Philippians 3:15-21 - Following Christ's Example Through Mentorship
Tom Shrader continues his verse-by-verse study through Philippians, examining Paul's call to follow His example and observe those who walk according to the pattern of Christ. He contrasts two types of people: those who are enemies of the cross (focused on earthly things) and those whose citizenship is in heaven. Shrader emphasizes the critical need for mentorship relationships between older and younger believers, challenging mature Christians to invest in the next generation rather than remaining comfortable in retirement.
“God blessed you to be a blessing to others. That's why He blessed you.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Philippians
Recorded: November 17, 2016
Duration: 39 min
Themes: mentorship, discipleship, example, maturity, legacy, influence, growth, perseverance, mentor, retired believer, mature christian, older adult, young believer, seeking guidance, new to faith, spiritual parent
Scripture: Philippians 3:12-21, 1 Peter 2:2, 1 Corinthians 4:16, 1 Peter 5:10, James 4:4, 1 John 2:15
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual formation, christian maturity, progressive sanctification, discipleship, spiritual mentoring, christian example, heavenly citizenship
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles, please, to the book of Philippians as we continue our study. I was talking with one of the guys yesterday who comes to this study, and he was saying how he loves the verse-by-verse approach, taking a book and breaking it apart. That's something I've always done in church, and we do it maybe once a year or every 18 months in this study.
By way of introduction, I don't know that I've ever studied a book where I've seen such consistency of theme and connection all the way through. Obviously, Paul does that throughout his letters, but there's a summary that builds week after week because one thought builds on the other.
Connecting to Last Week's Passage
We left off in chapter 3, verse 14. Verse 15 begins with "let us therefore." The minute you see "therefore," you see the connection to the previous thought. If you were not here last week, we looked at Philippians chapter 3, verses 12, 13, and 14—a wonderful passage where Paul moves us toward this idea of living for Christ.
He gives us something really comforting in verse 12. He said, "Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect." I can read Paul sometimes and think this guy has no flaw in his game, but he said, "No, I'm not there yet, but I press on, I strive, I labor." You see an intensity here, and you see two thoughts coming together that somehow God puts together, though in our minds we may not be able to do that. He says, "I'm the one who produces the growth in you, and yet you're the one who strives."
In verse 13, we spent considerable time on this, he said, "I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet." That's the third time in this verse and a half he said it, "but one thing I do." It's that idea of focus, pressing on, the idea of great things being accomplished through keeping your eye on the ball.
Learning from Paul's Example
He said, "Here's what I do: I forget what lies behind." As we look back, we can take those events and put them in two big buckets—the successful ones and the unsuccessful ones. Paul says, "I look back and I see all of these things that I accomplished, all of these amazing things, and yet I don't rely on those." In fact, Paul says spiritually speaking, those things are, in verse 8, "rubbish." The King James says "dung."
Paul also looks back and sees the failures in his life, and he says, "I'm not paralyzed by them." You all know people, and maybe you even have a tendency sometimes to look back and say, "I've done these things." It has to be, I think, the saddest conversation I ever had—and that could be hyperbole—but it was with a guy who came to a study and I'd never seen him before. He sat in the back and cried the entire time. I'm thinking, "It can't be that bad." I thought he was perhaps in pain, but maybe under conviction.
He came up afterward and we started talking. He began to just sigh and weep, and it was so sad. He said, "I've done so many things God could never forgive me." That was his takeaway. Even face to face with grace, he said, "There's so much stuff in the past, God's never going to overlook that," and he was paralyzed by that.
Paul had that too, right? He was a persecutor of the church. So he said, "I'm looking back, and I'm not going to let those things hold me hostage—the bad stuff—nor am I going to be presumptuous to think that because I've done well in my life, I'm going to coast on that." Here's the summary in verse 14: "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." That's the takeaway—I'm going to press on, I'm going to continue, I'm going to strive.
Moving Forward Together
Verse 15: "Let us therefore, as many as are perfect"—by "perfect" there He means maturing—"have this attitude; and if in anything 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."
