TEXT: :12 #2790 PENTECOST 18 THEME: "HEROES AND HEROINES OF FAITH: TRYPHENA AND TRYPHOSA, THE DYNAMIC DUO" I. THE WERE HARD WORKING. II. THEY WERE PROPERLY MOTIVATED. Phoenix-1O/12114 My dear fellow redeemed, A pastor named Leon Hill tells about a couple of men he once met in the mountains of eastern Tennessee - a father and his son - and these men, the pastor claims, were the laziest men he had ever seen. "I don't want to do them an injustice," Pastor Hill says, "but if it required any voluntary and sustained effort on their part to digest their food, they would have died years ago from a lack of nutrition." One time, the Reverend says, these men were sitting in front of the fireplace smoking their corncob pipes. "Junior," the father said, ''why don't you step outside and see if it's raining." "Aw, Pappy," the boy moaned, "couldn't we just have Ma call the old hound dog in and see if he's wet?" No doubt about it. From that it would seem that both of them were suffering from S.W.A.S. - Severe Work Avoidance Syndrome.... or as it is more commonly known, sheer laziness. In our Lesson this morning, on the other hand, we heard our Lord tell us about people who were just the opposite. In His Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, He tells us about people who eagerly went to work for the one who hired them. In reality, our Lord Himself is the employer He's talking about, the vineyard is His kingdom of grace here on earth, and all of us are His hired hands. Our Savior reminds us that the privilege of serving Him in His kingdom and the reward we will ultimately receive are gifts of His grace. In this one verse which is now before us, we meet two "Heroines of Faith" who obviously understood this, and they are an inspiring example for all of us today. Their names are Tryphena and Tryphosa, and this morning we're going to direct our attention to them, namely, "TRYPHENA AND TRYPHOSA, THE DYNAMIC DUO." First, we are reminded that I. THEY WERE HARD WORKING. And then also that II. THEY WERE PROPERLY MOTIVATED. I. Tryphena and Tryphosa - we really don't know a whole lot about these two ladies we meet this morning, but from what we are told about them, there are some important lessons for each of us. Tryphea and Tryphosa lived back in the days of the Apostle Paul, and apparently they were members of the Christian congregation in the city of Rome. Perhaps they were sisters, like Mary and , maybe even twins. If we were to translate their names into English, they might be known in our own circles today as "Dainty" and "Delicate." That's what their names literally mean. Well, "dainty" and "delicate" persons they may have been, BUT.... that doesn't mean that Tryphena and Tryphosa were afraid of work. Dainty didn't excuse herself and shy away from it because she didn't possess the strength and stamina of an ox, and Delicate wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty either or her clothes sweaty. No, in his farewell remarks to the Roman Christians, the Apostle Paul said, "Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa, those women who work hard," v.12a That's one thing we learn about these ladies. THEY WERE HARD WORKING WOMEN, a real dynamic duo. And this is what our Lord wants you and me to do as well - to "work" and to ''work hard." It was Dr. Martin Luther who once again helped Christians to see work and working in their proper light. For centuries many of the theologians before him viewed work as a punishment for sin. When Adam first sinned, they maintained, part of the penalty was that he had to work. "Not so," said Luther. Instead, he saw a person's work as their vocation from God, and it is. The says that work is a gift and blessing from God, as is the ability and talents to accomplish the work He gives us to do. It is thru working that God intends for us to support ourselves and our families, pay our government obligations, and help those who are in need. God does want us to work. In fact, He tells us plainly in His Word, "If a man wUl not work, he shall not eat." "Will not work," God says, not "cannot work." Those who are capable of working but refuse to do so for whatever the reason and expect someone else to supply their needs are not living in accord with God's will for them. God definitely does want us to work if we are able and, like Tryphena and Tryphosa (or Dainty and Delicate, if you prefer), He wants us to "work hard." This doesn't mean, of course, that we have to work ourselves to death. A newspaper columnist named Sydney Harris once said, "Many people engage in activity for activity's sake and use business and work as a device to avoid facing reality. Just as alcohol can deaden the senses to personal relations, family obligations, and community responsibilities," he said, "so also can constant work be an addictive narcotic." And he's right. Being a "workaholic" is not necessarily a commendable trait. It definitely isn't when a person's work is done at the expense of even more important priorities which God Himself has given them - like taking care of their health, for example, which is pretty hard to do when you're working 15-20 hours a day seven days a week; or honoring commitments and responsibilities to the family; or pursuing personal spiritual growth thru public worship and private Bible study, thru prayer and meditation. All of this is often sacrificed by the workaholic, and that's not at all what God has in mind when He encourages us to "work hard." What this does mean for you and me, my friends, is that whatever work we do, we should always use faithfully the gifts and talents our God has given us - working to the best of our ability, taking pride in what we're doing.... not doing a shoddy job or just enough to get by. And this applies to housework, homework, volunteer