Transformed in Christ

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Good morning. I am part of the Oikos in the Oaks Friday Women's Group, the Women Reading Women Group, and I'm also an elder here.

Today's scripture reading is from Paul's letter to the Philippians, chapter 3, verse 10 through chapter 4, excuse me, verse 1 is printed in your liturgy.

Philippians 3:10

A reading from Paul's letter to the Philippians.

I want to know Christ, yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this or have already arrived in my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, but one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things, and if at some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.

Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.

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

Their destiny is destruction, their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.

Their mind is set on earthly things, but our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

who by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control will transform our lowly bodies so they will be like his glorious body.

Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Good morning, Christ Church.

Let's pray.

Let's pray.

O Lord, what we know not teach us, or what we have not give us, and what we are not make us.

Give me clarity of mind.

Give me conviction of heart.

Give me concision of speech, Lord, that give all of us a capacity to receive from you.

What it is you want to say to us in this moment.

And we pray all this in Christ's name.

Amen.

So, Pastor Andrew and I have been trying our best, not sure if successfully, but we've been trying our best to help us as a church fall in love with the Apostle Paul.

Because Jesus is in love with the Apostle Paul.

And gave Paul to the church, gave all these letters of Paul to the church, particularly this beloved letter of the Philippians.

It's a letter of affection, a letter of friendship.

It's a letter of joy.

It's an amazing letter.

And what I want to invite us to do as we just approach it one more time today, I want you to just imagine in your mind the Apostle Paul as he's writing this letter.

And remember that Paul is in a Roman prison cell.

Remember that Paul is chained to two Roman soldiers on his right and on his left.

He's with them day and night.

Remember that Paul is waiting a trial in which he'll either be acquitted and released or he'll be condemned and executed.

And it's from this place, right, it's from this context that Paul writes his happiest letter.

It's from this place that Paul tells us these words, rejoice and joy.

They're repeated 13 times in this letter.

He clearly wants his friends in Christ.

He clearly wants the church in Philippi and all the churches to share in his joy and to rejoice with him.

And I want to be clear as we get back into this that Paul is not inviting us, he's not inviting the church to bury its head in the sand and ignore the fact that the Roman Empire is oppressive, right?

That could be the entire theme of his letter.

He's also not encouraging us or encouraging the church in Philippi to ignore her problems, right?

To ignore all the opposition and all the difficulties that are coming to them now that they've begun to follow Jesus.

And in fact, that's why Paul has to tell them what we just heard.

You need to stand firm in the Lord, right?

But what I think Paul is doing in this letter is he's outflanking his problems.

He's outflanking all the church's problems, all those pressing issues of imprisonment and persecution and impending execution by raising their eyes to something better, right?

He's raising their eyes from earthly sorrows up higher to heavenly joys, right?

And that's what our Sunday gatherings are meant to do.

They're meant to shift our attention from where they are Monday to Saturday, immersed in the things of this earth, immersed in this realm where sin and death are ruling.

And to have at least one day in our week where we focus and we ponder on the things of heaven where Jesus rules, right?

Here on earth is where sin and death rule.

Heaven is where Jesus rules.

And Paul says, set your minds not on earthly things but on the things of heaven.

Does that make sense?

It's critical if we're going to understand what Paul is doing in this letter.

Now, we're going to continue where we left off last week.

I actually want to encourage you to take out your pew Bible in front of you.

And we might range a little bit as we explore Ephesians or Philippians chapter 3, one of Paul's most beloved passages.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

You can find this on page 592.

Or sorry, 952.

952.

952.

I'm a little doped up on cold medicine this morning.

So that's why the page numbers are not coming out right.

But 952.

And Paul is, I think, asking us, posing in this text three questions for us.

Number one, who are your models?

Number two, what is your mindset?

And number three, where is your hope?

Okay, so who, what, and where?

Who are your models?

What is your mindset?

And where is your hope?

First of all, who are your models?

Paul says in verse 17, he says,

Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters.

And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.

The question for us is, who do we look up to?

Right, of whom would you say, you know, when I grow up, I want to be like this person?

