Joy in Obedience

Call to Worship

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Scripture Reading

Barbara Townsend, Scripture Reader

Philippians 2:12–18 NIV

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, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.

Sermon

Good morning! My name is Brandon Morrow, and I hope you’ll grab your Bibles and turn with me to Philippians 2!

This morning we’re hitting the halfway mark in our Fall Study through the Book of Philippians, where we’re figuring out how we can find “The Joy-Filled Life.”

This morning we’re going to be talking about Joy in Obedience.

Here’s how we’re going to think about joy in obedience this morning, joy in obedience is the joy we receive in learning to partner with God.

Our passage today is still a part of the chunk of scripture, where Paul has invited the church in Philippi to think deeply on what it means to live as citizens of God’s Kingdom, to reflect Jesus in every facet of our lives — to show the world what it looks like to live lives in a manner that says we’ve been deeply changed by the gospel. Here’s what Paul writes in Philippians 1:27

Philippians 1:27 (NIV)

Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

We’ve said this several times over the last 3 or so weeks, but how we live our lives, matters.

John Wesley said it like this, “From the moment we are born of God, we live in quite another manner than we did before; we are, as it were, in another world.”

In Paul’s mind, your life, and this experience you’ve had with Jesus, and how it’s changed you, and how it will continue to change you, is a progressive reality that will just continue to unfold.

You’ll find that over time, you continue to change. You continue to be formed into a version of yourself that has never existed. This is what the Holy Spirit is doing: changing us into people who look more like Jesus.

And in some respects, this is what Paul says, this is something that we have to “work out” — what this means and how this impacts us.

This is the classic conversation: what does God do? And what do I do?

This is the essence of partnering with God: I’m learning on a day-to-day basis what salvation looks like, and how I should be obedient to the work that God has done through Jesus.

Turn with me to Philippians 2:12-13 and we’ll pick up where we left off last week.

Philippians 2:12–13 NIV

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, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

It’s so evident in Paul’s writing that he wishes he could be in Philippi, though he can’t as he’s awaiting trial not knowing if the outcome will cost him his life or not.

Since he’s not there he wants some kind of accountability in their Christian life… Accountability is essential to help us grow in our daily lives as we follow Jesus.

This is no different from our lives…

Sometimes life just catches up with us.

We go to work.

We cook dinner.

We do laundry.

We wash dishes.

We get kids to bed.

We chauffeur to practices and games.

We rinse and repeat.

And before we know it, we stopped making Community Group a priority, we’ve gotten lazy in our prayers, we dismiss the notification on our phones for the Scripture of the Day, and our pursuits of Jesus feel like they have waned off. What’s the accountability we need?

Paul opens up with an accountability statement… whether he’s with them or not, he’s concerned with the kind of people they’re becoming, and so he says at the end of verse 12, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling,”

From now until Jesus returns, we’re left to apply the gospel in every area of our lives.

I think, and many of this already know this, that what we’ll find out is that salvation has affected every single part of our lives. There won’t be an area of our lives that Jesus’ work won’t affect.

Every follower of Jesus has experienced the benefit of their salvation in Jesus. It’s the greatest gift that God has given us.

But what we’ve not experienced is the full and final result of His salvation.

We’re still waiting for glory. We’re still waiting on heaven.

We’re still waiting on everything to be made new, which Jesus promises in Revelation 21:5.

We’re still experiencing some things in our own life that need to be affected by our salvation: anger, how we handle disappointment, how we’ll celebrate and honor others, whether or not we can shake that sin that just won’t go away.

That’s part of the human response to Jesus’ work: God is at work in changing our hearts, and we partner with God in that work of change when we don’t respond with a harsh word in anger, when we maintain perspective about loss in the middle of disappointing circumstances, when we love and acknowledge the gifts of others, and when we actively move away from sin.

We’re seeing the work of salvation happen from now until Jesus returns or we die and see Him face-to-face, whichever comes first.

Paul’s encouragement is to see God’s work of transformation through to the very end, and Paul explains how we do that:

with fear and trembling.

There’s some kind of reverential seriousness that Paul wants the church to have. When you read fear and trembling here, I don’t want you to think of terror, I want you to think of stewardship.

Jesus is going to return. He has purchased your life with His own life. Your life doesn’t belong to you.

Personally, I want to be able to give a good report when Jesus returns, of what I’ve done with the life that belongs to Him. I think this propels obedience.

Our salvation affects everything. There are relational implications, how we respond to others; there are ethical implications, how we react with the world around us; there are financial implications, what we do with God’s resources; there are physical implications, what we do with our bodies which are where God’s Spirit dwells.

Imagine I own a sports car… let’s say a Porsche 911, just an engineering feat if there ever was one, and I hand you the keys, and I say, “Go and take it for a spin.” I encourage you to see what’s it like to drive something so powerful and valuable, but before you get to the door, I go, “Bring it back without a scratch.”

Keep in mind that this car starts at about $120,000.

What do you do? I hope you decide to get after it a little, put your foot down, feel the power… but I really hope that when you bring it back, the bumper isn’t dragging on the ground and there’s not smoke coming from the engine. And you’d hope for that, too!

Why? Because it doesn’t belong to you!

You’d probably handle a car like that with some fear and trembling, you want to be able to give a good report when you get back!

I get that “fear and trembling” sounds heavy, but it's not about being scared of God. It's about recognizing the weight of what He's entrusted to us. And here's the kicker: we're not doing this alone.

Look at verse 13. God Himself is working in us.

Philippians 2:13 NIV

for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Let's be crystal clear here. When Paul says “work out your salvation,” he's not saying “work for your salvation.” That's a game-changing reality for us. We're not earning anything here.

