Although we are only a handful of verses removed from the Christ hymn in Philippians 2:6–11 when we come to Philippians 2:19–30, these two passages seem at first glance like they have almost nothing in common. The first passage packs dense theology into a small number of words, and the second passage seems to sprawl over a fairly minor matter of who would visit the Philippians, and when. On the surface, these two passages scarcely seem to come from the same author, let alone to belong in the same letter with only a short separation.

But in fact, Paul writes this section of the letter, writing about why Epaphroditus has returned to his fellow Philippians, and why Timothy has not yet come, not only to handle logistics, but also to continue pressing forward the themes of Christ-like servanthood. In describing Timothy and Epaphroditus, Paul honors two servants with the highest possible praise: that of resembling their Master, the Lord Jesus Christ. While these two share close thematic commonality, the difference arises elsewhere: Paul here describes not what Jesus would do, but what ordinary, human, servants of Jesus would do.

Hear the word of the Lord,

19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. 20 For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. 21 For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. 23 I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me, 24 and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also.

25 I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need, 26 for he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, near to death. But God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. 28 I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. 29 So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men, 30 for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me.Philippians 2:19-30, ESV

This is the word of the Lord. When I was about 10 years old, I played the piano. I did for a little bit while longer while I could stomach practicing the piano, which I never much like., I didn't enjoy it as much as other people did, so I eventually quit. But while I was 10, I played the piano and practiced as much as my mother made me. I was practicing and preparing one year to go to a competition. I remember the night before that competition that I was in deep anxiety. I was so nervous if was I going to forget the music that I was supposed to have memorized? Was I going to make a mistake on the written theory test that I was supposed to take? I couldn't sleep. We were fortunate enough to have some friends that we were staying with in the town where this competition was. This is in Lincoln. I lived in western Nebraska at the time, there was a long trip out there from central Nebraska.

When I was there, this man who we were staying with, one of my dad's old friends actually shared with me a verse from Philippians four coming up in just a little bit. He said, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Well, at the time I didn't latch on to much of that except be anxious of nothing, and it said something about prayer. So I prayed a lot that night and God gave me quite a bit of peace, at least to call my fears to recognize that God was going to be with me through that situation so that I could go to sleep that night. Now it doesn't matter how well I did it in the competition, that's not the point I'm trying to bring out. I'm trying to bring out to the anxiety that I was feeling at the time was my sense of the fact that all of my practice up to that point, all of my study up to that point, everything that I had been doing up to that point was coming on the head of one competition. I was going to get one chance to play this song. I was going to get one chance to take this test that I was supposed to take and whether I failed or succeeded, rose and fall on that one opportunity to do it. There was a lot of pressure for that. I had to look to God for the grace to execute that faithfully.

Well, as we come to this particular passage in the book of Philippians and Paul's letter to the Philippians, we come to a place where Paul steps back from the rich, deep theology that he has been writing really up to this point. We almost step back to see what almost seems like very mundane details about the comings and goings of ministers. Who's going to come to Philippi now, who's not going to come now? Who may or may not come later? We look at this passage and think, well, this is not that interesting as the Christ hymn from just a few passages ago in Philippians 2:6-11. Let's hear more about Jesus emptying himself of the privileges of his equality with God to take the form of a servant. Let's hear how he was exalted up from death to be put at the right hand of God, so the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Let's hear more of that. But Paul has mundane matters to deal with.

Everything he writes in this passage is written not just as a rough, straightforward transaction of business. He's telling something about how to apply. How to take all the theology of Christ like cruciform servant hood and apply it to everyday, mundane details. That's what's come out here when you look at this passage. So as we look at this passage, we're going to ask three questions.

1. What is it That we are Supposed to do?
How do we apply all that Paul has said about Christ centered cruciform servanthood to our own lives?
2. Why are we Supposed to do What we are Supposed to do?
3. How are we Supposed to do What we are Supposed to do?

