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Philippians 3:17-21
All right, well if you can remain standing, we’re going to read just a few verses from Philippians chapter 3 verses 17 through 21. This is what Paul wrote to the Philippians 2,000 years ago and to us today. Join together in following my example brothers and sisters.
Just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. For as I 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 holy bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
We have been journeying through the book of Philippians and this morning we’re going to come to the end of chapter three. Of course, next Sunday we’ll think about a resurrection day message and then we’ll in the following weeks finish off chapter four of the book of Philippians.
And you know the background by now. Paul’s writing from prison. He’s under house arrest.
He’s in Rome. He wants to have a trial before Caesar and so he’s waiting for his trial. He doesn’t know if he’s going to live or die.
His life’s really kind of up in the air. Paul ended up being under house arrest in Rome for two years and he makes wise use of that time. He writes four books that we have in scriptures.
They’re called the prison epistles. The book of Philippians is one of them. He begins to share the gospel and he leads some of those in Caesar’s household to Christ.
And so, Paul is writing this letter partially as well as a thank you note because the church at Philippi had taken up an offering and they had a gift and they sent it with Epaphroditus and he traveled 800 miles from Philippi to Rome to deliver this gift to Paul and now Paul’s sending a thank you note back to them and that’s really a nutshell what the book of Philippians is all about. This morning, we want to think about four reminders. Four reminders that Paul gave to the Philippian church and I have to tell you as I look at these reminders these four reminders are just as applicable to us today as they were 2,000 years ago and we’re going to look at all four of them this morning.
I. follow godly believers
So, let’s start with the reminder number one and it’s found in verse beginning in verse 17 and here’s the first reminder that Paul wanted to remind the Philippian believers and you and me. Follow godly believers. Here it is verse 17 we just read it.
Join together in following my example, Paul writes, brothers and sisters and just as you have us as a model keep your eyes on those who live as we do. So, Paul’s encouraging the believers there to model their life after the apostle Paul and to find other godly believers that that you can look up to and can use them as a role model for your life. This is really we’re talking about discipleship mentorship but Paul says I need you to follow godly leaders.
Now on our day of social media today we have a lot of followers. I’m on I’m on Facebook. I very rarely post on Facebook but I’m on Facebook because it helped me keep up with what’s going on in other people’s lives and in all of your lives.
Just a reminder I read all your Facebook posts so just remember that but then I’ve not gotten beyond the world of Facebook until this last week and early in the week Diane my wife sent me a link that was only on Instagram. I’ve not been on Instagram so like I want to see what that is so I quickly joined Instagram and guess what I started to get this rush like oh I’ve got now I’m getting notifications. I have followers now.
I think immediately I was up to 15 and so I hate to disappoint anybody on Instagram. I’ll never post anything on Instagram but I just did that to learn the link but it got me thinking about this social media world in which we live in. Did you know there are people that have millions of followers on Instagram on Twitter or X? So, I looked this up just I hope you remember more of the sermon than this but who has the most followers?
Here’s the top five you’ll recognize some of these names Ariana Grande 511 million followers. Isn’t it amazing you can communicate with that many people with a post on social media? Guess number four some of you have heard of this lady Taylor Swift 549 million, Justin Bieber I thought he was long off the radar screen 596 million followers. Selena Gomez 686 million followers, the number one person you’ve probably not heard of this person some of you have if you’re a sports fan his name is Cristiano Ronaldo.
He is a Portuguese soccer player and he has over 1 billion followers that is one out of every eight people. There’s about eight billion people on the planet who follow Cristiano Ronaldo well Paul didn’t have social media back then. It was more of a one-on-one type of influence and discipleship but what he is saying is I want you to follow godly believers. And boy does the generations behind us need godly role models our children need godly role models our grandchildren need godly role models.
And Paul sets his life up and says you can follow my example in fact he writes that five times in the New Testament at least not only here in Philippians chapter 3. But 1st Corinthians 4:16 I urge you to imitate me to the church at Corinth later on he writes follow my example as I follow Christ to the Galatian believers, I plead with you brothers and sisters become like me. 2nd Thessalonians 3:7 where you yourselves know that you ought to follow our example. And so, Paul’s plea is to follow godly believers and there is great, great power in the example of a godly life that people can look up to and and use as an example.
