Philipians 2: Epaphroditus And The Hard Work Of Living The Gospel

We wrestle with the gap between knowing what God says and actually living it, and we admit how easy it is to settle for information without obedience. Philippians 2:25-30 confronts that drift by spotlighting Timothy and Epaphroditus as living proof that the gospel is meant to be practiced, not just professed. 
• the human habit of knowing the right thing and doing the opposite 
• grace, mercy, and the Holy Spirit as the only real hope for change 
• why Christian community matters for learning faithful patterns 
• Paul sending Epaphroditus and why this section matters mid-letter 
• Epaphroditus as brother, fellow worker, fellow soldier, messenger, minister 
• honoring sacrificial service instead of chasing status or comfort 
• church problems that separate belief from behavior, including legalism and arrogance 
• the hard call to say yes and live with total surrender to Christ 
• surrendering identity and self-made plans to gain lasting joy and peace in Christ 

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Transcript

When Knowing Isn’t Doing

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All right, we are waist deep in what at first glance might seem like transistory material in Philippians chapter 2. But viewing it as transistory would be short-sighted. There's meat here in the verses that we have been reading. Right? We talked about Timothy, Paul sending Timothy last week. This week we're talking about somebody else. And uh both of them, both Timothy and the fellow that we're talking about this week, provide an example of what faithful service to God is and looks like. There's no way around it. Um I I've said this before, and I'll say it again right now. One of my greatest uh fears that comes back around over and over and over again is that what I preach, what I teach, uh will go to waste in practice in practice. So I I preach, I teach, you hear part of it, and and and you never put it into action. Or even for my own life, I put it forth all of this effort for teaching and preaching and for studying scripture. And I don't take it seriously, I don't put it uh into action in my own life. It's so hard for humans, as humans, to take information and actually do something with it. Sometimes we do real well at that, sometimes we we don't. We know, for example, and the details vary on this, that fresh, clean foods are better for us. We know it. We know we should eat good food. Not tasty food, but good food. And yet, do we always do that? I don't. I know what I should eat, but instead I eat the three bowls of cereal in a day. Okay? I know the right thing. I don't necessarily do the right thing. We know we should get up and move around, we should be active, we should, we should exercise, we should find uh uh uh activities that get our heart rate going. We we we know that we should do that, but do we all do it consistently? No, we don't. We should look at our screens less, but do we? Almost all of us in here know that staring at our screens all day long is probably not good, right? If we know it's not good for our children, it's probably not good for us, but yet do we do anything about it in most times? Sometimes, I guess some people do, but a lot of times we don't. We know we should put the the dish in the dishwasher instead of the sink, but do we always do that? I do. Always, every single time, right, Tara? She has no idea what I'm talking about. She's so fixated on a thousand other things. It's okay. We we have told our children a thousand times, this is where your dirty clothes go. Do the dirty clothes end up where they go? No, no, matter of fact, uh, one of my children, I won't name a name, progressively is getting closer and closer to putting it where it needs to go. And like even last night, they took off the clothes and it was right next to the hamper, not in it, just right next to it. We know what to do. We we we've all been in church long enough to know the right thing. You've heard me preach enough to know uh how to apply certain things to your life, and so the challenge then is well, how do we do that? How do we get it into action? And and and and and that's the problem here in Philippians.

Everyday Proof We Avoid Action

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Listen, elsewhere, Paul says, I do not understand what I do. For I for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. Does that make sense? We know the right thing, and sometimes we do the very opposite of what we know to do. It's the human condition. Thank God for his grace, thank God for his mercy, thank God for the help of the Holy Spirit, because other otherwise we stand no chance of doing the right thing a hundred percent of the time the right way. We're gonna get it wrong. Even the most disciplined people can never get it right 100% of the time. And so thank God for grace and mercy, and this is part of the problem with the Philippian church. The they know the right manner uh of living, they know that they're supposed to live in a manner worthy of the gospel. They even know a little bit what that looks like, but implementation is difficult. And one thing that can help in this process, this ties into our scripture today, is that in community, together, we are provided sometimes examples of the right thing. If you see someone doing the right thing around you, you are encouraged to do the right thing. If you see someone handle a situation well, you now have access to knowing how to handle a similar situation well. Listen, if you go to a gym and you watch closely those around you who have been working out longer than you have, you will learn from watching them because you are seeing them in community. This is a touch of what we are going to see in our scripture today. Philippians chapter 2, verses 25 through 30. My voice is going to be gone by the end of the service. I just know it already. I have thought it necessary to send you Eprephytis, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, and your messenger and minister to my need. For he has been longing for you all, and has been distressed because you heard that he is ill. Indeed, he is ill, or 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

