The worthy life is not payment for citizenship. It is the life of a citizen who knows where home is... and who has built the house!
All four chapters of Philippians are filled with refrigerator magnet verses, verses I have seen grace birthday cards and yearbook autographs, get-well greetings and commemorative bookmarks. Chapter 1 boasts the, “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it,” promise of 1:6, which is not in this particular pericope, but what is there is the bold and inspiring: “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). Over the next several weeks, the Philippians readings give your listener something to stand up and cheer about. It will be tempting to preach these epistles. My advice, succumb to the temptation and give Philippians a whirl in the middle of Pentecost season!
The center of balance for your preaching this week on Philippians 1 will likely be either Paul’s interpolation of the Clash (the should I stay or should I go now section at Philippians 1:19-26) or teasing out what it is to live a life worthy of the Gospel of Christ (Philippians 1:27), and the attendant unanimity as well as suffering which accompanies such a life (1:28-30). I have spoken elsewhere about sermon “series” and my general opinion of them, so I will not bore you with those opinions here (or risk needless offense). However, I will encourage the series-minded, if so inclined, to think about how the epistle this week and over the next three evoke a certain kind of “mindedness.” It is a single-minded unanimity with the Apostle and with one another (Philippians 1), humble-mindedness as the mind of Christ (Philippians 2), a works-rejecting, gospel-focused mindset that has a mind counting all as loss except for the Gospel of Christ (Philippians 3), and, finally, what to set the mind on: Whatever is good, pure, excellent... (Philippians 4). You have low-hanging fruit, and textually prompted, which will help you avoid laying a thematic patina over the epistle to wrestle it into working for your ideas (the central problem often found in a sermon series). Rather, take your cue from the text itself. This is a sine qua non, an essential of biblical preaching: Getting your guidance from what the text of scripture says!
This week, I encourage you to tackle the language of “worthy” in Philippians 1:27: Only let your manner of life be worthy of the Gospel of Christ. What a delightful dis legomenon (a word that shows up only twice) in the New Testament: Politeuō. It means to live one’s life, to live as a citizen, and is the same word Paul used to defend his own conduct before Ananias the high priest at Acts 23:1. Paul was struck across the face for his testimony that day. Worthiness for his readers will mean the same and worse, enough to assume fright (1:28), suffering (1:29), even contention leading to imprisonment like Paul’s own (1:30). There are lots of ways to say “live” or “live in a manner.” This verb Paul uses is evocative of citizen obligation, discharging vocations while cognizant of our social interdependence on one another. It is a verb which reminds us that we need one another, that the body in which we reside is made up of many parts. This verb also reminds us of our existence in two different (and opposing!) kingdoms: The kingdom of the world and the reign of Heaven inaugurated in the incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do, goes the old chestnut. And when not in Rome, as in traveling in colonized territory, the same rule applies. This is what accounts for the spread of Romanness, Roman law, Roman culture throughout the entire empire. Romans did what Romans do everywhere. This is a fact the Philippians knew well as residents of a Roman colony themselves. Paul’s word, with its citizen connotations, reminds us God is colonizing His own Kingdom corner by corner, culture by culture. And just as the bits of Roman culture met every corner of the kingdom, so also the Gospel of Jesus Christ infiltrates the corners His Kingdom is colonizing, as His people live lives which reflect His kingship. This is what it means to live a life worthy (Philippians 1:27), a life that matches, in the fruit it bears, the reality that Jesus is Lord (Philippians 2:11), Lord of the Christian, Lord of Philippi, and Lord of all (Philippians 2:10-11).
Paul’s word, with its citizen connotations, reminds us God is colonizing His own Kingdom corner by corner, culture by culture.
And notice where Paul takes this citizenship metaphor next, not to conquest, influence, or cultural dominance, but to standing firm. “Standing firm in one spirit, with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the Gospel” (Philippians 1:27). The worthy citizen of Christ’s Kingdom looks like a person who stands with other Christians, not over them, who strives alongside them, not against them. The Gospel produces a peculiar kind of solidarity (more on this next week in the Philippians 2:1-4 follow up!).
