Philippians: The Key to Joy 12
Listen! A bag lady dies on the streets of Chicago…
All right, friends, Philippians chapter 3. We'll start at verse 17. We're going to stop at verse 1 of chapter 4. Philippians chapter 3:17.
“Paul said, “Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I have told you, whom I have often told you, and now tell you, even as I weep. That they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite. And whose glory is in their shame, who set their mind on earthly things? (20) For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we
also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the
exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself?”
We pray for a moment. Thank you so much, Father, for this very good day. We're deeply grateful to be here in this place of worship. Deeply grateful to be gathered with people who love you and know you, gathered with people who are not sure about you, gathered with people who are wondering about you. What a great place to be and what a great group to be here with. Thank you so much. We pray for your safety today, for ourselves, for the other churches who are under threat. We pray especially for your work of power in the lives of Jonathan and Jolene Harms. We pray for your mercy on them. We pray you would help them in every way. Pray for their children. God help them, God provide for them. Dear Lord, please show them mercy and deal graciously with this entire family. Thank you for this paragraph, I pray we will understand it. And beyond that, I pray that we would apply it to our lives. Grateful that you wrote to us. We praise you in Christ's name. Amen.
Lifestyles of the Rich Bankrupt and Famous Miserables (v.18-19)
Suppose there is a bag lady who freezes to death on the streets of Chicago.
About 0° winter time Chicago. The wind is blowing enough to make it a 20 below wind chill whipping crazy powerful awful lake Michigan. And this woman
dies in the night. In the morning they find her. The police come, they go through her shopping cart. There's nothing of value in it and there's no ID in it.
And so the coroner, through dental records, finds out who she is. And then they find out that she is a millionaire. She has more than $1,000,000 of liquid assets in various accounts. That's our one door that leads to the outside with no protection. That shouldn't be open. All right. Never mind. Never mind.
But she dies homeless on the street. The tragedy of that is not only that she died. But that she was not living in her identity. But it will buy you a warm apartment. And it's tragic that a person who is a millionaire doesn't use their means, doesn't live in their identity. Paul is talking about something more tragic than that today, and that is a believer. Who does not live in their identity? Who does not use their means
to live a successful life, spiritually speaking? And in this particular passage, he's going to address this question of are we living in our identity? Are we living as people who are actually citizens of heaven?
Can you tell where my citizenship is by the lifestyle that I am leading? So I want to start look at this passage and skip verse 17 to start with. He's going to talk about two different walks, two different lifestyles. Verse 17 goes on downward versus 20 & 21, and we'll look at that together there. But I want to start by talking about verses 18 and 19, the lifestyle of the bankrupt and
Miserable.
Now there's an outline in your bulletin, if you'd like to follow that, you're going to have that line up there. But basically what we're talking about here is a lifestyle of people who are spiritually bankrupt and personally miserable. There was a show that I don't think it's going on anymore called “Lifestyles of
the Rich and Famous”, and they invited people who watched that show to look through their windows and see how they lived, to look at the Lamborghinis in their garage and whatever else they had looked at their pet tiger and all this nonsense that that money can buy you when. Who are spiritually bankrupt and miserable.
Today we're not going to look on the rich and famous, but we're going to look in on some people who are bankrupt and miserable. And the truth is, friends, that spiritual bankruptcy always connects with misery. There is a direct correlation. The more wealthy a person is spiritually, the more joy they experience. And they were impoverished. They are spiritually the more misery that they experience in their lives.
So Paul says, listen, these people have a kind of a lifestyle which he calls a walk. And in the New Testament, Paul uses the word walk to talk about a lifestyle, to talk about habits. To talk about habitual ways of being, we all have a walk.
For example, he says in Ephesians 4:1, “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling that you have received.” Ephesians 5:8, “Walk as children of Light. Since you are children of light, live a lifestyle that reflects that identity.”
There are two kinds of walks. There are two kinds of lifestyles in the world. There's the Broadway, the Broad Road, that leads to destruction, and there's the narrow path that leads to life.
Paul is going to talk about both of these today in this particular paragraph, verse 18.