None of us are perfect but a consistent day-by-day walk with Jesus will make a huge difference in the lives of others. I’m so thankful in my formative years that I had some men that I could follow that were godly, godly men. Obviously the first one was my dad I grew up in a pastor’s home and my dad was in ministry for over 60 years. And growing up in that that home where he was pastoring a church in Cleveland Ohio for 18 years.
I just saw as a young person as a teenager a man who not only preached on Sunday but was the same person at home who loved God and walked with him every day. And just set a great example for my life I think of another man by the name of Tom Ladd. Tom Ladd became our youth leader in the church that I grew up in and he was vested in that. He had some young people growing up and for many many years, he poured his life into the lives of those teenagers at the church that I attended growing up.
I think of a fellow by the name of David Graham David Graham I attended a Christian school that my dad and some of our other pastors started back in 1961. They started a Christian school there was 43 of us original students in that school and then they started kindergarten through fourth grade. They added a grade each year and all the way up to high school but I had a bible teacher and a soccer coach and his name was David Graham. David was a solid godly man he went on to pastor some very large, large churches still around today and is probably in his late, late 80s.
David Graham made a huge influence in my life when I got to seminary. The godly role model became someone that I worked for as I Diane and I were living in Grand Rapids going to seminary. His name was Louie Kanopka and Louie was about five or six years older than I was at the time. He had pastored a church and then felt like he needed more schooling so he came back to seminary was married with two kids and I ended up working for him in a painting business. And they just kind of took us under their wings and were godly, godly role models for us. I learned a lot about parenting just being in his home and watching how he they disciplined their two kids. Louie Kanopka was a huge, huge influence in my life, and I went on to pastor a church in Grand Rapids and north of Grand Rapids in Rockford.
God just blessed that church in incredible ways it became like a mega church of a couple thousand people and eight pastors and God used Louie in a great, great way. Well, this is what Paul’s saying we need to follow godly believers and he tells us why verses 18 and 19 why we need these godly believers. Look at it for as I often told you before and now tell you again even with tears many live as enemies of the cross their destiny is destruction their god is their stomach their glory is their shame their mind is set on earthly things. So, Paul says we need godly leaders because there’s people out there who are opposed to Christianity, they’re enemies of the cross and of the gospel.
You have to understand that in the first century the cross was an offense to people. The cross was a symbol of torture and death and to many people it was an offense. In fact, Paul writes about that to the Corinthian believers in 1st Corinthians chapter one. He says the cross is foolishness to others 1st Corinthians 1:18.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. Verse 23 but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles. And so, in Paul’s day there are enemies of the cross in fact when he preached on Mars Hill in Athens and he preached about the gospel and the resurrection. Some of the Greek philosophers they mocked him enemies of the cross and we have them today as well don’t we. People who are opposed to truth people who are opposed to Christianity and today we face the same thing that there are enemies of the cross. So, Paul’s first admonition here is to follow godly leaders.
II. Remember your citizenship is in heaven
But then he gives us a second reminder that our citizenship is in heaven remember that your citizenship is in heaven. It’s a direct contrast to what he just talked about these enemies of the cross who ultimately are headed to destruction. They ultimately just live for themselves and they live for today their god is their stomach they’re just living for the material things of today. But he says our citizenship is in heaven so if you know Jesus Christ as your savior you have a dual citizenship.
You are citizens of whatever country you were born in most of us the United States but we also have a heavenly citizenship. When I got to Cedarville university as a young freshman, I was 17 years old when I started my freshman year. And I played soccer in high school and ended up playing soccer for Cedarville university it was a goalkeeper. and our soccer team nine of the 11 guys that were starters on the soccer team were either foreign exchange students or they were missionary kids.
Grew up on the mission field grew up in Brazil grew up in south America and so you know what game they played. They’ve been playing soccer their whole lives there are there are only two of us that were like born and raised in the United States of America. So, I got to know all these guys and you know I kind of envied them. Some of them had this dual citizenship they were born they had Brazilian citizenship they had American citizenship they often talked in Portuguese.
You know when they didn’t want us to know what’s going on they’re talking to each other in Portuguese. Well, we have a dual citizenship if we know Christ is our savior he reminds us that our citizenship our primary citizenship is in heaven. So, we need to keep that in mind don’t we, we need to be careful that we don’t associate Christianity with only the United States of America. It’s called Christian nationalism no Christianity is worldwide and our ultimate focus and citizenship needs to be focused on heavenly things.
