Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them who walk so as ye have us for an ensample.

I. THE DUTY OF FOLLOWING GOOD EXAMPLES.

1. We are commanded to do so. (1 Corinthians 11:1.)

2. The lives of many saints are expressly recorded for our imitation. (James 5:10, 11, 17; Philippians 4:9.)

3. the imitation is limited by several circumstances.

(1) By the example of Christ: "Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (1. Corinthians 11:1).

(2) We are not to imitate such actions of good men as are to be condemned, nor even all such as are not condemned (Genesis 19:8; Genesis 42:15, 16; Genesis 27:25 -27).

(3) The Word of God is to decide the rightness or the wrongness of the actions of good men.

II. THE USES OF SUCH IMITATION.

1. It stimulates to higher and better living. We are therefore to imitate good men in the graces for which they are most distinguished (Numbers 12:3; 1 Samuel 2:18; Job 1:21; Acts 5:41).

2. It is afresh recommendation of the gospel. (Matthew 5:16.)

3. It gives greater glory to God. (Romans 7:4.) - T.C.

I. THEIR CHARACTER.

1. Sensual.

2. Without shame.

3. Earthly.

II. THEIR SPIRIT.

1. Opposed to the Spirit;

2. Doctrine;

3. Cause of the Cross.

III. THEIR END.

1. Certain destruction.

2. Aggravated misery.

IV. THE FEELINGS WITH WHICH THEY ARE TO BE REGARDED.

1. Sorrow.

2. Pity.

3. Fear (Jude 1:23).

(J. Lyth, D. D.)

Paul was a model pastor.

1. Watchful: his eyes were ever on the Churches.

2. Honest: he did not flinch from telling the whole truth.

3. Affectionate — "Tell you even weeping." Paul wept for three things.

I. THEIR GUILT.

1. They were sensual persons. There were those in the early Church who would go from the Lord's table to heathen feasts, others indulged in the lusts of the flesh. And are not some professors so fond of the table and dress as to make a god of their body.

2. They did mind earthly things, and so we have ambitious, covetous Christians. They gloried in their shame, and a professing sinner generally does so more than any one else.

II. THE MISCHIEF THEY WERE DOING. He says emphatically that they are the enemies. The infidel, the swearer, the persecutor is an enemy. Christ is wounded in gin palaces, etc., but most grievously of all in the house of His friends. Caesar wept not till Brutus stabbed him. It is honourable to be defeated by enemies, but disgraceful to be betrayed by friends. The wicked professor is the worst enemy because —

1. He grieves the Church more than any one else.

2. Nothing divides the Church so much.

3. Nothing has ever hurt poor sinners more. Many seekers would find sooner if it were not for the ill lives of professors.

4. They give the devil more theme for laughter, and the enemy more cause for joy than any other class.

III. BECAUSE HE KNEW THEIR DOOM — "Destruction."

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

1. The object of the apostle in the statement of his own consecration in the earlier part of the chapter was that he might the more emphatically express his desire to others that they would imitate his example (vers. 15-16), and enjoy with him the reward (vers. 20-21). He did not wish to stand on an elevation solitary and unapproached.

2. The exhortation is enforced by a distressing contrast — men who desired to be considered the followers of Christ, but over whom the obligations of religion had no power and who were proceeding fast through deep degradation to perdition. Observe —

I. THE GUILT ATTRIBUTED TO THE CHARACTERS DESCRIBED. They were members and perhaps teachers; not open blasphemers but pretended votaries. They were —

1. Sensualists.(1) "Whose God is their belly" denotes the gross and brutish indulgences to which they resorted for pleasure (Romans 16:17-18). To pamper the appetites of the body is a tendency the power and prevalence of which cannot be sufficiently mourned (Mark 7:21-23; Galatians 5:19-21), and even where there is the restraint which arises from civil institutions, care of reputation, and other motives, there is but a modification in the development of the evil, and not the removal of the evil itself. The purpose of the gospel is to overcome the propensities of original nature and turn men away from what is degrading to what is sanctifying. But there was and is an attempt to pervert the principle of the gospel, and, by the most infamous of all sophisms, to show that we are permitted to "sin that grace may abound." Awful and abominable is that heresy which would thus attempt to poison the waters of purity at their very fountain.(2) The strength of the sensuality thus deprecated is expressed with remarkable force. "Whose God is their belly"; and under the sovereign influence of that debasing passion they "glory in their shame." They make a virtue of their subjection, a boast of their idolatry. They who regard the gratification of their appetites as the end of their existence are worshippers of their loathsome passions. They have as much denied the God of heaven as if they had acknowledged the deities of Olympus.

