My Son Timothy
“I hope in the Lord” (Phil. ii. 19-24).
Every flower in Paul’s life springs out of a common bed, even out of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He has no wish that is not rooted in Jesus, no hope that does not find its sustenance in Him. He is indissolubly one with the Saviour* and everything is vitalised by the communion. Many Christians only root their crises “in the Lord,” the great purposes and events which come now and again; but the apparently smaller matters, the wishes of the ordinary day, the plan of the moment, the commonplace journey, the humdrum coming and going, are given such precarious nutriment as they may be able to find apart from the risen Christ. It is altogether beautiful when a life not only has its great oaks and palm trees embedded “in the Lord,” but also its more fragile and tender things, its wishes, its courtesies, its delicate impulses, and its trembling hopes.
And what is this hope that is so fed and sanctified “in the Lord”? “To send Timothy shortly unto you.” Here is a fine and heartening glimpse into the complete consecration of the Apostle’s life. Could anything be more ordinary than this sending of a message of inquiry, and yet the purpose is to be quickened by the breath of the Lord? Everything in Paul’s life is to be made “alive unto God.” All the events in his life, big or little, are to be like the coins of the realm, every one stamped with the face of the King. The mistake so many of us make is that we allow the smaller coins to go unsealed with the superscription of the King; the halfpennies and the pennies are not sanctified; the consecration service is only held for the pounds. In Paul’s life it seems as though the consecration service never ends.
“That I also may he of good comfort, when I know your state.” This saintly apostle takes heart from other people’s progress. He feels the glow of the sunshine which rests upon others. He is buttressed about by their strength. The water is very sweet and refreshing which he draws from another man’s well. Surely this is one of the enriching secrets of the “communion of saints.” It is the purpose of our Lord that His people should be bound together by the ministry of their manifold gifts and graces, that we should visit one another’s lives as we visit one another’s gardens, and return home inspired by the scent of new perfumes, the vision of new flowers, and the combination of new glories. And perhaps our neighbour-disciple will give us a sprig or a root from his garden wherewith to enrich our own, and he will accept one from ours, and so we shall all be the wealthier for every man’s inheritance “in the Lord.”
“For I have no man likeminded, who will care tndy for your state. For they all seek their own, not the things of Jesus Christ.’> And this is the very opposite to the gracious and open disposition we have just considered. Here is the consecration of selfishness. Here is the sanctification of heedlessness, the building of high, thick walls of exclusiveness, over which we cannot look into our neighbour’s garden, and in which there is no door to permit of gracious visits and friendly intercourse. Here are people marching beneath the Lord’s banner, but not intent on the Lord’s affairs. They are engaged in a selfish quest, and are not crusading in the broad, general interests of the Kingdom of God. And yet they are professed members of the Christian Church! That is the pity and the tragedy of it, and they exist in every age. The pity of it is this, that they never seek the things of others; and the tragedy of it is this, that they never find their own. They seek realities and discover counterfeits; they seek joy, and find only a fickle happiness; they seek comfort, and find only mouldering “comforts”; they seek peace, and find only material ease. If a man makes up his mind to ignore his brother, he will never find himself. If we want really to find our own, we must seek them in “the things of Jesus Christ,” and those “things” are beyond our own garden wall, and concern the interests and welfare of our brother. No man can forget his brother, and at the same time know his Lord. “If man love not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God, whom he hath not seen?”
“But ye know the proof of him, that, as a child serveth his father, so he served with me in furtherance of the gospel Beautiful it is when Christian men have stood the test of exacting experience, and are now men of “approved” character, most evidently stamped with the hall-mark of the Son of God. It is a gracious attainment when men readily open their doors to us, and receive us as the accredited representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it was with youthful Timothy. He was always running other people’s errands, lifting other people’s burdens, making sympathetic inquiries at other people’s doors. His prayers were just crammed with other people’s miseries and other people’s needs. In all his great, roomy, hospitable supplications there was hardly a corner for himself. He almost forgot himself in his remembrance of others. And so it came to pass that the Lord remembered him, and conveyed to him “hidden manna” and “hidden treasure,” and Timothy became strong and beautiful before the gaze of his fellow-men. He “put on the Lord Jesus Christ,” but he “wist not that his face shone,” or that he appeared so chivalrous and comely in “the garments of salvation.” For in Timothy was fulfilled the great spiritual law that “he who loseth his life shall find it.”” Him, therefore, I hope to send forthwith,” and this young, trustworthy ambassador shall be a living bond of spiritual communion between the imprisoned Apostle and his spiritual kinsmen far away.