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Hillview Bible Chapel is a vibrant Bible-based church centered on the Lord Jesus Christ, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Join us each week as we learn from God's Word together. To learn more about Hillview Bible Chapel, please visit https://hillviewbiblechapel.org
Open your Bibles, if you haven't already, to Philippians chapter 3 where we will be focusing this morning as we deal with the subject in this series called Living the Cross-Shaped Life. Where are you on the cross? Is your life a life that reflects, that shadows the cross? We've had a wonderful time, I haven't been with you but I've listened online, to the five positions that we have as people that have been placed into Christ through the cross of Calvary. Your union with Christ, are you united with him? If you're not, this is the day of salvation for you. The Bible calls you saints, Hmm? So if you haven't met one before, I'd like to introduce you to St. James. We are saints. Praise God for that position in him. We're the children of God, we learned, number three, didn't we? Wow, what a blessing to be children, especially those who grew up in homes that weren't so easy, that had difficult fathers. To have a Heavenly Father and be called his child is a magnificent position to revel in. Then we learned as children we've been forgiven and we've been justified, we've been made righteous, and we were talking about that again, I'm sure because of the talk and your minds think about these things this morning and the breaking of bread the imputed righteousness of God for us and then last week You learned all about being a royal priesthood that you are all priests the priesthood of all believers is one of the doctrines of scriptures and one of our Practices as New Testament churches you don't get off the hook and allow the few that are up here We're not the priests. We're all the priests. We have different ministries, we do God's work for His glory, helping others, each one of us in the place God puts us. And then today we're come number six to, from the position we're in sitting right here in our pews, just this new new concept or this additional concept of our citizens citizenship being in heaven my parents were American and therefore they Passed on their citizenship to their child Are you a child of God? You learned that last week. So what do you have? You have his citizenship. And where does he have some real estate? Hmm? In fact, if you come with me next weekend at a Houston conference, I'm going to be giving four talks on Revelation 21 and 22 that the final of real estate is actually right on earth as the New Jerusalem comes down down and we live on the new earth with the Lord and the capital city is Jerusalem and he is his throne room is the New Jerusalem and it's because our citizenship is with him our citizenship is in heaven and there's a wonderful concept let's read our two verses here this morning let's read it together out loud for our citizenship is in heaven from which we we the Lord Jesus Christ who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with his body of glory? by the of the power and his Do you believe that? Let's pray father. We thank you for this amazing truth that we've just read in fact a whole number of truths. A summary of present and future, of our state, of our position, of living today in with a cross-shaped life that will continue throughout eternity. No end. We are so time-oriented, we only think about this year and about our lifespan, and sometimes we don't take time to think about the fact that we are eternal and that we are going to get a new body and we're going to live with you, reveling in the citizenship we have with you for all of eternity. And so we bless you. Teach us this morning, enthusehuse us change us we pray that we'd leave here different in Christ's name amen so Paul tells us that heaven is our true citizenship for our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for a savior the Lord Jesus Christ." Wow, that is a deep and wonderful concept.
But then he adds, who, Jesus Christ, will transform the body of our lowly condition into the conformity of his glorious body? So it's not just citizenship we're going to talk about this morning, it's also your body. Okay? And some of you have magnificent bodies, You can do triathlons.
I respect you. Others of you have magnificent minds. You can think up concepts about IT that the rest of us haven't even dreamed could be thought about. But we all have aches and pains and bodies that are not improving, but are actually decreasing in their capacity.
I don't know how many cells your brain is losing during my message, probably more than the average hour, but I'll do my best to not make you lose too many.
But praise God for this concept of the future rest, not just restoration of our body, but our resurrection in Christ to enjoy our citizenship eternally. So number one we want to look at here is the fact that our heavenly citizenship starts in the Old Testament. It's not a new concept.