What is it That we are Supposed to do?

So let's start with Timothy. The title of this sermon is a tale of two servants because Paul is putting forth for our consideration the examples of two servants, Timothy and Epaphroditus. So we'll start by considering each of those in turn. Let's start with Timothy.

Paul says in verse nineteen, "I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you." Paul is saying, I want Timothy to come to you. Timothy is a minister and a servant whom Paul personally trained, personally discipled, personally mentored to be a faithful minister of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul is saying, I want to send Timothy to you soon so that I too may be cheered by news of you. Paul wants to know how the Philippians are doing. This isn't the first time he said this. Back in Philippians 1:27 he said, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you and that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel."

He goes on from there. I can't be with you right now, I'm absent, he says, but I want to hear. I want to be encouraged by news that you are continuing in the gospel. He says the same thing. Just a little bit earlier in the passage we looked at last week in Philippians 2:12-13, "There for my beloved as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure." I'm not in your midst. I can't take your pulse right there by your side. I have to send someone you because I want to be encouraged and cheered by news that you are continuing, by news that you are faithfully following in the footsteps of your master in the gospel.

So Paul says, here I want to be cheered by sending Timothy to hear news of you. At the end of this little paragraph, he gives a little bit more details at verse twenty-three, he says, "I hope, therefore, to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me." You know, he's waiting to find out what the result of his trial is. Paul is in prison, waiting to hear the results of his trial, and once he hears the results of his trial, he is going to send Timothy to bring that news along with him. Then Paul says in verse twenty-four, "and I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come also."

So that's what Paul says about himself and why he isn't sending Timothy now. On the middle of those, the beginning and the end of this paragraph sandwiched right in the middle there in verses twenty through twenty-two, he tells us something about Timothy that gives us a pattern to follow a cruciform pattern of servanthood. Look what he says, in verse twenty-four, "I have no one like him."

Now this is a really tricky verse to translate because Paul doesn't really spell out fully what he's trying to say. Very literally, if you translated this as literally as you could, you would say something like "for I have no one equal minded". So you are kind of left scratching your head. Well, equal minded to who is talking about equal minded to Paul. Is Paul saying, I have known equal minded to me or I have no one equal minded to Timothy, the person he's talking about or something else?

Well, let's break down this word. The word equal minded is a compound word. It's one word. Let's start with the word mind. The letter to the Philippians has a lot about our minds, our mindedness. Not just what we think, but our attitude, the mindset we have, the mindedness with which we approach different things in our lives. There are a couple of different words. For example, it's a different word in verse five of chapter two, have this mind among yourself. That's a different word. The word we have here for the equal mindedness is the word that we get our word psyche from or psychologist or psychiatrist or something along those lines. Psyche is a Greek word, and that's the word that Paul is using here. It's the word in Philippians 1:27, he says, "Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ so that whether I come and see you or an absent, I may hear that you were standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel." It's about an approach and attitude and mindset.

He says, equal minded. Now the word equal has been used. Also just a little bit earlier in Philippians 2:6, where Paul was talking about Christ, "the Christ, who being in the form of God did not count equality", there's that word, "equality with God a thing to be grasped."

From there, he says, but he made himself nothing. He emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and he goes on from there. So what Paul says he's saying, I have no one equal minded. That's a vivid word. I have no one that that really equals the mindset, I think that he's saying that Timothy has. With this idea of equality, he's reaching back up and pointing back up. There's a lot of interplay between this passage as we'll see and the Christ Hymn. And he's saying, I have no one like Timothy in the sense that he is following in the mindset that Christ Jesus himself had. I have no one like him.

He goes on to clarify what he says in verse 20 by saying, "I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare." That's a that's a good translation, but literally it says the things concerning you. Then it goes on from there to clarify that even more. In verse twenty-one four, "They all seek their own interests or the things concerning themselves, not those of Jesus Christ."

