Philippians 2:12-18
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12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
17 Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.
The New King James Version (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982), Php 2:12–18.
Transcript
Welcome to God’s Word for You, a Ministry of Sharon RP Church in Southeast Iowa. We want to thank you for listening today and we pray that you’d be blessed by both hearing God's word as well as having it applied to your life and your heart.
Please turn in your Bibles with me to the book of Philippians chapter two. Philippians, chapter two. And this morning we're gonna be looking at verses 12 through 18. Philippians chapter two can be found on page 1043 of your Pew Bibles. This is God's word. Let's listen to it.
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, Children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.” The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.
Well, when I first became a Christian, I became a reformed Christian. And when you first become a reformed Christian, there's a saying in theological circles that a brand new reformed Christian needs to be put in a cage for at least a year and put to the side and not allowed to talk, because they're called “stage cage Calvinists.” All they want to do is fight people all the time. And I regret to say, that's what I did right away. And I remember one of these fights: a dispute, an argument that I had with one of my own family members. Olivia and I were driving down the road one night, and my family member was in the front seat of the car, and we were in the backseat of the car, and we were arguing about salvation. And I remember just arguing with him: It is by grace alone, by faith alone, through faith alone that we are saved, and that's how we're saved. That's what the Scriptures say. And I remember my family member saying, “But Philippians says, ‘Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.’” I was thrown for a loop. See, because I had thought I was so smart because I had memorized all the solas. But I didn't know my Bible well enough to know why the solas were true. Why, by faith alone, through Grace alone, by Christ alone, is true. Well, I can promise you it's still true. And not just that it's still true, but God's word here tells us something beautiful about God's work in us and what that produces in you.
And so today, your call is to start living like Christians. And that doesn't necessarily mean you haven't been living like Christians, but live like Christians. That's your call today, live like Christians. And the first place we do when we start living a Christian life, is we must see God's work in us, that's your first point. See God's work in you. Look with me at verse 13, “for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” See, there's something beautiful that's happening here, and Paul starts this off, with saying, “You guys have been good. You guys have been obedient. You guys, were obeying, not just when I was with you, but even so much more when I wasn't with you. And that's good.” And for those of you have been following God's word and seeking holiness and longing to be more and more like Jesus, keep on trucking. You need to be commended for obeying. You need to be commended for doing good works.
But why do we do good works? Why do the Children of God obey their father? Because it's God who will's in you. It's God who has done a mighty work in you both to will and to do according to His good pleasure. See verse 12, about us obeying and working out our own salvation in fear and trembling, is directly dependent on what Jesus Christ has done for us. Look with me at verse eight, “and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient.” He became obedient. Jesus became obedient, and our model, we looked a few weeks ago about Jesus being that model of humility, Jesus being the obedient one. We're obedient because he was obedient. We're obedient to our Father because we're following after the steps of our older brother, Jesus Christ. We are obedient because Jesus Christ is with us and in us, and we're being conformed into the likeness of Jesus’s image.
But it's amazing that this is not just Jesus as the example, but this is God's work in you. It is God who mightily produces in you both the desire and the ability to be able to be obedient. Think about our natural state. Think about, for those of you who were saved later in life, how disobedient, sinful, stupid, selfish, human... Even if you were saved earlier in life, you still know what your old man is like, what that sinful self is like. How can you get over that? What is it that works in you that then you can start living a Christ honoring life? God takes out that heart of stone, that rock of the heart and does a heart transplant, doesn't he? He gives us a heart of flesh that beats for him.
See, there's an amazing thing that happens. It's not just that we somehow start doing the things that God wants us to do, but it's that he produces in us a desire to do those things. That's one of the beautiful things about being united with Jesus Christ. As you start desiring, you have a will to do the will of God. And it's not just that you have a will to do it, He actually empowers you to do those things. This is why Romans, chapter six is so important to you, Christian. You are not a slave to sin. It's worth saying again. Christian, you are not a slave to sin. But God, who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ, because he is producing in you, mightily working in you, both to will and to do according to his good pleasure. Praise God. Praise God, He's at work in your life. See the work He's doing in your life, Christian. See it. Recognize it. When you're doing good things and you recognize that you're being obedient, you should be thanking God, not because you're doing those things, but because the truth of His word is in you, that the Spirit is moving you. We need to see the work that He's doing.
