Sovereignty + Responsibility = Potency: Philippians 2:12-18

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Prayer

Introduction

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and turn to Philippians chapter 2 for me.

Every October, we as a church are required to move out of City Center in order for the city to host the Great Ogeechee Seafood Festival.

J.F. Gregory Park is overtaken by various food vendors, musical artists and productions, and my kids favorite part… the carnival rides.

We went to our first Seafood Festival in 2022, and I need to recount to you the battle I had that night, with Satan’s #1 Emissary… the Zipper Carnival Ride.

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I mean the forces of evil really went all out with the creation of that bad boy.

And I knew by looking at it, that I better gird up because I’m about to embark in some spiritual warfare, but my boys were adamant, and although Hudson was clearly too short to board, the carnie worker didn’t care, so the 3 of us strap in to the cage of despair.

Now, if you’ve never seen this thing let me explain how it goes.

It’s practically a faster moving ferris wheel, that while it rotates, each cage flips you repeatedly.. over and over and over again.

We flipped so hard and so many times, that Hudson’s little body was literally flying out of the seat, so I’m sitting in the middle of the boys, screaming like a girl, and holding on to Hudson’s rag doll body with all my strength.

But by the Grace of God, I endured… but I kid you not that thing threw me for such a loop that I was nauseus for an entire 24 hours.

It was horrible.

But we returned again last year in 2023, but I’m no fool. So I called Jonny Crouse, one of our youth volunteers and told him he should meet us there and hang out with our family…

And I made Jonny ride the Zipper with he boys last year instead of me… and he still hasn’t forgiven me.

Well today we are going to ride the Theological Equivalent of the Zipper.

Today’s text addresses a subject that if you study, and apply yourself… it will flip you around over and over and over again, and it’ll feel like you can never get off.

It’s the Tension of God’s Sovereignty and Man’s Responsibility.

What do I mean?

Let’s begin with God’s Sovereignty- The Sovereignty of God refers to His supreme rule and power over all things.

It is the biblical truth that nothing in all the universe can come to pass that God has not eternally purposed.

It is the bibilcal truth that He alone is Almighty, and He does what He pleases, as he pleases, when he pleases,...

And if you know this Sovereign God, and believe him to be good than like Charles Spurgeon,

“You will find the Sovereignty of God to be the pillow upon which you can rest your head, finding perfect peace.”

The Bible is perfectly Clear— God is Sovereign!

And for many of you, you hear that and reason… “well what about my Free Will!”

“Don’t I have control and responsibility over my own life and choices?!”

And if that’s you… congratulations! You just made your first zipper flip! Well done!, Only an infinite amount of flips to go!

Because the Bible also, clearly teaches Man’s Responsibility!

That we are commanded and expected to be responsibile for our actions and lives, and we will actually, according to the Bible, be held accountable for all of those actions!

The Bible is perfectly clear— Man’s has Responsibilty!

And you hear that and you’re like… “But that means God isn’t Sovereign!”

Congratulations, you just made your second zipper flip!!!

And let me just keep flipping you!

Because they may seem contradictory, but their not! According to the BIble, they are BOTH absolutely True!

God is Sovereign and Man is Responsible, and the quicker you can come to admit that there may be some things your fallen, human, rational mind can’t grasp the quicker we can get off the Zipper Ride.

So my goal today isn’t to reconcile these two seemingly paradoxical truths. I’m not going to try to harmonize them for you. I can’t!

What I’m going to do, is preach them both, because they are both true.

Spurgeon was once asked, “Can you reconcile these two truths to each other.”

He said, “ I wouldn’t try, I never reconcile friends.”

God’s Soverignty and Man’s Responsibilty are friends, not enemies.

As J.I. Packer once wrote, “They are not uneasy neighbors, living at a constant cold war. They are friends, and they work together.”

And in our text today we will see that as they work together, the Church finds Her Potency.

Her Power.

So if you’re an outline person there it is.

God’s Soveriegnty + Man’s Responsibility = The Church’s Potency

So let’s begin by reading the first half of our text together.

Philippians 2:12–13 ESV

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, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

There we have it: The ZIPPER Ride.

We Work out our Salvation, God works in our Salvation

We cannot work it out, if God had not worked it in… so that’s where I want to start. By taking a look at God’s Sovereignty.

God’s Sovereignty

God is Sovereign

He alone possesses supreme power and rule over all things.

He is never constrained or backed into a corner, or hindered in his will or wishes.

He is the one and only Sovereign or King over His creation. There are no limits to His rule. Man is not the master of their own fate, nor do the forces of evil drive and dictate life. It is Him alone.