Well, Paul back in Philippians 2:4, he said," Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others." And then from there he said, "You ought to have the mind of Christ." Do you want to know what this looks like? It looks like Jesus, his own mindset, where though he was equal with God, he didn't count that a thing to be grasped, a thing to be clung to. Rather, he was willing to divest himself of his rights, of his privileges, of his glory for the sake of others. To pursue the interests of you. He emptied himself and became a servant and humbled himself in servanthood and obedience unto death. That's the mindset that Timothy has. Paul says, I have no one like him who is so following in the footsteps of Christ Jesus himself.

Well, then he says in verse twenty-two, he adds to this, "But you know, Timothy's proven worth. How as a son with a father, he has served with me in the gospel." Now that's an interesting statement to make for a couple of reasons. First of all, Paul could have chosen any number of images to portray the relationship that he has with Timothy. He could have used a master servant relationship. You know, he could have said something along the line. But you know, Timothy is proven worth how as a servant to my masterhood, he has faithfully executed all I've commanded him. He could have used a military imagery like an officer soldier relationship. He uses a military image in terms of Epaphroditus in verse twenty-five he calls Epaphroditus a fellow soldier, so he could have said he faithfully executes as a faithful soldier, everything under my command.

He talks about his relationship to Timothy, not in terms of master servant or in a military imagery of an officer and a soldier, but as a son with a father. Now here's why this is really interesting, because Timothy, more than most people in the New Testament, we actually know about his parents. I mean, Paul, we don't know anything about his parents. There's one line in Acts 26:3 where Paul says that he's a son of the Pharisees. That doesn't mean that his father actually was a Pharisee, necessarily. That just means that he was trained to the feet of Gamaliel, who is a Pharisee of Pharisees, as Paul will talk about a little bit in our passage, we're going to look at next week, Lord willing.

So we don't know anything about Paul's father or mother, but we actually know a lot about Timothy's genealogy. We know from Acts 16:1 that Timothy was the son of a believing Jewish woman, but that his father was Greek. Which the contrast there in Acts 16:1 suggests that it's probably his father probably wasn't a believer. He was a gentile, probably a pagan. So Timothy was half Jewish, half Greek since his father was a pagan and his mother was a faithful Jewish woman. We also know the name of not only his mother, but also his grandmother. In 2 Timothy chapter one, Paul talks about the sincere faith that's been passed on not only from his grandmother, Lois, but from his mother, Eunice. This sincere faith that's been passed generation by generation through the mothers and the grandmothers down to Timothy. So we know something about his mother. We know that his father was there, but we don't know much about him. Paul seems to be saying that he is the father spiritually that Timothy never had the strong statement to make.

There's even a little bit more to it that I find fascinating, in the shadow of the Christ Hymn, where you have the Father sending the Son and the Father sending the Son to humble himself to the point of death, even death on a cross, and the Father then exhorting the Son to the highest place so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on Earth and under the Earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Not as a rival to the Father, but so that when Jesus Christ is glorified. The Father is glorified in his Son.

You get the same sense that that's what he's talking about here. It's a father and son relationship where the father is sending his son and the son is executing the task. They there of one mind, they're together. They're unified in this mission. We have a totally different conception, often of fatherhood in our culture. I heard a recently a statistic that of women who are ages 35 and younger and bearing children. We're entering a phase in our society where there's fifty-nine percent fatherlessness. Fifty-nine percent of babies born to women, thirty-five and younger will not experience their fathers in their lives.

We don't know what this is like as compared to the ancient world where if your father was the cobbler, you were the cobbler. If your father was the carpenter like Jesus, his adopted father, you were a carpenter following in the footsteps of your father. You continue the family business like your father did before you if you are a son. That's the image he's portraying here. He's deliberately, it seems to me, evoking this imagery of a father and a son working together for the execution of the mission of the gospel.

