Citizens of Heaven
Philippians • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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WELCOME:
We are going to do things a little bit different today: We are going to begin with a Scripture reading and move right into our worship. I want our focus to be on the Lord this morning and not so much on our selves.
SCRIPTURE READING:
Hebrews 11:8–16 “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise; for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised. Therefore there was born even of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. All these died in faith, without receiving the promises, but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own. And indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”
LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!
“The Goodness of God”
Words and Music by Hillsong’
PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS
Lord, thank you for your constancy. For never turning Your back on us, for never getting frustrated with us, for forgiving our sins, for allowing us to be part of Your plan. We ask that You would look down upon this gathering of people and fill our hearts with great joy today as we focus on You. Amen!
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS
Lord, give us ears to hear Your voice and eyes to see Your glory. Would you this morning illuminate Your Word and make it known to us? Help us no to make application to others peoples’ lives, but to apply every Word to our own lives. Amen
SERMON
For Paul, to gain everything and lose Christ, is to have lost everything. But to gain Christ and to lose everything, is to gain everything.
If somehow we could invite the apostle Paul to come and preach Philippians chapter 3 to us today, I believe that would the main point he would drive home.
To live our Christian lives as aliens and strangers on this earth, knowing our true citizenship is in heaven.
We are picking up in the middle of a chapter and in the middle of Paul’s own personal testimony of the way he lived his life.
QUICK REMINDER: In the first part of this chapter, Paul explained his early life of legalism and how he pursued righteousness through the law only to discover that it was pointless and that true righteousness comes through faith in Christ. He said he considered every pursuit before Jesus to be rubbish, garbage
In the second part of this chapter, he begins to describe his life in Christ, his pursuit of Christ, his goals and ambitions while on this earth, and his future hope as a follower of Christ.
We will begin in verse 12
Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
Explanation:
The question we should ask: What is Paul saying that he has not yet obtained?
What makes this so difficult to interpret is there is no object for the verb “obtained”. Paul says I have not obtained (it). So what has Paul not obtained? If you read commentaries you’ll find all sorts of answers to that question. But really we do not need to know because that is not the point!
The point is this: Paul’s primary goal in life is to lay hold of that for which also (he) was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
In other words, what Paul wants to obtain is exactly what Jesus wants him to obtain and the very reason Jesus laid hold of Paul in the first place!
It was not really just one thing, it was all that God had planned for him and everything that Jesus had commissioned him to do.
Paul said, “I press on to lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus”
“press on” means to pursue, to live with ambition in his life that whatever it was that God has for him, had saved him for, that is what he wanted and that is what he lived for.
And those words should cause every follower of Jesus to stop and think about our lives, and the call of Jesus on our lives, and the reason Jesus has laid hold of us in the first place.
And we may be tempted to say, “well that’s Paul! that was for an apostle who saw Jesus, not for all of us”. Well if you look down in verse 15 Paul says as many as are mature should have this same attitude!
What is the reason that Christ Jesus laid hold of you, why did God deliver you from the kingdom of darkness and bring you into the kingdom of light?
I assure you, it was not just do that you can go to heaven! God does not save people, simply to keep them out of hell. We are saved to carry out the will of God!
Matthew 7:21 ““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”
God laid hold of you, at a certain time in your life, for a specific reason that fits into His plan. And the pursuit of that should be the guiding principle in our life.
It very well may not something as significant as Paul, but no less important.
There is nothing greater you will ever do in this life, than what God saved you for. There is nothing more significant, more important, than God’s specific will for YOU!
The next verses tell us how we can cultivate this kind of attitude
Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Paul says, all that God has for me has not been obtained yet. In other words, God has more for him.
And then he shares what he does to pursue this goal: “forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead”.
What is it that he forgetting in the past?
This is not an erasing of the memory of everything that has ever happened to him. There are great lessons that we have learned, answered prayers, great moves of God that are important for us to remember to strengthen our faith.
He is talking about forgetting things that have happened that cripple us in the present and keep us from obtaining God’s best.
There are at least two categories I want us to think about: the good and the bad
The bad things: Things in our past that make us feel like God will not use us in the future. Whether they be past mistakes, past hurts, past worthless pursuits, past sins, or past opportunities that are no longer available to us:
That person who walked out on you
That tragedy that came into your life
Those questions of why God would allow those things to happen
Paul would say to us, “MOVE ON!”. Those things should have no place in your life today!