He directs and fulfills all of his purposes, none can defeat his counsels or resist His will.

He’s never helpless, never frustrated, and never at loss as to what to do.

He is utterly and totally in control at all times.

Arthur Pink in his brilliant work The Sovereignty of God perfectly summarizes this all important character of our God.

“No revolving world, no shining of star, no storm, no creature moves, no actions of men, no errands of angels, no deeds of the devil--- nothing can come to pass unless God has eternally purposed it. To say that God is sovereign is to declare that He is the Almighty, the possessor of all power in Heaven and on earth, so that NONE can defeat His counsels, thwart His purposes, or resist His will. His Sovereignty is absolute. Irresitable. & Infininte. It is not blind fate, unbridled evil, man or devil, but the LORD ALMIGHTY who is ruling the world, and ruling it according to His own good pleasure and for His own eternal glory.”

Now I know that this brings up all kinds of questions for you.

Like how is God sovereign in suffering? What about the visible activity of evil? And so on.

And this isn’t a sermon on suffering or evil, but let me just say that God is Sovereign.

He is sovereign over all suffering and He is Sovereign over all evil.

For instance, when Jesus was condemened by Pilate, Jesus said, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.”

What seemed to be the activity of a wicked man, and wicked time and what led to incomparable suffering of Christ, was actually foreordained by the sovereignty of God.

God is Sovereign. And we can see His Sovereignty in every area of life, but especially in Salvation.

Our salvation is a reality because God purposed it and accomplished it by His Sovereignty.

Isaiah 53:10 “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;”

Jesus himself said, John 10:18 “No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.””

Acts 2:23 “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”

Our salvation was purposed and accomplished by God’s Sovereignty. Not our choice. Not our merit. But His WORK in us, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And regarding this work of salvation, Paul says its’ God work in us.

Look at vs. 13

Philippians 2:13 “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”

That Sovereign work of God in us did 2 things.

It changed our will.

It changed our works.

Another way of putting is is that it

changed both our attitudes and our actions.

We discussed this in detail a couple of weeks ago, but as a reminder sin has marred our wills and our works.

Our attitudes and our actions.

Scripture paints a pretty bleak picture.

In our sin, we can’t enen want (or will) what is right. Sin has marred our wills.

And in the off chance we do want to, we lack the power to actually do what is right. Sin has marred our works.

BUT GOD, in His Sovereignty has worked in us, both to will and to do.

In Christ, He is renewing and recreating our wills and imparting to us the power of the Spirit of God to actually do it.

In Christ, He gave us a new heart and new desires.

And it’s not because we deserve it, or because we have earned it.

No it was FOR HIS GOOD PLEASURE. (vs. 13).

This work brings God Pleasure. It makes him Happy.

It pleased him, to pour our his love on you.

It pleased him, to choose you.

It pleased him, to save you and redeem you.

It pleased him, to renew you and empower you.

No you did not earn this, or deserve it. It’s just the great gift of a Sovereign God.

God is Sovereign, and God is at work in us.

And because He has worked in us, we should then work it out.

That’s what verse 12 is saying.

Philippians 2:12 “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,”

Because he has worked it in, we should work it out.

And it would be a good idea to do it with fear and trembling!

J.A. Motyer writes, “This is not the fear of a lost sinner before a Holy God, but the fear of a true child before the most loving of fathers. Not a fear of what he might do to us, but a fear of the hurt we might cause him.”

The fear here is an awe of the great goodness of God as seen in His work in.

So becuas we are so overwhelmed and grateful for his gracious work in, we then respond by working it out.

Man’s Responsibility

This is Man’s Responsibility.

God’s Initiative calls for Man’s Response

Without God’s initiative, we wouldn’t have the ability to respond.

Which is exactly what Responsibilty means right. It is the ability to respond… responsibilty.

Becuase of his work, we now have the ability to respond.

So what does our response look like? What is our work?

It’s Obedeince.

Where as before, we didn’t know how and couldn’t obey..

Now, because of His work in, we now have the ability to respond to God in obedience.

So let me summarize!

His is the inner work of transforming and renewing, ours is the outer work of obedience.

Obedience

Philippians 2:12 “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,”

Now Paul is not saying, OBEY ME… no, no, no, he’s commanding them to OBEY God.

To Obey him like our Lord Jesus did, who though he was in the form of God did not count equallity with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

Isn’t that what Paul just spelled out in the previous text, that Coleman preached last week?

Jesus is the ultimate model of obedience, and because of Jesus’ obedience, and what he accomplished in his death… we now have the ability to obey too! So do it.

