Stay Focused on Your Coming Joy

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 I want to share a list of things and have you think about your thoughts of the last week? Stock market! Fantasy Football League! Cancer! Surgery ! New School Year! Brewers! Jesus! Heaven! Glorified bodies ! Of all the things you thought about and could think about which will bring the greatest eternal return?  Which will bring the lasting investment?

I have to confess that at age 58 it was hard not to focus my attention on the Stock Market. But at age 21 or 15 or 8 I am sure your focus was something else.  Are we not constantly thinking about some sort of coming joy in our life or the lack of it?  As we continue our Summer of Joy with the ongoing study of Philippians the Apostle Paul encourages us to focus on a coming joy that will last. This coming joy will not fade like the anticipated visit to the water park.  

STAY FOCUSED ON YOUR COMING JOY!

¹⁷ Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you. The Apostle Paul was a very practical man when it came to telling other people about Jesus. He knew that other things could dominant the thinking and time and use of treasures of the Philippians. So he encouraged them to remember his own example and the example of his co-workers. Just as we also focus our attention on our fellow believers who devote themselves to prayer. Just as we focus our attention on those who give generous gifts to make sure the gospel is shared. Just as we look at and follow the examples of those who  remain faithful to the study of the Scriptures even in the presence of tragedy, crisis or economic upheaval.  Paul reminded the Philippians as he does us that this means mimicking the good example of Christian love and kindness of our parents or grandparents or fellow believers. This intentional focus on the good example of others is a day to day activity. In my life I have witnessed the example of a prayerful mother-in-law and a faith focused farmer in Kansas who was losing his hearing and fighting cancer by the name of John Ulrich. 

On the other hand it is important in staying focused on your coming joy by avoiding the bad example of those who live as enemies of the cross of Christ. The Apostle Paul shows great emotion as he speaks with tears about those who lived as enemies of the cross of Christ. He was thinking about those in the Christian gatherings that heard the message about Jesus but went home and lived each day focused on another god than the one true God. ¹⁸ For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹ Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.  In the introduction I mentioned a number of things that may have got your attention this past week. The Apostle Paul warns us to check our thoughts at the door and to leave them there if our entire focus in life is our own personal physical comfort and enjoyment. Now he warns against certain “enemies of the cross” who went to the opposite extreme. Apparently, they too claimed to be Christians, but their openly wicked and sensual lifestyle contradicted the confession of their lips. These enemies of the cross not only defend but openly and boastfully advocate sins like adultery, homosexuality, and abortion—even though the Bible expressly condemns such things as abominations in God’s sight. They haughtily proclaim biblical morality to be irrelevant and out of date. We all need the tear-filled warning that the apostle sounds here. We need to regard all those temptations to live for ourselves and not for our Savior with the apostle’s sobering reminder ringing in our ears: “Their destiny is destruction.”

A couple of weeks ago in the Sunday paper there was a report on many false drivers licenses that had been found that were made in China. One person gave his personal testimony how a false I.D. was a ticket to fun in college. Be forewarned that when our focus is completely on the earthly joys of this life then our god is our stomach and our end goal is destruction and our glory is our shame. Paul encourages us to repent of a continued focus on the earthly joys alone. We have a greater and lasting investment than stock and bonds. Our God is the one true God who won an eternal victory and joy at the cross. Through his suffering and death we have been called to us our time and treasures to lift up the cross of Christ to the people in our lives.

The Apostle Paul gives one of the clearest statements in all of Scripture about our coming joy in heaven. ²⁰ But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. 4:1 Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!

 In a far more sublime and important sense, Paul tells the Philippians and us , we should realize that our  most important citizenship, our spiritual citizenship, is in heaven. Heaven is the real home of all believers in Jesus Christ. Our rights have been secured in heaven, and our  interests are being promoted there. Our names are recorded in heaven’s book of life. To heaven our prayers ascend and our  hopes aspire. Many of our friends in Christ are already enjoying their full inheritance in heaven, and one day all believers will take up permanent residence there.

This heavenly citizenship should be reflected in the way we as believers live our lives here on earth. Citizens of heaven should not regard this world as a place to put down permanent roots, nor should we fix our hearts on the things of this world or regard them as permanent possessions. We should consider ourselves as strangers and pilgrims on earth, and our  greatest concern should be with heavenly, spiritual things. We eagerly await the Savior from heaven, Paul joyfully concludes, who will return to give us the physical possession of our eternal inheritance there. As heavenly-minded believers, we do not want to waste our time in pursuing earthly advantages and worldly pleasures. We do not want to let earthly concerns blind us to the importance of our heavenly citizenship. We want to use the time the Lord gives us on earth to prepare ourselves for the Savior’s return and our entry into the glory of heaven.

Heavenly-minded believers never forget that Jesus, the Savior who once came in lowliness to save the world, is coming again in majesty and glory to judge the world. We await that return, not with fear or spiritual carelessness but with expectant joy. When Jesus returns, not only believers’ souls but also their bodies will share in his eternal glory. For the third time in three chapters, Paul mentions the resurrection of the body. When Jesus returns, he will transform believers’ lowly bodies and make them like his own glorious body. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15, Paul tells us that the bodies of believers still alive at Christ’s return will be changed and the bodies of those who have died in the Lord will be raised and glorified.

At his reappearing our Savior will raise all the dead. He will transform believers’ bodies so that they will reflect the perfect blessedness of their glorified souls. In the resurrection Jesus will make believers’ bodies like his own glorified body. All sinfulness, weakness, and the consequences of sin will be forever purged away. Believers’ bodies and souls will be reunited to live forever in a perfect eternity in heaven with Christ.

Our human minds cannot imagine how the Lord will find the bodies that for thousands of years have been disposed of in so many different ways and subjected to the ravages of decay. Nor does the apostle Paul try to satisfy our intellectual curiosity about these things. He tells us all we need to know when he simply says that Jesus will accomplish this marvelous feat through his almighty power, the power that enables him to bring the whole universe under his control.

My dear member of Eastside you bring special joy to my heart because the fruits of your faith are evident in so many ways in your life. This is evident now but will become even more evident at the Lord’s return. That is how you should stand firm in the Lord, dear friends!  Stay Focused on Your Coming Joy!