And it's important that we don't get this switched up. You'll hear this again and again and again from this pulpit, you'll hear it again and again and again from the Scriptures. You can't swap this. If you think that you do good works and then you're saved, you're in trouble. But if you are saved, and out of your salvation, come what? Good works. You work out that salvation with fear and trembling because you are saved. Theologians talk about this as the imperative follows the indicative, or what you do is based on who you are. God says you're my child. So what does that mean? You start acting like His child. God says you are saved. So what does that mean? You start acting like one who is saved. Because he laid the foundation. He poured that cement foundation in his gospel and he gave you the cornerstone of Jesus Christ. All you're doing is building a house upon that rock. You are building your house upon that rock. You didn't lay that foundation. You're not that cornerstone. And if you're trying to build your salvation on just your obedience, you're building your rock upon the sands. Because if we're honest with ourselves, how fickle are we in our works? I mean, it's like one day we're doing well. And then what's the next day like? Well, talk to your spouse. I can promise you not every day is going well. Can't build your salvation, your hope, what you think eternity is on, on your obedience. Because you're never gonna be totally obedient. We must rest upon Jesus Christ, that rock. You need to look to the work that Jesus is doing in your life.
But here's the thing. That doesn't mean you get a lazy Christianity. A real concern here is that people will tell us, “Well, if God does all this work for us, why do we need to do anything? If you are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ alone, what's the point of good works?” That's a real danger of Biblical Christianity. This is why the New Testament is filled with saying, “He who hates the law is not of Christ.” You can't just say, “I'm a Christian,” and hang up your coat. That's like, there's an urban legend. You guys know what urban legends are, right? Stories that everybody tells and people might think that are true but aren't actually true. Well, one of my favorite urban legends is a lady who bought a brand new Winnebago, one of those great RVs, and she goes out, and this is right after cruise control is created, and the lady’s driving down the road at 70 miles per hour, leaving the Winnebago lot, and she clicks on cruise control and walks to the back to make a sandwich.
You can't have a cruise control Christianity. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way. He started the engine, He made the RV, now you got to drive that thing. You’ve got to be active. You need to work out your salvation, that’s your second point, work out your salvation. The specific word here, “working out,” is used by Paul 21 times in the New Testament. But only here, this one time, is it ever used for man's work. Every other time it's God who's doing this work. But here, you have an obligation. You gotta work out your salvation. There's something you gotta do. But again, that something we have to do is directly tied to who's doing the good work in you.
Look with me, over one page at Philippians one, verse six. Who began a good work in you? He who began a good work in you will bring it to perfection until the day of Christ Jesus. He's going to complete it. He's going to do it. He started it. And this is what theologians call about our sanctification. It's not that somehow you are saved. We know we're not the ones who save us. We don't save ourselves. Ephesians 2:8-10 are perfectly clear: Salvation is a gift from God, not by works lest any man should boast. It's not by what you do. It's what God has done in you, that you're saved.
Now, when you grow in your sanctification, when you grow in your holiness, when you become more and more like Jesus, you better believe there's a part for you to play in that. If you've ever tried to hold a consistent devotional life, you know it's hard to every day pick up your Bible and read. If you have tried to cultivate a heart of prayer, you know that there are days where you just don't feel like praying, but what do you have to do? You still gotta go pray. If you know that you need to practice true religion and go visit the orphans and the widows and care for those who are in need, but it's raining outside and your house is warm, you know it's hard to go visit the orphan and the widow. But what do you have to do? You got to go do it, because we are called to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. That idea of working out our salvation with fear and trembling, this isn't like, you know, we have a slave-ish fear of God, and we're just worried that he's going to strike us with a lightning bolt and- dead. That's not what this is talking about. This is the idea that we come before God with awe, with reverence, and our Father has spoken to us. And with trembling knees, we say, “Lord, you've spoken to me, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm gonna do it God, because I love you.”
