Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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The word for this evening comes from
Philippians chapter three, verses Seventeen, through
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chapter four, verse one. So
I'd invite you, if you have your
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bibles, to turn there with me, Phippians chapter three, starting with verse
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seventeen. As we continue walking our
way through Philippians. Brothers, join in
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imitating me and keep your eyes on
those who walk according to the example you
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have in us. For many of
whom I've often told you, and now
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tell you even with tears, walk
as enemies of the Cross of Christ.
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Their end is destruction, their god
is their belly and they glory in their
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shame, with minds set on earthly
things. But our citizenship is in heaven,
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and from it we await a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
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will transform our lowly body to be
like his glorious body by the power that
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enables him even to subject all things
to himself. And Chapter Four, verse
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one. Therefore, my brothers,
whom I love and long for my joy
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and crown, stand firm thus in
the Lord, my beloved Amen. May
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God bless his word to us this
evening. You may be seated so.
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I have a two year old son, Jonathan, as well as a three
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month old son as well, David. But what's NEAT is that my two
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year old son has sort of gotten
to the stage in his life where he
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imitates everyone and everything he sees and
hears and it going on around him and
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it's really endearing to me because he's
copying me. It's sort of flattering.
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When I take my backpack of books
and leave the House to go work and
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study at Rincon Mountain, Jonathan wants
to come with me and so he picks
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up his diaper bag and says can
we go, let me get my shoes,
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let's go. When I ride my
bicycle and leaving the house, he'll
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come along on his tricycle and say
can I tag along, can I follow?
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When I'm washing the dishes, he's
right there washing the dishes to wanting
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to help, wanting to be there, wing to copy me. He does
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what he sees me doing, what
others do around him, and so I've
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learned, though, that this is
not just a particular stage in life,
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it's not just something that two year
olds do, it's something that all of
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us do. It's, in fact, it's just the way God designed us,
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that one of the best ways that
we learn is by imitating someone else,
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by copying them, watching them,
seeing how they do things and then
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following along. We learn by imitating
others. Budding musicians, they imitate the
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techniques of the greats. Athletes will
practice again and again the moves of their
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favorite sports players. Parents, if
you think about this, parents often practice
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the same kind of disciplinary habits and
interactions, what methods of interacting with their
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kids that their parents did with them
as because, you know, it's what
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they've seen, it's what they've experienced, just what they know. But,
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as at last example suggests, sometimes
imitating others can be a dangerous thing.
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What it really boils down to is
who are you imitating? Who are you
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coppying? Who are you following?
Who is leading you in this way?
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And that's Paul's point in our passage
this evening. Who Are you, in
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imitating be can he says here basically
that whoever you are imitating, it's that
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shows where your allegiance is. Whoever
you imitate shows where your true allegiance lies.
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And I talked about allegiance intentionally because
in this passage, and I don't
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know if you caught it as we
were reading, but there's there's a lot
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of political language in this. It's
actually a very politically oriented and charged passage
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it one of the key phrases in
terms in this passage is citizenship, being
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a citizen of Philippi, of Rome, and then he talks about being a
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citizen of Heaven. And so it
all boils down to, Paul, says,
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a question of citizenship, where it
is your allegiance lie? And Paul
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wants us to realize that in terms
of spiritual citizenship, there's really only two
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options. Either you belong to the
city of God or the city of Man.
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You can't have dual citizenship. It's
impossible. It's one or the other.
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And whichever city you belong to is
then demonstrated by what you do,
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how you act, who you follow. So Paul flushes us out, for
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us in our passage, first by
telling us to image state him, and
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then by giving us two reasons why
we should be imitating him. So first
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the imitation of Paul reads me again
verse Seventeen Brothers Join in imitating me,
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and keep your eyes on those who
walk according to the example you have in
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us. And if you're a Christian
here this evening, Paul's words here,
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imitate me can be kind of disconcerting. Imitate me. It's something that we're
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not too comfortable with saying on our
own, is it? When we talk
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about imitating me, imitate me,
follow me, do what I do,
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say what I say, act how
I act. When we say it,
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we're saying, look at me,
I'm a cut above the rest. Might
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just look at my work. It
speaks for itself. I'm the top dog.
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This is something, an honor that
I'm worthy of. And so we
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wonder, is this what Paul's actually
saying? It's he being arrogant here?
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Is He being friedful? And that
that too sounds kind of weird. We
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don't want to say that. So
what's going on here? What is Paul
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talking about? Because it sounds like
it's boasting, and it's interesting him,
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as Chris preached a couple weeks ago
here, if you look further back in
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chapter three, Paul says I could
boast. I have every right to boast.
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In fact, just look back with
me at versus five and six.
