We are presently engaged in a study of the Apostolic Ministry of Remembrance. And by this we mean the ministry of reminding you that the gospel is Christ-centered, as opposed to man-centered, or better yet, Christ-focused, as opposed to you-focused. the Apostolic Gospel and the Ministry of Remembrance is designed, a very important ministry throughout the New Testament, to remind you that the Gospel is not simply warmed over human philosophy or theory, but revelation, that is to say, a word from heaven. The gospel comes to us by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, Peter tells us in his first epistle, chapter 1, verse 12, to be specific. So it's in the gospel alone do we have revealed to us the mind and heart of God and the gift of righteousness in his Son, Jesus Christ. We need righteousness. Apart from righteousness, we cannot hope to be reconciled to God and possess eternal life. The answer for this dilemma from the side of man has always been to fabricate a scheme of acquired righteousness attained through our own works. And these schemes are with us today. They're insidious, they're devilish, and when they appear to be Christian by conceding the necessity of grace and faith in Christ, but deny that grace, faith, and even Christ himself is insufficient, necessary but insufficient, thus requiring that the sinner make the vital contribution in order to make the work of Christ effectual, we have this most insidious of false Gospels. In other words, a gospel of Christ plus works scheme. And this can be as subtle. This Christ plus works scheme can be as subtle as viewing one's faith as that vital contribution. Christ did his work, but I must add my faith in order to be saved. That's the thinking. And of course, that's a half-truth. But then heresy, error, and its destruction always come to us as half-truths. The devil traffics in half-truths. So Paul is reminding us, he says in his letter here, Philippians 3, 1 through 11, he's reminding us to beware of the dogs. We looked at that last time, the evil workers and the false circumcision. That is to say, beware of those who would teach that we must add something of our own to the finished work of Christ. Christ is necessary, grace is necessary, faith is necessary, but we must add something to make it sufficient. And most often, in evangelicalism, that error shows up as having to add faith, as if faith was something we add to the gospel. So this is something that comes right down to roost out where we live. This is not just theoretical or hypothetical teaching. This is not abstract. This brings it down right to where you and I live. And those who teach that saving faith originates in the sinner and thus represents the vital necessary contribution apart from which Christ's work will be ineffectual show themselves to be in company with those whom Paul warns against here. Why? Because the gospel teaches us that salvation is of the Lord and not in any manner attributed to man. Folks, that is the most basic of teaching. And that's one of the reasons why it's so astonishing that our churches have drifted so far from that dock. In fact, as the old saying goes, they've drifted so far from the dock, they can't see the land that the dock was tied to. So faith itself is a gift of grace. That is to say, the same grace that makes us dead sinners alive also enables a sinner to believe. Faith, therefore, is not and never will be a work of man to be added to Christ's work, but is inherent in the very grace by which Christ's work is made effectual to us. By grace are you saved through faith, and that now to yourselves, it is the gift of God." Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. So I would say, in fact, that this single point This single point of controversy is what the Church must be reminded about today. Our churches today have succumbed to this man-centered, man-made teaching passing itself off as gospel, that somehow Christ's work made salvation possible, and that it's up to us then to make it effectual. It's disturbing. If you see me from time to time sigh while I'm talking about this, it's because it comes with great grief that there are so many people buying into this. So why is that so important to me? Well, first of all, it's the truth, the difference between truth and falsehood. Secondly, it's only the gospel. There's one gospel. There's not 12. There's not 3. There's not 2. There's one gospel. Now, in the sense that there's a false gospel and the true gospel, yeah, there's two gospels. Paul even acknowledged that, but in Galatians 1, he said it's not even a gospel. There's no good news in false teaching. Not only does false teaching not bring authentic conversions, it may bring people raising their hand and coming down to the altar and coming down from all around the stadium and to stand in front of the podium and say a prayer and sign a card. But it doesn't bring authentic conversions. It doesn't bring genuine faith and repentance, because that comes only by the gift of the power of the Spirit in response to hearing the gospel. In other words, repentance, conversion I should say, without repentance is now no conversion