You know, when I was a teenager, it was like, when I hit my 20s and 30s, I want to be like that guy.

Now I'm like, okay, when I hit my 50s and my 60s, I want to be like him.

Who's that person where you say, that is the paradigm.

That is the pattern of how I want to live.

I want to imitate their life.

I want to follow their example.

I want to walk in their footsteps.

Maybe you think of a family member.

Maybe you think of a coach or a teacher or a camp director, a camp counselor.

Maybe a campus minister that you had in college.

A mentor that you had along the way.

It might even be a historical figure.

For me, a guy named John Stott is the guy that I love.

Maybe a fictional character, Samwise Gamgee would be another person for me, who I'd like to become when I grow up.

But, you know, without explicit and conscious models, we can so easily drift into subconsciously following just any old person that our algorithm serves up to us, right?

And why is it that we need a model?

Why do we need an example to follow?

Because a model is a person whose values, whose behaviors, whose accomplishments you admire and you want to emulate in your own life.

And this is crucial for personal growth and personal development to find such people because they show you a real, embodied, in the flesh life that says, look, it is actually possible to live this way and not like everybody else is living, right?

It's possible to live with excellence.

It's possible to live for the glory of God.

It's possible to live for the good, not of yourself, but of other people.

And Paul is giving us a heads up and he says, look, there are plenty of bad models out there.

And he says, actually, there's plenty of bad models in the church.

Here's what he says in verse 18.

Now, why does this cause Paul to weep?

Because these are people who profess to be Christians, right?

And yet they're not at all mature, but they're setting themselves up as models for people in the church to follow.

You guys ever read about people like this in the news, right?

Where people claim to be Christian with their lips, but they're not at all Christians with their lives.

None of you ever read about this in the news, okay?

This is not a new problem.

And Paul is wanting to warn us to guard against these anti-models of professing Christians.

And he says, first of all, they're enemies of the cross of Christ.

And what that means is that in their attitudes and their behaviors, they repudiate all that the cross stands for.

Right?

They're living for themselves, but what the cross stands for is not living for yourself, but giving yourself away for the sake of others.

He says, secondly, their destiny is destruction.

Destruction, they think they belong to Jesus and to the household of faith, but they're actually not living a life worthy of the gospel.

They're not living in line with Jesus.

And so, Paul says, their future before God is actually pretty bleak.

And then he says, their God is their stomach and their glory is in their shame.

And what that means is that they've ordered their loves around their bodily appetites.

Right?

They've ordered their loves around appetites for food and for sex and for amusement and for material goods.

As if these desires that come from within them, as if these desires are divine.

As if this is what they should give their time and their money and their precious energy to.

Paul says, this is what they glory in.

And ultimately, this is what is going to bring them shame when they stand before God.

And then the fifth thing Paul says, he says, their mind is set on earthly things.

And that is that the primary focus that they have is on the earth in this realm of where sin and death rule.

And they're not really very focused on heaven where Jesus rules.

And the Apostle Paul is really wanting to protect the church that he's planted in Philippi.

And so he says, please do not make these professing Christians your models.

And then Paul is bold to say in verse 15, he says, look, if you want to be mature, think the way that I think.

If you want to be mature, live the way that I'm living.

Again, in verse 17, he says, join together in following my example, brothers and sisters.

And just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do.

He goes on in chapter 4.

He says in chapter 4, verse 9, whatever you have learned from me or received from me or heard from me,

whatever you've seen in me, put that into practice.

Now, I don't know if we have anyone here who's a gymnast or a golfer.

I know we have some tennis players in the room.

Maybe you're a dancer.

Maybe you're into martial arts or you paint or you play the piano or the violin.

Maybe you're a singer or you're an actor.

Or if you do any of these things, you know how important it is to have a real person show you how it's supposed to be done.

Somebody who can give you the visual form.

Somebody who can demonstrate to you the timing and the flow and the rhythm and all the moves that you need to mirror and that you need to imitate.

And that's precisely what Paul is giving to the church in this letter.

