Live A Life Worthy Of The Gospel

If you’ve ever been to a fancy restaurant, you know there’s a certain way you’re supposed to act. You don’t wear jeans and a t-t-shirt. You don’t slurp. You don’t yell across the room.

And you definitely don’t ask the waiter, “Hey, y’all got chicken nuggets?” Why is that? Because the environment calls for something different.

Paul says the same thing about the Christian life. Listen to what he says in Philippians 1:27…

Above all, you must live as citizens of heaven, conducting yourselves in a manner worthy of the Good News about Christ. Then, whether I come and see you again or only hear about you, I will know that you are standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the Good News.

So Paul is saying to us… we are supposed to live here, like we would live in heaven. We are citizens of heaven. We should conduct ourselves like we would if that’s where our house was.

He says we should act in a way that is worthy of the Good news about Jesus.

Not because we’re trying to earn salvation. We can’t earn it… salvation is a gift. But we live out lives this way… because the One who called us is holy, worthy, and gracious beyond measure.

So here is the million dollar question: What does a life worthy of the gospel look like?

I think there are plenty of misrepresentations of what that looks like. Down through the years there have been many Christians who believe that living life like a citizen of Heaven means…

We are to live a joyless and restrictive life:

In other words… you’re not supposed to have any fun. You have to dress a certain way, wear certain cloths, not wear certain clothes. Can’t wear jewelry.

I grew up in a church of about 50 people maybe and our family were 8 of those people.

My mom was a Sunday school teacher for awhile. But she did the unthinkable. She shamed the entire family.

The preacher asked her to stop teaching Sunday School because of it. You know what this horrific thing was that she did? She got her ears pierced.

I know… (gasp!) It’s a miracle that I turned out to be a preacher really.

Some branches of Christianity are a "works-based" legalism that relies on human willpower to avoid certain behaviors and feels like a life of deprivation.

This type of Christianity… is passive, it’s only about avoiding "bad" things:

Or as the old-timers used to say, “don’t smoke, don’t chew… don’t go with girls that do.”

Avoiding sin is important… but it’s more than that. Living a life worthy of the gospel also involves actively doing good, such as sharing the gospel, encouraging others, and caring for the vulnerable.

There are some who believe that living like a citizen of heaven…

It is about being a spiritual elite:

The idea that holiness is for a special class of Christians is false. Instead, holiness is a process of becoming more like Christ that is available to all believers, not a status symbol that leads to judgment or self-righteousness.

So this is what living a live worthy of the gospel is not like… A joyless, pious, elitist mentality. Here is what I believe Paul is saying it should be like.

1. We are called to a higher standard of living.

Ok, great… what does that mean. It means, you didn’t call yourself, God did. As we said a couple of weeks ago, “God didn’t just save you from something, He saved you for something.”

Paul spends the first three chapters of the book of Ephesians reminding us of that calling: You are chosen, You are adopted, You are redeemed, You are sealed by the Spirit, You are His workmanship, You are seated with Christ

You can’t live a worthy life until you remember who called you.

Do you remember at recess time, they would pick teams. That was always a great time, wasn’t it? Anyway… did you ever get picked by the kid that was the star player?

You suddenly stand a little taller… because someone great said, “I want you.”

I remember one time when I was about 18 or so, I went with my cousin to the HPER-building at IU. And I was just having one of those rare, good days. I couldn’t miss a shot if I wanted to. (Really – true story)

Well, we had been playing for hours and our team had just lost. There were four guys standing on the sidelines, ready to take on the winners. They needed one more player to complete their team.

They asked me to be their fifth. Now… the story gets better. Two of those for guys were former IU basketball players… Stu Robinson and Winston Morgan.