BROADCASTS.com

I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. \xa0I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare. \xa0For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ.\xa0But 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. \xa0I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon. (Philippians 2:19-24)

\xa0

In some ways these next bits of the letter are just personal letter sorts of things.\xa0 A bit about Timothy, a bit about Epaphroditus, a bit about travel plans and reasons and things.\xa0 In that sense, these verses give us a more intimate portrait of the more mundane details of how the relationships flowed.\xa0 It\u2019s easy here to recognize that we\u2019re reading someone else\u2019s mail.\xa0

But I don\u2019t think these little details are entirely pedestrian.\xa0 Paul has not left the faith talk aside.\xa0 I think Paul means to use this talk of Timothy to reveal a portrait of someone living exactly what Paul has been talking about.\xa0 Paul has talked about those who preach Christ out of \u201cselfish ambition\u201d and he has told of the way that Jesus reveals a different way: a humble way that does not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage.\xa0 Throughout there has been an invitation to the Philippians to walk in this same way of Christ: with humility, valuing others above themselves, looking out for the interests of others.

Paul has attempted to show how he is partnering with the Philippians in this way of Christ.\xa0 But Paul is\u2026 well, he\u2019s Paul.\xa0 And who of us is like Paul?\xa0 It\u2019s a pretty dauntingly high standard to live up to\u2014it\u2019s a pretty long shadow that Paul casts.\xa0 So it\u2019s helpful to hear some examples of normal people living out the Christian life.\xa0 People that we can relate to a bit\u2014people more like us.\xa0 Certainly that was as true for the Philippians as it would be for us.\xa0

And so Paul tells the story of Timothy.\xa0 Here\u2019s someone they know who grew up outside of Israel in the Roman world, as they had.\xa0 Who had a Greek father, as many of them probably did.\xa0 Someone who wasn\u2019t an apostle, or some wise elder, but a young guy that normal people could much more easily relate to.\xa0 And look: this guy Timothy is serving together with Paul and the Philippians in the way of the gospel under the same pressures of suffering, he\u2019s living the humble, self-less way of Christ, and he\u2019s genuinely concerned for the welfare of others, including the Philippians.\xa0 Normal people can do this too!

Paul has attempted to persuade the Philippians in all sorts of ways to walk in the way of Christ.\xa0 But teaching about it and talking about it only get so far.\xa0 To live it ourselves, we also need to see it.\xa0 We need models, role-models of a faithful Christian life.\xa0 And they can\u2019t just be the important or famous people who live impossibly far beyond us.\xa0 Even the lives of the pastors we have known aren\u2019t that helpful\u2014because, try as they might, they just aren\u2019t normal people like the rest of us.\xa0 No, the truth of these words have to put on flesh and walk around in the real world we live in.\xa0 When we see other normal people like us live like Christians, we can imagine how it looks in our own lives too.\xa0 We can follow.\xa0 We can apprentice.\xa0 We can learn.\xa0 We can do it too.

It is my conviction that faith is caught in this way of apprenticeship far more than it is taught.\xa0

We don\u2019t need perfect examples.\xa0 But we do need examples.\xa0 Who have been the Timothys in your life? Who have been those Christian examples that you have sought to follow?\xa0 And, just as importantly, who is watching you?\xa0 Who are you an example of the Christian faith to?\xa0 You may not always feel like a good example, but that doesn\u2019t mean others aren\u2019t watching, learning, and following you as you work out what God has worked in.

\xa0