©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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1/17/99
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Qualifications For Good Examples
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Phili. 3:17-4:1
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1/17/99 Qualifications For Good Examples
We did something last week
that I really hate to do.
We took a single, unified statement
and chopped it in half.
Because of our limited time together,
I shared with you only the first half
of Paul's complete thought.
Today we are going to return to the passage
and complete what we started.
If you were with us
you will remember that we have returned to our
study
of the New Testament book of Philippians.
Our study has brought us
to the last few verses of Philippians chapter 3.
The passage we were looking at
begins in Phil. 3:17.
Last week we looked only at 3:17-19.
But the entire statement
actually runs all the way through
the first verse of chapter 4.
This morning I want to begin
by reading the whole passage for us.
Then we'll review just a little bit
of where we were last week,
and then complete the picture
by looking at the remaining verses
in the paragraph.
Phil. 3:17 ¶ Brethren, join in following my
example, and observe those who walk
according to the pattern you have in us.
Phil. 3:18 For many walk, of whom I often
told you, and now tell you even weeping,
that they are enemies of the cross of Christ,
Phil. 3:19 whose end is destruction, whose
god is their appetite, and whose glory is in
their shame, who set their minds on earthly
things.
Phil. 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven,
from which also we eagerly wait for a
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
Phil. 3:21 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.
Phil. 4:1 Therefore, my beloved brethren
whom I long to see, my joy and crown, in
this way stand firm in the Lord, my
beloved.
Last week, as we looked at those first 3 verses
we saw Paul telling us three things:
1. Every one of us have at least a few good
examples in our lives.
2. Every one of us are also surrounded by a bunch
of bad examples.
3. Our survival depends upon our choosing
to focus on the good ones.
I like the way the author of Hebrews puts it:
Heb. 12:1 Therefore, since we have so
great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,
let us also lay aside every encumbrance
and the sin which so easily entangles us,
and let us run with endurance the race that
is set before us,
Heb. 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the
author and perfecter of faith, who for the
joy set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame, and has sat down at
the right hand of the throne of God.
I don't know if you noticed it,
but there is a remarkable balance
in that statement.
In context the author is referring to
the unbroken line of good examples
we have throughout history -
men and women who believed God,
and in that belief changed their world.
He obviously wants us
to see ourselves as part of that stream,
looking back at our heritage,
looking forward at those coming after
us.
Yet, at the same time
there is a remarkable balance
within those two verses.
The writer wants us to be aware of those
who have fought their battles well,
and he wants us to draw encouragement from
what we see
in their lives.
But, at the same time,
he wants us to "fix our eyes on JESUS".
We don't fix our eyes
on the good examples around us,
we fix our eyes on Jesus.
If you look at any other human being closely enough
you will come away disappointed.
I don't care who they are.
God made that abundantly clear
from the biographies
He chose to record in His Word.
The Apostle Paul got into a raging battle
with his fellow missionary, Barnabas,
and became so stubborn
he refused to travel with Barnabas any
more.
Peter got so worried about
what his fellow Jews thought about him
that he refused to associate
with some of his non-jewish Christian
brothers and sisters.
King David allowed his own lust
to so dominate his life at one point
that he committed adultery
and then had the husband murdered
so that he wouldn't find out.
Moses was so terrified of failure that,
even in the face of overwhelming
supernatural demonstrations of God's
power,
he still refused to trust God to work through
him.
And if you fix your eyes on any Christian long
enough,
I guarantee you'll see the flaws,
the failures,
the still broken places in their lives.
And so God gives us that crucial balance -
we follow the example
of those around us
who have trusted God,
but we FIX OUR EYES
only on Jesus.
He, and He alone will not disappoint.
That's where we were last week.
But that is not where Paul stops,
for there is one other issue
that must be addressed
in this whole discussion about
good and bad examples.
Your see,
it is impossible for Paul to talk to us
about good and bad examples
without that conversation
causing us at some point
to look at ourselves.
And, given our tendencies to self-doubt
and self-condemnation,
for many of us that can be a painful
experience.
We want to focus on and follow
the good examples in our lives.
But we also want to BE a good example
for those who focus on us.
But, when we look at ourselves,
rarely do we see ourselves correctly.
Either we blind ourselves to our weaknesses and
hide
(even from ourselves)
behind a good external image,
or else we see only the flaws
and the failures
and find our spirits crushed
under perpetual feelings of guilt and
shame.
Neither of those approaches are healthy.
In these six verses here in Philippians
Paul progressively turns our attention
three different directions.
First he encourages us to look
at the good examples in our lives.
Then he talks to us honestly
about the bad examples around us.
