Oneisiphorus: The Loyal Friend
- Kevin DeYoung
- Jul 24, 2022
- 24 min read
Oneisephorus: the Loyal Friend
2 Timothy 1:15-18
Kevin DeYoung
O God of our fathers, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we rejoice to know
You as our God and our Father, the God who was and is and is to come, the
one true and living God, and so we pray that you would speak now to us,
through Your Living Word, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Our text this morning comes from 2 Timothy, chapter 1. Please turn in your Bibles to
2 Timothy chapter 1, verses 15 through 18.
Our series is called Unsung Heroes, those men and women who are heroes of the faith
in the Word of God and yet lesser known than Abraham or Esther, Moses, or David.
Their songs are not so widely sung and yet there is much to learn from them. We
come to one such man in this paragraph this morning, 2 Timothy 1, beginning at verse
15.
“You are aware that all who are in Asia turned away from me, among whom are
Phygelus and Hermogenes. May the Lord grant mercy to the household of
Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains, but when
he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me— may the Lord grant
him to find mercy from the Lord on that day!—and you well know all the service he
rendered at Ephesus.”
Here is a good, simple prayer I encourage you to pray for yourself this week, and it
would be a good prayer for any week: Lord, make me a loyal, refreshing, diligent
servant in the cause of Christ.
It’s a good prayer for this week, any week, for you, for anyone in Christ. Try, just a
few times this week to pray this prayer, “Lord, make me a loyal, refreshing, diligent
servant in the cause of Christ.”
That in a sentence was this man, Onesiphorus. Or if you like, One Sip Hours, that’s
what they called him as they gathered their sweet tea together.
Onesiphorus. Like most of the unsung heroes in this series, we don’t know a lot about
him, but what we do know makes him worthy of praise and emulation. Onesiphorus is
a Greek name, so likely this is a gentile. His name means “bringing profit,” or
“useful,” or “helpful.”
Try that sometime with a new child. I’ve never baptized a young man named Helpful,
but that’s sort of putting all your cards, all your chips into the table with that one.
Helpful, useful, bringing profit. And indeed, that’s what he was. Not just one time but
many times. Note the word here “often,” he often refreshed me, Paul says.
Now this man is mentioned only two times in the Bible, here in 2 Timothy chapter 1
and then again in chapter 4, and that’s not much. We don’t know of any books that he
wrote. We don’t know of any reformation he sparked. We don’t know of any large
donation he made. We don’t know of any great civic reforms he enacted. According to
the Greek Orthodox Church, he was later a bishop in Asia Minor. According to the
Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, said that he was martyred. But we don’t
know that to be the case for sure.
What we do know for sure is what we have in these few verses that Onesiphorus was
a loyal, refreshing, diligent servant in the cause of Christ. Those four words form our
outline this morning, and a prayer that I hope you’ll pray this coming week.
So first of all, Onesiphorus was loyal.
This is an attribute and a virtue we don’t hear much about and we don’t think much
about until you need someone to be loyal to you.
Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July, Independence Day, we think about our nation’s
history and I’ve been on a bit of a reading kick through the Revolutionary War period
and various founders and you perhaps know the name Benedict Arnold. Now
Benedict Arnold is one of those persons in history who had the unfortunate
occurrence of living too long. If he had died in say the late 1770s, he would probably
be one of the great heroes in American history. There would be monuments to him
and colleges named after him. He helped to capture Fort Ticonderoga in 1775. He was
instrumental in what some say was one of the turning points in the Battle of Saratoga
in 1777. He was a valiant soldier on the side of the American Revolution.
Yet, now he’s come to us and his name is synonymous with one thing – being a
traitor. So if you ever call someone a Benedict Arnold, at least in this country, I don’t
know what they say over there in the British Isles, but here it’s not a compliment.
Because he went over to the other side.
There is a monument in Connecticut that says there in the memory of the brave
patriots massacred at Fort Griswold on the sixth of September 1781 under the
command of the traitor Benedict Arnold, who burnt the towns of New London and
Groton, and spread desolation and woe throughout the region.
May there never be a monument in your honor which says such things, “to the traitor
Benedict Arnold.” His very name is synonymous with being dis-loyal.