There's something interesting here. He uses the plural and says, "Therefore let us, as many as there are." It's not just me, not just Paul. There are many of us who are striving in this process, but let us move together, let us continue, let us have that attitude, let us build on that. Now, if you're one of those who says, "No, I've got a different attitude," Paul's saying, "At this point I'm done—God's going to reveal that to you." If you're His child, He's going to show you those deficiencies. If you're not, there'll be a day of reckoning. But he said we want to keep continuing by this standard in verse 16—the standard to which we've already attained.
Four Essential Elements for Growth
There are four important elements to that standard. Number one is God's Word. I was talking to somebody the other day who was lamenting their spiritual growth, not being satisfied with it. When people are dissatisfied with their spiritual growth, in my impression, they oftentimes blame their church.
I said, "Well, tell me about your church." He described a church—and this is not a criticism of it—it was just a mainline denominational church. This is not a criticism of denominations, but it is a criticism of the church in the sense that I said, "Well, take me through a Sunday. What does a Sunday service look like?" He had in it everything but the Word of God. You had a lot of ritual—I'm okay with ritual, tradition. Ritual and tradition are probably a fine line—but I'm going to grow on the Word of God.
First Peter 2:2, Peter writes: "Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation." Salvation—not just coming to faith in Christ. Salvation is the continuation of that process. Remember what we said last week about the gospel? The tendency is to say, "I need to hear this gospel as an unbeliever. Once I've
responded to that gospel. At least my generation, it felt like once I've come to Christ in repentance and faith, that's the end of the gospel. Paul's saying no, that gospel is something I apply to my life every day, that I have to be reminded of this every day. The Word of God's going to do it.
Here's the second thing: prayer. This kind of open communication with God—we'll talk about prayer when we get to chapter 4 verse 6. "Be anxious for nothing but pray about everything." But in a large sense, when I'm praying, this is not me trying to coerce God or manipulate God. It demonstrates right away that there are two fundamental things.
I was invited four or five years ago to the city council meeting in the city of Chandler to do the opening invocation. I'm a civic kind of guy, so I go and I get there and they said, "We've made a mistake." I said, "Well, I sensed that when I saw my name on the agenda." They said, "No, no, no. Here's the mistake—you're not doing an invocation, you're doing a benediction. You're not first, you're last." I said, "Wow, who's got the agenda for the meeting?" And it went on, and Walmart is the devil, and we went through the whole process.
Finally, the mayor said, "The Reverend Pastor Tom Schrader is here to close our meeting tonight with his benediction." So I got up and I said, "Mayor, thank you. Let's pray. Father, we come tonight knowing two things, and pray with these two things in mind. Number one, You care about what we face. Number two, You can do something about it. Please do, we pray in Christ's name, amen." Well, it was like an ovation at this point, because what happens is every guy gets in there, and this is his chance to lecture the city council as he talks to God about them, and they overhear it.
Understanding True Prayer
I love that idea. When I pray, I'm praying because I think God cares, and when I pray, implicit in this is He can do something about it. Now, that doesn't mean that as I pray, I'm praying, "God, here's what I'm facing, will You do this?"
Here's my tendency when I pray: I'm here, God, You're here, somehow I would need You to get over here under me, God, and line up with my agenda. When I pray and I'm saying "God, do something," it's not "You line up under me," it's "God, bring me in alignment with Your thoughts." It doesn't necessarily mean take away the cancer. It doesn't necessarily mean get me through this hard time financially by just all of a sudden I open the mail today and there's a check.
It's "God, in the midst of this rather than remove the circumstance"—though I would tell you and I have no problem telling you, God, if You remove it I'm okay with that—"but if You don't, that's okay because I'd rather have You in the midst of turmoil than be on my own in the midst of prosperity." So that's that idea of praying.
Here's the third thing: you need godly examples. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 4:16, "Be an imitator of me." We're going to see that when we get today to verse 17: "Follow my example." So we'll talk about it more in a minute, but suffice to say you need people in your life who share your faith. More in a minute.
Here's the fourth thing: knowing God uses trials to mold us into Christ's image. First Peter 5:10, Peter writes: "After you've suffered for a while, the God of all grace who called you into His eternal glory in Christ, He will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen, and establish you."