Is God awesome to you? Do you reverence Him? When He speaks do you go, “Yes, sir. I got it.” I'm always amazed by people down South. You know, they have these cute little kids with their nice accents. And I was watching a video on YouTube the other day, and this Dad is teaching something to his son and he asks his son this question, and it's either yes or no. But the son and his little thick Alabama accent says “Yes, sir.” But he doesn't say “yes, sir,” because he's fearful of his dad, Devon. He does it because he loves his dad and reveres his father. He's gonna do it. In the same way, we come to our Father and we say, “Yes, Dad. Yes, sir. You got it. I'm gonna do it. You're right. Let's go.” But yeah, Christian, I wish I could give you a way to just hang up your Christian code of works and not have to work on your faith anymore, but that's not true faith. We can't have cruise control Christianity. You need to work out your salvation. You need to work it out with awe and reverence, with fear and trembling. It is your job to do works of righteousness. It is what He created us.
But before we can start doing those good works, I need to emphasize to you again that you need to realize you're a child of God. Your third point. Realize you're a child of God. Look with me at verses 14 and 15. “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, Children of God, without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.”
What does it mean to be a child of God? What does it mean to be a child of God? You are a child of God if you believe in the Son and He has paid for the price of your disobedience with his very own blood. You are his son. You are his daughter. What does that mean? Well, first it means that you're blameless. You're blameless. This idea of blamelessness here is the idea that comes out of the book of Job. Job was blameless and upright before God's eyes. He sought righteousness. When he worried that, he’d sinned, what did he do? He went and offered sacrifices. When he was worried that his children might be sinning, what did he do? He went and offered sacrifices. He was upright and blameless. You, child of God, are blameless before your father, because you have been sacrificed for. You’re blameless. That's the first part of what it means to be a child of God.
The next word is the idea of “harmless,” verse 15, that you may become blameless and harmless. A better translation of this, instead of harmless, would be pure, that you're pure. If you are a child of God, you are pure. Clean. This is the idea that if you had wine, it's undiluted wine. It's not like watered-down, cheapo stuff you get at Dollar General, this is a good wine. You're good wine. You’re what, in the idea of coinage, before we had the National Reserve or the Federal Reserve, before we had currency, there were metals coins. And you trusted that if someone gave you a gold coin, it was made out of what? What would you want? You would want it to be made out of gold, right? Would you want there to be a little bit of aluminum in there? No! You wouldn't want any aluminum there. That would be called dross. All right, we’re not dross. You, Children of God, are pure. Jesus Christ has cleansed you as white as snow. Pure, perfect, blameless before God. That's what it means to be a child of God. You're blameless, you’re pure.
But you're also without fault, without fault or blemish. This, again, verse 15, “that you may become blameless and harmless, Children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” This idea of without fault is Paul is pulling his reader's mind back to the Old Testament sacrificial system. And if you were in the Old Testament and you were going to offer a sacrifice, would you go into your flock and say, “I need to find the scrawniest, ugliest, weirdest little goat or lamb I can and take that to the temple.” Would you go find that type of sacrifice? No, no. God's word was clear in the Old Testament that you would go and you would find the best lamb, the lamb without spot, the lamb without blemish, so it couldn't have a birthmark on it or something wrong with its nose, or you know, an extra toe on its hoof. No, it had to be a perfect lamb.
And Jesus Christ is that perfect lamb who was slain. Revelation 3, 4, and 5 are filled with this imagery of Jesus Christ, the lamb who takes away the sins of the world. Jesus Christ, the lamb who was slain before the foundation of the world. Jesus Christ, the lamb who sits upon the throne, who the myriads and myriads of angels worship. And when our Father sees you, He sees the blamelessness, the spotlessness, the purity of his Son. That's what it means to be a child of God. You don't come into God's a courtyard, you don't come into His presence, you don't come into His throne room somehow as a bastard child or as an ugly step kid. You come with a full covering of Jesus Christ. You're spotless. You're blame. You’re a pure child of God.
That is what God is doing and has done in you. How beautiful is that? You're now God's child. And this is why it's important for us to remember that this is the order here that happens. We can't get focused on verse 12 about, we need to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, so much that we forget the work that God has done in us to save us. If we start with Romans 12, and we're just going to listen to, “I beseech you therefore, brethren by the mercies of God to offer up your bodies as a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable service.” And you get stuck on that, I've gotta live my life as a living sacrifice, but you forget Galatians 2:20, “But it is no longer you who live but Christ who lives in you.” That you've been crucified in Christ.
