Minding Heavenly Things

Series on Philippians

VIII True and False Models, Text: 3:17-21

Title: Minding Heavenly Things

Introduction

Focus is everything in life. When Jesus said to His disciples, “Follow me,” He was not merely saying leave your fishing and join my peripatetic preaching mission. He was saying leave your old life that is focused on this world and this evil age and change your focus from an earthly to an heavenly one. This is what we are talking about here.

I The Righteousness

Paul says in verse 17, Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. The pattern is not Paul saying what a good boy am I. Paul was no egotist here. He had expressed his renunciation of everything for Christ’s sake in verses 7-9, But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. He also acknowledged his imperfection in verses 12-14, Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, 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. Paul is literally saying mimic my attitude. This is basic to any who would follow Jesus. The great preacher George Whitefield said, “How often have I been kept from speaking and acting for God by a sight of my own unworthiness. But now I see the more unworthy I am, the more fit to work for Jesus, because He will get much more glory in working by such mean instruments; and the more He has forgiven me, the more I ought to love and serve Him.” One of his favorite sayings was that “nothing sets a person so much out of the devil’s reach as humility; those that have been most humbled make the most solid useful Christians. It stands to reason, the more a man is emptied of himself, the more room is made for the Spirit of God to dwell in him.” So when Paul says mimic the pattern he means the pattern of repentance and trusting in the fact that God has accepted him and made him righteous through Christ. As the old slave preacher said, “Lord we ain’t what we should be. Lord we ain’t what we ought’a be. Lord we ain’t what we’re gonna be, but thank God we ain’t what we was.” Join in!

II The Retribution

Paul is in tears because of those who oppose the CROSS. They are the same people he has been talking about in this letter, the Judaizers. Now he characterizes them in verses 18 and 19, For, as I have often told you before and now say 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 on earthly things.

A Their Gloom

Their destiny is destruction. These are harsh words that are repugnant to the modern mind. How many times have you heard some unbeliever say, when you’re dead you’re dead, or even worse, if I go to hell that’s where all my friends will be anyway. Everyone should be forced to read The Great Divide by C.S. Lewis. His picture of hell is a place where everything gets further apart. You have no friends there. He also describes a bus trip from hell to heaven. When the passengers from hell emerge they hate it. They cannot even walk on the grass because it is so real it hurts their feet. This is what Paul says about those who trust in their own righteousness and not in Christ.

B Their God

Their God is their stomach. Although you could be thinking of modern lifestyles, that is probably not the Apostle’s point. He is dealing with people who thought being kosher and obeying the dietary laws of the Old Testament would save them. In their minds this was what made them different from all other people. However in I Corinthians 6:13, Paul says, Meats for the belly and the belly for meats, but God shall destroy both it and them.

C Their Glory

Their glory is in their shame. This is a thinly veiled reference to the issue of circumcision. The Judaizers were proud and gloried in the rite of circumcision and were insisting that all the Gentile converts ought to be circumcised. Do you understand that circumcision was a shame rather than a glory if it did not count? As Paul states in Galatians 6:15, For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything , nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.

D Their Goal

Their mind is on earthly things. Here again it is easy to interpret this in 21st century categories, but when Paul says their mind is on earthly things he is not talking about materialism in our culture. Hebrews 12:13-16 tells us about the faithful Jews like Abraham. All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Their minds were not on earthly things, but the Jewish people in Jesus time were thinking of the earthly Jerusalem and the temple. Jesus predicted the destruction of the city and the temple and they hated him and crucified the Lord of glory. Now then, if Paul is talking about the enemies of the cross in the first century, how does that apply to us? In Romans 10:3 Paul writes that the Jewish people of his time were ignorant of God’s righteousness and went about to establish their own righteousness because they were unwilling to submit to the righteousness of God. It’s the same today. People think they are OK because they are better than others. The truth is that by the law no flesh will be justified. Only Jesus saves.

III The Resurrection

Therefore Paul reminds them to look up and beyond. 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. Although we are now in the new Jerusalem, the city whose builder and maker is God which is the Church of Christ, nevertheless we look forward to the consummation of all things in the bodily resurrection and a new heaven and new earth wherein righteousness dwells. However and whenever that comes to pass is not as important as realizing that our citizenship is in heaven. This word for citizenship occurs only here in the NT. It is a root from which we get our word politics. Paul and the Philippians enjoyed the right of Roman citizenship and they were proud of it. So it is ironic that the apostle says that their true citizenship is in heaven. As much as they were proud of being Romans, they should be prouder of being Christians. They spread Roman culture and law but now, like Paul, they were to spread the Kingdom of God. And they could do this with a firm hope and expectation that the consummation would come and Jesus would do this because he has all power in heaven and earth. Thus we may say with Paul, Death, where is thy sting? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul was called a fool because his citizenship was in heaven. But, as Jim Elliott said, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”