Work Out

Notes:

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but 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 work for his good pleasure.

14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

Introduction:

A key word that connects the Story of the Gospel and this passage is the Word ‘obey!’

Jesus was obedient, obedient to the Father, and he worked out our SALVATION BY DYING ON THE CROSS.

“Therefore, as you have always obeyed!”

We are called to work out our salvation.

Train of thought:

Have the same mind of Christ

Just as Jesus worked out OUR salvation through HIS obedience,

We are called to work out our salvation out of OUR obedience?

Outline:

Part I: Work Out Your Salvation

Part II: God Working At Will and Work

Part III: How to Work Out what God is Working at

Part I: Work At What Jesus Did

“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

Christ’s obedience led to our salvation.

So we must be obedient to work out our salvation with fear and trembling...

Sounds contradictory:

Christ already did all the work for our salvation! Why would we have to work it out?

Well, it makes sense when we break down this word:

Verb=Action Word

“Work out”=katergazomai (click).

‘ergo’= “Work”

Allergy= “Other/strange” “work”

Ergonomics: Study of Work Efficiency

Surgeon

George: “Farmer” Agrarian Culture

Litergy: Work of the People

Energy: work IN

Kata: Work OUT

Present:

Continuous and ongoing

NIV: “continue to work out your salvation”

Imperative:

Command

Exclamation Point

2nd Person Plural:

Y’all work out your salvation. DO THIS TOGETHER!

North “You’s guys”

Middle Voice OR Passive Voice

Not a voice in English: We only have and passive

Youtube: 10 minutes on how to translate the Middle Voice

Subject is involved somehow.

SUBJECT PARTICIPATES IN THE ACTION

Middle Voice: Connection between the two parties.

“the subject of the verb is seen as acting upon itself or for its own benefit.”

Self-involved or for one’s own self interest

“I eat.”

Or “I went”

Participating in a conversation with another person: “I answer.” The verb wouldn’t make any sense without another person involved.

Warren Wiersbe states:

“[This verb] is rendered “work out” in the English was first used as a mathematical term, in the context of a teacher writing out an equation along with the answer, and then have the pupil (TO “work out”) go over the problem and answer so that he would understand the process.

To work out your salvation: “You have to take ownership of the already achieved Victory of Jesus in assuring you of your salvation. We aren’t dead participants. We have this salvation, it belongs to us, we didn’t earn it, no Jesus did that work for us, but we do have this salvation we need to work out.

Gordon Fee: “But “salvation” is not only something they receive; it is something they do.” “How saved people live out their salvation.”

So, the phrase ‘to continue to work out’ is an ongoing, continuous action with an exclamation point that the whole church of Philippi participates in.

Literally: ‘You’s guys all together, keep on working out what’s best for you, living into salvation!”

The verb ‘work out’ is used a number of times in the New Testament, and it’s interesting when you take a look at some of the other examples.

Romans 7:18: I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out [work it out].

Romans 2:9: “There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil [works out evil].

Romans 7:8: “But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced [worked out] in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead.”

Romans 7:13: “Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced [worked out] death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.”

I purposefully chose passages that use the word ‘worked out’ in negative ways to show you that there are different ways in which we can work things out in our lives. In the passages we just read, we read that we can desire to do good, but we have a hard time working that good out. Evil can also be worked out in our lives. Sin can be worked out. Death can be worked out.

What are you working out?

What do you invest in?

What does this working out look like?

Before we get to that, let’s first deal with Part II.

Part II: God Working In

The second verb is energon. Verse 13 says:

“…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

The words ‘work in’ comes from the verb energon.

Verb=Action Word

Energon= “in” work

Energon means work in or at work.

The Lord is working in you, at you, to will and work…

Present Tense=ongoing action

“God’s keeps working in you”

Participle=which simply means that it’s a verb with an ‘ing’ ending.

Working

Active Voice

The middle voice means that the subject is participating in the results of the action, where the active voice means that the subject of the verb produces the action.

When we put this all together, we read, “God alone is continually at work in you.” It means that when we work out our salvation, we are participants in the ongoing action of God at work to will and work.

So let’s take a second look at passages that help frame the meaning of the verb energon in other contexts (click through).

Romans 7:5: For when we were controlled by the sinful nature, the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in our bodies, so that we bore fruit for death.

II Cor 4:12: “So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.”

Eph 3:20: “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.”

Theologian Gordon Fee puts it this way (click):

“[The Philippian Christians] are indeed to “work at” it (katergazesthe); they are able to do so because God himself is “at work” (energōn) in and among them. This does not mean that God is “doing it for them,” but that God supplies the working power.”