We have got to start with what God tells us is true, what God promises who we are. And then from that, we live our lives as Christians, obedient to His will, because he's working in you. It's gotta be that you are cultivating in your heart such a vital relationship with Jesus Christ that you can say, “it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” Because if you can't say that, if you can't say, “I am an adopted child by the grace of God,” you’re going to slip into moralism, which is the death nail of faith.
Our faith is not that we do good works to get to Heaven, but that God has done everything necessary and came down to us and changed us that He might present us to our Father. We must look at the work that He has done.
So what do we have here practically about how we're to live as Children of God? Well, the first thing is there are two things you need to put off, right? Two things that Paul points out here, he zeroes in on. He aims at these two things shouldn't be among Children of God: disputing and complaining. And the language Paul uses here, the language that Philippians two has, is almost verbatim, almost exactly what we found in Numbers chapter 11 and in Deuteronomy 32. It was the Children of Israel who were grumblers and complainers.
Think about that story! God just took them out of Egypt. God parted the Red Sea. God drowned Pharaoh's army. I mean, they were making bricks, so much under the yoke of slavery that when Pharaoh was so upset at them, he said, “No, no, no, no, no. I'm not even going to give you straw anymore, you've got to go get your own straw and still make bricks, and you still gotta make her own quota.” And they were starving and they were hard pressed and they longed to get out of Egypt. And what did they do when they're in the wilderness? God gives them mana. I mean, think about how amazing! I don't know about you, women, how much would you like not having to go grocery shopping anymore? You walk out your door in the morning, and there's Mana! And it tastes like honey and like baked bread and oil. This is good stuff!
We want meat! Maybe some of the hunters in the room will understand that. We want the meat. Maybe you who raise cattle, right? God has given them everything and what do they do? We remember the leeks. You know that's worth going back to slavery for. We remember the garlic and onions. Yeah, and you were slaves. Don't be grumblers and complainers. We're not to be those.
When God gives us everything we need, that then we start complaining about, “God, but I need a new car. But God, at my house the roof is leaking. God, what am I gonna wear? God, what am I gonna eat? God, how am I gonna provide for retirement? This is why Jesus tells us, “Don't worry about what you're gonna eat or what you're going to drink or what you're gonna wear. Look at the lilies of the field. They do not toil, nor spin, but even Solomon in all of his glory wasn't dressed as one of these. Look at the birds of the air. They don't sow nor reap nor store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father provides for them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
You’re His child! He's gonna provide for you. He's provided everything for you. Be glad. Put off that grumbling. Put off that complaining. Put off that disputing, that fighting. We talked about that a few weeks ago, nothing will kill a church faster than fighting. It is not meant to be among the Children of God. And one of the ways we work out our salvation with fear and trembling is we take that old, complaining, sinful part of us and we put it over here. We start living over here where we live in unity. Where we’re meek. Where we care about others. Where we put others interests as more important than our own. Where we try to live at peace with all men, so long as it depends on us. We become those who are like Jesus because we long for being like our Savior.
And, like it or not, this is your fourth point, like it or not, you're an example. Like it or not, you're an example. Again, look with me at verses 15 and 16. We’ll read verse 14 also, “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, Children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.”
We hear, especially us conservatives, hear all the time, “The world is going to hell in a handbasket.” I mean, turn on any conservative news channel and everything is going to pot. Well, I hate to tell you, but everything's been going to pot since Genesis chapter three. Wickedness is still wickedness. Sin is still sin. There was murder in the first family. There was incest in Abraham's family. Things are wicked and wrong and sinful, and they will continue to be, until the Lord Jesus Christ comes in His day. But that's the difference, we live even now, the Philippians lived in a perverse and crooked generation, so did the Israelites, and so do you. The idea here, this isn't hard imagery to figure out, a crooked, this is a stick that supposed to be straight, and instead of going straight, it bends. And in the Old Testament world and in the New Testament world, you would measure things by how long, how many lengths of reed something was. And this is a reed that's supposed to be straight so you can use it as a measuring line and instead it bends off to the side.