Standing Firm in the Faith
So He said, "I want you to live by this same standard." Look at chapter 4 verse 1. He says, "Therefore my beloved brethren whom I long to see, my joy and crown, stand firm." How do I stand firm? Well, I would suggest those four things that I just gave you are going to take you a long way down that road.
So that's verses 15-16. Verse 17, and we'll spend the lion's share of our time on verses 17 through 21. In fact, let me read it to you and see how Paul positions two different thoughts.
"Brethren, join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us." So be an imitator of me and others like me. Verse 18: "For many walk, of whom I've often told you, and now tell you even weeping"—that word "weeping" is the only time that Paul speaks in the present tense of weeping. The idea there now is not figurative. He's saying, "I'm pouring tears over this group of people I'm telling you about. I weep that they are enemies of the cross of Christ."
Two Contrasting Examples
Verse 19, and you can do a little one-two-three here. He tells us three things about them. Number one, their end is destruction. Number two, their god is their appetite. Number three, their glory is in their shame, and they set their minds on earthly things.
So Paul's making a plea to these people and he's saying, "I want you to have a role model, but it's us. It's me." Very bold statement. "It's not them who are an enemy of Christ." If I were to summarize it all, it's that last line in verse 19: "who set their mind on earthly things."
So we'll come back to that in a minute, but He said, "Here's us. Who's the us?" It's that group in verse 17. It's those of us who know Christ. "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."
The Call to Follow Examples
So let's break it down. He says in verse 17, "Brethren"—it's the third time He's gone to kind of this intimate term. Oftentimes in Paul's writing, when he uses a term like that, he's about to give you some instruction, often saying hard things. This isn't really a hard thing, but it is an instructive thing.
He said literally "join in my example." It means literally "be fellow imitators with me." Now I remember the first time I came
To the Bible Raw. Larry's working his way through the book of Romans. He's talking about the Apostle Paul and he takes us on a little sojourn and he says Paul says be a follower and imitator of me. Now the first time I heard that, what I thought about is that's pretty cocky. That's pretty arrogant.
Sandy is in the process very close to going through all this stuff that's at the house. This is pretty cool. Sandy's a BSF girl. She's in BSF. They're studying the book of Genesis. Haley's decided to start going and the other day Sandy's in the garage going through some stuff and she found Susan's BSF notes on the book of Genesis. So this is pretty cool for me. I mean God's very good to me. So Sandy is going through BSF Bible study fellowship in a book of Genesis. God gave me a godly gal. I love it. But my daughter Haley is likewise going through the study with Sandy but using her mom's notes. That's a pretty cool deal.
Well one of the things that Sandy found is a fine I paid to the city of Tempe for my first DUI. There's a bunch of takeaways on that but there was one big moment and it was before the judge. I might respond differently now because the penalty is so punitive but at that time you faced a night in jail which was they got there and they let you go outside and pick up paper until dark and they let you out at sunrise. So it wasn't that bad. The bad part was they put me in a cell with a guy and I'm kind of going why are you here? And he goes why do you ask senor? And I said I'm just curious. He said well I got in a fight. I'm thinking now however this ends I'm a good guy man you don't want to mess with me. It's deceptive but I'm before the judge and He's going through the hard data the timing and all that and the arresting officer is there and He said do you have anything to say and He described the defendant that would be me as cocky but cooperative. I don't know what it means but I feel like it probably captured the essence of who I am at least at that moment and that's what I thought it's honestly what I thought of when I read the first time Paul be an imitator of me I thought cocky but cooperative.
Understanding Paul's Call to Imitation
He's not saying that He's saying listen and get the context I'm not there. He's saying don't look at me as somebody's arrived. I look at Jesus and Jesus is perfect but He exists that way. It's probably fine line here but I don't look at Jesus and go man I can do that but I look at Paul and go okay that I can comprehend you were this you're this you're in this process so now I can look to Paul and go struggles disappointments failure sin I can learn how to handle that I can deal with that kind of process.
