God’s Word for You

Philippians 3:17 Press on

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Tuesday, April 14, 2026

17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who are walking according to the example you have in us.

Paul is offering himself to the Philippians as an example of the Christian life, a man to be imitated. Here he says “walk,” which is “live your life and conduct yourselves.” In verse 16, he used the term stoichein (στοιχεῖν) “walk in step,” and now he says paripateo (περιπατέω), which is more literally “to walk.” We see this second word in sentences like “walking in the truth” (2 John 1:4), and “What are you discussing as you walk along?” (Luke 24:17). Here the word recalls Psalm 1:1, “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.” Paul pictures a whole congregation walking according to the example that he, Timothy, and the others have set.

In Paul’s day, Greek and Roman cities were bristling with pagan temples and shrines (Acts 17:23). Frequently these shrines involved temple prostitution as a means for worshiping a goddess or god with one’s body and carnal impulses, and the prostitutes were usually protected by what we would term a union of sorts (less sinister and more commonplace than the idea of the modern pimp with his whores). This was looked on as normal and even a way for wealthier Greek and Roman citizens to support those who were less well-off. This is why Paul constantly denounces sexual sins in his letters to Christians in Greek cities in particular. “Shall I take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!” (1 Corinthians 6:15). “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery” (Galatians 5:19). “Among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality” (Ephesians 5:3).

For those who fall into the pitfalls of worldly sins, there is forgiveness through repentance and the gospel. But Christians must not treat this subject lightly. There is a terrible danger, a trap set by the devil, of being convinced that on account of knowing Christ and even of being regular in worship, that God becomes less strict about his Law and about sins that we commit. God hates sin (Deuteronomy 12:31; Malachi 2:16). If someone keeps God’s law to the letter, but only does so out of fear of the punishment, then he does not keep the law for God’s sake, and he does not please God. What someone might regard as righteousness in this way really is not, and is condemned by the Holy Spirit as “filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6).

Even Christians cannot keep the law perfectly in God’s sight. Even though their faith expresses itself by love (Galatians 5:6), they keep the commandments of God well, to a certain degree, but not perfectly since they are still stained by original sin. Therefore everyone, even the best Christians will have to admit their many transgressions and sins (1 John 1:8-9), and we know that every single transgression breaks the whole law (James 2:10).

The purpose of God’s law is not to save man. No one can measure up to the perfect standard demanded by the law. The law serves as a mirror, a reflection for us to show us our sins. In doing so, it crushes us. “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear” (Psalm 38:4).

The law also serves as a barrier or curb, to maintain external decency and discipline in the world against wild, wicked, disobedient men and their gross outbursts of sin. It is in this sense that Paul says, “The Law is not made for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious” (1 Timothy 1:9). The law serves in this way by permitting nations and states to punish moral wrongdoing as they see fit. But the law is uneven in the world; in one place a thief gets away with hardly any punishment at all; in another place he loses his hand in a savage instant. Perhaps it would be too cynical for us to wonder what our American government would look like to the world if many of the men and women in public office and their lawyers were all missing a hand.

For the Christian, the law has a third purpose and use, as a guide in our lives. Since we have been set free from the bondage of the law (Romans 6:14), we show our love for God by keeping his commands. We need God to show us what he would have us do, and we do it. “This is the new obedience which springs from faith, the free obedience of a loving child, not the forced obedience of a slave.” The prophet declares: “He has showed you, O man, what is good. To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). And David wonders catechetically, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word” (Psalm 119:9).

The example Paul has set is to love God and to love his neighbor (which is the summary of the whole law, Mark 12:30-31). As the Apostle invites his congregation to follow him, we each should ask ourselves: What kind of example do I set for God’s holy people? What examples does it seem that I have been following? In an age of so-called influencers, most of them for too young to have much real wisdom, and many far too heathen to be able to set anything approaching a good example, we must detach ourselves from the fascination of listening to the constant barrage, the downpour of bad examples that floods our eyes and ears. Instead, as Paul has already said, “Press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus has taken hold of me” (Philippians 3:12).

This has been a great deal of talk about the law. The only answer to our failures under the law is the gospel, the forgiveness we have in Jesus, and this, at last, is our motive for using the law as a guide, out of love. Keep pressing on. Keep up the Christian walk. Keep running back to the cross.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

Browse Devotion Archive