Our Examples To One Another

But nonetheless, we will press on, if you would open your Bibles, please, to Philippians chapter 3,

Philippians 3, and we will look at this morning verses 17 through 21, Philippians 3, verses 17 through 21, though I want to start with verse 16, which is where we ended last week.

"'Only let us hold true to what we have attained,' again, we ended up there last week, and that should have had you, sort of like the kids in the 1960s watching the movies, sitting on the edge of your seat and wondering how the hero is going to escape.

You got to be wondering what's going to happen next. We talked about holding true to what we have attained, and the question that should have been bursting out of you with great anticipation, and,

Pastor, tell us, how do we do this, is what we have for us this week. So, as we ended last week with holding true to what we have attained this week, verses 17 through 21, let us see how.

First, we will read the scripture, beginning again at verse 17, "'Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example,' excuse me, let me start that again.

There are no innocent clearings of the throat anymore, but I can tell you that there's just something that caught in my throat for a moment.

We'll begin again, thank you. Verse 17, "'Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

For many of whom I have often told you, and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory under shame with minds set on earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him to even to subject all things to himself.'"

Heavenly Father, we come now to your word, we pray that, Lord, as we look to it, that you would bless us, that you by your

Spirit would open our eyes once again to the glorious truths of your word, and that as we come to you on the basis of this word,

Father, that you would be pleased to change us and grow us more and more in the image of your Son, Christ Jesus.

We ask all this for his sake and in his name, amen. So, how is it that you come to the image of Christ?

How is it that we grow in moral purity, in ethical excellence, if you will? How do we obey the apostles' command and move along into this image of Christ, growing more and more to be like him?

How does that happen? Well, there are many ways we can answer that, we can answer this by saying, well,

I do this in the power of the Spirit, through prayer, through repentance, through knowing God's forgiveness. These are true.

But there's a responsibility here that we often forget, that we lead by the wayside too easily.

It's a responsibility that I have for you as pastor, that Pastor Owens in the same vein has for you, to be an example to you, to model for you what it means to follow

Christ Jesus, to live like him. And yet you, as the members of this church, you who are participating in this service are not without this same responsibility, it's a responsibility too easily forgotten, too easily not taken up, and I would say not often enough taken up, and too often forgotten.

You need to hear this responsibility and think about your part in this growing into the image of Christ.

What is it? What am I getting at? What is the Apostle getting at? That we are to be models, examples to one another.

You should be one that if I should imitate you, I would grow more like Christ in some way, not in every way, no one could do that except Christ Jesus himself, yet in some way, by your example, someone else should be able to grow closer to Christ.

You're responsible for this, and here's what the Apostle tells us in these verses, primarily verses 17 -19, though 20 -21 add to it, it's the importance of examples, the importance of you being one who if imitated, would draw that one imitating you closer to Christ Jesus our

Lord, closer to his image, closer to moral excellence. We need examples.

We need examples, we're to be examples for one another. Paul gives us in this text two exhortations, two commands, and they're found in verse 17, both of them are there in verse 17, and with the commands come reasons for the commands, so there's a command, a reason, a command, a reason, and in verses 20 -21, all wrapped up together with one glorious hope.

I'll explain these to you, and then let's go into this text and see what the Lord has for us.

The first command is, brothers, join in imitating me, and then we need to skip down to verse 18 to see the reason for that command in the first half of verse 17.

So, brothers, join in imitating me, here's the reason, for many of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

Their end is destruction, their God is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things.

So the first example we have is the apostolic example, join in imitating me, because there are great incursions from the world outside trying to force their ways, trying to demonstrate their ways, and bring it to bear upon the church.

And if we're not actively bringing it to bear upon the church, too often we are not actively resisting the temptation to be like those outside.

So that's the first imperative, the first command, is to join in imitating Paul because of the prevalence of the bad example outside the church.

The second of those commands is also in verse 17, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

And to get the reason for that, we skip down to the first part of verse 20, which is, but our citizenship is in heaven.

I know that's a little intricate, that's a little complicated, but that's the way we're going to preach it, and that's the way

I want you to hear it. Where you have an imperative, a command, an exhortation to you, with a reason.

A second command, imperative, exhortation, with a reason, and all wrapped together finally in verses 20 and 21, the glorious hope that we have.

Two commands attached to two reasons, and all bound up in this single hope.

So in simple terms, what do we have here? We have following Paul's example because it is a safeguard against bad examples.

Following Paul's example because it's a safeguard against bad examples. Look again at the first part of verse 17, that's that first command.