Well, we have this man Onesiphorus who is quite the opposite. Paul says you are
aware, verse 15, all who are in Asia, and remember here, Asia think Turkey roughly,
all who are in Asia are deserting him. Now not everyone, he’s writing to Timothy,
he’ll mention Luke, but there was a defection on a large scale. Some left simply
because they had other ministry opportunities to go to. We don’t fault them for that.
But others left for less noble reasons.
Turn to the last chapter, 4. You get a sense for this if you look at chapter 4, verse 9.
Paul writes to his young pastoral protégé Timothy in Ephesus, which is part of Asia
Minor, he says, “Do your best to come to me soon. For Demas, in love with this
present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to
Galatia. Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you,
for he is very useful to me for ministry. Tychicus,” who we saw two weeks ago, “I
have sent to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at
Troas, also the books, and above all the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did
me great harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. Beware of him
yourself, for he strongly opposed our message.” And then this line in verse 16: “At
my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me.”
Paul is writing this letter toward the very end of his life, in prison, under Nero, and he
says about this incident in the past, “When I most needed somebody to come and
stand up for me, when I was standing there, facing my trial, these false accusations,”
and just to use a little sanctified imagination, and the judge said, “Is there anyone who
would come to speak in defense of this traitorous man?” Paul says the room was
silent. Nobody was there. They had all left.
Now some of these he had sent off to other places in ministry, but he names names.
Demas, in love with the present world. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm.
Back in chapter 1 he mentions Phygelus and Hermogenes.
Many of these deserters were probably scared of what would happen if they
associated with a criminal, if they openly declared themselves to be on the side of the
Gospel. This is why Paul starts this letter with an exhortation not to be ashamed.
Now we hear that language in Scripture and we know famously Romans chapter 1, “I
am not ashamed of the Gospel,” and we might put it on a bracelet or put it somewhere
on a wall or we put it on a book cover and that’s great. They had many reasons to be
tempted to be ashamed of the Gospel, and increasingly we do so in our day. Shame is
a powerful emotion.
Sometimes Paul uses shame instructively. There are some things that we ought to be
ashamed of, certain behaviors. But yet the world tries to give to us a sense of
embarrassment, humiliation, and shame for the very contours and convictions of the
Christian faith.
That’s what’s happening with Paul. Look at verse 8 of chapter 1: “Therefore do not be
ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share in
suffering for the Gospel by the power of God.”
He knew that as he was in prison, it would be a risky thing for anyone to associate
with him. He mentions in verse 15 those who turned away, Phygelus and
Hermogenes. How would you like this to be your legacy? Forever memorialized in
Scripture as those who deserted the Apostle Paul. Now these were leaders or close
friends, which is why they needed to be named. They were cowards. Their passivity
hurt the Church, hurt Paul personally. Sometimes we think the only way to really do
damage to someone is if we actively are trying to be a mean person, or if we are
actively going after something, doing something wrong.
Well, that’s true, but just as often we can be hurtful to our friends, we can be hurtful
to the cause of Christ, by being passive, by being cowards. It’s one of the first sins
mentioned in Revelation 21 when it talks about those who are outside of the gates of
the New Jerusalem. Cowards.
Now it doesn’t mean that one time when you had your Bible open in Starbucks and
you didn’t share your faith with somebody or they asked you. It’s not talking about
that, though it’d be good to share our faith. It’s talking about the person who in that
moment of crisis, in that moment when all of the Christians must be counted for, he or
she deserts.
And so it happened with Phygelus and Hermogenes. Oftentimes, Christians believe
the right things, they want to do the right things, but they refuse to stand and be
counted. Do not be a deserter. Leaving people when times are rough, giving up on the
cause when opposition is fierce, chickening out on your friends because your neck is
on the line.
So considering all that was surrounding Paul in prison, you can see why he is so
thankful for this man Onesiphorus. Verse 16: May the Lord grant mercy to the
household of Onesiphorus, for he often refreshed me and was not ashamed of my
chains.
This, in the first century, was an even more severe cancel culture. We can see the
same things in our day. You can just imagine how Paul would have been labeled,
“The controversial Apostle Paul,” “The man from tarsus has been dogged by
allegations from the very beginning,” “This man has been credibly accused of various
sins and scandals.”