at all. Conversion that ascribes faith to you is no faith at all. And yet, untold millions of Christians today walk around believing that that's the nature of the gospel to them. It's cunning, it's subtle, and in fact will lead you away from Christ and back to yourself. It's a concession to the fleshly urge to self-justification, with Christ's work only making possible salvation, not subject to man's contribution. Well, don't let me rant, or let me rant. Maybe if more Christian people, including us in the pews, were ranting we might have less of this going on. So let me be clear before we begin our study today. Salvation is of the Lord, not in any way subject to man's contribution, including faith, for faith itself is the gift of God. Ephesians 2, 8, 9. In fact, earlier in this same letter, Paul makes it clear at chapter 1, verse 29, saying, quote, Belief that leads to the certainty of persecution or rejection by the world is a grant from God. It's not something we just work up in ourselves. It's not something we just have because we are more predisposed by nature to or by upbringing to be religious than other people. No, grace enabled you to believe. Write that down. Grace enabled me to believe. Elsewhere we read in 1st Corinthians 1 30 it is but by his doing God's doing that you are in Christ Jesus Our Lord Jesus himself teaches in John chapter 6 No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day That's John 6 44 so we come by grace and remain in Christ by that same grace and The grace of God, therefore, is, listen now, all-sufficient, from start to finish. In the words of the Apostle in Philippians 1-6, in our very letter that we're studying, for I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ. That has got to be one of the most precious passages in all of Scripture. Because it makes God the one who initiates, God the one who brings conversion, and God the one who brings us home. What God begins, He also finishes. You see what that gives you as far as your assurance is concerned? You see what that gives you when perhaps you've relapsed, when you've fallen into some kind of old pattern, maybe for a day, maybe for a month, maybe for years, and you're now wondering, can I ever be a Christian again? Can I ever find the joy of salvation again? Absolutely. Even the wayward sinner doesn't return on his own. There's no way that the prodigal just wakes up one day and says, hey, you know what? I'm going to go back to being a Christian. No, no. He comes to his senses, even as the parable tells us. He came to his senses, sitting in a pigpen of his own making, and realized that's as far as his own thinking could get him. So then, in summary, while it is true that at some point we believe and come to Christ, even that is the work of grace and not the work of the sinner himself. Okay, so having been reminded of how it is we are in Christ, we learned in our last lesson, therefore, that we are to rejoice in the Lord and not in ourselves. We are willing to be reminded of the gospel. We learn that we are to be intensely intolerant of any teaching that draws us away from the sufficiency of Christ and his finished work on our behalf. Can you imagine being tolerant of some other guy wooing your wife, trying to seduce your wife? Or can you imagine being tolerant of having women woo you if you're a guy and you're just trying to seduce you away from your wife? And shouldn't we be intolerant of that kind of a behavior? To make it even more graphic, would we be tolerant of someone who's trying to draw away our children to harm them? Yes, we would be totally intolerant of that. And how much more then, as heinous as those things are, are we to be tolerant then of somebody who would draw us away from Christ and put us back into self-reliance for our own redemption? That's one of the things we learned last week. We are to be intensely intolerant of any teaching that draws us away from the sufficiency of Christ and his finished work on our behalf. We learned also that religious credentials and activities are garbage compared to Christ himself. We learned that the great passion, we were reminded that the great passion of the Christian life, therefore, is Christ himself. If your studies in theology do not increase your love and passion for Christ, then my friend, you're missing the mark. Christ himself is the goal of the Christian life. It is the righteousness of Christ we celebrate, not our own. So we want to be like Christ, even in his sufferings, in order that we might attain to the resurrection from the dead. ever-increasing conformity to Christ and his death is the essence of the Christian life. Now today we're going to expand our study by looking closer at this second episode of this study on the Apostolic Ministry of Remembrance by looking at the context of Philippians 3, 1 through 11. We looked at that text last week. And so we're going to begin by looking at Philippians 2, since that comes before 3, therefore creates our context, but specifically at verses 19 through 29 first. So let's look at that, and then we're going to look at chapter 3 verses 12 through 21 briefly, and hopefully give you some