Living Hope

Pastor Philip Miller: Imitation is key to maturation. And so Paul's warning is, be ever so careful who you keep your eyes on. Because we become what we behold. And friends, this has huge implications for our social media use, our cable news habits. If we will but heed it, it's huge.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy and we're so glad you're joining us today in our series in the book of Philippians. Now, Pastor Philip, you're talking about spiritual maturity and imitation. Imitation and spiritual maturity, they're somehow related, you suggest.

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah, well, that's where Paul's going to go in our passage today. He's going to talk about spiritual maturity, that we largely grow into maturity through imitation of others. It's just like the way kids grow up, right? We see our parents, we see our heroes, mentors, people we look up to, and almost without thinking about it, we start imitating the behaviors, the thoughts, the speech patterns, the word usage. We start imitating the people we admire the most and the people we look up to.

And the same thing is true in our spiritual maturity. Heroes of the faith, as we look to them, we start actually copying and mimicking and imitating the patterns of faithfulness that we see. And so this has huge implications then, that we've got to be really careful about who we're looking up to in terms of spiritual maturity. Who are the people we admire and we say, "Wow, that person really is a godly person. I wish I could be a little bit more like them." Those heroes of the faith, the ones that we hold in our mind, are shaping us even in ways we don't realize. And so imitation is a huge piece of what it means to grow into spiritual maturity. And that's what Paul's going to be teaching us about today.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Well, let's go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church as we discover the importance of imitating maturity. This is part two of the basics of maturity and our text is Philippians chapter three, starting at verse 12. We'll go into chapter four and into verse one.

Pastor Philip Miller: Spiritual maturity is not a destination, but a pursuit. This is counterintuitive, isn't it? When we think of maturity, we think of arriving, of completion, of an end point. But Paul is saying maturity is not a destination, it is a pursuit. On this side of glory, we will never actually arrive, that we are all works in progress. Oh, we've been justified, declared righteous in Jesus Christ by grace through faith in him alone. Amen? And one day we will be glorified. We will be made perfect in his presence forever when we see Jesus face to face, when he returns or calls us home, we will be glorified.

But in the meantime, we are being sanctified. We are in process of progressively being conformed to the image of Christ. And friends, Jesus is changing our lives. There's four key relationships, dimensions of our life that are being transformed through his power. We're being changed up, around, in, and out. Up, around, in, and out. We know God through Jesus Christ. That's a transforming relationship. We are experiencing healing within the family of God, our brothers and sisters in Christ who love us. We are growing in love and inner transformation by the Spirit, and we are going out into the world to change our world with Jesus.

To know God, experience healing, grow in love, and change our world. This is what God is doing. And in all four of those dimensions, spiritual maturity is not a destination, it's a pursuit. It's a pursuit. Let me just share this with you friends. It is a spiritual red flag whenever someone postures themselves as if they've arrived. By definition, that person is spiritually immature. Do you see that? So they're not worth following. Follow someone else. This is the pursuit of maturity.

Number one. Number two, the pattern of maturity. The pattern of maturity. Verse 17. "Brothers, join in imitating me and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many of whom I have told you, often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things."

He says, "Join in imitating me. Keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us." Who is the "us"? Who's the "us"? Well, obviously Paul, right? This is our first person. As he says in 1 Corinthians 11:1, he says, "Follow me as I follow Christ. Follow me as I follow Christ." I haven't arrived, but you follow me because I'm in process and I'm following Christ. And so if I'm following Christ, you can safely follow me. So Paul's the first one in the "us."

Who else? Well, remember Timothy, right? Timothy's the co-author of the letter and so he's certainly included in the "us." Remember, this is the same Timothy that Paul intends to send to Philippi because, chapter two verse 20, "I have no one like him who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare." Remember, he's sending Timothy as one who embodies the love and life of Christ, the selflessness to which Paul is calling the Philippian believers. And so he's saying, "Look, I want you to keep your eyes on Timothy. I want you to watch his selflessness. I want you to observe his humility. I want you to imitate his genuine love. Follow Timothy as he follows Christ."

So follow Paul, follow Timothy. And then probably he also means Epaphroditus. Remember in chapter two, he's the one who's bearing the letter, carrying it to Philippi. And Paul sends him with this endorsement, chapter two verse 30, "He risked his life, nearly dying in service to you and to Christ." He says, "Look, keep your eyes on people like Epaphroditus. Honor men like him. Watch his devotion. Observe his sacrifice. Imitate his service and sacrifice. Follow Epaphroditus as he follows Christ."