Abraham lived as a stranger because he belonged to something greater, He belonged to the reality that God called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, placed him a new land, and gave him a vision, and he said to him, Abraham, look what you have before you. In fact, in Hebrews, I think we have it on the screen here in a minute, let's read this one. So in Hebrews... I think we have it on the screen here in a minute... let's read this one. So in Hebrews 11 8 we have the Lord telling Abraham, talking about Abraham, by faith Abraham when he was called obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance. Okay? That was a physical one.
That was from Ur to to Palestine and he went out not knowing where he was going but by faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise and in a foreign land dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob fellow heirs of the same root promise he could pass his citizenship down for he was looking ah but look at this last statement for he was looking for a city which was which has foundations whose architect and builder is God. Did he ever find that city? Has he found it yet? No, that city is still to come But he had this vision. He knew who he was in God in Jehovah, and he had this vision He was willing to be a sojourner. He was willing to walk the cross-shaped life of faith believing God and doing his will and so then we see not only did Abraham, but believe this and all these died speaking of all the people of faith in Hebrews 11 without receiving the promises Wow, that was rough. How many of you have received promises? That's what we're talking about, you know, citizenship and a union with Christ. All these promises, all these positions we have, they didn't receive them. But having seen them and welcomed them from a distance, in other words, faith, having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth, that as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.
Why are the roads of Cupertino so crowded? Because this is a pretty nice place to live.
Why is your real estate inaccessible to the rest of the country? Because this is a pretty nice place to live.
But it's not the best place to live, is it? Are you desiring a better country? Of course, the world is out there to make their present country the best it can, because they don't have the hope of a better country. But we do, and we're looking forward to that. And this citizenship idea goes way back to Abraham. It's an Old Testament concept. It's a Bible concept Israel belonged to God the whole concept of in Exodus 19 5 & 6 describing Israel as God's treasured Possession a kingdom of priests. Well, we just talked about that didn't you? Deuteronomy repeatedly reminds Israel that they are God's chosen people God it was forming a people for Himself.
We are the people of God today, and we have citizenship with Him.
Then you go on to David, and you go in and delve into the Davidic Covenant, that God promises that through the human lineage of David there would be, there would come a king, and that king would reign on this earth, and he would set up his kingdom, and we would be his people. And in the Abrahamic Covenant they had been told that they would bless all the nations of the world, that it wasn't exclusive for them, they were just the missionaries to the world. And David, your son is going to be the great king over all these people that come in through the Abrahamic Covenant. And we sit here today as members of the New Covenant brought in, they were the children of God, were united to him, and part of that is that we're looking forward, just as Abraham did, to that coming kingdom, to that coming city, we have that the same citizenship as he does. It comes from the Old Testament. The prophets pointed forward to it as well. And you could spend weeks, months in the book of Daniel working through this whole concept of what God has promised us, and making us his children, calling us his sons and daughters, giving us his citizenship. And so we go on to the time of Christ after the Old Testament. He enters the scene and he did he change everything? No, he didn't change everything. What he did is he continued the storyline of God's restoration, redeeming work, ending up with this place that would be Edenic, just as man had started in God's perfect place, we had corrupted it through sin, God is in the process of restoring it. And so Jesus picks up this idea and he says, my kingdom is not of this world. Wow, the Jews wanted a physical Roman beating king, and Jesus says, that's not what I've come to do at this point. In Matthew, in chapter 6, during his Sermon on the Mount, he tells us that to pray, and part of the that very succinct prayer that gives us a model from which to pray, and do we pray this? Your kingdom come! Your will be done on earth as in heaven.
Will His will be done on earth today? Partially, when He wills it to be done, but the totality of that prayer is that your will be done absolutely on earth.