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He says that he could boast about
his resume if he wanted to. Actually,
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starting with verse four, though,
I have reason reason for confidence in
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the flesh also, if anyone else
thinks he has reason for confidence in the
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flesh. I have more circumcised on
the eighth day of the people of Israel,
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of the tribe of Benjamin, a
Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the
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law of Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the Church, as
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to righteousness under the law. blameless. He's saying, here's my pedigree,
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you, you can see it for
yourself. Just go and ask anyone.
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I could boast if I wanted to, about my accomplishments and my achievements.
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He says that he could. He
is someone who should be imitated in the
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eyes of the world. Paul is
the pinnacle of Judaism in a lot of
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ways. And yet Paul says all
that is worthless compared to the righteousness that
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he has found in Christ, compared
to that perfect obedience that has been counted
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as his. In comparison to that, everything is like Dune. It's worthless,
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it's filthy, it's vile, has
no value and meaning and worth.
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And so Paul here is telling us
to imitate him, not in his strength
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but in his weakness, not in
his sufficiency but in his dependency, not
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in his confidence in the flesh,
but in his confidence in Christ, telling
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US imitate his faith. That's what
he's talking about, and so this is
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completely counterintuitive. We wouldn't this isn't
what we would think or say when we
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say imitate me. We wouldn't normally
look for these qualities in a role model
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either. Weakness instead of strength,
humility instead of, you know, force
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of personality. He's saying that.
Well, when we think about role models,
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when we think about who to follow
are the question that comes to our
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mind is what will get me furthest
ahead? Whom can I imitate? Who
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Can I study under? Who Can
I be apprentice to? That will be
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the most benefit to me? He
says, no, this is not his
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thinking. Here. Paul is telling
us to be deliberate and intentional instead about
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becoming, as Jesus said in the
beattitude, poor in spirit. That's what
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Paul is talking about. He's calling
us to realize that I had, I
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and you have no resources, no
accomplishments, no achievements, nothing that could
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earn us anything with God. That
in his sight, we come to him
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with nothing in our hands. So
we have to cling solely to Christ.
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So imitate me is Paul's way.
of saying, imitate my hope and dependency
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on Christ. In addition, this
command here doesn't just tell us to imitate
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Paul. What else say? He
says here in verse Seventeen, and keep
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your eyes on those who walk according
to the example you have in us.
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And so he's telling here also to
extend this imitation to those godly Christians in
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your midst who are walking in the
same way, who have the same faith,
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who have the same dependency on God
and others. Paul is telling you
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to seek out these people and to, as he says here, literally fix
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your eyes on them, to observe
them, watch them, see how they
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react to certain situations, interact with
them, be mentored by them, sit
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under their teaching, as it were, under their way of life, and
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learn from them as well. And
so, if I can make a bit
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of application here, who here at
covenant would you see as being someone like
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that, someone godly whom you could
imitate, someone who you could be mentored
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by and matured by because they're following
the same faithful way of life that Paul
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is talking about here? Obviously your
pastor and your elders, but who else?
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Paul talks and titus to versus two
through five, about what godly men
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and women look like, folks that
you can sit under and learn from.
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Do you have any of those here
that you could talk with? Orn just
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listen, to listen to their experiences
as they've walked through life. And so
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the last thing I want to say
before I move on from this point is
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that this task, Paul says,
is a community effort, and it's at
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first word there that he talks about
not in the English. The English is
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brothers, but that join in imitating
me. It's it's it's a utterly unique
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word. It's actually the only time
it's ever used in any Greek literature ever,
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and so it's possible all that Paul
just coined this word to describe what
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he's trying to get at. He's
talking about being coimitators, commics, if
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you will, those who are encouraging
each other and building up each other as
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together, we as a body imitate
Paul and the Godly ones in our midst.
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It's that. It's that idea and
friends. That's a it's interesting because
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that is a picture what the church
is supposed to be. There are no
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Lone Ranger Christians. It's impossible it's
not how God designed it, the author
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to the Hebrew says in chapter ten. Let us consider how to stir up
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one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as
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is a habit of some, but
encouraging one another and all the way,
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as you see, the day drawing
near. And so we have this responsibility
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together to be encouraging and pressing on, keeping each other accountable as we walk
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this walk of faith, as we
follow after Christ and after those that he
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has put us under. And so
that's the first point, the imitation of
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Paul. And then Paul gives us
two reasons why it's important to imitate him.
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In the first reason is this.
It's easy to be deceived and go
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astray. Look with me again at
verses eighteen and nineteen. For many of
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whom I've often told you, and
now tell you even with tears, walk
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as enemies of the Cross of Christ. Their end just destruction, their god
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is their belly and they glory in
their shame, with mindset on earthly things.
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And so Paul is saying here,
basically, don't be deceived. See,
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he cares too much for the Christians
at Philippi to let anyone pull the
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wool over their eyes as to what
a true Christian is supposed to look like.