Right at the very heart of this letter, if you turn in your pew Bible to page 951,

you'll see in Philippians 2, Paul gives us this Christ hymn in which he holds up Jesus as the model human.

He says this is the model of what a human being is supposed to be.

And he says this in verses 6 through 10.

He says,

King Jesus was not grasping at his own advantage.

Rather, he made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.

He humbled himself.

And he became obedient to death on a cross and God exalted him.

And what Paul says there is, he says,

notice this V-shaped pattern of Jesus' life.

This V-shaped movement of his life of humility and then exaltation.

Humiliation now, exaltation later.

Suffering now, glory later.

He says, that is the paradigm.

That is the pattern for all who want to follow Jesus and imitate Jesus and be conformed to the image of Jesus.

And then immediately following that, if you'll notice in chapter 2, verse 19 and following,

he says,

here is Timothy.

And he puts Timothy before us as a model who is following the model.

And he says, look, Timothy does not look out for his own interests.

No.

Timothy looks out for the interests of Jesus.

He looks out for the welfare of the church.

Like Jesus, he's not grasping for his own advantages.

Rather, he's emptying himself.

He's humbling himself to take the form of a servant.

And then right after Timothy, Epaphroditus is put before us in chapter 2, verse 25 and following,

as a model who is following the model.

And Paul says, Epaphroditus is this honorable soldier of Jesus because he risked his life and he almost died humbling himself

and pouring himself out in sacrificial love like Jesus in order to fulfill the church's mission.

And having given us this big model of Jesus and having given us these many models of Timothy and Epaphroditus,

now all of chapter 3 is Paul saying, I too am a model who's following the model.

And Paul is diametrically opposed to these professing Christians and false teachers whose minds are set on earthly things.

He says in verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven.

Paul says, look at the heavenly way that I view things.

I live as if I belong to the kingdom of heaven and to the king of heaven.

And so Paul says, keep your eyes not only on my model and on the model of Timothy and Epaphroditus,

and of course on the big model of Jesus, but he also says in verse 17,

keep your eyes on those who live as we do.

On those who in their heavenly citizenship,

those who in their Christ-like attitudes and behaviors are showing you

what it means to say to live is Christ and to die is gain.

And the question for us this morning is, who is living like this?

Who do you know who's living like this?

Who's living out this Philippians 2,

Jesus-shaped pattern

of humbling themselves

in order to be exalted by God?

Of suffering for the sake of others

in order that they might be glorified by God.

Who are the people that you look to and say,

you know what?

They're living not with their minds set

on this earthly realm of sin and death,

but they're living with their minds set on heaven.

They're living with their minds set on their citizenship

in the kingdom of heaven.

They're living with their hopes set on the kingdom of God,

breaking in from heaven down on the earth.

And the question for those of us,

if you're like me, you've been baptized for a little bit,

you've been following Jesus for a little while,

is do we have a life worth imitating?

Right?

Do we have a life that's worth

someone else following after us?

And if someone were to look at you

or someone were to look at me,

would they say,

ah, that's what it means.

That's what it means to pattern your life

on the model of our humble

and self-giving servant king, Jesus,

and all of his cruciform, cross-bearing love.

Man, I don't know about you,

but I've got a long way to go.

Are you intentionally pursuing a life

where Paul would say of you,

keep your eyes fixed on her?

Keep your eyes fixed on him

because they're living as we do.

They're living as Jesus did.

And if you're like me and you say,

you know, I'm not really there,

but I want to be,

then follow me now

because I want you to think about

the kind of mindset

and the kind of hope

of such a model.

Okay, so who are your models?

Second question is,

what is your mindset?

What is your mindset?

A mindset is a key word in this letter.

Just like joy is a key word in this letter,

Paul uses this word mindset

ten times in this letter.

And in verse 15, he says,

all of us who are mature

should take such a view of things.

In the Greek, he says,

all of us who are mature

should have this mindset.

In verse 19, he says,

their mind is set on earthly things,

but in verse 20,

implied is that our minds

is set on our citizenship in heaven.