2. Worldlings. It may seem strange that this disposition should be placed in connection with the others as of the same kind and degree of criminality, but the phrase used expresses absorption in the concerns of the present world to the exclusion of another. And this neglect of futurity arises from the same depravity as the other. Worldliness, condemned as "idolatry," is only another development of depravity; for Christianity is designed to impress our race with the high solemnities of a world to come (Matthew 6:19-21; Colossians 2:2; 1 John 2:15), and when you are told of men who "mind earthly things" you are told of men who commit a sweeping act of blasphemy against the whole.

II. THE CONCLUSIONS DEDUCED AS TO THESE CHARACTERS ON CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES. It is affirmed —

1. They are malignant adversaries of the mediatorial character and work of the Son of God.(1) When men are enemies of the Cross, they are hostile to every purpose for which Christ came into the world.(2) In this manner a charge is advanced of special emphasis and solemnity. There is not ascribed a mere ordinary failure to comply with some of the precepts of religion, but a direct and daring enmity against that without which religion would be nothing (Romans 6:4-6; 2 Corinthians 5:15; Titus 2:14; Colossians 3:11). They are enemies because —(a) They refute the grand design for which alone it was ever regarded.(b) They are the means of degrading it in the world, and exposing it to public reproach. It is not the Jew, the heathen, the savage persecutor, or the blaspheming infidel, but the man who assumes the cross as his badge.

2. Their career terminates in the woes of avenging retribution. The Cross affords the only hope of salvation. The votaries of passions and habits so hostile to the purifying principles and purposes of redeeming love are therefore necessarily placed under the awful anathema of heaven (2 Peter 2:10 to end).

III. THE IMPULSE WHICH THE CONTEMPLATION OF SUCH CHARACTERS INSPIRES. "Tell you even weeping." Their case dwelt much on his mind, and occupied much of his ministry. To the same anxiety he refers especially in Acts 20:18, 19, 29-31. This proceeded —

1. From a dread lest the disciples of the gospel should contract their guilt. There was a loud call for vigilance lest the infection should spread.

2. From a deep concern for the peril of those by whom the guilt had been contracted already. Paul was not only anxious for the Church, but for his fellow immortals actually in a state of condemnation (Psalm 119:136; Jeremiah 9:1; Luke 19:41-42). It is not possible surely to contemplate the present debasement and final ruin of the sinner without sincere and heart-rending sorrow.

(J. Parsons.)

I. THE CROSS OF CHRIST. To the nations of antiquity the cross conveyed the same idea as the gibbet does today. It was a badge of infamy. The Cross of Christ, however, includes all the truths involved in His death. It was not the crucifixion these people opposed, but the principles associated therewith. Regard it, then, as the symbol of debasing truths, of notions most offensive to pride. For in the Cross we see the extreme evil of sin, the necessity of a righteousness beyond man's power, the need of the substitution of a perfect sacrifice to our salvation.

1. The source of powerful motives. There is no more powerful incentive to holiness than in the Cross. Its profession commits a man to deadness to the sin for which Christ died.

2. The signal of an amazing conflict. Christ's death resulted from the depravity of the Jews, and the machinations of the devil. By that the arch enemy thought holiness would be overthrown, and thus he stirred all his agencies in earth and hell to effect it. But God so ordered it that it led on to a conflict with the principles of evil, which shall terminate in the final triumph of Christ. Opposed now, He and we with Him shall be ultimately victorious.

II. THE ENEMIES OF THE CROSS. They are described in ver. 2 as opposed to the Christians in ver. 3, etc.

1. They were proud men who valued their own righteousness. Gross sensual evils are not the only things offensive to God; all substitutes for the Cross as the only means of salvation are obnoxious to Him.

2. Sensual men who lived for their own pleasure. The Cross means mortification of the flesh; to pamper it, therefore, is to defeat the purpose of the Cross.