But then, knowing that,
for the child of God who is earnestly seeking the
life and leadership
of Christ in his own life,
it will be impossible
for him to think about good and bad examples
without also thinking about his own life and
where he fits,
Paul then turns our eyes onto ourselves.
But he does it in a way
that affirms the truth
and gives us hope.
And it's interesting that Paul defines his audience in
verse 20.
He is talking to those who ...eagerly wait for a
Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;
I don't believe there is any other doctrine in Scripture
that has the power to more powerfully mirror our
true mental attitude toward God
at any given time
than does our attitude about
the return of Christ.
The Christian who has
pinned his hopes for happiness
on achieving success
and recognition through this world's
system
and then invested all his energies
into the pursuit of those goals
does not eagerly wait for a Savior, the
Lord Jesus Christ.
Those bad examples Paul was talking about one
verse earlier,
those...whose god is their appetite, and whose
glory is in their shame, who set their minds on
earthly things...
they don't eagerly wait for a Savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Do you know who waits eagerly
for the Lord Jesus Christ?
Those of us who know
that He is our only hope
and He is our ultimate victory,
those of us who look at ourselves
and thank God that who we are now
is not who we will always be,
those of us who fight the sinful impulses within
ourselves
and praise God that, by His grace alone,
we are not what we once were,
but who find our greatest security in knowing
that these battles we now fight
are only temporary,
and that the day will come
when our King returns
and total victory will then be ours.
We happen to live at a time in history
in which there appear to be
strong evidences for the soon return of
Jesus Christ.
The power of economics in Europe
has accomplished in our generation
what no military might has been able to do
for the past 2000 years -
it has reunited the Roman Empire.
I know they currently have one too many nations in
their little group,
but that's easily adjusted.
Events both in the Middle East
and throughout the world
continue to set the stage
for the rise to power of the AntiChrist.
Let me just remind us
that whenever we see anything
that makes us believe the end is near,
when we see it correctly
it will cause our spirits to soar.
If it cause us stress,
if it causes us anxiety,
if it generates a sense of fear within us,
it is only because we have shifted
too much of our security
onto what our world has to offer.
All I'm trying to say here is this:
when we are thinking correctly,
every time we see something in our world
that makes us believe the return of Christ
is close
it will cause our spirits to jump for joy.
So, Paul talked to us first about good examples,
then about bad examples,
and then he concludes
with some closed circuit words
to those who "eagerly wait for the return of
their Savior".
And the words he offers to us
are designed to do two things:
1. They reaffirm our true identity,
2. and they reassure us of our victory.
Now, why does he do that?
He does that
because of what some of you did to yourselves
last week
when we were talking about
the value of good examples
within the Body of Christ.
Some of you looked at your own life,
and you saw there
still unresolved conflicts,
areas where you have fought and fought and fought
and still have not found victory,
areas where right now
you just don't know what to do.
And in your mind
you yanked yourself off the "good example list".
You didn't honestly feel comfortable
putting yourself in that other group, either,
those guys who "...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...",
but the truth is
you didn't know where else you belonged.
You haven't given yourself over to the sin that wars
against you,
but neither have you found the kind of victory
over it you long for.
And so Paul, knowing how easily the accuser of the
brethren
can fill us with a sense of defeat
and failure,
reaffirms our identity
and reconfirms our victory.
First he reminds us who we are.
"For our citizenship is in heaven."
Who we are is not
and never will be defined
by what we have done.
Who we are has already been determined forever
by what Christ has done
when He.... "...qualified us to share
in the inheritance of the saints in Light...
and rescued us from the domain of
darkness, and transferred us to the
kingdom of His beloved Son...(Col. 1:12
13)
We are now and forever His HOLY ONES.
Paul says it so well in I Cor. 6:9-11
... neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor
adulterers, nor effeminate, nor
homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the
covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor
swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of
God. Such were some of you; but you
were washed, but you were sanctified, but
you were justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
And such were some of you...
but you were washed,
but you were sanctified,
but you were justified
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Does that mean, then,
that no one at the Corinthian Church
ever again struggled with alcoholism?
or immorality?
or homosexuality?
or greed?
or dishonesty?
Far from it.
In fact, one of the main reasons Paul wrote this
letter
was to give the Corinthians instructions
about how to handle
a Christian living in an openly immoral
relationship in the church.
It does mean, however,
that all true change
in the life of the Christian
begins with changing our understanding
of who we have become in Christ.
Maybe I can say it best
by putting the lie and the truth back to back.
Man-made religion says to us,
"If you want to be a child of God
stop your immoral behavior."
God says -
"Because you are a child of God,
because you are My saint,
because you are My Holy One,
your immorality is completely inconsistent
with who you really are."
