Timothy Example
Philippians 2:19-24 · Roger Henderson · May 26, 2024
Philippians (2021-24), No. 20
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926193520751

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Okay, well, when I teach, I like to put up the schedule, where we're at, so you can kind of see where we're at and where we're going. So we're coming down, you know, we've been coming down in chapter two. You know, we talked last week, Miles did a great job on the verses he had. And now we get into some examples of sacrificial life for Christ. We have an example of Timothy, and then next week, Epaphroditus. And then we have a chapter review coming up down the road.

So that's where we're headed. So let's look here and let me see. All right, here we go. So actually, I like Mike McCauley, as you might know from the main service as well. So he labels this section, two self-sacrificing men. as part of this title here. So here's his outline, which I'm using here.

So we have the self-sacrificing of Timothy. And the first part, 19 through 21, he kind of breaks it down to motive, purpose, companion, and observation. And then the part two is the proven character, Timothy being proven in the work of Christ. And he had that testimony, if you will, to the Philippians and also to Paul himself. And then next week we'll talk about Paproditus, his ministry. But it's really interesting. This section seems kind of, you know, it's not any stark new things we haven't already kind of covered, but it's interesting how the Lord works in people involved in the ministry.

And we're going to see that Timothy was an exceptional person. Paul puts him, he's his soulmate, to use a proper vernacular. Well, he's of the same soul. He thinks like Paul thinks. And ultimately, we think he thinks like Christ thinks. And so that's what makes Timothy so special.

So let's go on and get into the verses here. So maybe, would someone like to read these? You can read from your Bible or just read them off the screen. I'll save my voice a little bit. Yeah, if you want to turn on your phone, I can do that. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I also may be encouraged by news about you.

I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. They all seek after their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. Yet you know his proven worth, that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel like a child with its father. Therefore, I hope to send him just as soon as I see how things go with me, and I trust in the Lord that I myself will also come shortly. Thanks, Jim.

Okay, so let's just start in with the first verse here. It starts off, but I hope in the Lord, that's the first little part of this. So it's interesting here, I was trying to connect it up with what went previously, and what was taught previously in 18 was that Paul was saying, you two, speaking of the Philippians, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me. So then we come to verse 19, which follows that, and there's a but in the English, but really, if you think about it, it looks more like to me, he's continuing the thought He wants them to share in his joy and he says, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to share in our joy. I'm going to do something about that. And what he says now, I hope in the word of Jesus, he's going to do something about sharing his joy with the Philippians. He's going to send Timothy, basically.

So I think in this case, and that's something that I've kind of, in the past year or so, been looking more carefully at. When you see buts in many verses, you ought to look at the context and see this but, is it really a contrast that's in view, or is it maybe continuing the narrative. It seems to me the translators aren't always real careful about that. I think Miles pointed that out last week too. You know, being careful about just because the translators put blood in there doesn't mean that that's the real sense of it. In this case I think that it's continuing the narrative.

So he says, now I want you to rejoice with me and I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy. That's where he's going. So that's kind of my approach to this one here. Okay, so Hope is El Pizzo. It's Hope, frequently, and that's the authorized version. I don't know, we had the privilege of being in the UK for five years. And they talk about what we would call the King James as the author. I would say authorized version. That's how they would say it.

Never King James. They would not say King James. He wasn't as popular. They knew he wasn't. They said it was a good version. It was authorized. They wouldn't say his name. So when you see all the commentators, like older commentators, they'll pick up on that. So mine is an older commentator. Anyway, so it's to hope in the authorized version. Then the revised version is to trust. So it's essentially the same idea. It's a hope or a trust. And in this case, it's really important what follows next. The little preposition that follows next is pretty important. What follows is oppression in. It's I-N in the English or E-N in the Greek. The preposition is the idea.

