That's a place I'd like to live,
how about you? All right, if you would open your Bibles with
me again in Philippians chapter three. I've titled the message, The
Enemies of the Cross of Christ. And that sounds like a somewhat
negative, not somewhat, very negative, I suppose, subject,
the enemies of the cross of Christ. But if the Lord will enable me,
I plan on making this a positive and a blessing by using this
subject, the enemies of the cross of Christ, to point us to Christ.
And if we'll be pointed to Christ, it'll be a blessing. Now since
the apostle tells us in verse 18 that there are enemies of
the cross of Christ, that tells me there must be some friends
of the cross of Christ. and you and I would do well to
learn the difference. You know, I want to know, am
I a friend of the cross of Christ? And I want to be able to recognize
the enemies of the cross of Christ so that if I find I am one, I
can beg God for mercy. And if I recognize others who
are the enemies of the cross of Christ, I can avoid them because
if they're enemies of the cross of Christ, they're enemies of
Christ, they're enemies of God, and we would be well served to
avoid them. The Paul begins in verse 17 rather
than be followers together of me and mark them, which walk
so as you have us for an example. Now Paul says is he's not setting
himself up as the ruler of some sort of religious denomination.
What he means is you follow me as I follow Christ, you follow
me, you follow my message as my preaching leads you to Christ. He told the same thing to the
church at Corinth in first Corinthians chapter 11 verse one, be ye followers
of me even as I also am of Christ. You follow me only if I'm following
Christ and my message is pointing you to Christ. And this is what
he's saying here. He said, you, you follow me to
Christ and you take note of my example. You take note of my
example of faith to trust Christ alone. to be all of my salvation. And take note of my message. The only theme of my message
is Christ and Him crucified. And if the theme of someone else's
message is not Christ and Him crucified, don't follow them. Don't follow them. You notice
this. I'm not giving you something to do to make yourself more savable. I'm not giving you something
to do at all, am I? I'm not giving you something
to do to make yourself more savable. My message is you trust Christ
alone. He's all of our salvation. I'm
not telling you something to do to improve your righteousness
or to keep your righteousness, to improve your standing before
God. My message is trust Christ alone to be our righteousness. And I'm not telling you something
to do in order to prove your salvation before me. That's not
the issue. My message, is you trust Christ
alone. The only evidence that we have
that God has saved us is saving faith in Christ. It's faith in
the heart. And if we go about to prove to
others that we've been saved, that God has saved us, you know
what we're going to do? We'll fall into self-righteousness
because we'll be looking at what we can do instead of trusting
Christ alone. So Paul, that's what he says.
You take note, you take note of my message and you follow
that. You follow other men that preach Christ, that preach this
same message to lead you to Christ. And don't you keep company with
somebody that, that opposes it. It's bad for your soul. You avoid
them. And verse 18, he goes on. He says, here's why I'm telling
you this. For many walk, many conduct themselves of whom I've
told you often, and now tell you even weeping that they're
the enemies of the cross of Christ. You just remember this, every
religious person that acts nuts, every religious person that uses
the name of Jesus, every religious person that claims to believe
Calvinistic teaching as we tend to believe, that person is not
necessarily a friend of Christ. They're not believers and they're
not neutral either. They're on one side of the fence
or the other. They're not neutral. They're enemies of the cross
of Christ. And I think it's important to
know, Paul says, it gives me no pleasure to say that. I hear
some preachers, seems to give them a lot of pleasure
to point out who's a heretic and who is not a believer, who
is not preaching the right gospel, who is an enemy of Christ. Seems
to give them a lot of pleasure to point that out. Paul says,
I don't say this with any pleasure. He says, I say it weeping, weeping. I weep for their souls. Their end is destruction unless
God moves in mercy. And I weep for the souls, the
poor, blind, naive souls who follow them and believe their
message. Their end is destruction unless
God's merciful. And something's wrong with us
if we find pleasure in that. Something's wrong. How can I tell if I'm the enemy
of the cross of Christ? I want to know that. Don't you?