Dallas Willard said, “Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning. Effort is action. Earning is attitude. You have never seen people more active than those who have been set on fire by the grace of God.”

God's already done the heavy lifting in saving us — we’ve just been set on fire by the grace of God, where everything now has to impacted by what Jesus has done.

Paul uses the words, “to will and to act” in verse 13, which are the desire to be obedient, and actually act of being obedient — of trying to figure out how to honor God with our salvation — and what Paul says is that not even that is about us, it’s something that God says He is doing.

He’s at work, in us and through us, to fulfill what Paul calls “His good purpose,” or other translations say, “good pleasure,” — It is God’s good pleasure to be at work in our lives.

Here’s how Sinclair Ferguson summarizes this:

Our salvation is God’s gift.

God’s gift summons us to work out that salvation in every part of our lives.

We are to work out salvation in our lives in that confidence that God is always at work in us to achieve that goal.

The hard part about our passage today is to look at it, read it, and decide that it’s a purely individualistic endeavor.

We take “our salvation,” to mean that it’s ours, and that we gotta figure this Jesus thing out on our own.

Except salvation has brought you into a new community… you are a part of the family of God. The spiritual community is the primary place you work out your salvation, and it’s revealed in how we treat others, how we care for others, and how we serve others.

Remember, this is citizenship language… we’ve all become a part of something that is bigger than ourselves.

Paul is envisioning a community that looks like Jesus, acts like Jesus, and impacts the unbelieving community around it in a way that resembles Jesus.

Look with me at verses 14-15, where Paul takes a turn to discuss what that should look like: Philippians 2:14-15

Philippians 2:14–15 NIV

Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky

If they’re going to demonstrate their true citizenship, if they’re going to live lives that don’t belong to them, then they’ve got to take the gospel to the community in such a way where their lives don’t jeopardize the integrity of the message.

There’s some kind of petty disagreement that’s happening in Philippi. They’ve formed little factions around several women who can’t stop arguing, and it’s looking bad in the public eye. People are about to start voting with their feet about what they think about the message of Jesus.

Paul wants them to see that the complaints in the community are really becoming complaints against God.

Accusation, complaining, fault-finding, personal attacks, bickering, gossip — these are all actions that are don’t belong to the church. They’ve all become actions against God.

Paul quotes a line from the Exodus story and he does this to illustrate just how awful he thinks complaining is… In Numbers 14:27, we see the impact of the complaints, but the complaints were being directed towards Moses, and they’d forgotten that God was the one who put Moses in charge.

Numbers 14:27 (NIV)

“How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites.

Instead of being fault finders, Paul wants them in verse 15, to be without fault.

You might be wondering, 'What's the big deal about complaining?' Here's the thing: when we ditch the grumbling, we stand out. In a world where everyone's got something to whine about, a person who's genuinely content and joyful? That's like a neon sign pointing to Jesus. That's what Paul means when he says we'll 'shine like stars.' Our attitude of the church becomes our testimony about Jesus.

The impact of living lives without fault, taking our obedience to Jesus seriously, is that we shine like stars.

How we live should have a distinction, it should be such a contrast, that it’s like a light shining in complete darkness. In verse 16, Paul says that the light ought to come “as you hold firmly to the word of life.” The message of the gospel, the message of Jesus, is the word of life, the gospel is the life and light bringing message to the world, it’s the sole piece of communication that can cast out darkness, that can turn a community from being inconsequential whiners and complainers to being a humble and unified threat to darkness.

The goal is to keep shining light in darkness by being obedient. The gospel has to continue in the face of darkness. That’s where the joy comes from, because we see God at work even though there’s a warped and crooked generation are working against it.

Jesus keeps winning, and Paul isn’t losing hope about his own circumstances or the issues the church in Philippi is facing.

Listen to his words in verses 16-18, “And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.”

Paul is rejoicing and he wants the church in Philippi to rejoice because the work of Jesus is never done in vain, because obedience won’t be all for nothing.

This is why Paul uses a picture of his life as a drink offering to God. It won’t go in vain so Paul is free to pour himself empty in support and love for his friends.

And this begs the question at the end of our passage… does our obedience lend itself to the kind of joy that we could empty out our lives in the full confidence that God is still going to accomplish His plans through our lives?

I think that’s where the joy comes from. God is at work in me and through me, and through the church, to accomplish His plans.

I think partnership with God can be practical and it should include real, everyday obedience.

This morning I want to give you an outline for your partnership with God, which is just a plan for your obedience: the daily, weekly, quarterly and annual rhythms of partnering with God in obedience.

Daily — Daily we want a plan to partner with God, and I don’t trust my own ability to be obedient apart from a regular life with Him.

Let me suggest one practice that I think could be helpful… I’ve been trying to this practice for the last several weeks, and it just takes me two minutes. This is before I read, or study, or pray. I read Psalm 139:23-24

Psalm 139:23–24 (NIV)

Search me, God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

And I take two minutes to meditate on the scripture and asking God to do a work. I want God to do the searching, testing, seeing, and leading that transforms me into more of His image.

Weekly — There are four things I think we need to nail down:

How are you going to worship with God's people?

Who are you connecting with for real, Christian friendship?

What's your plan for generous giving

How are you going to rest and remember that God's already done the heavy lifting?

Quarterly — Do you have a plan to regularly evaluate your walk with Jesus?Look at what you've been reading, who you've been praying for, how your Sabbath is going, and how you're handling God's resources. And hey, plan some joy while you're at it. Who or what needs celebrating in your life?

Annually — Get away with God and dream big. What's He calling you to this year? How's He asking you to trust Him? If you need help with this, grab "The Intentional Year" by Glenn and Holly Packiam. It's a game-changer.

God is already working. He's inviting us to join Him. And nothing we do in partnership with Him goes in vain.