Will that happen during the millennium? To a degree, but not totally. While Satan is in the pit for the 999, or how many of the thousand years he is, it doesn't tell us. Yes, Christ will reign with a rod of iron, but the hearts of men are not changed to a large degree, and as soon as Satan is free, his will is not done on earth. There's a great rebellion. But there comes a future kingdom after the great white throne, doesn't there? And that's what Christ is telling us to pray for, pray towards. That should be in our prayer life daily, because as we'll see, it should and will change our perspective of life as we catch these concepts. In Matthew 6 10 — oh, I got them backwards from my notes here, sorry. In Matthew 6 he also tells us later in the chapter there, think about your treasure, okay? Store it up in heaven, okay? My bank is closing down the Surkusal, what do you call that, the branch, um, where I have my safety deposit box.
And then I have to take my stuff out of my safety deposit box.
And there are no other safety deposit box in Dubuque because people don't do that anymore apparently.
But I gotta keep my passport safe.
And I gotta save up my stuff here on Earth.
What am I gonna do with all my Kruger rands? And all the you know, I wish Yeah, where am I saving up my treasure in fact Christ repeats it again doesn't he in in Luke He says where your treasure is that's where your heart will be. Okay, so if your heart stuck in In the Apple corridors or in the Cupertino beauties and that's your whole focus on life well it's good and you enjoy it and there's good in all of that because God created it for our pleasure but there's something more than that isn't there and then of course the famous passage in written John chapter 14 I'm going away and I'm going to prepare places for you, but I'm coming again that where I am there you may be also. What a concept. That your king is going to be king and you are going to be there and it's going to be a place that is beyond our imagination. When John and the Revelation tries to describe it in human terms it comes out as glorious as our minds can conceive, but it's just the beginning of an explanation. I don't think the streets are actually going to be made out of gold, it's going to be something better than gold, that gold's the best thing we know. Hmm? And so we look forward to the fact that Christ is going to fulfill that promise. Now we come into the epistles and Paul states the truth even more explicitly. Not just a people, not just a chosen race, not just a priesthood, not just a king, not just a coming city, but the fact is you believers, you Philippians, are citizens of heaven. Well you know that actually would have spoken fairly strongly to them because they lived in a wicked city, even more wicked than San Jose maybe. And if you look through chapter 3 here it's very interesting that just before he tells us these wonderful truths in verses 20 and 21, what is the context of the chapter? We know Philippians 3 fairly well. In fact, maybe verses 20 and 21 are kind of just at the end that don't get included in the sermon or the Sunday School lesson because we run out of time. Yeah, but you know the concept. Look at verse 7. Whatever things were gained to me those things I have counted as loss for Christ. In fact Alan read some of these verses to us this morning didn't he? That that we are looking forward to to becoming perfect in verse 12. Not that I have already obtained it or already become perfect, but I press on to lay hold to that for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. And that includes your citizenship, which he's going to conclude with at the at the end of the chapter. And then in verse 17, this is a key verse here for the last paragraph, brethren, those of us that have the saint position, we're united with Christ, brethren, join in following my example, says Paul, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.
What pattern? The pattern of what we've seen in chapter 3. That he may increase, that I might decrease, that the concepts that John has given 3, that he may increase, that I might decrease, that the concepts that John has given us, that Christ has taught us. He says, oh, but just a minute, before I tell you how to do that, or what that entails, for many walk, verse 18, of whom I have often told you okay and now tell you even weeping Paul whipped in the face of those who disbelieved that they are enemies of the cross of Christ whose end is destruction whose God is their appetite? Whose glory is their shame? Who set their minds on earthly things? Those are the people who do not have citizenship in heaven.
That's their way of life. It's listed in many other chapters in Colossians 3 and in Ephesians 4, but this is a very succinct explanation, definition of those who are outside of Christ. If you go back to verse 17, Paul is calling us to follow the example of those that we have in Scripture who were the great men of faith of Hebrews 11, Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and Paul himself. He says follow my example. He says, brethren join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us. Verse 24, why do we walk? Why do we follow the example of those that have gone before us. Okay, not just to contrast ourselves to the bad people of verses 18 and 19, okay? It's not a comparison here, it's an exhortation to walk, to follow the example.