It's the idea in the sphere of. in the sphere of, in the sphere of the Lord. I hope in the sphere of the Lord Jesus. I hope in the Lord Jesus. You're counting upon your relationship in the Lord Jesus. Not that it's just something upon him. It's in his sphere, in him. It makes it a lot more personal. So I hope in the Lord Jesus.

And you could say it's present tense, so the little cheat sheet you guys have been using, the focus is, in the present tense, it's continuous action, that's what's in view, so what he's saying, I am hoping, I'm continually hoping, I'm continually trusting the Lord. So that's where the present tense really kind of, the focus is to be, it's continuous action. Okay, any thoughts or let's continue on here? Not? Okay, let's go on. So this is what he's hoping about. Hoping in the Lord Jesus.

To send Timothy to you shortly. And we're gonna see this, he's gonna talk about this through all these verses here. So Paul's desire is to send Timothy to the Philippians. And remember this book is written in Rome. So he's in Rome. Apparently Timothy's in Rome too. And so, and Paul's in prison. And he's talking about sending Timothy to the Philippian church. And then he's talking about, maybe he goes, at the end we'll see, he'd like to go to the Philippian church if the Lord wills. Okay. Send Timothy to you shortly.

So that, so that's a purpose statement. Whenever you see so that, it introduces a purpose to follow. I may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. So it's interesting. He doesn't say, I want to find out whether your condition is good or bad. He says, I'm going to be encouraged so that I may be encouraged when I learn of your condition.

He already assumes it's going to be something that's going to encourage him. And that's in the church in Philippi. So I thought it was kind of interesting the way it's phrased. Encouraged is the idea to be animated, be of good spirits, literally to be cheered up. He's going to be cheered up. Of course, he's in prison. Almost anything would cheer me up outside of prison, right? So he wants to be encouraged by the work that's going on in the Philippine church.

When I learn of your condition, and least having come to know of your circumstances." Okay, so, and the word learn here is the word for know. He wants to know about the, gnosko is the word of experiential knowledge. He'll learn something from Timothy about the Philippian church, what's happening there, and that will encourage him.

That's kind of where he's going. So that kind of That's the first thought we have here in 19. And he continues on this path here about sending Timothy. And now he's going to talk about Timothy's character. And he says some pretty amazing things about Timothy. He says, For I, Paul, have no one else of kindred spirit. So, once again, it's present tense. Timothy is just not a one-show guy. He continues in his continuous action again. He continues to be of a kindred spirit. He continues to be more than a help to Paul, a soulmate to Paul.

Hey, Roger? Sure, go ahead. Have the Philippians ever met They have. I didn't go down that path too much, but we'll see in this statement. He says that. Now, I didn't research back, and maybe, I don't know, Andrew, did you? Where's the other cases? It's in other books. It talks about Timothy, and they had interaction with Timothy before. And I'm wondering, did Timothy ever make it? I don't know.

I'm not sure Paul, right? Paul stayed in hiding. He died in Rome, right? So Paul? Not this trip, right? Oh, maybe I'm going to do a trip. Yeah, the second time. Okay, you're right. But yeah, I don't know if he, but we know Epaphroditus made it. Because he... We're going to see that, right? Him, right. Yeah, that's right. I'm not sure he ever made it. Well, there's a question at the end. He wasn't sure about whether he's going to make it or not, or go or not.

So he says, basically, I'm having, therefore I'm having, For I, Paul, have no one else, he's having a kindred spirit of Timothy. And so now he says, for I have no one else, and it's not even one. So what's amazing is, and Bonnie asked me this last night, you mean Timothy was the only one that was this way with Paul? Now he's gonna mention Epaphroditus, but anyway, he states that he's the exceptional person and he's the only one, which is interesting. of equal soul, it's actually two words in the Greek, iso and psyche, so it's equal soul, life-minded, or I thought, you know, soulmate, you know, in the present vernacular, you know, that's kind of equal soul.

He's one that you, you know what they think, you know how they think, and they know how you think. You think the same way, you're on the same page, we say. So yes, I have no one else of kindred spirit. Maybe like David and Jonathan. And think of certain people in your lives, and certain people that somehow you just know what they've been squared up with.

