Philippians 2:19-24 (Hope In the Lord)

We slow down in Philippians 2:19–24 and find a blueprint for trust when plans feel uncertain, especially through Paul’s repeated phrase “I hope in the Lord.” We also look at Timothy as a living example of servant leadership, spiritual parenting, and the wisdom of waiting until character is proven. 

• Paul’s plans held with open hands before God 
• “Hope in the Lord” as trust and submission 
• testing our dreams, motives, and timing in prayer 
• Timothy’s proven character as a model of service 
• the impact of Timothy’s mother and grandmother on his faith 
• spiritual fatherhood and motherhood as intentional discipleship 
• qualifications and order for leadership in the local church 
• why rushing new believers into responsibility can cause harm 
• patience as “tempering” that makes leaders durable 

Trust in God this morning. 

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Transcript

Reading Philippians And Setting Context

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All right, Philippians chapter 2, verses 19 through 24. Let's read this. I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, so that I too may be cheered by news of you. For I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interest, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father he has served with me in the gospel. I hope therefore to send him just as soon as I see how it will go with me. And Paul's in prison in Rome at the time, and that's this context. And I trust in the Lord that shortly I myself will come. The immediate challenge I faced when reading this was to not just skip over it, because it seems like it's sort of just uh transitional material. Paul is just saying he's finished with this big thing about humility and service, and he's given us this example of Jesus and his life and what that means for how we're supposed to behave and all

Seeing Meaning In Transitional Verses

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of this stuff. And now we have this, it's a new section of the scripture. And so I can look at this and just think that he's just it's just fluff. He's just using this to get to the next good stuff. Okay? That's a failure on my part if I read it that way. If you read it that way, that's a failure on your part. Because it seems like maybe there's nothing to reflect on here. It seems like maybe there's nothing of theological significance for us as a church, but there is. There is. I paused long on the scripture and read it over and over again, and there's some things to talk about here. First, and pretty importantly, we get a glimpse of Paul's trust and submission to God. He sets up this entire uh uh section with the little phrase, I hope in the Lord. Hope in the Lord. He wants to go do this, he has a plan. He wants to get out of prison in Rome,

Learning To Hope In The Lord

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he wants to send Timothy, he wants to go with Timothy, he wants to do these things, and all of it is wrapped up in his hope in the Lord. Maybe God wants to do something different than what Paul wants. And when he helps in the Lord, that's it's okay because your hope is in the Lord. Maybe the only way for Paul uh to send Timothy and for Paul to go himself is to really lay his plans out in front of God. Either way, there is this express trust that Paul has in God and and who God is. And that makes me question my perspective, makes me question my trust in God, it makes me question uh how I handle my plans and my hopes and my dreams because I have those things. I have plans, I have hopes, I have dreams, and how do those connect to God? Am I submitting those to God? I have to believe that if I am consistently serving God and seeking God, I'm praying, I'm reading the Bible, I'm going to church, the Holy Spirit will place things in your heart and in your mind for you to pursue. I have to believe that. That's scriptural. I also know it's scriptural that a man's heart is full of deceit. And so some of the things that you might want and desire are not of God. Right? And then there's a bunch of stuff in between where maybe God doesn't really care what we do, He just wants us to serve Him while we do it. And all of those things are true at the exact same time. Either way, are we submitting our lives to God? Are we hoping in Him? Are we hoping in Him? Do we make it a practice to submit ourselves and everything that we are pursuing to God? Maybe what we are pursuing doesn't fit God's plan. Maybe it's the wrong timing. Maybe the only way we get to where we want is to submit it to God and to hope in him, even though it doesn't make any sense. God, how I think you've called me here. How am I going to get there? You hope in God. And you're happy with whatever happens so long as you are following God's will and you're serving him, even in the waiting, even whenever it seems like your dreams are fading away. I hope in the Lord. In Paul's own life, we see this hope unfold in an interesting way in his letters and in the book of Acts. He clearly has designs and plans for his life. He wants to meet people, he wants to go places, he wants to go back to this church, he wants to go plant a church here, he wants to go to Spain, he wants to go back to Ephesians, right? He wants to do all these things and he plans for it. He gathers support for it, right? He goes to this church, that church, and asks for money. Do you have any money? Do you have food? Do you know somebody who can transport me here? Right? So he's planning. He's using his wisdom, he's using his ability. But at the end of the day, it's his hope in the Lord that that all of this stuff is funneled into. It's the same thing for our lives. You will have dreams from God, you will have ideas from God, you will make logical plans based on wisdom, based on information. Even if you don't hear an audible voice of God, even if you don't have some sort of clear picture of what God wants you to do, you're going to try your best to do the right thing, the smart thing, the intelligent thing. And all of that is funneled into your hope and trust in the Lord. Are you submitting yourself to God? Do we do that? Right? Submit to him. Thank you. Amen. I like that. Little Pentecostal already. I appreciate that. Second, we can draw attention to who Paul is sending. He's sending Timothy. Timothy. We see him in Acts. He has two books of the Bible named after him. What does Paul say about Timothy in this book outside the book of Philippians? What do we know about Timothy? And I think there's a lot we could break down, but the thing that stood out to me, because it's also connected

