Trinity 23
Phil
3:17-21
11/8/15
“I am not a role model. I’m not paid to be a role model. I am paid to wreak havoc on the basketball
court. Parents should be role
models. Just because I dunk a
basketball, doesn’t mean I should raise your kids.” The NBA basketball player Charles Barkley
spoke these words in a 1993 Nike commercial.
At the time, these words caused
quite a stir. On the one hand, some
people were offended by the fact that Barkley dismissed the influence that
sports figures have. We are a culture
that is obsessed with sports, and in our setting today professional athletes
appear not only in the games themselves, but in advertising campaigns for products
and for the leagues. They are featured
in magazine articles, appear on talk shows, have millions of Twitter followers,
and do humorous ads for ESPN. This near
universal exposure sets them in front of young people all the time as examples
of a successful life. They have money, glory, fame, and a beautiful wife or supermodel
girl friend. Of course impressionable young people look up to them. With all
the benefits of their position in life, isn’t there a responsibility to be a
positive influence?
But at the same time, others thought
the ad was a good one. They said that it was a needed corrective. After all, why should a person be a role
model simply because he can shoot a ball through a metal hoop or hit a ball
over a fence? Shouldn’t it be the job of
parents to serve as role models for their own children?
Sometimes in recent years Lutherans
have overreacted and said that not even Jesus should not be used as a role
model. In particular this reaction has
been given to the frequently seen acronym “WWJD” – which stands for “What would
Jesus do?” Now insofar as the primary
emphasis in the Christian faith must be on what
Jesus has done for us in order to give us forgiveness and salvation, there
is truth to this. But a truth pushed too far is how you end up in heresy. And the simple fact is that Scripture does
hold up Jesus as a model and pattern for our life. And more than that, it even
holds up individual Christians.
St. Paul provides a classic example
of this in our text for today. He first
points to himself as an example, and then includes other Christians as well
when he writes: “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those
who walk according to the example you have in us.”
We know that role models are very
important in life. We learn by watching
and imitating others. Children learn how
to do things by watching their parents. They learn skills in this way such as
how to fix things around the house, how to cook and bake, how to do a hobby, or
how to hunt and fish.
This is true for the Christian life
as well. It is true for other Christians
around us, especially new Christians. It
is true for the children in our home. We
are role models for them and we are constantly teaching them. But what lesson are they learning? Are they learning that Sunday morning at the
Divine Service is simply how life works, or are they learning that church must
accept its place further down the pecking order as we do other things
instead? Are they learning that prayer
and reading of Scripture are important parts of our daily life, or are they
learning that the rest of the week has nothing to do with Sunday?
In our text, Paul is very clear that
the Philippians are to imitate him and other Christians in their midst who
follow the pattern of Paul. He does this
because there is another example out there.
He says in our text, “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.”
Paul is probably describing people
who called themselves “church.” By their
manner of life they showed themselves in fact to be enemies of the cross
because they were living in ways that were the exact opposite of what Christ’s
cross means for us. The apostle is
crystal clear that the outcome of this would be eternal destruction. Such people had their own satisfaction as
their god. They gloried in things that God’s word declares to be shameful. They had their attention focused on earthly
things – by which Paul means that they oriented their life toward a sinful,
fallen existence that is ruled by the devil.
The same thing is true today, and it
true whether you talk about the church or the world, because often they look
the same. Our culture says that “I” come
first. It focuses on acquiring more
money and all the bells and whistles of “the good life.” It says that sex is something to be used
however we want to produce pleasure. And
all of this is something that we find very, very seductive.
In contrast to this, Paul holds
himself up as a model to be imitated. And he has just explained what should be
imitated earlier in this chapter. The
apostle has warned the Philippians about those in the Church who are saying
that they need to be circumcised and to start doing parts of the Torah in order
to be righteous before God. He rebuts
this by declaring, “For we are the
circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and
put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in
the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the
flesh, I have more.”