Your wife, many times, you can repeat, you can, you know, once they even talk, you begin to open your mouth, and your wife will complete the statement, or the reverse. Or you can think of it, and your wife will say, I know exactly what you mean, but you haven't said it.

So, how does that happen? But we test like sold and I like that. Yeah, that's good. Well, actually I think I have weeks, right? Why guys are so yachty says to be activated by the same motives You see what I had a few other things in and then Macaulay has This is I would try to move on from that, but that's interesting. So we said really what we said again there like sold like so right now and So say Roger. Sure. Go ahead.

You mentioned that Timothy may have been the only 1. That supported all in when he talked to him in 2nd, Timothy. 416, it says at my defense, no 1 supported me, but all these diverted me. They had not be accounted against against them. interesting so wow so with that whole group at that time timothy is was probably the only one that and i think a lot of a lot of people were really uh jewish believers wound up in legalism right and it could be they they resented they had an issue with paul because of That's interesting.

That's good. Good. Thank you. Thank you so much, Sarah. Okay. So. Okay, so let's just go on from here. Okay. So now he kind of elaborates, who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. So he's saying, I have no one else of the same soul on the same page that I am, who will genuinely be concerned for the Philippians welfare is what he's talking about. It's Timothy again.

So actually, Weiss has two parts to his writings. One part, he has a New Testament translation, and then the other part is he has limited a limited amount of books that he went through a detailed, in the Greek, went through a detailed study. Romans is one of those, which is really nice. So he goes in detail through Romans, and also through Philippians. But not all the New Testament.

So here's a case where he makes a comment here. He says that who has a qualitative aspect in the Greek, namely, who is of a character as such? So he says, who, having this character as such, will genuinely, will genuinely care for the things concerning you.

So many times I'll go, if you'll look, I'll go through, maybe it, hopefully it's not confusing. I'll, I put the New American Standard at the top, and then I'll come in with either the Weiss translation or the Interlinear. And many times it's because I found it easier to understand from the other, other translations, or the word-for-word translation, which is linear. So hopefully it doesn't confuse you. Okay.

Genuinely here is the idea of sincerely, honorably. It's rendered truly in the King James, in this verse. So we says, that is, Timothy And if you guys, was all wool and a yard wide, it was a genuine article. Was anybody familiar with that phrase, all wool and a yard wide? Apparently, Weiss was. And I looked on the internet, and of course, it tells you this was something to do with the fact that wool was a good fabric. And if it's a yard wide, it was a lot of wool. So if you were called all wool and a yard wide, you were the genuine article. Fluff about you. You were the real thing. So I had not ever heard that expression before. All over the yard wise. Anyway, something to keep in the back of your mind. It's interesting. Okay. Well, genuinely care for. And this is interesting.

This particular award is the idea to be anxious about, and the way this is from Vine, it's future tense, to have a distracting care. It's almost like you're so focused on that person that you're distracted from other things. You're distracted to them. I'm trying to say how that's stated in my mind. It's stated that that person distracts your attention to him over anyone else. Pretty amazing. Okay, so it's a word which has the idea to give one's thoughts to the matter this word will care for. Seek to promote another's interests.

So Timothy was an amazing person, and Christ was evident in his life, because the descriptions you see of these things are the descriptions of the Lord Jesus as in Paul's life, and then we see Timothy will have a description about himself, which also are about the Lord Jesus. So pretty neat stuff. Okay, so on to 21. So now more on about the exceptional nature of Timothy. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. So what he's going to say here is, and this kind of goes along with what was read here by Bob. For they, other than Timothy, all seek their own interests.

And this word all, and this is one I kind of pick up on a lot of times when I'm studying, Romans has a lot of these situations. When you see the word all, many, many times it's this word pas in the Greek, and what it means is, it's a strong all. It's a whole, it's a whole of them, one and all without exception. It's everything, there's nothing, It's complete. It's all. It's everything. There's nothing excluded.