Timothy gives us what to do. It is to follow in the footsteps of Jesus as a servant dedicated not to seek your own interests, but the interests of others. Just as Christ who was equal with God didn't consider his equality with God, something to be clung to and exploited for his own comfort and convenience, but laid it down for the good of other people. The question then what's your servanthood look like? As you evaluate your actions, your deeds, your work, are you really laying down everything you have for the interests of others? That's a penetrating question if you allow it to be. If you think about all the places where we have an opportunity to assert our own privileges and rights, are we using those for our own comfort, our own protection, our own security, our own safety, our own good pleasure, or for the interests in the sake and the welfare of others for the glory of Jesus Christ? That's the example Timothy gives. And that's a real life flesh and blood, you know, in other words, not divine like Jesus Christ himself was, that's a real ordinary person doing this, just like you and me who is supernaturally enabled to do so by the Spirit of God.

Why are we Supposed to do What we are Supposed to do?

So let's start there. That's the picture that we are supposed to follow in the footsteps of. So if that's what we are supposed to be doing, this cruciform self-sacrificing servanthood, why then are we to do that? What's our motivation? And Paul addresses that in the example of Epaphroditus. So he says in verse twenty-five, in other words, instead of sending Timothy, he says, "I have thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus." Now we know almost nothing about Epaphroditus. All that we know about Epaphroditus comes from right here and the text of scripture.

The only thing we can kind of surmise infer from what we have beyond is what we read here is from the name of Epaphroditus. Epaphroditus is a name, you know, in case you were thinking of potentially naming a child after it, you should know that this is a name that is derived from the Greek goddess Aphrodite. You might know her Roman name a little bit better, which is Venus, she's the goddess of love. Probably to have the name of this goddess in your own name reflects that you come from a family of Epaphroditus or Venus worshippers. These are probably a pagan family that Epaphroditus came out of. If you have the name of a god in your in your name, that probably means you come a family who worships that god.

My son's name is Zachariah. Well, that means it means Yahweh remembers. That's because we were raising Zachariah God willing to be a Yahweh worshipper and the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We don't necessarily even know that because during this time in history, some Jewish believers even were starting to name their own children after Greek pagan names. Some of you may have pagan names among yourselves. Not necessarily because you worship those gods, but because your parents liked the name. I won't call out people, but that is a possibility that you might want to consider. It's OK to have these names just worship Jesus Christ as what the first thing we learned from Epaphroditus.

What Paul says is that even whatever background he may have come from Epaphroditus he describes as my brother. That's a generic word to describe a fellow believer. So Epaphroditus is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. If Epaphroditus is my brother and then he says a fellow worker, this is a word that Paul uses a very common word used of men and of women who labor with him for the sake of the gospel.

Paul will use this same word in Philippians 4:3 when he's talking about two women, you Euodia and Syntyche. He asks them to agree in the Lord they've had a dispute. So he says, yes. I ask you also to the church, true companion help these women who have labored side by side with me in the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my fellow workers whose names are in the Book of Life. So this is a work to describe gospel workers.

Not only that, but Paul also uses that military image we talked about earlier. Epaphroditus is a fellow soldier. Now this gets at the nature of gospel ministry. Gospel ministry is warfare. It's bloody, it's sweaty. It puts your life at great personal risk. But Epaphroditus has faithfully executed that charge that he has been given. Then Paul tells us what Epaphroditus has actually been doing. Again, this is all we know about who Epaphroditus is, where he comes from and what his task has been.

So he said that a Epaphroditus is your messenger. The word there is the same word that we get apostle from. He's your apostle. So Paul is an apostle sent by Jesus Christ. Ten Epaphroditus is an apostle, a messenger sent by the Philippians, he is your apostle sent to minister to my need.

Well, in the context of Philippians, we know that the Philippians have given Paul a financial gift, but it seems they've also given Paul a human resource, Epaphroditus to be there to minister to Paul while Paul was under house arrest. Paul couldn't run errands, but a path for Titus was go would go for him. Paul couldn't deliver messages or fetch things for himself, but Epaphroditus for Titus would do that in his stead. So Epaphroditus was sent by the Philippians to serve Paul in Rome.