See, there's this pattern that we see all throughout scripture. Hebrews 11:7 says, "Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith." So again, we see what we saw a few weeks ago in chapter two with Timothy and Epaphroditus. It's now repeated here with Paul himself. If we want to mature in our walk with Christ, we need to go find someone who is following Jesus and apprentice our life to the way that they live. Imitate them. Find someone who has that blend of humility and confidence that we talked about. Someone who knows they haven't arrived and yet is striving for Christ with everything they've got. Find someone like that and keep your eyes on them. Because remember, association leads to admiration, and admiration leads to imitation, and imitation leads to habituation, and habituation leads to formation.

In other words, we become what we behold. We become what we behold. And spiritual maturity is less taught and more caught. Do you realize that? Spiritual maturity is less taught and more caught. Which is why Paul says you've got to be so careful because there's people out there that are not worth imitating. They'll put themselves up as someone to imitate, but you better not look at them. Because they're not worth it. Verses 18 and 19 again. "For many of whom I've often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame with minds set on earthly things."

So these people Paul says, look, there's lots of bad examples out there. There's lots of people that posture themselves as religious leaders worthy of imitation and you better not pay attention to them. Instead of following the way of the cross, these are people following their own way. Instead of pursuing joy in Christ and his resurrection life, they live for the temporary pleasures of this world here and now. Instead of glorying in all that is going to come to those who are children of God in Jesus Christ in the future, they live for this world, which is a shame in the end.

Friends, imitation is key to maturation. Imitation is key to maturation. And so Paul's warning is, be ever so careful who you keep your eyes on. Because we become what we behold. And friends, this has huge implications for our social media use, our cable news habits. If we will but heed it, it's huge. So we have the pursuit of maturity, the pattern of maturity now, and finally the prospect of maturity. The prospect of maturity. There are those, Paul says, who walk as enemies of the cross of Christ, whose minds are set on earthly things.

But verse 20, "Our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself." He says, "Our citizenship is in heaven." Now, it is hard to put into words just how radical this statement is. Philippi had the rare distinction in the ancient world of being one of the official Roman colonies, one of the very few. And so to be born in Philippi was the equivalent of being born in the capital city of Rome itself. In other words, the citizens of Philippi were granted full Roman citizenship with all the rights and privileges thereof.

In many ways, the reason for this was that Philippi was home to a lot of retired military officers of the Roman Empire. It was a very patriotic city. They hailed Caesar, who had declared himself the savior of Rome and the Lord of all the earth, who had subjected by his power all the known world to his rule. Philippi lived, breathed, and bled Roman Empire. Now go back and read these verses again. "But our citizenship is in heaven and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself." Do you see what's happening here? This is a highly charged sentence here. The gospel is reordering the allegiance of the hearts of the Philippian believers. The citizenship, their citizenship in Rome used to be their greatest pride and joy. But now in the gospel, it has become secondary to their citizenship, which is in heaven. Do you see that?

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy and we're so glad you're joining us today as we consider the pattern of spiritual maturity. In that part of the sermon that we were just able to hear, you talk about this dual citizenship. I'm a citizen of certainly earth and a citizen of heaven. How's that relevant to spiritual maturity?

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah, well Paul's basically saying that this is what maturity looks like, someone who's taking really seriously the claims of the citizenship of heaven on their life, so that it's starting to shape the way they live here and now. These were people who were very loyal to Caesar, but now the claims of Jesus are so strong on their life, it's starting to transform their relationship in the world around them. And so Paul's main point here is that this kind of dual citizenship is a marker of spiritual maturity. But his larger point for this section is, that's the kind of person you're looking to to imitate. Because they're living out the kind of spiritual maturity that's worth imitation. Those are the kind of people you need to be keeping your eyes on. This spiritual maturity that grows as we are imitating godly people around us.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: But we're here and I love that part where you say we become what we behold. It's kind of like association brings about assimilation. So who am I hanging around, so to speak, right?

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah, I mean I love that line. We become what we behold. Like what we fix our eyes on, who we pay attention to, who we're hanging around, who we admire, who we're consciously looking up to and saying that person's got it all together. Those people are shaping us in ways that we don't even realize. This is why when we have kids, we always say, "Be careful who your friends with," because friends are going to influence who you become. The people, the celebrities that they're looking up to, the music they're listening to, all the people they're admiring, the influencers they're following online, all that stuff has an amazing amount of impact as it shapes us.

And so what Paul is reminding us is this imitation thing is going on all the time whether we recognize it or not. And he wants us to grow to spiritual maturity and he says that's never going to happen unless you get the right kind of heroes and the right kind of people who are influencing and shaping your life. Keep your eyes on the right kind of godly people who are living godly lives, who recognize they're in process, but they're white-hot in their pursuit of Christ. When you make those people the heroes of your life, surround yourself with friends who are on the journey with you toward Christ-likeness, it's going to be contagious and it's going to start shaping you in ways that really matter. And so don't be haphazard with your friends or who you're looking up to. Be very deliberate in choosing people that are worth imitating and, as Paul says, follow me as I follow Christ. Just like get in line and start following because it's going to happen no matter what. So pick those heroes and influencers very carefully.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Man, there's a lot there to unpack, particularly when you talk about influencers. Now we can't deny the impact of the internet and the access that our cell phones have. I mean, they're with us constantly. And so it sounds like you're offering this challenge to our listeners that you need to spend as much time with God and his word as you spend on your phone and on the internet. Oh, I said it.

