Sermon text: Philippians 3:17–4:1
The last verse of our Epistle reading: “Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved,” he writes.
There’s a World War II movie based on a true story that exemplifies what it means to be steadfast, firm, committed. It follows a man by the name of Jan Baalsrud. He was a citizen, a Norwegian, in Norway when the Nazis invaded and took over the country. And he escaped. He escaped to England. But once in England, he was conscripted for a mission with 11 other men: a commando mission to go back to Norway. And thus he did. After escaping Nazi-occupied England, he headed back, and as their boat was about to land to the shore in a fjord, they’re attacked by a Nazi patrol boat. One person on the boat is killed. Baalsrud is hit in the foot with a bullet, and the rest are taken captive. Well, he swam across the sub-freezing temperatures of the water to safety on the shore on the other side.
Thereafter the story begins with horrific suffering. He’s shot in the foot. He escapes. He endures avalanches. He performs self-surgery on his foot. Gets infected: fever, hallucination, while being pursued all the time by the Germans. Hides under a rock for 10 days and endures a blizzard. And all he has to carry with him is a sleeping bag. Eventually, over the 63 days of brutal pain and suffering and constantly on the run, he escapes to neutral Sweden. And for what? To defy his enemies before his people. To set his people free. Well, that was the goal. But he didn’t kill one German. He didn’t achieve one goal of the mission. He did one thing and one thing only: for 63 days, he found a way to survive. But through his perseverance, he becomes a hero, an example to his people in Norway and to people throughout Scandinavia: a man who would go and endure great suffering for the sake of survival.
He became a symbol of freedom and determination for the Scandinavian peoples. Christians are called to remain steadfast in the same sort of way, and willing to suffer hardship in the same kind of way as Baalsrud did.
Those first Christians in the book of Acts understood what it meant to be steadfast. They understood what it meant to pay a price in Roman civilization, in the empire, for becoming a Christian — especially a first-generation Christian. Acts 2:42 says, “And they devoted themselves” — that is, those first Christians steadfastly — “to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.” That means that first generation of Christians approached church with an entirely different mindset than we do in our day. They were on a mission to survive. Once they heard the gospel and believed, and they understood that they needed to have a right understanding of the law and the gospel, they needed to worship in both spirit and in truth, and they needed to participate in Holy Communion, Baptism, confession and absolution for the very survival of their Christian faith and life.
Now, there are many times when our citizenship in the kingdom of God calls us to endure hardship and suffering. I don’t know if you saw, but the president just created a new board: a board of faith. It’s to patrol and watch over the federal government so that it stops putting pro-life Christians and parents concerned over school curriculum in jail. Twenty-four pardons the president has issued for Christians who were jailed for practicing their Christian faith in public life.
We’re living in a time where we’re just now getting to the edge in this country, and in the West — in Europe in particular — when they jail people for not even praying out loud, just standing in front of a clinic and praying in their own mind, because that’s what the ordinance says. And thus people are now in jail for doing that. We are now at the very beginning edge of what it looks like to be truly persecuted for the Christian faith. And we as a church and as a people are woefully unprepared.
There are many times when our citizenship in the kingdom of God calls us to endure hardship for the sake of our confession. Suffering for the sake of the gospel is noble when it is intended to liberate us from the elimination of our freedom of conscience, our freedom of religion, and our freedom to express our faith in the public realm. And heroes are those people who serve as steadfast examples of true Christian faith and confession in the midst of persecution, suffering, and hardship. And we are called upon in the Epistle lesson today by both Paul and God to imitate those who have endured hardships for the sake of the gospel: “Therefore, my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm thus in the Lord, my beloved.”
The apostle Paul himself faced many obstacles and lots of opposition to the gospel, because he taught that salvation and righteousness came not from people’s own works but from the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone, apart from good works. During Paul’s time in Philippi, the Philippian Christians had been taught correctly the distinctions between the law, which always condemns us in our sin, and the gospel, which always saves us regardless of the sin. But after Paul left Philippi to continue on his missionary journeys, a group of teachers infiltrated the congregation and began to seduce people away from a righteousness of faith back to a religion of law under the Torah. And if it wasn’t under the Torah, it was the other side of the issue: the other ditch on the road. They taught them that they could be both Christians and libertines and follow the passions of this fleshly world.
