The Upward Call Of God

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Rob Konold, Phillipians; Phillipians 3:12-21 The Upward Call Of God

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glorify God and sing about His holiness. He is perfect and awesome.
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Well as we dig into the message today, Philippians, Paul the Apostle wrote this book to the
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Philippians in Philippi. That's pretty obvious, right? The letter to the Philippians. Paul was an apostle to the
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Gentiles and he wrote a good portion of the New Testament. I just wanted to give a few brief facts and background on the book of Philippians as we dive into chapter 3.
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You know, Paul, despite being imprisoned in a Roman cell as a prisoner now, ten years after planting and starting the church in Philippi, he's writing a letter back to encourage them.
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First of all, I just find that amazing that Paul would have that attitude, that perspective. He would care about them instead of worrying about himself.
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In the letter, earlier we read that he basically tells them how he's doing. He says, you know,
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I'm imprisoned, but good things are happening. But ultimately he's on trial for his life and he's appealed to Caesar and that's where he's at.
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And he's willing to die. He even says that in chapter 1. You know, he says, it's actually better if I die because then
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I get to go be with Christ. And he actually exalts in that thought. But he says, I think it's more necessary that I stay.
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And because of that, I'm convinced that I'm going to remain here to basically, he says, his purpose then is to strengthen other believers, to encourage others like the
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Philippians. And that's really the purpose of his letter. And that's what we see flowing through his letter. It's just a letter of love and joy and encouragement to the
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Philippians. In chapter 2, he highlights Christ's example and it's one of the most beautiful passages in Philippians where he basically describes how
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Christ, being God, humbled himself and came to earth and died for us. And he says that's the example we should be following.
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We should be humble as Christ was humble. In chapter 3, the first few verses, we saw
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Paul's own example. And he points back to the time when he was a Pharisee. And he says,
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I tried to achieve a righteousness on my own. I strove, I worked, you know, I was doing everything a
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Pharisee should do. And my righteousness, he says, amounts to nothing compared to Christ.
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He draws this contrast, this beautiful contrast between his own righteousness that was nothing, it was like garbage, versus the all -surpassing beauty and value in just knowing
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Christ and in having his righteousness, a righteousness that comes from Christ alone, is not by works, is not by any effort that Paul has put forward.
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And that's the background that I want to use as we launch into chapter 3, verse 12. And I would love for you to have your
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Bibles open, to be looking at these verses as I refer to them, and we talk through them. Read it for yourself, you know, think about it, analyze it, dig into it, and, you know, as I mentioned in the introduction, allow the
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Holy Spirit to do His work in convicting you. Paul starts off by saying in verse 12 that he has not already attained all of this or already been made perfect.
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So I think the first thing we need to think about here is what is Paul talking about? And so we look at context, and we see just now in verses preceding this,
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Paul has said the following. He said, specifically, he wants to know
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Christ. And not just know Christ, but he expands on that. He says, the power of His resurrection, the fellowship of His suffering.
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That doesn't sound fun. He says, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
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So this is all the things that Paul is saying that he has not already attained. He hasn't arrived yet.
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And I guess that makes sense, right? Because Paul is still alive and kicking. He's still above ground and moving.
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And hopefully everyone here is in the same camp. We're all still, hopefully, alive and kicking. And so he's saying,
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I have not been perfected yet. I have not attained it all. I have not arrived yet.
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And the word perfect here in this verse is, in the Greek, it's teleo, which means to complete or finish a race, or to be perfected.
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So Paul says, I have not attained that. Now, maybe some of you think you're perfect, or maybe not. Maybe some of you know people who think they're perfect.
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They're all that and a bag of chips, or whatever the expression is these days. Well, the honest truth is, we're not.
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And as Christians, in this life, we're not going to arrive at perfection. I hate to break it to you.
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We're still in sinful bodies. This happens down the road for us. You know, we who believe in Christ, and we put our faith and trust in Him, and we have a hope of eternal life, and we have that hope is really confident assurance that someday we will be perfected.
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But we know that right now, we live in imperfection. We've not finished our race. So that's the whole point here.
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Paul says, despite that fact, he says he presses on to make it his own. He presses forward.
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The Greek word there is dioko, which means to aggressively pursue, to chase, to just go after it like a prize, like a hunter would go after his prize, whatever he's hunting.