Paul says,

your mindset,

your attitude,

your thinking,

your orientation,

this is what affects

your entire disposition

and your entire direction of life.

If your mind is set on the wrong thing,

you're going to be living the wrong way.

If your mind is set on the wrong thing,

you're going to be going

in the wrong direction.

And so he says,

what is your mindset?

And Paul is telling the church,

he's saying,

if your mind is set on earth,

if your mind is set on this realm

where sin and death

are ruling as sovereigns,

as sovereigns,

then he says,

you need to change your mind.

The Greek word for change your mind

is repent.

You need to change your mind.

And you need to set your mind

on something else.

You need to set your mind

on your citizenship

in the kingdom of heaven

where Jesus is ruling.

Right?

Where your true identity lies

and where you really belong.

It's your citizenship,

not here on earth,

but your citizenship in heaven.

And what happens

when the whole church,

not just a few people in the church,

but the whole church,

decides to set their mind

on the kingdom of heaven?

I mean, last week we saw

in verses seven to nine,

when Paul met Jesus

on the road to Damascus,

it changed his mindset.

Right?

Paul said,

it reversed all of my accounting

of my whole life.

All of my former gains,

I now count as loss,

Paul says.

I now count it actually

as garbage

compared to the gains

of the surpassing worth

of knowing Jesus Christ

as my Lord.

He says,

when I look at all

of the righteousness

that I used to try

to produce on my own,

and I compare that

with the righteousness

that God has provided

for me in Jesus,

it's infinitely superior.

I've had to change

my entire mindset

on what it even means

to be righteous.

And then he goes on

in verse 10

and he says,

he says this,

he says,

I want to know Christ.

Yes, to know the power

of his resurrection

and participation

in his sufferings,

becoming like him

in his death

and so somehow

attaining to the resurrection

of the dead.

What Paul says there is,

I already know Jesus.

but I don't know him enough.

I already know Jesus,

but because he's changed

my mindset,

I want to know him more

and I want to know him better.

I already know Jesus,

but because my mind

is set on heaven,

I want to know this king

who rules from heaven.

I want to know

the only person

who's ever gone through death

and come out

the other side alive.

I mean,

if that happened,

I want to know him more.

Paul says of Jesus

in Colossians 2 verse 13,

Colossians 2:13

he says,

in him are hidden

all the treasures

of wisdom and knowledge.

I want to know him.

How could we ever get bored

with Jesus?

Paul says.

He says,

if you set your mind

as a citizen of heaven

on the king of heaven,

then you set your mind

on a few different aspects

of knowing Jesus.

And if you have a pen,

I want you to underline

a couple of these aspects

in verse 10.

He says,

first of all,

power.

You want to know his power.

Underline that word power.

I want to know his power.

Paul says,

if you belong

to the resurrected Jesus,

then you've been united

to his empowering presence.

That the same Holy Spirit

who raised Christ from the dead

is now living in you,

and that means that

he can release

his resurrection power

in you

and through you.

Well,

to what purpose,

for what end

would he give you

his power?

Underline the next word,

participation.

participation.

This is part of knowing

Jesus' participation.

You need the life-giving power

of the resurrected Jesus

so that you can participate

in Jesus' sufferings.

And that means that

on a daily basis,

you're asking for his power

that you might bear your cross

just as he bore his cross

to suffer for the sake

of loving other people.

That's why you need

his power

so that the sufferings

of Jesus,

of sacrificial,

self-giving love

can be manifest

through you

to the world.

You don't just need power.

You don't just need participation.

Part of knowing Jesus

is next word,

becoming.

Underline that word,

becoming.

If the resurrected Jesus

empowers you

to suffer with him

in sacrificial love,

then you are becoming

like him

in his self-giving

on the cross.

Your life is being shaped

into the form of his cross.

That's part of knowing him.

And then the last thing

Paul says is

part of knowing him

is attaining him.

Underline that word,

attaining.

Attaining Jesus means

that one day

you're going to fully

and finally know him

and hold on to him

in the final resurrection

from the dead.

And we'll talk about that

in just a moment.