Here's the first characteristic. Of a person who is spiritually bankrupt, a person on the “broadway” that leads to destruction, verse 18, Their enemies of the cross of Christ. They haven't trusted Christ. They don't see the value of
the cross. They may even ridicule the cross. They are enemies of the kind
of obedience to God that Jesus demonstrated when he voluntarily went on the cross. He demonstrated crazy obedience to his Heavenly Father, he said. “Father, if this cup could pass from me, if there's any other way, please. But not my will. But your will be done.” He submitted to that will of the Father, and He was obedient even to the point of death on the cross.
● Enemies of the Cross
There are people in the world who hate the cross and who hate the message of the cross. The message of the cross is we can't do this by ourselves. We can't fix our relationship with God alone. The message of the cross is that we are sinners, people who have violated the standard of God, the law of God, the character of God, people who have fallen short of the glory of God. We are people who, by doing that, have separated ourselves from the person of God. Who are facing eternal despair, eternal punishment, eternal pain, eternal depression. Hopeless and helpless.
But in God's mercy and his great kindness, he said, I will make a way for
them to come back to me. I will punish my Son in their place instead of them.
I will make them the offer of forgiveness by putting their trust in Jesus.
Understanding the facts about him. Giving mental assent to the facts about him and then placing their trust in him and in what he did. That's the three parts of saving faith. I have to know the facts. I have to believe them to be
true. I have to make a hard decision to put my hope in him. And if I would do that, I would be forgiven.
It's a famous Christian doctrine called Substitutionary Atonement. It means
somebody died in our place instead of us. It's a very fascinating story that's
well documented.
In 1935 New York City. Mayor Fiore LaGuardia was an attorney and also had been a judge. He went to night Court One night, told the judge that he could go home and have the night off, and he sat on the bench and listened to the
cases that night. And they brought a woman before him who was a grandmother who was accused of stealing bread. She stole bread to feed her grandchildren. She came before the judge. He said how do you plead? She said I plead guilty.
He said you are fined $10.00 for stealing bread, which was a king‘s ransom for a woman who is having to steal bread. And then the mayor, Mayor La Guardia paid the fine for her. Substitutionary atonement, then the mayor fined every person in the courtroom $0.50. The charge against them was living in a
city where a grandmother was forced to steal bread. Substitutionary atonement. She was guilty. She pleaded guilty. There had to be a penalty paid,
but someone paid it in her place.
That's us! We were guilty. We pleaded guilty. Somebody had to pay for us. Jesus paid for us. There are people in the world who absolutely hate that message. They hated either out of ignorance because it makes no sense
to them, or they hate it out of arrogance because they say. I don't need God, I can do this myself.
● Destined for Destruction
Second characteristic, verse 19. They are destined for destruction. They are destined for eternal punishment away from the presence of God. Matthew 25:46. “Those who do not know Christ will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Now you look at that verse and think. Could God really punish someone for eternity? Is it really that bad? Well, the truth is, it is that bad because God is
that holy and we are that sinful. It is that bad. We don't grasp it particularly, but it is that bad. And so some Christians say, listen, this is eternal separation from God, but it's not eternal conscious punishment. It's annihilationism. They
cease to exist. And I understand why they say that, because it's not a compassion. Who wants to think about human beings, especially loved ones,
being punished forever? I don't want to think about that. I do think about it.
I have people whom I love greatly who are distanced from God a long distance from God, and who seem to be getting further away every year. I don't like
to think about that.
I wish it weren't true. But when you read this verse, it says eternal punishment and eternal life. They both have to be true or neither one of them are true.
Now, friends, the message is pray for your lost loved ones and your lost friends. Live a life that is salty and attracts them to the message. Open your mouth and say what's true about Jesus. It's part of the reason we're bringing Larry Moyer in here next week. How do I open my mouth and say what's true about Jesus in a loving, concise and accurate way? Loving, concise and accurate.
● Slaves to their appetites
Here's the next characteristic of these people, verse 19. They are slaves
to their appetites. They just give free rein to whatever they want, food, drink.
Sex, possessions, greed, anything. They just don't even try to fight it. They just say whatever my, whatever I want, I'm just going to let myself pursue that. They have no restraints on themselves and the point is
that they are slaves. Doctor Jade White Pentecost said. Your God is whatever you give the control of your life to. They've given the control of their life to their own appetites, their own stuff that they want, and they are just not even trying.