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Who here hunts, by the way? Any of you got any hunters in the house? I'm going to keep my hand down. I'm not a hunter. So this analogy probably makes more sense to you.
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I don't know how hard you have to work to hunt. I do know people get up real early in the morning.
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I know they go out in the dark. I know they get through, you know, persevere through cold weather and all kinds of misery for that prize, and they work hard for it.
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Paul's using the same word that you might use for that type of thing. It's actually the same word
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Paul uses earlier to talk about persecuting believers. It's the same passion and zeal he had as a
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Pharisee hunting down Christians. He's saying, now I'm pursuing Christ now.
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He's got that same passion, but now it's in the right direction. At the end of verse 12,
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I want to point out that it's a reminder here, and it's kind of ironic, that, you know,
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Paul is pursuing to take hold of Christ, but Christ already took hold of Paul. You know,
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Paul is really just responding to what Christ has already done. And I think that's an incredible assurance to us.
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You know, we need to pursue Christ aggressively, eagerly, but there's peace and assurance in the fact that Christ has already taken a hold of us.
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He is the initiator, and we are the responder. It reminds me of the analogy that we see in Ephesians, and we see it in Revelations, that Christ considers himself the husband, and the whole church is the bride, the bride of Christ, right?
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And Christ is taking the church. It is Him pursuing us. It is
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Him initiating toward us, and we respond to Him. So how do we respond?
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Well, Paul is going to now go into an explanation of really how to do this. So if you could make the transition to the slide, this is my weak attempt at a graphic illustrating this passage, so forgive the artwork, but I hope it just gives you a little bit of an illustration of what
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Paul is communicating here. So Paul is saying that he's on this journey, that he has not yet taken a hold of it, the prize.
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So clearly, we're not talking about salvation. We know that salvation happens at the point of conversion.
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When you accept Christ and believe and put your faith in Him, you're saved. But we're still following on this journey, this upward call, which we'll be talking about.
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So in the future, we will have this prize. So I'd like to go on through the rest of verse 13.
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He goes on to describe this method of how he goes about this, and it's interesting what he says. He says, first of all, forgetting what is behind, he strives toward what is ahead.
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So if you could advance the slide, there's the forgetting the behind part,
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I would call that step one, and then there's straining forward toward the prize, I would call that step two.
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And I want to expand on this forgetting what's behind for a second. So what does that mean, forget what's behind?
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Like, how do you forget about your past? Is it good to forget about the past? Isn't there good things in the past we should hang on to and remember?
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Sure. So what is Paul talking about here? I believe that what he is referring to is forgetting or letting go of the harmful and bad and negative things in our past that hold us back.
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And I think there's a difference between that and like the forgetting, which is kind of like a lobotomy.
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I don't think that Paul is saying, go have a surgical procedure and just chop out all those things. You can't forget, right?
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But you can let go and you can forgive and those things. And that's what I want to focus on is what is
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Paul getting at? He's talking about letting go of those things. You know, I was thinking about this. It's funny how we can be forgetful about some things, like where are the car keys or that appointment that, oops, totally let that person down, forgot about that, forgot to pick up the kids.
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I mean, we can be forgetful about some things, but it's when you get hurt, when you get wounded, when something bad happens in your life, man, those things are hard to forget, aren't they?
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I mean, they, I don't know, they just, it's hard not to dwell on them. It's hard not to recall them and think about them.
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So I want to just talk about three ways, three things that can hinder us or weigh us down.
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And there they are. Just forgetting the past in verse 13, I think it's referring to, I'm going to just cover these one by one, circumstances.
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So I think we all have, can identify circumstances that something that's happened in the past that's really hard to let go of.
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It might be you lose your job or financial struggles or just an opportunity that just didn't pan out.
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Or maybe, you know, you're just at a point in your life and a career hasn't turned out the way you thought it would or a relationship hasn't turned out the way you thought it would.
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And you're just discouraged. And these circumstances in the past can weigh us down.
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I think there's another thing that can weigh us down and that's sin. And I'm talking about things that we've done wrong.
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Things that we know are wrong and we know we've done the wrong thing.
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And that guilt, that can be a significant burden in our life. Sometimes you can't forgive yourself.
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You just feel this burden of guilt and this heaviness weighs on you. And I want to encourage you that there are active, tangible steps that you should take if you have sinned.
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And first of all, you should apologize if you've wronged someone. First step one is seek forgiveness.