So let me give you a couple things just on heroes and mentors role models and I want to talk about heroes Mickey Mantle is a hero a hero somebody that that's a bit removed you may get Him so like if you had a you know you go out today and you get Mickey Mantle's autograph which would be a feat because He hasn't been with us for a while now so you're buying a fake off eBay but so we go we align and we say let's say Albert Pujols you may go down to Diablo Stadium and you may see Albert and you may even have a conversation with Him it's brief it's on His terms likely and you may get Him to autograph a baseball but He's still up He's still a hero it's still removed. A role model is somebody you can get that calls you back they're on your speed dial and then when the phone rings and they look down and see your name they press accept they don't press decline which by the way and I keep telling people just a measurement of if you're making a lot of calls that ring once and go to voicemail that's probably not a good sign it's a lot of decline buttons that they're hitting here.
The Failure to Mentor the Next Generation
So I'm investing more time than I should here because I want you to see that I mean most of you in this room are older okay I'll go with old but older one of the things I see among you all is a failure to mentor the next generation and when I see that it's mostly because you never even tried. I had a meeting yesterday and we're out and there was a young broker in the meeting and He said will you do me a favor and I said sure maybe you know I don't know what it brokers I'm a little leery it's always cost me something and He said I'm trying to find older guys in the business when I reach out to them they tend to think that somehow I'm trying to make a deal or make money or capital I just want to know how do you deal with your family how do you deal with your money how do you deal with life as a follower of Christ in the midst He happens to be in a commercial real estate in the midst of this dog-eat-dog environment. And He said, I've reached out to the guys and the guys haven't responded. That's what I've seen.
There's this army of men, I'm leaving women out of it for now, but there is an army of women as well, but I'm staying with men. There's an army of men who are 55 and older, it's an arbitrary number, who have a lot of tread left on their tire, I think I'm one of them by the way, who acknowledge that they need to do something. They're feeling this need.
And I can't remember if I mentioned it here last week, but last time or the time before, I'm at Phoenix Country Club and up in the men's grills about three in the afternoon, and there had to be 18, 20 guys up there who just played a round of golf, who were sitting around having a gin and tonic, waiting for their designated driver to come, and looking for something to do really. And I mentioned to a friend who just played at Arizona, and He said, I saw the same thing, we finished about 2:30, there were a dozen guys in the grill, playing gin and drinking gin, which I don't have a problem playing gin or drinking gin, but there's something to do.
The Resistance to Mentoring
Here's what I've noticed, as I start to push on guys, and I get it because I'm there, I'll go, well, we got
these young guys, "Let's meet on Tuesday." "Get my nails done on Tuesday." "Well, let's meet on Thursday." "Thursday, Thursday, I kind of recoup, I need a nap Thursday." "Wednesday, Wednesday's free, but that's my margin day, so I don't want to give that away."
Pretty soon, you get it. You worked hard to be independent and free and have free time. You don't want to necessarily hook up on some project that might require some structure in your life. I'm speaking to me as well as you. You need to find these young guys and dump your life into them.
I was talking to Jamie. I had lunch with Jamie the other day. I said, "I sent you something I wrote, and you never responded to me." He said, "Well, I didn't get it." I said, "Jamie, that's what I say. Obviously, you got it. It's not floating around in a cloud somewhere." He said, "I didn't get it. You know me, if I got it, I would have corrected it and sent it back to you." I added that line—he's not clever enough for that. I added that. So I said, "All right, I'll resend you this."
This came out, and I read it yesterday, and it went nowhere, so I'll give you a cliff notes of it. I was invited to Scottsdale Bible Church to speak to a group of Paul—so we use the term Paul and Timothy. Paul is that mentor, the older man. Timothy, the protege, the younger.
The Assignment Mix-Up
So it's a Saturday morning gig, and I'm talking Friday to somebody up there, Corey or somebody, and he said, "Are you ready for tomorrow?" I said, "Well, you know, I'll be ready. I'm a game day—I'm not a practice guy, I'm a game day guy. I'll be ready." They said, "Do you understand the assignment?" I said, "Yeah, there's a bunch of Pauls gonna be..." "No, no, no. It's all Timothys."
