This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Philippians” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 22, 1991.
About this sermon
Paul’s own rejoicing in the Philippians shapes why he sends Timothy specifically, naming him both ‘kindred spirit’ in 2:20 and ‘son’ in 2:22, terms chosen to demonstrate Paul’s real integrity toward them. Luke’s annunciation narrative supplies an older instance of God sending someone to prove his love concretely. God proved his love, finally, by sending Christ himself, the pattern behind every lesser sending that follows.
Sermon transcript
Morning, we are turning to Luke’s Gospel, chapter one, Luke’s Gospel, chapter one. And we are reading from the twenty six verse. Here, the word of God. And in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favour with God.
And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest, And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore also, this holy child which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. For with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word.” And the angel departed from her. Then turning to Philippians chapter 2, beginning with verse 17.
Yea, and if I be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy and rejoice with me. But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort when I know your state.
For I have no man like-minded who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s. But ye know the proof of him, that as a son with the Father he hath served with me in the gospel. Him, therefore, I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me. But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly.
Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labor, and fellow soldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants. For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that he had heard that he had been sick. For indeed he was sick, nigh unto death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. I sent him therefore, the more carefully, that when ye see him again ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful. Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such in reputation, because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.”
Let’s pray together. Our hearts have been willing, Lord, made willing by you, for by your Spirit you have indeed introduced us to the marvels of your mercy in your Son. Our God, we rejoice in what your word has done in us and for us. May we delight greatly in what it is accomplishing for our brethren who are in the world and in this present circumstance, this present evil age with us. May we with them persevere, endure, faithful to the end.
May you be pleased our God with our stand as we buy your spirit confess your name Paul is in jail He is in jail in the city of Rome. And he is in this circumstance in about the year 61, A.D. 61, some thirty years after the death of Jesus. And while in this situation he writes letters to churches. And one of those letters is written to the church in the city of Philippi, a city of Macedonia, north of Achaia, some 1,200 nautical miles distant.
He writes this letter in order to express his great love for this beloved congregation. In this letter, he will tell these people about the extent to which he is willing to go in his love for them. Here is how he puts it. And even if I am being poured out upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all.” Verse 17 of that second chapter. Paul is saying in these words that he is willing to go the limit, and that he will go the limit gladly.
So now he communicates with these Philippians his gladness and his joy in his service for them. But Paul has been educated in the covenant. He understands the reciprocal nature of the bond that exists between God and his people. And he brings the reciprocal nature of that covenantal bond to bear upon this relationship that exists between him and these Philippian believers.
So it is, he doesn’t hesitate in the 18th verse of the second chapter to urge these saints also to rejoice. He is rejoicing in his service to them, and now he is urging them to rejoice as well in their service. Yes, they’re very willing to rejoice in their service for him, but Paul wishes them to rejoice in their service, even their sacrificial service, for one another. And even more, Paul presently longs to hear about them, that they are in fact rejoicing in their sacrifice for each other. He so longs because he realizes that when the communication comes to him from Philippi about the willingness of these servants to live in this manner, there will be then the confirmation of his bold confidence with respect to them.
Then Paul will see in clearest light how much Christ has been formed in these folks. It is then against this background, you see, that Paul sends out Timothy. Verse 19. For he wants from Timothy, and Timothy’s ministry amongst these Philippians, he wants from Timothy a report, a report of encouragement with respect to the conditions that exist that exist within that church. Precisely, quite pointedly, just how well these people are serving each other.
But I want you to know, the manner in which Timothy is dispatched For the deputation of Timothy will convey the very spirit Paul wishes to impress upon the Philippians. It will not merely be the letter that he is sent by Epaphroditus, who is mentioned later here at the end of this second chapter. No, it will not merely be the letter which Paul has sent by way of that emissary. It will be the sending of Timothy itself that conveys the very spirit Paul wishes to impress upon these believers.
This means, then, that Timothy’s visit to Philippi will not be some sort of administrative or ecclesiastical junket. you know, the sort of thing that churches and organizations take up for the sake of extracting information, information that they may be able to use to their advantage. Paul is not sending Timothy in order to spy upon the Philippians. His interest is not keeping the troops in line. Instead, Paul is sending Timothy as a marvelous proof to these Philippians of the Apostles’ integrity. Now you have to understand, in following this thought through, the magnitude of the sacrifice Paul makes in sending Timothy. Do you hear him as he speaks? to the Philippians about Timothy?
No one else, so says Paul, no one else presently in Rome with him, not even from amongst the ministers who have multiplied in that capital city. No one but Timothy qualified. And the reason why no one qualifies but Timothy is because no one but Timothy has the heart of the Apostle.
This means then that when Paul sends Timothy, he is sending the one person, the one person who affords him the greatest personal support and comfort. Here is the one so close to the apostle that Paul even mentions him at the very beginning of the epistle in his greeting. Here is one so close to the apostle that Paul is able to say in the 20th verse of that second chapter that they have, as it were, the same spirit. Not even going further, they have the same soul. Here are true soul brothers. He goes even deeper, as is suggested by the 22nd verse.