It's kind of the idea. So he's saying everybody else has their own interests. So the focus is, their focus outside Timothy is on their self-interest. Not the things of Christ Jesus. Okay? So the idea is, so what he's saying, well they all seek their own interests, not the things. And a better rendering might be out of Christ Jesus as a source. Christ Jesus is to be our life, he is our life. And so we want to be sourced in the Lord Jesus. So that's kind of what's coming across here.

So I was thinking, what are the things of Christ? What comes to your mind when you see the things of Christ? So, if I say I'm concerned about the things of Christ, or something came to my mind, something, you know, those things where I think of it, and I'm trying to get you guys to think of it too, so. And I don't want to belabor the point, but anything that comes to mind, What would you say the things of Christ are referring to?

Love. Okay, excellent. Okay, I like that. Keep going. His purpose. What's that? His word. Okay, all right. How about this? How about the fruit of the Spirit? If you think about the fruit of the Spirit, that's really describing the Lord Jesus, really. And we have the fruit of the Spirit.

Love, joy, peace. But those are characteristics. That's Christ's life. I really like the description of love. in Romans, Corinthians 13. Love is patient, love is kind, and so on. All those, I always like to say, Christ's love is patient, Christ's love is kind. Those are all attributes of Christ.

And since we have his life, they can be attributes of us, my faith. When I think of the things of Christ, I think of God's purpose on earth. You know, it's just an all-encompassing purpose, and nothing will deter God from His purpose. Not our prayers, not our will, or anything. It's just, you know, those are the things of Christ. He came to fulfill God's purpose on earth, and not His own. Right, he said that quite a few times. I come to do thy will, Lord. That's great. No, that's good.

Okay, so these people here, for they all seek their own interests and not those of Christ Jesus. So he's pretty hard on, outside of Timothy, he's pretty hard on those people. And they're self-seeking, they're selling their own interests and not the interests of Christ. Okay, so now.

So now he continues on. Now he's going to talk about back to Timothy again. But you know of his speaking of Timothy. So in this case, back to Bud again. But in this case, I think Bud is appropriate because he's contrasting the self-seeking ones with what we're going to see about Timothy. But in contrast to the ones seeking their own neighbors, You know that this, you know it's his, Timothy, but you know it's his, Timothy's proven worth. And proven worth is this word, dokime, it's genuineness, proven character, and this is kind of launching me off into a thing that Andrew's gonna remember here. Others will too.

Dakime refers to that which has met the test and has been approved. There's a couple of words in the Greek that talk about, when you see the idea of testing, there's parazo, which is attesting to fail, and then dakime is the idea, or dakimos, is the idea to attest to approval. And what's wonderful is the Lord Jesus, God doesn't, He only tests believers they have to approve them. He's not wanting them to fail, he wants to approve them, to show who they really are, that they're really his children. So document is used consistently in terms of believers and approving them or testing them for approval.

And probably the landmark verse in this, and we covered this months ago in main service, is in Romans 5, 3 to 5. So I just kind of put it in bullet form here. And then we're going to look at a chart from another Malloy in the past, from Hal. And it's pretty cool. Anyway, OK. So let's start off. So this is Romans 3 to 5. And we're going to see that Docky Mae, a proven worth or a proven character, shows up two times here. So let's start off. but we also exalt or rejoice in our tribulations. Notice it's plural.

We don't get just one. You guys know that already, right? That one trial is finished. Hey, I'm done. I'm done for the rest of my life. It doesn't work that way, right? It just keeps going on. Lord, how long? Okay, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance, or you could say patience, which I think I like better, knowing that tribulation brings about patience, and patience or perseverance, proven character, and that's our word that was describing Timothy, is proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint. And then what I like here, before, I wanna go back and revisit this little chain here, this tribulation, work of patience, proven character, proven character, hope, I want to look at that particular sequence. But before that, I thought we just had kind of really wrapped it up, this section here saying, but you know from experience.

