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Good morning. I am part of the Oikos in the Oaks Friday Women's Group, the Women Reading Women Group, and I'm also an elder here.
Today's scripture reading is from Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 3, verse 10 through chapter 4, excuse me, verse 1 is printed in your liturgy.
A reading from Paul's letter to the Philippians.
I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived in my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things, and if at some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.
Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.
For as I have often told you before and now tell you again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.
Their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.
Their mind is set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so they will be like his glorious body.
Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Good morning, Christ Church.
Let's pray.
O Lord, what we know not teach us, or what we have not give us, and what we are not make us.
Give me clarity of mind.
Give me conviction of heart.
Give me concision of speech, Lord, that give all of us a capacity to receive from you.
What it is you want to say to us in this moment.
And we pray all this in Christ's name.
Amen.
So, Pastor Andrew and I have been trying our best, not sure if successfully, but we've been trying our best to help us as a church fall in love with the Apostle Paul.
Because Jesus is in love with the Apostle Paul.
And gave Paul to the church, gave all these letters of Paul to the church, particularly this beloved letter of the Philippians.
It's a letter of affection, a letter of friendship.
It's a letter of joy.
It's an amazing letter.
And what I want to invite us to do as we just approach it one more time today, I want you to just imagine in your mind the Apostle Paul as he's writing this letter.
And remember that Paul is in a Roman prison cell.
Remember that Paul is chained to two Roman soldiers on his right and on his left.
He's with them day and night.
Remember that Paul is waiting a trial in which he'll either be acquitted and released or he'll be condemned and executed.
And it's from this place, right, it's from this context that Paul writes his happiest letter.
It's from this place that Paul tells us these words, rejoice and joy.
They're repeated 13 times in this letter.
He clearly wants his friends in Christ.
He clearly wants the church in Philippi and all the churches to share in his joy and to rejoice with him.
And I want to be clear as we get back into this that Paul is not inviting us, he's not inviting the church to bury its head in the sand and ignore the fact that the Roman Empire is oppressive, right?
That could be the entire theme of his letter.
He's also not encouraging us or encouraging the church in Philippi to ignore her problems, right?
To ignore all the opposition and all the difficulties that are coming to them now that they've begun to follow Jesus.
And in fact, that's why Paul has to tell them what we just heard.
You need to stand firm in the Lord, right?
But what I think Paul is doing in this letter is he's outflanking his problems.
He's outflanking all the church's problems, all those pressing issues of imprisonment and persecution and impending execution by raising their eyes to something better, right?
He's raising their eyes from earthly sorrows up higher to heavenly joys, right?
And that's what our Sunday gatherings are meant to do.
They're meant to shift our attention from where they are Monday to Saturday, immersed in the things of this earth, immersed in this realm where sin and death are ruling.
And to have at least one day in our week where we focus and we ponder on the things of heaven where Jesus rules, right?
Here on earth is where sin and death rule.
Heaven is where Jesus rules.
And Paul says, set your minds not on earthly things but on the things of heaven.
Does that make sense?
It's critical if we're going to understand what Paul is doing in this letter.
Now, we're going to continue where we left off last week.
I actually want to encourage you to take out your pew Bible in front of you.
And we might range a little bit as we explore Ephesians or Philippians chapter 3, one of Paul's most beloved passages.
You can find this on page 592.
Or sorry, 952.
952.
I'm a little doped up on cold medicine this morning.
So that's why the page numbers are not coming out right.
But 952.
And Paul is, I think, asking us, posing in this text three questions for us.
Number one, who are your models?
Number two, what is your mindset?
And number three, where is your hope?
Okay, so who, what, and where?
Who are your models?
What is your mindset?
And where is your hope?
First of all, who are your models?
Paul says in verse 17, he says,
Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters.
And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.
The question for us is, who do we look up to?
Right, of whom would you say, you know, when I grow up, I want to be like this person?
You know, when I was a teenager, it was like, when I hit my 20s and 30s, I want to be like that guy.