That this citizenship issue is one we have here on earth that we have to live out in a world that is against God.
Okay? That is difficult and so for that reason for our citizenship is in heaven.
That's why we're different. That's why we don't have to have the latest and greatest. That's why we don't have to have the biggest bank account that we are willing to give to the Lord's work. That's why we are willing to go on a mission trip instead of going on a self-pleasure trip.
Or whatever it is the Lord calls you to do to express your citizenship that you already have. Wow this is great I've got a citizenship that's in heaven. Even though I'm still on earth.
But it's ... but that citizenship is gonna take me to heaven, and I look forward to that. And so our citizenship is stated explicitly here by Paul, for our citizenship is in heaven.
Hmm? If you have to renew your passport right now, it's a little slow, isn't it? Yeah? And if you don't have your passport you can't prove your citizenship so you can't go anywhere else.
But we as believers in our security have a citizenship that goes way beyond heaven, way beyond the heavens into the heaven itself, and we praise God for that. Next, our citizenship not only is in heaven, and here you have a fancy Greek word that only occurs here in the in the New Testament, meaning citizenship. Yeah, right, of course, we know that. But it also means Commonwealth, okay? Or civic belonging. So it goes beyond just the concept of individual. Whoa, I'm a citizen of heaven.
No, it's more conclusive. We are the commonwealth of heaven. We're in this together, okay? We have common wealth, okay? We put what's important to us into this common cause called following Christ. He calls us to civic duty as the Commonwealth. His civic duty because we are civil servants of the heavenly kingdom. Okay? We will get to the application that we should be good civic servants here on Earth in a minute too.
But we're talking about our heavenly position, okay? This is what we belong to.
So it's not just individual, it's corporate.
And in the Philippian context, they would have understood this quite clearly because they were one of those few actual Roman colonies.
Their people, born in the confines of whatever they defined Philippi, were automatically Roman citizens.
And to be a Roman citizen in those days was even more advantageous than a Guatemalan wanting to be an American citizen today. To be a Roman citizen meant you had free reign to walk the roads of Rome throughout the Empire. You had a different judicial system that was imposed on you. Much simpler. And the minute Paul said to the jailer who was about to flog him, you know I'm a Roman citizen. Whoa! He was scared for his own life because he was about to flog him. You know, I'm a Roman citizen. Whoa! He was scared for his own life because he was about to do something that was against the law in flogging a Roman citizen. To be a Roman citizen was a big deal, and the Philippians were very proud of their citizenship for reason. And then Paul comes along and writes to them. He didn't write to the Ephesians or to the Corinthians. He says to the Philippians, You know, you guys are citizens in heaven. It's almost like it's a little jab there.
You think you're a big deal because you've got a red passport or whatever the Romans had, but you've got something a whole lot better than a red passport. Okay? You've got a citizenship in heaven. And so that is a magnificent concept that they were taught. Then heavenly citizenship means heavenly identity, okay? Heavenly identity.
Paul says our citizenship, okay? I belong to Christ, and I belong to Christ's people. And Christ's people have a citizenship that is beyond just the confines of this life. It's beyond just the concepts of some spiritual nirvana. It's a citizenship with Christ in his heaven. A magnificent concept, okay? This corporate identity, personal belonging, we have it in Christ. Now, this citizenship in heaven does have an aspect in which we have to realize that it's present heaven on earth. We are, you see it again there, for our citizenship is, that's present tense isn't it? Our citizenship is in heaven, okay? But he's talking to Philippians who are on earth. He's talking to Californians who are in California. So we have a position and we have a situation, okay? And we'll see in a minute we also have a practice, and the second half of your series is going to be all about practice, okay? But this brings our citizenship down to earth.
This is one of the most practical implications. Go back to chapter 1 and verse 27, oh it's right there on your screen, where Paul says, Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy "'of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come "'and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you "'that you are standing firm in one spirit "'with one mind, striving together "'for the faith of the gospel.'" That was what he had already told them in chapter one.
