230315 BITES: Assurance of Salvation

The Wise Christian works out their salvation with fear and trembling by removing sin and developing holiness

Philippians 2.12 “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;”

Context is:

Obedience

Christ submitting to the point of death in His obedience

Philippians 2:8 “Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Christians called to act the same way

Philippians 2:5 “Have this way of thinking in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus,”

Integrity

Christians the same even when there is no authority standing over them

Paul suffering in prison - but still telling it over the whole praetorian guard

Philippians 1.12-13 “Now I want you to know, brothers, that my circumstances have turned out for the greater progress of the gospel, so that my chains in Christ have become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and to everyone else,”

Philippians 1:29-30 “For to you it has been granted for Christ’s sake, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake, having the same struggle which you saw in me, and now hear to be in me.”

Live your life in a worthy manner

Philippians 1.27 “Only live your lives in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear about your circumstances, that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind contending together for the faith of the gospel,”

Calvin

Do not harden your heart

Psalms 95.8 “Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,”

Cheerfully submit

Psalm 119.112 “I have inclined my heart to do Your statutes Forever, to the end.”

Do not quench the Spirit

1 Thessalonians 5.19 “Do not quench the Spirit;”

God is the only One who gives this light

2 Cor 7.1 “Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.”

1 Peter 1.22-23 “Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a love of the brothers without hypocrisy, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, that is, through the living and enduring word of God.”

Ephesians 2.7 “so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Eph 1.5 “by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,”

Eph 1.9 “making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Him”