Now I'm like, okay, when I hit my 50s and my 60s, I want to be like him.
Who's that person where you say, that is the paradigm.
That is the pattern of how I want to live.
I want to imitate their life.
I want to follow their example.
I want to walk in their footsteps.
Maybe you think of a family member.
Maybe you think of a coach or a teacher or a camp director, a camp counselor.
Maybe a campus minister that you had in college.
A mentor that you had along the way.
It might even be a historical figure.
For me, a guy named John Stott is the guy that I love.
Maybe a fictional character, Samwise Gamgee would be another person for me, who I'd like to become when I grow up.
But, you know, without explicit and conscious models, we can so easily drift into subconsciously following just any old person that our algorithm serves up to us, right?
And why is it that we need a model?
Why do we need an example to follow?
Because a model is a person whose values, whose behaviors, whose accomplishments you admire and you want to emulate in your own life.
And this is crucial for personal growth and personal development to find such people because they show you a real, embodied, in the flesh life that says, look, it is actually possible to live this way and not like everybody else is living, right?
It's possible to live with excellence.
It's possible to live for the glory of God.
It's possible to live for the good, not of yourself, but of other people.
And Paul is giving us a heads up and he says, look, there are plenty of bad models out there.
And he says, actually, there's plenty of bad models in the church.
Here's what he says in verse 18.
Now, why does this cause Paul to weep?
Because these are people who profess to be Christians, right?
And yet they're not at all mature, but they're setting themselves up as models for people in the church to follow.
You guys ever read about people like this in the news, right?
Where people claim to be Christian with their lips, but they're not at all Christians with their lives.
None of you ever read about this in the news, okay?
This is not a new problem.
And Paul is wanting to warn us to guard against these anti-models of professing Christians.
And he says, first of all, they're enemies of the cross of Christ.
And what that means is that in their attitudes and their behaviors, they repudiate all that the cross stands for.
Right?
They're living for themselves, but what the cross stands for is not living for yourself, but giving yourself away for the sake of others.
He says, secondly, their destiny is destruction.
Destruction, they think they belong to Jesus and to the household of faith, but they're actually not living a life worthy of the gospel.
They're not living in line with Jesus.
And so, Paul says, their future before God is actually pretty bleak.
And then he says, their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame.
And what that means is that they've ordered their loves around their bodily appetites.
Right?
They've ordered their loves around appetites for food and for sex and for amusement and for material goods.
As if these desires that come from within them, as if these desires are divine.
As if this is what they should give their time and their money and their precious energy to.
Paul says, this is what they glory in.
And ultimately, this is what is going to bring them shame when they stand before God.
And then the fifth thing Paul says, he says, their mind is set on earthly things.
And that is that the primary focus that they have is on the earth in this realm of where sin and death rule.
And they're not really very focused on heaven where Jesus rules.
And the Apostle Paul is really wanting to protect the church that he's planted in Philippi.
And so he says, please do not make these professing Christians your models.
And then Paul is bold to say in verse 15, he says, look, if you want to be mature, think the way that I think.
If you want to be mature, live the way that I'm living.
Again, in verse 17, he says, join together in following my example, brothers and sisters.
And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.
He goes on in chapter 4.
He says in chapter 4, verse 9, whatever you have learned from me or received from me or heard from me,
whatever you've seen in me, put that into practice.
Now, I don't know if we have anyone here who's a gymnast or a golfer.
I know we have some tennis players in the room.
Maybe you're a dancer.
Maybe you're into martial arts or you paint or you play the piano or the violin.
Maybe you're a singer or you're an actor.
Or if you do any of these things, you know how important it is to have a real person show you how it's supposed to be done.
Somebody who can give you the visual form.
Somebody who can demonstrate to you the timing and the flow and the rhythm and all the moves that you need to mirror and that you need to imitate.
And that's precisely what Paul is giving to the church in this letter.
Right at the very heart of this letter, if you turn in your pew Bible to page 951,
you'll see in Philippians 2, Paul gives us this Christ hymn in which he holds up Jesus as the model human.