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And secondly, you should look to make that right. I mean, if there's something you've done wrong and you can restore it, make it right, give it back, make it better, then do that.
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And then third thing is, you know, sin is primarily against God. God is a holy
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God. We just talked about that. And when we sin, when we do wrong things, even to other people, we've broken
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God's law and we need to repent and ask for God's forgiveness. There's a verse that's well known, 1
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John 1, 9, it says, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
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And I would just encourage you, if you're struggling with sin and the guilt of sin, seek forgiveness, you know, repent and turn from it.
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Ask God for forgiveness. But then the beauty is, God does forgive. And we then need to forgive ourselves and we need to let go of it and move on.
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Last thing I want to mention here is I think this is even harder. Sometimes when someone sins against you and you've been wronged, that is a very difficult thing to deal with.
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You may be in the right. In fact, that's the whole problem. When you've been wronged and someone else has done the wrong to you, there's a sense of justice there.
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And it's really hard to let go of that. Maybe you have to live with the consequences of someone else messing up.
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It's not right. And I get that too. And I think sometimes it's even harder when someone you love has been wronged and there's a sin that's been committed.
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And how do you forgive when the consequences just remain and they won't go away and you've got to deal with it the rest of your life maybe?
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That is not trivial. So if you're weighed down by that, I just want to encourage you to forgive.
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Because to hang on to that issue, that bitterness, it just grows roots inside your heart and it poisons your life.
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You end up doing more damage to yourself by hanging on to it. We have to forgive.
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It frees our own hearts to forgive. And we can forgive because God has forgiven us. Colossians 3 .13,
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forgive as the Lord forgave you. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. When you consider that He's forgiven us of everything we've done, that enables us to turn and forgive.
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So, you know, before we leave this topic, I just want to say that I hope this doesn't sound too easy because I think that carrying these heavy burdens and these deep wounds in our lives are not trivial and they're not easy.
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And I know that I'm just scratching the surface of this topic. And if you're really struggling with something here,
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I just want to encourage you to come talk to me. Talk to Don. Talk to Zach.
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Or maybe there's another mature believer that you would like to share your burden with.
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There is help. I also want to just mention that something called journey groups. Many in this church have actually been a part of.
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And these are small groups that meet and they're confidential and they really help you deal with some of these deep wounds that we have, that we carry in our lives and help you work through those.
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So, there is help. I don't want to gloss over this point. I want to encourage you to seek help if you're struggling with something in the past.
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But verse 14, we do need to move forward.
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And Paul says that he presses on toward the goal for the prize of the upward calling
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Christ Jesus. And that's the arrow pointing forward. We want to strain ahead. We want to press forward.
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And what are we pressing forward to? It's a prize. What does this word mean?
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This prize, I was wondering this as I began to study this passage. And as I look at the context,
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I do truly believe that this prize is referring to Jesus Christ.
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And it's referring to everything that pertains to having
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Christ and the future reward that that entails. So, what I believe it means is it's knowing
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Christ, it's sharing in his sufferings, it's becoming like Christ even in death, and it's being resurrected like him with new and glorious and awesome bodies.
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And the slide now shows those items there under the prize. And I believe that this is really, back in verses 10 and 11, this list captures it.
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Someone asked me a question. They said, well, is the prize Christ or is the prize heaven or is the prize, you know, being resurrected?
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You know, what's the prize? And I believe it's all of that. I don't believe you can separate those things.
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To know Christ and to believe in him is to have all of this. This is all the glorious result of our faith in Christ, and it's an awesome thing.
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Paul describes this as an upward calling, an upward calling. And I also wanted to focus in on this word upward, you know, what does that mean?
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Well, the word upward in the Greek, some definitions there include above, things above, or up to the brim, as in like filling up to the brim, or heaven, or it means like heavenly realms.
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I believe that what Paul is talking about here is this upward calling is referring to knowing our destination is in heaven, and eventually a restored earth.
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So I believe that upward is really referring to the fact that we're looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth.
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And Peter, in chapter 2, verses 3 to 3, 13, sorry,
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Peter 3, verse 13, says that very thing, that we're looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth.
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Later in this passage, verse 20, if you just look down the page, you're going to notice that Paul himself says in verse 20 that we are citizens, our citizenship is in heaven.
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And again, I think these thoughts are connected, that our upward calling is toward heaven. So what's this going to be like?