You're to be that straight reed. That measuring line that when people look at your life, they're able to say, “I know that they live like Jesus, because they do the things that Jesus did. They obey his commandments. They must be true Children of God. I should live like that.” This is the idea of a crooked and bent generation of a road that's supposed to be going straight, but somehow it's veering off.
One of my favorite things I used to do was going hiking in the mountains. And there's a rule when you're hiking in the mountains, you stay on the trail. You stay on the trail. It's important when you're hiking in a normal forest preserve that you just stay on the trail. Because what happens is if you walk off the trail and say you want to go the shortcut route this way, one is you could get in trouble, and I mean, like, physical trouble. You can end up in a place where you don't want to be. Or two, you start creating crooked paths. You start, you know, they said this is a safe way to go, this is the way we want you to walk, and instead, what do you want to do? This is the American way, I'm gonna make my own path. And you start walking around, and then all of a sudden you walked that way, and you might have gotten in trouble, or it might have taken you 25 minutes longer than it should have or you could have gone up a bank, who knows? I followed some of those trails on accident before. You don't like those people who walked those trails, because you thought, “Well, do we go this way, or do I go that way?”
We're not to be those who are cutting short path trails. We're not to be those who are walking in different ways trying to skirt God's rules, skirt God's laws, trying to get around things. No, we go according to his way, right? This is what the Psalmist tells us, “How can a young man keep his way pure? Because he's hidden His word in his heart. His word is a lamp unto his feet.” We walk where the word guides us and tells us this is the way. And when we steer off that path, Isaiah tells us, when we go to the left or to the right, there is a voice that will be heard behind us saying, “Behold, this is the way.” We've got to be in His word. We got to be those who aren't walking crooked and bent paths.
Like it or not, you're an example. When your unbelieving friends see you grumbling and disputing, when your unbelieving friends, see you breaking God's law, when your unbelieving friends see you not care a lick about religion, what do they think about religion? What are you showing them? That should be a scary thing for us! The very people we’re to long to bring to Jesus Christ look at us, because what does Paul tell us here? We're as lights shining in the sky. We're like stars in the sky. This is not just Paul's language, this is what Jesus says. We're lights of the world. You're an example, like it or not. Live that way. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
But there's another personal plea. I'm gonna talk for Jim and John the elders here that the last point is: be your elders’ boast and joy. Be your elders’ boast and joy. That's our final point. Paul in verses 16 through 18 says, “Holding fast the word of life so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.”
Paul is an elder. Paul is a pastor. Paul loves the Philippians. And Paul longs for nothing but the day of Jesus Christ to come, when he's judged more severely, and to be able to say, “Lord, look at your sheep, they love you. They've been doing your works, have been following you. They've been feeding off of you. When I brought them to green pastures, they laid down. When they needed quiet waters, I brought them there and they drink deeply of that well, which will never dry up and will always satisfy them.” Christians, will John and Jim, will your elders be able, on that day of Christ, to be able to boast about you? Paul says this is his one boast. This is the thing that he will bring to Jesus Christ, “God, look at your people. They love you.” Will you be those people, that all your pastors and all your elders of old who have poured over life, and watched over your soul and fought off the wolves, will you be their boast? Your elders want nothing more than to see you grow in Holiness, than to see you draw close to Jesus Christ.
Be those people. Don't have a cruise control Christianity. Work out your salvation with fear and with trembling. Always remembering that it is He who is in you who has started this good work and He will bring it unto completion.
Let's pray, “Oh God, thank you so much for your word. Father we pray, pleading with you for your Spirit, God apply these things to our hearts and our lives. God, we need your Spirit to lead us and to enable us to both will and to do. Lord forgive us for how lazy we are, and how easy it is to grumble and to complain, Lord, and to get off that path. Lord, draw us near to you, that we might walk in your ways. We pray in Jesus's name, amen.”
Thank you for listening, to God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon RP church in Morning Sun, Iowa. We pray that you would be blessed as you grow in your love for God, your love for His word, as well as your love for His people. Until next week. God bless you.