Now we as Christians can do that also. We can have appetites that we don't control or don't attempt to control. The beautiful thing is we have resources. We have the indwelling Holy Spirit. We have people who care about us. We have counseling. We have in our own church, some addiction groups. There's a lot of ways to get help. It's not easy, but. We're slaves of Christ. We don't have to be slaves of our appetite. There are options, but these people have given themselves over to that verse 19.
● Glorifying in their shame.
They do shameful things and glory in them and brag about them and invite others into them. And in fact, in our culture, they even get paid for them.
I read a news article today in a mainline news source. Wasn't on some shady dark site. A mainline news source about a new sexual trend in the world which is unimaginable. Unimaginable. And people are doing it and bragging about it and putting videos online about it and getting paid for it. And their parents are
affirming them in it. That's the broadway that leads to destruction. That is a person whose life is clearly deeply in the ditch. Paul says at the end of Romans One, just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do the things that weren't proper. He
removed the constraint and said if that's the path you want to be on, just be on that path.
● Setting their minds on earthly things.
Spiritual bankruptcy. Personal misery. Ephesians 5:12, “For it is disgraceful even to speak of things. Which are done by them in secret.: They're
just running full speed ahead toward shameless things. Verse 19, ‘They're setting their minds on earthly things.” They are people who have no connection to God. No concern about eternity, no idea what the will of God is. Their mind is set on the earth, the things of the world, the world system, the earthly things.
Romans 8:6 “For the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace.” They have given a total focus to the things of the world. What they don't understand is that our lives are about one hour long.
Our lives are about an hour long, friends. It just doesn't take that long to live a life. It's going to be over in a flash.
I'm not just saying that because I'm older than most of you. I'm saying that because the Bible says it. What I know intellectually from the Bible, I'm now experiencing in my life. Life on this planet is about an hour long, and then we have to face eternity. But these are people who have invested all of their hope in this hour.
● Living lives that cause Christ-centered people to weep.
Therefore, if you've been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above and not on the things that are on this earth. Set your mind on eternity. It's a lot longer than this one hour life.
So he says to us in verse verse 18. Here's another characteristic of their lives. They are lives of debauchery and evil, but Christ centered people weep for them. Christ centered people weep for them, Paul says. I'm telling you about this while weeping. Paul stands toward them is not condemnation and hatred and ridicule and good riddance. Paul weeps for them. It is the perfect response of a person to a lost person.
Think about this for a minute. Ezekiel 33:11, “God says as I live, declares the Lord God. I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the
wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back from your evil ways.”
God's heart toward an evil person is turned back. He takes no pleasure when they die. Our heart needs to be turned back. We take no pleasure when someone dies. Have you ever wept for a lost person? I don't. I don't do it as much as I should, certainly, but I have wept for lost people, especially for lost people in my own family. What about Jonathan and Jolene? What about
for their kids? I mean, God has crazy compassion for these people and even
though their lives are at the moment spiritually bankrupt and miserable. God has compassion for him and Paul weeps for the people on this path.
Lifestyles of the (Spiritual) Rich and (Oblivious if they are) Famous, (v. 17, 20-21, 4:1)
Here's the second path. It's verse 17 and then verse 20 down to chapter 4, verse one.
● Imitating spiritually mature people
Lifestyles of the spiritually rich and the oblivious, if they are famous.
They are people who have spiritual resources, they have a place to go. They have a different path of life. Verse 17 he said to them, I want you to be imitators of spiritually mature people. “Join in following my example. Observe those who walk according to the pattern that you have in us.” Paul uses this word. He says I want you to be co-imitators of me, all you Philippians, I want
you to be co-imitators of me. Why does he say that? Well, because in First Corinthians 11:1, “follow me as I follow Christ.”
So in Philippians 2:, he set up Jesus as the perfect example of a lifestyle.
And then in Philippians 3, he sets up himself as a good example of a lifestyle
and he sets up Timothy as a good example of lifestyle and he sets up a path for us. He says look at these people, look at the way they live because you can learn a crazy amount by watching people who are going about life with maturity. You can learn a crazy amount by thinking about them. Additionally, he has a very interesting statement here. He says follow their walk, which is their lifestyle, their habit, their way of being, and follow their pattern. The word pattern means a mark left by the blow of a hammer.