Obey like Jesus!

But can I give you a secret…

Obeying God is so much easier when we have faith in the Sovereignty of God!

You see, the firmer your faith in God’s Sovereignty, the easier obedience in all things becomes.

Let me give you some examples…

If God tells you “Come and Follow Me”, you’ll debate it all day if you don’t trust He knows where He’s going.

If God tells you “Forgive those who hurt you” you’ll kick and scream if you don’t trust that vengance belongs to our Sovereign Lord.

If God tells you, “Don’t worry about your life, your clothing, or food, or money” you’ll disobey all day long if you don’t trust that He cares, and is actually powerful enough to provide for you.

If God tells you, “To give sacrifically” you’ll resist that command with every fiber of your being, if you don’t believe God is Sovereign over your finances.

If God tells you, “Witness to your coworker” you’ll ignore with passion if you don’t trust that fruitfulness is up to Him not us.

Do you want me to keep going?

Our lack of obedience to God is almost always linked to our lack of trust in His Sovereign Character.

And this is exactly what Paul is going to show us in the next section of our text.

Let’s read

Philippians 2:14–18 ESV

Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 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, 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. 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. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

Now we need to slow down, becuase this verse is really the key to unlocking this text.

Here in verse 14-15, Paul, in typical Pauline fashion quotes from the OT.

And I’m going to show it on the screen. It’s found in Deuteronoy 32.

In this chapter, Moses is about to die, and he’s giving his farewell speech to the people of Israel and just look with me at the first few verses.

Deuteronomy 32:1–3 ““Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth. May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb. For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God!”

Deuteronomy 32:4 ““The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.”

So Moses begins his farewell speech, by exalting the Sovereignty of God. He is great! His Work is Perfect. ALL HIS WAYS are justice. He’s faithful, without sin!

But then says,

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.”

In spite of God’s great work in his people… instead of working out, what He worked in. They disobeyed.

They rejected Him.

Now this rejection of God took place over time, but it started very early in their history together!

It actually begin during the Exodus.

The Exodus

Remember, God saved the people of Israel, and freed them from their slavery in Egypt.

And he did it Sovereignly!

Scripture says he did it “with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders.”

Culiminating in the great miracle of the Red Sea crossing in Exodus chapter 14.

You know the story, but the parting of the Red Sea, was kind of the end of the Exodus.

The Egyptians pursue, God parts the waters, and all of Israel passes through while all the Egyptians are killed.

And their on the other shore of the Red Sea, they were finally free! Exodus 14

Liberated and saved from Egypt, and in Exodus 15 Moses sings this beautiful song about God’s Sovereignty and Love for the People Israel.

And as soon as he ends his song, their in the wilderness the People of Israel got thirsty…

Fair enough. I mean they just ran all the way from Egypt. But they’re out in the wilderness, and don’t have any water!

So what did they do!?

Exodus 15:24 “They grumbled against Moses and Agaisnt God!”

So God in His Sovereingty provided them water to drink.

But in Exodus 16 they get hungry, and what did they do with their hunger?

Exodus 16:8 “ They grumbled!”

Well God gives them something to eat, and ends up leading them to the promised land and when they get to the border Moses sends 12 spies to spy out the land, and the spies report that they’re doomed. The people of canaan are giants. They’ll never be able to conquer them! The sky is falling!

And what did the people of Israel do!?

Numbers 14:2 “They grumbled, and even said, “It’d be better if we were still in Egypt!”

That was the pattern of the people of Israel.

God would Sovereignly Work---- they would selfishly Whine.

And at the root of their whining and grumbling was a lack of faith in the Sovereignty of God.

They grumbled against God because they didn’t trust that God would provide water and food.

They grumbled against God becuase they didn’t trust in God’s protection in the land of Canaan.

They grumbled agsinst God because they didn’t trust in God’s plans, or purposes, or provisions.

At the root of their grumbling was a distrust in the Sovereignty of God.

And the same is true of you and I.

Church we are commanded to OBEY.

To work out the salvation, that God has so graciously worked in.

But here’s where it gets real personal…

We struggle to obey God, because we don’t trust Him!

I mean do you actually, deep down believe that God’s commands are what’s best for you?

Do you trust that what God has commanded for your family actually what’s best for your children?

Do you trust that what God has commanded for your marraige, and sexuality, and purity is actually what’s best for you?

Do you trust that what God has commanded for your finances, is what’s best for you?

If you do… then you’ll obey All things.

That’s what vs. 14 reads, “Do all things.”

But if you don’t… then you’ll probably grumble, and disobey.