Brothers, join in imitating me. And the reason, verse 20, for many of whom

I have often told you, and tell you with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ.

I want to ask you this morning. If someone were to ask you, if I was to ask you this morning, who is your role model?

Who in Christianity would you most want to follow, or have you chosen to follow, as an example for what it means, for who would lead you to be closer to the cross, or to the image of Christ, let's just say.

Who would you pick? Now if we were seated, I would ask you to raise your hands maybe, and take a short survey, and ask you, how many of you would say,

I follow Paul? Or Apollos, or Cephas, and some would then say,

I follow Christ. And these are all good examples to follow,

Paul of course being an apostle, Cephas would be Peter, he's an apostle too, Apollos seems to have much to commend him, and of course, there's the

Lord Jesus Christ. Paul says here, join in imitating me.

Join in imitating me. He means to follow his apostolic example.

And what is the apostolic example that he gave to the Philippians? Well, he lived with the

Philippians, he went there and as he founded the church, he met with the resistance of others, he stood against those who would silence the gospel, he stood against those who were making their money from the gospel, and preached it faithfully, and showed them what it means to live and to give your all for Jesus Christ.

He says, brothers, join in imitating me. This is the apostolic example.

It's something that Paul consistently enjoined the church towards, and tells us to do.

He wrote to the Corinthians, be imitators of me as I am of Christ. He wrote to the Thessalonians, for you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us.

And imitation being one of the greatest forms of flattery we see in the world, but here in the scripture, imitation is one of the greatest ways to grow into Christ.

Hebrews chapter 13 verse 7 says, remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.

Why is this so important? Well, one reason it's important is because it's a safeguard against going the wrong direction.

Watching each other, or excuse me, watching the apostles, for them, was a safeguard against falling into the old ways of the old world, into the old man's ways.

Many walk as enemies of the cross of Christ, and we'll speak about that in a few moments, but what is happening here is the apostles saying, follow me, because I have shown you what it means to follow

Christ. Where did he learn to follow Christ? Paul is the apostle who was born out of due time, as he himself said.

He did not live with Jesus Christ, as did Peter, and John, and Matthew, and the rest.

Those who lived with him for three and a half years of his public ministry, they saw him, they sat with him, they watched him eat, they ate with him, they enjoyed everything with him, they slept and walked and ate and listened to him.

They saw his way of life. Paul, also an apostle, having met the resurrected

Lord, having been able to give eyewitness evidence of his death and burial, and of course his resurrection.

He didn't see his death and burial. He may have been at the cross, but certainly his resurrection, which is the most important thing.

They set an example for us of what it meant to walk with Jesus Christ, to live according to his ways.

The Philippian church was surrounded by people who had their lives so arranged as to be enemies of that cross.

They were so numerous, they were so dangerous, that Paul warned them often about them. Perhaps he sent messengers like Epaphroditus, who we met earlier in this letter.

Maybe he sent Timothy to warn them. Maybe there are other letters that we don't have to the

Philippians. Because he said, I warned you many times about them. Probably from prison, through some communication means available to him.

He warned them again and again that the enemies of the cross of Christ were everywhere. If we can take just a moment, we can ask ourselves, who are these enemies?

Because they're a bit difficult to identify. And we identify them really by speaking of who they are not.

They weren't the Judaizers, Paul had dealt with them earlier, the ones he called dogs and mutilators and evildoers.

And it doesn't really even seem that these enemies of the cross of Christ were within the church itself, though they could have been.

They could well have been. But then you would expect Paul to have called them by name, or to have told the church to rebuke them, to cast them out of the church, or something like that.

The safest bet on who the enemies of the cross of Christ were was simply the general population out there.

Those whose lives were given over to what is in this world, to the here and now.

He calls them those whose God is their belly, whose glory and their shame, whose minds are set on earthly things.

They're looking here, they're not looking up. They have nothing to do with Jesus Christ, and in fact, their very way of life proves them to be enemies of all that the cross stood for, or stands for,

I should say. It's the general population. It's those who are following the ways of the world, the prince of the power of the air.

William Hendrickson calls them, the enemies are the sensualists who cater to the flesh, gluttonous, grossly immoral people.

Well, maybe that's a little over the top, in terms of our friends, because we have many friends who are outside there.

But in the end, enemies of the cross of Christ means to not follow Christ. If God sent his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life, then anyone who does not believe in him is an enemy, if you will, of all that he came for.

We don't have to go into being sensualists and caterers who cater to the flesh and gluttonous and grossly immoral.