Timothy And The Power Of Spiritual Parenting

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to this sort of father-son connection for Paul, is that when you look at Timothy's life, and we go back to the book of Acts, Paul finds them in a place being raised by two Christian women. He has a father, but they don't really talk about the father because his father is a Gentile and maybe not a believer, but his mother and his grandmother are. And so he is raised by two faithful women, his grandmother and his mother. Bonus points if you can name them. Eustace and Lois, the grandmother and mother of Timothy. Right? And they ray, and they raise Timothy. And in Timothy, the book of Timothy, I can't remember if it's 1 or 2 Timothy, Paul basically mentions their name, which is a pretty big deal. They're mentioned basically saying, Don't like, don't forget what your grandmother and mother did for you. Part of who Timothy is as a man of God, his anointing, his calling, uh his steadfastness, his faithfulness is found in the faithfulness of his grandmother and mother teaching him the right way to do things, the right way to follow God, even though we have no idea that his that is what his father believed. They were faithful. Moms, you are divinely appointed to raise up godly children. It is your unique calling, it is your unique position, it is your anointing. Right before you do anything else for the church, as a mother, your calling is to your children. And listen, I know it's a team effort. Moms and dads both. We'll get to dads in a second. But we all know who spends the most time with children at their most fundamental level. It's moms. It's women. It's women who take care of children. It's women who mostly teach children whenever they're younger. Moms and women have a divine calling to raise up Timothy's. People who are ready to serve God. No matter the context that they are in. We don't know Timothy's context. We just know that his dad perhaps was not a believer. And that's a very complex uh situation to grow up in, and yet Timothy serves. Serves. You have a holy obligation to raise up men and women who love God. It's not easy, but it is a calling and an anointing on your life that supersedes anything else we might do in ministry. Next. It's connected to what we just talked about. Paul expresses his belief, belief in Timothy, in particular, a belief that he will have the correct attitude in his dealings with the Philippian church. Right? He trusts Paul is going to do the right thing. Paul trusts that Timothy is essentially going to mirror who Paul is to the Philippian church. Timothy is an extension of who Paul is. Paul is his spiritual father. And ultimately, and this is something I get more and more aware of every single day, as a father, your children are an extension of you. They are an extension of you. There's a sense in ancient cultures and Middle Eastern cultures that we sometimes miss in modern Western society. In ancient cultures and in Middle Eastern cultures, sometimes the father and son are legally and technically indistinguishable from one another. They're the same. So that when a father shows up in his father's name, he has the authority of the father to do what the father can do. Does that make sense? And so, whenever we like, for example, we hear the term son of God and we know that's Jesus, and we think, okay, son of God. Well, there's significance to that term because when you show up in the name of your father, you also show up in his authority. So he's a son of God, meaning that he is the same as God. That's the significance of that term. Timothy is a spiritual son of Paul. He's an extension of Paul, and he shows up with the same humility and heart of a servant that Paul has previously been preaching about. Matter of fact, Paul uses this as another example to continue this talk. How he describes Timothy is basically the exact opposite of how the leaders in the church of Philippi are acting and behaving. So Timothy is this example of how you should be doing things, and Paul brings that out. Timothy walks out his salvation in a way that mirrors Paul, and because of that, Paul has extreme confidence that when Timothy arrives, he's going to express the things that need to be expressed. He's going to lead the way that things need to be led, as opposed to others. The challenge here between thinking about Timothy and his mom and his grandmother, and thinking about Paul's spiritual fatherhood of Timothy, is that there is a challenge for both biological parents and spiritual parents to produce Timothy's. Or Timothy Edda's, whatever your girl. Right. My grandfather's name was Herbert. And obviously, my mom's real name, you know this. My mom's real name is Herberetta. So they legitimately did the joke. They just edit added Etta to the end of the end of the name. And uh mom and grandma fell listen to this, just laugh about it. It's okay. Anyways, there's a challenge. There's a challenge for for for spiritual fatherhood, biological fatherhood, spiritual motherhood, biological motherhood. Are we pouring into the next generation? Are we being intentional? Tara talks about being intentional all the time. I'm very proud of her for doing that. I know many of you have the exact same mindset. Are we being intentional? Now that's not a guarantee. Right, there's there's that that proverbs that says if you raise up an I I couldn't I'm gonna do the exact translation, if you raise up a child in the ways of the Lord, they won't they won't forget it. Right? That's not a promise. That's just a principle, okay? So it's not like that's not a prophecy. That's that's not it. But it is a good principle. Are we doing it? Are we doing it? Finally, Timothy was qualified. Everybody say qualified. He was qualified by testimony and experience to do what Paul was calling him to do. In other words, his character had been proven. Over time, he had proven himself to Paul and to others in the church world that he was somebody

