If you're led by your soul and physical body then your focus will be on earthly things.
Your focus will be on here, what you see, what you feel, what you smell, what you taste.
You let the flesh influence you because you're living on this physical plane.
But the challenge is for us to be led by the spirit.
Welcome back to a deeper dive into Philippians.
Today we'll be looking at chapter 3 from verses 17 to 21.
So let's just jump right in it and we'll read the whole section and then we'll break it down.
Whose God is their belly and whose glory is who glory is in their shame who set their mind on
earthly things for our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior
and the Lord the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform our lowly body that he may be conformed
to his glory glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue
all things to himself. What Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul is telling us in this section
is this, that there's a standard of living that we all should live by. There's an expectation
that he has of us. For some reason being a Christian has just become a title not a lifestyle.
The word Christian came about when people in Antioch called their disciples Christians
and what it means is Christ-like. So they saw the disciples of Christ and they're like those
are Christ-like and that's how the name Christians came about and for us today that's just a title.
We're nowhere near Christ-likeness. We don't even look we don't even smell like Christ and that is
a sad reality. There's a standard of living that is expected of us. We're expected to live to the
cross of Christ. That is the standard and what this section is doing is reminding us that the
standard of living that all believers are expected to live by and part of the reason why Christians
don't look like Christ anymore is because of the leadership. It's because of the leadership and in
verse 17 Paul is putting the onus of the on the leadership to walk in Christ-like, Christ-likeness.
Leaders matter. Leaders influence people and the generation. Paul invites the Philippians to
walk like him or anybody else who is mature. When the leaders are walking like Christ and
influencing people to walk like Christ then all the disciples and all the believers will begin to
look more and more like Christ. Look at these verses in Judges chapter 2 verse 7 and then verse
10 or 12. So the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who
outlived Joshua who had seen all the great works of the Lord which he had done for for Israel. Then
in verse 10 when all that generation had been gathered to their fathers another generation
arose after which who did not know the Lord and know and know the works which he had done for
Israel. Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord and served Baal and they
forsook the Lord God of their fathers. When the leadership died the people strayed far away from
God. In the news today it's a sad reality. It feels like every week there's a Christian leader who's
exposed for something and what do you think that does to the body? What do you think that does to
the area of influence they have? That some Christians will keep living because they have a deeper
relationship with the Lord but then there's some will be influenced by that and fall away
and leave the gospel, leave the Christian faith because when leaders fall people are influenced.
In verse 17 Paul is laying the standard for both leaders and the congregation. He's saying
to the leaders live a life worth imitating and to the congregation choose leaders worth following.
Leaders matter and when leaders fall people will fall and so in verse 17 Paul is telling us
leaders live an example and then verse 18 and 19 Paul is exposing the people who he should not
follow. He calls his people the enemies of the cross. That's why I titled this episode.
Living a life worthy of the cross, or living up to the cross.
Because the enemies of the cross are the people that we're supposed to avoid.
And I'm just going to re-read verse 18 and 19 so that you can see what he's talking about.
For many, and this is the leaders he's talking about,
for many of these leaders whom I have told you often,
and I'll tell you even weeping,
that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction,
whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame.
Who set their mind on earthly things.
You should not follow these leaders.
You should not follow the leaders who are enemies of the cross.
And I love that phrase that he uses, enemies of the cross, in verse 19.
It's very interesting to me.
And then he says, the people who are enemy of the cross have these three characteristics.
Their end is destruction, and their God is their belly,
and whose glory is in their shame.
And at the end of verse 19, he summarizes these three by saying this,
those who set their mind on earthly things.
In other words, you are an enemy of the cross,
if you set your mind on earthly things.
The earthly things that he's referring to is if your end is,
if you focus on destruction, if your belly is your God,
if your glory is in your shame.
These are the three things that will lead you to focus on earthly things.
So then let's look at those three things. What are they?
So the first one is your end is destruction.
The Greek word for that word destruction is the word apolia.
And it means in particular,
the destruction which consists in the loss of eternal life,
eternal misery, perdition,
the lot of those excluded from the kingdom of God.
These are the people who have chosen to reject Christ.
If you've chosen to reject Christ, then what will your focus be on?
It will be on earthly things. That's a no, that's a no brainer.
If you reject him, you'll focus on the earthly things. Okay.
Then let's look at the next one. Whose God is their belly.
Now the Greek word of belly is koilia and it means the whole belly,
the physical belly, the entire cavity.
And another definition is the innermost part of a man,
the soul heart as,
as the seat of thought, feeling choice.
