“Citizens Of Heaven”
Phil. 3:17-4:1
Intro.: In one of my daughters’ favorite movies, “A
Walk To Remember” the main character was viewed by
many of her schoolmates as rather odd; she just did not fit in. But that was okay with her. Suffering from a terminal illness and knowing
that her time was short, she did not care to play their games. As a Christian she had more important things
to do, far better ways to invest her life, and much higher things on which to
set her mind. She understood that she
did not belong to this world and to its people.
She was a citizen of heaven and belonged to the Lord.
If, like this girl, you have ever felt
that you do not fit in, then good! You
and I should not really fit in. In fact,
we are called to be different because we are citizens of heaven.
I.
Paul – Our Example Of Heavenly Citizenship.
In our epistle Paul encourages us to
establish our heavenly citizenship by following his example. He writes:
“Join with others in following my
example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we
gave you.” (v.17) It might seem
ironic that the same man who called himself “the worst of sinners” (1 Tim.
A. The example of heavenly citizenship he
offers is certainly not that of the man he used to be, not Saul of Tarsus.
He would not commend to us as an example to
follow Saul, the Pharisee who boasted in his exemplary religious behavior, and
in a righteousness that far surpassed others; an unapproachable super-saint who
looked arrogantly down his nose at others.
He does not hold up to us Saul, the legalist
who used his zeal for the law as an excuse for evil, hatred and violence in a
way similar to modern zealots of Mohamed who feel absolutely justified in
killing and maiming in the name of their god.
He does not want us to follow the example
of the man he used to be, that self-righteous, mean spirited person who set
aside the law of love to be taken captive by the law of sin and death. (Cf.
The example the apostle offers us is
instead that of Paul who met His Lord on the road to
B. Paul offered himself as a pattern for
Heavenly Citizenship. One who had been
delivered and forgiven by Christ. He
encourages us to join him in learning to live each day and live forever by the
grace of God. He invites all citizens of
heaven to live in such a way that we give all glory to God.
The example we are given to follow is that a
man who abandoned his former ways. He
left behind all the guilt and shame of the past, his sins of persecuting Christ
and imprisoning and murdering others in God’s name. He put away all thoughts of trying to please
God by an outwardly religious life and setting himself above others. And He stepped out of the quicksand of attempting
to gratify the cravings of His sinful nature.
As an example Paul offers himself as a man who
knows that he is still a sinner with a long way to go, but who strains forward
in the Lord’s calling to “take hold of
the prize for which God had called him heavenward in Christ.” (
He holds up as an example of Christian
citizenship, the man who now lived each and every day as an investment in
eternity for himself and for others.
This is the pattern of life we have been given, and to which we have
also been called heavenward in Christ.
Unfortunately,…
II. Even Heaven’s Citizens Loyalties Are
Tempted.
The apostle writes:
“as I have often told you before, and now say again even with tears, many live as
enemies of the cross of Christ. Their
destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their
shame.” (
A. This happens when the citizens of heaven
begin to turn their thoughts away from their king and their true heavenly home
and set their minds instead on earthly things and worldly passions.
When this happens their god is no longer
the One who created them, redeemed them through the sacrifice of His Son, and
made them Holy by His Spirit. Their God
is their belly and whatever gives them a sense of satisfaction and
pleasure.
Taking their citizenship for granted, and
treating the price paid for their redemption as something cheap, they can become
secure in their sins. They begin to
think that they can go ahead and sin boldly since they will be forgiven
anyway. No longer do they take pleasure
in God’s law, and rejoice in the truth, but their glory is in the shameful
things they do to indulge the cravings of their own sinful nature. Everyone of us is
guilty of this kind of treason against our Lord. Think about all the things you put ahead of Him,
all the times you have exchanged God’s will for your own pleasure, all that
Christ has offered you that you have set aside to indulge yourself. Rather than straining forward to take hold of
the prize and looking forward to our heavenly home, we have made ourselves at
home here. We have forgotten the warnings
of James: “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world
is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses
to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God?” (
B. Again, with Paul, I cry over those who never
come to realize this, and whose friendship with the world eventually makes them
enemies of God. Some eventually turn completely
away from their heavenly citizenship.
They come to walk as enemies of the cross
of Christ because they despise and reject God’s holy law and continue to live
in sinful, shameful, self-indulgence. When
they so rebel and choose to live apart from the Lord and in openly sinful ways
the writer to the Hebrews says “they are
crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public
disgrace.” (Heb. 6:6) The
punishment for such treason is death, spiritual and eternal death.
Although our loyalties may be tested, we
know that by God’s grace we are not among those who have fallen away and
treated the cross of Christ with contempt.
We know that we have been called heavenward in Christ and our sinful
rebellion has been forgiven. With Paul
we confess: “But our citizenship is in heaven.
And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ…” (
III. We Wait Anxiously For Our Savior’s
Return. (
A. Praise God, we have been made true citizens
of heaven! Just as nations open their
gates to refugees who are being tortured and murdered by cruel and merciless
regimes, Christ has rescued us from the realm of the devil. No longer can he torture our consciences and
murder us with his lies and accusations.
We do not belong to him or to this fallen world.
Our Savior has opened heaven to us by his
life, death, resurrection, and ascension.
By His holy life of obedience he earned our place in the kingdom of
heaven. By his death on the cross he
destroyed the power of death which is sin.
By His resurrection made it possible for us to share in a resurrection
to eternal life. And by His ascension to
rule as our loving priest and king He has thrown open the gates to heaven and
invites us in to share in His goodness.
We live our lives with the certain hope that what He has opened to us,
no one is able to close.
We know that all this is ours, because God has
made us citizens of heaven by grace through Holy Baptism. It is not what we have done to prove
ourselves worthy of citizenship, but what Christ has done for us and freely
given us through the Holy Spirit. As it
is written in Titus 3: “he saved us, not because of works done by
us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of
regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”
(Titus 3:5) Because of your
baptism into Christ and the faith He has given you, I assure you that you are
citizens of heaven!
B. As citizens of heaven we now eagerly and anxiously
await our Savior’s return. We do this
because of the glorious promise of what awaits us, as our epistle
declares: “we eagerly await… the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that
enables him to subdue all things to himself will transform our lowly bodies to
be like his glorious body.” (
For now in this time of waiting we occupy our
minds with heavenly thoughts. We rejoice
in the Gospel of our Salvation through Christ, the good news of God’s love for
us. We set our eyes on Jesus, on the
promised crown of life, and on our eternal future with Him.
In this time of waiting we eat the heavenly
food He has given us in the Lord’s Supper, where again and again we receive His
body and blood given and shed for our redemption. And we marvel that this goodness is only a
foretaste of the feast to come when we are forever at home with Him.
While we wait we walk according to the
example of great citizens of heaven. Not
only Paul, the apostles, or the martyrs of the early church, but our brothers
and sisters here around us, and our mothers and fathers who gave us a wonderful
pattern to follow. And we also strive to
be such examples to one another and to grow together as fellow citizens of
heaven.
With mutual love and a longing to be
together, by considering each other as Paul describes it to be one another’s
joy and crown we will stand together in faith as we wait. We will by God’s grace stand firm in the Lord
as we await His return and our transformation to glory.
Concl.: To the world you may seem odd, and may not
fit in. But here you belong, and here
you are loved, here you are jewels and crowns, because you are a citizen of
heaven!