But those who will not repent are, in the end, enemies of the cross. And it is this that the apostle

Paul says, rather than falling back to that, rather than looking to that, not following that example, follow the example you saw in me, the

Philippians. The church would be surrounded by that in that area. Pagans, polytheists, those whose lives are given to the pleasure that they can gain now, because now is all they have, the minds are set on earthly things, to take from life every pleasure they can get, the whole process of their life, the whole thought process is here and now.

This is what the apostolic example guarded them against, and Brethren is what guards us against it, too.

We are surrounded by no less than what they were then, it's really no different for us.

The church is under constant attack. And right now it's just a ripple, it's a word here, it's an insult there, it comes more and more in the press, the comedians, and then eventually the politicians make these slights against the church.

The idea of what we call Safety Day has morphed into suppression of anything

I disagree with. It's gone so far that a Harvard Law professor named Robert Sullivan was relieved of his position because he was going to represent in court someone who the students said, if you represent him, we're not feeling safe.

Now it means anything that might imply I need to change. This is the great danger to them of the

Christian message, because it calls for change. It sets the cross before them, it says, you must repent, why must you repent?

Because I'm not okay, or you're not okay. You need to repent of your sins and come to Christ Jesus.

You need to be a friend of the cross and not an enemy of the cross. And the whole world out there, this is what the

Apostle Paul is warning them about and today warns us about, that the world out there is enemies to the cross.

And it is tempting to dilute our efforts to be like Christ, to water down our worship, our testimony of Christ, to do what we have to do just to get by.

This is the example Paul says, join in imitating me, brothers, join in imitating me. You, brothers, at this church where he was so intimate, where he was so closely attached in an emotional way, as we've seen in other parts of this letter.

He says, imitate me. Imitate me in all that you saw of me. Imitate me in giving my all for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Imitate me in standing against the tide of the world outside, the enemies of the cross.

How do we stay true? How do you stay true? Well, one way is to discern where is an enemy of the cross.

It could be a very good friend of yours, one who doesn't know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and yet still count them as friends, and we all have friends like that.

And ultimately, we have to look at them and say, this is an enemy of the cross, and while I like this person, and I get along with this person,

I want them to be my friend, more than that, I want them to be my brother in Christ. The warning here is to not fall into their ways, their ways of not following Jesus Christ, really.

How do we stay true? How do we stay true? One way is the warning that we have in verse 19.

Paul says, join and imitate in me, for there are many who are enemies of the cross.

And then in verse 19, he adds this warning for us, so we can remember what the end of all that is.

Their end is destruction, not mere death, everlasting death. Not because they live bad lives, but because they live as enemies to God's great purposes in the cross.

Their end is destruction, their gout is their belly, they glory in their shame. Glorying in their shame takes us back to, probably,

Hosea 4 .7. Let me just read that to you. Hosea 4 .7

says, the more they increase, the more they sinned against me, I would change their glory into shame.

What has happened here? The glory is in the shame. The things that they gloried in, the things that they held as precious, those things that they lived for, are going to be turned to their shame.

One day, every human being is going to stand before Jesus Christ and answer for these things.

These things in which they gloried, this sensuality, this earthly focus, this grab it all now idea, because this is all

I have. And in that they glory. And they glory in things that are shameful, that are going to, in the end, bring destruction.

Men don't go to hell for the sins so much, as bad as their sins are. In the end, you go to hell for not believing in Jesus Christ.

In the end, this is the reason for the destruction. Paul says to imitate him because of all that.

Paul says to the Philippians, and he says to us, watch the apostolic example because of what the apostolic example was in relation to the rest of the world.

Imitate his stalwart faith. Imitate that he stayed true in the face of enemies of the cross of Christ.

The message of the cross that is folly to those who are perishing. The message of Christ's cross, the ultimate charge against mankind for his wicked ways, for his rebellion against God.

Only let us hold true to what we have attained from last week. And here is how. By the apostolic example.

Now if I circle back to my opening question. If I ask you, who do you follow?

Who is your role model? Who is your model for staying true to what you have attained in Christ Jesus?

To those steps towards his image that you have taken? How many would say

Paul? How many would say I follow Cephas or Peter? One of you might say, well

I follow John because John is the apostle who was so bathed in Christ's love. And he said God is love and I want to follow

John. I like Peter because Peter stumbled and was picked up by Jesus Christ and he was a man like me with two left feet and he was always falling on his face and yet God loved him and restored him.