If I, if I am, I want to know it now. So I can beg God for
mercy. How can I tell who is the enemy
of the cross of Christ? Well, simply put an enemy of
the cross of Christ is someone who's opposed to the message
of the cross. You know, we talk about the cross.
We're not talking about a piece of wood. We're talking about
the message of the cross. The message of the cross and
the message of the cross tells us two very important things.
It tells us about the character of God and it tells us about
the character of man and those who are opposed to the gospel
are enemies to that truth. So number one, an enemy of the
cross, they hate the message of the cross. The enemy of the
cross of Christ hates the sovereign grace of the cross. The cross
declares God's sovereign grace. Christ didn't die for everybody.
He died for a sheep. He died for those that the father
gave him to save. He died for his elect and only
his elect. Let me show you that in John
chapter 10 John chapter 10 verse 11 I am the good shepherd and the
good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. Now scripture
is playing their sheep and there's goats. Christ is very plain here.
He did not die for everybody. He giveth his life for the sheep
and only the sheep. Look down at verse 14. I'm the
good shepherd. I know my sheep and I'm known
of mine as a father knows me. Even so, no, I, the father and
I lay down my life for the sheep. The cross of Christ tells us
Christ died for his sheep. He died for his elect. And he
showed us that in his suffering agony. He saved one thief and
passed the other one by. Sovereign mercy, he died for
his elect. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
die to give everybody a chance to be saved, as long as they
would just choose to accept him, choose to believe him. Christ
didn't die to give somebody a chance and then they'd still perish.
Christ died for his left and he fully and completely saved
every last one of them. Everybody for whom he died is
eternally saved. Christ didn't die for somebody
and shed his blood to put away their sin, yet they perish because
they decided not to accept it. I'm not going to accept his sacrifice,
so I'm not going to make that decision to accept his sacrifice,
so I'm going to perish. See, that's what the enemies
of the cross believe, but they hate this message of sovereign
grace that's declared to cross that Christ saved his people
from their sins. Now we talk about people being
enemies of the cross of Christ. They're not enemies of the cross
the way they determine what that means. They're not against Jesus
dying on a cross to put away this or pay for the sins of all
mankind. The enemies of the cross are not against Jesus dying to
give everybody a chance to be saved and give me the chance
to decide if I'm going to accept Jesus. Give me the chance to
decide if I'm going to let Jesus into my heart. Here's the problem
with that theology. If Christ died for the sins of
all men, give me a chance to be saved. Now I've got to decide
if I'm going to accept it or not. That makes the sacrifice
of Christ something offered to me. It's up to my, what are you
going to do with it? You accept it or reject it? The
scriptures playing the sacrifice of Christ not offered to us.
It's not offered to men. The sacrifice of Christ is offered
to God because God's the offended party. The blood is before the
Lord because the Lord is the offended party. You and I have
sinned against God and there's got to be a sacrifice to appease
his anger, to appease his justice, to take away the sin that is
against him. Sacrifice was offered to the
father, not you and me. How full of ourselves we think
we gotta be that the Son of God's offering a sacrifice to us, my
soul. And here's the reason that the
enemies of the cross oppose this message of sovereign grace. In
verse 19, we'll get to that in just a little bit, but Paul says,
their God is the belly. These false prophets, the desires
of their flesh to fill their belly, that's what directs their
message. They say things that people want
to hear, so people will support them. So people will keep coming.
They preach, quote unquote, for material gain. They're minding
earthly things, Paul says. But also, I thought about this,
the belly. Often in scripture, the belly
means your innermost being, doesn't it? Both those who preach and
those who support them, who are the enemies of the cross of Christ,
they have spiritual desires of their innermost being, of their
nature, the nature of Adam that's in them, and that directs what
they preach and what they believe. Saying that Christ only died
for his elect, that takes away the satisfaction of the flesh
to do something to please God and earn my way into heaven.