He says this is the model of what a human being is supposed to be.
And he says this in verses 6 through 10.
He says,
King Jesus was not grasping at his own advantage.
Rather, he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.
He humbled himself.
And he became obedient to death on a cross and God exalted him.
And what Paul says there is, he says,
notice this V-shaped pattern of Jesus' life.
This V-shaped movement of his life of humility and then exaltation.
Humiliation now, exaltation later.
Suffering now, glory later.
He says, that is the paradigm.
That is the pattern for all who want to follow Jesus and imitate Jesus and be conformed to the image of Jesus.
And then immediately following that, if you'll notice in chapter 2, verse 19 and following,
he says,
here is Timothy.
And he puts Timothy before us as a model who is following the model.
And he says, look, Timothy does not look out for his own interests.
No.
Timothy looks out for the interests of Jesus.
He looks out for the welfare of the church.
Like Jesus, he's not grasping for his own advantages.
Rather, he's emptying himself.
He's humbling himself to take the form of a servant.
And then right after Timothy, Epaphroditus is put before us in chapter 2, verse 25 and following,
as a model who is following the model.
And Paul says, Epaphroditus is this honorable soldier of Jesus because he risked his life and he almost died humbling himself
and pouring himself out in sacrificial love like Jesus in order to fulfill the church's mission.
And having given us this big model of Jesus and having given us these many models of Timothy and Epaphroditus,
now all of chapter 3 is Paul saying, I too am a model who's following the model.
And Paul is diametrically opposed to these professing Christians and false teachers whose minds are set on earthly things.
He says in verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven.
Paul says, look at the heavenly way that I view things.
I live as if I belong to the kingdom of heaven and to the king of heaven.
And so Paul says, keep your eyes not only on my model and on the model of Timothy and Epaphroditus,
and of course on the big model of Jesus, but he also says in verse 17,
keep your eyes on those who live as we do.
On those who in their heavenly citizenship,
those who in their Christ-like attitudes and behaviors are showing you
what it means to say to live is Christ and to die is gain.
And the question for us this morning is, who is living like this?
Who do you know who's living like this?
Who's living out this Philippians 2,
Jesus-shaped pattern
of humbling themselves
in order to be exalted by God?
Of suffering for the sake of others
in order that they might be glorified by God.
Who are the people that you look to and say,
you know what?
They're living not with their minds set
on this earthly realm of sin and death,
but they're living with their minds set on heaven.
They're living with their minds set on their citizenship
in the kingdom of heaven.
They're living with their hopes set on the kingdom of God,
breaking in from heaven down on the earth.
And the question for those of us,
if you're like me, you've been baptized for a little bit,
you've been following Jesus for a little while,
is do we have a life worth imitating?
Right?
Do we have a life that's worth
someone else following after us?
And if someone were to look at you
or someone were to look at me,
would they say,
ah, that's what it means.
That's what it means to pattern your life
on the model of our humble
and self-giving servant king, Jesus,
and all of his cruciform, cross-bearing love.
Man, I don't know about you,
but I've got a long way to go.
Are you intentionally pursuing a life
where Paul would say of you,
keep your eyes fixed on her?
Keep your eyes fixed on him
because they're living as we do.
They're living as Jesus did.
And if you're like me and you say,
you know, I'm not really there,
but I want to be,
then follow me now
because I want you to think about
the kind of mindset
and the kind of hope
of such a model.
Okay, so who are your models?
Second question is,
what is your mindset?
What is your mindset?
A mindset is a key word in this letter.
Just like joy is a key word in this letter,
Paul uses this word mindset
ten times in this letter.
And in verse 15, he says,
all of us who are mature
should take such a view of things.
In the Greek, he says,
all of us who are mature
should have this mindset.
In verse 19, he says,
their mind is set on earthly things,
but in verse 20,
implied is that our minds
is set on our citizenship in heaven.
Paul says,
your mindset,
your attitude,
your thinking,
your orientation,
this is what affects
your entire disposition
and your entire direction of life.