Community Shapes How We Grow

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upon sorrow. I am the more eager to send him, therefore, that you may rejoice at seeing him again, and that I may be less anxious. So receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such men, for he nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was lacking in your service to me. These verses and the verses last week that we covered, which I don't have the podcast up, so if you didn't hear that, I'll have it up this week. But those verses, uh so Epiphonitus and Timothy here, they're doing double duty. Everybody say double duty. Bonus points if you don't laugh after saying duty. There you go. You can all laugh about that later. Carrie, add it to your joke book. Add it right now. Put it in your notes, see the phone. But this verse is playing, it's doing two things at one time. It's both practical. Paul is laying out in common terms what he wants to do, what he intends to do, who he's sending, why he's sending them. And a lot of times Paul does this, if you read his letters, towards the very end of the book of books, right? But this isn't the end of Philippians. This is still chapter two. So why is Paul doing this thing that he normally does at the very end of his books? There's a reason for it. He he he is of this is a little section that does separate one section from another. But at the same time, the way Paul speaks about Timothy and Eprophiditus, the way that he uses his words, the way that he describes them also shows us that this means something more than just some sort of division, some sort of way to get to the next bit of material. Because the Philippian church has a unity problem, they have a service problem, they have an arrogance problem, they have a living in the manner worthy of the gospel problem. And here are some people that Paul are sending, and the way that he describes them, contrast them to the problems that the Philippian church has. The way Paul speaks here, and the way Paul speaks last week, gives us clues about how these verses fit in within the larger letter and the larger instruction that Paul has been giving for the past couple of weeks through uh Philippines chapter 1 and chapter 2. Timothy is an example. I'm sending him to you. He's trustworthy, he's going to do the right thing. And I'm also sending you Epiphroditus, who is also an example. And Paul here gives these phrases, these terms, these names, these descriptions of Epiphroditus. Epiphroditus is described as a brother, a brother. There's affection in this. Paul also calls some of the Philippian church brothers and sisters. And I know it's not the same for everybody. I really, I really know it's not the same. But for me, my brother, well, we we could, especially whenever I went to college and he was back home, we may have taught like once a week or something like that, but he was still my guy. There was something about that relationship. He was my brother, he was family. And whenever you are family, it changes service, it changes how you work, it changes how you deal with all sorts of different things. Whenever someone is your brother or your sister, whenever you take time out of your day to help them, you're actually helping yourself because they're family and you're helping your family. You're part of a unit. Whenever you remember that we are spiritual brothers and sisters,

Reading Philippians 2:25-30

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it goes a long way in forming our attitudes towards loving service. You got to learn to love service. You got to learn to help others, you got to learn to set aside your own desires and your own time to help others. He's also described as a fellow worker. Fellow worker. Paul uses this phrase a couple of times throughout his letters to describe people who are essentially doing the same thing he's doing: sharing the gospel, talking about Jesus, helping the church grow. They're fellow workers. They were united in common effort. Have you ever met somebody that you didn't know, but they had the same job that you had? Like maybe I worked at Lowe's, and sometimes I'll walk into Lowe's and I'll talk to people, and I'm like, I understand what you're going through today. There's a connection there. Maybe, uh I don't know, maybe you're an accountant and you sit next to somebody else who's an accountant at an airport. Maybe you do construction and you have uh you sit next to someone at a sporting event who also does construction. There's a level of understanding and connection there built in because you're both doing the same thing. And and that feeling, that connection is multiplied if you both are doing the same thing, working at the same place. Right? Anyone got coworker friends? There's a there's a different kind of connection there, right? There just is. You both understand things. Now multiply all of that whenever you are part of the same goal, sharing the gospel. And then multiply that even more whenever we're talking about being brothers and sisters and then fellow workers in the same church. There's a level of unity and connection there that should really help us whenever we're talking about serving, when we're talking about helping, when we're talking about living in a manner worthy of the gospel, we are in it together. It's encouraging. It's encouraging. And then he's called fellow soldier. Fellow soldier. Not only do they work together, but they went through some stuff together. It was a struggle, it was a battle. We know how hard it is to follow Christ. It is. It's not always easy to make the right choices for yourself and for your family, but we go through it and we make it through, and it puts us in these positions where we're up against it, but we survive. Paul survived