The desire of the flesh is let me do it. And I'll earn my way
to God by what I do. The flesh hates being dependent
on God. The flesh wants a chance. Don't
make me dependent upon God. It's saying that Christ died
for his elect, and that salvation depends upon the free, sovereign
grace of God. That offends the belly of the
flesh. And you know what is at the very belly, the innermost
being of all flesh, is this. free will. That's why Adam took that fruit
and sinned against God in the garden. He wanted his own free
will. He wanted to be God. He didn't
want to be under God's authority. He wanted to be the one to make
the rules and say what's good and what's evil. That's at the
very heart of the nature of the flesh. And that's why those who
are the enemies of the cross, they're such fierce enemies. because it goes against their
belly, the very innermost being of the flesh. And they want a
chance because of this. They don't know we died in Adam.
They don't know that we're born dead in sin. Their will, they
have a will, absolutely they have a will, but their will is
dead in sin, ours is too. And you and I will never ever
choose God's way of salvation in Christ unless God chooses
us first. God's got to violate our will,
the will of our nature. If he's going to save us, he's
got to give us a new want to a new nature, a new belly before
we'll ever bow to God's sovereign grace. That's declared at the
cross. All right. Number two, enemies
of the cross. They hate the atonement of the
cross, the atonement that's declared at the cross. The message of
the cross is that the death of Christ put away all of the sin
of all of his people. He was delivered for our offenses.
That's why he died for our sin. He was raised again for our justification. He was raised again as proof,
his blood, his death satisfied God and put away the sin of his
people. The apostle John wrote in first
John one verse seven, The blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses
us from all sin. All sin. That is the message
of the cross. It's the atonement. It's how
sin is put away. It's not just covered over. It's
put away. It's put away forever. So the
atonement in the blood of Christ justifies God's people. It makes
them without sin. Christ accomplished the justification
of His people by His sacrifice. He made them without sin. You
think what a glorious truth that is. How loving and gracious that
is that the Son of God would die for people who are His enemies
to justify them. To put their sin away. How can
you be an enemy of that? Because you're in the flesh,
that's why. And that justification is earned, is purchased by the
blood. of the Lord Jesus Christ and
God's people receive it. They receive it by faith. They
receive it as a free gift from God's hand. It's not something
we earn by our works of the law. It's not something we earn by
our religion or all of our religious activity. It's received by faith. And the enemies of the cross
of Christ, they hate that message. Could it, if it offends their
ability to do righteousness, they still think they can do
some righteous things. They still think there's something
that they can do to put some of their sin away. They hate
this message of the atonement in the blood of Christ because
this is what it declares. We're totally depraved. We're
ruined in Adam. And the flesh doesn't believe
that. The flesh does not believe we are ruined in sin. The flesh
believes we can still do some good and earn our way to heaven.
But the problem is we can't save ourselves. We can't save ourselves. That's what the cross says. The
message of the cross of Christ is this. We can't save ourselves. If we could save ourselves by
our works of the law, by our religious activity, we can do
something to make ourselves savable or to save ourselves. Then the
father is a monster for slaughtering his son. And who would want to
worship a God like that? You know why the father slaughtered
his son like he did at the cross? Because that's the only way sinners
can be saved. And the enemies of the cross
hate that message because they're proud. They're proud of their
righteousness. Paul says in verse 19, how does
he say it exactly? Their glory is in their shame. What they should be ashamed of,
their filthy rags of righteousness. They should be ashamed of that.
That's our shame. Our shame is what we produce
by nature. The horrible, ugly, black filth
that we produce. That's what we ought to be ashamed
of. And they're glorying in it. Because they still think the
flesh can do something good. And the message that says the
only way we can be saved is by the blood of Christ. That offends
their ability to do their own righteousness. Number three, enemies of the
cross of Christ. They hate the means of applying
the blood of Christ. A man by nature doesn't have
the smarts to figure out God. We can't figure out how God saves
sinners. We can't figure out what God means in his word, and
we'll never figure it out, and we'll never believe it unless
the Holy Spirit gives us a new nature, a heart to believe it. The Spirit's got to reveal Christ
to us, or we'll never see him. We'll never believe him. Now,
how does the Holy Spirit, Reveal Christ to the hearts of His people.