The Jews, many of them thought he was a hater of the Temple. He despised their
traditions. The Romans thought he was a rabble rouser, a threat to the well-being of
the Empire.
Now, of course, parentheses here, of course unthinking loyalty, blind support, is no
virtue. Our friends, our leaders, our heroes, do sometimes let us down. Sometimes
they are accused of things for which they have done wrongly. Faithful are the wounds
of a friend. True love, actually true loyalty sometimes looks like correcting those who
are in fault. So this is no excuse for circling the wagons when the one in the middle of
the wagons is a fake or a phony.
But think about that image, circling the wagons, sort of a wild west shootout and who
are you after and all the wagons circle to protect. Well, that’s a bad thing, circling the
wagons, unless, of course, the person that you’re protecting is, in fact, innocent, in
which case you would be very thankful to have some wagons encircling you.
What if the person is like Paul? Condemned by the ruling elite, suspected of
wrongdoing by his culture, held in derision by most people who knew his name. What
then do you need?
Well, private reassurances are nice. If somebody walked by and just whispered,
“Praying for you, Paul.” That would be nice if somebody could send just a secret text
message to Paul, “Just wanted you to know we’re all pulling for you.” Well, those
private assurances would be nice, but what you need when the mob comes are public
friends.
Prisoners in the ancient world were often dependent on the kindness of friends and
family. They’re not getting three square meals. They’re having people to have to
come by and through the gates or the bars or the stocks, give them food. The Empire
is not going to spend their money to help provide for these people, so you, if you care
for them and you know them and you love them, you come take care of them or they
die. That’s how it worked.
Turn over for a moment to Hebrews. You can get a sense for this in Hebrews chapter
10, Hebrews 10, verse 32. You just read between the lines and you get an
understanding of how this prison deal worked. “But recall the former days when, after
you were enlightened, you endured a hard struggle with sufferings, sometimes being
publicly exposed to reproach and affliction, and sometimes being partners with those
so treated.”
All right, you’re friends with the wrong people. You’re connected to the wrong
people. Okay, I don’t know if you did anything wrong, but your friendly with some of
these people who we know did something wrong.
Verse 34, and here’s their fault: “For you had compassion on those in prison, and you
joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves
had a better possession and an abiding one.”
Some of these Christians were suffering not because they had been thrown into prison,
but because they showed compassion to their brothers and sisters in Christ who had,
and you can understand how this works. People in the town square see: What are you
doing? You’re bringing bread and water, slipping it through the bars for this man,
who’s in prison, because he’s a cannibal and drinks the blood of his God, or because
he’s a sexual malefactor having love feasts, agape feasts, with brothers and sisters in
Christ. Or he’s not a good Roman because we know that the gods of the Romans you
can see. You Christians, you don’t have any gods you can see.
They called the Christians atheists because they didn’t have any statues, they didn’t
have any gods you could visibly see. So when they see you provide a meal, a cup of
cold water, to one of these brothers and sisters, everyone starts whispering, “Did you
see that? Did you see who they associated with? Did you see who they cared for? Ah,
let’s go after them tonight. Let’s take their property tonight.”
Onesiphorus put his own life on the line by coming to search for Paul when he was
chains. He was a loyal friend. He knew who Paul was even when others had maligned
him or had forgotten, had deserted him.
Maybe you remember from way back learning in school and reading the tales of
Odysseus that when he returns home after 20 long years, disguised as a beggar
because he’s going to try to rid his household of all of these suitors and it’s overrun,
and there, do you remember? The only one who recognizes Odysseus in disguise, it’s
his dog, a man’s best friend, Argos recognized him, and he’s overrun with fleas and
he soon will breathe his last because the poor dog has been neglected. But you can
read there in The Odyssey it says Argos had just enough strength to droop his ears and
wag his tail because he knew that this was his master. He alone could recognize who
had really returned.
Onesiphorus knows who the Apostle Paul really is and he’s not the person that
everybody says about him, all the allegations.
Are you loyal in the same way to your friends? Again, not unthinking, not that we
don’t correct people when they need correction. You understand. But are you loyal to
your brothers and sisters in Christ? Are you eager to defend their honor before others?
Or do you help cut them down? Or do you stand in silence? Would you deliver a meal
to them in prison if it meant that your possessions might be plundered that night for
doing so?
