09-22-13 Qualifications For Good Examples

We did something last week

that I really hate to do.

We took a single, unified statement

and chopped it in half.

Because of our limited time together,

I shared with you only the first half

of Paul’s complete thought.

Today we are going to return to the passage

and complete what we started.

If you were with us

you will remember that we are in a study

of the New Testament book of Philippians.

Our study has brought us

to the last few verses of Philippians chapter 3.

The passage we were looking at

begins in Phil. 3:17,

and last week we looked only at 3:17-19.

But the entire statement

actually runs all the way through

the first verse of chapter 4.

This morning I want to begin

by reading the whole passage for us.

Then we’ll review just a little bit

of where we were last week,

and then complete the picture

by looking at the remaining verses

in the paragraph.

Phil. 3:17 Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

Phil. 3:18 For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ,

Phil. 3:19 whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

Phil. 3:20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;

Phil. 3:21 who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Phil. 4:1 Therefore, my beloved brethren whom I long to see, my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.

Last week, as we looked at those first 3 verses

we saw Paul telling us three things:

1. Every one of us have at least a few good examples in our lives.

2. Every one of us are also surrounded by a bunch of bad examples.

3. Our survival depends upon our choosing

to focus on the good ones.

I like the way the author of Hebrews puts it:

Heb. 12:1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

Heb. 12:2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

I don’t know if you noticed it,

but there is a remarkable balance

in that statement.

In context the author is referring to

the unbroken line of good examples

we have throughout history -

men and women who believed God,

and in that belief saw their own lives changed

and then the lives of others around them because of it.

He obviously wants us

to see ourselves as part of that stream,

looking back at our heritage,

looking forward at those coming after us.

Yet, at the same time

there is a remarkable balance

within those two verses.

The writer wants us to be aware of those

who have fought their battles well,

and he wants us to draw encouragement from what we see

in their lives.

But, at the same time,

he wants us to “fix our eyes on JESUS”.

We don’t fix our eyes

on the good examples around us,

we fix our eyes on Jesus.

If you look at any other human being closely enough

you will come away disappointed.

I don’t care who they are.

God made that abundantly clear

from the biographies

He chose to record in His Word.

The Apostle Paul got into a raging battle

with his fellow missionary, Barnabas,

and became so stubborn

he refused to travel with Barnabas any more.

Peter got so worried about

what his fellow Jews thought about him

that he refused to associate

with some of his non-Jewish Christian brothers and sisters.

King David allowed his own lust

to so dominate his life at one point

that he committed adultery

and then had the husband murdered

so that he wouldn’t find out.

Moses was so terrified of failure that,

even in the face of overwhelming

supernatural demonstrations of God’s power,

he still refused to trust God to work through him.

And if you fix your eyes on any Christian long enough,

I guarantee you’ll see the flaws,

the failures,

the still broken places in their lives.

And so God gives us that crucial balance -

we follow the example

of those around us

who have trusted God,

but we FIX OUR EYES

only on Jesus.

He, and He alone will not disappoint.

That’s where we were last week.

But that is not where Paul stops,

for there is one other issue

that must be addressed

in this whole discussion about

good and bad examples.

Your see,

it is impossible for Paul to talk to us

about good and bad examples

without that conversation

causing us at some point

to look at ourselves.

And, given our tendencies to self-doubt

and self-condemnation,

for many of us that can be a painful experience.

We want to focus on and follow

the good examples of others in our lives.

But we also want to BE a good example

for those who focus on us.

But, when we look at ourselves,

rarely do we see ourselves correctly.

Either we blind ourselves to our weaknesses and hide

(even from ourselves)

behind a good external image,

or else we see only the flaws

and the failures

and find our spirits crushed

under perpetual feelings of guilt and shame.

Neither of those approaches are healthy.

In these six verses here in Philippians

Paul progressively turns our attention

three different directions.

First he encourages us to look

at the good examples in our lives.

Then he talks to us honestly

about the bad examples around us.

But then, knowing that,

for the child of God who is earnestly seeking the life and leadership

of Christ in his or her own life,

it will be impossible

for them to think about good and bad examples

without also thinking about their own life and where it fits,

Paul then turns our eyes onto ourselves.

But he does it in a way

that affirms the truth

and gives us hope.

And it’s interesting that Paul defines his audience in verse 20.

He is talking to those who ...eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ;

I don’t believe there is any other doctrine in Scripture

that has the ability to more powerfully mirror our true mental attitude toward God

at any given time

than does our attitude about

the return of Christ.

The Christian who has

pinned his hopes for happiness

on achieving success

and recognition through this world’s system

and then invested all his or her energies

into the pursuit of those goals

does not eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Those bad examples Paul was talking about one verse earlier,

those...whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things...,

they don’t eagerly wait for a Savior,

the Lord Jesus Christ.

