"Paul's Letter to the Philippians — On Seeking One’s Own”

Paul’s great exhortation in chapter 2 and verse 5 to set our minds in the right place, even to have the same mindset that Christ himself had in heaven’s glory just before the Incarnation began, remains as his focus in these verses before us today.  We already saw how practical that exhortation became as Paul wrote of working out our salvation with fear and trembling knowing that it was God who was working in us for his glory.  Now he uses himself and brother Timothy as examples of such a life of sacrifice for the beloved.  Their full joy was his desire and his and Timothy’s testimony before them is central to his exhortation now.  This focus on mutual self-sacrifice leads him now to pen these truly memorable words in verse 17: “Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.”