We all want friends like Onesiphorus. Loyal friends who show up.
I remember when I was just starting to preach as a young man and the first sermons I
did were at the Holland City Rescue Mission, because they would let somebody like
me come and preach. I didn’t know what I was doing, those poor men heard some
really bad sermons, and then they got a meal, so they were there. I was so excited
because I was getting a chance to preach. I remember going, and I did it a few times,
this was maybe my last year in college, and sure enough when I would go to the
Rescue Mission and I would preach these sermons, I would see two or three or four of
my friends who were there to listen and encourage me and support me.
Then later when I had opportunities during some of the summer months when I was in
seminary or before seminary to preach at churches in the evening service usually,
during the summer, there would be some of my friends. Whether I was any good or
not, it was such an encouragement to see them there.
I have had the experience before as a pastor, rushing to a hospital room to pray for
somebody, to be there, something joyful has happened, a baby has been born, or
something very bad has happened, an accident, and sometimes you rush there as a
pastor and it’s a wonderful occasion when the room is already packed. Now I
understand that often can’t be the case and maybe it was packed 10 minutes before I
got there, so if your room’s not packed the next time, don’t feel discouraged.
But, boy, that’s what’d we’d want in our hour of need, isn’t it? Here comes the pastor
to pray. There’s already 12 people here praying.
I’ve heard many times, from the nurses on charge, “There have been people in and out
of this room. We have heard hymns being sung all day long.” You want friends who
are loyal.
That as Onesiphorus. He was not ashamed of Paul’s chain. We will have occasion,
many of us, if we live long enough in these days, to prove that we are not ashamed to
be called brothers and sisters in Christ with one another, and with those who may be
mistreated for the cause of Christ, in this place or around the world.
He was loyal.
He was, second, refreshing.
That word, you go back to chapter 1, “He often refreshed me.” That’s almost a word
you don’t expect to find in the Bible. It sounds like a commercial for a soft drink or as
I grew up calling it “pop.” That’s what it sounds like, refreshing. But it’s here. It’s a
good word. It means to cheer up.
Now for Onesiphorus it probably meant he brought Paul food, sustenance. He
physically gave him refreshment. But it also means spiritual encouragement. He
probably came, prayed with his friend in prison. This was not a one-time thing. It was
a mark of his character, “He often refreshed me.”
Are you a refresher? Or a depresser? In people’s lives. Some people are joy-givers,
and some people, how shall we put it, are joy-suckers. They [sound effect] they suck it
out of you.
Don’t be a spiritual mosquito. It’s often, it’s a real theological conundrum. Were there
mosquitoes before the Fall? If there were, they just sang in your ear and brought you
nectar or something. But no longer. And when you have one of these nice summer
nights and you sit out on the back porch, you put a chair in your driveway, and maybe
you’ll do it in these coming days and you’ll do some fireworks, on these warm
summer nights, sometimes you get a lovely breeze, and even when it’s hot and humid,
that breeze, that summer breeze at night, is refreshing. Other times, a stagnant air sits
in and you’re out there swatting yourself the whole time with mosquitoes.
Friends, would you be a summer breeze instead of summer mosquitoes? The sort of
person that you want to be around. Ah, this person is a blast of some cool air in a
summer sweltering heat rather than a pesky mosquito.
Trisha and I used to be better at this when we were younger and able to get out more,
had fewer kids, but we would go to someone’s house and our prayer in the car along
the way would be simply, “Lord, let us be refreshers. Let us be a refreshment. Let us
be de-odorants, not odorants.”
Now what does that mean for you? Well, you have different personalities. Some of
you are introverts, some of you are extroverts. Some of you love to host people, some
of you it’s more difficult. For some of you to be invited over to someone’s house
would be the greatest refreshment, for others, that seems like a stressful undertaking.
So the Lord understands were wired differently. Maybe to be a refreshment means
that you talk a little less, or maybe it means you talk a little more. Maybe it means you
give people the gift of your curiosity and you ask them good questions. Maybe it’s a
home-cooked meal. Maybe it’s a gift card. Maybe it’s a baby-sitter. Maybe it’s giving
somebody peace and quiet. Maybe it’s learning to smile.