What had happened to me is I was right in the middle of all my transition stuff, so I had all this stuff bubbling up inside of me. I sat down when I got the assignment that I thought said Paul—I'm sure it did, but I don't have any written copy. I sat down at a computer and started typing. I mean, literally, this never happens to me. I had 10 points speaking to these Pauls.
So I said, "All right, I'll be ready." I'm thinking, what am I going to do? I got all this time invested in this. Then it occurred to me that if I'm talking to Pauls and Timothys, I would make a point and say something to them that would have a counterbalance.
Genuine Desire for Mentorship
I'll read you like the first one. It's written to a Paul: "Your desire to develop leaders with the intention of transition of power and authority to them must be genuine and you must own it." It's become the new cool thing. There's not a week goes by that I'm not asked about—because apparently that's what I did—"How do you transition? How do you let go? How do you transfer?"
Well, it's become more of—it's like the thing to do. Everybody's talking about it, but they don't really own it. They just know they're at a point where they have to talk about it. So if you're going to get into this game, it's got to be real.
Here's the counterpoint to Timothy: "The willingness of leaders to invest in you is rare. Don't take it for granted, so be grateful." So that's that mentor-protege. There's a genuine part of you and a desire to transition what you know.
Ladies, we see it in women's ministry. The younger women are begging the older women to be involved, but the older women are all in a Bible class taking this class for the 15th time on being a Titus 2 woman and having to invest in younger women. So they're going to take that study until they're convicted enough to go do something about it, and the women are out there saying, "Help us."
What Mentees Really Need
Here's what I've discovered in both instances. The older people are intimidated by the younger people because they're afraid they're going to ask them something they don't know the answer to. I will tell you, gals, they're not looking for a bunch of Bible lessons for you. They want to know, "How did you stay with that jerk you're married to? Because I'm having a hard time with my guy."
I remember Thanksgiving and the girls decided they were going to make their first Thanksgiving meal. They knew Susan was very tired. They knew she didn't have the capacity for it. That week, I must have heard 25 conversations about "Get the turkey like this, hold it at a 45-degree angle, insert here, put the... Oh no, you got to take all that other stuff out first." You know, this whole thing. That's what they're looking for.
So you need to find people around you that can be a role model. If you're going to do this, a little warning. Leaders and followers of Christ come in all different shapes and sizes.
Avoiding the Clone Trap
What I've observed is the older guy wants to take the younger guy and he wants to make him just like him. Here's a piece of information: We got one of you, that's enough. We don't need an army of you. We got one. It's like raising your kids. I had two, and in my life with my kids, I had two different sets of expectations. I had two different standards. I didn't expect the same thing from Haley that I got from Sarah. I didn't raise them the same.
I remember John Wooden, when he was coaching, they came to him and they said, "It feels like coach, you've got a double standard going on here." He said, "No, that's not true. I have 12 players. I have 12 standards." So if you're going to mentor people and this gets in it, you got to understand that they're likely going to be different than you.
The Reality of Working with Young People
I like this: You better have a high pain threshold if you're going to work with young people because they're going to say stupid things and do stupid things. Sandy's not here today, but I'm taping, but I don't think she listens to the tapes. She has this phobia with young people. She spends a ton of time with them. She probably has two dozen girls, ladies, young women, that she mentors in a course of a month.
But she has this thing about young people and it's just a stage of life. You're in a stage of life that runs hand in glove with stupid. You're going to say
That's part of being young. It's part of what you did. So if you're going to work with these people, you have to have a tolerance for stupid and you better make sure that you understand that by definition, these are developing leaders. They haven't arrived yet. So I watch these guys like, I met with him five or six times, but he doesn't do this and he doesn't do this. He's not developed. Well of course he's not developed, nor are you, but he's not developed because that's why he's in this process.
You Need Each Other
In your life, you need to have this. Here are a couple bullet points that I think are worth remembering. You need each other. The Pauls need the Timothys and the Timothys need the Pauls. You as a mentor need a protege and they'll keep you sharp.
