Philippians 3:17-4:1
Our text today is a section of the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in the city of Philippi. Philippi was a Greek city, but it was also a Roman colony. About a hundred years before Paul wrote this letter Rome had given land in and around Philippi to a large number of Roman soldiers.
Their descendents were still living there. They were living in Greece, but they were a colony of Rome. And they were confident in their identity as Roman citizens with the status and privileges that came with citizenship.
Rome ruled over a vast empire with tens of millions of people, but only 10 percent were citizens. A person was born a citizen if both parents were citizens. Or they could purchase citizenship. Or earn citizenship through military service.
Citizens could vote, hold governmental office, own property, enter into business contracts, and were exempt from some taxes. They also had a right to a trial before being punished. And were exempt from being tortured and crucified.
You may remember the account in Acts when Paul was arrested. The Roman soldiers put him in chains and were about to flog him. When he told them he was a Roman citizen they immediately stopped and released him.
Paul appears to have in mind Philippi as a Roman colony when he writes in verse 14, “our citizenship is in heaven” Most Philippian church members were not Roman citizens, but they had an even more wonderful citizenship. They were citizens, Paul writes, of heaven.
Paul is saying that followers of Jesus are like a colony, not of Rome, but of heaven. We are living in the world but are not of the world. Our deepest identity is shaped by heaven, not by the values and common practices of this fallen world.
Like the Romans, we have privileges of citizenship, but of a very different kind. Our privileges are “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,” as Paul writes elsewhere. These include, among others, an intimate relationship with God as our tender Parent. The forgiveness of sins. Christ’s own presence within us. The gift of the Holy Spirit forming in us the character of Christ and empowering us to serve God and bless others.
Roman citizens who were born as citizens possessed a small wooden tablet indicating their citizenship. Perhaps sometimes they got it out and looked at it in order to encourage themselves that they were citizens of the great Roman empire, and all that meant.
As citizens of heaven, we don’t have a wooden tablet, but we carry Jesus in our hearts. It reminds me of a story about a little boy who’s Granddad gave him a shiny new silver dollar. The boy carried it in his pocket wherever he went. And whenever he was feeling sad or needed more confidence, or the courage to do the right thing, or just wanted to feel happy, he’d reach into his pocket and feel the silver dollar and rejoice that it was there. Rejoice that he was the owner of a shiny silver dollar. In this world we have many challenges. But we have Jesus in our hearts and rejoice that we are citizens of heaven.
The Roman citizens living in Philippi had responsibilities as well as privileges. They were representatives of the Roman Empire, and were expected to embrace Roman values and model them to the general population.
Our heavenly citizenship also brings responsibilities. We are representatives of heaven, called to model the ways of heaven to the world: faithfulness, kindness, compassion, peace, hope, love. That’s why Paul writes in vs. 17, “Join in imitating me . . . live according to the example you have in us.” Paul offers himself as a model of an authentic Christian life.
Examples are powerful. They inspire and encourage us. In my lifetime, I’ve been especially inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Theresa of Calcutta.
But ordinary people can inspire us too. I knew a young married couple in which the husband became a believer in Jesus. Six months later his wife said to him, “if you’d have tried to get me to become a Christian, I’d have left you. But I see how you have changed, and I want what you have.” She came to faith because of her husband’s example.
By God’s grace, we ourselves can be examples to our friends and neighbors of the character and way of Christ. We are a colony of heaven, called to embody the values and practices of our true citizenship, and witness these to others.
Our being an example of Christ-likeness is crucial because tragically there are many bad examples of Christian faith. “Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ,” Paul writes in verses 18 & 19, “whose god is their belly, and their minds are set on earthly things.”
Paul is saying that there are people who call themselves Christians but aren’t. Instead, they embrace the values and behaviours of the fallen world: selfishness, greed, hate, violence. People whose greedy and cruel actions contradict the love of Christ.
Sadly, Paul’s warning about them is as important today as it was when he first wrote it. Studies show that clergy scandals, judgmental church members, toxic politics, are pushing countless young people away from Jesus.
There’s a story an Evangelist who knocks on the door of an old Mennonite and asks him, “Are you a Christian.” The old man replies, “Well, you’ll have to ask my neighbors about that.” Genuine faith expresses itself in action.
The example of Christ-like love is so very important today. It can show people that Jesus is real in spite of the many bad examples that misrepresent him.
1 Corinthians 13 is often read at weddings, but it’s application is much bigger than marriage. I’m going to read it today in the Message version:
No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do,
I’m nothing without love.
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head.
Doesn’t force itself on others.
Isn’t always “me first.”
Doesn’t fly off the handle.
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others.
Doesn’t revel when others grovel.
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth.
Puts up with anything.
Trusts God always.
Always looks for the best.
Never looks back.
But keeps going to the end.
This is what it looks like to live as citizens of heaven. This is what God is making us to be like in the image of Jesus.
When we read this text we probably think about how far short we fall, about our failures to love. But we are learning to love even with our own flaws and brokenness. As a poet wrote, “You shall love your crooked neighbor with your crooked heart.”
We’re not perfect, but we can choose which direction we want to grow in. Whether we want to grow in Jesus’ way of love, or not. Lent is a time for self-reflection and thinking about how we may need to change. To recognize ways in which we have been unloving and how we can learn to love more like Jesus loves.
In verses 20-21, Paul writes, “we are citizens of heaven and it is from heaven that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.”
When the time is ripe, Paul says, Jesus will come to earth from heaven to complete our salvation. Paul is expressing the hope we have as citizens of heaven. When Jesus appears in glory heaven will come to earth. Heaven and earth will become one place. Our bodies will be made immortal, and the world itself will be made new.
In this fallen world as it is now, we have many troubles. We can become discouraged by the hardships in our personal lives, and by the cruelty and injustice of the world. But Paul assures us that there is a better world coming. A world where every broken life will be mended, every injustice made right, and every yearning of our heart fulfilled. A world where love and justice are at home
Having this hope doesn’t mean that we give up on today’s world. Rather, it encourages us to be steadfast in faith and love. Because God is at work now in our lives and in the world. To strengthen, bless and empower us to mature in the joy of the Lord and to help repair the world. And we know that pain, hardship, cruelty and injustice won’t win in the end. So these things don’t have to defeat us now.
Life is scary at times. And for many people the political situation today is dangerous and frightening. But Jesus is with us and the future belongs to him
I want to close by singing a short chorus. I’ll sing it in English, but we’ll post the Spanish words on the screen.
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know who holds the future,
And life is worth the living just because he lives.
And life is worth the living just because he lives.
“Therefore, my brothers and sisters,” Paul concludes, “let us stand firm in the way of the Lord ”
Marty Shupack, 3.16.2025