Calvinists smile. We should. Of all people, we should smile. We’re saved from our
sins, we know that God’s in control from beginning to last. You’ve heard the joke
before: The Calvinist wakes up in the morning, he stubs his toe and he says, “Well,
I’m glad I got that out of the way.” [laughter] We have every reason to be cheerful.
Of course, life is difficult, filled with suffering. But perhaps being a refresher is
simply to smile, to laugh, to think of others before yourself.
You think of the difference. When you come to a hot car. Sometimes I’ll drive
somewhere, I’ll go on a run, and I’ll come back and no matter how long I’m gone in
these summer months, the car is just sweltering hot. Sometimes I’ll have thought
ahead and I’ll have a water bottle and I’ll have ice in it, and you get back and it’s still
cold and you see the water running down the side. Oh, I’m making you thirsty right
now.
You know when I was growing up, at one point my church switched from a nice
wooden pulpit to a plexiglas pulpit. We’re not going there. They had a plexiglas pulpit
and they had a little plexiglas stand that the pastor put his water bottle on there. It was
actually a glass of water. I remember many summer Sundays, now I’m only giving
you one thing to think about, but I would, I would look at that and it was just the
condensation was coming down and [sound effect] [laughter] I just thought, “He’s not
even drinking it. He’s just taunting us with his wonderful, cold glass. It looks to
refreshing. I wish we all had that glass.”
Well, you come back to a hot car, you have that, or sometimes I’ve forgotten to get a
cold glass of water there and I have like a, you know, half-drunk through can of
Mountain Dew that’s been boiling in the sun. I think, “I’m desperate but I’m not that
desperate.” It’s not refreshing.
If you’ve ever had in your mind, your mind plays tricks on you, you think you’re
grabbing one thing, a glass of cold water, and it’s room temperature milk or
something. [sound effect]
Would you be, to your brothers and sisters, to your family and friends, that cold glass
of water, not a baked, flat can of Coke?
It was said of John Eliot, the famous missionary to the American Indians, by one of
his friends, “I was never with him but I got or might have got some good from him.”
Some good from him. You walked away and you felt spiritually better. You felt like
serving Christ more. You felt a little extra spring in your step. And as C.S. Lewis
famously wrote one time, “When you meet someone like that, a humble person, you
don’t walk away thinking, ‘My, they were so humble,’ like they talked about how
humble they were. No, you walk away feeling encouraged and refreshed and then you
realize, ‘Oh, it’s because they cared for me, they asked questions about me. They
served me rather than themselves. They didn’t get bent out of shape about how
everything was situated. They were thinking of others.’”
Wouldn’t it be great when we were on somebody’s calendar, it was a get-to and not a
have-to. How might you be a refresher this week? Or this summer? Or as a way of
life?
I remember a pastor early in my ministry, and I’m sorry to say I have not kept up with
his good habit, but I commend it to others who are better than myself. He would write
a handwritten note to someone. I think he said he did two notes first thing every
Monday morning. I’ve continued years later to still get one or two of those, so he’s
still doing it. Might it be a handwritten note, might it be an e-mail to a missionary.
Maybe you plan a night out with another couple and you find the baby-sitter, or
maybe you organize something, a movie night, a fishing trip, a basketball game,
scrapbooking, I don’t know. Or you visit, you visit your aging parents, you visit
someone in the hospital. It doesn’t have to be long. Don’t worry what you’ll say.
Or maybe it’s simply putting into your vocabulary “thank you”, “that was really nice,”
“that was so thoughtful.” Give good Gospel compliments. Love others as you would
want to be loved. Honor others above yourselves. Rely on the Lord’s grace to refresh
even difficult people. Live a contagious life of resurrection hope. May we be the sort
of people that when our presence is gone, they say, “Boy, that was a cold glass of
water on a hot day.”
He was loyal. He was refreshing. He was diligent.
Notice it says, “He often refreshed me, was not ashamed of my chains,” verse 17,
“When he arrived in Rome he searched for me earnestly and found me.”
We don’t know why he came to Rome. Maybe he had other business. Maybe he just
came to find Paul in prison. He had to search for him earnestly. This took some work,
some digging, some danger, some inconvenience.