greater context and some greater depth. to the mind of the Apostle here and his motivation of reminding us, reminding us of the nature and the character and the glories of the Gospel of the Spirit in the New Covenant. So let's look at Philippians. Turn with me to Philippians chapter 2 verses 19 through 30. Quote, But I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, so that I also may be encouraged when I learn of your condition. For I have no one else of kindred spirit who will genuinely be concerned for your welfare. For they all seek after their own interest, not those of Christ Jesus. But you know of his proven worth, that he served with me in the furtherance of the gospel, like a child serving his father. Therefore, I hope to send him immediately as soon as I see how things go with me. And I trust in the Lord that I myself also will be coming shortly. But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who was also your messenger and minister to my need, because he was longing for you all and was distressed because he had heard that he was sick. For indeed, he was sick to the point of death. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. Therefore I have sent him all the more eagerly, so that when you see him again you may rejoice, and I may be less concerned about you." Receive him then in the Lord and with all joy, and hold men like him in high regard, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to complete what was deficient in your service to me. Let's pause there. And may the Lord ahead his blessing to this reading of his holy and fully inspired in the name of the Lord. Amen. What we have here is Paul extolling the example of Timothy and a man named Epaphroditus. We all need Christian models. We need to be able to follow the example of others in Christ who are worthy of such imitation, and this is especially true for our children. And here Paul points to the faith and practice of these two men as models of Christian living. How many people grew up in the church and remember seeing rampant hypocrisy and disingenuous Christian people? And they grew up in the church seeing that, and then we wonder why they renounce the faith as they get older. How important is it for us to have good Christian models in the church? People we can look to and say, that's what a Christian looks like. That's what a Christian is. Well, that's what Paul's doing here with Timothy in Epaphroditus. And for Timothy, Timothy was genuinely concerned for the welfare of the believers at Philippi, which of course stood in contrast to their own leaders who, says Paul, quote, seek after their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. This type of behavior by celebrity, career-motivated pastors pursuing self-interest to the neglect of the church certainly is a plague in our day. We need to be reminded of these things and mark and avoid such hirelings. Instead, Paul holds up Timothy in contrast, his sincere concern for these believers, as well as Timothy's faithful working alongside of Paul, quote, as a child serving his father. Concerning Epaphroditus, this man was sent by the church at Philippi to care for Paul and his imprisonment. I mean, we think of the prison epistles and we realize that Paul was not in some padded cell someplace. He was in a damp, unsanitary, dark Roman cell. And if people didn't bring him food, if friends and family didn't bring him food, he just went without. There were no state guidelines for caring for prisoners, other than to make sure they didn't escape. So while there, Epaphroditus became ill as well, and nearly died. But Epaphroditus was concerned only with his, how his illness distressed the Philippians. Listen, this is a man whose illness was taken to the point of death, and what was his primary concern? how the news of his illness would be affecting the church. So both Timothy and Epaphroditus are models, listen now, of selfless service to the people of God. That's why Paul says, hold men like him in high regard because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to provide what was deficient in your service to me. So here we are to be reminded to honor those who model Christ-like selflessness in the care of Christ's Church. That's one of the things that we're to be reminded about. This model of Timothy and Epaphroditus comes to us after Paul had earlier held up the Lord himself as the model for how we are to approach life within community. In chapter 2, verses 5 through 11, we learned and we were reminded that Jesus himself modeled the path to glorification as a path of service done in personal anonymity, humility, and unconditional obedience to the revealed will of God. Now, let me just be clear here. What I didn't just say is that the path to justification was modeled by Jesus. That's not what Paul's point is here in Philippians 2. Paul's saying, no, no, I'm speaking to people who are justified, who are in Christ, who have experienced the application of unconditional election. They are in Christ. No one can snatch them out of the Father's hand. But they are living out now the Christian life. They're on their way to glorification. And on their