 Throughout my life I've increasingly found that reading scripture in public isn't just about feeding our own spirits and minds. It's about rehearsing the mighty acts of God for God's glory. So let's think together about Philippians chapter 3 verse 20. And first we're going to need some tea. We are citizens of heaven, you see, and we're eagerly waiting for the Saviour, the Lord, King Jesus, who is going to come from there. I think it's safe to say that this is one of the most misunderstood verses in all of Paul. Because modern Western Christians hearing that we are citizens of heaven will instantly think to themselves, and I've heard this in lectures and from the pulpit, oh well, we really belong in heaven so one day we'll go back there. We are citizens already so we have, as it were, the right of return, as though we're in a far-flung country at the moment but wanting to go back home where we really belong. That is not how the language and imagery of citizenship worked for Paul at all. He is writing to Philippi, which was a Roman colony, and the reason that there were Roman colonies in northern Greece, which is where Philippi was and is, was that the Romans had had civil wars which had spilt over into bits of Greece and into what we call Turkey as well. And when those wars were over, the soldiers who had fought were given grants of land in those particular areas because the last thing Rome wanted was those military veterans coming back to Italy in general or to Rome in particular with all their violent expertise and eager to grab somebody's farm and to settle there themselves. No, we don't want that. The point is we are citizens of Rome and our task as Roman citizens is, as best we can, to be agents of Roman civilization in northern Greece or Turkey or wherever it may be so that the idea of being citizens of heaven doesn't mean for Paul so we are waiting to go back to heaven because after all, God's promise as Paul knows very well as we see in Romans or 1 Corinthians and not to mention other parts of Scripture, God's promise is not that earth is only a temporary residence point after which humans or some of them will end up leaving earth and going to heaven. God's promise and purpose is for new heavens and new earth for a new creation in which the lives of heaven and earth will be joined together in a great act of renewal once and for all. So the point is then to live at the moment as agents of the civilization of heaven here on earth. That is of course central to what Paul is teaching the converts to do. And this is because when Jesus returns, as he says now, we're eagerly waiting for the Saviour, the Lord the King, who's going to come from heaven, when Jesus returns it isn't therefore to scoop people up and take them back with him to heaven. The Bible nowhere says that. The one passage which some have read like that in 1 Thessalonians simply doesn't mean that at all. The point is that Jesus is already Lord of heaven and earth and his return is not simply an act of a spaceman swooping down to do certain things. It's the coming together of heaven and earth under Jesus' lordship, implementing finally and forever the work which he did in his death and resurrection. So that then Paul uses here the language of Jesus which his hearers would have known from the language of Caesar. The language which said we are citizens of Rome and if we're in trouble here in northern Greece, we will await for the King Caesar, our Kyrios, our Lord to come and save us. Saviour and Lord are Caesar titles in Paul's world. Yes says Paul and now their Jesus titles, the Saviour, the King, the Lord. He is going to come from heaven and what will he do? The next verse says he will transform our present shabby old body to be just like his glorious body by the power which makes him able to bring everything into line under his own authority. Here as in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul draws on those Messianic Psalms, Psalm 110, Psalm 8, which speak of the authority of the truly human one, the authority of the King, who is finally going to complete the work which was begun. So we are at the present moment citizens of heaven, not so that we can go back there but so that already we can be agents of the heavenly civilization in the present against the day when Jesus comes and completes the work of transforming heaven and earth and of our bodies in the middle of it. So may God give you faith and courage to get on with your work as citizens of heaven and to look forward to the coming of the Lord, the King, the Saviour. Amen. How is this passage speaking to you? Let us know in the comments. Like and subscribe or check out our other videos.