You're out one evening sitting on the back porch talking to
your wife enjoying a crisp fall evening and suddenly He just
comes to you? Do you dream it at night and you wake up? No,
that's not how. Does He use just any religion? Just any preaching? How about
the preaching of anybody that just uses the name Jesus? They're
not talking at all about the Jesus that we read about Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, but they use his name. How does the Holy
Spirit, how is he pleased to reveal Christ to the hearts of
his people? It's by somebody preaching Christ. Now that's
so plain, you can't miss it unless you're blind. If we're gonna
know Christ and believe him, Bob, somebody's gotta tell us
who he is. Somebody's got to say, here he is, look to him.
Somebody's got to be like John the Baptist and say, behold,
the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. You
go to him. You believe him. You trust him. You cast yourself
at his feet, begging him for mercy. If we're going to know
Christ, somebody's got to tell us who he is. Somebody's got
to. We can't know God unless God's
pleased to reveal himself to us, and that makes us dependent. You know, we're dependent on
God. He's got to reveal himself to us. And worse yet, more humiliating
yet, we're dependent on what man calls the foolishness of
preaching. You're gonna have to sit. If
God's gonna reveal himself to you, you're gonna have to sit
and be quiet and listen to a man who's just as sinful as you tell
you about the Savior. You're not gonna find a man better
than you doing it. It's a man who's just as sinful as you. And you think, well, I don't
like him. I know some things, I don't like him. Well, yeah,
he's just as sinful as you. Nobody's saying preacher's better
than you unless he's a false prophet. You're gonna have to
submit yourself to listening to another sinful man, another
beggar, tell you where he found bread. Now the world calls that,
the flesh calls that foolishness, but we're dependent on the Holy
Spirit to make us sit and listen to that message and give us the
faith to believe it or we'll never know God. And the enemies
of the cross can't stand that. They can't stand being dependent
on God like that. That message offends the wisdom
of the flesh to think we know what's best and we can figure
out God. Part number four, the enemies of the cross of Christ,
oh, they hate this. They hate all the glory and all
the attention going to Christ. They want some attention. Now
the message of the gospel, and the theme of all eternity in
heaven is one thing, the glory of Christ. The subject of the
gospel is not how God can bless you. The subject of the gospel
is not even how sinners could be saved. The subject of the
gospel, the subject of the gospel is the glory of Christ. Eric,
when we preach, our job is to glorify Christ. That's our job.
That's the only job. Glorify Christ. Now, our salvation
is the product of God's glory. But the theme of it, the reason
why God's done everything he can do, he has done, is to glorify
his son. And I tell you, I love that.
I love the opportunity to get to talk about the glory of the
Savior. The one who loved me and washed
me from my sin. I love to talk about him. I mean,
you think of the glory. I mean, it's just unimaginable
to the human mind. Someone as wonderful, as glorious
as the son of God. He is so glorious. John said
in Revelation that heaven's not going to need a son because the
land's the light of it. That's how glorious he is. Somebody
that glorious would humble himself to do something so amazing as
to save my eternal soul by his suffering and by his death. Somebody
as wretched and vile and low down as me has been saved by
someone as glorious as the Lord Jesus Christ. It's beyond human
comprehension. Look at 1 Corinthians 1. I'm
gonna show you, this is the theme of the gospel. It's the glory
of Christ. He gets it all and we get none. First Corinthians one verse 26. For you see your calling brethren,
how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called, but God have chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. And God had chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty and
base things of the world and things which are despised has
God chosen Yeah, and things which are not things which are just
nothing to bring to not things that are that here's why God's
done it. That no flesh should glory in
his presence, but it's of him, of his will, of his doing, of
his choosing, of his keeping, but of him, are you in Christ
Jesus, who of God has made unto us wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification and redemption that according as it's written,
He that glorieth, you want glory? He that glorieth, let him glory
in the Lord. Ephesians chapter one. This is
the message of the gospel. The subject of the gospel is
the glory of Christ. Ephesians one verse 11. In whom also we have obtained
an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him
who work with all things after the counsel of his own will.