Now we need to be good citizens don’t we need to obey the laws of the country and lest they directly contradict what scripture has to say. We need to pay our taxes we need to vote biblical values we need to seek justice but ultimately, we need to keep our focus on eternity. That’s what Paul writes about in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 verses 16 through 18. He writes these words don’t lose heart though outwardly we’re wasting away inwardly we’re being renewed day by day for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen but what is unseen since what is seen is temporary and what is unseen is eternal. So, Paul’s trying to help us that we need to live and but we can get so bogged down in in life and making a living that we forget about eternity. He reminds us that our citizenship is in heaven well the bible also talks about proof of citizenship doesn’t it. I don’t know if you guys all have your real id’s that you need to have by in about two or three weeks or you might not be able to fly.
You’re going to need some like added security proof on your license with that little gold star up in the right-hand corner. I’m trying to get that for Diane and we went to the secretary of state and then they said we need proof that you’re married. So now I contacted the courthouse in Fort Wayne and they’re sending us birth certificates and go back in and get this official license. Well, we also need to realize that we need to show some proof of citizenship in our life, in fact the book of first john gives three litmus tests for a true believer.
There’s a doctrinal test you need to know that Jesus Christ is the one and true son of God put your faith in him. What else is a mark of a true believer? There’s a life of consistent obedience to god’s word not perfectly we all fall short but consistent, a desire to consistently obey God. A third mark is you love other believers and so our citizenship is in him.
III. Jesus is coming again!
Here’s a third reminder this is a really good one, they’re all good but we need this one this morning and it’s reminder number three and Paul reminds us that Jesus is coming again Jesus is coming again our citizenship is in heaven verse 20 and we listen to these two words eagerly await a savior from there the lord Jesus Christ so he’s talking about our hope our anticipation he’s saying we need to remember that Jesus is coming again so this, the timeline of the Easter story. Remember, Good Friday, Jesus dies on the cross. Sunday morning, resurrection, the empty tomb, six weeks of post-resurrection appearances.
Read about it in 1st Corinthians 15:3-8. He made all these post-resurrection appearances, Paul says, to 500 people at once. They actually saw the risen Christ.
And then Acts chapter 1, after 40 days of post-resurrection appearances, what happens? They’re on a hill outside of Jerusalem, and Dr. Luke records it in Acts chapter 1. Jesus ascends to heaven. After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. The angels appeared, men of Galilee, why do you stand here looking into the sky? Because Jesus just levitated up, that’s why.
Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This, here’s the promise, this same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him going to heaven. So, what’s the promise? He’s coming back. He’s not sending a representative.
Jesus is personally going to return back to the Mount of Olives someday. His feet will touch the Mount of Olives. And so, Jesus is coming again someday.
And then what happened then? 10 days later, Pentecost happened. The Holy Spirit came, and the church was born. The Bible calls it the blessed hope.
Blessed hope. He’s coming again. I shared this a number of weeks ago, but it just struck me.
And about six weeks ago, I was working with some of the TNT boys, third, fourth, fifth grade boys in our Awana program, helping them with their handbook time. And the young man I was working with, he was looking at, it was Titus chapter two, verses 11 through 13, that talks about the blessed hope that Jesus is coming again. And he had to answer some questions from the verse.
And then I said, do you know how we just celebrated Christmas? He says, yeah, yeah. I said, you know what this verse is saying? He said, what? He said, it’s saying that Jesus is going to come back a second time. And he looked at me, he says, he is? I said, yes, he’s coming back again.
And his eyes just lit up because he’d never heard that before. Well, the Bible says over and over and over again, Jesus is coming again. Revelation 22, three times, John writes in verse seven, look, I’m coming soon.
It really means quickly. Verse 12, quoting Jesus, look, I’m coming soon. My reward is with me.
Verse 20, he who testifies to these things says, yes, I’m coming soon. Amen. Come Lord Jesus.
And so, here’s the reminder that we need to focus on this morning that will hopefully encourage our hearts is that Jesus is coming again. We don’t know when, but that’s his promise. He’s coming a second time.