So I want to be like Peter. Well those are all good. I don't denigrate any of them obviously.

Let us follow the apostolic example. Let us look to scripture and see what they put down for us.

Let us look at what they wrote of the Lord Jesus Christ and his life and his ministry, his perfect life and perfect obedience to God, his

Father. There is a problem with the apostolic example though.

What they wrote in scripture is from God. It is true. It is inerrant.

It is infallible. But even the apostle Paul doesn't stop there and say just imitate me and there is a reason for that.

Paul was in prison. Perhaps he was executed in this short time frame.

He is not there. Paul is not there for you and me to watch. We cannot see what he did.

There are apostles like Peter who watch Jesus and tell us about Jesus in the scripture, a true and living word.

That example is there before us. But we don't have the man Jesus anymore than we have the man

Paul or Peter or any of the rest to show us what this means. We need that example in front of us.

And this is why the apostle says in the second of those commands And keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.

And then verse 20. In our ESV it says but our citizenship is in heaven. It should be for, for or because.

And it works this way. Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us for, because our citizenship is in heaven.

You see we need real, live, living, breathing examples. We need each other.

I need you to be an example of what it is to follow Jesus Christ as much as you need that person next to you or in the car a few spaces away and around and around it goes.

We need each other. And this is what the apostle tells us. And this is the responsibility that we all have for each other that's too often left by the wayside.

He says keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. If the apostle's not here and we have the example in scripture, we have it in writing he says

I pass it on as it were I pass the baton to who? To the pastors? Yes.

In Hebrews 13 .7 pastors like myself and Pastor Owens are given a special responsibility to be models of Christ.

But it is still all of us. We need to be able to see this example.

We need somebody to demonstrate it for us. We need somebody to live it out before our eyes.

A living, breathing, right now example. A model that we can all imitate.

Some of us are better than others at following written instructions. Or even in hearing instruction they're putting into practice.

When I started rock climbing my friend at my first church, his name was Charlie he taught me how to do this.

And the first thing he had me do was to rappel. You've seen rappelling? You've seen it on TV? Maybe some of you have done it.

But that's where you lean back against an anchor tied to the rope and you walk backwards down a cliff.

Now he could have told me something like this. Okay, you put on your harness, you make sure your harness is on right. And what I want you to do is take this double right, this double bite of a rope this tie to an anchor here, pass it through your rappel device clip it into your carabiner, lock the carabiner down and go backwards down this cliff.

Would you do that? With that much instruction? Would you put your life on that rope with just those words?

Well, I didn't. Nor did Charlie expect me to. He showed me. He showed me himself.

He said, this is what you're going to do. And then he leaned back, went down a few feet and came back up and he hooked me up and he showed me how to do it.

And finally I was able to go backwards down the cliff. But we have to be shown. We don't want to just read in a book.

As true and as inerrant and as complete as Scripture is and as all of those things, we still need each other.

I still need you. And you still need that person in the car next to you, the car in front of you to be imitators of Christ Jesus.

Paul says, keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. So we're still back to the apostolic example.

We're still back to the inspired Word of God that we have here. Keep your eyes on those who walk according to what you've seen in us.

He says, brothers, join in being imitators of me and keep your eyes on those who are imitators of me.

Very important words here that we need to take a moment to talk about.

Keep your eyes on translates a Greek word, skapeo. You don't need to remember that.

But it means one who directs a watchful glance. One who directs a watchful glance.

In secular Greek, it was used to speak of overseers who would put that glance upon the servants and make sure the servants were doing their job to the benefit of the master.

The word was used of spies, keeping an eye on things and reporting back to whoever sent them.

But to our point here, Paul uses this word to mean to hold something as a model before one's eyes.

And all those other uses of the word I put before you so you'd understand that it's not just a glance, but it's a watchful glance.

It's a searching out. It's a looking for the nuances. It's watching this thing so that you can pick up a model.

It's before your very eyes. Jesus uses that in Luke 11, verse 35.

He says, Look out, lest the light in you be darkness. In Romans 16, 17, watch out.

There's our word, skapeo. Watch out for those who cause division. Be careful. Look for them.

2 Corinthians 14, We look not to things that are seen, but to things that are unseen. What are we watching for?

What are we looking carefully for? Those that are unseen. Those that are from Scripture. Those that are from God.

Galatians chapter 6, verse 1. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Chapter 2, verse 4 of this book that we're in,

Philippians. Look out not only for your own interests, but also for the interests of others. Be careful.