If your mind is set on the wrong thing,
you're going to be living the wrong way.
If your mind is set on the wrong thing,
you're going to be going
in the wrong direction.
And so he says,
what is your mindset?
And Paul is telling the church,
he's saying,
if your mind is set on earth,
if your mind is set on this realm
where sin and death
are ruling as sovereigns,
as sovereigns,
then he says,
you need to change your mind.
The Greek word for change your mind
is repent.
You need to change your mind.
And you need to set your mind
on something else.
You need to set your mind
on your citizenship
in the kingdom of heaven
where Jesus is ruling.
Right?
Where your true identity lies
and where you really belong.
It's your citizenship,
not here on earth,
but your citizenship in heaven.
And what happens
when the whole church,
not just a few people in the church,
but the whole church,
decides to set their mind
on the kingdom of heaven?
I mean, last week we saw
in verses seven to nine,
when Paul met Jesus
on the road to Damascus,
it changed his mindset.
Right?
Paul said,
it reversed all of my accounting
of my whole life.
All of my former gains,
I now count as loss,
Paul says.
I now count it actually
as garbage
compared to the gains
of the surpassing worth
of knowing Jesus Christ
as my Lord.
He says,
when I look at all
of the righteousness
that I used to try
to produce on my own,
and I compare that
with the righteousness
that God has provided
for me in Jesus,
it's infinitely superior.
I've had to change
my entire mindset
on what it even means
to be righteous.
And then he goes on
in verse 10
and he says,
he says this,
he says,
I want to know Christ.
Yes, to know the power
of his resurrection
and participation
in his sufferings,
becoming like him
in his death
and so somehow
attaining to the resurrection
of the dead.
What Paul says there is,
I already know Jesus.
but I don't know him enough.
I already know Jesus,
but because he's changed
my mindset,
I want to know him more
and I want to know him better.
I already know Jesus,
but because my mind
is set on heaven,
I want to know this king
who rules from heaven.
I want to know
the only person
who's ever gone through death
and come out
the other side alive.
I mean,
if that happened,
I want to know him more.
Paul says of Jesus
in Colossians 2 verse 13,
he says,
in him are hidden
all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.
I want to know him.
How could we ever get bored
with Jesus?
Paul says.
He says,
if you set your mind
as a citizen of heaven
on the king of heaven,
then you set your mind
on a few different aspects
of knowing Jesus.
And if you have a pen,
I want you to underline
a couple of these aspects
in verse 10.
He says,
first of all,
power.
You want to know his power.
Underline that word power.
I want to know his power.
Paul says,
if you belong
to the resurrected Jesus,
then you've been united
to his empowering presence.
That the same Holy Spirit
who raised Christ from the dead
is now living in you,
and that means that
he can release
his resurrection power
in you
and through you.
Well,
to what purpose,
for what end
would he give you
his power?
Underline the next word,
participation.
This is part of knowing
Jesus' participation.
You need the life-giving power
of the resurrected Jesus
so that you can participate
in Jesus' sufferings.
And that means that
on a daily basis,
you're asking for his power
that you might bear your cross
just as he bore his cross
to suffer for the sake
of loving other people.
That's why you need
his power
so that the sufferings
of Jesus,
of sacrificial,
self-giving love
can be manifest
through you
to the world.
You don't just need power.
You don't just need participation.
Part of knowing Jesus
is next word,
becoming.
Underline that word,
becoming.
If the resurrected Jesus
empowers you
to suffer with him
in sacrificial love,
then you are becoming
like him
in his self-giving
on the cross.
Your life is being shaped
into the form of his cross.
That's part of knowing him.
And then the last thing
Paul says is
part of knowing him
is attaining him.
Underline that word,
attaining.
Attaining Jesus means
that one day
you're going to fully
and finally know him
and hold on to him
in the final resurrection
from the dead.
And we'll talk about that
in just a moment.
But what Paul is saying here
is he says,
I set my mind
on a daily basis
on knowing more
and on knowing better
the crucified
yet risen Lord Jesus.