IV. Our bodies will be transformed at the return of Christ
All right, let’s look at one more reminder here from reminder number four from Paul writing to the Philippian believers. Again, verse 20, but our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. Here’s verse 21. Here’s our reminder, 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. So, here’s their fourth reminder that should encourage our hearts. Someday our bodies are going to be resurrected, changed.
That’s going to happen at the return of Christ. Our bodies will be transformed. Paul says they will be like his glorious body.
And so, Jesus resurrected body is the template for what our new bodies someday are going to be like. First John chapter three, verse two, dear friends, now are we the children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known, but we know that when he appears, when Jesus appears, we will be like him or we shall see him as he is. Our bodies will be transformed.
We’ll have a resurrected body and it’ll be a perfect body. We’ll talk about that in a little bit. I remember years ago, and if you’ve been at community Bible church for a long time, some of you may remember this individual.
He passed away 15 years ago. His name was Jerry Klein. Jerry lived down the road on Sharon Hollow and Jerry was a single fellow in his late 50s, early 60s.
He had no family around. Didn’t have any kids, wasn’t married. He had one brother who lived in Ecuador.
And so, he had no family. And so, he was a part of our church for a number of years. And we kind of reached out to Jerry and became his family.
Jerry was an interesting fellow. He was a security guard. And I remember him telling me one week that for whatever reason got laid off, lost his job.
And so, Jerry went through some hard times. And he went through some very, very difficult financial times. Very difficult as I found out.
And so, one time Jerry is here at the church and I knew that he was struggling financially. And so, he asked me a question. He says, would it be okay if I brought my trash and garbage from my house? I don’t have the money to really pay for a garbage service.
And is there any extra room where I could put it in the church containers? I said, yeah, you could do that. Occasionally we have some meals here where they might be full, but we usually have some extra room. And so, here’s what happened.
Jerry, I told him garbage pickups on Wednesday. And so, every Tuesday, Jerry would show up and Jerry would bring his trash and he would put it in the trash cans. And then Jerry would find me in my office.
I could tell he wanted to talk. I knew that Jerry, was very, very lonely. And so, I talked with Jerry and what I discovered and not in a negative way is that Jerry had a lot more time on his hands than I did.
And so, what I ended up doing was when Jerry would come in and he came in every Tuesday, I began to call it Tuesdays with Jerry, like that book I read, Tuesdays with Morrie. Every Tuesday, Jerry would show up and look at the clock when he came in and it was 9:30 in the morning. I said, you know what? We’re going to spend an hour together.
And at 10:30, I’m just going to tell Jerry, I appreciate you coming in. Let’s continue this next week. I kind of need to get on with my day.
So, Jerry and I had lots of conversations because we met for probably, I would say over a year, almost every Tuesday. Jerry was kind of a portly guy. He had some rather thick glasses as well.
And I remember we were talking about the hope of Easter and the promise of the resurrection. And Jerry’s telling me, he’s like, I hope my new body is like Arnold Schwarzenegger’s. I’m hoping to get an Arnold Schwarzenegger body in my resurrected body.
I don’t know if Jerry’s going to get that new body or not. What happened with Jerry, and this is after we’ve been meeting weekly for a long, long time. I remember getting a phone call and I don’t know, don’t remember the exact details, but somebody went into Jerry’s house.
He lived by himself. They found Jerry on the floor in his bedroom, called 911, airlifted to Toledo Hospital. I get the phone call that they found Jerry on his floor.
He’s airlifted to Toledo Hospital. I said, okay, I’m going to jump in the car and drive to Toledo, get to the hospital, get up to the floor that he was on. And I always remember the conversations of the faces, I’m Jerry Klein’s pastor, here to see Jerry.
There was an awkward silence. They said, I’m sorry, Jerry passed away. Well, someday we are all going to have a resurrected, transformed body.
There’s a book on heaven and our interest in heaven usually peaks when a loved one of ours passes away or someone that we know well passes away. Randy Alcorn, I brought it up here. Randy Alcorn wrote this book on heaven, 492 pages long.
If you have any question about heaven, I guarantee you it’s probably answered in this book. He took 25 years of research. Chapter 29 was, what will our bodies be like? What will these transformed bodies be like? Just a few thoughts here.
Our resurrected bodies will be real physical bodies. Jesus was not a spirit when he resurrected. It was a real flesh and blood body.
He ate food. It’s a physical body. Our resurrected bodies will be free of sin’s curse, redeemed to their original beauty and purpose.