3. Worldly men who held to their possessions in opposition to the desire for heavenly things (ver. 19). The votaries of pleasure, the anxious, the miser, etc., come under this category.

4. Timid men who screened their own persons, for fear of worldly loss or persecution.

III. THE AWFUL CONDITION OF ALL SUCH PERSONS.

1. They glory in their degradation; in their self-righteousness, sinful pleasures, or worldliness, or cowardice.

2. They pursue their own destruction — "The wages of sin is death."

(J. Blackburn.)

The conscience of a backsliding professor was smitten by the active and earnest efforts of a more faithful brother, whom he at length offered to assist in devotional services. To this objection was made by one who said, "I cannot hear him pray for me. His life does not pray. Let him repent of his unfaithfulness and confess to God and men, and then we will hear him." If we would have our prayers credited as sincere, our lives must be in accordance with them.

(Paxton Hood.)

What would you think if there were to be an insurrection in a hospital, and sick man should conspire with sick man, and on a certain day should rise up and reject the doctors and nurses? There they would be — sickness and disease within, and all the help without! Yet what is a hospital compared with this fever-ridden world, which goes swinging in pain and anguish through the centuries, when men say, "We have got rid of the atonement, and we have got rid of the Bible"? Yes, and you have rid yourselves of salvation.

(H. W. Beecher.)

When a small band of Protestants were striving for their liberties in Switzerland, they bravely defended a pass against an immense host. Though their dearest friends were slain, and they themselves were weary and ready to drop with fatigue, they stood firm in the defence of the cause they had espoused. On a sudden, however, a cry was heard — a dread and terrible shriek. The enemy was winding up a steep acclivity, and when the commander turned his eye thither, O how his brow gathered with storm! He ground his teeth, and stamped his foot, for he knew that some caitiff Protestant had led the bloodthirsty foe up the goat track to slay his friends. Then turning to his friends, he said, "On;" and like a lion on his prey, they rushed upon their enemies, ready now to die, for a friend had betrayed them. So feels the bold hearted Christian when he sees his fellow member betraying Christ, when he beholds the citadel of Christianity given up to its foes by those who pretend to be its friends. Beloved, I would rather have a thousand devils out of the Church than have one in it. I do not care about all the adversaries outside; our greatest cause of fear is from the crafty wolves in sheep's clothing that devour the flock. It is against such that we would denounce in holy wrath the solemn sentence of Divine indignation, and for such we would shed our bitterest tears of sorrow. They are "the enemies of the Cross of Christ."

(C. H. Spurgeon.)

Benjamin, Paul, PhilippiansPhilippiBrethren, Brothers, Carefully, Ensample, Example, Fix, Follow, Followers, Imitating, Imitators, Join, Mark, Model, Note, Observe, Pattern, Thus, Vie, Walk, Walking1. He warns them to beware of the false teachers;
4. showing that himself has greater cause than they to trust in the righteousness of the law;
7. which he counts as loss, to gain Christ and his righteousness;
12. acknowledging his own imperfection and pressing on toward the goal;
15. He exhorts them to be thus minded;
17. and to imitate him,
18. and to decline carnal ways.

Philippians 3:17

     6030   sin, avoidance
     8115   discipleship, nature of
     8349   spiritual growth, means of
     8428   example
     8449   imitating

Philippians 3:10-17

     5109   Paul, apostle

September 6. "Finally, My Brethren, Rejoice in the Lord" (Phil. Iii. 1).
"Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord" (Phil. iii. 1). There is no spiritual value in depression. One bright and thankful look at the cross is worth a thousand morbid, self-condemning reflections. The longer you look at evil the more it mesmerizes and defiles you into its own likeness. Lay it down at the cross, accept the cleansing blood, reckon yourself dead to the thing that was wrong, and then rise up and count yourself as if you were another man and no longer the same person; and then, identifying …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

May 25. "That I May Know Him" (Phil. Iii. 10).
"That I may know Him" (Phil. iii. 10). Better to know Jesus Himself than to know the truth about Him for the deep things of God as they are revealed by the Holy Ghost. It was Paul's great desire, "That I may know Him," not about Him, not the mysteries of the wonderful world, of the deeper and higher teachings of God, but to enter into the Holy of Holies, where Christ is, where the Shekinah is shining and making the place glorious with the holiness of God, and then to enter into the secret of the …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