And I want to know
my Messiah.
I want to know my King
to such a degree
that the shape
of his life
becomes the shape
of my life.
That he is daily
giving me
his resurrection power
to live out
the sacrificial
and suffering
love of his cross
so that when people
see me,
when they encounter me,
when they experience me,
they say,
wow,
that's a citizen
of heaven
who's just like
the king of heaven.
Does that make sense?
And Paul's asking,
is that where
your mind is set?
Is that where
your mind is set?
Now, of course,
Paul can't leave it there
and like most pastors,
he has to give
a sports illustration.
And so,
he gives this illustration
of a runner
in the Olympic Games.
The Olympic Games,
by the time Paul
wrote this letter,
has been going on
for about 800 years.
And so,
Paul writes
in verse 12,
he says,
not that I've already
obtained all this
or have already
arrived at my goal,
but like a runner
in the Olympic Games,
I press on
to take hold
of that
for which Christ Jesus
took hold of me.
Brothers and sisters,
I do not consider myself
yet to have taken hold
of it,
but one thing I do,
forgetting what is behind
and straining toward
what is ahead,
I press on
toward the goal
to win the prize
for which God
has called me heavenward
in Christ Jesus.
A runner
is someone
that has
one burning ambition.
A runner
is somebody
who has
intensely
set their mind
on one desire.
They've set themselves
in one direction.
They've given themselves
one goal,
which is to finish
the race
and to win
the prize.
Now,
Adidas
had an amazing
ad campaign
many years ago
where they had
these incredible pictures
and the caption
said,
runners,
yeah,
we're different.
I don't know,
anybody remember
that ad campaign?
It was absolutely
amazing.
Basically,
you had these
runners going by
and all the
onlookers,
like the normal
people over here
were baffled
and bewildered
at all the weird
things the runners
were doing.
Right?
A guy is standing
in line at the bank
and he's like
stretching his
hamstrings
and his calves
and everybody's like,
who is this guy?
A woman is running
with her baby
in the jog stroller
past all the other
moms and their kids
at the park
and they're all
looking at her like,
what are you doing?
Runners,
yeah,
we're different.
Paul is saying,
no one shows up
to the Olympic Games
to jog.
Paul is saying,
a complacent runner
is a contradiction
in terms.
Paul is saying,
a runner is somebody
who's intense.
A runner is somebody
who is continuously
giving strenuous effort.
They're straining
every muscle,
every fiber,
every nerve,
every moment
of their day.
They're pressing
all the oxygen
out of their lungs
in order to
attain a goal.
A runner's not
somebody who allows
themselves to get
distracted by lesser
things.
A runner's not
somebody who's
looking over their
shoulder at other
runners.
A runner's not
somebody who's fixated
on the past
and the first half
of the race
that I tried to run.
No,
Paul says,
a runner
is someone who has
a singleness of purpose.
somebody who's
disciplined
and dedicated
and determined
on one thing.
And Paul says,
the one thing,
if you're a Christian,
the one thing
is knowing
Christ.
That's what a citizen
of heaven wants.
They want to know
the king of heaven.
And Paul says,
is that
your mindset?
Now,
who are your
models?
What is your
mindset?
Finally,
where is your
hope?
And I don't have
much time on this,
but Paul ends
here,
and so I'll end
here as well.
You know,
it's pretty clear
increasingly
in our
late
modern
world
that
people are living
with an increasing
sense of hopelessness.
And so,
if the church
can have a clear
sense of what
our hope is,
then
we've got good
news for the world,
right?
Because the world
doesn't have much hope,
but we have
an incredible hope.
And here's what
Paul says is the
Christian hope,
and just a hint,
the Christian hope
is not to go to
heaven when we die.
Paul says this
in verse 20.
He says,
but our citizenship
is in heaven,
and we eagerly
await a Savior
from there,
the Lord Jesus
Christ,
who by the power
that enables him
to bring everything
under his control
will transform
our lowly bodies
so that they will
be like his
glorious body.