Paul goes on to say that if our
confidence was about the status we have on our own, he could trump
everyone. After all, he was “circumcised
on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew
of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church;
as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”
But Paul had come to understand that
everything he did on his own was poisoned by sin. It was filled with pride. It was never really good in God’s eyes
because it was never perfect. And
instead, Paul had found something even better – he had found Someone even better. He said, “But whatever gain I had, I counted
as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of
the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have
suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish.”
Paul says that in Jesus Christ who
died on the cross and rose from the dead he had found the salvation – the
treasure – that made everything else pale in comparison. The apostle says that he willingly counts
everything else as nothing – as loss – because of Christ. In fact Paul uses a crass term in Greek that
really demands a crass word in English.
He writes, “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and
count them as crap.”
Paul says he places Christ at the
center of his life. And he does this, “in order that I may gain Christ and be
found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but
that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that
depends on faith.” Because of baptism
you are in Christ. Through faith in
Christ you receive the righteousness that will allow you to stand before God on
the day of judgment and receive eternal life with him.
Because this is what Christ means
for us now, Paul goes on to say that he seeks “that I may know him and the
power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in
his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the
dead.”
Now did you hear what I just said? Paul talks about knowing the power of
Christ’s resurrection and attaining to the resurrection of the dead. But he also says that he shares in Christ’s sufferings, becoming like him in his death.
The call to follow Christ is a call to die.
It is a call to die to sin. It is
a call to share in Christ’s sufferings as we follow him in the narrow way that
rejects the world. It is a call to share
in Christ’s sufferings as we experience the world’s rejection of Christ. For some Christians around the world today, it
is a call to martyrdom.
That’s not the way we are used to
thinking about the faith. That’s our
fault. And God is in the process of
teaching us this truth. I spent three
days last week in Canada with Lutheran pastors there. It is a cultural setting that is probably at
least fifteen years further down the road that the United States is currently
travelling. It is a world where the
majority of people have no use for the Church.
It is a world were from the very earliest grades the belief that
homosexuality is normal and good is actively
taught in school, and the mere suggestion that this is not correct lands
both teachers and students in real
trouble.
Things are hard for Christians here.
They are going to get much harder. And of course they were even more difficult
for the very first Christians to whom Paul was writing. So what could help Christians to reject the
way that is opposed to the cross; that leads to destruction; that glories in
shame, and that sets minds on earthly things of a sinful world? The apostle reminds the Philippians about who they are – the status they have. And
he points them to what this will mean for them.
Paul writes, “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 even to subject all things to himself.” He says that the Philippians’ citizenship was
in heaven. Why should the Christians
keep their focus on the things of God instead of the fallen world? It was because they had the status of
belonging to God.
Philippi was a Roman colony. Those who lived in a Roman colony were Roman
citizens – they had the status, all of the rights and privileges of someone who
lived in Rome. That didn’t mean they belonged in Rome or that Rome was their
home – after all, their home was Philippi!
But they had a status and rights that most people in the Empire did not.
Paul says that because of Jesus
Christ’s death and resurrection, you have a unique status – a status that
guarantees your future. You have
received the Holy Spirit through the water and Word of Holy Baptism. You have been reborn and are a new creation
in Christ. You have been joined to the
saving death of Jesus. Jesus died. But
then he rose from the dead and forty days later he ascended into heaven as he
was exalted by God to his right hand.
For now we only see and touch the
risen Lord as he is present in, with and under bread and wine. For now we only hear him through the word of
Scripture and through the voice of our pastor speaking Holy Absolution and
preaching. But your citizenship in
heaven – your status now as God’s child – means you having something big coming
your way and therefore you have hope. You have a hope with resurrection power. Paul
says that “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.”
The Spirit who has given us new
spiritual life is the same One who raised Jesus from the dead and transformed
his human body so that it can never die again.
Jesus will do the same thing for us through his Spirit on the Last Day.
The Spirit provides the power that already now enables us to follow Christ’s
way as those who enjoy the heavenly status of children of God. And because we
have this status now, we find encouragement in the certainty that Jesus will return
to raise and transform us to be like Him.
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