The false teachers were dividing the congregations and leading them away from Christ and the faith that they had been taught. To some within the congregation, it seemed as if capitulation and compromise was preferred to remain steadfast. By the way, another translation of that Acts 2:42 is “stubborn.” Firm, steadfast, and stubborn are used interchangeably in the Scripture to tell us that we are at all cost to hold on to the doctrines and to the faith in the heart of the Christian religion.
In order to encourage the Philippians to remain steadfast and to reject false teachers and their doctrine, the apostle calls upon them not to be deceived and not to follow the example of the impious piety of the false teachers, and to remember that they have a higher calling and a higher citizenship — higher than anything in this world: the citizenship of the kingdom of heaven. They were to do this by modeling the faith — that is, modeling the doctrine and understanding and the life of the apostle Paul and his fellow co-workers.
Now, these saints were sinners too. They weren’t perfect in what they said and did. They struggled, as Paul himself confesses in Romans chapter 7, with the same stubborn sins over and over again. But he’s calling on them to mimic, to imitate his life of doctrine, church, confession, absolution, communion, and the like. Such fidelity to Christ’s teaching would bring persecution and suffering. But a soldier who suffers — who becomes a hero — only becomes a hero because the people that honor him or her have the same affection for the country as did the one who suffers for the country. So also the Christian church should honor and bless the saints who have come before us and suffered before us on account of preserving the true doctrines of the faith for us. Lutherans: that’s a great deal of what Reformation is all about: to remember the restoration of the gospel and the right use of the law.
Thus Paul wrote of false teachers: “Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.” But “our citizenship” — the emphasis is on verse 20 — “our citizenship is in heaven.” Paul calls upon Christians to love the free and unmerited grace of God, Christ’s very righteousness, so that we remain steadfast in the faith when faced with false teachers, persecution, and suffering. Those things are real dangers to true Christian faith. To this end, Paul calls us to model our lives after the true servants of the gospel of Christ: heroes who have remained stubbornly steadfast and firm, unmoved in their faith. He wrote: “Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us.”
I suspect most of us at one time or another have been made to feel uncomfortable. We’ve been challenged in one way or another to our faith and to our traditional biblical moral values. But feeling uncomfortable is one of the smaller prices to pay for being a student and disciple of Christ. It happens all the time, even to the point where we just let it go these days. A great many Christians have paid the ultimate price for their steadfastness in the faith in foreign countries, as we learn each and every week. That’s why the church confers the title “saints” on such people, be they famous or common.
It’s difficult to stand firm in the faith when one is truly suffering in one form, fashion, or another. Our culture has wandered so far away from common sense, natural law, and the word of God that holding to what the Bible says in various matters makes it look like we are the insane ones, when they truly are. The greatest threat to our steadfast faith is that we don’t know the word of God. We don’t know true Christian theology from the faith, and our understanding consists of rather shallow understandings of both the use and the purpose of the law and the gospel of Jesus Christ. Such faith, when challenged by trials, temptations, tribulation, crumbles.
Remember Proverbs 3:5 and 6. You probably don’t, so I’ll read it to you. Ready? “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” We have a sinful and limited understanding. We don’t know the whys and wherefores and becauses of this or that that has come into our life. We only know that they have. And we only have God’s word that He will use it all for our own good.
Trials and hardships are not the only threat to our faith. Worldly success and wealth become dominant forces in our lives. It’s our temptation to trust rather in material things and worldly things than in Christ and His word. Recall the parable of the Sower: some heard the word with joy, but they have no root system, so when trouble and persecution comes because of the word, they fall away. Others hear the word, but worries and wealth choke out the life of the fruit.
The word of God assures us that Jesus has earned salvation for us by His perfect obedience, His constant, unfailing, perfect, stubborn steadfastness. Rather than be confronted by Romans 8:28 — comforted by Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” — we get worried and angry at God when crosses are laid upon our shoulders. This is a dangerous kind of faith to have that yields to circumstances and wind. Yet it is when our faith is made more pure through the refiner’s fire that true Christian faith endures.