We read in verse twenty-six that he has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill. So if Epaphroditus is just like Timothy has faithfully executed the task and Paul goes beyond that by telling the extent to wish Epaphroditus went, that is, he fell ill. Then, in verse 27, Paul says indeed, he was ill near to death and in verse 30, he repeats it for he nearly died. Epaphroditus risked his life, laid his life down for the advancement of the gospel.

Now again, we're in the shadow of the Christ Hymn. We have Jesus who was obedient to the point of death. And now we see Epaphroditus who, to the point of death, literally was willing to lay his life down for the sake of serving Paul. If fulfilling the mission of the Philippians, had given to him for the advancement of the gospel it. Epaphroditus is doing the same thing, but we read why he does this. Epaphroditus is a servant, but he is not servile. He is not doing this out of fearful, a sense of duty. Oh, I just have to do this. This is just my job. I don't want to do this, but we read about his love. He stayed with Paul through this whole time.

Yet read in verse twenty-six about the pain, the emotion he felt while he discharged this duty. "For he has been longing for you all his fellow Philippians, and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill." Somewhere along the way, wherever it was that a path for became sick, either on the journey to Rome or while he was serving Paul in Rome, and Epaphroditus became ill and he sent a messenger back. Well, the messenger knew that Epaphroditus had become sick, but he didn't know how things went. He didn't know if Epaphroditus lived or died, and there was no way to pick up a phone and call them to let them know the new news. There was no way to send an overnight message to them. There was no way to send a telegraph. There was not even a train that could take them the distance between New York and Chicago, from Rome to Philippi. Someone would have to walk that distance. Think about that.

You don't get news across the ancient world very quickly. So he knows that his fellow countrymen know where he has been near to the point of death, but they don't know that God has had mercy on him to give him life. So when he strolls back into Philippi carrying this letter from Paul, they don't want to think that either he's abandoned Paul. They don't want to think that maybe he did something that Paul had to expel him from his midst. So Paul says, no, no, no, you have to understand. He faithfully to the point of death served me. Therefore, in light of all this, Paul exalts Epaphroditus.

Look at what happens in verse twenty-nine, "So receive him in the Lord with all joy, and honor such men." Just as Jesus Christ submitted to the point of death and God exalted him from his service to the point of death, of a death on a cross to the highest conceivable place, bestowing upon Jesus the honor of being called Lord. So in the same way, Paul says Epaphroditus was faithful. Exalt him, receive him with joy, bestow honor upon him.

You see, this is a love for Paul. A love for the gospel. It wasn't because he was afraid or wanted to bounce from the mission. He loves you, and that's why I'm sending him back so that you may rejoice in seeing him. In verse 28, Paul says again, "and I may be less anxious." I'm worried for you all. I'm distressed about you.

What we ought to be is dedicated in cruciform, self-sacrificing service to the gospel. The reason why we ought to do this is given to us in Epaphroditus. It's from love. It's from desire. It's from a joy that wells up to want to do this work. As we seek to serve the Lord, as you seek to execute maybe mundane tasks for the work of the Lord. Is it because you are afraid of being punished? Ask yourself that question. Do you do this simply because you don't want to be punished? Do you do this simply because, well, if I don't do it, who else is going to do it? There's this slavish servile orientation toward the duties God gives to you. Or do you have a joy that recognizes the nobility of being commissioned as sons and daughters of the high king? ! joy that causes you to execute even the most mundane duties with rejoicing even when to lead you into suffering?

How are we Supposed to do What we are Supposed to do?