But what Paul is saying here

is he says,

I set my mind

on a daily basis

on knowing more

and on knowing better

the crucified

yet risen Lord Jesus.

And I want to know

my Messiah.

I want to know my King

to such a degree

that the shape

of his life

becomes the shape

of my life.

That he is daily

giving me

his resurrection power

to live out

the sacrificial

and suffering

love of his cross

so that when people

see me,

when they encounter me,

when they experience me,

they say,

wow,

that's a citizen

of heaven

who's just like

the king of heaven.

Does that make sense?

And Paul's asking,

is that where

your mind is set?

Is that where

your mind is set?

Now, of course,

Paul can't leave it there

and like most pastors,

he has to give

a sports illustration.

And so,

he gives this illustration

of a runner

in the Olympic Games.

The Olympic Games,

by the time Paul

wrote this letter,

has been going on

for about 800 years.

And so,

Paul writes

in verse 12,

he says,

not that I've already

obtained all this

or have already

arrived at my goal,

but like a runner

in the Olympic Games,

I press on

to take hold

of that

for which Christ Jesus

took hold of me.

Brothers and sisters,

I do not consider myself

yet to have taken hold

of it,

but one thing I do,

forgetting what is behind

and straining toward

what is ahead,

I press on

toward the goal

to win the prize

for which God

has called me heavenward

in Christ Jesus.

A runner

is someone

that has

one burning ambition.

A runner

is somebody

who has

intensely

set their mind

on one desire.

They've set themselves

in one direction.

They've given themselves

one goal,

which is to finish

the race

and to win

the prize.

Now,

Adidas

had an amazing

ad campaign

many years ago

where they had

these incredible pictures

and the caption

said,

runners,

yeah,

we're different.

I don't know,

anybody remember

that ad campaign?

It was absolutely

amazing.

Basically,

you had these

runners going by

and all the

onlookers,

like the normal

people over here

were baffled

and bewildered

at all the weird

things the runners

were doing.

Right?

A guy is standing

in line at the bank

and he's like

stretching his

hamstrings

and his calves

and everybody's like,

who is this guy?

A woman is running

with her baby

in the jog stroller

past all the other

moms and their kids

at the park

and they're all

looking at her like,

what are you doing?

Runners,

yeah,

we're different.

Paul is saying,

no one shows up

to the Olympic Games

to jog.

Paul is saying,

a complacent runner

is a contradiction

in terms.

Paul is saying,

a runner is somebody

who's intense.

A runner is somebody

who is continuously

giving strenuous effort.

They're straining

every muscle,

every fiber,

every nerve,

every moment

of their day.

They're pressing

all the oxygen

out of their lungs

in order to

attain a goal.

A runner's not

somebody who allows

themselves to get

distracted by lesser

things.

A runner's not

somebody who's

looking over their

shoulder at other

runners.

runners.

A runner's not

somebody who's fixated

on the past

and the first half

of the race

that I tried to run.

No,

Paul says,

a runner

is someone who has

a singleness of purpose.

somebody who's

disciplined

and dedicated

and determined

on one thing.

And Paul says,

the one thing,

if you're a Christian,

the one thing

is knowing

Christ.

That's what a citizen

of heaven wants.

They want to know

the king of heaven.

And Paul says,

is that

your mindset?

Now,

who are your

models?

What is your

mindset?

Finally,

where is your

hope?

And I don't have

much time on this,

but Paul ends

here,

and so I'll end

here as well.

You know,

it's pretty clear

increasingly

in our

late

modern

world

that

people are living

with an increasing

sense of hopelessness.

And so,

if the church

can have a clear

sense of what

our hope is,

then

we've got good

news for the world,

right?

Because the world

doesn't have much hope,

but we have

an incredible hope.

And here's what

Paul says is the

Christian hope,

and just a hint,

the Christian hope

is not to go to

heaven when we die.

Paul says this

in verse 20.

He says,

but our citizenship

is in heaven,

and we eagerly

await a Savior

from there,

the Lord Jesus

Christ,

who by the power

that enables him

to bring everything

under his control

will transform

our lowly bodies

so that they will

be like his

glorious body.