Have it as a model before you. This is what Paul's telling us. Are you a model of what it means to follow

Jesus Christ? Now, many of you, I see the thought bubbles coming up out of your cards right now.

You're saying, Well, no, I can't do that. I'm so imperfect. I follow him so inconsistently.

No one should follow me. And I say, put those kind of thoughts aside. You must be. Paul speaks to the entire church and says,

Watch out for those who walk according to this example. Watch out for those.

Tells us that they must be here. Perhaps it's you. Perhaps you're the one who will draw that sister away from that sin and closer to the image of Christ.

Perhaps you're the one who's modeling, who's example to that brother is going to show him the error of his ways.

He's going to have a chance to repent and come to Christ and seek forgiveness and then look to you for how to live in accordance with the model of Jesus Christ.

You are to be that model. We are all to be models of this for each other.

Can any one person do it all? You know, not even the apostles, not even the inspired apostles would have said that of themselves.

The apostle Paul said earlier in this chapter 3 of Philippians, Not that I have arrived.

He hasn't gained perfection. Nowhere near it. Neither he, nor Peter, nor John, nor Matthew, nor any of the others, but one did, and that's

Jesus Christ, and he alone. And yet, it's a false humility to say

I'm not worthy to be followed. I stumble so often. I'm so far from the image of Christ.

We're not given that out. The apostle Paul, when he says, keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us, he obviously means for us to follow that example, keep your eyes on, is to have it as a model before you.

You are my example. Now again, pastors do have that special responsibility.

And yet, we all must do this for each other. You are a model for someone. You must be a model for someone.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.

It's one Spirit. It is one fruit. It comes in different budding forms, and you have some of that.

You have some of that in a way that you need to bring to bear for someone else.

And you also need to be looking to others and say, you know, that woman shows what it is to have this proper spirit towards her husband.

That man is showing me what it is to self -sacrifice to love his wife. And I'm going to look for those examples.

I'm going to look for those models. I'm going to look carefully for them, almost like a spy, and then follow them.

Then follow them. What holds you back in your Christian walk?

I think too often, one of the mistakes we make is we set before ourselves the example of Jesus that says,

I'm going to be like that. And that's a good thing. That's a correct thing. We are to be like Jesus. Don't set that aside.

Or we say, I'm going to be like Paul, which again is good. Paul gives us the Scripture. We know how he behaved.

We know his deeds. We know his words. But we forget in all of this that the

Apostle Paul gives us the living, breathing, here and now, before my eyes example of you.

If you look around at the other cars on the lot, the other members in this church, the people who are joining with us, you can say, and you, and you, and you.

Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. Don't spy them out. Brethren, look for them.

Look for them. Because the Apostle Paul, when he writes this, assumes that there is in the church, and 1

Corinthians 12 would say that God placed each member in the church exactly as it pleased

Him. There is in the church that example for each of us. Each one of you has something to contribute.

Each one of you has something that if you don't contribute, leaves the rest of us without that example to follow.

It leaves us deficient. So we have two commands of imitation.

Two commands of imitation. One is to imitate the apostolic example. And that's first, and that's primary because the apostles, and here it's the

Apostle Paul, give us the scripture. They wrote it down for us. They told us about the life and the ways of Christ.

They told us about the life and the different ways of themselves and how they follow Christ. And then it's for you and me to carry on this torch and model it for each other.

This is how we stay true to what we have attained. This is how we stay true to what we have attained and grow and attain more.

Now there are other ways of staying very focused on what we have here before us because I think too often this example that we are to be in the here and now to each other is too often forgotten.

Let's no longer forget that. Let us strive to be examples and let us look carefully for examples that we can strive after.

Imitate Paul. Keep your eyes on those who live the way Paul tells us a person in scripture should live.

Those are the two commands about imitation. The two reasons for those commands.

And Paul wraps us up with that great and final hope that we have.

He says, For our citizenship is in heaven and from heaven we await a

Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.

What gives us the strength and the patience and the endurance to carry on in imitating each other, to doing the hard work of finding and then following those examples?

One big part of it is where our mind is. Paul said,

Of those outside the church, those who are enemies of the cross, that their mind is set on earthly things. They are looking here.

What are we told in the book of Colossians? To look above to where Christ is. To look upwards.

From heaven we await a Savior. From heaven is where Jesus is going to come. And this is our great hope that makes all this worthwhile.

This is our great hope that makes us able to endure whatever we have in this life.

Even the hard work of seeking out examples and being an example.

We eagerly await the Savior. Are you eager for Him to come? Do you know that Jesus is returning?