So he's basically restating this verse here so far. But you know, from experience, that's Gnosko, his character, speaking of Timothy's character, which has been approved after having been tested. So Timothy apparently was a man that had undergone trials and also saw those trials. And actually, he says, in this case, if you look carefully, he says, you know, and the you is speaking again of the Philippians, right?

So the Philippians knew, this is where I kind of picked up the fact that the Philippians knew or had seen his proven character. They'd seen that he was a man that had undergone trials And was approved, so to speak. Showed his true character, which is Frank's character. So, just kind of a really neat thing. But you know, from experience, his character. So they had it interchanged with Timothy, the Philippians, which has been approved after having been tested. Okay, so now, what you've all been waiting for. I'm joking. Okay, here's a, I looked at the date of this, almost 20 years ago. Wow.

Okay, so in this diagram here, he's trying to portray pictorially about how is it possible to have, how is it possible to rejoice in trials and to have trials produce patients and the whole sequence of events. So what our brother Hal has done here, he shows here, he shows a couple or any, any believer, and they're immersed in God's grace. They're in the operating system of grace. And then by faith, they behold, through his word, the glory of Christ, who Christ is.

And that's the starting point, because you just can't, as we know, some trial comes along, some tribulation comes along, and our first response, it probably is not, Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this new trial. It's using that. But that's where the Lord wants us to be. He wants us to be focused on Him, beholding His glory, in His word, trusting in Him. And that's how we're able to progress through this, how it has a circle here. I believe it is a circle. Because it's gonna make a complete circle and then start over again for the next trial. So we rejoice and hope. I'm sorry, we rejoice in our tribulation or trial, and that produces patience. And notice that we're still rejoicing. I think it's key.

This is only possible as you're walking with the Lord. I would say this circle may have some interruptions. You may go off on a little tangent for a while. It may be tough. It may be something that's just overwhelming. Family, who knows? Money, who knows? So I don't think you necessarily zip through this thing, oh, got that one done, ready for the next one. This may take years.

But the idea is you're rejoicing your tribulation. That rejoicing produces patience. And that patience produces tried character or proven character. And that's the character that Timothy was displaying to the Philippians. And that tried character, proven character produces hope.

And then you're ready to start over again. And I think you might have several of these at the same time. Anyway, I don't have to tell you about plenty of trials in life. But what's neat is the whole focus here, I think, is that we're focused on our Savior, focused on the Lord Jesus. And as we do that, We can rejoice in the trials, not that they're necessarily a good thing, maybe it's a terrible thing, but we rejoice that God, you're in control, I don't understand it, but I'm trusting you, and that produces patience, and that produces this tried character, and that produces hope. Roger, I noticed that through all of that, we're looking at the glory of Christ by faith. Faith is central to all the victory we have. Without it, we're trusting in ourselves, and then we go off way off balance. Many trials derail both Christian and non-Christian. They get a severe trial in a person's life. Years go by. Decades go by. I mean, it's just devastating to some people. And some people never seem to encounter it.

But the Lord desires the way we walk the Christian life is by focusing on Him. He is the focus of our life. And that's why, I think that's why when you put, you say, tribulate, you can worsen patience, it sounds so nice. Well, wait a minute. I'm not patient about that trial. My flesh says I want it done with. I want it over with. The Lord says, no, I have a purpose and a plan for you. But without faith, you just, you just, you cannot do any of that. You know, it's got to be by faith in Christ.

Right. Okay. All right. Any other thoughts about this? I'm going to go on and finish up. There's two verses to go. I like how it seems to be glowing. I don't know how he did that. I'm kind of looking at that. That's kind of nice. Sorry. It's kind of... Oh, yeah. Actually, there's a variation of this where he has like a funnel and he circles this. This is...

