Philippians 3:17: “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.”
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As a Lutheran convert, I can only go by what others tell me about what we did as a church body 60 years ago. But I’m told back then, it didn’t matter where you traveled. If you walked into an LC-MS church, you knew how to worship. You knew what to expect, for we all used the liturgy on pg. 5 or pg. 15 from the old hymnal.
That was good, but also bad. Most of us worshiped in a particular way, not knowing why, or ever having learned to appreciate the worship forms handed down to us from the previous 2,000 years, parts of which even hail back to Old Testament worship.
We’ve used the liturgy as far back as we can remember. But we never became liturgical, much to our spiritual harm. And so we began to resent the sameness, the stodginess, the seemingly never-ending boredom of pg. 5 and pg. 15. When we could finally be free of those chains, we would!
It’s now 2009. We are now free of those chains. But something else has enslaved us! When you travel and step into an LC-MS church you never know what you may find. Often the preached Word is devoid of doctrine, filled with fun stories that may make you laugh, but leaving you spiritually famished. Rock bands have replaced the reverence of being in the presence of God. These entertainment-driven worship forms go against the grain of who we are to be as Christians. Even our confessions say that our worship services are “celebrated with the highest reverence”? (AC 24, para 1) But you wouldn’t know that today, would you?
And so instead of boredom, many of us are entertaining ourselves straight into hell. Instead of us being brought into the Church, where God’s truths and doctrines are to change us, we’ve let the world and our worldly desires take the Church hostage. In the name of missions, or so we think, we’ve become more like the world--the exact opposite of what the Church is supposed to be! We are to be in the world, but not of it!
Each congregation is to be a mission outpost, a reflection of Christ in the world. The Church is not a place where the world tells her how to live, move, and have her being. When the world controls what we do instead of God, we commit idolatry.
After hearing today’s Epistle reading, this lusting after the ways of the world is something we should grieve and repent over. We are committing idolatry, using missions as the reason, twisting Scripture just like Satan does. The Apostle Paul--the most-mission minded of all the apostles--tells us to join with others in following his example, of living according to the pattern that he has handed down to us.
So let us move back in time to learn what we’ve long-forgotten, so that we can move forward in this time and place. Let us go back to the Reformation to see how Luther tried to restore the pattern the Apostle Paul gave the Church. While visiting congregations, Luther learned how little the people knew of the faith they were to believe, not unlike today. Luther found many pastors who didn’t preach faithful sermons, not unlike today. And so, in response, Luther wrote the Large Catechism.
Part of the idea behind the Large Catechism was that, even if a pastor was an ill-equipped barker of the Word, he could at least take the Large Catechism into the pulpit and read it to the people. By doing so, the pastor would be following a “pattern of sound teaching,” as Paul wrote Pastor Timothy to do (2 Timothy 1:13). That way he could provide his congregation with the “milk” and the “solid food” of God’s Word (Hebrews 5:12), nourishing them in the one, true faith.
The Large Catechism allowed the poorly trained pastor to live the word of the Apostle Paul. It allowed him to “take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you,” and so to pattern his life in that way, even in the pulpit.
In our Epistle reading, the Apostle Paul implies, although we don’t like that implication, that we are like herd animals. But that’s true. Doesn’t Scripture also describe the Church as a flock? Like a flock of sheep, we are not given to go off on our own, to choose our own way of following Jesus. Doing that is not following Jesus, but becoming a lost sheep.
A Christian is not a lone ranger; he is part of a flock, the Church. Each Christian, as the Apostle Paul says, is to join with others in following [his] example, noting those who live according to the pattern he gave us. Paul is saying, “Fix your attention on, and mimic those, who live out the faith as we have taught. Identify them; imitate them.”
You mean the Christian life and faith isn’t just about me and Jesus? No; if it were, then Scripture would not use words like communion, fellowship, congregation, and unity to describe who we are to be in Christ. No doubt, to be in the Church is to say, “I confess” as the Apostles’ Creed says. But it is also to say, “We confess,” as the Nicene Creed in the original Greek says. It’s fully both; you don’t have one without the other.
Think of a military unit. A military unit doesn’t go into combat until it has been properly trained. Training consists--not only in learning a set of patterned behaviors--but practicing those behaviors over and again, until they become second nature. And such practice, such constant imitation of others, is for the soldier’s benefit. It’s what will keep him alive in the heat of battle, when his feelings and emotions would otherwise bring him to ruin. It’s the same in your Christian life.
It’s as the Apostle says, “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” Paul said this because he knew how to live, because he knew how to believe, and because he even knew how to die.
Paul doesn’t tell the Church to imitate him because he has learned the “power of positive thinking” or because he has some new angle on God. Paul cares little for a church that is always chasing after the latest fad.
Paul, instead, tells the Church to imitate him. Why? Because God the Holy Spirit had crushed open his heart with the Law, but only so He could breathe the healing, Gospel Word of faith and forgiveness to restore his spirit. That’s why the Apostle Paul calls you to such imitation and mimicry. He does so for your benefit, that you may know the pattern of eternal life.
Just as the soldier in combat relies on his training, so also are you to rely on your training--if you’ve been properly trained. This is the training that you are to receive when you “take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” This is the training that you are to receive when you are intimately connected to the flock we call the one, holy, Christian, and apostolic Church.
“Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” With such words, Paul tells you that you are to mimic and imitate the faithful Christians of all time. You don’t make your own path or walk in your own way. You are, instead, to walk with the whole Church of all time in the pattern of eternal life.
Where they lead, we are to follow. We do so because they know where the water of eternal life is found. We pattern ourselves after them because they walked in the faith and hope that God Himself had given them. That’s the same faith and hope that He also has given to you. We follow their example, because they followed our Lord Jesus--and where He leads, there is life and salvation.
That’s why our Confessions say that “we keep many traditions” (AC 24, 40) and “the usual public ceremonies are observed: readings, prayers, vestments, and other such things” (AP 24, 1). Why? It’s simply worshiping in a way that the New Testament Church has always worshiped. It also helps ensure that our style affirms our substance--and not destroy it!
Using a common form of worship in-line with how the New Testament Church has always worshiped shows that the Christian Church is not a free-for-all. It helps keeps each congregation from doing whatever it happens to think is right in its own eyes, when its not. It helps keep each congregation from being a lone ranger, even a lost sheep. It would show that the Church is the Bride of Christ who continues to follow the pattern that has been handed down and received.
Yet, it’s also good for each individual Christian to “join with others in following [the apostle’s] example and take note of those who live according to the pattern [they] gave [to us].” In patterning yourself after the faithful of all time, you will repent of our sins, as they repented. You will cry out to God for His mercy, for which they, too, cried out. You will trust in the crucified and resurrected Christ for your salvation, just as they trusted. By Christ, your sins are forgiven, just as their sins are forgiven. By Christ, you now have eternal life, just as they now have it with Him in eternity.
It’s true: many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is not of this world, but with God in His eternal presence. And so I ask you, “Do our lives and the way we worship show that?”
When Paul urges us to follow his example, he’s simply telling us to follow the pattern of eternal life. It’s nothing other than the pattern that the Apostle Paul has handed down to us, which the Holy Spirit has kept alive in the life of the New Testament Church during the past 2,000 years. By Christ, we live in and by this pattern, individually and as Church. For in this pattern, we also find life and salvation. Amen.