I founded a church. I was obsessed with our church growing old and irrelevant and here was the antidote to it. Because I thought about it, prayed about it, strategized about it, read about it and then I did something that is a no-brainer. I just hired a bunch of young guys. All I did was get them in the room and at the table and all of a sudden, they kept pushing and pushing and pushing and they would say, here's this thing we do and I'd say, yeah, I really like it. They'd go, it's stupid, Tom. People don't like it. Maybe you do, you and your people, people like you and walkers and old people, but we don't like it. Well you need each other.
Love Covers a Multitude of Sin
Here's the second thing. Love covers a multitude of sin. This is in every relationship. It's to bear all things, believe all things, endure all things, hope for all things. It's to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's in marriage. It's in anything in a relationship, especially in a Paul-Timothy relationship.
When God saved me, Larry Wright was the key component that He used and he told me I needed to be in a small group. I needed a mentor. I needed to be discipled and I said, well, tell me what that means and he explained it and I said, well, I think you won the lottery, buddy, because you're the only one I know and so Larry dumped a ton of time and energy into me. When I left Cobalt Banker, I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but Larry said, will you come and teach with me and after three years, I decided that I wanted to start Priority Living. I'm not sure that I can articulate exactly why, but I did.
And I went and hardest, I mean, very difficult thing. I sat down and I said, listen, Doc, I don't know what to tell you, but this is what I want to do. And he said, well, tell me why. Is there something? No, I don't know. It's like talking to a junior high kid. No, I don't know. Well, I don't want to, I don't know. And he said, but you want to do this, right?
Now, how would you feel? How would you feel if somebody that God brought into your life who had no redeeming qualities, cocky but cooperative, brought him into your life and you dumped three or four years and a bunch of money and everything else. How would you feel? A little angry, a little betrayed.
You know what he said? He said, are you in a hurry? And I said, no. He said, hang on. And he went down, which everything took a long time because he shuffled down and I heard him rumbling around and he came back and he had a checkbook and he wrote me a check and gave me the very first check for Priority Living.
There aren't many of these guys running around. You could have told me that story, but until I was on the receiving end of it, I didn't get, okay, this is what a servant leader is. Because most guys I know would have been angry and they'd have kind of said, that's what I get for all my effort. Or they might've withheld that and said, man, I'm really happy for you, Godspeed. Well, he did that. I'm really happy for you. But I don't know that he even said that. He just shuffled down, got a check and wrote a check. Larry's not a wealthy man. He literally didn't have much dough. He said, I want to be in on a ground level with this.
Learning Is Beyond Books
A couple more things is that learning is beyond books. So spend time together. I was talking to a guy the other day. Again, it was that same broker guy. He said, every time I go into a meeting, it's like everybody graduated from Thunderbird or Wharton. He said, it's like everybody at the table now. It's like being back east. Before we say who we represent, it's where'd you go to school.
I'm okay with school. I guess that's not a bold statement, but it's the Mark Twain philosophy. I never let school interfere with my education. I don't want to minimize it because Jamie said to me the other day, I was lamenting I didn't know much. And he said, I'm not very smart. He said, that's not the problem. The problem is, and this sounds harsh, it's not. It's accurate. He said, you're just not educated. And I said, boy, I wish I had a bunch of book learning like you, buddy. No, I'm teasing. But I'm not.
And books are good and I read a lot. The Amazon guy, he wears a path out to our doorway with books. I don't read any of them, but he brings us a lot of books. But it's this time together.
It's Difficult But Worth It
Here's the last thing. It's difficult. It's demanding. It's time consuming to be in a Paul Timothy relationship, but it's worth it. You need it in your life. You need it in your profession, business, relationships. The church is dying for this.
Go back, if you have the memory to do it, to a rewind to when you were starting. Man, I remember. I remember walking in Coalbanker and I was intimidated by everything in that room. And there were guys around. There was a guy by the name of John Amory who was the king of the office deal. And I'd have given anything to go to lunch with him, which I think he would have let me go if I washed his car and got the dry cleaning and everything with him. I think he would have let me go.
There was a guy in my row by the name of Dayton Adams. And Dayton was this brilliant guy. And I remember I was in the midst of something that was really difficult. This was a killer for me.