Now in chapter three, he adds the concept that even though our citizenship is in heaven, this is the way we are to conduct ourselves in the meantime. Okay? Then number 7, we eagerly wait for a Savior. For our citizenship in heaven, aha, wonderful. But that means we haven't realized it yet totally, have we? We're still in that waiting room per se.
And we need a coming savior to take us out of this citizenship to put us in his citizenship, okay? At the moment, just like we've discussed in many other concepts, we are a little bit bipolar. We have two natures, don't we? We have a new nature in Christ, but we're still walking in this old crate of a body, which is still part of the old nature. We still have the flesh, and so we are saints here, but we're still sinning over here.
We're not sinners, but we are sinning.
Okay, there's a different concept there.
And so our citizenship is, so we have citizenship in heaven, but we're still walking on earth.
But we wait for savior, okay? So we are waiting, Okay? Patently, right? Patently. Not some of us, not so much. Okay? Waiting for a Savior. Why a Savior? Why are we waiting for a Savior? Why aren't we waiting for the King, the Lord of Creation, who's gonna introduce this new place we're gonna go to that he's preparing John 14. Why does the Holy Spirit put the word Savior in here? Because your salvation is in progress. You see, you are saved, you are being saved, and you still are to be saved. Those are three concepts you can find very clearly throughout the New Testament. Spiritually, the Holy Spirit has come into you and has saved you. You are a saint. You're united to Christ. Nothing can separate that. You are perfect. You're without sin, positionally, in the spiritual realm. Right? I don't hear too many amen's. Or did I already decrease your brain power? Emotionally, in your soul, body, soul, and spirit, soul, you are being saved, aren't you? Yeah, I mean, you guys, every year I come, this place just glows more because you're more holy, okay? You're getting closer to God. You are! It's just wonderful to talk to the peers that I've known since we were all in our 20s. And now they're godly old men. Yeah. And beautiful old ladies. Okay. Because they're being sanctified. It's a process.
But does... is there... how about their bodies? Oh no, she was cuter 45 years ago than she is now. And he definitely was more handsome.
I had a smaller waistline back then and so forth.
Our bodies are not going in the right direction are they? Because we need a savior.
What do we need a savior of? Of our spirits? No. Do we need a savior of our emotions? Oh yeah, that part's going to be wonderful to be totally sanctified.
Okay, but in that process we're resurrected.
And the savior comes to save your body. You know, your body is actually quite important.
You shouldn't mess around with it just because you think you're gonna get a new one.
Well, you are gonna get a new one. Okay, so that means we we disdain this one. No, that's called Gnosticism.
Okay, we look after our bodies because they are the temple of the Holy Spirit, they are the vessel through which we are inhabited by the Spirit of God to take the message of God to this world. Okay? So our bodies are important, we look after them. In fact, God's world is important, He created it, okay? So that's why, you know, certain things we do may be bad habits that aren't good for our bodies. They may not be sin, but we know they're bad habits, and we want to get rid of them because they're not helping what God has given us to utilize. Well, he's coming as a Savior, and he's going to transform the body of our humble state. That's the expectation.
Number two is we're waiting here, and number three is the person is the Lord Jesus himself.
So we're waiting for this Savior, and what's he going to do? He's going to come from heaven.
Acts 1 tells us that Jesus will come again in the same way in which he went in 1st Thessalonians 4 we know that's going to be rapturing the church out of this world in great glory for us and the world won't know what's happened in Titus 2 we read of the fact that the believers are looking for a blessed hope in the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ and then a revelation 19 it presents Christ glorious return in his triumph over his enemies and there will be the great white throne judgment sin and all its facets will be removed and we will be able through his grace at his coming to attain eternal perfect sanctification and then comes the transformation. The transformation of the body as well. Okay? Triathalites, you're still going to be tough I think in eternity. Okay? We shorties, I'm still gonna be short in eternity. Okay? Where do I get my doctrine from? Christ. He was resurrected and he was still Christ. They could see him.