Paul had every reason to boast in his spiritual past. His bloodline was pure in the Hebrew line. His circumcision: a model Hebrew. His education: a Pharisee’s. Zeal for the law, and even persecuting those whom he thought were breaking the law. When the time had come, Paul was given to see something far greater than a righteousness brought by the law: he saw Christ and the gospel. And after everything else, he counted, he wrote, as loss, because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus his Lord. For His sake — Christ’s sake — Paul writes: “I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.”
There are many teachers of the law who hated Paul for robbing them of their glory: their own works-righteousness, their own great brilliance. That’s what many of our unbelieving friends get angry about when we speak or represent or act out our true Christian faith: they want their works to count for something. And if you and the gospel get in the way of it, you might find their scorn. They want their own self-made righteousness to shine forth. They want to be thanked and praised for being good, decent people all the time, forsaking Christ and the gospel.
Many are the false teachers today who boast in their own works, their own spiritual accomplishments, their own success in preaching the gospel and building mega-size churches and the like. There is a pretense of holiness that is not acceptable to God: “having the appearance of godliness,” Paul writes in Second Timothy, “but denying its power.” He writes: “Avoid such people.”
The Galatians received the same teaching the Philippians did, and they were quick to compromise. Galatians 1:8–9: “But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” Times have not changed.
Today we see denominations claiming to be Christians while literally advocating heretical doctrines, deviant human behavior, and are so indifferent at the same time to the violation of the clear and consistent Ten Commandments of our Lord. If you’re on the Facebook thing, you notice I published an article from Dr. Jean — a survey about the Missouri Synod. The title of the article: “We’re Not as Conservative as We Thought We Were.” It basically shows that laymen hold the same views on abortion as do unchurched people. Laymen in the LCMS hold the same view of homosexuality as people outside the church. Laymen hold the same position on virtually all of the aberrant behaviors in this day and age as the people do outside the church. Yet the pastors remain overwhelmingly firmly adherent to the moral injunctions in the Holy Scripture. It appears that one or the other — or both — aren’t doing their jobs correctly.
We must not allow ourselves to be drawn into false doctrine. By keeping faith in Christ, we have eternal life. But if we allow these dangers to destroy our faith, we lose that eternal life. When faith stands firm in the face of tribulation for the sake of the gospel, God makes weak faith pure and stronger. In time, He grants understanding and comfort, and uses all hardships that come into our life for His purpose. The things we often depend on in time of trouble — our wits, our perceived goodness, our own possessions and wealth — can’t really help us at the end of the day. All we can count on is Christ’s cross, which has made us children of God, with all the promises that come from Him.
And take note, ready: Jesus is the most uncompromising person in both the Old and the New Testament. Try to find a place where He compromised with anybody. He spoke the word, held firmly to it, and it cost Him His life on the cross. Not a very nice guy now, was He? He was firm and clear, and the perfect model for true Christian faith. So why not model our lives after those of people like St. Paul, who sacrificed everything for the sake of the pure gospel? Paul preached the word, taught pure doctrine in and out of season, with great patience, even to those with itching ears who wanted to hear something else from him entirely. He endured hardship and eventually was poured out like a drink offering — that is, he was killed, and knew it was going to happen. He fought the good fight, he finished the race, he kept the faith, and finally received the crown of righteousness as his reward.
Why not model our lives after the Lord, who stood firm, steadfast, uncompromising on behalf of the gospel? He left the joy of heaven and endured the cross with all of its shame, and was seated at the right hand of God the Father. But here is the good news: Christ, always, in every single case, in every single situation, followed the will and words of His heavenly Father, enduring the scorn of men and the cross, to give to you — to impute to you — His unfailing and uncompromising love and faith. So that when God the Father looks upon you, He doesn’t see the weak, needy, wily person that you really are. He sees instead the glory and boldness and confidence of His Son, Jesus Christ, in you. So He has given, and so He has received. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.