Philippians 3:17-19 “Join with others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we have you. For as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things.”

It has been said that God’s way is a narrow middle road, and there is a ditch on either side. That was true in Paul’s day, too. In his letters there are two kinds of “enemies of the cross of Christ,” two alternatives, rutting around in the ditch on either side of God’s way.

The Philippians lived in the pagan world of the Roman empire. Their religious convictions were an easy-going, anything-goes spirituality that tolerated just about any kind of superstition and embraced more gods than you could count. About the only kind of religion they didn’t like was the exclusive, one-way-to-heaven kind of religion the Christians and Jews believed.

They also didn’t care much for what Christianity had to teach about moral behavior. They liked their morals like they liked their religion: just about anything goes. In this way, they were enemies of the cross of Christ. The cross may promise forgiveness, but to get to forgiveness there is this messy process of admitting your sin and repenting of it. It is so much easier to believe that God doesn’t really care how I live my life.

The ditch on the other side of the road came from those who wanted to take the grace out of Christianity. They were called Judaizers. For them it was not enough to confess your sins and be forgiven. You had to keep the law well enough yourself, including all the Old Testament rules about food and ceremonies. For them salvation was Jesus plus your own works, and that made them enemies of the cross of Christ, too. Paul had just been warning the Christians in Philippi about these false teachers earlier in this same chapter.

Our times aren’t so different, are they. We are still surrounded by people rutting around in both these ditches. Several years ago the so-called “Me Too” movement began. It became an exposé of men from Hollywood, the business world, and politicians who sexually harassed women and used their power to have their way with them. To hear our world talk about it, they seemed to be baffled. “How did we ever get to such a point?”

Do you suppose it might have something to do with the fact that for more than a half a century we have been setting people free to pursue every kind of sexual perversion you can think of? In a world where we have dropped all the boundaries and criticize good old-fashioned self-control, is it a surprise that some have taken the pursuit of what they want this far?

I’m not saying we lived in a utopia of purity before the so-called “sexual revolution.” But our adoption of more or less pagan morals has been laying the foundation for a boatload of human misery.

And we Christians have been jumping on the live-any-way-you-want, believe-whatever-you-want bandwagon at practically the same rate as everybody else. In a similar vein, Paul wrote to the Galatians: “Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction.”

Don’t forget the ditch on the other side. It hasn’t become empty since Paul wrote so long ago. American Christianity is often reduced to little more than a society for successful living. Eat this. Don’t drink that. Here are the entertainments on the approved list. We develop our own set of ceremonial laws.

I once knew an otherwise Christian lady who came close to saying that drinking milk, (Milk!), was a problem for your relationship with God. I have nothing against healthy living and practical advice, but is this how we save the world? This is just another take on “their god is their stomach,” and “their mind is on earthly things.” All the while the cross of Christ gets pushed farther and farther into the background of Christian consciousness.

A Christianity so obsessed with improving day-to-day life that it no longer has room to call people to repent and be forgiven is not a friend of the cross of Christ. Without Jesus and his cross, we fare no better than the pagan world in which we live. “Their destiny is destruction.” This is the result of minds set on earthly things.