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These people that Paul talks about,
these enemies of the Cross, of
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Christ, from the context, seem
like they are at least claiming to be
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Christians. They are folks who are
in the church or sort of maybe on
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the periphery of the church gathering.
They claim to belong to Christ but their
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actions, their behaviors don't match,
they don't line up, and so,
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as a result, you hear this
sadness in Paul's voice here, which actually
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kind of rare to see this sort
of emotion in his writings. He says,
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I tell you, even with tears, they walk as enemies of Christ.
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So who are these enemies? Let's
let's look at this a little bit
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more. They are probably those who
are claiming to be Christians, but they're
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not. Their Counterfeit Christians. And
so Paul is already, in this chapter
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and chapter three, introduced us to
some phonies. Back in verse two,
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Paul Talks About look out for the
dogs, look out for the evildoers,
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look out for those who mutilate the
flesh. So Paul is introducing US here
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to those that we know as the
Judaizers, those who are trying to force
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Christians, those in the body of
Christ, to follow the ceremonial laws of
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the Old Testament, saying that these
are still applicable and valid for you today,
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particularly circumcision and especial diet, that
the Kosher Diet. And so they
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believe, these judaisers believe that you
had to do these certain things in order
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to be acceptable before God. You
had to bring your works with you to
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him. But Paul's response to them
in verse two, as we read,
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is harsh. He calls them dogs
and mutilators of the flesh, but in
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verse eighteen, in our passage,
he cries. It's an interesting contrast,
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even in the same chapter, about
two different enemies of Christ. And so,
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as a result, these probably are
not the same groups of people.
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The ones here in verse eighteen are
probably those that we would term Antinomians,
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those who are against the law,
those who say the law doesn't applied to
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me anymore at all, even the
Ten Commandments. I'm I've been forgiven by
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Christ. His righteousness is mine and
as a result, I can live however
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I want. Essentially, that's what
they're saying. And yet the whole point
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of our passage this evening is that
it does matter how you live, how
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you walk, who you imitate.
Faith produces fruit, friends, that's pretty
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good literation. Faith produces fruit.
If Jesus had has counted you right in
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his sight, then he is at
the same time also working in you,
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sanctifying you, purifying you from your
sin. You have to have both.
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You have to have both. As
Jesus says, a good tree will produce
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good fruit. You can't have one
without the other. As Paul writes and
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Romans Chapter six, verse two,
how can we who have died to sin
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still live in it? Some possible? It's wrong. It grates against the
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way that thing the way that God
has designed it, the way things are
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supposed to be. And so,
out of gratitude to Christ for all he
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has done for us, we should
seek to be holy. We should seek
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to imitate Paul, just as Paul
in First Corinthians Eleven, verse one,
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says I imitate Christ. And so, tragically, these people are deceiving themselves
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about who they really belong to.
Paul doesn't leave us and suspense here as
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to their destination. He says that
their end is destruction, and then he
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goes on and says their God is
their belly, which probably is not just
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referring to gluttony, it's probably also
referring to sensuality and lust. There's this
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whole self indulgent lifestyle that these people
are involved in, in deeply committed to.
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And so what's being communicated here is
that these pseudo Christians, as a
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result, then glory in their shame. In other words, their consciences have
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been so seared by repeated sin over
and over and over that they don't feel
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anything anymore. There it. There's
no pangs of conscience, no guilt when
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they do disobey God and as a
result, they boast in it, they
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brag about it, about what they
do and what they've done. And then,
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lastly, Paul says, their minds
are set on earthly things. So
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this is where their true allegiance lies. As John says in a first John
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to verse fifteen, if anyone loves
the world, the love of the father
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is not in him. And so
these people, Paul is saying, they've
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been sucked into a love of the
world, they've been sucked into the things
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of the world and as result,
the love of the father is not in
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them, and so this it would
be tempting to just sort of like move
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on at this point. I think
it's appropriate, particularly given Paul's grief over
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these people, to just just sit
here and reflect for a second on us
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and to ask the question. Do
we love the world? Where have we
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exchanged the love of God for the
love of the stuff of the world,
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as John Says, the lust of
the flesh and the lust of the eyes
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and the pride of possessions? Do
you, when you look at yourself,
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do you see such things in you? Maybe you're not going out and you
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know committing these committing it fornication and
whatever else that these folks were doing,
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but do you, when you look
at Yourself, See Laziness, see self
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indulgence? When you look at your
heart, what do you see? That's
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what Paul is asking us to do, to examine ourselves. What are your
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darling sins, as the other assistant
pastor at rank on is fond of saying,
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what things would you hold onto and
maybe you know are wrong, but
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you just can't quite give them up
because they're too dear to you. And
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so, friends, is Paul says
elsewhere, run to Jesus, give them
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to Jesus recognize that they have been
paid for at the cross, but that
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you then the penalty has been paid, but that he is also freeing you
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from the power of sin as well, not just its penalty. The spirit
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is at work in you, changing
your heart, and so give those things
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over to Christ. So that's reason
number one why we should imitate Paul,
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all because it's easy to deceive ourselves. But then Paul also gives us a
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second reason, this one more hopeful, and it's that where citizens of Heaven,
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we read with me again versus twenty
and twenty one. But our citizenship
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is in heaven, and from it
we await a savior, the Lord Jesus
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Christ, who will transform our lowly
body to be like his glorious body by
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the power that enables him even to
subject all things to himself. And so
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that word citizenship there, citizens of
Heaven, that it's a loaded term for
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the Philippians, because Philippi, the
city, was a Roman colony. It
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in BC forty two, I believe
Julius Caesar fought a battle or not.