Paul says,

a Christian

who has hope

is someone

who's earnestly

expecting Jesus

to come

as the Savior

and to complete

his work

of saving

a people

for himself.

And what Paul

says is that

we will not

so much go up

to heaven,

but the King,

Jesus himself,

will come from

heaven to earth

to transform

this world.

And what will

the final work

of the Savior

be like?

Well, Paul is confident.

He says,

what started

with Jesus'

resurrection

on Easter Sunday

will be completed

when he returns

in the resurrection

of all his people.

Right?

He says the King

has tremendous power.

He's triumphed

over death, right?

He has the power

of life.

And Paul says

that King Jesus

is going to exercise

that power

to the Greek word

is

metaschematizo.

Okay?

What Jesus

is going to do

is he's going

to metaschematize

you.

He's going

to so reorder

you.

He's going

to so transform

you and his

people and the

whole world

that we will be

raised up to share

in his glory.

He says he's

going to take

these lowly

bodies

bodies

that are subject

to humiliation.

Right?

Subject to sin

and suffering

and sickness

and injury

and suffering.

Bodies that are

subject to cancer

and to dementia.

Bodies that are

subject

finally

to death.

And he says

our hope

the Christian hope

is that King

Jesus

is going to

metaschematize us.

He's going

to so transform

our bodies

that they'll

be conformed

to the body

of Jesus'

glory.

That just as

on Easter Sunday

Jesus' body

went from being

corruptible

to being

incorruptible.

From being a

weak and immortal

body to being

a strong

immortal body

he says

so your body

will be reordered

to share the glory

of Jesus'

resurrection

body.

That's the last

act

in the drama

of God's

redemption.

And Paul says

we the church

wait for it

eagerly

because this

will fulfill

the plan

of the creator

God all along

from Genesis

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1.

It has been

the design of God

from the beginning

that through

the agency

of his image

bearing people

that God's

heavenly rule

that God's

heavenly reign

will be put

into effect

on the earth

and bring the

whole creation

to life.

And Paul is

straining toward

this hope

beyond death.

He's pressing

to take hold

of this future

resurrection life

of the new

creation

and to have it

even now.

And it's this

hope

that enables

Paul

in his Roman

prison cell

chained up

to those Roman

prison guards

it's what

enables Paul

to think through

all the complex

challenges

that are facing

him and facing

the church.

It's this hope

that enables him

to endure

and to persevere

through that

which is beyond

his control.

It's this hope

that enables Paul

to live in the

present and light

of the coming

glorious future.

future.

And it's this hope

that enables Paul

to encourage

the church

to be

a colony

of heaven.

Right?

To be a preview

of coming

attractions.

To be a small

working model

of what the new

creation

is going to be

when the Lord

Jesus returns

as our Savior

to transform

not just our

lowly bodies

but the whole

world

to share

in his glory

and to share

in his rule

and his reign

over the earth.

So friends

as we come

to this table

my question

for you

my question

for me

where is our hope?

Have we been

putting our hope

in the wrong place?

Might we need

to put our hope

back where it

rightly belongs?

death has been

defeated.

Our relationship

with God

has been restored

for eternity.

Your body

even though

it's declining

and decaying

now

will be transformed

to be like

the gloriously

incorruptible

body of Jesus.

This world

will be

redeemed

and renewed

so that nothing

bad will ever

spoil it again.

good will defeat

evil

love will

overcome hate

life will triumph

over death

your story

and my story

and the story

of this world

is going to end

happily ever after.

That's the hope

that King

Jesus

that's the hope

that citizenship

in the kingdom

of heaven

has given to us

it's the hope

that our world

needs

is the hope

that all of our

friends most

desperately need

and so

I want to close

with Paul's words

in chapter 4

verse 1

therefore

my brothers

and my sisters

you whom I love

you whom I long

for

my joy

my crown

stand firm

in the Lord

in this way

my dear friends

in the name

of the Father

Son and Holy Spirit

Amen