This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions. We are in Day 5 today of our look at
Philippians Chapter 3, verses 15 to 21. As we come to the end of our look at
Philippians 3, we've looked in this chapter about how to find joy, how to find
joy in the way you respond to your accomplishments in the past, and then how to
find joy in the way that you live for God's goals in the future.

And yesterday we looked at what Paul had to say about living for the future. He
used that phrase, "You press on. " If you're going to live for the future and
have joy, you press on with God's strength.

You run with strength by God's strength. You press on. But there is a second
phrase that Paul uses at the end of the chapter as we look forward to the
future.

You not only press on, but you live up. You live up to what God has done in your
life. Let me read for you Philippians 3, verses 15 to 21.

All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point
you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up
to what we've already attained.

Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who
live according to the pattern we gave you. For, as I've often told you before,
and I now tell you again, even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of
Christ. Their destiny is destruction.

Their God is their stomach. Their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on
earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a savior from there, the
Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him to bring everything under
his control will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his
glorious body. There's a balance here in Philippians chapter 3.

Press on and then live up. You press on to attain all that God has made you to
attain. But then Paul says here, but make sure you also live up to what you've
already attained.

I love that balance in God's Word. How do you live up, Paul says, to what we
were already talking about? He gets very practical here.

So let's look at these verses in terms of principles. Principles of how you live
up to what God has already done in your life. He starts with the principle of,
I'd call it conservation, which is don't go backwards.

I mean, if you run in a race, you don't want to go backwards. All of us who are
mature, we should press on, he says, but we should also live up. He says, God's
going to make this clear to you.

If he hasn't, then ask him. He'll make it clear to you. You need to live up to
what he's already done in your life.

Sometimes when we're living life, we need to have the picture of going up the
down escalator. Everything in this world is going in one direction. We're trying
to go up.

And if you're going up a down escalator, you better keep walking because the
minute you stop and say, well, okay, I've arrived somehow, guess what? You're
going down. And so Paul says, live up to what you've attained.

Don't lose what you've gained because you think you've arrived. That's the
principle of conservation. At least do that, he said.

Only let us live up to that. But then he also talks about the principle of
imitation. Follow me, he says.

You want to live up to all that God wants to do in your life. You want to live
up towards the future. Then you have to have other believers around you that can
encourage your faith, that you can follow in their faith.

The word follow here, we get our English word mimic from this word. He says,
take note of us and follow us. That's the word scopos, telescope or microscope.

Really hone in on this and really see how another believer is living their life
in a way that can encourage your life. Now just remember some all important
truths about human examples. We need to learn from each other.

And so remember some of them all important truths. Truth one, you will follow
examples, whether good ones or bad ones. Jesus said, everyone's eventually going
to become like his teacher.

So you are going to follow examples. So you better get some good ones around
you. Truth number two, I've got to choose intentionally to imitate the good
qualities and not the bad.

It's easier to imitate bad qualities in someone's life than good ones. I don't
know why that is. It just is.

So I've got to make a choice to imitate the good that I see in people's lives.
And you can recognize the good. And then the third truth about human examples is
examples will fail you.

They're not Jesus. They're just human beings. So you follow the good in their
life.

You learn from people not expecting them to be perfect. We need good examples.
Paul reminds us here because there are a lot of bad examples out there.

In fact, as he talks about the bad examples that were in the Philippians life,
he uses phrases to help us to pick out a bad example. Their God is their
stomach. Their destiny is destruction.

Their glory is in their shame. Their mind is unearthly things. How do you pick
out a bad example?

Their God is their stomach. That's quite a phrase, quite a picture. And he's
saying they have the wrong appetites.

They've got the wrong priorities. You can pick that out. Bad example.

Their destiny is destruction. They've got the wrong direction. You can see the
direction of someone's life after you've hung around them for a while.

Bad example. Their glory is in their shame. When someone is the most excited
about the wrong values, they glory the most in doing the wrong things.

That's when they seem to come the most alive. That's a bad example. And then he
says their mind is unearthly things.

They've got the wrong focus. That's the principle of imitation. You want to live
up to what God has done in your life and live towards the future.

Our third principle is the principle of separation. This principle is, in
essence, you change your spiritual address. Paul talks about that in verse 20
when he says, "We're not like that, but our citizenship is in heaven.

" Now remember, when he talks about a different citizenship here, he's talking
to the Philippians. As we started this book, we talked about the fact that
Philippi was a Roman colony. And so these are people who would have thought
citizenship something very important.