Why Paul Highlights These People

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and he suffered because of the gospel, and so have Epiphroditus. Suffering is unifying. We know what we're going through. Paul uses these three terms to signify his deep connection to Epraphiditus and to remind the Philippian church that they have the same connection with him and with each other. They're connected to Paul as fellow workers, they're connected to Paul as brothers and sisters, they're connected to Paul as fellow soldiers, and they're connected to Epraphiditus, they're connected to Timothy, and more importantly, through this process, they are connected to God. All of them could be described potentially the same way that Timothy and Epiphroditus are described. Paul's calling them out, he's reminding them that these are people who are doing the right thing the right way. You can too. There are two more terms Paul uses here. He calls him a messenger. Messenger. This is the same word, essentially where we get the word apostle from. Paul had sent him back with a message for the Philippian church. He's a messenger, it's an honor. Paul's been preaching about sharing the gospel and the good news and being a light for almost two full chapters. We'll come back to that in a second. He's called minister, a minister to Paul's needs in particular, which is a great term of honor. This this word minister is connected to those who serve basically in a civil role. It was a political term that Paul then uses in a spiritual sense. Ministers are those who serve a group of people. They serve a church, they serve a congregation. Epraphiditus, in every sense of the word, in every description, was an example of who you should be with Christ. From those descriptions, Paul moves on to some details that uh Epraphiditus was ill, he was really sick, close to death, but now he's not. That's great news. Paul would have been really sad, which by the way, you know, this is the same Paul who talks about being okay and rejoicing always in a couple of chapters, and he's talking about being sorrowful. That tells me that when he's saying, Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice, he's not talking about not having any feelings. That's not what that is, clearly. Because he says if Epiphyditus would have died, he would have been full of sorrow. So that's not what this is. But then Paul gives the practical reason for sending him back. You guys are worried, he's worried. I've got a message for you. So he's coming back to you. Celebrate him, receive him with joy because he did a great job. He he he he did the right thing. What does all of that mean for us in practical terms? Why does it matter to be a messenger? Why does it matter to be a minister? Why does it matter to be a brother or sister in Christ? Why does

Brother Worker Soldier Messenger Minister

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it matter? Why does this stuff matter to us? What's it mean for us? Timothy and Eprophiditus were examples of living in a manner worthy of the gospel. If you recall, that's how Paul starts this section. It was a call for them to live in a way that brings glory and honor to God. In other words, Timothy and Epaphoditus put the gospel to work. They didn't just hear what Paul was saying, they lived it out. They didn't just accept that Jesus was king, they lived like Jesus was king. And that's not always easy to do. On large scale and small scale. I'm talking to a church right now. I'm talking to a group of believers right now. And I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, even churches struggle with this. Just this week, I watched through X or Twitter, whatever you want to call it, this particular denomination go through their annual meeting of all their ministers. And all their ministers were meeting and talking about things. They were planning the year. They were making theological choices for their groups, for their churches. And I'm going to be real honest with you, it was insane listening to them. I won't name the denomination, but it was insane. I sat there and listened and watched clips and saw little excerpts of what people said. And it was just an entire week of them talking about the craziest stuff, the most maddening things. Even at one point I heard someone say, I can't read this particular scripture without getting triggered because it's so hateful. And I'm just like, what are you talking about? But then it made me realize, and this isn't in my notes, yeah. Guess what? The gospel can be uh hateful if you're living in sin. It's gonna be it's gonna seem a little hateful. The point is, these are supposed to be leaders of the church, they are supposed to be the examples for their congregations, they are supposed to be leading their sheep, helping them, and yet it's just madness, uselessness. You can also look at the academic world, at some of these left-leaning academic uh centers and places. You have these theologians and biblical scholars, and you look at what they're talking about, what they're thinking, what they're studying, and you and you look at what they're writing, and it seems so divorced from the church, it seems so divorced from historical Christianity that they might as well be talking about zebras and donkeys. Because what they're talking about certainly isn't the gospel, it doesn't look like the truth. There are churches and christians that are so focused on wanting 100% agreement over every single little theological gray area that they verge on legalism. Legalism. It doesn't matter that that this church and this church agree on 99% of what they believe, all the big stuff they believe on. But the 1% matters so much that it creates uh disunity and division. Matter of fact, sometimes it might even produce a level of arrogance which will damage their potential.