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Julius Augustus Caesar fought a battle there
and defeated his enemies and as a result
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granted Philippi the right of being a
Roman colony and, as a result,
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if you were a citizen of Philippi, you were also a citizen of Rome,
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with all the perks and privileges that
that brought with it, the legal
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system and good roads and protection,
and meant a lot to the Philippians.
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They were very proud of the fact
that they were Romans, and so the
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Philippians got what Paul was talking about. Here he's making actually a very subversive
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claim. He's telling him that our
citizenship, your primary citizenship, is in
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heaven, not Rome, and that
that is just mindboggling, considering the political
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situation at that time. Rome was
the world. It was the world economically,
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militarily, politically, that was it. He's saying this is more important
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than that. First and foremost,
your citizens of Heaven, and Paul Supports
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His argument by calling Christ two titles
that would only have been used at that
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time, at least publicly, of
Caesar, the titles savior and Lord,
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and those two titles actually were minted
on the Greek coins of that day as
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well, reminding everyone just who was
in charge. Caesar is savior, he
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rescued us, he delivers us from
disease and war, protects us, and
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he's also our Lord. He rules
the known world. Paul is saying we
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have a better savior, one who
is not just rescued us from foes abroad,
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but one who has delivered us from
the punishment that we deserve for our
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sin. We have a better Lord, one who doesn't just rule a small
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portion, a corner of the world, but one who one day, every
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knee will bow to and every tongue
will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
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as Paul has already talked about here. In Philippians too, this is your
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better savior and this is your better
Lord. And then, as Paul announces
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here, he's coming back. When
he comes, when he returns, and
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in that day again, when Caesar
came to a city, when he visited
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a city, it was a huge
celebration. Our Savior and our Lord is
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coming to visit. And Paul here
is saying you're better savior and Lord is
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coming, not to visit but to
stay, and he's bringing with him something
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far better than Caesar could ever give. He's going to make you and he's
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going to remake you. He's going
to give you a resurrection body conformed to
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his own glorified body. So Paul's
Point is that Christ is better than Caesar
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and he's coming soon. Paul just
sort of at the end of this verse
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twenty one then just throws out the
sort of tagline at the end. It's
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really funny actually, by the power
that enables him even to subject all things
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to himself, compared to the power
of Christ in his coming, the power
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that can totally change your body and
transform you, at his coming, into
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his likeness perfectly, to a body
that will not experience pain and sorrow and
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suffering when all evil has been crushed
under his feet. Compared to that kind
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of power, the power of Rome
is nothing. Your truces and ship,
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your betters and ship who you are
as citizens of Heaven. And then Paul,
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lastly, the wrap us up,
sort of ties all these things together.
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And Chapter Four, verse one,
therefore, my brothers, whom I
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love and long for, my joy
and crown stand firmed us in the Lord,
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my beloved and so Paul began by
telling us and teaching us to imitate
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him. But here, at the
end, he tells us to stand firm.
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There he told us to walk in
this particular way here, he tells
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us, don't move, stay still, stand firm, be rooted and rooted
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in Christ. It's as if he's
saying, let me simplify all this for
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you. Let me just boil it
down. Do you want to know what
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the mature Christian Walk Looks like?
It looks like standing still on that sure,
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unshakable rock. It looks like sinking
your roots deep into him, less
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the the storms of this life would
knock you over. It looks like giving
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up everything simply to grab hold of
the one who is grabbed hold of us
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and brought us to himself, and
in doing so, Jesus then redefines who
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we are. He takes the weak, the unlovely, the despised, and
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makes us beautiful, beloved jewels in
his crown. You're my crown, in
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my joy. This is a one
to whom we owe everything. We owe
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him our life, we owe him
are allegiance, we owe himm are obedience.
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And this, friends, is why
we must trust him, trusting him
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with all that we are, all
that we have, day in and day
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out, following after him. Amen, let's pray