Oh, he had a different body. He could move from here to there without walking. He could eat or he didn't have to eat. We don't hear of him sleeping, so apparently you don't sleep, but I don't know if we take naps. I think siestas are pretty nice things. So, heaven without a siesta, well, I guess there may be something better, okay? He's gonna transform our bodies, okay? This humble estate that we live in at the moment is going to be conformed to the body of His glory. And that concept, that's something we don't have time to unpack this morning, but you go through the New Testament and see how many times it talks about the glory of Christ and it incorporates it includes the aspect that he has a glorious body. God incarnated in the person of Jesus Christ is a fundamental doctrine. It's the doctrine that separates us from so many other religions of the world. They can't accept that the fact that God would come and become a man, but you see, God created humanity in his image, didn't he? We are incredibly important.
That's not for our own pride, that's for our own recognition of who God is, and God has made this humanity in his image we are different than animals that right there is enough for me to disprove evolution no God didn't make something that would evolve into his image he made us in his image we corrupted that through sin and he's gonna restore it through resurrection.
That's part... that's your citizenship. See citizenship just isn't, wow, okay I'm gonna get a passport to heaven and so I can sit on that cloud with my harp. No, your citizenship is the fact that you are in this process of sanctification in one day full redemption through resurrection. We're gonna be changed body, transformation. I can't wait. In the meantime, I want to see Him continuing conforming me to Him, because I think this is what makes the difference about your citizenship in heaven. We walk by faith on this earth, not in heaven. There we're gonna walk by sight, we're gonna see him, right? So the faith walk means I have this opportunity and this responsibility to walk closer to him, be more dependent on him, learn of him, my intimacy here grows, and when I get to heaven and I have a perfect body, then it's gonna grow exponentially even greater. that if I just sit in a corner waiting for that return and I do nothing and I I have very little conformity to Christ here my conformity to Christ will grow slower there does that make sense okay so we must enjoy the fact that he's gonna conform us to himself but he's also conforming us to himself at the moment. And in fact, in Romans 8 29, God's ultimate purpose is glorification and conformity to Christ, but then look what He says just a few verses before that, and not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body." See, this is this whole process in chapters 6 through 8 of this getting closer and closer to God identified with Christ in chapter 6, our fight in the flesh in chapter 7, the glorious ministry of the Spirit of God bringing us into conformity to Christ in chapter 8, and it includes our body. And it is part of our citizenship right here. That's why 1 Corinthians 15 is so important. Our present body? Whoo! There's a list of how we're feeling at the moment. But our resurrected body? Wow! imperishable, in glory, in power, spiritual body, magnificent. Do we know what it's gonna be like? No, we just get little flavors of it through Scripture, but we're looking forward to that. And this is a fascinating last phrase in our in our passage this morning how is he gonna transform us into conformity of the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has even to subject all things to himself it takes the power of Christ that he will utilize for the restoration of the whole world, of the subjugation of all evil, that same power is the power that he uses to transform our bodies into resurrected bodies. In other words, it is no small transformation. It's an amazing transformation that God does in us, but you think of this, well of course we thought of this a thousand times, because every Easter we talk about the resurrection of Christ, and the power of God that we see in His resurrection, and if we are resurrected into bodies conformed to that of Christ. Well, we are participating in His resurrection, and the power it took for God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, all three of them involved in raising Christ from the dead over the power of sin, death, and evil is manifested for us too. He is the firstfruits of resurrection. We are the follow-up of resurrection. We are the completion of it. Isn't that wonderful? Okay, let's get practical.