Do you know who waits eagerly

for the Lord Jesus Christ?

Those of us who know

that He is our only hope

and He is our ultimate victory,

those of us who look at ourselves

and thank our God that who we are now

is not who we will always be,

those of us who fight the sinful impulses within ourselves

and praise God that, by His grace alone,

we are not what we once were,

but who find our greatest security in knowing

that these battles we now fight

are only temporary,

and that the day will come

when our King returns

and total victory will then be ours.

We happen to live at a time in history

in which there appear to be

strong evidences for the soon return of Jesus Christ.

The power of shared economic goals in Europe

has accomplished in our generation

what no military might has been able to do for the past 2000 years -

it has reunited the Roman Empire.

I know they currently have some major economic problems going on,

but even that helps create the hunger

for one strong leader to take control.

Events both in the Middle East

and throughout the world

continue to set the stage

for the rise to power of the Anti-Christ.

Let me just remind us

that whenever we see anything

that makes us believe the end is near,

when we see it correctly

it will cause our spirits to soar.

If it causes us stress,

if it causes us anxiety,

if it generates a sense of fear within us,

it is only because we have shifted

too much of our security

onto what this world system has to offer.

All I’m trying to say here is this:

when we are thinking correctly,

every time we see something in our world

that makes us believe the return of Christ is close

it will cause our spirits to jump for joy.

So, Paul talked to us first about good examples,

then about bad examples,

and then he concludes

with some closed circuit words

to those who “eagerly wait for the return of their Savior”.

And the words he offers to us

are designed to do two things -

first, they reaffirm our true identity,

and second, they reassure us of our victory.

Now, why does he do that?

He does that

because of what some of you did to yourselves last week

when we were talking about

the value of good examples

within the Body of Christ.

Some of you looked at your own life,

and you saw there

still unresolved conflicts,

areas where you have fought and fought and fought

and still have not found victory,

areas where right now

you just don’t know what to do.

And in your mind

you yanked yourself off the “good example list”.

You didn’t honestly feel comfortable

putting yourself in that other group, either,

those guys who ‟...are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things...”,

but the truth is

you didn’t know where else you belonged.

You haven’t given yourself over to the sin that wars against you,

but neither have you found the kind of victory over it you long for.

And so Paul, knowing how easily the accuser of the brethren

can fill us with a sense of defeat

and failure,

reaffirms our identity

and reconfirms our victory.

First he reminds us who we are.

“For our citizenship is in heaven.”

Who we are is not

and never will be defined

by what we have done.

Who we are has already been determined forever

by what Christ has done

when He.... “...qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light... and rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son...”(Col. 1:12-13)

We are now and forever His HOLY ONES.

Paul says it so well in I Cor. 6:9-11

... neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

And such were some of you...

but you were washed,

but you were sanctified,

but you were justified

in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Does that mean, then,

that no one at the Corinthian Church

ever again struggled with alcoholism?

or immorality?

or homosexuality?

or greed?

or dishonesty?

Far from it.

In fact, one of the main reasons Paul wrote this letter

was to give the Corinthians instructions about how to handle

a Christian living in an openly immoral relationship in the church.

It does mean, however,

that all true change

in the life of the Christian

begins with changing our understanding of who we have become in Christ.

Maybe I can say it best

by putting the lie and the truth side by side.

Man-made religion says to us,

“If you want to be a child of God

stop your immoral behavior.”

God says -

“Because you are a child of God,

because you are My saint,

because you are My Holy One,

your immorality is completely inconsistent

with who you really are.”

God transforms our lives

by first transforming our identity,

and then teaching us who we really are.

In three of his letters,

Ephesians,

Colossians,

and I Thessalonians,

Paul uses a phrase that says it well.

He calls us to “walk in a manner worthy of our calling”.

I like that.

Our calling, our position,

our true identity as eternal sons and daughters of God

is a given, an inalterable certainty.

Paul then calls us

to live in a way that is consistent with who we really are.

Several months ago

just 4 houses down from our home

Sandee and I went out for an evening walk

and discovered the road blocked by crime scene tape

and swarming with police.

We found out later

that the pastor who was living there

had just murdered his wife and then committed suicide.

It was a tragedy of unthinkable proportions,

but magnified a thousand fold

because of who the man was - a Pastor!

What he did was horrible,

but it became unthinkable because of who he was.

Our minds churn at the task

of attempting to reconcile who he is was

with how he acted.

It just doesn’t fit.

It is exactly that same perspective

that our God seeks to communicate

to each of us.