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What is it going to be like to be in heaven? Who here has been to heaven? Anybody expert on this?
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I need some help, no, good. So I guess I can say whatever I want, because none of you guys can, no, no, what
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I'm going to tell you is I'm going to, certainly based on Scripture, and everything I say this morning, by the way, please go to Scripture, check it out for yourself, make sure
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I'm not speaking anything that's incorrect, because I want to base my thoughts and my words on Scripture.
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But what is it going to be like? What is it going to be like to have a new and glorious and resurrected body, first of all?
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Well, can you imagine zero aches and pains? I'm not going to ask for a rate, show your hands if you're over 40, but I am over 40 right now, and I can tell you that I'm starting to feel a few more aches and pains, and I think it's going to get worse.
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I don't think it's going to get a whole lot better. Ray confirms it, it is going to get a little worse. No aches and pains, no weakness, no frailty, can you imagine that?
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Never getting sick, never, no fevers, no cancer, no pain, no sorrow, no mass killings, no fear, no death, no sadness,
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I can't imagine it, I really can't, I mean I can say all those things and try to imagine it, but it's hard to really envision.
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Heaven is going to be amazing. Can you imagine being reunited with loved ones that have moved on? I know that that's going to be a joyous reunion.
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Can you imagine the things that you'll be doing and experiencing? I don't know, I just can't fathom what all is going to be entailed there, but it's pretty awesome to think about.
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Can you imagine being physically present with God? I think that that's going to outshadow and just blow everything else away.
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I don't know what that's going to be like to be in God's presence, but I imagine, since He's the greatest being in the universe, that He's going to kind of just capture us completely.
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You know, Carrie and I were just talking this morning about this, and if we could just catch a glimpse of what this prize, what this future state is going to be like,
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I think it would change us. I think it would change how we live and how we act every day.
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And then I thought about this and I thought, well yeah, but then we'd get distracted by everything around us. So I mean
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I think the key is capturing that vision and then keeping it there, right? Not losing sight of it.
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I don't know how to do that, but I just want to encourage you to contemplate and dwell on this glorious future we have, because what's around us, the physical, this world that God's created, it is full of sin, and there is a lot of distractions on this journey that we're on, this upward calling.
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So I just wanted to say that all of that sounds great, and that sounds incredible, and I hope you're starting to long for that day.
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I hope you are. Have you ever heard this prayer that's at the end of Revelation, come
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Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus? I think that should be our heart and our prayer and our desire.
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But have you ever wondered why in the world are we still here now? So if we've been saved and we have this glorious future and Christ has bought us and we're now
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His and we're heading toward this prize, why can't we have the prize now? Like just boom, make it happen.
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Why can't I be there? Why do we have to keep living in a simple world, experiencing pain, hardship, sickness, death, all this stuff?
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And I honestly have to say, only God knows the complete answer. But I believe that from His Word we can come to a few conclusions.
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And I want to just throw out three things, three purposes for continuing on in this world, for continuing on in this journey, this upward call of God.
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And this is what they are. Number one, to mature and grow us up in our faith, to mature us and grow us up in our faith.
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James chapter 1 says very clearly that we experience trials and suffering for the purpose of growing in maturity.
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First Peter 4 says the same thing. So I believe all of this is part of the sanctification process.
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It's helping us grow into more Christ -likeness. It's maturing us, as painful as it is. Second point, to spread the good news, the
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Great Commission. And so many of us I think have heard of Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 and 20, tell the whole world about the gospel and the good news and to make disciples of all nations.
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This is a glorious and a great commission and it's critical.
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It's amazing that God would entrust it to us, that He would ask us as the believers, as the church, to carry this good news.
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His message to the world. So that's an important reason for being here.
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And then thirdly, it's to glorify God, it's to glorify God. Right here, right now, in everything we do.
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You know, God is going to be glorified when He returns and that's the truth and that's the end state.
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But right now and right here, we are living it out.
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God's put us here. I don't know where you live exactly, I live in Matawan, but God's got us here.
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And so we're living and breathing and we're toughing it out through the ups and downs of life. And this is really where I want you to consider your purpose.
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I want you to consider why you're here. You know, what's the meaning that you have in your life?
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Why do you get up every morning, get dressed, do the chores, go to work, take care of kids?
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What is the purpose in all of this? So many people don't have this sense of purpose and reason and meaning in life and they struggle.