Here’s some other questions he asks and answers. Will we all look alike? Are we going to look alike in heaven? Some of this is sanctified speculation, but he writes in the book, no, we’ll probably have differing heights and weights. It seems as likely as different skin colors, racial, ethnic identities will continue.
Revelation 5 talks about people from every tribe and tongue that’s in heaven. There’s no marriage in heaven. I don’t know if that encourages you or discourages you.
However, heaven, he says, won’t be without families, but will be one big family in which all family members are friends and all friends are family members. We’re going to have a huge, huge family. I was up at the hospital yesterday, at Henry Ford Hospital.
Bud’s there and Barb’s there, but Bud and Barb have six daughters, six married daughters. There were six daughters there. There were five or six sons-in-law there.
There was a raft of grandkids that were there all in that room just kind of loving on each other and supporting one another during Bud’s final hours. Heaven’s going to be this one big, big family. He asks a lot of other questions.
Will our resurrected bodies have five senses? Will they have new abilities? Will our bodies shine? Will we keep our gender identity of male and female? Will we all appear the same age? What will we do in heaven? We’re going to have new bodies. I guarantee what we’re going to do in heaven is we’re going to do a lot of worshiping, and we’re going to do a lot of serving. What a privilege it’ll be to serve the King of Kings.
Imagine you get a phone call and it’s from the President of the United States, and he wants you to do some sort of service for him. You say, man, what an honor. We’ll have the privilege of serving the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
Application questions
Well just a few application questions as we wrap this up, then we’re going to listen to a song that I know is going to probably be the best five and a half minutes of your day or your week.
1. am I a citizen of heaven?
Here’s the first question. Am I a citizen of heaven? That’s where it all starts, doesn’t it? Paul’s reminding these Philippian believers that your citizenship is in heaven, and Paul writes, examine yourself to make sure you’re in the faith.
We’re saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And so that’s the most important decision we can make, to turn from our sins and put our faith in Jesus and what he did on the cross for us as we reflect on that on this coming Good Friday and his payment for our sin. Am I a citizen of heaven? Have I made that commitment?
2. can I say along with the apostle Paul… “follow me as I follow Christ”?
Secondly, can I say along with the apostle Paul, follow me as I follow Christ? Some of us might say, I’m not comfortable with having people looking at my life and imitating my life.
Well, you’re an example, whether you want to be or not. You’re either a positive example or a negative example. We all are examples.
Believe me, if you have kids, they’ve got eyes watching you all the time. They’re watching your life and they’re watching what you say and watching what you do. Boy, we desperately need people who will be able to say to others, I’m not perfect, but I’m on my journey with Jesus. And would you follow me along with me as I follow Jesus?
3. am I eagerly anticipating and awaiting the return of Christ?
The third application question is this. This is the reminder this morning about the second coming. Am I eagerly anticipating and awaiting the return of Christ? Revelation 22, three times Jesus says, I’m coming soon. I’m coming quickly. 1st Thessalonians 4 talks about it, doesn’t it? The rapture of the church. And Jesus is going to descend with a shout, with a trumpet, voice of the archangel.
Dead in Christ are going to rise first. And then we who are alive and remain will be snatched up. The word rapture is not in the Bible, but the Latin translation of the word snatched up is the word rapturo.
That’s where we get the word rapture. And so shall we meet the Lord in the air. So shall we ever be with the lord.
Think about how our kids and probably when we were younger, we all anticipated like the celebration of Christmas and just that anticipation and the advent calendar and the countdown and the excitement and the anticipation. And while the Bible says we don’t know when Jesus is coming again, the fact of the matter is he is coming again and we need to be ready and we need to be watching and working and waiting because Jesus is coming soon. We don’t know when, but it’s one day closer than it was yesterday.
And he is coming again. Well, 1st Corinthians 13 verse 12, the love chapter, the apostle Paul writes these words, for now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then we’ll see Jesus face to face. There’s a day coming either with the rapture or when we die.
I believe absent from the body, present with the Lord. I believe a person that dies translates if they know Jesus immediately into the presence of God, Jesus to the thief on the cross. He said today, this very day, you will be with me in paradise and we’ll get to see Christ, get to see him face to face.
That’s what Bud Lane experienced at 1:30 this morning, released from a life of difficulty in the last few months to the glorious presence of the Lord.