way, Jesus models what that's to look like. Anonymity, as opposed to seeking fame and position and status. Humility, as opposed to arrogance and egocentric activities. And unconditional obedience to the revealed will of God. That's the proper use of the will, by the way. is to submit it to the will of God. Creaturely will cannot and never will be however free we become on the same plane as the divine will. The proper use of the creature, the will of the creature is to submit to the divine will. What a contrast. What a contrast to those who use their position in the church then and today for personal fame, pride, and feigned obedience to God. We see this all the time, don't we? We see this with those who have ministries after their own name. I mean, you would think that the gospel originated with Pastor Joe Schmoe. It's just something crazy about this. or that they have some special insight into the gospel, and so we better follow them. No, the gospel's right here. Open your Bible. If you want insight and illumination, open your Bible. You don't have to follow a celebrity pastor, and you don't have to give monthly to him, and you don't have to buy all of his books, and you don't have to do all of this nonsense. Most of these guys are promoting themselves for their own sake, not for your sake. They're seeking their own interests, not those of Christ Jesus. And Timothy and Epaphroditus model for us an imitation of Christ, what we're supposed to do. They remind us of what a Christian really does look like, especially a Christian leader. So, let's spend the balance of our time today looking at the balance of this context. And that would be Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 through 21. Let me see here. You know what, we're going to actually turn to chapter 3. and we're going to look at verses 12 through 21. There we go. Thank you. Thank you for your patience here. So let's read that. Paul saying in Philippians chapter 3 beginning with verse 12. This is the balance of the context. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect. Remember, he's talking about his pursuing Christ and laying aside his own credentials. Regarding all his losses is rubbish. Paul's passion is for Christ and in sharing Christ's righteousness, Christ's own righteousness through the gospel. He has no time or energy for this previous life in Judaism. In fact, he considered, remember, in chapter 3, 1 through 11, all his previous credentials in that system to be what? Yes, rubbish, or dung, as translated by the Authorized Version. And now in verses 12 through 16, Paul cautions against any notion that he is prescribing triumphalism in his passion for pursuing Christ. And I'll explain that in just a minute. So let's read the text. Philippians chapter 3, not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which I also was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude. And if any one of you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you. However, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. Brothers, join in following my example. and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. For many walk, of whom I have told you, and I'll tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, of whom I have often told you, he notes, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 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." So Paul's passion, as he set forth, is for Christ in Philippians 3, 1 through 11. But it is tempered also by the fact that he has not already obtained it or have already become perfect. We are raised to new life with and in Christ, but we also look forward to that day when sharing in Christ's resurrection will be fully realized. and that our bodies will be brought into conformity with Christ's glorified body. That's our future, beloved. That's your future. Rejoice. Hang your hat on that. You are in process now of having the redemption, the fully accomplished redemption that Christ purchased for you at the cross and was affirmed by his resurrection, that now that the Spirit has come and taken up residence in you, he's working to work that out in your life. And your future is certain. Your resurrection is certain. And you having a glorified body is certain. So we're in a now and not yet status. And neither one takes away from the other. It just completes the picture. It just explains why we are in the place we are. So Paul and all Christians are in a now and not yet status. So then. How are we to regard our present life in this now? Well, the answer is, as Paul just reminded us, we are to forget what lies behind us and reach forward to what lies ahead and press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We are to march forward. We come to Christ having been made alive by the work of the Spirit from a state of death and moral corruption. We were once enslaved by sin and the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. We were, in fact, by nature, children of wrath. That's Ephesians 2, 1 through 3. And in that state, the law and all of our religious activities was of no use to us. Our religious efforts were futile. So what is it that