When Churches Split Belief From Life

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Right?

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They're close to the truth. I'm not saying they're going to hell, but they are damaging their potential and they're a witness because they're fixation on wanting to be right 100% of the time. And wanting to be right 100% of the time about everything is not Christianity. You've got to be right about one pretty big thing. You need Jesus Christ and it's gonna transform your life, and you he's gonna take care of the sin in your life. And then there's a lot of stuff that, well, there's room to talk about, okay? And trust me, I've got my own firm beliefs in things that I think are the right way to believe. But if we are in a conversation with some other believers and they're in alignment with 99%, I can't fixate on the 1%. Can't. There's bigger things to worry about. We have pastors and preachers and ministers who they can put together a really great sermon. They're gonna be incredibly entertaining on the stage. They're gonna be much funnier than I am, they're gonna be much more talented than I am. They might have cool graphics, they might, they might have an organ player doing cool things during cool times, they might have a good rhythm and a good natural ability to engage people, but for them, the stage is the only thing that matters. They don't pay a lick of attention to their congregation, they don't exist for their congregation. It's almost as if the congregation exists for them and for the stage that the congregation gives them. And while part of that is good, it doesn't look like Christ. It doesn't look like the gospel. We have churches that look healthy, they have nice budgets, nice buildings. Everybody looks nice when they get there. But the congregants are never challenged and they're never changed. And then many times they walk out the doors of the church, they walk into the world, and the people that they are rubbing elbows with that are not in the church wouldn't even know they're Christian. We have a problem in the church and as humans with taking the gospel and applying it to our life in a way that matters. And it starts at the top with ministers and all the way down to the lowest and low of congregants who might just open up a door, show up on a Sunday. We've got to look like what we believe. Against this psychologically and spiritually unhealthy separation of belief from behavior, Philippians 2, chapter 19 through 30, what we've read the past two weeks, places the example of Timothy, Epraphhoditus, and Paul himself. Because of their commitment to the gospel. Paul and Timothy have adopted the role of slaves. They call themselves slaves at the very beginning of the book. He calls himself slaves again in verse 2 of chapter 2. And both have been willing to put the spiritual welfare of the Philippians above their own interest. Epiphroditus likewise has been willing to risk his life to help Paul as he seeks to fulfill his calling, his mission. Timothy, Epiphroditus, and Paul then have this understanding of what Christian commitment really is. It means losing one's life in order to find it. A divided commitment to the gospel, as Jesus basically teaches in several ways over and over again, is actually no commitment at all. And that's terrifying. Because it's not easy to think that way. It's not easy to think in those sort of terms of totality in your life. Because it's not easy. We're in a world that makes it, listen, we're in a world that makes it easy to take the easy way out. We're in a world where it's easy to serve yourself, it's easy to celebrate being prideful. The church is not immune from these struggles and these trials and these tribulations. So what do we do? What do we do? Paul, Timothy, and Epiphaditus are slaves to the gospel. Slaves to the gospel. That's a negative term, isn't it not?