God transforms our lives
by first transforming our identity,
and then teaching us who we really are.
In three of his letters,
Ephesians,
Colossians,
and I Thessalonians,
Paul uses a phrase that says it well.
He calls us to "walk in a manner worthy of
our calling".
I like that.
Our calling, our position,
our true identity as eternal sons and
daughters of God
is a given, an inalterable certainty.
Paul then calls us
to live in a way that is consistent with who we
really are.
EX. Apart from all the political games
and maneuvering
surrounding President Clinton right now,
and no matter what side of the impeachment
battle we may be on,
do you know the one thing
that I believe has affected our nation
most deeply,
the one thing that,
no matter what our political position may be,
leaves us all
with this empty feeling deep inside?
It's wondering how our President
could behave in a manner
so completely inconsistent
with who he is.
Our minds churn at the task
of attempting to reconcile who he is as the Leader
of the greatest nation in the world
with how he acted.
It just doesn't fit.
It is exactly that same perspective
that our God seeks to communicate
to each of us.
He does not begin by saying,
"Look at what you're doing!"
He begins by saying,
"Look at who you ARE!"
And when we begin to hear that truth,
then He talks to us
about how to act
in a way consistent with our true
identity.
...And such were some of you; but you
were washed, but you were sanctified, but
you were justified in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
2. And then Paul reaffirms our deliverance.
For our Lord Jesus Christ...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.
He can and He will deliver.
A measure of that deliverance
will become a reality here and now.
We can and we will find His grace sufficient
and His strength adequate
for our daily walk with Him.
But that deliverance will know its final,
total victory when our Lord returns,
when He tosses these old mistrained bodies
onto the rubbish heap,
and gives us a brand new body,
one that never knew sin,
one that responds perfectly
to the leadership of the new spirit
God has already placed within us,
one that will allow us
to express perfectly
our true identity
as eternal sons of God.
Do you know what I see him saying here?
When we were talking last week
did you mentally disqualify yourself
from serving effectively
as one of God's good examples?
If so, you may have been measuring yourself by the
wrong standard.
The family of God
does not need more glittering public images,
men and women who look right,
and talk right,
and smile right,
who create the illusion
that they have somehow achieved
a higher plain of Christian living
that separates them from the rest of us.
What we really seek
are men and women we can identify with,
men and women
who fight the same battles we fight,
who understand where we live,
but who do so with their eyes fixed
on their Lord Jesus Christ,
proclaiming with their lives
that He is there,
and that He is good,
and that He is abundantly
adequate for our needs.
I was 23 years old
in the fall of 1970.
It was a time of tremendous turmoil
in our nation
and in the Christian world.
The Vietnam War divided our nation.
Riots on college campuses were common place,
an affluent Christianity that seemed most
comfortable with a "just shut up and believe"
approach to hard questions
found itself overwhelmed with the
issues it faced.
During those years
God brought a man onto the scene
who did more to rebuild
the intellectual integrity
of the Body of Christ
than any other man I know of.
His name was Dr. Francis Schaeffer.
Though his intellectual discussions
about philosophical concepts and ideas
were confusing to most of us,
his underlying message was crystal clear:
here was a man with an unshakable belief
that any answers about life that could be found
would be found within the intellectual
framework given to us by God
and revealed to us in His Word.
In a powerful public way
he reminded the Christian world
that logic and reason are always on our side,
and we never have to be afraid
to ask hard questions.
In the fall of 1970 I was able to join a group of
other students
for two months at Schaeffer's school
in Switzerland.
For the first few days of my stay there
I lived in a kind of reverent awe
of this famous Christian man.
He seemed to know everything.
He could answer any question,
he could win any debate.
But then one evening shortly after my arrival
something happened at one of our evening
discussion sessions
that, looking back,
was of more value in my relationship
with Schaeffer
than anything the man ever said
or wrote in his life.
We were all sitting in this large room
gathered in a huge semi-circle around the master,
hanging on his every word,
when a little black kitten
walked into the hall,
then walked up to Schaeffer,
rubbed up against his leg,
and began purring.
Schaeffer picked that little kitten up
and cuddled it in his arms,
and in that instant, for me,
he became a man,
a human being,
someone just like me.
I can't tell you exactly why it affected me that way,
I can only tell you it did.
I happened to have my camera with me that night
and I snapped a picture of him holding that
kitten.
I found that picture this past week
and brought you a copy of it.
Do you know who qualifies to serve as a good
example in the Body of Christ?
People just like us
who live in the same world we live in,
who feel the same emotions
and fight the same battles as we do,
people like that
who are trusting their Lord one day at a time,
finding Him faithful one day at a time,
allowing us to see
both where God has healed them
and where He has not.