We like to think it’s the thought that counts. Ha, ha, I’ve tried that before on birthdays
or anniversaries. [laughter] Honey, whoo, lots of really good thoughts. I thought of
doing some amazing stuff for you. But of course we know it’s rarely the thought that
counts, it’s the effort that counts.
Would we show up in Rome to look for Paul? Now we can’t do everything. You can’t
be everywhere. You can’t encourage everyone, write a note to everyone. We
understand that. But if everyone else abandons your friend, would you still be there?
There is the undeniable importance of simply working hard for others. He searched
for me, and he found me. It didn’t come easy. He had to make an effort to get there
and find Paul. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer.
When I was in seminary I had to do some clinical pastoral education, which was a unit
of hospital calling. This was scary anyway. Now I’m a young man, I haven’t done a
lot of, been in a lot of hospitals. I was born there and I didn’t want to go back. So it
was intimidating, and there I was at a hospital in Boston and I wasn’t calling on
people from the church or people that I knew. I would go each night and you’d look
up the census and people when they were admitted, could put Protestant or Catholic,
and most of them put nothing. It was Boston, so if they put something, most of them
put Catholic, but there was a few P’s there, a few Protestants, and when I was on duty,
it was my job to go through and find the little P for Protestant. They didn’t ask for a
chaplain, they just happened to mention, they were soon to regret, that they were
Protestants. So I would knock on the door, and being somewhat intimidated of the
whole experience, I know that sometimes I poked my head in the door and said
something like, “I’m the chaplain on duty. It looks like you’re busy. We’ll try to come
back soon.” [laughter] “I’m sure you would rather have a real chaplain come and visit
you.” Usually the person would say, “No, no. I’m not going anywhere. So come on
in.”
It was the first year that the Patriots won the Super Bowl and I spent a lot of visits
talking about Tom Brady, at least had something to converse with, trying to move into
spiritual conversations. I was looking for an out.
So sometimes we are in serving others, but not Onesiphorus. He would have an easy
out. Oh, it’s a long ways away. He’s in prison. There’s danger. But he searched for me
and he found me.
Do you have people in your life who would drop everything, you know they would
get in a car, they would hop on a plane, they would come to be with you, in your
moment of deepest need? Are you that phone call for someone? That they would call
you because they know, marriage is falling apart; he’ll come. I’m absolutely at the end
of my wits; she’ll run over.
Now you may feel like in those moments you don’t know what to say, or you aren’t
good at praying, or your uncomfortable in funeral homes or hospitals or prisons.
Many people are. But the old adage is true – very rarely will they remember what you
said, but they will remember that you showed up. They will remember not some great
theological soliloquy, but you were there. You made a point.
Young people, young people. It’s amazing how far you can get in life by showing up
and working hard. We just had this missions conference here and one of the things
that they said about missionaries that they’re looking for, usually it’s young people
who are going to this training school, two things. Of course you want spiritual
maturity, you want theological acumen, all that, but if you simply can find someone
who is teachable and will work hard, and then they added and has semi-normal social
skills.
You show up. Do not neglect all the good you can do in your life, in your church, by
simply showing up, because most people don’t.
And older adults. Your opportunities maybe are different. Your energy level is
different. Your health is not what it once was. Are you still doing what you can?
Diligently? With whatever providential limitations you may now have?
George Whitefield once asked the preacher William Tennant in his old age whether he
rejoiced that his time was almost done and he would soon be in heaven. Tennant
replied, “My business is to live as long as I can, as well as I can, and to serve my
Master as faithfully as I can, until He shall think proper to call me home.”
Is that your mindset? My business is to live as long as I can, as well as I can, to serve
my Master as faithfully as I can until He calls me home.
He was diligent.
Finally, he was a servant.
You notice he has a reputation for this service. He was probably a Gospel co-laborer
with Paul. They had had some good times together. We read in verse 18, “You well
know, Timothy, his reputation precedes himself. We all know the service he rendered
at Ephesus.”
Perhaps Paul wasn’t even surprised when Onesiphorus showed up in Rome, because it
was keeping with his whole life and his well-earned reputation. Paul thought, “If
anyone’s going to show up and knock on my door, it’s good old One Sip Horus.”