If it's hard to make ourselves serve other people sacrificially, it's even harder, let's just say it impossible, to create in us a desire to do that kind of a thing. Yet God not only commands our duties, but our desires. So the question is, if that's what God wants and why God wants it, how then do we do this? How do we execute this mission? How do we become faithful in our servanthood to the point of death with joy? Paul says even though my life may be taken from me, whether by life or by death, I'm going to rejoice that the gospel is advancing. How do we have that mindset? In the same way that Timothy did in Epaphroditus did?

The answer to that doesn't come in this particular text. It's just reflected here. Paul is still working off of and thinking off of the passage we looked at last week. There's a duty and desire. There's commandment and there's promise. There's law and there's gospel. All laid out back in Philippians 2:12-13, "Therefore, my beloved as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will, to desire to want it and to work, to serve to self-sacrifice, even to the point of death for his good pleasure."

The answer to how we do this is the gospel. So if you've missed all of this and don't really understand the geopolitical movements of Timothy and Epaphroditus for the sake of the gospel, that's OK. Hear this. Hear the gospel this morning.

What Timothy and Aphrodite should do is because they understand that they have nothing. They contribute nothing. They are nothing except broken, sinful people. They recognize that God created human beings in the garden to be this, this noble, kingly, queenly kind of people in Adam and Eve in the garden. Then when our first parents fell into sin, that nobility was shattered. It became a false front. It became something that was lost, that slipped away, so there's nothing that you and I can do. There's nothing you and I can muster up in our hearts to accomplish this.

You see, we in our culture are told a lot of things and our culture. We just swim in this. We're like fish, we don't even recognize that we're in the water that surrounds us all the time. Our culture tells us two things. Number one, if you want something, go earn it. And if you have something, it's because you earned it. But if you don't have something, it's because you're a victim, so sue for it. Litigate for it, pursue it, complain about it. Because we see everything we have as either something that we have because we ought to have it, we deserve it, or because we don't have it, because someone took what was rightfully ours. The gospel says something different. It says you deserve nothing except death

Because of the guilt that you inherited from your first parents. You deserve hell. Yet the one who is God who from before eternity passed has been God in the form of God, didn't consider equality with God, a thing to be grasped. He gave that up for you. He divested himself of it. He emptied of himself of his rights and his privileges for you because you couldn't restore what you lost. You couldn't claim it. You couldn't earn it. You can't litigate for it. You lost it. It cannot come back, unless it comes to you, not by acquiring it through your own efforts and not by complaining about it, but by gift.

The gospel is a gift that God sent his own son to become human for us all where he lived, the life that we could not live, and died as a punishment for the death that we deserved to die. This God comes to us in the gospel and offers us this free gift that we can't earn, but we receive through faith. When that happens, God restores to us a dignity, a purpose that we had lost all the way back in the Garden of Eden before you were alive. He commissions us, he sends us to serve him. Not with slavish fear, but with the confidence of sons and daughters of the high king. With noble work to do. With a mission to execute, not from fear, but from joy. This is the fruit of the gospel.

It can't come to you by working hard for it only, but it also doesn't come passively. Paul says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling." But with the knowledge that deed and desire gospel and law, command and promise stand together in the gospel. So that we are saved by grace so that by grace, we are then sent for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ. We follow in the footsteps of Jesus in our cruciform, servanthood, so that we may look like him. Yet this is not yours, but it is a gift that God gives you as God works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Pray with me. Our heavenly Father, we ask that you would lead us into the way of everlasting. We ask that you would lead us to repent from our sins, to turn to ask for your forgiveness as we plead not our own merits, our own accomplishments, our own achievements, but those of Christ. The one who is God, but gave up his glory and privilege to become a servant so that he might win back what we had lost. Father, we couldn't accomplish any of this and we asked that you would give us grace to continue working where we cannot, to receive your gift by grace. In the light of the gospel in the light of this glorious gospel, commission us, enable us, send us with joy to serve you for the sake and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we pray that in this, as your Spirit works in and through us for the sake of Christ that you Father would be glorified. It's through your son's name, we pray. Amen.