Slaves To Christ And Saying Yes

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Who wants to be a slave? It's not a good thing. It's a hard word. It's a difficult thing to wrap your mind around. You mean I've got to give up all my hopes and dreams to follow God? You mean I've got to love God more than I even love my spouse. You mean I've got to love God even more than I love my children. You mean the gospel has to impact every single cell and fiber of my being? You mean God has to become the framework for every word I speak, every thought I have, every dream I have, every hope I have, every pursuit I go after in my life has to be grounded in God Himself and what He wants for my life. Isn't that a little extreme? Isn't that impossible? Isn't that difficult? It is extreme. And by ourselves it is impossible. But what you will find is that the what you'll find is that if you would lay yourself down and pick up Christ and his cross, the hardest part of that entire process is simply saying, Yes. Yes is the hardest part. Yes is the hardest part. It's like a child learning to swim for the first time and learning to jump into a pool the first time. They have every ability after a certain point to survive that jump. They have every ability to swim. They can hold their breaths. They can make it back to the edge. They can make it back to the steps. They might even have a floaty on. They're going to be okay. Sometimes the hardest part about saying yes to God is simply saying yes and taking that first step into the pool. Be a slave to the gospel. Be a slave for Christ. It seems extreme. It seems difficult, but the yes is the hardest part. When you say yes and give everything to God, you will find that everything else good that you thought you were sacrificing becomes enriched in a way that can never happen if you never gave it all in the first place. Right, a level of happiness is at at your access whenever you decide to give away everything. I like the murmur. Murmur. I wish they were all murmuring in prayer, but they're not. It's okay. It's okay. When you say yes to being a slave to Christ, this love that you have for your spouse, the love that you have for your family, the love that you have for your children that you sacrifice in order to serve God first actually is multiplied. Does that make sense? I, because of Christ and my commitment to Christ, I love my spouse and my family more than anyone who does not serve God. I don't care the argument. I love them more because I love Christ. Every dream, every hope, every desire that I have that I lay aside and I and I say, God, I want this, but I want you more. Those dreams and those hopes and those desires are replaced by things that fit me better, even more so than my original desires. I want this type of job, God. I want this kind of life. But before I even think about that, Lord, I want a life connected to you. And in return, you're given something that goes above and beyond what you wanted by yourself to begin with. The image that you have for yourself of who you want to be as a person, as a man, uh as a woman, as a wife, as a spouse, whatever, it doesn't matter. The image that you have for yourself that you sacrificed. You sacrificed this image. You sacrificed this thing that you wanted to be. You sacrificed it to be one with Christ. It's replaced with God's image for yourself, of who he wants and who he designed you to be. Do you know how incredibly important that reality is in a world that celebrates pride? Do you know how incredibly important it is for you to realize that you can sacrifice even your identity in order to gain a new identity in Christ? They call it identity politics, right? They call it identity, identity philosophy. People are obsessed with this is who I am, this is who I was born to be, this is the image that I want to display to the world. I am trans, I am uh G A Y,

Surrendered Identity And Real Joy

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I am this, I am that. That is my image, right? That's the image people have. And what they've got to know is that to be a servant of Christ, you sacrifice that image at the cross. And Jesus Christ gives you the image that you were designed to have to begin with. And that goes for anything in your life. There's nothing to be as dramatic as that. You have an image, a desire, a design for your life, sacrifice it at the cross, and he will be gracious to give you an image that is above and beyond what you ever thought you could have. You want wholeness, you want fullness, you want to be able to sleep at night without worrying about stuff and worrying about this or that. Be a slave to Christ. Paul, Timothy, Epiphroditus serve as examples of this process in action. And while the journey is rife with difficulties and troubles and trials, it's a journey full of holy joy, peace, and rejoicing that you can't get anywhere else. A job can't give you the joy Christ can give you. A relationship can't do it, and an amount of money can't do it, stuff can't do it. A life living for Christ provides you with such joy and rejoicing that nobody can take away, no matter the circumstances. And it only happens when God is at the center of who you are. Be slaves to Christ. It's not easy. That's not the point. The point is we are called to be slaves to Christ, and if we are called, we are also equipped to be slaves to Christ this morning. I think I might be finished. Can we do that? Heavenly Father, we love you. We love you so much. And Lord, I pray, as scary as it might be, that you would call us deeper and deeper into our slavery to you.

Prayer For Deeper Submission

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Let every part of our life be submitted to you, let every part of our life be defined by you, be decided by you. Lord, we set aside every dream and every every desire. We set aside every little thing in our existences in order to serve you, Lord. I pray for this church. I pray that you continue to help us, guide us, lead us. I pray that you would connect us with the right people, that you inspire us to go out and get the right people. Let people walk in here, let us walk out there and bring people in here, Lord. I pray that you'd help us find uh a new facility that will serve us for what we want to do in this community and for our families. I pray that you would just anoint us with your Holy Spirit in every area of our life, Lord. If there is areas in our life that are being impacted by sin, I pray for your deliverance and for your grace and for your mercy, Lord. Help us, God, to be your church above all else. In Jesus Christ's name we pray, and we all said together, Amen.