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah, I mean that's a good starting point is just to say what is, what are my eyes looking at? Who am I admiring? Who am I paying attention to? And if you were to make a chart of your day and what your eyes are paying attention to, what your heart is attending to, what you're dreaming about, where you're, who's associated with you, who's actually influencing your life. Look at it as a pie chart and say what percentage of my eyes and heart are captivated by Jesus, his glory, his word, his people, godly mature Christians who are speaking into my life. How much of my life is actually saturated with those things and how much is being drawn off toward other things that have captivated my attention and my eyes?

Because the reality is those things are shaping us and I'm very concerned sometimes when I see people that they just have their cable news on 24/7. And so the talking heads on their cable news are shaping their whole outlook, their emotions, the way they think about the world in ways that are going to be very impactful on the person they're becoming. And if that's disproportionate to the way we're paying attention to Christ and the gospel and the wonder of what he's doing by his grace in our lives and the roles of godly people who are speaking into our life, if that relationship is out of whack, we're not going to be formed into the image of Christ. We're going to be formed into the image of our favorite pundits. And the same thing we could say is true of social media and internet stuff because, let's face it, that is so addictive and it's so hard to quit. It's easy to just keep scrolling and there's always content there.

And so it's so easy. I think the battle for a lot of us in our spiritual maturity comes down to just being a little bit more intentional about the way we manage our time and our attention in a world like ours. Because everything's competing for our attention and it takes a massive amount of resistance to say, "I'm going to fix my eyes on Jesus. I'm going to fix my eyes on people who are following Christ. I'm going to read biographies of good, solid followers of Jesus who take him seriously and try to live in holiness. I'm going to listen to Christian songs that orient me toward the eternal. I'm going to fill my world with scripture." I'm going to do this deliberately. I think there's a huge amount of gains that we could have if we just made some deliberate shifts in the way we think about our time and our attention.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. You heard it here, "throne before phone." But you also talked about the influence that these things have, but we're not just to react to things, we can be influencers as well.

Pastor Philip Miller: That's true. We're not just consumers of content. Many of us are creators of content, right? We're putting out posts, we're directing other people's attention. And so this is a good line of thought is like, okay, not only do I have to be careful of who I'm following and how that's shaping me, but we all have to some extent a little bit of a following in terms of our online presence. There's people that are connected to us. And the things that we post and the things that we're directing people's attention to, are those Christ-oriented things or are they self-oriented things? So as on the creator side of content, we have a stewardship, we have a responsibility to point people toward Christ, to live before them in such a way that Christ is glorified. And so that's a good lens to sit down and say, "Am I helping to shape the people who are following me so that they are more attentive to Jesus, to his glory and grace and goodness in my life and in their life? And am I stewarding my influence for the kingdom of God or am I just trying to make money or be cool or whatever?" Can I increasingly show Jesus and his glory in the influence that I have in this world? And that's not just true online, that's true with our kids at home. Do they see more than Dad, do they see Christ? It's true in my friendships, with my coworkers at work. Am I pointing people to Christ and his glory with the influence that I have? That's the right line of thinking and it's just a different way, a different lens, and it helps us recognize that this pattern of imitation is going somewhere, so let's be deliberate about it.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: I've really enjoyed this conversation today as I do most of ours, but this is very practical and I think it's going to meet many of our listeners exactly where they are on some of the things that they're battling. We're being bombarded constantly and we're commanded to be in the world but not part of it, and it takes wisdom and the Holy Spirit to help us understand the difference. That's why the Living Hope team is offering Peter Mead's book, The New Birth.

The truth is, spiritual imitation only works if you've been truly born again. Dr. Mead offers profound insight into our spiritual journey. He takes us back to Genesis where Adam and Eve died not only physically, but also spiritually. This results in guilt and shame and hard and lifeless hearts and the absence of the Holy Spirit. But when the Spirit of God gives us new life, we become new creations. Pastor Miller is quoted in the book as saying, "This tiny book conveys a huge reality, that Jesus came to raise spiritually dead people into abundant life." Peter Mead's insights into the new birth that Christ offers are both pastorally wise and profoundly helpful.

This book will ground your life and bring you to worship because of all God did to save you. Now this is the first time we're able to offer The New Birth by Peter Mead for a donation of any amount. To request your copy, simply go to livinghopeoffer.com or you can call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's livinghopeoffer.com, 1-800-215-5001. Or you can write to us at Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Drive, Chicago, Illinois, 60614. Thanks for joining us for Living Hope, where you'll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.