This is what you hope happens, and I don't believe it. This is what you desire to happen, that you grow. big funnel. So the circle goes like this and hopefully it's ascending, which I don't want to make too much of that. We're not ascending closer to God. We already have his life. But anyway, it's a picture to show that you're to be growing in grace as you go through these trials. Anyway, good stuff. Okay, so let's go on. So this is the last part of the wish.

It says, Okay, but you know of his proven worth, we just went through that, that he served me in the furthest of the gospel like a child serving his father. So that or because he, Timothy, served me, So back to Weiss being here a little bit, Weiss talks about the preposition which shows his humility.

And he says, I thought it was a little bit, I would say Timothy is a lot more than his assistant. I didn't necessarily agree with that. I think he was his soulmate. I mean, what's funny is the word, I'm surprised Weiss said that, his assistant. He was his soulmate, much more than that. But he did serve both. He served him as a doulos. He was devoted to him. Voluntary seal, but he listened to the apostle. And then furtherance of the gospel. And the furtherance of is not there, it's just in the gospel. So there's several other cases that Darby has in the work of the gospel.

And this end is ice. E-I-S-E, primary idea of motion into a place. And we see a parallel verse we're gonna see down the road here. Sharing my struggles in the cause of the gospel. So people have, people, translators have added in additional words to kind of, maybe it fits in the context. So in this case, having the furtherance on the work of the gospel. Like a child serving his father, So this is another comment by Lisa I liked.

So he points out that it's as a son to a father, not as a son with a father. You know, we have a relationship with our earthly father. We're blood relatives of that. So that's what we have. We have a bond tighter. It's not like I'm with somebody. I'm a companion. I'm part of him. So that's another pretty strong statement about Timothy and Paul, like a child serving his father.

Okay, so the last two verses are kind of interesting. Therefore, I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me, and I trust in the Lord that I myself will also come shortly. So if you look through, if you have the opportunity to look at the nonlinear texts of Greek text, you'll see in some verses there'll be this construction where the original language will kind of have like little markers. They'll have this, they'll have a marker called men, M-E-N, which is ideal on the one hand, and then later in the verse it will have on the other hand, like death, but it's called the men death instruction.

And the translators are kind of, I don't know, they're not consistent. Sometimes they'll bring it out, sometimes they won't. In this case, they didn't really bring it out. So I went back to the interlinear Greek, and I want to try to show you this. I think it helps understand these last two verses. And this is interlinear Greek.

Therefore, men, on the one hand, I hope to send this one, Timothy, immediately whenever I see how things concerning me go. So he's saying, on this hand, I'm waiting. I hope to send Timothy, but I'm waiting to see how things go with me. But on the other hand, I have confidence in the Lord that I myself will come quickly indeed. So this is where I mentioned earlier, Andrew, that this is where he says, oh, he wants to go to the Philippians. So he wants to go, but he's certain about that. But as far as Timothy's concerned, it seems like he has a question about that.

So what would you say about this contrast? I've kind of already said a bunch of stuff. Anything that you see offhand about this contrast? It probably is a little bit hard to do it kind of on the fly here. So I have some comments. Well, it says that he's flexible. Okay. Okay.

He's waiting and seeing. In the first case, right? With sending Timothy, he's kind of waiting and seeing. He's waiting to see what happens with him. Yeah. And then he's going to, you know, based upon that, he may send Timothy. Or He will send them to take us. He said, I hope to send them to take us. Yeah, that's Mendeh, that seems to be a wait-and-see attitude.

And then the second one, Endeh, he says, I have confidence, and we're going to see that's a strong confidence, in the Lord, that I myself will come quickly indeed. Okay, so here's things that I saw. So all his contrasts mean what he hopes to do and what he has a settled confidence about. In one case, he hopes to do something. He's waiting. In the second case, he has a settled confidence about what he's going to do. So the word he comes up with is el pos. I hope. El piso. El piso. Thank you. to expect the desire in the present tense. And actually, we had this earlier, I hope in the Lord.