January 27. "This one Thing I Do" (Phil. Iii. 13).
"This one thing I do" (Phil. iii. 13). One of Satan's favorite employees is the switchman. He likes nothing better than to side-track one of God's express trains, sent on some blessed mission and filled with the fire of a holy purpose. Something will come up in the pathway of the earnest soul, to attract its attention and occupy its strength and thought. Sometimes it is a little irritation and provocation. Sometimes it is some petty grievance we stop to pursue or adjust. Sometimes it is somebody …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

May 15. "I Press Toward the Mark" (Phil. Iii. 14).
"I press toward the mark" (Phil. iii. 14). We have thought much about what we have received. Let us think of the things we have not received, of some of the vessels that have not yet been filled, of some of the places in our life that the Holy Ghost has not yet possessed for God, and signalized by His glory and His presence. Shall the coming months be marked by a diligent, heart-searching application of "the rest of the oil," to the yet unoccupied possibilities of our life and service? Have we known …
Rev. A. B. Simpson—Days of Heaven Upon Earth

Twenty Third Sunday after Trinity Enemies of the Cross of Christ and the Christian's Citizenship in Heaven.
Text: Philippians 3, 17-21. 17 Brethren, be ye imitators [followers] together of me, and mark them that so walk even as ye have us for an ensample. 18 For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: 19 whose end is perdition, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. 20 For our citizenship [conversation] is in heaven; whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: 21 who …
Martin Luther—Epistle Sermons, Vol. III

Laid Hold of and Laying Hold
'I follow after if that I may apprehend that for which also I was apprehended of Christ Jesus.'--PHIL. iii. 12. 'I was laid hold of by Jesus Christ.' That is how Paul thinks of what we call his conversion. He would never have 'turned' unless a hand had been laid upon him. A strong loving grasp had gripped him in the midst of his career of persecution, and all that he had done was to yield to the grip, and not to wriggle out of it. The strong expression suggests, as it seems to me, the suddenness …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Rule of the Road
'Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule.'--PHIL. iii. 16. Paul has just been laying down a great principle--viz. that if the main direction of a life be right, God will reveal to a man the points in which he is wrong. But that principle is untrue and dangerous, unless carefully guarded. It may lead to a lazy tolerance of evil, and to drawing such inferences as, 'Well! it does not much matter about strenuous effort, if we are right at bottom it will all come …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Soul's Perfection
'Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.'--PHIL. iii. 15. 'As many as be perfect'; and how many may they be? Surely a very short bede-roll would contain their names; or would there be any other but the Name which is above every name upon it? Part of the answer to such a question may be found in observing that the New Testament very frequently uses the word to express not so much the idea of moral completeness …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Warnings and Hopes
'Brethren, be ye imitators together of me, and mark them which so walk even as ye have us for an ensample. For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is perdition, whose God is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Preparing to End
'Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not irksome, but for you it is safe. 2. Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the concision: 3. For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and glory in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.'--PHIL. iii. 1-3 (R.V.). The first words of the text show that Paul was beginning to think of winding up his letter, and the preceding context also suggests that. The …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Saving Knowledge
'That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, becoming conformed unto His death; if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection from the dead.'--PHIL. iii. 10-11 (R.V.). We have seen how the Apostle was prepared to close his letter at the beginning of this chapter, and how that intention was swept away by the rush of new thoughts. His fervid faith caught fire when he turned to think of what he had lost, and how infinitely more he had gained in …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Race and the Goal
'This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize.'--PHIL. iii. 13, 14. This buoyant energy and onward looking are marvellous in 'Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ.' Forgetfulness of the past and eager anticipation for the future are, we sometimes think, the child's prerogatives. They may be ignoble and puerile, or they may be worthy and great. All depends on the future …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Loss of All
'Though I myself might have confidence even in the flesh: if any other man thinketh to have confidence in the flesh, I yet more: circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, found blameless. Howbeit what things were gain to me, these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the excellency …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Gain of Christ
That I may gain Christ, and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own, even that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.'--PHIL. iii. 8, 9 (R.V.). It is not everybody who can say what is his aim in life. Many of us have never thought enough about it to have one beyond keeping alive. We lose life in seeking for the means of living. Many of us have such a multitude of aims, each in its turn drawing us, that no one of …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Toleration
Preached at Bideford, 1854] Philippians iii. 15, 16. And if in any thing ye shall be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing. My friends, allow me to speak a few plain and honest words, ere we part, on a matter which is near to, and probably important to, many of us here. We all know how the Christian Church has in all ages been torn in pieces by religious quarrels; we all know …
Charles Kingsley—Sermons for the Times