So if you smack a hammer on your wooden workbench, it's going to leave a mark. There will be a pattern there. I had this very wicked looking hammer on each end of it. It says this is called a scaling hammer. And he would go down these long stacks of logs and every 4th log he would smack this hammer into the butt end of it and it would leave the mark US on it. That meant that the revenue from every 4th log went to the government. And the revenue from the other three logs went to the company that had logged it. And it leaves a mark. It leaves a pattern. It's a crazy, wicked hammer. If you smack it into wood, it'll say US when you're done.
And Paul is saying let your lifestyle leave a mark. Let it leave a pattern. That can be witnessed and followed. Let it leave a pattern that people can look at and say that is an extremely different way for a person to live.
My father’s life left a pattern. Some bad parts of it and some good parts of it.
I learned how to drive from my father. I learned how to hunt from my father. I learned how to change oil from my father. I learned how to split wood from my father. I watched him. He could do stuff.
I looked at the pattern of Pastor Norm Foss. And I saw in the pattern of Pastor Norm Foss a love for the Bible. Compassion for people, whether they were saved or lost. A crazy work ethic. I saw in him a deep dedication. I saw an impersonal humility, personal generosity. He left a pattern, he left a mark, and when I looked at the mark, it was just an amazing blessing to me to see how I am living.
The obvious application is what kind of a mark am I making? What kind of a
pattern am I leaving? Do I really want my kids to live in the pattern that I'm leaving behind? Do I really want to stand before God and say, what did you think of my pattern? That's the characteristic of a person who's pursuing Christ.
● Embracing the citizenship of heaven.(v. 20)
So Paul said. To these people and to us, we're citizens of heaven.
Citizenship was a huge deal in Philippi for a couple of reasons:
#1 If you are a Roman citizen, you have a lot more privileges than a non citizen.
#2 Philippi was not in Roman territory, it was in conquered territory. But because of their allegiance to Caesar, they were given Roman citizenship and they were crazy proud of it.
Paul himself was a Roman citizen. It was a big deal. He was born a Roman
citizen. You could buy citizenship for a lot of money. But Paul was born a Roman citizen, quite uncommon for a Jewish person, and so he says. “Please understand your citizenship, your primary citizenship, Philippians, is not in the city of Philippi and it's not even in The Roman Empire, It's in heaven. You're a
dual citizen.
I looked up this week to see what countries offered dual citizenship and in reading this I found out that the main two countries that have the most dual citizens in the whole world are the United States and Mexico? We also have a lot of dual citizens of the United States and Israel. There are people with allegiance to both places, people with responsibility to both places, and part of
what he's saying to us here is we are, we are people with responsibilities to the USA.
I need to obey the laws, I need to pay my taxes, I need to serve on juries. I have things that I'm responsible for. But primarily, I'm a citizen of eternity. Primarily, I obey the King. I send treasures ahead to heaven. Primarily, I want to know what the king thinks. Because that's my major allegiance. I'm a citizen of a different place. That's a very important citizenship because of the king.
And because of how long it is. How long it is? It's a long time.
● They eagerly await the arrival of Jesus Christ from heaven.
They are eagerly awaiting for their Savior to come. It is an intense yearning.
You read Acts 1:9 to 11. Jesus is taken up. Disciples are standing there, mouth agape, looking at the sky. Two men in white clothing standing next to them saying, “Why are you gazing at the heavens? This Jesus, whom you have seen taken away, will come back in this same way.”
God was very clear about that. You look at First Thessalonians 4:16, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout. With the voice of an Archangel, with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first, then we who are alive and remain.”
Paul wrote this in about AD 60. Paul said that I might be alive and remain when the rapture comes, meaning. We're due, you know, anytime, friends. Paul thought he might be alive. We who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so shall we
always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words. Revelation 22:20. “He who testifies to these things says, yes, I am coming quickly, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
It's very clear Paul thought that the Rapture was imminent. And he says to us, eagerly await the arrival of our Savior from heaven. It is a word that means to wait with impatience, with anticipation. It's like the kid who's saying there's
just four more days of school left. There's just four more days till a glorious summer vacation starts. I'm an old person, but I can remember 4 more days.
