionary journey through Greece, through Macedonia, and even sent to Jerusalem on a charitable mission in Acts chapter 20, verse four. And later on, during Paul’s first imprisonment with John Mark, Tychicus was also with him. He had been commissioned by the apostle Paul to be the postman to carry the epistle of the Ephesians to them, the epistle of the Colossians to them, and possibly also therefore the epistle of Philemon to Philemon.
And you know that in those days, postmen were hard to find. And so sometimes Paul would say, because he had to fight robbers and he had to go through difficult journeys in order to get these letters, he would say, the one person that I know who is strong and capable and faithful is Tychicus. And so he was used kind of as Paul’s errand boy in ministry.
And now, yeah, this is so interesting, isn’t it? As Tychicus, like John Mark in a similar way, started by being maybe just a guy who laid out the hymn books and the chairs. Now he’s a pastor, you know? And I hope you can see that. Sometimes you can find useless people like John Mark becoming dependable.
In some cases, you can see even guys that start off maybe as cooks and dishwashers and others, as you continue to train them in the church, they might have the potential to become Bible study leaders and elders. And that’s what Tychicus is doing. He’s going to Ephesus.
Now consider this. This is really interesting. Paul wants Timothy to come and visit him, right? Where’s Timothy pastoring? Ephesus.
How can Timothy leave the church in Ephesus? Well, only if somebody is a substitute for him, right? Who’s the man that is being sent by Paul, basically, to substitute for Timothy, so that Timothy can come and meet him in prison? Tychicus. That’s how much confidence Paul has in a man that was formerly just a postman and a peon for him. And so we can see this idea of just strength in depending on people and strengthening people through even depending upon them in both the cases of John Mark and Tychicus.
Brothers, do you have this kind of patience with people to see them grow in the Lord and to see them become reliable? Everybody’s not going to become a pastor and a Bible study leader and a preacher in the first day of discipleship. You have to start small with them. You have to believe in them.
You have to give them time. You have to give them simple things in life. And then they will become those strong friends for you later on in ministry.
In fact, I would say even on the reverse, if you take a young guy and you make him a preacher on the first day, you’re actually going to create a problem of pride in his heart. But allow people to go through the process of being trained and being equipped in dependability. So these are the ingredients of friendship that we find, first of all, with a sense of partnership.
Secondly, strength, independence. And then thirdly, look at verse 13. I can’t believe this, but theological articles and dissertations have been written on verse 13.
Some of it is a waste of time, but what is Paul talking about when he uses the word cloak? And we’ll talk about that a little bit. What is Paul saying when he says parchments and books? And there are literally thousands and thousands of pages written on this verse, but many of them just miss the practical idea. And what is a friend? A friend is somebody that meets needs.
A friend is somebody that seeks to meet needs. I think that’s what we find in verse 13. When you come, bring the cloak, which I left at Troas with Carpus.
Who’s Carpus? We have no idea, but he’s some guy that was cold and Paul looked at him in the church. Maybe Paul was preaching. I don’t know, in some cold place.
And he said, hey brother, you’re shivering. Here’s my coat. And now Paul is cold.
And so Paul is saying again, you know, in Rome, it gets cold, especially in this dungeon. And he’s saying, would you please, Timothy, when you’re coming, stop by, knock on the door of Carpus’s house and say, you know, Paul’s cloak that you had borrowed? He needs it now. Now, what is this word for cloak? The word for cloak, I think I’ve seen this sometimes in Nagaland or in North India.
If you have these kinds of things, maybe in Nepal even, but it’s just a cloth made out of wool. That’s the Greek word, pylonos, that has a hole. That’s it.
No sleeves or nothing, you know. And so it’s almost like a blanket with just a hole for your head. Do you have those kinds of things in your culture? Maybe you’ve seen them.
I’ve seen them sometimes when I’m traveling in North India, especially when you go to cold places. And Paul, as he’s cold here, isn’t it interesting? He doesn’t try to reach out to the church in Rome. He’s trying to ask Timothy to make a stop somewhere, I don’t know, in some forgotten place, find some forgotten guy named Carpus and say there was a cloak that has Paul’s tag on it.
No, he’s written his name on there. Can you please give that back? Why is that so? I think, again, as a principle in ministry, Paul never begs. I think it would have been easy for him to beg with somebody close by in Rome and say, can you just… I’ve done so much for you.
I’ve written an epistle for you. He never begs to any of his churches. And it was just a principle in his life.