work, our "money-earning-job" work, whatever. No matter what we do, we should always do it faithfully to the best of our ability. A while back there was an article in the Forward in magazine entitled, "Faithful Work Is Faith-Filled." "Faithfulness," the author pointed out, "is doing the best job you can even when the boss is a grouch. the pay is lousy, and the people you work with are foul-mouthed blasphemers. Faithfulness is keeping the commitment you made to your church or volunteer organization, even though it will mean missing an event you really wanted to attend. Faithfulness is doing what needs to be done, finishing what you started, staying at the task. Faithfulness is integrity," the author said, "being a person of your word, someone who lives by principles, someone others can count on." Good reminders, aren't they? In the Book of Proverbs we are told, "A faithful man will be richly blessed" In other words, God Himself does reward our work in the way He knows best. This is the assurance the Apostle Paul gives us too when he says, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. "It's promises like this that should encourage us to use faithfully the gifts and talents God has given us to "work hard" ... .like Tryphena and Tryphosa did. II. But there's also something else that we can learn from this dynamic, hard-working duo, and that is, THEY WERE PROPERLY MOTIVATED when it came to what they were doing, just as we should be too. You know, a number of years ago there was an All-Pro football star named Bob Kuchenberg, who played for the Miami Dolphins, and he once explained to Sports Illustrated magazine what it was that motivated him to go to college. "Both my father and my uncle were human cannonballs in the circus," he said. "My father told me, 'Bob, you can either go to college or you can be a cannonball. Then one day when my uncle was blasted out of the cannon, he missed the net and hit the ferris wheel. Right then and there," said Bob Kuchenberg, "I decided to go to college." But how about these two ladies? What motivated them to "work hard" and should also motivate us to do the same? Well, listen, the Apostle Paul tells us what it was. "Greet Tryphena and Tryphosa," he says, "those women who work hard in the Lord," v.12. "In the Lord" - that's very important for us to note. "In the Lord." These ladies were living each day of their life "in the Lord" - with faith in their Lord and God. They clearly understood the fantastic love God had shown to them in the past and was continuing to show to them in the present, just as I hope we also do. They were deeply thankful for the amazing grace they had received "in the Lord" - in the person of God's own Son Jesus, who had willingly left His throne of glory in heaven and had come into this world to do for them what they could never have done for themselves. He came to pay in full their debt of sin and earn their forgiveness from God. He came to set them free from the power and dominion of the devil. He came to rescue them from eternal death and damnation in the fires of hell. And all of this He accomplished with the sacrifice of His own holy life on the cross of Calvary. These women - just as all of us should also be - were profoundly grateful for the glorious future they had been promised "in the Lord" - for the free gift of everlasting life in the kingdom of heaven that had become their very own by the grace of God thru faith in Jesus as their Savior. Whatever they were now doing, they were doing out of love for their Lord and gratitude for His marvelous blessings. They were indeed properly motivated! And so was another man who was working on a large church construction project with two others. When the three of them were asked what they were doing, the first man said, "I'm just mixing mortar." "And I'm helping to put up this big brick wall," the second man added. But the third man looked as his work much differently. "I'm building a church to the glory of God," he said. In reality, those three men could just as well have been working on a car, or a house, of a road, or a golf course, or any other legitimate product or service that a man or woman can provide. Some people work just to earn a paycheck, and others are motivated by the thought of getting rich or achieving worldly success. But that's not to be the primary motive for us Christians as we go about our work. No, just like that third man on the building project or like Tryphena and Tryphosa, what we also need to see is that what gives our efforts eternal value is not the product or the service of our labor but the very process of laboring itself - doing whatever we're doing faithfully to the glory of our Lord and Savior. You see, the way we work, the attitude we have toward what we are doing, is one way we Christians can glorify God - doing our best for Him .... telling Him thereby how much we respect, appreciate, and love Him. The way we go about doing whatever we're doing is also a way we Christians can witness to others, expressing the character and values produced by faith in Jesus as our Savior, so that others will also want to know Him as their Savior. "You are not your own;" the Bible reminds each one of us, "you were bought at a price. " (The price of the life and blood of God's own Son, I might add!) "Therefore honor God with your body .... Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, "the Bible says, "do it all to the glory of God "Our dynamic duo did this, my friends - these heroines of faith named Tryphena and Tryphosa. They were women "wbo worked bard in tbe Lord" - properly motivated by God's love and grace .... faithfully using their gifts and talents to His praise and glory. I pray that God will grant each of us the grace to always do the same.

AMEN