They were citizens of Rome, even though they didn't live in Rome. They
understood what it meant to be a colony of Rome, even though they were separated
from Rome. Now in most Roman colonies, the citizens were mostly soldiers who'd
served full time, maybe 21 years in the army.

And then they were rewarded with a full citizenship, Roman citizenship. Very
valuable in that day. And wherever they were, they were Romans.

Even though they were away from Rome, wherever they were, they were citizens of
Rome. Roman dress was worn. Roman magistrates governed in Philippi.

The Latin tongue was spoken. Roman justice was administered. Roman morals.

Their citizenship was in Rome, even though they didn't live in Rome. Our
citizenship is in heaven, even though we don't live in heaven yet. A.

W. Tozer gives three tests of your true citizenship. He says, "The tests are
what you desire most, what you think about most, and whom you admire most.

" And when I hear those tests, I have to admit that sometimes I act more like a
citizen of earth than a citizen of heaven. I want that to change. I want to live
up to being a citizen of heaven.

What do I desire most? What do I think about most? What do I admire most?

The mark of citizenship that Paul talks about is what we wait for. He says, "We
eagerly wait for a savior because he's our leader. " I've always loved what
Corey Ten Boom said, "Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

" You change your address. You look forward to heaven. You're a citizen of
heaven.

And then there is a fourth principle in these verses. It is the principle of
transformation. Things will change.

Things are not going to stay as they are. When you get discouraged and you
think, "I can't live up even to what God's already done in my life and life
seems to be weighing on," you remind yourself transformation is on the way.
Things will change.

Paul says, "Who by his power," Jesus by his power, "will bring everything under
his control and he will transform your lowly body to be like his glorious body.
" That is good news. The way that it is is not the way that it shall be.

One day those who have faith will see these bodies, these minds that we struggle
with on earth, transform into perfection. And one day we who struggle with the
fact that Jesus is often not trusted, often seemingly not in control on this
planet because of the choices people make, one day we will see everything,
everything brought under his control. So just try that on for size when you're
feeling discouraged.

Things will change. I'm going to be transformed by his power and our bodies are
going to be transformed to be like his glorious body. First Corinthians 15 53
says, "For our earthly bodies, the ones that we have now that can die, must be
transformed into heavenly bodies that cannot perish but will live forever.

" The way that it is is not the way that it shall be. How do you live up towards
the future? The principle of conservation.

Don't go backwards. The principle of imitation. Follow others.

Have others around you that you can follow. Be encouraged by. The principle of
separation.

Change your spiritual address. Realize you're a citizen of heaven. And the
principle of transformation.

Things will change. On display in the British Museum in London, there's an old
mariner's map drawn in 1525 that outlines the North American coastline and all
the waters that are next to it. The map maker made some intriguing notations on
the areas of the map that represented the regions not yet explored.

He wrote things like, "Here be giants. Here be fiery scorpions. And here be
dragons.

" Now the interesting thing about this map, because there were many maps that
had "Here be dragons" written on it, is that this map came into the possession
of Sir John Franklin, a British explorer in the early 1800s. A man of faith. And
he took that map and he scratched out the fearful inscriptions and he wrote
these words in their place.

"Here is God. " Whatever you're going through in this world, we can live up
towards the future because we realize here is God. He has the power and one day
everything is going to come under his control.

He has the power and one day he's going to transform even your body to become a
perfect body like Jesus's body. As I think about living up towards the future,
I'm reminded of the words of the apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 3, "By no
means do I count myself an expert in all this. " We're in this together.

None of us have figured faith out entirely. We all struggle with the ups and
downs of trusting ourselves and then trusting him. But the truth is, whether
you've had a good week when it comes to trusting Jesus or whether you've trusted
yourself this week, the truth is, here is God.

And we can trust in that truth. Let's pray together. And just pray, "Jesus,
Jesus help me to live up to all that you've done in me.

Help me to resist the temptation to do that on my own strength, because that's
not what you've done in me. You haven't come to strengthen me to be something
that I couldn't be outside of myself. You have come to give me your strength.

Here is God. And so right here, right now, help me to see myself in a new way,
forgiven, set free, strengthened and enabled by you. And help me then to rely on
you for a new strength to live this day today.

And God, when I stumble, when I rely on my own strength, help me the next moment
to recognize what I've done and to rely on your strength today, moment by
moment. I ask you for the strength to do this in Jesus' name. Amen.

" Join us next week. We're going to be looking at one of the most exciting
chapters of Scripture. It seems like I say that every week, Philippians chapter
4.