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I think that God has infused us with an incredible meaning and purpose in life and a sense of mission.
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It reminds me of the passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 20. We are essentially
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God's ambassadors, we're Christ's ambassadors on earth. I like that title.
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It sounds kind of important, you know, when you're forming ambassador and you're in another country and you're the representative.
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We are Christ's representatives. We are to appeal to people to be reconciled to God.
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We're to give this message of hope. There's no other name under heaven by which people can be saved.
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It's Jesus Christ alone. And we have a privilege of sharing that good news. You know,
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I just want to describe how we do that and I think we all know this, but we do it through how we live.
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We do it in the relationships that we have with other people and people can see how we relate.
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We do it in the way we speak to people, in our language, the way we show kindness, the way we show love.
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You know, most importantly, it's the gospel itself. We can share those words, the literal words of truth that God through Jesus Christ has saved the world and that people need to put their faith and trust in Christ.
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And I want to encourage you with that sense of mission and purpose in life that we have. Verse 15 and 16, we're going to move on now.
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Paul is saying, and I'm going to paraphrase here, if you're a mature believer, he says, then you already agree with me.
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But if you don't, don't worry about it because God will clear things up for you eventually.
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So, wherever you're at, whatever knowledge, whatever spiritual maturity you have, he says, just live up to that.
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Just strive to live to what you know is right. I think that's a really good calling.
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The Bible teaches us a whole lot, we know, about what's right and what's wrong, about godly living. And I think that studying
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God's word and learning these things is very important. But I honestly think that's the easy part. I think learning what's right and wrong and knowing what's right and wrong is the easy part.
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I think the hard part is living it out and walking the talk.
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But by God's grace, we have an incredible help in that journey. And we're not alone.
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And I think, hopefully we all know this, the Holy Spirit is a gift from God to help us.
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So, just a couple of words of encouragement to you this morning as we're on this journey, we're straining forward toward the prize.
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I want to encourage you with a couple of thoughts. First of all, did you know that God's Spirit is in you?
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He is alive and in you if you're a believer in Christ. That's incredibly good news. I hope you look at that as good news.
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Paul himself stated in another book, 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 -21, he says, don't you know, your body is a temple of the
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Holy Spirit who is in you, who you have received from God. And Paul actually says this in the context of sexual immorality.
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So he's actually saying it to kind of convict them that, hey, hello, wake up here. You got the
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Spirit of God inside you. How could you do this terrible thing? But I think that the same thing is true in a positive sense.
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The Holy Spirit is empowering us to choose to live rightly, and that includes turning from the wrong things.
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It reminds me of Galatians chapter 5, Galatians 5, another book penned by Paul, he says, live by the
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Spirit. He says, walk with the Spirit. And he describes how to do that, he says, well, verses 19 -21 of Galatians 5,
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I'm not going to read that to you because that's a bunch of sinful junk, okay? We don't want to do that stuff. But the following verses, verses 22 and 23 of Galatians 5 clearly state what your life should look like if the
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Spirit of God is in you, and if the Spirit of God is being lived out through your life.
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And it's the fruit of the Spirit. Many of us are familiar with the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.
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These are the things that should characterize our life. And as the Spirit of God is alive in you and working in you, you should see those fruits, those things coming out in your life.
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And that's what it looks like as you're going on this upward journey, this upward call of God.
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So I just want to take a little segue here and just a side note here and just explain, do we need to live for God?
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Do we need to pursue God, to do right things, to be active in our faith?
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Yes, we do. And that's what Paul is living out, that's his example to us in this passage.
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We need to pursue Christ, and we need to pursue this upward calling, and we need to do it with all of our strength and all of our effort.
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And Paul is demonstrating that for us. I mean, that's exactly his point in this passage. But we're not alone.
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As I've just mentioned, God Himself is living in us, and He's helping us.
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He's actually the one causing us. He's like our motor, pushing us up that ramp. He is the
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Holy Spirit in us, helping us live this out. So I hope that's encouraging to you this morning.
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Verse 17, Paul says now, he's talking to the Philippians, and he says, join in imitating me, join in imitating me.
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So again, he's laid out his example. He's talked about how he forgets what's behind, and he presses forward toward what's ahead.
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And he's challenging them to follow his own example. I think that this is a really good thing to do, to follow the example.