Paul goes so far as to compare Timothy with a son, not just a son, rather a faithful son who is shared with him steadfastly. the ministry. When Paul sends Timothy, then, he sends the one dearest to him, the one who is the greatest source of consolation in his present circumstances. In other words, Paul could not be making a greater sacrifice. But why should Paul make such a sacrifice as this? Why should he give up such a great source of consolation and personal joy.
Is it not true that our tendency is to hold on to those persons and those happy circumstances that bring us great joy and comfort? Would we not be especially concerned to do this very thing, to hold on to these persons, if we were under pressure, if our situation cried out for those very things, for comfort and joy. How tragic it is, as we look about us and as we look within us, and perceive that tendency to hold on to people, even to succumb to manipulation in order to hold on to them because of their advantage to us, because of what they mean to us. And how tragic it is when these expressions within ourselves become explicative of the most unattractive attitudes, the desire to control, the will to power, expressive of jealousy and envy, expressive of a destructive possessiveness.
How many marriages have been destroyed on these grounds alone. How many children have been scarred and emotionally crippled because they become the objects of their parents’ possessiveness. How many children have become the center of domestic wars as parents have vied for the affections of their children? and treated their children as if they were, in fact, possessions. How many companies had been run aground? How many ships of state had been ruined because of a demonic possessiveness spurred on by jealousy and envy? How many social and professional relationships have been destroyed.
Over against our built-in desire to hold on to control for our own benefit, for our own selfish ends, stands the figure of the Apostle. He is prepared to give up the comfort and joy he finds in this son of the faith, Timothy. and that for the benefit of the Philippians, whom he lost. As a matter of fact, Paul, who finds such great comfort and joy in Timothy, will find even greater comfort and joy in giving Timothy away to the Philippians. as a gift. He is willing then to send Timothy, and Timothy becomes an expression, one more expression, an expression in the realist sense of deepest and greatest significance, an expression of Paul’s own selfless love. Here, then, is one as close to Paul as a son, whom Paul sends out as the proof of his integrity and the genuineness of his affection.
But where does such love come from? Does it arise from within the apostle naturally? We have already reviewed what arises within us naturally. Does it rise out of a mere sense of duty, a determined, dogged devotion to principle, which the Apostle is determined now to set before these Philippians in order to prove himself right and even admirable? My, my, what a man of principle.
He’s willing to sacrifice so much for principle. Well, the key The key to the source of Paul’s love comes in that 22nd verse where Paul mentions Timothy as his own child. For Paul’s sending of Timothy to these Philippians, a love for them parallels the sending of another son. There is another father-son relationship that stands behind the relationship between Paul and Timothy. And this scene from a Roman jail reminds us of all that.
And Gabriel, the archangel, said to Mary, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. And for that reason, the Holy Offspring shall be called the Son of God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
For God loved the world in this way. He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. But God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son born of a woman born under the law in order to redeem those who were under the curse of the law here in his love. not that we love God, but that God loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Paul is constrained. He reads his entire life against the backdrop of the gospel. It informs his every thought and his every action, and he is determined to bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ Jesus. He is constrained in his love for these Philippians by the love of God, that love that is revealed when God sends forth his Son, giving his all for his own. of the integrity of Paul’s love is seen in the clear selflessness of his sacrifice for them. Just as the proof of the integrity of God’s love for us is seen in the clear selflessness of his sacrifice for us. Paul gives up his greatest joy and comfort in his son Timothy, but he has learned such behavior from God the Father, who gave up his only begotten son, Jesus Christ. It is this then that clarifies for us the opening words of the nineteenth verse in Philippians 2. words that have caused some difficulty for translators.
The King James reads, but I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy. The New American reads, but I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy. What is Paul speaking of here? Is he speaking of his own personal faith that he hopes in the Lord Jesus, that he trusts in the Lord Jesus? Is it a declaration of personal faith that Paul has in view here? Some translators, in order to bring the sense through, have retranslated the opening words of that verse this way, I hope through the Lord Jesus Christ, or through the Lord Jesus, rather to send Timothy to you. What is the force? of Paul’s words.
What is the sense of this statement? What Paul means is that he will send Timothy in and through the living reality found nowhere else but in Jesus. And that living reality is nothing other than the magnificent self-sacrificing disposition that is expressed in him as he now sends out his Son, as Jesus himself, the Son, was sent out.
But you will note that in this prepositional phrase, Jesus is called the Lord Jesus. And that has significance as well. For Paul here calling Jesus the Lord Jesus indicates the fact that Jesus Lordship is carried out presently by precisely the kind of behavior and in precisely the kind of spirit that Paul is exhibiting.
That’s the current mode of Lordship. That’s the way Christ exerts his power presently in the world. That’s how he presently manages his kingdom. There is no other way. You see, for Paul, Christmas is not a season. It’s a way of life. It’s a way of life.
We would have more perfectly formed in us, Lord, the full implications of the mind of Christ. And we desire our God that consistency within ourselves that preaches so eloquently the fact that we are citizens of heaven. May it be our Father that the Lordship of your Son would come to expression in us in precisely the same manner in which it came to expression in the Apostles. May we be imitators of Him, even as He is of Christ. Amen.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.