He does not begin by saying,

“Look at what you’re doing!”

He begins by saying,

“Look at who you ARE!”

And when we begin to hear that truth,

then He talks to us

about how to act

in a way that is consistent with our true identity.

...And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

2. And then Paul reaffirms our deliverance.

For our Lord Jesus Christ...will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

He can and He will deliver.

A measure of that deliverance

will become a reality here and now.

We can and we will find His grace sufficient

and His strength adequate

for our daily walk with Him.

But that deliverance will know its final,

total victory when our Lord returns,

when He tosses these old mis-trained bodies onto the rubbish heap,

and gives us a brand new body,

one that never knew sin,

one that responds perfectly

to the leadership of the new spirit

God has already placed within us,

one that will allow us

to express perfectly

our true identity

as eternal children of God.

Do you know what I see him saying here?

When we were talking last week

did you mentally disqualify yourself

from serving effectively

as one of God’s good examples?

If so, you may have been measuring yourself by the wrong standard.

The family of God

does not need more glittering public images,

men and women who look right,

and talk right,

and smile right,

who create the illusion

that they have somehow achieved

a higher plain of Christian living

that separates them from the rest of us.

What we really seek

are men and women we can identify with,

men and women

who fight the same battles we fight,

who understand where we live,

but who do so with their eyes fixed

on their Lord Jesus Christ,

proclaiming with their lives

that He is there,

and that He is good,

and that He is abundantly adequate for our needs.

I was 23 years old

in the fall of 1970.

It was a time of tremendous turmoil

in our nation

and in the Christian world.

The Vietnam War divided our nation.

Riots on college campuses were common place,

an affluent Christianity that seemed most comfortable

with a “just shut up and believe” approach to hard questions

found itself overwhelmed with the issues it faced.

During those years

God brought several men and women on the scene

who were able to speak to my generation

with a remarkable clarity and power.

One of those men was Francis Schaeffer,

a man who, in a way that many of us had never experienced before,

gave us the freedom to think,

the freedom to ask questions,

the freedom to honestly wrestle with cultural questions

in a way we’d never been allowed to do

in our past church experience.

Though his intellectual discussions

about philosophical concepts and ideas

were confusing to most of us,

his underlying message was crystal clear:

here was a man with an unshakable belief

that any answers about life that could be found

would be found within the intellectual framework given to us by God

and revealed to us in His Word.

In a powerful public way

he reminded the Christian world

that logic and reason are always on our side,

and we never have to be afraid

to ask hard questions.

In the fall of 1970 I was able to join a group of other students

for two months at Schaeffer’s school

in Switzerland.

For the first few days of my stay there

I lived in a kind of reverent awe

of this famous Christian man.

I’d read all of his books.

He seemed to know everything.

He could answer any question,

he could win any debate.

And he obviously cared deeply about the confused,

lost,

frightened kids who kept turning up at his door.

But the longer I stayed there, and the more I interacted with this fascinating man

the more I began to notice things that puzzled me.

One of them I noticed right away

was the way he dressed.

He wore long stockings with lederhosen - those three-quarter length Swiss pants.

Nobody wears lederhosen unless you’re in a yodeling contest.

I mean, he wore them all the time...it’s all he wore.

When I first met him

I just assumed he must be Swiss.

And then I found out that he was born and raised into the USA

and he’d been a pastor of a small church on the East Coast before he moved to Europe.

He wore his little outfit

simply because in made him look different...special.

He knew that words coming out of the mouth of someone wearing lederhosen

sounded far more significant,

more profound,

more insightful

than words coming out of the mouth of a guy wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

And the more I listened to him

the more I discovered that he had speech patterns

and phrases he used

that were simply another form of posturing.

There were times when he would begin a thought by saying,

“what I’m about to share with you

will save you at least 10 years of thinking”.

Folks, that’s stupid!

It may have taken him 10 years of thinking

before he discovered whatever it was he was about to say,

but there is no statement,

not idea in existence

that anyone can ever give another person

that will catapult them 10 years ahead in their own mental growth process.

It was simply verbal posturing

by a man who knew that those were listening to him

were literally hanging on his every word.

But here’s the amazing thing,

the thing that I don’t think Schaeffer ever realized,

the more I saw the holes in that man’s life

the more I was able to trust his God

and believe that there was also hope for me as His child,

with all of my own confusion,

and flaws,

and weaknesses.

Do you know what kind of people are qualified to serve as a good examples in the Body of Christ?

People just like us

who live in the same world we live in,

who feel the same emotions

and fight the same battles we do,

people like that

who are trusting their Lord one day at a time,

finding Him faithful one day at a time,

allowing us to see

both where God has healed them

and where He has not.