This word for eagerness is something that is commonly used in scripture and almost always of Christ Jesus and His coming again.

Romans 8 -19 Creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Well, that's you and me, all of us together being revealed when

Christ returns. Romans 8 -23 And not only creation, but we ourselves who have the firstfruits of the

Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons.

Verse 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. We wait eagerly for it.

All these of Christ and His return. Hebrews 9 -28 So Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who eagerly, who are eagerly waiting for Him.

Those are great hopes. I think the Apostle Paul puts it here very intentionally.

As he talks about this difficult task of being examples and imitating those examples that we have before us.

He then sets this great hope to us to remind us what this is all about.

What are we striving for in this life? Now, what are you striving for? Why are you going through all this work?

Why all this effort? Why on a beautiful Sunday are you here rather than at home or in some recreation?

Or perhaps when COVID is over and you go back to the old routines, watching sports on TV.

They can again do that. Why this? Because Christ Jesus, our Lord, is returning.

Because our mind is set not on earthly things, but on things above. Because we know that Jesus Christ will return to save those, to finally bring to Himself those whom

He has redeemed. You remember from a few weeks ago in Philippians 2, 6 -11, that great emptying of Christ where He emptied

Himself and made Himself in the form of a servant. He humbled

Himself and eventually every knee shall bow. Do you remember that? The great parabola, as we call it, that great

Christ -Him. You might want to turn there for a moment to Philippians 2, verse 6, because there's great hope.

There's reason that we are imitating each other to be more like Christ. It's because of the

Christ who is going to come and we want to be like Him when He does come. Chapter 2, verse 6.

Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but emptied

Himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form,

He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God is highly exalted in Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name so that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now why did

I read that whole thing again? It's because in verses 20 and 21 of Philippians 3, speaking of us and our final redemption, this great hope that we eagerly wait for, that gives us the endurance and the patience that we need in this life, it correlates together.

Jesus was in the form. Chapter 2, verse 6. And in verse 3, 20, we will be conformed to His image.

We will be conformed to that form. Jesus being in the form of God, we will be raised up with Him.

Jesus was humble. And Paul speaks of our lowly body, our humble body now.

Every knee shall bow to Jesus in chapter 2, verse 6. He will bring everything under His control.

Christ is Lord. He will be raised up by the Lord Jesus Christ to the glory of God.

And it will be to His glory for us when we are raised. Our citizenship is in heaven.

Citizenship is something that is a grant. Now in America, when you're born in America, you're a citizenship by birth.

Perhaps you're one who came and went through the process of becoming a citizen, and that is by choice.

Citizenship in heaven is by grant. It's by conversion to the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a special grant that goes above the citizenship that the

Romans had, that they were so proud of in Philippi. Even the Apostle Paul would tell of his citizenship that he didn't pay for, but he was born a citizen of Rome.

To which he used to his advantage before the gospel at times. Our ultimate hope is the citizenship that now exists in heaven, that God is keeping for us even today.

Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is our great and final hope.

This is the reason that it's important that we imitate the apostolic example that we have in Scripture.

Paul says, join in imitating me, brethren. We can do that today. And he says, look out for, be careful to find those amongst yourselves worthy of imitation.

Brethren, we are here. There are those amongst you. You may be one of them worthy of imitation.

Worthy of imitation so that when Jesus Christ comes and transforms us in our humility to be like Him in His glory, by the power that enables

Him to subject all things to Himself, which He will do, it makes it all worthwhile.

It makes it a glorious hope that we are being like today as we grow more and more into His image.

Brethren, think carefully of yourselves. Look to your own soul and ask yourself, what in me do

I need to grow in order to be worthy of imitation in this one aspect of what it is to be like Christ?

Brethren, look carefully amongst yourselves and say, what does this brother or sister have in their life that I should be imitating so that when

I imitate that, I'm more like Christ and I'll be closer to that glory with which I will finally be when

He comes and brings me back to Himself. I trust that as we consider these, as we close this message, you'll be considering yourself.

Do not let false humility hold yourself back from saying, I can't be an example to anybody. Brethren, you can and you must with us all together, look out for one another and find those amongst ourselves who are worthy of imitation to grow into the image of Christ Jesus so that when

He returns, we'll be more and more like Him when He finally brings us to Himself. Amen. Let's close.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the day and we thank You for bringing us together once again in this place.

We pray, Father, that as we commune together around Your Word by the power of Your Spirit, that You will grow us more and more into the image of Him who we eagerly await from Heaven.