Proven Character And Wise Leadership Timing

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who could get the job done, somebody who was going to do the right thing, somebody who was dedicated to the gospel and only the gospel, and not this or that, the these little issues that crop up here and there. Paul's confident enough to send Timothy to do important work based on experience in community and over time. We get things out of order sometimes. We rush things. And we can get to a place where because of passion and because of necessity, even, we throw prudence aside. What do I mean by that? Well, we know God can use anyone. You know, we know that, right? We believe God can use anyone. If you are saved, whether you have been saved a hundred years or one day, you have access to be used in the kingdom of heaven. Right? You have access to the Holy Spirit. You have access to the fruit of the Spirit. You have access to the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Now, your gifts might be different than somebody else's, but but but being used in the kingdom of heaven, though it might look different for each person, is possible for every person. It's democratized. It's democratized. Everybody can be used, really based solely on your willingness to say yes to God and your obedience. That's an astounding and beautiful thing, I think, in a church. Here's the problem there's still order. And while somebody can be used immediately, it might not be appropriate for them to be used, perhaps, to teach a Sunday school class if they've only been saved a week. Do we make sense? Does that make sense? We got to understand that Paul, in several places, including this one, basically lays out qualifications and wisdom in order for somebody to serve in particular roles and leadership positions in churches, and above and beyond that, just to do certain important work in the church. And there's no way to ignore them. He talks about them in 1 Timothy several times in Titus. We see in Acts, interestingly enough, whenever they are, the disciples are gathering and they have a problem and they are basically figuring out who are we going to use to go do this important thing of taking care of the widows, right? They do it based on time and based on character and based on integrity and based on people who were reputable by character. So whether you're talking about eldership, uh deacons, bishops, all the nomenclature, and even people just uh this sort of going out and doing ministry, there is order and pragmatism involved in that.

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Right?