Paul says,
a Christian
who has hope
is someone
who's earnestly
expecting Jesus
to come
as the Savior
and to complete
his work
of saving
a people
for himself.
And what Paul
says is that
we will not
so much go up
to heaven,
but the King,
Jesus himself,
will come from
heaven to earth
to transform
this world.
And what will
the final work
of the Savior
be like?
Well, Paul is confident.
He says,
what started
with Jesus'
resurrection
on Easter Sunday
will be completed
when he returns
in the resurrection
of all his people.
Right?
He says the King
has tremendous power.
He's triumphed
over death, right?
He has the power
of life.
And Paul says
that King Jesus
is going to exercise
that power
to the Greek word
is
metaschematizo.
Okay?
What Jesus
is going to do
is he's going
to metaschematize
you.
He's going
to so reorder
you.
He's going
to so transform
you and his
people and the
whole world
that we will be
raised up to share
in his glory.
He says he's
going to take
these lowly
bodies
that are subject
to humiliation.
Right?
Subject to sin
and suffering
and sickness
and injury
and suffering.
Bodies that are
subject to cancer
and to dementia.
Bodies that are
subject
finally
to death.
And he says
our hope
the Christian hope
is that King
Jesus
is going to
metaschematize us.
He's going
to so transform
our bodies
that they'll
be conformed
to the body
of Jesus'
glory.
That just as
on Easter Sunday
Jesus' body
went from being
corruptible
to being
incorruptible.
From being a
weak and immortal
body to being
a strong
immortal body
he says
so your body
will be reordered
to share the glory
of Jesus'
resurrection
body.
That's the last
act
in the drama
of God's
redemption.
And Paul says
we the church
wait for it
eagerly
because this
will fulfill
the plan
of the creator
God all along
from Genesis
chapter 1.
It has been
the design of God
from the beginning
that through
the agency
of his image
bearing people
that God's
heavenly rule
that God's
heavenly reign
will be put
into effect
on the earth
and bring the
whole creation
to life.
And Paul is
straining toward
this hope
beyond death.
He's pressing
to take hold
of this future
resurrection life
of the new
creation
and to have it
even now.
And it's this
hope
that enables
Paul
in his Roman
prison cell
chained up
to those Roman
prison guards
it's what
enables Paul
to think through
all the complex
challenges
that are facing
him and facing
the church.
It's this hope
that enables him
to endure
and to persevere
through that
which is beyond
his control.
It's this hope
that enables Paul
to live in the
present and light
of the coming
glorious future.
future.
And it's this hope
that enables Paul
to encourage
the church
to be
a colony
of heaven.
Right?
To be a preview
of coming
attractions.
To be a small
working model
of what the new
creation
is going to be
when the Lord
Jesus returns
as our Savior
to transform
not just our
lowly bodies
but the whole
world
to share
in his glory
and to share
in his rule
and his reign
over the earth.
So friends
as we come
to this table
my question
for you
my question
for me
where is our hope?
Have we been
putting our hope
in the wrong place?
Might we need
to put our hope
back where it
rightly belongs?
death has been
defeated.
Our relationship
with God
has been restored
for eternity.
Your body
even though
it's declining
and decaying
now
will be transformed
to be like
the gloriously
incorruptible
body of Jesus.
This world
will be
redeemed
and renewed
so that nothing
bad will ever
spoil it again.
good will defeat
evil
love will
overcome hate
life will triumph
over death
your story
and my story
and the story
of this world
is going to end
happily ever after.
That's the hope
that King
Jesus
that's the hope
that citizenship
in the kingdom
of heaven
has given to us
it's the hope
that our world
needs
is the hope
that all of our
friends most
desperately need
and so
I want to close
with Paul's words
in chapter 4
verse 1
therefore
my brothers
and my sisters
you whom I love
you whom I long
for
my joy
my crown
stand firm
in the Lord
in this way
my dear friends
in the name
of the Father
Son and Holy Spirit
Amen