In the last hour we have. Okay, application number one, not earthly irresponsibility. Okay? Heavenly mindedness, okay, does not mean the world does not matter. Okay? We are citizens of the United States, or some of you citizens of other countries as well, and what we do on this world, what we do civically, is also important. Okay? Don't be so heavenly minded, you're of no earthly good. That doesn't really affect many of us, but there are some people out there that do get so close to Christ they don't seem to land on earth and just hover above it. Number two, how do I balance the spiritual physical? Well, Paul tells us, and we've read it this morning again. Colossians 3 to set your minds on things above, okay, that's a good thing to do. Okay, it's even fairly practical when you're walking down the street and something distracts you. Okay, well, instead of getting distracted by that and going back to verses 18 and 19 of our passage, you set your mind on things above. Okay? But keep your feet on the earth below. Okay? That's not quoted from Scripture, but let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. That's also Philippians chapter 2. See, it's a progress here. That keeps us focused on doing God's will. We look at him, we set our minds on him, we understand, we love, we grow in him, and then there's an opportunity to take somebody to the hospital at two o'clock in the morning and you do it with joy. Okay, that's being a citizen right now.
Number three, be a good citizen of your earthly country without making it your ultimate allegiance. Okay, there's that balance. Okay, we are responsible. Okay, I know there's some religious segments of the even the Brethren movement that don't vote. Okay, and if that's your conviction, that's your conviction. But you still are responsible to pay your bills, to pay your taxes, to keep your yard nice because because it's God's creation, and your neighbors will appreciate it.
It's just part of civic duty.
But we don't do it so that we have this little paradise on Earth that nobody can possibly let their dog walk across your grass, because it might crush a blade.
That's going to extremes.
So we find the balance. Number four, heavenly citizenship should make us more, not less, committed to the local church body. Why? Well, we saw that the other way to translate it is Commonwealth. We're part, we're in this together. We need each other, okay? In this world, unfortunately unfortunately we need armies, but you need large commonwealths or large countries, large groups of people to be able to set up an army. In the army of God we need each other to stand against verses 18 and 19 and build each other up. One-on-ones, men's group, ladies group, you know, orphan dogs group, whatever groups you need to help one another stays true to Scripture.
Okay, number five. Heavenly citizenship gives us unwavering hope when our physical bodies fail or suffer. Wow, and there's a number of hill view there suffering this morning, aren't they? Can't be with us this morning. But you go and visit them in the hospital, and they have a word of encouragement for the person next to them. Why? Because we as believers know where our citizenship is, and so we can have hope. In the midst of our suffering, we can help others. And if you think you can keep out of heaven by only doing bodily exercise and only eating right, maybe you need to check on your citizenship, yeah? Or how you're considering it, okay? We look after our bodies, but they don't become our focal point of everything we do, and every schedule, and everything you eat, okay? In other words, I'm saying ice cream's okay. Limited. That's what I have a wife for. Okay. Number six. Heavenly citizenship means we must live each day with an eternal kingdom perspective. Okay. This world is not my own, I'm just a passing through. Okay. And I'm looking forward to the new world that's coming. Okay. Are you a citizen of heaven? Okay, are you a citizen of California? Yeah, also. Okay.
But which supersedes the other? Okay. And which one are you going to put into balance? And how are you going to take the good of your citizenship in California? And there is good! Job is good, creation is good, money is good, and we use all of that to build up the kingdom of God, encourage one another, and move the Church of Jesus Christ forward as citizens of heaven. Lord Jesus, we thank you for coming to this world and taking care of the sin question so that one day when you return in glory you will conform our bodies to the body of your glory by the exertion of the power that is you use to see or will use to subject all things to yourself thank you that we are going to be subjected to you we're gonna be like you we're gonna be in a place that is beyond imagination and we look forward to that great day when we walk the new earth for all eternity doing what you will have destined us to do that isn't even explained to us because we apparently couldn't understand and so we look forward to that.
And in the meantime this week is an important week.
You've created it.
You've created our challenges.
You've allowed our problems.
You've bestowed the blessings, and so may we take each part and put it into Kingdom perspective and Live for the King this week. We pray, giving thanks for our citizenship in Christ's name. Amen.