Phillippians 3:17-4:1
March 14, 2010
"Enemies of the Cross"
Rev. Holt had to explain to him later the bent finger wasn’t necessary to preaching it was a physical ailment he had, but this young preacher was so eager to preach and emulate him he tried to do it in every way possible.
In our scripture today Paul in his letter to the Philippians writes, “Join with other in following my example, brother, and take not of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.”
Paul was calling them to emulate him and others like him in how they lived their lives because they emulated Christ. We all know people are watching us in what we do and what we say and to the most part our young people are watching and copying us.
Most of you know I went to the “Congress on Evangelism” in January and there I heard many of our denominations preeminent preachers, theologians and teachers. I was privileged to hear Dr. Kenda Crissy Dean speak. She reported on a study called “Loul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers” by Christian Smith. She was involved in some of the research and is going to publish her own book on some of the data this coming summer.
In your bulletins you will have found a sheet that has part of the findings of this study. It took a study to tell us what we already knew but in a good sense it confirmed what Paul was getting at today in our scripture. See the first box titled “Role of Parents”. Let us read these two important findings.
You as parents and grandparents you can see that you are vitally important to the faith development and practice of teenagers. I can’t stress it enough how important it is for you to share your faith with your children and teens. It is also best to begin with your children and make the discussion of God and Christ and church and things religious a part of your home life.
What this says to me as your pastor is that we need to be offering more classes and groups for parents to help them understand their faith so they can talk to their children about their faith. We need more classes and new classes about Christian Parenting.
We have a Youth Pastor and now a Director of Children’s Ministries but we have hired them not to do your job but to help do your job. What we do here at the church is to enhance your ministry with your children. A pressing need here at Christ Church is for seasoned parents and grandparents, leaders and teachers to step forward and start and organize new classes and groups for parents. If we are to bring in new families with children living at home and keep them here at this church this is a vital immediate necessity.
Now as to the “enemies of the cross” that Paul spoke of here. Paul addresses two groups throughout his letters that he saw as enemies of the cross. What he meant by that is that these groups through their belief and most importantly here by their actions denied the salvation that came to them through Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins on the cross.
The first group taught that you had to become a Jew first before you could become a Christian. To be a Christian meant that you had to be circumcised if male and live by the Jewish dietary laws if you wanted to be saved by Christ. Paul said “No”. You are saved by faith and not by works. It is God’s grace that saves you.
On the other side were the ones who Paul addresses here. Note he says in the first verse “take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you.” These people had the theology right that you are saved by Grace through faith but then took that thought of salvation and used it as an excuse for sin. They were teaching since now we are saved and if we sin grace will abound more than lets sin more so grace can even abound more or be larger. These were groups like the “Libertines, Nicolations, Antinomians, Simonians, and certain Gnostic groups.
Their basic belief was “I want what I want and because I am forgiven it doesn’t matter what I do,” which is why Paul says about them “their god is their stomach.” They were only concerned about what they wanted and what makes them happy. Their slogan could be, “I want it my way.” Paul’s response to them elsewhere is that the penalty Christ paid on the cross for sin means you should not go back to sinning, or become slaves to sin again.
These people were misunderstanding the meaning of the cross, grace and sin and so they were living their lives in a manner that was contrary to the Gospel. Paul uses very strong language not to incite people to arguments and anger, but to cause them to carefully consider what they are believing and how that is affecting how they live. He says in fact “For as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears many live as enemies of the cross of Christ.” His heart was for people who were lost in sin and through bad theology returning to sin.
They lived as enemies of the cross, not out of willful rebellion, but out of ignorance. Paul is trying to educate them and keep them in the fold, which is why in the final verse today he asks them to remain firm in their belief in the power of the cross to set us free from sin and keep us free.
Now back to the sheet in your bulletins. In America today according to this study “Most (4 out of 5) U. S. teenagers embrace a religious identity and are affiliated with a religious organization. The vast majority of teenagers (3 out of 4) in the U.S. say they’re Christians. About half of American teenagers are Protestant and about 1 in 4 are Catholic.”
But most teenagers who claim to be Christian do not have a clue as to what a Christian believes. Now I hope you have asked yourself “Pastor Fred this is all well and good but doesn’t apply to us because we are mostly adults whose kids have grown up and are gone.”
Well the answer to that goes back to “The Role of the Parents” on our sheet. Teenagers for the most part are reflecting their parent’s beliefs. Somehow, somewhere we have missed educating the parents. We live in a society now long past prayer and Christian religious teaching in public schools. We can’t rely on our society in general to produce “cultural Christians” the job is 100% ours now and we need to be aware of this so we can do a better job.
Because if you look on your sheet under “The Practiced Faith of American Teenagers” you will see the following. And I want to let you know this is what many adults believe in the U.S. today. This is in a sense the “Apostle’s Creed” of the cultural religion of America.
Let me read this to you as you follow along…….
Now hearing and reading this helped me understand the thinking and belief of so many of the people who I did funerals and memorial services for who had no church affiliations. They believed their loved one in their eyes was “good” so they were going to heaven.
They missed out or rejected Romans 3:10 “There is no one righteous, not even one.”
In fact if you read this as we go down the list and you know the basics of the list you see it drifts farther and father from basic orthodox Christian teaching.
You will see if these are the basic beliefs of many around us why they have no interest in the Church, or Jesus, or the Cross. According to this belief system all of these are unnecessary.
What is also a “sin” in this belief system is any talk of “self sacrifice”, serving others unless you get a good feeling out of it. This is a belief system perfectly suited to a self centered, consumer society. The “me” and “I” and “my” matter but not the group or church unless they serve me. God does not matter or have any demands on my life unless it serves me.
God is not the God who is involved in our everyday life. God is the God of the fringes when life gets hard. God then becomes a lucky charm a rabbit’s foot only consulted in times of trouble but then otherwise ignored.”
God is the doorman at heaven ushering everyone in who in their own minds is “good” without any objective rational except “I helped people get along and I felt good.”
Now what this all gives us is a tremendous opportunity to fill in the blanks and work with others and show them in word and deed what Christ, the Cross and the Christian life are all about.
Paul talks about our citizenship being in heaven but our work is here on earth. Paul is always about the other person working to teach and convert them to the way of God.
For all those teenagers and adults who claim the name of Christ and do not know what it means we can help them fill in the blanks. We have a place to begin with them in terms of a common language and then we need to draw them in by what we say and what we do.
We need to develop creative and imaginative ways to speak of Christ perishing for us on the cross so that no one else needs to perish eternally. We need to think and pray and in ways that live out Christ’s suffering and sacrifice in our lives, so that others will see and turn to Christ and join us one day in heaven.
My challenge to you this week is to take this sheet home from your bulletin and think and pray about how you would speak of your faith to anyone who believed this way. Next Sunday I am going to pick up here and I want you to be a part of the conversation.
Between now and Wednesday, if you come up with an idea of how to address such a belief system as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, email me with your thoughts. My email address is in the bulletin. I will incorporate your thoughts if I can next Sunday in what I have to say. If you have questions you would like me to answer in the message let me know and I will.
What does this new understanding of the religious culture in which we live have to do with how we do church? Do we need to change our style of teaching, preaching, or education structure? What do we really need to provide for parents, grandparents and guardians of our children and youth?
Children, youth and other adults are watching us. What do we need to say and do to help Jesus and his cross come alive in their lives.
The Spirit is giving to the Church to guide us all let me know what you think.
In Jesus name Amen
