Philippians 2:19-30 - I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. 20 I have no one else like him, who takes a genuine interest in your welfare. 21 For everyone looks out for his own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel. 23 I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. 24 And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon. 25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. 26 For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. 28 Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, so that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. 29 Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor men like him, 30 because he almost died for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up for the help you could not give me.
I want to begin this sermon with a confession: I almost skipped this passage. After all, at first glance this appears to be nothing more than Paul giving the Philippians a personal update on two men who are laboring alongside him: Timothy, who is like a spiritual son to him and has served with Paul in the work of the gospel for many years, and Epaphroditus, who the Philippians sent to Paul with a letter from them and to take care of his needs while he was in prison. Paul is evidently sending this letter that we are reading to the Philippians with Timothy and Epaphroditus, and so he wants to let the Philippian church know why he has sent these men.
So, I almost skipped this passage. But there are a couple things that are worth our attention today, and I do believe that God has challenged me through this passage and will hopefully encourage you. The first thing worth noting is that if you compare this letter to other letters Paul wrote, you find that in most of his other letters, this kind of section would be in the end. A typical pattern in Paul’s letters is to greet the church, to remind them of the gospel, of what Jesus did for them, to exhort them to live their lives in a manner consistent with the gospel, and then to end with a section like this, where he says hi to some people or gives the church an update on people serving with Paul, or tells them why he is sending certain people to them. But in Philippians, the part that would typically come last comes in the middle. Why is that?
Well, think back to the previous section of his letter, which we looked at over the past three sermons. In this section, he has been pleading with the Philippians to not be so self-centered, but to look to the interests of others, to elevate the needs of others above their own needs. He has pointed them to the example of Jesus, who even though He was in very nature God, the eternal Son of God, He took the lowest place, being a servant, dying a humiliating death on the cross, in order to save them from their sins and restore them to a right relationship with God.