And here's why he's working all things together after the counsel
of his own will, that we should be to the praise of his glory
who first trusted in Christ. See, everything is done is to
the praise of his glory, that Christ be praised, that Christ
be glorified. That is the message of the cross.
Christ lifted up, this is his glory. By his sacrifice, he saved
a bunch of sinners that didn't deserve it. The enemies of the cross of Christ
hate that message because they want at least some credit for
the good things that they think they've done. You cannot get
the flesh to love this message of sovereign grace that we preach.
Boy, you start talking about if you do some good things, you're
going to get crowns in heaven and you're going to get a bigger
mansion in glory than than your than your buddy. The fleshly
dead up all day long. Because it wants some glory.
But the message of the cross of Christ tells us this, there's
no room for anybody to have any glory except Christ the Savior,
because he did all the saving. All right, number five, the eternal
end of the enemies of the cross of Christ is in verse 19 whose
end is destruction. See, this is why we say this
weeping unless God moves in grace, their end, the enemy of the cross
of Christ, the enemy of this message, they hate this message.
The end, their end is destruction. If a person hates the means of
salvation, They refuse to trust in Christ. The only option is
eternal destruction because Christ is the only savior, right? That's the enemies of the cross
of Christ. Now let's look at the friends of the cross of Christ.
If there's enemies, gotta be some friends, don't there? Well,
number one, friends of the cross of Christ, they love the message
of sovereign grace that comes from the cross. Remember the
cross declares this, Christ died for his elect. and only his elect. He died for his sheep, like the
Lord said in John chapter 10, and all those sheep, all those
elect, they shall be saved. Christ didn't die for anybody
that perished, never. And the friends of the cross
love hearing that message of sovereign grace. Sovereign grace,
God choosing to be gracious to me even though I don't deserve
it. that's my only hope of salvation. Because I know I can never do
anything to deserve it. I love hearing of sovereign grace. God
would choose a sinner like me? You don't know how bad I am.
That's who God chooses. Sinners, the chief of sinners. The friends of the cross love
hearing, Christ died for me on purpose. Oh, I love you. Tell
me that again. Again and again and again, because
that's the only hope of salvation I have. The only hope I have
of salvation is that the Father chose me in divine election before
he ever created anything. He chose me long before I was
ever on the scene. That has to be my only hope, because I'm
telling you this, once I got here, I never would have chose
him. He had to choose me first. Christ never would have died
for me, unless before God created anything, he chose me and gave
me his son to redeem. He had to do that before the
foundation of the world because once I got here, I never did
anything to deserve Christ dying for me. Just the opposite. All I did was sin that required
his death to redeem me. It's not hard for me to see I
can't do one thing to please God. I mean, I can hardly do
anything physically. Just how dependent are you? I
certainly can't do anything spiritually to please God. Well, that makes
me very, very, very happy to depend on God to save me. I see
something of who I am. I see something of who the Lord
Jesus Christ is. I'm very, very, very happy to
depend on him to save me without any help from me. The friends
of the cross of Christ, they love being dependent on God. They love it. I can't depend
on my sinful works to make me righteous. I can't depend on
how holy and how moral I can be. I mean, I try to be very
moral, but I can't depend on that. I can't depend on my faithfulness,
but I sure can't depend on God's faithfulness. I sure can't depend
on God to do what he promised he would do, and the friends
of the cross of Christ wouldn't have it any other way. If you
love just depending on God to save you and keep You're a friend
of the cross of Christ. Number two, friends of the cross.