He says, I own the cloak. Bring that cloak back to me. I’m not going to take… Even in his last few dying moments, he doesn’t take things from other people that he doesn’t know.
I think that’s just his integrity in ministry. It’s his integrity in ministry. It’s very different from the kind of pastors that we find today, you know? They’re always asking for things.
And that’s, I think, a sign of a godly man. But he asked Timothy, would you make that stop and just meet my physical needs? But he’s not only looking for physical needs, but a friend meets doctrinal needs. Look at this.
He says, and bring the books. The books were probably papyrus rolls that had the scriptures on them. Isn’t that interesting? As the Bible is still being written, he’s saying, would you bring the existing copies of the Bible to me? The gospels, the scriptures, the epistles that have been written by Matthew.
Would you bring to me maybe some of the epistles that have been written by the other apostles? Would you bring those to me? Especially the parchments. Now, parchments could have been commentaries or sermons that different men had written in those days. Shorter, shorter pieces of material.
They were made out of skins of sheep, lambs, and goats. And they were especially for informal writing. Again, maybe commentaries on the word of God.
Isn’t this interesting? That in the last few days of Paul’s life, he’s saying, I want to be warmed physically, but I also want to be warmed doctrinally. I still don’t know enough about Jesus Christ. Would you bring me books and letters that would help me to grow in doctrine and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ? Because I need both physical warmth and I need the warmth of Christ in my mind.
I don’t know if any of us would be that desperate for Christ in our last days, no? We might just say, I need a biscuit. I need cookies. I need chicken biryani from Hyderabad.
I miss all those things. Just give me those things and then I want to go see Jesus. But Paul said all those things, yeah, we’ll start off with them, but they’re secondary.
The main things that I want, will you bring me, you know, some John MacArthur commentaries? Would you bring me a study Bible? Would you sit by my bedside? And would you just read to me, you know, Free Grace Broadcaster? Those are the things that I need in my last few moments. It’s amazing to see the sense of what Paul cultivated in his friendships with people. Always wanting to grow in a mind that is captive to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Those are the kinds of friends we want, right? William Tyndale, who I think was probably reflecting upon the Apostle Paul, was for six months in a dungeon in London and eventually they killed him by strangling him. Why? Because he was translating the Bible into English. I hope you read his story.
But the last few months of his life were just miserable. They starved him. He became skin and bones.
You know, that was the reward he got for doing such a faithful thing for the church in England. And he was cold in London even. The winters are horrible.
They chill your bones even. And so he wrote from his prison cell to a friend, Will Ward, in his letter saying almost exactly like Paul, will you bring me a woolen shirt and a warm cap? But most of all, will you bring my Hebrew Bible and my grammar and my vocabulary? I want to revive my Hebrew paradise. I’m not making this up.
That’s what the guy asked for. You know, some of you are like, what’s wrong with him? We don’t identify with this hunger for God’s word that these men had in them. In their relationships with one another.
Spurgeon on this verse gave six lessons that we learned from the Apostle Paul. You can read him later. But one of the lessons that Spurgeon said we can learn from this is, Paul is inspired, but he still wants books written by others.
He has been preaching for at least 30 years and he still want books written by others. He had seen the Lord and he still wants books written by others. He had a wider experience than most of us men and he still wants books.
He had written the major part of the New Testament and yet he wants books. If Paul had that kind of hunger, how much more should you have that kind of hunger? You see, in your dying days. Ultimately, what are your friendships based on? I think we can look at this last point and say, is it based on conversations that are doctrinal? Is it based on just strengthening dependence on one another and helping other people grow and believing in other people? And finally, is it based on a sense of partnership? Do you sense your neediness? Do you sense that you cannot be alone and that three stands are better than what? One.
So that you may have a ministry that is strong for the glory of Jesus Christ. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you so much for this passage and we thank you for just the transparency and the honesty of the Apostle Paul.
Lord, he’s more honest than I am. He’s more honest than we are about our need for one another. And as we’ve looked at this passage, Lord, we thank you for just the inspired way in which it speaks to our hearts in different ways.
And if it is exposed in any of our hearts, a sense of just our unbiblical independence and a lack of being humble and even leaning on one another. Lord, help us to repent even today and then to intentionally say, Lord, even here at PTS, I want to become a dependent man. I want to develop friendships.
I want to reach out to others. I don’t want to have just my own family life, but I want to work across the family of Christ with other brothers and sisters, because I need them so that I may become changed and I may become more useful for you, Lord. Lord, help us to make those kinds of commitments and then through that, Lord, use us for your church.
We pray in Jesus name. Amen.
