Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.
(Philippians 3:17-21)
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There are times when it isn’t easy to distinguish your friends from your enemies. During the First World War there was a German soldier who was hit by gunfire and tried as best he could to retreat back into his own trenches, but on his way he became entangled in barbed wire. He was screaming and moaning in great pain, and finally an American soldier left his trench to try to save him. The two opposing commanders saw what was happening and actually ordered a cease fire. The American soldier picked the German soldier up and carried him back to the German trenches before retreating back to his own trench, at which point the cease fire was lifted and the two sides began shooting at each other again. Can you easily identify who was the injured soldier’s friend and who was his enemy? Sometimes it’s not always clear.
In today’s reading from Philippians, Paul is speaking about enemies and friends of the cross. The word “friend” doesn’t actually appear. What Paul writes is that “... many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears,” but I think it’s pretty clear that those he considers to be friends of the cross are those he described earlier “who live according to the example you have in us.” And it’s a little bit like that German soldier from World War I - I’m not sure that it’s always easy to tell the difference between the two groups. Many Christians, for example, have a tendency to place their faith in rules and regulations. They think that that “if I’m a Christian and if I really want God to love me than I must do this or I mustn’t do that.” And we think that by putting our faith in doing this or not doing that then we’re honouring God - but really that’s being an enemy of the cross, because it denies the grace of God that the cross represents. God loves us not because we earn it with our actions, but simply because God chooses to love us. That’s divine grace, shown by divine love on the cross. Well, rather than denying the cross and living as its enemy, I want to reflect on the benefits of the cross and living as its friend. In this short little passage we looked at today, Paul offered four thoughts about what identifies an enemy of the cross, and then he balances them with four thoughts about what identifies a friend of the cross.
“... many live as enemies of the cross of Christ,” Paul wrote. And what does he say about them? First, that “their end is destruction.” If the cross is that which provides us with hope - the hope that we can be loved and accepted by God in spite of our obvious failings - then to be an enemy of the cross must be to fall into hopelessness. If the cross is that which brings to us assurance of God’s mercy and eternal life, then to live as an enemy of the cross must mean to lose our hold on such things and to begin to live in fear - desperately trying to earn God’s love, but rejecting the love God gives us through the cross. Paul continues on to say that “their god is the belly.” He’s speaking figuratively here, of course, He doesn’t mean that they’ve turned their stomachs into idols; he doesn’t even mean that they’ve turned food into an idol. What he means is that their lives are governed and controlled by their appetites - and we can have appetites for many things beyond mere food. But when you’re an enemy of the cross of Christ then whatever things you are looking for it’s a given that the one thing you’re probably not looking for is the cross, because the cross represents self-sacrifice and not self- indulgence. Paul also tells us that those who live as enemies of the cross of Christ “glory … in their shame.” They lose sight of any need for self-control or any sense of right and wrong (not in a legalistic sense but just in a basic moral sense) and they choose to live licentiously and wantonly and even defiantly before God - often trumpeting their choices, their greed and their avarice; their choice to live for their own sake rather than for the sake of Jesus. I would suggest that our society is full of people who treat the model of sacrifice shown by Jesus with open contempt. It’s the Kevin O’Leary take on ethics: “show me the money!” Paul’s fourth point about the enemies of the cross of Christ is a sort of summing up that ties the first three together: their minds are “set on earthly things.” Such people become enemies of the cross of Christ because the cross of Christ inevitably leads us away from our more earthly appetites and fills us instead with a desire for the things of heaven. Enemies of the cross of Christ will inevitably want more and more of the things of earth, and as that desire grows we’ll draw farther and farther away from the cross to get them.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be so. You have to choose to be an enemy of the cross, meaning that you can also choose to be a friend of the cross. To live as a friend of the cross is a lot more challenging, because it expects and demands a certain transformation in how we live and relate to those around us and to God, but in the end it’s far more rewarding in every way than the alternative. To balance what he said about the enemies of the cross, Paul also offered four characteristics of those who would be friends of the cross.
First, to be a friend of the cross is to recognize that “our citizenship is in heaven.” Citizenship is about duty and loyalty and - ultimately - responsibility. Those who live as friends of the cross understand that the first call upon their allegiance is always God’s call, and they set aside all the considerations of this world for the sake of doing God’s will. If our citizenship is in heaven and our first loyalty is to God then we should do whatever it is that God asks of us without worrying about the potential costs or sacrifice involved. Paul then said that those who are friends of the cross are “expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Those who are friends of the cross understand that the present troubles of the world and sometimes of our own lives are only temporary intrusions and mere inconveniences, because we know that the future holds not only Christ - because he’s with us now - but also the Kingdom that Christ wants to create. And so we have both hope and assurance. We believe that Jesus will neither abandon or forsake us. We believe that He is ours and that we are His. We believe that he is our present reality and our future hope and our eternal destiny all at the same time. Paul goes on to say that friends of the cross will be “conformed to the body of his glory.” In other words, we will be like Christ. We will have his mind and his spirit. We will live with him and for him and through him and in him. This is what awaits us, so that - and this is Paul’s final point about friends of the cross - the glorious future and eternity that we hope for and await will be subject to Christ. It won’t only be us. All creation will be conformed to God’s desires. In a world that so often seems to be spinning out of control - all things will be made right. Eventually, all things will be as God wants them to be.
So, the question: friend of the cross or enemy of the cross? The distinction isn’t always clear and the lines can become easily blurred. But I think we can see that the benefits of being a friend of the cross are huge. I want us all to be a friend of the cross. I want Laura to grow up to be a friend of the cross - knowing that she belongs to God and always will and responding to God’s love always. That’s the life God wants us to live - a life not fixated on things and on gain for ourselves but a life focussed on God and on service to others. That’s the life Jesus promises when he says that his desire is that we should have abundant life!
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