But if you look at this construction, we don't have that little in there, so he doesn't really anchor it back to the Lord. He just says, I hope to do so. And then he talks about what's going to happen. But he doesn't really anchor it back. So it's a little bit different. He says, He says, see how things concerning me go. So Paul says, I desire to do this, but I have to see how things turn out.

So that's his first statement. And then the second one, Paul tells us, I trust in the Lord that I myself will come quickly indeed. And trust here is in the perfect tense. And that's a subtle confidence. It's the idea that something you trusted the Lord in the past He continues to trust him into the present and will continue to trust him. So this is Constable kind of trying to sum up these two verses.

He says, Paul believed that he would receive his freedom and would be able to return to Philippi fairly soon. He goes back to verse 125, which kind of seems to say that. However, he qualifies his hope with the realization that justice does not always prevail in legal courts. Interesting, right? Yeah. There's still no... Nothing has changed. Okay. All right. So, any final thoughts?

And next week we'll talk about Epaphroditus, about his ministry i have one thought uh... one of the previous verses where paul said that nobody stuck by him other than timothy right talked about was he referring to uh... those people in in philip i possibly because he's surely not talking about luke and apathetic is Yeah, I know, and actually that's a good question. What group of people is he talking about? I'm not sure I have a good answer.

I agree with the other people that were with him that obviously were, and I think Andrew has a spot here. Go ahead, Andrew. One specific example... Do you have your microphone on there? Yeah, one specific example of what Jimmy's talking about is John Mark.

He bailed on Paul. So he probably has that in his mind. Well, actually, and then what Bob read for us, too. So Paul had a lot of people that deserved him. So it's not clear exactly the context who he's talking about, but certainly Timothy is, you know, he And it was an awful lot of time pointing out how Timothy was a soul of the same mind as himself and had his Christ interest over others. So I'm not sure, Jimmy, exactly. And in some, I don't know if it's 1st or 2nd Timothy, he calls at least one guy out by name, right? And says, he did me much harm. Right. I forget who that was. Well, Demas also. Demas was a great worker. He was one of the group, but later on, Paul says, Demas deserted him. Right. Yeah. Right. Well, it seems like he mentions more than deserted.

Timothy is an exception. I mean, really, it's exceptional how much he points out Timothy's faithfulness to him and his being of the same mind. He was a true soul mate. He was. He was. We see that in his verses. Just amazing. And basically we see Christ's life in Timothy. That's what it's all about.

And Elpis is more like certainty. You know it will happen. It's not like I hope so. Like maybe it'll rain, maybe it won't. But this Elpis means with certainty. Actually what's interesting is when you have the little preposition in, like verse 19, If you go through and look carefully, you'll see that whenever hope is connected by a little preposition It's what we'll be hoping in what was in the Lord There's no question. What's this? That's gonna happen what when it's in something like, you know, something else then you it's uncertainty So hope is an absolute certainty when it's written in terms of the Lord. It's gonna happen That's a good way to look at the hope, you know hoping the Lord and that's like in the little wheel when you all go around the You know, tribulation, work of patience, patience, proven character, proven character, hope. You know, that hope is the confidence in the Lord, the absolute confidence in the Lord Jesus. So hope and have an absolute certainty aspect when it's focused on the Lord or in the Lord. All right, actually I forgot who teaches next week. You're teaching, actually. No. I think it's me.

Hi, Andrew. There's no rest for Andrew. I have Andrew going and coming. He's been great. I really appreciate that. That's for next week's Andrew to worry about, though. OK, that's good. Well, I certainly appreciate you doing it, Andrew. It's been great. We love to have you here with us. I love you having you join us on Zoom, too. OK, well, let's go to the closing.

We thank you, Father, so much. We thank you for the blessings we have in the Lord Jesus. Lord, we thank you that your character, you desire your character, your life to be our life. And we know that we have that because we trusted in your Savior and we have the very life of the Lord Jesus. And we thank you for that and we pray that by faith we would walk in that life. We ask it in his name. Amen. Amen.