And that grumbling, left unchecked, will fester.

Like a cancer, it will corrupt more and more of your view of God, and it won’t just stay with you.

It’ll ooze out into your home, your community, and to your church.

And in our text Paul’s pleading, pastorally pleading, don’t be like that!

Learn from the People of Israel!

Don’t respond to Gods Sovereign work in, with incessant grumbling out.

Insetad, work it out, with more and more obedience, all the while doing it without grumbling.

And instead of becoming a crooked and twisted generation, like them…

You will be who you were saved to be!

Children of God without blemish, actually living in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation and shine as lights in the world!

And that’s our final point

God’s Sovereignty + Man’s Responsibility = the Church’s Potency

Church’s Potency

Our trust in God’s Sovereignty fuels our obedience which is Man’s Responsibility, and that will inevitably lead to the Church’s Potency.

The consequence of this equation is that we shine as lights in the world.

The world ya’ll, just like the Israelites of old are hard-hearted, unbeliving, and constantly reject the grace and goodness of our God.

The world is alienated from God, indifferent to his presence, and hostile toward his Supreme Rule.

This world, 1 John says lies under the power of the Evil One. Rebellious to the supreme power of our God.

And here Paul says, “And you are in the midst of that world!

And we are in the midst of that world!

Our world is corrupted. It’s twisted.

Don’t you see it? I think you do, it’s on full display in America today.

Today leadership at the highest level is completely void of any fear of God, and consequently the moral failure of leadership has given the massess a license to sin and celebrate sin.

We live in a crooked and twisted society.

That word Crooked is the Greek Word skolios, where we get the word scoliosis from. Its bent. It’s deviated. And we are in the midst of it!

But guess what!

It is exactly where God wants us to be!

It is exactly where God wants us to be!

IS HE NOT SOVEREIGN? HE IS SOVEREIGN,

Of course He is! And becuase He is Sovereign, He has sovereignly saved a group of people called the church.

And because He is Sovereign he has sovereingly placed that Church in the midst of a crooked and twisted society.

Not to retreat and withdraw, but to go into the world like a shining light in the midst of great darkness.

The power of light is greatest in the darkest dark.

God has placed us here in His Sovereignty.

So guess what.... STOP GRUMBLING ABOUT IT.

Many of you, need to stop grumbling, because your grumbling is revealing your lack of trust in God’s Sovereignty, and if you don’t believe he has sovereignly placed you here for a purpose, then you’ll never own your responsibility, and becaues you’re not owning your responsibility the church has lost her potency!

So Stop grumbling, and start shining!

And if grumbling is the virus, I want to close today by pointing you to the antidote.

Philippians 2:14–16 “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 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, holding fast to the word of life,

How? How can we shine, when the darkness is so great!?

We hold fast to the word of life.

The Word of Life is JESUS CHRIST the Word that became flesh.

The Word of Life is the GOSPEL, or goodnews that that testifies to JESUS CHRIST.

The Word of Life is the Scripture the inspired book that tells us the Good News about Jesus Christ.

Church, it is when we begin loosening our grip on the Word of God, that our lights begin to dim, and overtime we drift into becoming a crooked generation like the world we are called to save.

We stop believing what this Book says, and in so doing we start believing in whatever the world says.

To the point where some self procliamed Christians look more like the world than the Jesus Christ

To the point where some churches look more like the world than the Jesus Christ.

You show me a crooked and twisted church and I bet I can show you a church that far earlier, somewhere down the line, abandoned a steadfastness to the Word of God.

You show me a comprimised Christian, and I bet I can show you someone, who far earlier, abandoned the Word of God.

Our POTENCY, our BRIGHTNESS comes from our nearness to WORD OF LIFE.

And just like an ember that breaks away from the fire… that ember will begin to dim and eventually burn out.

But if that ember remains next to the source of heat, it will last, and it will continue to shine.

In the same fashion, if you and I can holdfast and stay near to Jesus Christ through the Word of Life, then we will find our potency and whine as lights in the world.

Conclusion

Well that’s all we have time for this morning.

My beloved… That’s how Paul began this exhortation. He loves this church in Philippi.

And don’t miss this, he loves them enough to exhort them with hard truths.

John McArthur once wrote, “A good shepherd is not known by how gently he pets the sheep. A good shepherd is known by how well he protects and feeds the sheep.”

I love you church, but we need to stop grumbling and start obeying.

We are exactly where God wants us to be.

Let’s shine, and not whine.

And let’s do it by trusting in God’s Sovereignty, Owning our Responsibility, and discover the Church’s Potency

Let me pray.