Living with Heavenly Citizenship
I was late at night and I was in there and Dayton was in there and he said, "You don't look so well." And I said, "I'm in the middle of this." He said, "Well, tell me about it." I remember, here's Dayton who doesn't know me, who was like way up here and I am way down here. And I remember laying it out and he said, I said, "What do you think?" He said, bing, bing, bing.
On just the other night, we had the opportunity, Sandy and I, to have dinner with Dayton and Shelly. And now it's not this kind of relationship. It's more of a peer relationship though I'm nowhere near his peer in the field, but it's, let's talk Bible. Well, I can do that. So this is demanding stuff and it's worthwhile.
So he said, here are these people who are enemies of the cross. Now that's not a category you want to be in. Your end is destruction. Your God is your appetite. You don't worship the God of the Bible. You worship every sort of gut instinct and desire you have. And you're consumed with earthly things.
Friendship with the World
It's not material stuff and materialism. James writes this in James 4:4, "Don't you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." 1 John 2:15, "Whoever loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." It's thinking earthly is denying a heavenly perspective on life.
So if you go into James, what is it, three, where he talks about earthly wisdom, the result is strife, pain, hardship. He said that group, they think earth. They have a false sense of security. The security is in their stuff. The security is in their wealth. Here's my balance sheet. Nothing wrong with that at all. In fact, that's good. This is fundamental, one of those fundamental principles.
God gave you stuff. God blessed you to be a blessing to others. That's why He blessed you. For you to enjoy it is perfect. You should, but not consume it. God blessed you to bless others. And that's not this group of people, he said.
Our True Citizenship
Verse 20, "Our citizenship is in heaven." It's the only time that that word appears in the New Testament. We're otherworldly. And so let me, again, give you the punchline here. I begin to think heavenly, so now I'm of earthly value.
Were any of you at the Crisis Pregnancy Center dinner the other night? By any chance, anybody in the room? Eric Metaxas spoke, you know that name? He was awesome. And so Metaxas has written kind of the what is now kind of a definitive work on Bonhoeffer. He wrote a book on Wilberforce. He has a new book out called, I think it's called Seven Great Men.
I read the introduction the other day, and it was perfect, talking about men. Those of you that are looking for Father's Day gifts, that book is a really good gift. Because he's talking about what is a man, and then how does a man live. And then he has seven stories in there. George Washington, Wilberforce, Jackie Robinson.
When Christ Revolutionizes Life
And in each of these cases, here's what happened. And this is our takeaway. When they understood Christ and who He was, it revolutionized the way they lived. So Wilberforce, once he understands that man's made in the image of God, he cannot let go of the fact that slaves are not treated like men who are made in the image of God.
There's a parallel here, and I don't want to be political, because I've gotten a little grief lately on it. But there's a parallel to the immigration issue. But you're dealing with human beings that are made in the image of God here. So we have to understand that.
Well, all of a sudden, just take the unborn. All of a sudden, I understand that at 12 weeks, I've got head, hearts, fingernails, development, brain. And you're going to kill that? 90% of girls who see that image, that ultrasound of that baby in the womb, 90% of them keep him.
A Personal Story of Life Changing
That's what my daughter Haley used to do. She would come home, some days, the burden was so heavy on this little girl. But she'd come home, and I remember her coming home one day, and this girl's going, "I'm in here, I don't know," and Haley's going through that. And Haley's perfect. Haley's as disarming as you can get.
And Haley said, "Look at it, look at it, honey, here's your baby." She'd never thought of that. And she looked at it, and then Haley said, "Oh my gosh, there's two babies." And out in the lobby was the young man who drove her there. And the young man who was insistent that she perform this abortion.
And Haley's smart. Haley said, "Come on in here." And she said to him, "Look at this, look at that's your baby." And everything turns around.
Making a Difference Where You Are
Bottom line, the city of Phoenix and the Valley of the Sun should be a better place because you live in it. There should be better schools because you're in them. And we can't sit on the side and moan and groan, not because there isn't a lot to moan and groan about, there is. We can sit and we can be critical, but we can't be critical if we aren't in the game.
And he says, Paul writes, "Your citizenship is in heaven," but you know what, you aren't there yet. You're on earth. And I left you here for a reason. Now do something about it. We'll pick up right with that idea next week.