+I. The apostle's sense of his own shortcomings.+--1. _It argued a
high estimate of a Christian's duty._ Perfection is his aim, although
not his attainment.
2. _It argued a humble estimate of himself._--Though the most eminent
Christian on earth, he was fully conscious of his own imperfection.
+II. The apostle's method of Christian progress.+--1. _The
concentration of his energies._ Many things he did, and he did them
wholly. But he made them all subservient to his one idea, which thus
unified them all. Decision of character.
2. _Oblivion of the past._--A wonderful past was his, but he forgot
it, except as it might supply a stimulus to his future advances--past
times, past pleasures, past sins, past labours, past attainments. The
past must have dwelt in his memory, but it did not satisfy him.
"Onward" was his motto, and every day he began his race afresh.
3. _Untiring activity._--He had the goal ever in his eye; he often
measured the distance between him and the goal; he stretched every
nerve to reach the goal. (1) Do we resemble Paul in his aim? (2) Do
we resemble Paul in his efforts?--_G. Brooks._
_Aim High_--
+I. In pursuit of moral excellence.+
+II. Intellectual character.+
+III. Active usefulness.+
+Lessons.+--1. _God Himself has commanded it._ 2. _Society expects it
of you._ 3. _The age in which you live demands it.--E. D. Griffin._
Vers. 15, 16. _The Temper to be cultivated by Christians of Different
Denominations toward each other._
+I. Those who adhere to this rule.+--1. _Seek and cultivate their
society._ 2. _Use means to promote the mutual improvement of these
persons and of ourselves._ 3. _Do all we can to render our mutual
reciprocal union more perfect and our usefulness more extensive._
+II. Those who differ from us in matters of great
importance.+--1. _Give consideration to the way in which their_
_religious characters have been formed._ 2. _Pay regard to the
difficulties and misapprehensions which lie in the use of words._
3. _Reflect what would probably have been the effects upon our minds
had we been placed in their circumstances._ 4. _Act towards them with
justice and kindness._
+III. Those who differ from us in matters of smaller
moment.+--1. _Show them sincere and honest respect and kindness._
2. _Cultivate friendly intercourse with them as far as they are
disposed to reciprocate such intercourse._ 3. _Show that we esteem
the essential principle of the Gospel more than controversial
preciseness and ecclesiastical form.--J. P. Smith._
_MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.--Verses_ 17-19.
_Good and Bad Examples._
+I. A good example should be attentively studied.+--"Mark them which
walk so as ye have us for an ensample" (ver. 17). We cannot imitate
what we do not see and know. It will help us to be good if we
carefully watch and meditate on the conduct of the truly good. The
best example of uprightness and consistency is worthy of the most
painstaking study. "Wherever they found the life of the apostle
imitated and displayed the Philippians were to mark it and make it
their pattern. Any excellence which they thus discovered they might
by God's grace attain to. It was not some distant spectacle they were
to gaze at and admire, but an embodiment of earnest faith, walking on
the same platform with them., and speaking, acting, praying,
suffering, and weeping among them. What had been possible to others
was surely not impossible to them" (_Eadie_). A Polish prince was
accustomed to carry the picture of his father always in his bosom,
and on particular occasions used to take it out and view it, saying,
"Let me do nothing unbecoming so excellent a father."
+II. A good example should be faithfully imitated.+--"Brethren, be
followers together of me" (ver. 17). Paul had studied profoundly the
character of Christ, and was earnestly striving to follow Him. He
therefore exhorts the Philippians to imitate him as he sought to
imitate Christ; or rather, as Bengel puts it, he invites them to be
"fellow-imitators of Christ." To imitate Christ is not copying Him in
every particular. We cannot follow Him as Saviour, Mediator,
Redeemer. What is meant is, that we are to do our work in the Spirit
of Christ, as He would do it. He who follows Christ never misses the
right way, and is always led on to victory. When in the Mexican war
the troops were wavering, a general rose in his stirrups and dashed
into the enemies' lines, shouting, "Men, follow me!" They, inspired
by his courageous example, dashed on after him and gained the
victory. What men want to rally them for God is an example to lead
them.
+III. A bad example is in antagonism to the highest truth.+--"Many
walk, of whom I have told you, . . . they are the enemies of the
cross of Christ" (ver. 18). Professed friends, dubious in their
attachment and promises, are enemies of Christ, and of the great
movement in human redemption represented by His cross. While
professing to maintain the doctrines of the cross, by their wicked
lives they are depreciating them.
1. _A bad example is set by those who concentrate their chief thought
on the material._--"Who mind earthly things" (ver. 19). The world has
many attractions, but it has also many dangers. To be wholly absorbed
in its pursuits weans the soul from God and holiness and heaven.
Gosse tells us, in his _Romance of Natural History,_ of certain
animals which inhabit the coral reefs. So long as they keep the
passage to the surface clear they are safe; but, this neglected, the
animal finds the coral has grown around it and enclosed it in a
living tomb. And so it is with the life of the soul on earth. The
world is around us everywhere; the danger is when we allow it to grow
between our souls and God.
2. _A bad example is set by those who are supremely controlled by
their sensual appetites._--"Whose God is their belly" (ver. 19). The
desires of the flesh invite to self-indulgence--to gluttony,
revelling, drunkenness; to gaudiness, extravagance, and immodesty of
dress; to impurity of speech and conduct. A sensual man looks as if
lust had drawn her foul fingers over his features and wiped out the
man. The philosopher Antisthenes, who had a contempt for all sensual
enjoyment, used to say, "I would rather be mad than sensual."
3. _A bad example is set by those who gloat in their
degradation._--"Whose glory is in their shame" (ver. 19). Man has
reached the lowest depth of vice when he boasts in what is really his
shame. The last rag of modesty is thrown aside. "These enemies of the
cross were not hypocrites, but open and avowed sensualists, conscious
of no inconsistency, but rather justifying their vices, and thus
perverting the Gospel formally for such detestable conduct."
4. _The end of a bad example is ruin._--"Whose end is destruction"
(ver. 19). Evil is the broad way that leadeth to destruction. Sin
must be inevitably punished; it works its own fate--"sin when it is
finished bringeth forth death." Judge Buller, speaking to a young
gentleman of sixteen, cautioned him against being led astray by the
example or persuasion of others, and said, "If I had listened to the
advice of some of those who called themselves my friends, when I was
young, instead of being a judge of the King's Bench, I should have
died long ago a prisoner in the King's prison."
+IV. Professed members of the Church who set a bad example are the
occasion of constant solicitude and sorrow to the truly good.+--"For
many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even
weeping" (ver. 18). Even when denouncing the worst sins, the apostle
does it, not with harshness and imperious superiority, but with the
greatest tenderness and grief. The anxious minister may well weep
over the folly and delusion of half-hearted adherents, over their
false and distorted conceptions of the Gospel, over the reproach
brought against the truth by their inconsistent and licentious lives,
and over their lamentable end. The conduct of sinners is more a
matter of heart-breaking sorrow than of wrathful indignation.
+Lessons.+--1. _Example is more potent than precept._ 2. _A bad
example should be carefully shunned._ 3. _A good example should be
diligently imitated._
_GERM NOTES ON THE VERSES._