Why do we want to carry that baggage? Why do we want to drag those things with us each and every day…all they do is hinder us from what God has really saved us for.
There is one thing about the past, there is nothing that any of us can do to change it! But what a tragedy to allow it to take away our future.
Let the past be the past, both good and bad but don’t let it steal your future!
But then there are also the good things in our past that hinder us. Surely Paul sitting in prison could have said, well I have done enough. I’m tired, I served Jesus well, I’ve planted churches, I’ve discipled and trained many people including leaders and pastors, I’ve written books, I’ve suffered tremendously, left for dead…AND THAT’S ENOUGH! I’ve done my share. I’ve put in my time. Now it’s time for me….
What advice does that person need to hear? Forget it! Let it go! Do not think that the Christian life can be run on past successes or past efforts or past steps of faith!
Paul would say to us, do not let the good things in our past hinder us from the great things God has for us in the future.
Instead of holding onto the past, we are to reach forward to what lies ahead
Paul lived his life, always looking for the next door God was opening to him. Even in this letter he knows he may very well die in that jail cell. But at the same time he writes,
Therefore I hope to send him immediately, as soon as I see how things go with me; and I trust in the Lord that I myself also will be coming shortly.
That word “trust” means that he had confidence in what God could do!
THERE WAS ALWAYS THIS CONFIDENCE IN PAUL’S HEART OF WHAT GOD WAS GOING TO DO WITH HIM IN THE FUTURE! Even in the most difficult of moments, when his life seemed sure to end, he would think what does God have next for me!
I have hope that I will not die here
I have hope that I will see your Philippians again!
I have this hope that God will continue to use me!
And what a way to live your life! No matter what the situation, no matter what the difficulty, no matter what the achievement, constantly reaching into the future to what lies ahead!
We will never have that kind of attitude without constantly hoping in God!
What a word for this church. We could all come here and dwell on all the things of our past, both good and bad. We could spend weeks looking through all the pictures, recalling memories, or weeping over the bad things that we have experienced….
Or we can look into the future with hope, with excitement, with anticipation of all that God has planned for us through this open door!
Church I refuse to think that God is not going to work not in this church AND in each of our lives in a significant way! And I am going to strive to take hold of that for which CHIRST has laid hold of me!
And every week I come in here I am going to have this great hope and anticipation about all that God is going to do, and make the next 40 years of my life count!
And that begins where I am right now. I am going to put everything I can into the call of God upon my life to make the most is it.
What about you? What will you do with your life?
Paul would suggest very wisely that we follow His example:
Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you; however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.
Explanation:
“Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude”.
The word perfect here means “complete” or “mature”. In other words this is an attitude that mature believers should take and make their own.
Spiritual maturity is not necessarily attained by age. One who has walked with the Lord for 50 years may not be as mature as one who has walked with the Lord for 5 years.
Spiritual maturity is about priorities. It is about what the believer is willing to pur first in his life! Its about ambition and willingness to see what is most important in this life!
It’s depicted here as being able to have this mindset that Paul says we should have. It is desiring more than anything else to live out the very purpose that God has saved us.
The natural question then is, am I spiritually mature? Do I want what God wants more than anything else in my life?
(v 15) “and if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”
Paul expected there to be people who would disagree with his position. That is to say no, I don’t think that is the expectation that everyone should live by. Quite possibly the attitude of people today who would say, “that may work for Paul, but not for me….Life is more than always pursuing and striving for God’s purpose for our life”
But Paul presents this as a word of wisdom, not a command. He’s not forcing all Philippians to take up his pursuit of Christ, but merely suggesting that they do so.
And he trusted that those who did not, God would be the one who would change this attitude within them. That God would be the instrument of change in their lives, not Paul.
2 Principles I want to share:
There are some things, we must leave in the hands of God. It is impossible for any of us to make someone change their direction, their focus, even their philosophy on life. That’s not our calling! Can we make a loving suggestion? YES Can we teach others what the Scripture says? YES But we cannot make people live the we do, only God can do that.
That if we genuinely follow Jesus, and we do lose sight of our focus on Christ, God will reveal that to us.