The qualification which follows might seem rather unsettling: “...not frightened in anything by your opponents” (1:28). Why? Because their opposition is itself evidence that the Kingdom they oppose is real. The Philippians’ adversaries were not fighting against fantasists, and they did not pretend they were! It is also evidence that God is at work in you. Suffering in the Apostle’s writings is never interpreted as evidence that Christianity has failed. Quite the opposite: “It has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in Him but also suffer for His sake” (1:29). It has been granted to you. That is gift talk; gift given, gift received.
Suffering is a hard word, though, for hearers accustomed to measuring whether something is good by the metric of if it makes life easier, safer, more successful, and/or more comfortable. Paul measures it differently. The worthy life is not the life in which nothing goes wrong. It is the life that remains faithful to Christ when things go wrong. The Philippians cannot manufacture courage out of their own reserves, and Paul is not demanding they do. He is reminding them whose Kingdom they belong to, and what citizenship in that Kingdom looks like.
Here, preacher, is where you need to resist another contemporary temptation: Making “worthy living” into a list of behaviors by which Christians prove themselves worthy of Christ. Paul is not saying, “Live well enough and you will become worthy of the Gospel.” No, the Gospel comes first. Christ has claimed you. Therefore, live as one who belongs to Him. The worthy life is not payment for citizenship. It is the life of a citizen who knows where home is... and who has built the house!
So, the question for your hearers this week cannot simply be, “Am I living a good, Christian life?” Rather, it is more personal, more searching: Does my life look like it belongs to Jesus? When the world sees us together, does it see people who stand together in the Gospel, whose confidence is not shaken by opposition, whose lives are shaped by a different Lord and a different Kingdom?
After all, Paul is writing from prison. His own life is a demonstration of the thing he is asking of the Philippians. He is not offering them an abstract principle. He is saying: This is what citizenship in Christ’s Kingdom looks like. I am living it! You live it too. That makes Philippians 1:27 less an inspirational slogan and more of a summons. Leave your hearer with that this week: Live as citizens worthy of the Gospel because you belong to the King whose Gospel you confess.
You belong to the King, which is what it is to preach the Gospel of Christ into a foreign land. Rome knew how to colonize: Send the legions, plant the standard, build the roads, establish the law, and make the conquered territory look like home. But Christ’s mission is stranger. His Kingdom infiltrates the world, not with legions, but with witnesses, not by taking lives, but by giving His own, not by planting their eagle-adorned standard on the hill, but by being lifted up on a cross that plants a more lasting, in fact, an everlasting standard. The mission is accomplished when the King goes all the way down into the enemy’s territory, even into death itself, and then walks out of the empty grave. That is the victory His citizens proclaim.
Therefore, the Church’s preaching will also bear the shape of that victory (there is the suffering; there is how the Christian life is literally cross-shaped). We do not preach Christ as another Caesar promising the world triumph by the world’s methods. We preach the crucified King, whose apparent defeat is His conquest, whose humiliation is His enthronement, whose empty tomb is the irreversible announcement that the foreign land is being reclaimed. The Gospel advances when Christ is preached, not merely talked about, but proclaimed as the King who has already won by dying and rising. That is when the strange business of Christian citizenship begins. His people stand together in a conquered land, proclaiming Him and living under Him in such a way that reveals His Kingdom to all, as God in Christ gives us the grace to bear fruit in it.
Additional Resources:
Craft of Preaching-Check out 1517’s resources on Philippians 1:12-14.
Concordia Theology-Various helps from Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO to assist you preaching Philippians 1:12-14.
Lectionary Kick-Start-Check out this fantastic podcast from Craft of Preaching authors Peter Nafzger and David Schmitt as they dig into the texts for this Sunday!
The Pastor’s Workshop-Check out all the great preaching resources from our friends at the Pastor’s Workshop!