If you can catch the differences between these two verbs how they are put together by Paul, you realize that this passage does not hint at any form of salvation by works. It’s a salvation we participate in through the power supplied by the Spirit.

Amazing How Paul describes salvation in this book so far:

Philippians 1:6 “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Philippians 1:11 “filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.”

Philippians 1:27-28 “...striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God.”

Westminster Confession:

Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardons all our sins, and accepts us as righteous...

Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God...

Sanctification is what we’re talking about here!

Continue to be obedient by working out your God-given salvation in this world by God working it out through you...

What does this working out of salvation look like?

Work out your salvation by being worked on by God.

Work out your salvation because God is at work in you.

Work it out, but God’s the one working in.

What does this look like?

How to Work out Your Salvation

1. Live as Securely Redeemed

Exodus 15: Song of Moses and Miriam: Salvation from the Egypt!

Exodus 15:24 “24 And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?””

Exodus 16:2-3 “2 And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron... “Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.””

“We’re free! Salvation is upon us!”

Don’t repeat history!

As the NEW ISRAEL, don’t take advantage of your EXODUS IN CHRIST!

Don’t too quickly forget your salvation!

Don’t start grumbling as one who has no hope, or no joy.

CITIZENS IN THE KINGDOM DON’T NEED TO COMPLAIN BECAUSE THEIR NEEDS ARE FULLY SATISFIED IN CHRIST.

THIS IS WHAT IT MEANS TO WORK OUT YOUR SALVATION: DON’T FORGET IT!

Steve Green

“This Bible verse is a real challenge. because it doesn’t say do some thing, or do most things. But do ALL things without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God.”

“Ah mom, not brussle sprouts again, hey that’s mine, you give it back, I saw it first, no you didn’t, I did too!”

“Do everything without grumbling or arguing.”

What’s your brussle sprouts?

What is it that you say, ‘That’s mine!’ Unwilling to share it. Unwilling to give it away.

What’s your brussle sprouts? Or broccoli? Or tomatos?

So easy to complain about our discomfort…

Don’t be a Christian Grinch! When was the last time you wanted to invite someone over who you knew would just complain all night?

How can you God motivating you away from pursuing comfort, stability, structure?

2. Live as Recognizably Redeemed: 15-16a

Working out Your Salvation Means being a Distinct from Culture

“Blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world.”

Paul is clearly conjuring up more Old Testament references here...

Deuteronomy 32:5 “They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation.”

Israel had become a crooked generation. Yikes!

Don’t repeat history! Work out your salvation means living as God’s children!

Theologian, Statesman, Scholar, Prime Minister Abraham Kuyper describes our distinction from Culture by what he calls “The Antithesis.”

“The marketplace of the world not the church, is the arena where we wrestle for the prize, the race track where we wage the contest for the wreath. Far from being the battlefield itself, the church is rather like the army tent of the Lord where soldiers strengthen themselves before that battle, where they treat their wounds after the battle, and where one who has become ‘prisoner by the sword of the Word’ is fed at the table of the Lord.” Abraham Kuyper, Rooted and Grounded, trans. Nelson D. Kloosterman (Grand Rapids: Christian’s Library Press, 2013), Kindle edition, loc. 318.

“The Christian is “a pilgrim, not in the sense that he is marching through a world with which he has no concern, but in the sense that at every step of the long way he must remember his responsibility to that God so full of majesty, who awaits him at his journey’s end. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism” (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931), 69.

What does it mean to be a Christian in this world?

Matthew Kaemink writes: “No thin sprinkling of a little ethics here or a little evangelism there; nothing short of a complete immersion of our daily work in the work of the Spirit will do.”

- How does your work give God glory?

- How is your parenting giving God glory?

- How is your singleness giving God glory?

- How are your hobbies giving God glory?

- How are your interests giving God glory?

- How does your recreation time give God glory?

Don’t be a cultural cameleon!

3. Live Knowledgeably Redeemed

Holdfast to the word of life (What is that?)

Hold on to that line! Fishing analogy

Ultimate Goal!

Josaiah: 2 Kings 22-23:

King at 8

18th Year: Decides to Renovate the Temple

Discovery of the Law

Reforms:

Covenant Renewal

Removal of Idols

Celebration of the Sabbath

Hold fast to the Word:

Learn what it means to live in the Covenant of Grace

Learn how to removed the areas of life you place as ultimate.

Learn how to rest from your sin and to abide in Christ.

What does it mean to work out your salvation that Jesus accomplished for us but God works within us?

Securely Redeemed, not a Grinch Christian. Joy of the Lord is yours today!

Recognizably Redeemed: Don’t be a Cameloen

Knowledgeably Redeemed

Work Out What God is working At

Takes discipline

Conclusion:

Growth of Giant Sequoias