They love the atonement of the cross. The message of the cross,
remember, is the death of Christ put away all of the sin of all
of his people. He didn't leave one for you to
put away. Not one. By his work, by his
obedience under the law, by his obedience under death, the Lord
Jesus Christ has justified his people. He's made them without
sin, so there's not one left for you to put away. Now the
friends of the cross of Christ love that message. Keep telling
me that again and again and again. Keep reminding me that again
and again and again, because my flesh keeps trying to bring
me back into captivity to the law. My flesh keeps telling me,
these bad things wouldn't be happening to you if you were
obeying God's law better. If you start keeping the 10 commandments
better, Oh my, you know, start loving God a little more. Start
being a little more faithful to the service. Quit lying so
much. Quit stealing so much. Quit wanting all these sinful
things. My flesh keeps telling me start
keeping some laws and God will be happy with you. So keep telling
me again and again and again. Christ is my righteousness. Christ
has justified me. Keep telling me that again and
again and again. I need to be reminded because I can't obey
the law for even one second. So tell me Christ did it for
me. Tell me again. Oh, I love depending on Christ to put away
my sin. I mean, almost all of our sin
is just open, willing rebellion against God. But have there been
times you thought, I didn't mean to do that, I didn't mean to
say that, I didn't mean to think that, that's so awful, that's
so vile. Tell me again, there's hope for
me because Christ put away my sin. Tell me again, tell me,
tell me again about the sacrifice of Christ. The salvation is not
in what I do, but it's in him. It's in every, it's in who he
is and everything he's done. Tell me again, keep pointing
me away from my flesh and pointing me to Christ. Oh, I love that
message. I love hearing how the death
of Christ has satisfied God's justice for me. I hate what Christ
had to suffer on account of me, on account of my sin. Well, I
sure do like to hear his death satisfied God's justice. But
God's justice is not hunting me. I have no fear of eternal
death. Tell me again and again and again
and again. Rest in Christ. Rest in Christ. Rest in Christ. Take the next
scripture you find. Tell me you use that. Tell me
to rest in Christ and then flip over here and use that scripture.
Tell me how to rest in Christ because that takes all the pressure
off. I don't know, do you all do stress
eating? I find myself, I do this sometimes.
And I tried to quit snacking so much at night, but Jan and
I were watching a movie the other day, and the woman in the movie,
she's just such a likable person, you know, and I just, I really
liked her. And she got arrested for a crime
that she didn't commit. She was going to be sentenced
to death. They came in and offered her a plea deal. Now, if you
say that you're guilty, you'll just spend the rest of your life
in jail. And I thought, I don't want her to go to jail. I really
like her. I mean, besides the fact she's
innocent, I just really like her. I don't want to go to jail.
And I found myself eating chips and candy. And I mean, I was
just, I thought, oh my, you're stressing. You just got to quit
this. I had to remind myself, it's just a movie. Janet gets
all worried. I tell her, it's just a movie. And here I am doing it. I'm so
nervous. In Christ, trust in Christ, there's
no stress eating. It's just eating the gentle green
pastures in his word, drinking from the deep still waters, no
stress. Keep telling me look to Christ.
I got enough stress. Tell me to look to Christ so
I have comfort for my soul. Is that you? Then you're a friend
of the cross of Christ. Thirdly, friends of the cross
of Christ, they love the means that God uses to apply the blood
of Christ to my heart. God does it through preaching.
He's pleased to reveal Christ our hearts by preaching. God's
pleased to call his elect to him through the preaching of
the gospel. He's pleased to feed his people. He's pleased to comfort
his people. He's pleased to strengthen his
people all by the preaching of Christ. God's pleased to accomplish
all of his will for his people on earth through the preaching
of Christ. And that leaves me totally dependent on God to give
the preacher a message for me and give me the ear to hear it
and a heart to believe it. And I tell you, I love it. I
love it that way. I don't want to be dependent
on myself to figure this thing out. I don't want to be dependent
on myself to read these scriptures and figure this thing out for
myself. I want to be dependent on God to use his gospel to reveal
Christ to me and call me to him. I don't want that responsibility
for myself. I'll tell you, I spent so many
miserable years trying and failing to make myself believe Christ. I love being dependent on God
to do for me what I can't do for myself. When I finally quit,
quit trying to do this myself and begged God for mercy, he
revealed Christ to me and now I can't not believe him. I love hearing the gospel preach.
There's a article I wrote in a bulletin today. You might want
to read it or reread it about the preaching of the gospel.
