Text: Philippians 3:17-4:1
Paul wrote this letter to Christians living in Philippi, a city in northern Greece in an area called Macedonia. It was different from the other cities in the area. It had been colonized and settled by Rome years before. Many who lived there were retired Roman soldiers given land to live there. So even though Rome was far away and they now lived in a different land, they thought of themselves as Romans. They knew that their names were inscribed in the tribal records in Rome. So they dressed like Romans. They often spoke Latin, the language of Rome, and there they enjoyed Roman protection. They were proud of what their citizenship meant.
But here the apostle Paul pointed them to a far more wonderful citizenship. One that these Christians long ago now enjoy and we look forward to. Heaven. For heaven is our real home. That’s where our prayers go. From there God dispatches his holy angels to serve and protect us. And heaven. That’s the place where our names are written in the book of life. And it’s not something we earned or deserved. It’s not something we inherited from our parents. It’s a gift. A gift of God’s grace that is ours through faith in Jesus Christ. A gracious gift won for each of us on the cross of our dear Savior.
Well what does that mean for our life here and now? The Romans in Philippi lived in a foreign land. But they sought to live their lives as Romans. What about we citizens of heaven? It seems to me Paul is reminding us:
Live Like Heaven IS Your Home
I. Many sadly squander the gift
II. Keep that forward look in your life.
In our gospel lesson, we hear Jesus speak words he would say again when approaching Jerusalem for the last time. With great sorrow in his heart Jesus would weep over the people in the city who had rejected him. He would weep because of the great tragedy they had brought on themselves by their unbelief.
Here the apostle Paul shows that his heart beats the same rhythm as his Savior’s. With tears welling up in his eyes, he speaks of others who are lost. Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. But here Paul is not describing those who had heard the gospel and rejected it. He is talking about people who claimed Christ’s name for themselves. He is talking about people who if we asked them would call themselves Christians. Maybe someone your pastor baptized or confirmed. Maybe someone who grew up in a Christian home. They might claim to be a Christian, but for many as Paul writes here, the reality is different.
Something happened along the way. They made choices, sinful choices. And they lost sight of this truth: that God has saved us and called us to a holy life. Not to just go on as before. But to be different. To live like heaven is your home. Not to blend in with this fallen, dying world.
But many sadly squander the gift by doing just that. And here Paul paints a dismal picture. Their god is their stomach. By the way, don’t get this confused with old saying. The way to a man’s heart is by his stomach. That’s just saying, cook for your man. It works.
But this is something else. That word stomach represents all the appetites, all the desires that come our way. To make them our god is to serve them. To build our life around them. It’s to make eating or drinking or leisure or success or sexual satisfaction our greatest good. What’s our treasure? It’s worth considering.
Paul makes another brush stroke on the canvass. Their glory is in their shame. We live in a day like Paul’s. We live in a day, where churches and religious leaders who call themselves Christian, speak of being tolerant and accepting. In some cases though such talk is just a cover for evil. It’s a cover for throwing out God’s Word and accepting things, even celebrating things that God plainly forbids. Things like abortion or homosexuality or sex outside of marriage. The Scripture says: Woe to those who call evil, good. But that’s what they do. They glory in their so called tolerance. They glory in what is shameful in God’s sight and sadly squander the gift.
Their mind is on earthly things, Paul writes. Now don’t misunderstand. We need to pay attention to earthly things. We need to get an education, make a living and care for one another. But how easy it is to let those things consume us and choke the Lord and his Word out of our hearts. The house, the career, the vacation, the sports, the exercise program, the internet. Their mind is on earthly things,
So picture the tears streaming down Paul’s cheek as he writes this. For such people were faces to Paul, faces he had seen in Ephesus and Athens and Corinth. They were people for whom Jesus had died and won a precious gift of life. The same kind of people whom your pastor has lay awake thinking about and praying about. For many sadly squander the gift. God forbid that this come true for them. What Paul writes here: Their destiny is destruction.
So think about what Paul describes. Their god, fulfilling their appetites, their mind on earthly things. Does this describe someone you know? Or maybe you find yourself here in some way. I think we all we do at times. We fail to live like heaven is our home. So this Word warns us, but it also encourages us to remember: we’re just passing through. We’re pilgrims making our way through this life to a much better place. For Heaven is our home. Not this world which is perishing. So keep that forward look in your life. Live like Heaven IS your home.
How can we know that? Think of what Jesus said in our gospel. I will reach my goal. Jesus’ goal was to go to Jerusalem. It was to change our citizenship at the cost of his own life. For our sins stood like thick iron bars keeping us out of God’s heaven. Our guilt was like a big ugly stain on our soul that God cannot just overlook.
But Jesus offered himself in our place and his blood washes us clean. It is now possible for us to be citizens of a kingdom we had no right to hope for.
But that’s what we are. Through faith in Jesus, we are citizens of heaven just as he promised. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. We can look forward to that. Not as a wish or maybe. No we can sing, we can look this world in the eye with all its sadness and trouble and sing: I’m but a stranger here heaven is my home.
Well when we keep that forward look in our life, it’s going to make a difference in how we live right now. It helps us remember what is important and what is not really. What has lasting value and what is only for a time. Keep that forward look and you will remember. Our treasure is not in the driveway or investment account. Our home is not the house we live in. Our home is with the Lord. For our citizenship is in heaven…
And we eagerly await a Savior from there. How eager are we? I’m not here to tell you, be eager. Rather I want you to know why we can be. For on that day, something, something wonderful will happen, something we can truly look forward to. Jesus will transform our lowly bodies.
Think of these lowly bodies so prone to sickness and injury. Medical books contain hundreds of pages about human disease. Drug companies make hundreds if not thousands of medicines to treat them. And health insurance costs keep going up and up to treat these lowly bodies.
Of course, every now and then we hear of some great stride in medicine. Better treatments for cancer or heart disease. People once paralyzed may walk again. What a blessing to be part of a life saving transplant that kept a man with his family. And now even the possibility of eliminating some diseases through genetic research.
Yet there is one thing no amount of genetic tinkering can eliminate. There is one thing that clings to these lowly bodies like adobe mud on our shoes. That sinful nature of ours which we have to struggle with every day of our lives. And I know how some of you struggle. So do I, in my own way.
But when Jesus comes and he will, he transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. What does that mean? Then there will be no more pain and sickness. No more sadness and depression weighing us down. There will be no fear of our dying day. And the struggle will be over. That struggle with this sinful flesh. For then, we will be changed. And we will live. Life like it was meant to be. Life with our Lord.
We need to keep that forward look in our lives here and now. For when we do, it will make a difference in how we live. For those who are friends of the cross will show in their lives the spirit of the cross. We will love and serve because God’s only Son loved and served us. We will love and serve because the blood of God’s own Son has made heaven our home.
So live like it is. Keep that forward look in your life. And look around you for those who do the same. For you can’t fly with the eagles if you spend all your time hanging out with the Sonoma turkeys. Look for those who live like heaven IS their home. Guess what? You might find them here. For that is how you stand firm in the Lord. Amen.