And you see that I talk in first Peter, the inward man of the heart.
And that's what the definition is given right here.
If you put these two definitions together,
you get a clear picture of what Paul is talking about.
The belly represents the five senses, the physical being.
So when he's saying the whose God is the belly, the physical,
they're led by the five senses. They're led by the physical senses.
And the other part is our reasoning,
our soul and our soul is made up of our mind, will and emotions.
And we talked about that in a previous episode.
So what he's saying is don't be led by our soul and physical bodies.
Instead be led by our spirit.
If you're led by your soul and physical body,
then your focus will be on earthly things. Your focus will be on here.
What you see, what you feel, what you smell, what you taste.
You let the flesh influence you because you're living on this physical plane.
But the challenge is for us to be led by the spirit. Okay.
The third thing whose glory is their shame.
Glory in Greek is the word doxa.
It means opinion, estimate whether good or bad concerning someone.
In the new Testament,
always a good opinion concerning one resulting in praise, honor, and glory.
And the Greek word for shame is, and forgive me for this one.
This is a hard one. I'm going to give it everything I got.
Please don't judge me.
It means the confusion of one who is ashamed of anything,
sense of shame, ignominy, disgrace, and dishonor.
And for us believers,
we've experienced shame when we do something wrong and actually not just
believers, anybody, when you do something wrong, you feel ashamed.
And especially when you sin, you feel shame and condemnation.
So what Paul is saying here, whose glory is their shame,
who revel, who enjoy their shame,
who enjoy doing wrong things, who enjoy sinning,
who are pursuing the flesh, the flesh stuff.
And if your goal, or if you enjoy your shame,
if you enjoy doing wrong things, if you enjoy sinning,
you will 100% be focused on earthly things.
That's where your attention will be. When you reject Christ,
when you live a life led by
your soul and physical senses.
And when you enjoy your sin,
your mind will be set on earthly things.
Your mind will be set on earthly things.
Because that's not the goal.
The goal is for us to be set on heavenly things.
And that's where you see verse 20 pick up.
And then before I read the whole verse 20 and 21,
look at the first phrase in verse 20,
for our citizenship is in heaven.
For our citizenship is in heaven.
He goes on, he goes from telling us how we,
people who focus on the earthly things,
what they do and what motivates them and telling us our citizenship is in heaven.
That is the first thing that we all need to be aware of.
That is how we need to carry ourselves.
We need to remember that our citizenship is in heaven,
not on earth, in heaven. That's how we move life.
That's how we interpret life.
That's how we engage by remembering that our citizenship is in heaven.
So now let's read verse 20 and 21.
For our citizenship is in heaven.
We're supposed to not focus on earthly things,
but we're supposed to focus on heavenly things because our citizenship is in
heaven. We live on earth,
but we belong to heaven. You never forget that.
We live on earth,
but we belong to heaven because our citizenship is in heaven.
Our focus is on our savior who is in heaven, Jesus Christ.
That's where our focus should be.
And I love the promise of verse 21. I love,
I'm just going to reread verse 21.
What verse 21 is talking about is this.
Remember in the previous episode, we talked about spirit, soul, and body.
And we established that the day you get saved,
the Holy Spirit comes in us as a down payment and he
completely renews our spirit.
Our spirit is born again and it's made perfect, righteous, just like Christ.
And our soul is being made perfect by the renewing of our mind.
That's how our soul is perfected. But the more we study the scriptures,
but our bodies will be made perfect.
At resurrection morning. And that's what verse 21 is talking about.
It's talking about when Christ comes back and we get our new bodies,
our bodies that don't have sin, our bodies that will never get sick,
our perfect bodies.
That's why I love that promise because it reminds me the salvation is not yet
complete.
We've got the down payment down and it's going to be completely done when Christ
comes back. Right now we have the down payment, which is the Holy Spirit.
And very soon when he comes back, we'll get the full salvation.
In this passage of scriptures,
Paul is challenging us to live up to the cross of Christ.
Don't be focused on earthly things, but be focused on heavenly things.
Surrender yourself to the cross.
And that's how you can focus on heavenly things.
We cannot live up to the cross of Christ if our minds are focused on earthly
things that will make us enemies of the cross.
We live up to the cross of Christ by remembering that we are the citizens of
heaven and turn our attention to the return of our savior,
the Lord Jesus Christ.
So I pray everything that I've shared that you will take these things to heart,
learn how to surrender,
learn how to live on the cross and then turn your gaze on him.
Amen.