I love the preaching of the gospel. I love it. I love it. I love
hearing different men preach. I love, I know some men are more
gifted than others. My ear might be more tuned to
one man than another, but no matter who they are, if they're
preaching the gospel, I love to hear the gospel preached.
That's the means. They're declaring how God saves
sinners. It's through Christ crucified,
through the glory of Christ. I love to hear the gospel. That's
the means of the new birth. That's the seed that God uses
to give life in the hearts of his people. It strengthens me. Hearing the gospel preached strengthens
me. It encourages me so I can keep going. You know, I can hear
bad news too often. Can't you? I hear enough bad
news. I can't hear the good news of
Christ often. No, I love it. Do you love the
preaching of the gospel? Then you're a friend of the cross
of Christ. Number four, friends of the cross
of Christ, they love all the glory and all the attention going
to Christ. This is why I love hearing the
gospel preach. I love somebody telling about the glory of Christ.
Because the only way I can have assurance of salvation is if
the Lord Jesus Christ is so glorious, he cannot fail. He cannot fail
nor be discouraged. See, there's no assurance. If
you give me something to do, I'm going to be depressed. There's
no assurance in that. But I sure can have assurance
if Christ cannot fail to save his people from their sin. Just
tell me that again. I love it. I love hearing how
his death made satisfaction. Not only is he a substitute for
his people, he made satisfaction for them. when he died in their
place. I love hearing that. Because if that's true, and it
is, it is true, Christ made satisfaction for the sins of his people. Then
I can never fail. I can never perish. I'll be discouraged
if somebody tells me what I've got to do in the flesh because
I will fail. But tell me how Christ can't
fail. Oh, I love hearing that message. Do you love all the
glory? Can you just think, do you think
I can't wait? to get to glory with a perfect
body, a perfect mind, a perfect heart, a perfect motive, and
a perfect tongue, a perfect voice box, and sing unto Him that loved
us and washed us from our sins. Can you just think, I can't wait
to join that choir and sing of the glories of Christ. Then you're
a friend of the cross of Christ. And last, if you're a friend
of the cross of Christ, listen to our end. Verse 20. Philippians
chapter three. For our conversation, our citizenship
is in heaven. For whence also we look for the
savior and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body
that it may be fashioned like in his glorious body according
to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things
unto himself. Our conversation, our citizenship
for the believer is in heaven. The father has translated us
from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his dear
son, made us citizens there. That's our citizenship right
now. And brother, that is where we're going to spend eternity.
And when the Lord comes, he's going to change our vile body.
There's going to be no more walking around the house like this and
spending Saturday doing some money, do less. Oh, no more of
that. But I'll tell you what's better
than that. He's going to change our vile body and not just the
body. The nature. No more nature of
sin. No more toting around two natures,
just one. A nature that's perfectly conformed,
made just like our Lord Jesus Christ. And in that perfect nature,
in that perfect body, Worship Him face to face for eternity. Does that thrill your soul? Does
that kind of put what you're going through in this world into
perspective? Can that make you say, even so,
come quickly, Lord Jesus. And you're a friend of the cross
of Christ, because that's the end. that the cross of Christ
declares for his people. Well, I hope that'll be a blessing
to us. We might find ourselves, by God's grace, friends of his
cross. Let's bow together. Our Father,
oh, how we thank you for your mercy and your grace. How we're
thankful that you didn't leave us to ourselves or our own fleshly
desires and our own fleshly goals But Father, by your mercy and
your grace, you make your people friends of the cross of Christ.
I know by nature we're enemies. Oh, Father, how we thank you
that while we were yet enemies, Christ died for us to make us
friends of the cross of Christ, to make us friends of Christ
our Savior. And Father, I pray you give each
of us a heart of faith to believe him, to love him, to cling to
him, to enable us to leave here this morning relying only on
our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, in this dark, dark day,
how we beg of you that you'd show us your glory, your redemptive
glory. And no matter how vile we are
and how vile the world is around us, that you still save your
people, you still preserve them, you still keep them in Christ
our Savior. It's for his glory and his sake
we pray. All right, Sean.