Our End is Not The End
This Sunday, we will wrap up our “Need to Know” series on Paul’s letter to the Philippians. I gotta be honest though: we could spend another few months on Philippians. There’s so many little themes, points, and details that we’ve only barely touched on in the Sunday messages…I feel like we’re missing out on the riches of what Paul wrote! So here’s a bit more from chapter 3 that we won’t get to cover on a Sunday.
Last week, I talked briefly about the ‘citizenship in heaven’ passage. Here it is in full:
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.
Again, there is so much to this passage. But what it gets to is that which is at
the heart of Paul’s hope: resurrection.
We can suffer, we can be hurt, we can be stuck, we can be sick and tired and starving and dying in prison – and that can (only) be ok – because we are guaranteed resurrection. Resurrection is what Paul is talking about here in the transform and conform the body language.
Our end here is not our end.
Our end (meaning, our goal, or our telos) is resurrection – new life – in, through, and like Christ.
This is Paul’s promise. We may get “humiliation” in our body today as we suffer, fall ill, lose, miss out. We all know what this is like. It stinks, it hurts, and it’s not fun.
But the promise is that Jesus Christ himself will transform us in our humiliation into a new life (a “body”) characterized by “his glory”.
We – resurrected – will be like him – resurrected.
And if that isn’t enough, all the stuff that causes us trouble, suffering, humiliation…Jesus has the power to make all that stuff subject to his control. He will control the stuff that currently controls us. Wow.
When you understand that, you can understand why Paul was ok living or dying, getting freed or being stuck in prison. He was ok winning or losing. He was ok whether he stays or goes. Because he knew, deeply, that his life was in God’s hands, and this end is not his real end.
His real end is life with Jesus, like Jesus, because of Jesus. And so is ours.
Look at how biblical scholar Gordon Fee puts it:
“It simply cannot be put any better than that. This passage reminds us that despite appearances often to the contrary, God is in control, that our salvation is not just for today but forever, that Christ is coming again, and that at his coming we inherit the final glory that belongs to Christ alone—and to those who are his. It means the final subjugation of all the “powers” to him as well, especially those responsible for the present affliction of God’s people. With Paul we would do well not merely to await the end but eagerly to press on toward the goal, since the final prize is but the consummation of what God has already accomplished through the death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.”
That’s hope. That’s something we can live our life on. That’s something that makes it so that we need not worry. That’s something that leads Paul to write what he does in 4:11-13:
11 Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
My hope is that we can learn what Paul has learned here too.