Shine Like Stars

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, "children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation." Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. (Philippians 2:14-16)   Paul continues on with the "so what" after the hymn to Christ's humble exaltation.  Yesterday, Pastor Michael noted Paul's invitation that we work out what God has worked into us through Christ.  Paul continues that thought today by harkening back to Genesis and Deuteronomy. Our first clue that we're back in the wilderness is that pesky word "grumbling."  The Israelites did a lot of that in the wilderness after being set free from slavery.  The wilderness was hard.  It was hot.  Food and water were hard to come by.  Death seemed an ever-present threat.  There was no destination in sight, just more rocks.  So they grumbled.  Paul sets the Philippians and their situation under threat of persecution next to the Israelites in the wilderness, and invites them to take a different attitude than Israel had.  "Do everything without grumbling or arguing," he says.  But Paul goes further.  He takes Moses' own farewell speech from the end of Deuteronomy and makes it his own.  But he changes a few things.  Moses in Deuteronomy 32:5 had said of the Israelites: "they are blemished and not [God's] children; to their shame they are a warped and crooked generation."  Paul flips that around.  Paul implores the Philippians not to grumble under the suffering they endure "so that you may become blameless and pure, 'children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.'"  In other words: you already are God's children, you are no longer warped and crooked like the generation around you because Jesus has redeemed you from all that.  So then, continue to work out what God has worked into you, becoming blameless and pure so that you might shine the light of God among your neighbours! At the beginning of the letter, Paul conveys every confidence that he would see the Philippians again.  Then a few verses latter he qualifies that notion a bit.  There's a chance they might not see him.  Then here in our passage, he begins to speak of that possibility more bluntly, alluding to his death.  The comparison with the final speech of Moses to the Israelites is complete.  Neither the faith of the Israelites or of the Philippians could finally rest on the shoulders of their leaders.  They would have to discover a way to "work out their faith with fear and trembling" with nothing but the trust that Christ would continue to journey with them through the wilderness until they too arrived at the promised land. That's where Paul lands in his analogies too.  The promise to Abraham is that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Paul uses that same picture of stars to describe the Philippians: they, as children of God were already a picture of God fulfilling his promise.  So again: wouldn't they continue to work out what God was working into them?  Wouldn't they shine their light?  Won't you?