Paul forgets behind him? What is it that he puts behind him? He puts behind him any... You say, well, he put behind him all his mistakes, and the time that he kicked the dog, and the time that he... No, no, no, no, no. Forgetting what lies behind us. Forgetting what lies behind me, Paul says, I'm forgetting all of that old history of self-effort. to try to be reconciled to God on my own behavior. So now it's, but God, who is rich in mercy, and only because of his great love with which he loved us, even when, what, we were dead in our personal transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, it is by grace you have been saved, and he raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ. And God did this by an act of free grace, in love, and not because of anything in us, foreseen or not. You know, we really must work to grasp the unconditional nature of God's saving action in His Son. And the reason why we must work and remind ourselves of this is because it's so counterintuitive to the meritocracy of our own society and our own natural thinking that means that we have to earn everything. Every time I hear somebody pound their chest and say, you know what? I earned my own way. The government gave me nothing. I kind of sigh. I mean, it sounds really good. It's, but it's, it sounds really American, but it's not very biblical. We can't go there biblically. We can't say, well, I earned my salvation. Nobody ever gave anything to me. That's not the gospel. We really must work in a society that values merit so highly. I even heard a speaker on YouTube recently talking about how he purchased a Bible because he went out and got a job. No government ever gave me a Bible, he said. He's really proud of himself. Well, good for him. Just so long as he doesn't forget that it was God who gave him life and his son freely and without merit. Go buy as many Bibles as you want. Be proud of yourself that you earned the money to do it. That's fine. You see what I'm saying here? We are surrounded by language and symbols of merit. It's counterintuitive for you and I as Americans, especially, to not want to earn our salvation. That's why we develop so many weird doctrines that tell us that it points it back to us ultimately. Ultimately, no matter what Christ has done for us, we are the one that makes it work. We're the one that adds the final piece to the jigsaw puzzle. So the great doctrines of the Church, historically and biblically, have been about the work of God in his Son, saving sinners, helpless, powerless sinners, from themselves. And Church history, however, is the record of departure from those great historical doctrines of grace back to a form of self-salvation. Every generation, every society has that problem. Since the resurrection, since the apostles started preaching at Pentecost, every generation has had to defend the gospel of free grace. And what have we had to defend it against? Anybody tell me? We've had it defended against the Gospel of Merit, however small that merit may be. Remember, a little leaven does what? Leavens a whole lump. And how many flies does it take to ruin the ointment? One. So most Christians today would reject the wholesale works oriented justification. Most Christians today would say, no, no, no, we don't, we're not saved by merit. We don't have to go to confession and we don't have to, uh, do good work to get saved. We don't have to do all these things to please God. And then to say, Oh, by the way, it was my free will that got me into Christ. Too bad for the guy next to me. I was better than him. I chose and he didn't. That's how it works. And that's what we have to get rid of. That's the fly. That's the leaven that we have to get out of our brains. And we only do that through good, solid, exegetical exposition of the text in a prayerful, humble manner, always praying for mercy. Listen, we have to be delivered by the power of God from any notion of merit. in our justification or in our sanctification. Okay, so nonetheless here Paul is saying and by extension to all Christians that we are in a now and not yet state of redemption. Christ's work is finished and we are now included in it. We see and experience its power even now and yet that work has not yet been fully realized in us. And it won't be until Christ returns for his own. So we forget what lies behind, that is, all of our efforts at self-salvation, and press forward to the calling of God in Christ. The now and not yet is therefore no prescription for passivity, but a call to press on in the call of God in Christ. And this is how all Christians should think of the Christian life. So many have a different view, says Paul. If anyone does have a different view, they would be mistaken, and he's confident that God will reveal that also to you. I once heard a pastor say, you know, how arrogant of Paul. He has one view, and he thinks that if somehow you have a different view, that God's going to have to make that real to you as well. Well, that's exactly what Paul said. He's the one who's the apostle, not me. He's the one that has the authority to say, this is the gospel, not me. So if I have a different view