Do You Know Him?
Have I imagined emotions which would not be natural? I think not. The most cool and calculating would be warmed with desires like these. Methinks what I have now pictured before you will wake the echoes in your breasts, and you will say, "Ah, it is even so! It is because Christ loved me and gave himself for me that I want to know him; it is because he has shed his blood for me and has chosen me that I may be one with him for ever, that my soul desires a fuller acquaintance with him." Now may God, …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 10: 1864

The Power of Christ Illustrated by the Resurrection
Beloved, how intimately is the whole of our life interwoven with the life of Christ! His first coming has been to us salvation, and we are delivered from the wrath of God through him. We live still because he lives, and never is our life more joyous than when we look most steadily to him. The completion of our salvation in the deliverance of our body from the bondage of corruption, in the raising of our dust to a glorious immortality, that also is wrapped up with the personal resurrection and quickening …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

False Professors Solemnly Warned
Note, too, that the apostle was a very honest pastor--when he marked anything amiss in his people, he did not blush to tell them; he was not like your modern minister, whose pride is that he never was personal in his life, and who thus glories in his shame, for had he been honest, he would have been personal, for he would have dealt out the truth of God without deceitfulness, and would have reproved men sharply, that they might be sound in the faith. "I tell you," says Paul, "because it concerns …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 2: 1856

The Freedom of the City.
(Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.) PHIL. iii. 20. "Our conversation is in Heaven." People often fail to get at the meaning of this glorious text because they mistake that word conversation. Really the text means--our citizenship is in Heaven, we belong to the Eternal City. Once S. Paul declared with pride that he was a Roman citizen; and when the Chief Captain in surprise declared that he himself had purchased that privilege at a great price, the Apostle answered, "but I was free born." Every …
H. J. Wilmot-Buxton—The Life of Duty, a Year's Plain Sermons, v. 2

"To what Purpose is the Multitude of Your Sacrifices unto Me? Saith the Lord,"
Isaiah i. 11.--"To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord," &c. This is the word he calls them to hear and a strange word. Isaiah asks, What mean your sacrifices? God will not have them. I think the people would say in their own hearts, What means the prophet? What would the Lord be at? Do we anything but what he commanded us? Is he angry at us for obeying him? What means this word? Is he not repealing the statute and ordinance he had made in Israel? If he had reproved …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

"But Seek Ye First the Kingdom of God," &C.
Matth. vi. 33.--"But seek ye first the kingdom of God," &c. II. The Christian's chief employment should be to seek the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof. "Seek first," &c. Upon this he should first and chiefly spend his thoughts, and affections, and pains. We comprehend it in three things. First, He should seek to be clothed upon with Christ's righteousness, and this ought to take up all his spirit. This is the first care and the chief concern. Did not this righteousness weigh much …
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Righteousness.
--that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.--Ep. to the Philippians iii. 8, 9. What does the apostle mea …
George MacDonald—Unspoken Sermons

Entire Sanctification
By Dr. Adam Clarke The word "sanctify" has two meanings. 1. It signifies to consecrate, to separate from earth and common use, and to devote or dedicate to God and his service. 2. It signifies to make holy or pure. Many talk much, and indeed well, of what Christ has done for us: but how little is spoken of what he is to do in us! and yet all that he has done for us is in reference to what he is to do in us. He was incarnated, suffered, died, and rose again from the dead; ascended to heaven, and there …
Adam Clarke—Entire Sanctification

That True Solace is to be Sought in God Alone
Whatsoever I am able to desire or to think of for my solace, I look for it not here, but hereafter. For if I alone had all the solaces of this world, and were able to enjoy all its delights, it is certain that they could not endure long. Wherefore, O my soul, thou canst be fully comforted and perfectly refreshed, only in God, the Comforter of the poor, and the lifter up of the humble. Wait but a little while, my soul, wait for the Divine promise, and thou shalt have abundance of all good things …
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

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