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Matter of fact, uh also in Timothy, we have this little phrase here that says, do not be hasty to be hasty of laying on of hands. And that's not talking about whenever we lay hands on people to pray for them. That's talking about the act that we see several times in the book of Acts that a church would gather around Paul or Barnabas or Paul and Silas, lay hands on them and send them out. So whenever it's saying that, it's saying, before you send somebody out, don't be hasty in that process. You gotta know somebody. That has to be done in a community and over time. These qualifications are they're not complex. In fact, I would say they are all rather common sense, they're pragmatic. And Timothy has proven himself over time in a congregation, in a community setting, so that Paul and others know that he is trustworthy, so therefore, he is basically his uh character aligns with the calling that he's been been given to do. This is wisdom, this is common sense. There's a tempering here of the passion that we see. A few years ago, uh I got into this show during one of my uh ADHD fueled fixations, forge and fire on History Channel. They make knives, blades. Anyone know what I'm talking about? No one? Forge and fire. Yes, it's great. Love it. What I didn't know when I watched that, there's this interesting process as they're making these blades. It looks like a blade at one point. They're done. They've they've hammered it, they've cut it, they even start shaping it, and it's probably even sharp. It could do some damage if you swing it at somebody, but it's not really a blade capable and trustworthy to do what blades really should do until you quench it and temper it. It looks like a blade, it functions like a blade. It is a blade, it's the same material as a finished blade, but it's not ready for work until you take that hot blade and you dip it and quench it into either water or oil or sand sometimes. And then you cool it down and you repeat that process. And in that quenching and in that tempering, it becomes hardened, it becomes useful, it becomes something that's not gonna shatter or bend or break, it's gonna hold its edge longer. It was a blade before, but it wasn't ready for work. In the same way, we have to practice patience and wisdom whenever we raise up leaders. When we raise up our own children, we got to recognize, even with them, that they might not be ready for certain responsibilities, and we've got to get over our own arrogance thinking, oh, they're definitely ready. They've got to do this because we think, right, we they got to have the best, we've got to push them to do this. Sometimes you just gotta step back and let God do the work of discipleship that you've started. I've seen it too many times in churches, all kinds of churches. I've grew up in a large church. I've been around small churches, I've worked in small churches, I have seen this over and over again. I've seen this in Christian organizations at Lee University in my experience. What happens is that a church gets desperate. A new family comes in, right? And they are energetic, they seem well adjusted, they seem bright, and because you want to use families to serve in a church, and you definitely do, right? You want to involve families if they want to be involved. But what happens is sometimes out of desperation, because a small church is so excited that they give these responsibilities to these people that they really just met, and a week goes by, two weeks go by, a month goes by, even a year goes by, and you realize something happens, and you realize that they were not ready for that. They didn't have the spiritual backing to be leading a small group. They didn't have this spiritual organization or understanding in scripture to be reading leading this discipleship group or this Sunday school class or whatever it might be. And it ends up causing more damage than good. Not just for the people that those people were leading or trying to help, but also for the couple themselves. I've seen it with young people, being a youth pastor. People go off, they'll go off to a retreat, right? And they come back and they are energized. They are on fire. They are great, they are good, but they have not been quenched and tempered, and they are not ready to do some things that God will eventually call them to do. You can't force them into doing something. We have to be incredibly careful about really, it's two sides of the same coin. I don't want to kill the energy of someone who might be a new convert, right? That's one thing you don't want to do. Harness it, use it. At the same time, you've got to recognize they are not ready. They're not ready to lead other people. Now, they might be ready to serve, they might be ready to open a door, they might be ready to greet, they might be ready to get donuts every morning, they might be ready to make coffee every morning, they might be ready to help clean up stuff, they might be ready to do any number of things. And if they're on fire for God and it is genuine, they will be excited about that opportunity, even though they might want to do more. There is order and prudence described here with Timothy. Timothy was ready because of his experience in the community that saw him. He had been to the Philippian church before with Paul. He'd been around Paul and others for a long time. He was a young man at one point. Now he's a little bit older, still much younger than Paul, but enough time had passed where he was known to be trustworthy. Now, naturally, some people just aren't going to want to wait. Like I said, they're passionate, they're energetic, they're excited, they're raring and ready to go. I have seen it, and it's great. Find healthy and responsible uh ways to let that energy flow out without putting undue pressure on them or others by putting them in a position that they don't need to be in. It ends up hurting them. I I've got a couple of people in my head right now, without naming names, that I remember a passion and a zeal that they had when they first started coming to a church that I was at. And because of misuse, because of life, because of all sorts of little things that happened, that passion burned up, was not used, they were not tempered, they were not quenched, and they don't serve God anymore. We gotta do a better job of taking care of that energy, we gotta do a better job in that discipleship process. Let people serve, but they might not serve in the exact position they want to be in. It can be frustrating to wait, but in the long run, waiting in God's timing sets you up for success. This goes back to Paul's hoping in the Lord. Hoping the Lord to come to you. You could almost say, I I hope to serve in this way. But you're submitting yourself to God's will first, and that timing might be different. Almost finished. There's nothing wrong. We live in this intersection between. Okay, we trust in God. We believe God will help us. We believe God is going to honor us and bless us. We also know that if we trust in God, He's going to lead us this direction or that direction, sometimes in directions we don't want to go. But I still have these dreams. I still have these desires.