than Paul, yeah, I'm the one that God has to correct. So let us not become lax, he says, but instead keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. Don't concede any ground you've already taken so far. Stand firm, but continue to press on, knowing that we are in a now and not yet state. Somebody has referred to it in the analogous of the Normandy landing in World War II, towards the end of World War II, when the Allies landed on Normandy Beach in France. Historians agree that as of that moment, June 6th, 1944, Hitler was doomed. the war was effectively over. But more soldiers gave their lives in the next 10 months before the war actually ended than had died in the previous three years, four or five years if you're in Britain. But nonetheless, the analogy holds true. We have taken the land, we have taken the beach, And now we're pressing forward to the full highest calling of God in Christ and the full realization of that one day. And then Paul tells us to follow these godly examples. Join in following my examples, says the Apostle. In verse 17, Observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us, Timothy, Epaphroditus, himself, and above all, Christ. This is a wonderful gift he's given us. Paul is saying there's a way to function in our daily life. There's a pattern for life and he calls us to do so. In Jesus himself, we discover personal anonymity, humility, unconditional obedience to the Father's will. In Timothy, we learn and are reminded of genuine concern for the welfare of others. In Epaphroditus, we learn of sacrificial service and we're reminded that we do that even facing the possibility of losing our lives. And that we should be primarily concerned with how we affect others, for good or ill. And of course, Paul and his single-minded passion for Christ and his righteousness. By the way, how do you know you are single-minded in your own passion for Christ and His righteousness? How do you know that? The answer is when everything else that you once relied upon or used to commend or affirm your own status before God becomes to you as rubbish. Everything. And what might those things be? Well, maybe for you it is, quote, King James-only-ism and formal dress at church. Or Sunday evening Sabbath services among the truly reformed. Maybe it's morning devotions or your tithing record. Or perhaps the fact that you were baptized and confirmed or raised in a Christian home. The list goes on and on and on. What I'm saying to you is that anything, especially the prescription of any form of external religious standard, such as these things I just mentioned, and especially if they cause you to be suspicious of others who may not be Christians because they don't follow those same standards, represents something competing for your reliance upon Christ and His righteousness alone. So whatever distinctives that you may have in your individual church tradition, If they're not harming anyone and you want to keep a Sabbath, keep a Sabbath. If you want to read the King James Bible, keep it. If you really read it. If you want to give and you want to give 10%, do it. If you want to talk about how grateful you are to be baptized and confirmed or how grateful you are that you're raised in a Christian home, fine. Just don't put those things on other people as a basis for their Christianity. Oh, you're only a Christian if you read the King James. Oh, you're only a Christian if you're really the faithful if you come back on Sunday night service. See what I'm saying? It's insidious how we begin to assign external religious activities and standards to the finished work of Christ and then say, well, you're not a Christian if you don't do these things. Be careful. And then there's one other extreme I want to touch on before we close, and that is the Libertines. Paul doesn't leave them out. So Paul has warned the Philippians of those who profess Christ and yet continued in what they were like in a form of Roman paganism in their lifestyle. We'll close with a brief review of this. That's verses 18 through the balance of the text, 21. So Paul said there are many who live in such a way. They confess Christ and continue to live like they're Roman pagans. This was no small minority. These people were a source of grief for the apostle. It brought him to tears to speak of them, he says. For despite their Christian profession, their lifestyle proved them to be, quote, enemies of the cross of Christ. Think of that. Think of that language. It's possible to live in such a way that despite our profession in Christ, we are actually proving ourselves instead to be enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, says the apostle. Their only God is their own appetite, and their only glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things. In other words, they live in a manner that is diametrically opposed to Christ, to Paul, and to his associates. Now these people fit well within Roman society and their lifestyles were typical of those proud of their Roman citizenship. They were just simply, despite all everything that Paul just laid out about them and their character and their behavior, they were just