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In this case, Paul's example as an apostle, I think that the same can be true in our church.
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And I want to look at Recast Church, for example, and just consider this for a second. It can be really helpful in this upward calling of God to look to mature
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Christians, to people who live up to the standards of Scripture, to godly living, and to follow their lead, and to follow their example.
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I think that's exactly how the body of Christ should work. So I want to challenge you this morning. Are you in like mentoring relationships?
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Are you in connection with other believers within the body of Christ who you can look to as an example, who you can look to and follow?
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Likewise, are you looking for other believers who maybe are newer to the faith, people who could learn from you, and learn from your example, and follow your example?
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I really think that this is critical, that this is part of the importance of community within the body of Christ and within the local fellowship of a local church.
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You know, the whole purpose of small groups is to connect us together. You know, I think that's an ideal place where we can be connected with other people in these kind of mentoring and imitating and following kind of examples.
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You know, ultimately, we're all following Christ, so we should never take our eyes off of Christ. But I do believe that other
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Christians can serve as a great example and can mentor others in their faith.
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So I hope that you're thinking about that, looking around, thinking about who you can pursue as someone you can mentor and also be mentored by.
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Paul follows all of this with a warning, a pretty stern warning here. In verses 18 and following,
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Paul says that he has reminded them before, and he's going to remind them again, and he's even doing this with tears.
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So Paul's emotions are engaged here, that there are people who live as enemies and they're hostile toward the cross of Christ.
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I don't think we should be surprised when we look around today and see the same thing, that there are people on the other side going in the other direction.
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And in fact, the word described here, it says many, many who are enemies of the cross of Christ, not few, many.
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So don't be surprised if most people are not doing what I'm describing here as the upward call of God.
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Most people are heading in the wrong direction. Don't follow the crowd. In fact, you know, you hear maybe some people, popular saying, you know, everybody's doing it or what could be so wrong with that?
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It doesn't hurt anyone. There's all kinds of ways we can rationalize wrong behaviors. But to be honest, resisting the cultural flow and the sinful tide is difficult.
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Most people get it wrong. And it reminds me of Jesus, his own words in Matthew chapter 7.
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It's a sermon on the mount. And Jesus himself said the following. He said, wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction.
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And many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life.
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And only a few find it. So I'm going to call this the downward road.
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Now, I didn't create a visual for this. I actually attempted to and then I just ditched it because it got too complicated.
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But picture a downward path and I really believe that there's really two paths, this upward call of God and a downward path that's to destruction.
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And I want to describe a little bit about what Paul says about this destruction here, this path to destruction.
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Verse 19 basically says the following four things. The path to destruction, the downward path is the following.
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First of all, the end of it is destruction. The end of it is destruction, not a good place to be.
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This word destruction can mean ruin, loss. It can mean, think of like a loss of well -being or being cut off from what could have been or what should have been.
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I think we all have a sense of that. Destruction is not the place we want to end up.
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So, upward call of God to the prize, downward call to destruction. Secondly, second point that Paul makes about these enemies of the cross, he says their
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God is their belly. Their God is their belly. I don't know, I think what he's talking about here is feeding their own appetites.
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Just give me what I want, leave me alone. Just let me do whatever I want.
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Feeding our own desires, our own appetites. I just have to be honest, as I was studying this week, this kind of came up in my mind over and over is, how many times
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I feed my own appetite, how many times I do what I want, how many times I, I mean,
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I'm convicted, honestly. As a Christian, I am convicted by that one. Number three, they glory in their shame.
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I think something should embarrass us. Something should embarrass us. I always use the question, would you, would you want your mom to know about that?
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You know, would you want your mom to see you doing that? I mean, that, that just convicts me right there, even as a 43 year old.
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I don't want to do things that, that are shameful. But these people that are enemies of the cross, he's describing them as they actually glory in their shame.
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They're bragging about it. They do things that are shameful, and they stand up and boast. And like, take glory in that.
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The fourth thing he says is that their mind is on earthly things. Their mind is on earthly things.
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And I, and I think of materialistic things, you know, the pull of wanting to keep up with the
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Joneses, to have stuff, to be comfortable, to have nice things. That's a strong pull, especially in our culture.
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The, the pull of pleasure. I just, I just want to have fun all the time. Let's go, come on, let's have fun. There's nothing wrong with enjoyment and, but when that becomes your
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God, when you start to pursue that completely, to the detriment of your relationship with God.