You know the saying that character is who you are when no one’s looking. That’s
true. But you could also say character is whatever people are not surprised to find you
doing. Character is whatever people are not surprised to find you doing. Here, when
Onesiphorus showed up, I imagine Paul said, “Onesiphorus, my friend, my brother. I
thought you might come.”
You know well all the service he rendered. His reputation was well-established. Every
church I’ve had the privilege of being a part of has had these servants. I could mention
many of you by name, but you’re the sort of servants you would want me to mention
you by name, but you can think, I hope, of some of these brothers and sisters in our
body at Christ Covenant. When you hear their names, you immediately think, “Oh,
he’s wonderful. She’s the best. Oh, they are so kind. They are so helpful. Always with
a word of encouragement. Always with a smile. Always with a good handshake, a pat
on the shoulder, with a meal. They are there. Dependable, trustworthy, kind.” We
have many such people in this church.
In one sense being a hero, now that’s a big word, but being a hero is quite simple –
sacrifice self to serve others. Sacrifice self to serve others. That’s a Christian hero.
You could even say in a common grace way that that used to be how the world
understood heroes. Sacrifice self to serve others.
Our world is in the process of completely reversing that, so today’s heroes, “Express
yourself and then demand that others affirm that expression.” You express yourself,
and you expect everyone else to affirm and change the world around you to support
that expression and that is a hero. It’s not a biblical hero.
Sacrifice self to serve others. Consider praying this week, “Lord, make me a loyal,
refreshing, diligent servant in the cause of Christ.”
We’re here on this Fourth of July weekend, spend some time perhaps thinking about
our own country’s history. There are many heroes. And all of them are flawed. But we
lose all of our heroes at a great cost. We need people to inspire us. When a child or a
culture or a church doesn’t have heroes, they end up with anti-heroes, cynics, scoffers,
late-night talk show hosts. If you don’t have a hero, you will find another hero and
that’s the hero who’s too cool for school and knows how everybody has all the flaws
and he’s a cynic.
The Bible makes no apologies for telling us to have heroes.
1 Corinthians 10 lays out good and bad examples, and says follow this, don’t follow
that. You have a whole chapter, Hebrews chapter 11, the famous hall of faith, all of
those men and women. Or you think of Paul saying “follow me as I follow Christ.”
That is fundamentally a Christian hero. Someone worth following because he or she
follows hard after Christ, and we need those heroes. Yes, all but one will have many
faults, and we will be honest about their sins, and yet we will aspire to that which is
truly good and virtuous, and we have such a man here in Onesiphorus.
Do you see, let me say in closing, do you see how this man points us to the hero of the
story? How he followed Christ? Think about what Christ did. Hebrews 2:11 says
Christ was not ashamed to call us brothers. He had a lot of reasons to be ashamed, to
take on human flesh, and all of the suffering that comes with it? All of the
persecution, the mockery, the derision, and scorn? To be mistaken in His identity? To
be crucified because of false accusations and a sham trial? He had reason to be
ashamed. Why would the God of the universe want to come to earth and say, “Yeah,
that’s my family”? But He was not ashamed to be called our brother.
Did he not, like Onesiphorus, search for us? And He found us when we had no ability
to be free in ourselves, no opportunity to go search and find Him. We were
completely dependent upon His mercy, His grace, His initiative, and not only that, but
He died for us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. When we were slaves
to sin and unrighteousness, when we deserved, in fact, His punishment, He came and
He found us, imprisoned in our sin, and He said, “Come to Me, all you who are
weary, heavy-laden. Come to Me. My yoke is easy. My burden is light. I have a meal
for you – it’s My body. I have a glass of cold refreshing water for you, and I will be
crucified, but I’ve come to refresh you.”
Will you, friends, welcome Christ into your sin-sick, weary soul? You don’t have to
live in prison. You don’t have to feast on the dregs of the world. There is One
searching for you, to find you, to give to you that food which will truly satisfy, and
that water which will never run out. And He means to refresh your souls.
Let’s pray. Our gracious heavenly Father, we thank You for the Lord Jesus
who, indeed, sought us and found us, died for us, saved us, and now ever
lives to make intercession for us. We pray that we might come to Him
Paul mentions Oneisiphorus in the book of 2 Timothy. He was a loyal man, an encourager to Paul. He was an unsung hero of the Bible who exemplified friendship!