Kingdom People

Missionaries have a difficult calling. Sharing the gospel is challenging enough among people we already know and love. Missionaries add unfamiliar languages, new cultures, and great distance from family and friends to that challenge.

As a pastor’s kid, I remember our family hosting missionaries for dinner after they visited our church. Once the presentation was over and they were seated around our dining room table, they often shared stories they couldn’t tell from the platform. They spoke honestly about loneliness, spiritual battles, discouragement, and the weight of serving far from home. They knew they were talking with fellow laborers who understood that ministry is both joyful and costly.

This week we’ll meet a man named Epaphroditus. The church in Philippi sent him to Rome to deliver a financial gift and to minister alongside Paul. Somewhere along the journey he became gravely ill. In fact, the illness was so severe that he nearly died. Yet when Paul writes about him in Philippians 2:25–30, his focus isn’t on the sickness. Instead, he holds up Epaphroditus as an example of the kind of life every believer should aspire to live.

Why would Paul interrupt one of the richest theological sections in Philippians to talk about an otherwise ordinary messenger?

Because the kingdom of God has always been built by ordinary people who selflessly risk everything for Christ.

The church naturally celebrates the Pauls. It celebrates the well-known leaders whose gifts everyone admires. But Paul reminds us that churches are sustained by people like Epaphroditus: faithful servants whose names may be quickly forgotten by history but whose impact echoes into eternity.

This Sunday we’ll discover why Paul tells the church, “Honor such men,” and what it means for us to become the kind of people worthy of that same commendation.