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Success, popularity, immediate gratification. When, when our minds are set on these things, and we're pursuing those things, that is, that is the downward path.
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That is the path to destruction. That is not illustrated up there, sorry. So I'll do it with my hands.
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So don't behave that way. Instead, in verse 20, Paul makes a very clear statement, and he says, in contrast to all the things he described in verse 19, he says, but our citizenship is in heaven.
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Our citizenship is in heaven. And by the power that enables
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Christ to suggest all things to himself, he is going to accomplish, he is going to accomplish this upward call in our lives.
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Christ is all powerful, by the way. In case you didn't know, Christ is
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God. And he is God in the flesh. He took on a human body, and he was resurrected.
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And then he he chose to dwell with man for 33 years, as we know from scripture.
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But by the way, he's, he's still in a body. That's what's crazy to, to me to think about. And he's gonna be in a body forever.
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God himself, in human flesh, and he's gonna fellowship and be with us someday. That's an amazing thing.
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And this Christ, this Jesus, who is in a body, is the creator of the universe. He spoke everything into existence, and he is powerful.
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Have no doubt about it. His power has no limits. Everything is subject to him.
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Everything is subject to him. It says it right there. He has the power to bring everything under his control.
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And one day, he is going to restore everything. That's my hope for the future. That's the prize that we're working toward is, is, is this reality that God will restore all of this sin -cursed world to a rightful place, to a rightful condition.
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Praise be to God for that hope. So, as we wrap up this morning, in the passage today,
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Paul, first of all, he leads us by example. You know, this, this upward call of God, it's not something
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Paul's saying, you guys got to go do all this. This is what Paul did. He pursued Christ.
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And then he just turned around and said, Philippians, follow me in this. Follow me in this.
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And I want to challenge all of us here at Recast today to follow Paul's challenge and Paul's call toward this upward calling toward Christ.
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There is a prize, and our destiny is to be resurrected like Christ in glorified bodies with him forever.
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It's an amazing hope. It's an amazing future that we have. And it's worth pursuing.
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And I believe that this is what gives our life meaning and purpose and value, is, is to pursue something of this great worth.
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So I hope that you're catching a little bit of vision of, of what that is this morning. It's an incredible future, and in that we find incredible meaning and purpose.
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And it's really starkly contrasted to this downward call, this downward call toward destruction, really, of following the world's patterns and beliefs.
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So there's a glorious future in store for all of us who belong to Christ, and if you're here today,
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I really hope that you have placed your faith and trust in Christ, and you do have this amazing future in store.
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But if not, and if you've not put your personal faith and trust in Christ to forgive your sins and to give you new life, if you haven't made
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Jesus Lord of your life, then, then I just want to encourage you to consider that. Consider it.
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Why not give up an imperfect life and a sinful life and a self -centered life to accept
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His forgiveness and to start following Him, and to start following His upward call in your life with meaning and purpose?
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So if you're interested in this, I just encourage you to talk to me afterwards or find another Christian who you can talk to.
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Find new life in Christ. But if, on the other hand, you have placed your faith and trust in Christ, then you already know the joy of being forgiven, and you know the certainty of eternal life with Christ and the hope of a glorious resurrection.
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So in that case, I want to encourage you, all believers today, to just take communion this morning. We have tables set up in the four corners, and in a moment the band will come and lead us in a final song, but I just encourage you to take that communion as a celebration, as a rejoicing in this glorious future that we have in store, as we continue to press forward in the
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Christian life. So I'm going to pray, and Josh, please come now. Heavenly Father, we just, we thank
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You for this upward call in our life. Father, we thank You for Jesus Christ, who makes it all possible, who came and died for us to save us and to redeem us from a life of sin.
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And Father, we thank You for the Holy Spirit, who is a gift to strengthen us and enable us.
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God, I pray You would help us to live lives of just, just lives of submission to Your Holy Spirit, and just following His lead and His influence in our life, that we would follow this upward call, that we would follow hard after Christ.
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Father, I thank You for the assurance we have, that the righteousness we have is not from our own doing, is not from our effort, but it's from what
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You've done, what You've accomplished on the cross, Lord, in making us righteous in Your eyes. So Father, as we come to communion this morning, help us to reflect on that sacrifice that You made on the cross, and help us rejoice in His good news.