That is if God has laid hold of you, then you can rest assured that He has also laid hold of your conscience. And if at times in our lives, and we all do have the tendency to drift our focus on from the heavenly to the earthly, God will make it known to us.
So not “if” but “when” we begin to t make a habit of taking our eyes off of heaven, then we can rest assured God will shake us and bring it back where it belongs.
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 often told you, and now tell you even weeping, 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 minds on earthly things.
Explanation:
Paul now moves into real life examples of this lifestyle that he is explaining. He gives both good and bad examples:
1) The good examples: “Observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us”
Paul’s call here is for the Philippians to follow His example. That they should look observantly at his life and then begin to model their life in the way that he lives.
God had given not only the Philippians the instructions that they needed to read about his mindset, but he had also given them the living example of the apostle Paul to follow. And Paul says, follow my example.
Who in your life lives with this kind of mindset? I believe that in every believers life, God has placed near them other believers who are more mature, who live with their focus intently on eternity.
Paul would say to us, be like them. Observe them, the way that they live, the things that they say no to, the things that they put their effort in to, the patterns in their life, follow their example.
The bad examples: “for many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross”
Not only are there good examples, but there are also bad examples that Paul wants them to know of
And not just bad examples, but Paul would even say that they are enemies of the cross of Christ!
What did they do for Paul to consider them enemies of the cross? Of whom he says:
“whose send is destruction”. That is their destiny is not to be with Christ, but to perish with this world
“whose god is their appetite”: Most likely referring to the general pursuit of fleshly desires, pleasures, etc
“Whose glory is their shame”: that is what they glory in is shameful in the eyes of God
“Whose set their mind of earthly things”: and this really sums it up, they are wholly earthly minded. They live for this world, not eternity
Why would these people be bad examples? What I mean is why would the Philippians even consider modeling after these kind of people?
Because these are people (I believe) who once did follow Christ, who once did live for the will of God, and at some point turned away from God and fell back into the world. That is why Paul says that he weeps even as he writes this. He’s not weeping because people are lost, he is weeping because these people were on their way, but rather than pressing on, they began to pursue the world.
The last phrase would sum them up and should be a great warning to us: “who set their minds on earthly things”
The whole attitude Paul is calling for us to adopt is to set our mind on heavenly things. It is a mind that lives on earth, yet lives for heaven. But these people have set their minds, their focus, their goals and ambitions are for worldly things.
Why does he consider them to be enemies of the cross?
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Because those who do not live by the way of the cross, simply deny its power and its glory and its value, and its worthiness of our lives.
These enemies of the cross probably did not deny the cross of Christ verbally, they simply did not pick up their cross and follow Christ.
And Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is against me”
And then I think we must ask ourselves: which example are we?
If the people around you in your life were looking to you as an example of this mindset, of spiritual maturity, would they find a good example or a bad example?
Let’s make it more personal: If your children, or grand children were growing up in your home or under your Spiritual guidance, would they have a good example or a bad example?
It is something we must all take very seriously and evaluate on a regular basis.
Our calling is to live as citizens of heaven while yet being strangers on this earth
Our calling is to live as citizens of heaven while yet being strangers on this earth
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we 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.
Explanation:
This is the Christian life. It is to live a life “very differently” than those upon this earth. In fact, it should be a great compliment to us to have others say, you are weird!
A citizen lives by the rules of that place he belongs. Just suppose you or I go and visit another country. They are going to do life much different from us. And it is not going to take very long at all for them to know that we are not from around there.
Ashley and I can take a trip to another state on the East Coast or down South and it doesn’t take very long at all for them to ask, “where are you from?”
That should be the response of the world to us. To not adopt their way of life, but constantly be conformed to the image of Christ, to constantly strive to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus laid hold of us!
Why? Because in the end, thats really all that is going to matter.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
When it′s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth?
Did I live my life for you?
When it's all been said and done
All my treasures will mean nothing
Only what I′ve done for love's reward
Will stand the test of time
Can you say that defines you this morning? If not, get it right today, In promise you will not regret it
~PRAYER~
Business Meeting
Business Meeting
Opening Prayer
This is a special called business meeting and we will only be voting on the one item
Trio signs:
5x8 sign in the same location of the sign we have now - 10,700
5x 10 sign in the same location - +12,200
Living Hope has said they can contribute $5,000 towards our sign
Meeting adjourned
