Friends and Enemies of the Cross Phil. 3:17 – 4:1; Jeremiah 26:8-15; Luke 13:31-35

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you, from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who has made His friends forever.

Today we’re going to talk about friends and enemies of the cross.

God created humanity to be at peace with Him; to live in harmony and friendship with Him and one another.

Our sin put us at odds with God, turning us into enemies of our Creator. 

How deeply God was grieved when humanity, the capstone of His Creation, fell away from Him and His love. 

But He had a plan to make us His friends again, His family. 

Through the cross, Christ overcame our enmity with God, and won back our friendship and harmony with Him. 

The friendship and salvation Jesus won for us on the cross becomes ours through the working of the Holy Spirit, who gives us the power to believe, and to live, not as antagonists and enemies of God, but as His allies and friends, sharing a common love and common cause.

The Gospel we’ve been given, opens our minds to see that we owe everything to what Jesus did for us on the cross. 

All our blessings, every one of them, both earthly and spiritual, come to us by way of the cross.

Not only do we have forgiveness and salvation through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross; every blessing we’ve been given comes to us by compliment of the cross.

The only reason humanity has all these earthly blessings, any of them, is because Jesus died for the sins of all. 

Not only do we owe our eternal life to the cross, we owe our very existence, our life on earth, to the cross.  

Had Jesus not died on the cross, none of us would be here; we wouldn’t be alive, the world wouldn’t exist anymore.

It’s for the sake of His Son that God didn’t end the world and everything in it, the moment Adam and Eve fell into sin. 

God didn’t close the book on humanity and end the world at that moment, because He knew He would send His Son; and He knew what He would send His Son to do; and He knew His Son would do it: die on a cross for the sins of the world, and rise for the salvation of all who believe.

God kept the world going, until the time He would send His Son to win our salvation; and He keeps the world going until all His chosen are saved.

Having been saved from sin and redeemed from death; having been given physical and spiritual life, we owe everything to God, and His Son, and His Spirit. 

Even those who don’t or won’t believe, they, too, owe everything they have to Jesus, whether they realize it or not.

If it were not for Him, no one would be here to enjoy earthly life and blessings. 

Knowing that we owe everything to the cross of Christ, that all our earthly and spiritual blessings come to us through the cross, let us always live as friends of the cross. 

Let it be to us as we’ll sing in our closing hymn, In the Cross of Christ, I Glory. 

Let us live our lives to the glory of the One who gave His life on the cross for us, our best and truest Friend.

In spite of everything Jesus has done for the world, even though the world owes everything to Him, still to some, He is an enemy to be opposed.

And His Gospel is a lie to be denied, or silliness to be ignored, or ridiculed.

All that would discredit and deny Him are the lies of the enemy, the one who masqueraded as a friend to our first parents in Eden, deceiving them and hoping to destroy them. But God had other plans for His children.

Still today the devil deceives the children of humanity. 

Our Epistle warns us to not fall for the enemy’s lies against God and His Word; and to not fall in step with the deceptive culture that opposes and contradicts Christ.

Paul says that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ by embracing worldly beliefs and passions.

18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. 

Philippi was a Roman colony, and many of the people there were citizens of Rome, enjoying the privileges that went with Roman citizenship. So they would have understood the idea of being citizens of a grand place far away.

Our true and eternal citizenship lies in a glorious place far away, a world away.

In Baptism, we’re made citizens in the Kingdom of Grace on earth, and the Kingdom of Glory in Heaven. 

Let us never forget to which Kingdom we truly and eternally belong, and who has made us a part of that Kingdom, and how He has made us a part of it -- through His blood shed for us on the cross. 

As we sang, sorrow and love flow mingled down. 

Let us live as friends of the cross, and citizens of a holy Kingdom. 

The cross always reminds us who our Friend really is.

In John 10, Jesus tells us the difference between the thief, the enemy, and the Good Shepherd, our Friend. 

He says the thief or enemy comes into the flock to pillage it, to kill and destroy; but the Good Shepherd comes to lay down His life for the sheep. 

We trust the One who was willing to lay down His life for us, only to pick it up again. 

Until there is another who is able to die and rise for our life and salvation, Jesus will remain our truest friend and our only Savior.

As we know full well, there is no one else who will ever be capable of doing what Jesus did for us, because He alone is God’s dear Son. 

Jesus has proven Himself to be a Friend to us like no other; may no one nor anything, ever take His place in our lives, nor stand in the way of our friendship with Him.

Paul says, Therefore, my brothers and sisters, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, dear friends!

When it comes to the things that are dearest to us, our life and salvation, there is only one Savior; all the others are pretenders. 

Every worldly substitute for God and His Word, will certainly and inevitably fail us. 

There is One Friend to be trusted with our life and our soul. 

Anyone who says, or anything that teaches other than what He teaches and promises us in His gracious and definitive Word, is not be trusted. 

The are many things in this world that function as enemies of the cross of Christ, materialism, secularism, hedonism, and many other isms, false beliefs that point, not to the cross, but away from the cross. 

For your earthly life and eternal salvation, don’t believe anything that doesn’t point to the cross of Christ. 

Anything or anyone who would point you away from the cross, is not your friend. 

As friends of Christ, let us, with His help, point to Him in all we are and believe and do. 

When in our weakness, we sin, and don’t look so much like friends of Christ, and our lives fail to point to Him and the cross, then the forgiveness He won there restores us to rise up and live again as His witnesses and friends. 

We owe everything to Him, every one of us, the whole world, all because of what He did for us all on the cross. 

As we sang, love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.   

He is our truest Friend and our only Savior; what He did for us on the cross makes that undeniably clear.

May we always be loyal and true to Him. 

May we serve Him with all that we have, all that we are, and all that we will ever be. 

And as we do, the peace of God, that passes understanding, will guard our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, our Lord, in whose cross we glory. Amen.