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Sermon Outline
- Citizenship
- It determines so much of what you can and can’t do
- Confers on us responsibilities
- And it is citizenship that Paul uses to form the basis of his argument in today’s passage about Christian living.
- Contrasting Earthly and Heavenly Citizenship
- Heavenly citizenship
- Paul isn’t contrasting Christian citizenship with national citizenship.
- He contrasts it with earthly citizen
- Heavenly citizenship is a friend of the cross
- Earthly citizenship is an enemy of the cross
- Heavenly citizenship leads to salvation
- Earthly citizenship leads to destruction
- Heavenly citizenship leads to a transformation of the body
- Earthly citizenship is solely focused on feeding the belly
- Heavenly citizenship is fixed on eternal realities
- Earthly citizenship is temporal not other-worldly
- Maybe the best way to understand heavenly citizenship is by understanding what it isn’t
- Earthly citizenship (Phil 3:18-19)
- Enemy of cross (Col 1:21, Gal 5:11, 6:14, Eph 2:16, Col 1:20, 2:14, Jam 4:4)
- Leads to destruction (Mt 7:13, Rom 9:22, Phil 1:28, Heb 10:39, 2Pt 3:7, Rev 17:8, 11)
- God is their belly
- They glory in their shame
- The scripture tells us that those who should be shamed (Jude, 2Cor 4:2, Rev 3:18)
- Mind fixed on earthly things (Jame 3:15, John 3:12)
- In opposition to all of this kind of life, Paul declares through 3 commands that the heavenly citizen has a different way of living
- Heavenly citizenship
- The Command or Citizenship in Heaven
- Join in imitating me (Phil 3:17, 1Cor 11:1)
- ““he calls for them to copy his
- self-denying and self-giving acts (1 Cor 11:1),
- willingness to suffer for the sake of others (1 Thess 1:6; 2:14; cf. 2 Thess 3:7–9),
- losing all for Christ, imitation of Christ (1 Cor 11:1; 1 Thess 1:6; cf. Eph 5:1; Phil 2:6–11),
- seeking for a goodness not in himself but in God, and admission that perfection is not yet his, but is eagerly pursued by him (cf. 1 Cor 4:16–17). “[1]
- ““he calls for them to copy his
- Keep eyes fixed (Phil 3:17)
- Stand firm (Phil 4:1)
- Join in imitating me (Phil 3:17, 1Cor 11:1)
- The Hope of Heavenly Citizens
- We await a savior (Phil 3:20)
- Our bodies will be transformed (Phil 3:21)
- God’s power is and will be at work in us (Phil 3:21)
[1] Gerald F. Hawthorne and Ralph P. Martin, Philippians, WBC 43; Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 217. https://accordance.bible/link/read/WBC-NT#39853
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