living in accord with Roman standards. They didn't think of themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ. They didn't think of their glory being in their shame. They didn't think that they were setting their minds on earthly things, but they were. And Paul says it with tears. He's not being mean, he's grieving over them. Just as many today live in, quote, the American dream. of rampant materialism, greed, and even sexual immorality, political violence, gluttony, and then claim to be freedom-loving Christian people. That's what Paul's talking about here. See, it's parallel. I hope that makes you uncomfortable, and if it does, I invite you to consider what I'm saying. It is possible to be professing Christ and living like your culture, and if that culture is in opposition, you are actually showing yourself to be an enemy of the cross of Christ. It is possible, let me say it this way, it is possible to be so caught up with being a good, freedom-loving, luxury, comfort-loving American that you then show yourself to be an enemy of the cross of Christ. Don't put American culture above the kingdom of God. Don't put your rights to do what you want to do as an American citizen above your obligation to walk like Christ. And don't baptize your materialism, your greed, and even your sexual immorality and your political, violent, verbally and physical behavior and hating others because they vote differently and claim to be a good Christian. That's what Paul's saying here. These people profess Christ and continue to live in like Roman pagans because they were so proud of their Roman citizenship in Philippi. That's why he says, in stark contrast, Paul then reminds those in Christ of what? Where is their citizenship? Why does Paul have to bring that topic up? For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ." And let me home in on this context here. We are now in a not-yet state as we wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, he says. Our citizenship is in heaven, not America. I'm proud to be an American. I'm grateful to be an American. I'm grateful for the liberties and the freedoms that I have, especially to be able to freely do the will of God. freely practice my faith. But I'm not free to participate in all the shadow darkness of the American culture and yet claim to be anything but an enemy of the cross of Christ. So Paul is reminding these Philippians, as many of them were proud Roman citizens, that they await for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, as opposed to whom? Caesar. Remember Christians were proclaiming Jesus is Lord. The Roman citizenry were saying Caesar is Lord Caesar is our Savior. So Paul's saying no You can't do both They didn't have t-shirts saying Caesar is my Emperor and Jesus is my Lord Doesn't work that way And in our time, not any political leader, left or right, or religious guru deserves equal billing to Jesus. Now, we live as those awaiting our only Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will, quote, transform the body of our humble state into conformity with himself and with the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself. Philippians 3, 21. So let me give you just a brief summary and conclusion and we'll close. What we've done in this study about the ministry and remembrance is to remember that the Christian life is about Christ and his righteousness. The Christian is to be passionately single-minded in his or her pursuit of Christ. to know him better, and be conformed to him in thought, word, and deed, in his life and in his death, in order that we might be assured of final resurrection. Not that this resurrection is conditioned upon our conduct, for it is by grace we are saved, but in order that we might prove ourselves to be in him, and thus possess the joy of such assurance. and so that we may model to the church and the world what it means to be in Christ. We've been reminded also that legalism and liberalism stand as obstacles to be overcome, not to be aligned with. And we do this by first marking and avoiding them with an intense intolerance for their teaching and pattern of life. and secondly, by instead following the model of Christ and his apostles. So while we are presently both laying hold of the high calling of God and Christ, we also avoid the error of the over-realized eschatology, which is by the way common among the modern charismatics these days, by recognizing that we are in a now and not yet state. For while Christ's work for us is accomplished, His work in us is yet to be fully realized when He returns. We then will inherit glorified bodies like His and be with Him in that fully redeemed state forever. These are the things that Paul has reminded us of. And I encourage you to stay in memory of these things. I encourage you to read the transcript, to read what I've posted, read what I've made available by audio, and listen. Listen carefully and listen to it. Think on these things. Meditate on these things. And may the Lord grant you His grace and mercy and peace to do so, so that you can grow in the image and model of Christ and live these things out in your own life as well. Amen.