Praying Boldly While Submitting To God

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Let me tell you something. In the intersection between all of those things, it's still okay to hope and believe and have faith that God is going to do exactly what you want him to do. There's nothing wrong. In the grand scheme of God's sovereignty, there's nothing wrong with praying. Like Paul says here, I trust in the Lord to do what I want him to do. Paul wants to come to the church. Paul wants to get out of jail and make his way back to them. And he says, I hope in the Lord for this. I trust in the Lord that he will do this for me. So in the grand scheme of God's sovereignty, in the grand scheme of your submission, there is a place for you to fully hope and believe and have faith that I'm praying for this God, and I believe you will do it for me. I believe you're going to let me have success in this job. I believe you're going to lead me to the right relationship. I believe you're going to do this for this church. I believe you're going to do this, Lord. Lord, your will be done, but I believe your will is this. Paul expresses that right here. There's nothing wrong with it. Believe for something. Dream for something. Pray for something. Pray for your family. Pray for the lost loved ones. Pray for a fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit. Pray for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in this church. Pray for us to find a building that we don't deserve to buy, but we have it anyways. Pray for something big and believe that God is faithful to do it. Because He will. He will. Are we submitting and are we trusting in the Lord, in our discipleship, in our dreams, in our vision for our life, in the way that we raise our children? Believe and submit it to God. And all of this just from transor uh transistory material that Paul is using to get us to the next part. Isn't the Word of God great? It's great. It's great. Maybe one day we'll do a series of sermons in all of the in all of the begotons. And we'll find some preaching material in the begotons. If you don't know what that is, there's several places in uh Chronicles and in Genesis where it is this so-and-so begot so-and-so, and so-and-so begot so-and-so. And you might think that there's nothing there, but it's God's word, and there's something there. Trust in God this morning. I don't know what God has placed in your heart and in your mind. And maybe you've been too busy with life and just trying to survive. You've given no thought to what God wants for your life. You're just trying your best. That's okay too. Trust in God in that. But for some of you in here, I know God has placed things in your heart and in your mind. He's given you visions for your future. Believe and trust today that He'll do it. That He's faithful. He will. Can we pray together? Heavenly Father, you are good and you are great. And Lord, first and foremost, I pray for that that we would have our hope in you. Let us let our hope be in you. Don't let my hope be in my material and physical circumstances alone. Let my hope be in you so that

Closing Prayer For Hope And Blessing

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whenever I'm standing at a crossroads, I'm okay. When I'm standing at a funeral home, I'm okay. Whenever I'm in the hospital room and I see my dad on the gurney, I'm okay.

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Because my hope is in you. And not just on what I see, and not just on what I experience, but on who you are in your might, in your majesty. Let us be a church that hopes in you in such powerful ways that we are never overcome by any trial or tribulation, Lord, but we thrive in our hope in you, Lord.

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Lord, I pray that as biological fathers and mothers and spiritual fathers and mothers in this house, that we would be faithful in producing followers of you, Lord. I pray that you would anoint us for it, give us the gifts for it, give us the patience for it, give us the grace for it. And Holy Spirit, I pray that you would just step into our meager efforts and multiply the impact that we have on our children's lives so that whenever they reach a certain age, they are ready and on fire to be used by you, Lord. And Lord, I pray that as we walk through this life and walk through this as a church, that we would responsibly take the energy and the fire and the passion of others and properly place them in places where they will grow and become more and more mature and more and more ready to do your work. And at the end of the day, all of it for your glory and for your honor. This is your church. We are your people. And so, Holy Spirit, I pray right now that you would anoint us for the task. Anoint Carrie and Dave. Anoint Brandon and Danielle. Anoint Tara. Anoint Shannon, anoint, anoint Madre and Padre, John and Denise, anoint Michael and Amanda. Anoint them in the name of Jesus with your Holy Spirit. Give them an abundance of the fruit of the Spirit that makes a distinction in their everyday lives, Lord. Give them the gifts of the Holy Spirit that serve your church and serve your purpose. Let people prophesy, let people be given wisdom and understanding. Let people be hospitable. Let people give. Blessed. Blessed in every way possible. Blessed physically. Blessed spiritually. Blessed mentally. Blessed financially. Blessed socially, Lord. Bless us in ways that we could not reproduce on our own. And let every blessing be a sign of your glory. Let every blessing be just a moment that we can praise you for, Lord. Let every blessing be a sign of your greatness and your goodness, not just to us, but to the world, God. We love you, Lord. You are good and you were great. And we all said together. Amen.