It took an eternity to get there, but when he got there it was glorious.
And so Paul is saying to us, I want you to be people who wait for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. He didn't give us a date. You know why? Because he wants us to be getting ready every day. He doesn't want us to be saying, oh,
it's six months out, it's six years out. I'll just do whatever it takes today.
● Anxiously anticipating the powerful transformation of their humble bodies to glorious bodies, (v. 21)
Friends, here is the reality. Psalm 139:13, “God knit each one of us together in our mother's womb. He was intentionally and intensely involved in that.” We have women in this room today inside of whose wombs God is knitting together children, bless God.
In fact. Let's pray. Father, thank you for those women who are carrying children in here today. We pray you would knit these children together
beautifully, safely bring them to a safe delivery. We pray they'd be raised for Christ that would come to faith in Christ. Thank you for that gracious work you're doing. It's nothing short of a Class A miracle. We praise you for it in Christ's name. Amen.
God knit our bodies together in the womb, and he's the one who's going to recreate our bodies. He's going to do it over. It's going to take these broken bodies and fix them. The outer man is decaying every day, but the inner man is being renewed day by day. He's going to exert some kind of crazy power.
On our bodies and make them glorious. On our broken bodies. On our bodies that are beat down and tired and sick and all these injuries, he's going to use this ridiculous power to change it.
Friends, think about this for a minute. God is going to take my body. And make
it glorious. Unbelievable.
Unbelievable. He's going to use the power that he had to knit something together in the womb and make them into a glorious body where we will have a redeemed soul and a redeemed body.
● Clearly understanding their bond of love with other believers.
Verse Chapter 4:1, he said. A person with a pattern of life like Jesus clearly understands there is an amazing bond of love between believers.
Paul says in chapter 4:1, He has a great love for these people. In the book of Philippians, he says 4 times. You are my brothers and sisters. He says twice You are my beloved, he says one time you're my beloved brothers and sisters. Only time it's used in the New Testament, he said. There are people whom he longed to see. They're his present source of joy. They're his crown, his personal reward for establishing them in the faith. Paul was crazy compassionate about them, crazy compassion for them in the same way we have crazy compassion for people who are saved.
● Standing firm in the Lord and in His lifestyle
Chapter 4:1, “Stand firm in the Lord Jesus.”
It's a word that means to keep your feet solidly planted on the ground. Persevere, persist, keep on standing. Keep on standing in the faith. Don't give up. Don't back down. A friend of mine told me at our life group picnic on Thursday that their son got married this spring in McCall in an outdoor wedding and a perfectly timed spring squaw came in and right in the middle of the ceremony. Wind. Sleet. Cold everybody there in clothing that was inadequate.
And they were getting just absolutely freezing and she said one of the groomsmen said to me later I was going to leave. I was going to leave my line where I was in the groom's line and go get in my car and start it. And then he said, I looked over and there was a six year old flower girl. She was standing there with her basket face into the wind, sleet hitting her face just like this, and she was in her flower girl spot. And she wasn't leaving. This is my duty.
I'm a flower girl. I'm standing firm. And the guy said there's no way I could leave. Who am I going to walk out and get in my car? Where the flower girl was standing there? He didn't do it. She was standing firm. And part of what
Paul is saying listen. I stood firm. Even the flower girl stands for it. Shouldn't we be standing firm in our faith even when the squawl is blowing in? Should we be standing firm in our faith central idea? The more clear I am about my identity in Christ. The more my lifestyle will be conformed to his. The more I'll be leaving a pattern and a mark and a way of being and a lifestyle and a
set of habits, the more I'll be leaving a lifestyle that people can look at and say that person really believed in Christ.
Central Truth: The clearer I am about my identity in Christ…the more my lifestyle will be conformed to His.
● People of integrity have lifestyles that closely match their identity.
Pray with me please friends. Thank you so much, Father, for your book.
Thank you for this admonition from Paul to leave a pattern, to leave a mark.
To walk in a lifestyle that's honoring to you and give courage to each other.
Help us imitate Paul. Help us imitate the flower girl. Help us keep our place. Just face into the wind. Sleet. It doesn't matter. We're just here, Father.
We bless you for your goodness to us when we pray in Christ's name.
Amen.
Therefore, I will personally:____________________________