SBU FCA

Introduction

What’s up guys.

I just want to thank you guys for showing up,

for having me come in and speak

if you do not know who I am, my name is Braden Spurling

I graduated from here last May

I played football here.

but now I am a Youth Pastor down in Springfield.

So today we are going to be in Philippians 2:12-13,

but I wanted to start off by saying that none of us are staying neutral.

The way we train, the way we live,

We are growing weaker or stronger,

We are going left or right

up or down

We all have goals.

Win the conference.

To be a starter.

To be all conference.

But when we have goals we are doing things to reach those goals.

We dont have to ask the question “are we growing,” the answer for everyone here is yes.

The real question is “what are we growing into”

With sports we have a plan to reach our goals, we work for it.

It is the same in our faith.

So we are going to talk about if we want to be different we have to work out our faith.

Philippians 2:12–13 CSB

Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

Paul start off and says therefore,

Whenever you see the word “therefore” in scripture you need to look back.

So if you look back in your Bible it is talking about how every knee will bow and every tongue will confess.

Very popular passage.

but really how Christ is Lord of all.

How he is the humble king who came down to the Earth.

So Paul says “therefore”

Or because of that, then starts in the passage.

And he is going to say work out your salvation,

so that is going to be where we camp out, but before we get there look at what Paul does before hand.

Do you guys know what a compliment sandwich is?

Where you say something good, before you break some bad news, then say something good.

This is kind of what Paul does, he commends them for something, then he commands them.

Paul goes guys you have always obeyed.

You have followed God and his word when I was with you, you have followed him when I have been away,

BUT

you need to work out, you need to strengthen your faith.

What Paul did was he started to fatten the calf before he killed it.

This was not a harsh call out though, he was not telling them that they were terrible,

but rather needed some improving.

remember, Paul said that he was not done with them, that they still needed some maturing to go through in chapter one.

So here he is, encouraging them that they need to do a better job, they needed to pick it up,

there would be a day when Paul was gone.

He would not longer be their spiritual mentor because he knew he had an expiration date.

Paul did not question their salvation, but what he was talking about was sanctification.

The word sanctification just means to become more Holy.

You are saved once. You know you are a sinner, you are lost in need of a savior, then you ask Jesus to be King of your life, he comes into your heart.

But thats not the finish line, thats the starting line.

So Paul wanted them to grow more.

Paul is not saying that they need to work for their salvation.

Many see this passage and think that’s what it means, but that is wrong.

Ephesians says we are saved by grace through faith. It is not of ourselves but a gift from God.

But becoming saved does not make us perfect.

I mean think about athletics.

There are no short cuts to become a professional or even college level athlete, you have to work at it.

Through disipline and hard workouts.

Proper coaching.

Through form and technique

Through developing strength.

There is so much that goes into it.

But in the same since, when you become a Christian, you are not perfectly Holy. You have to work at it. Coached through the Holy Spirit and community around you.

So they needed to work out their salvation.

Sanctification is Spiritual strength training.

Just like you work out a muscle, to make it stronger,

Paul is saying they need to work out their faith

Back when I was playing football I tore my MCL.

How many of you guys have gone through an injury?

I was on crutches for a little while.

There was a long while that I was non weight bearing on my leg.

But what happens when you do not use a muscle?

It shrinks.

After all that time of crutches, you could look at my quads and see a dramatic difference.

This is why we need to work out our faith.

When you push yourself towards the things of God, you will grow closer to him.

It is not rocket science.

You build the muscles of your faith. You become more Holy.

You have a closer relationship with him.

No one drifts into shape, you train into it.

As athletes we know this.

You cannot just step on to the field, the court, the diamond, whatever it might be for you.

Training is a part of life.

We are all different.

College athletes are different.

Only 6% of high school athletes make it to college.

Being D2 the percentage is more like 2-3%

We grinded for years, hours on end, all those workouts, everything we had to do to even get the offer.

And if we are willing to live differently for our sport, we MUST live differently for our God.

So if you are not working out your faith.

You do not pray

You do not read the Bible

You do not have Christian community.

Then your “muscles” are weakening

And you are drifting farther away from God.

But the great part is we are not alone.

It says that God is working in us.

Yes, we make the choices, but God is not leaving us alone in this sanctification process.

We have the Holy Spirit to guide us in our decisions.

To convict us of things, like when we are not spending time with him.

Colossians 1:29 CSB

I labor for this, striving with his strength that works powerfully in me.

This is also Paul, but look at this.

Paul does the labor, he has to go and work out.

But it is Christ’s strength that is in him.

We have that too!

but we also have to know that it is not going to come over night.

You didn’t start lifting and bench 315 and squat 405 in the first month.

And just like with our faith the Bible is a big book.

and we live in a fast paced, fast food, microwave, internet culture.

But sanctification can be a slow cooker process.

Sin is hard, addiction, is hard, living a humble life is hard,

We are not perfect, but we get the opportunity to grow, by working out our faith.

and we also have community.

We have others that can point us to Christ.

Yes, your faith walk is a personal thing.

but, Sanctification is personal, not private.

You need people.

We all have several versions of ourselves.

We have the public us.

Like what people see of us.

You have your personal self.

What your thoughts are,

your fears, your temptations.

But then we have the version of is that we do not see.

We all have blind spots.

Where we do things we do not even realize.

We all have habits we have done for so long we think they are normal.

We can get so focused on things that we put our blinders on stay in our own lane.

We keep our head down, we keep grinding.

We keep dating that guy or girl even though all my friends are telling me it isnt a good idea.

We have blind spots.

And if we want to live differently we must find them because we do not want to ignore something that God is calling us to.

so we need people to call out your blind spots.

Again, sanctification is personal, but not private.

Just like sports, film sessions help you get better, but they expose things that you might not even know you are doing.

You put the clip in slow motion and all the sudden things start to open us.

Coaches call you out, teammates call you out, why?

Not because they hate you, but because they want you to be better.

We need others.

Because there is this Holy fear and awe of the Lord, that others can make aware in your life.

The text says to work out with fear and trembling.

God is so Holy and we should not want to let him down,

There is a little bit of this fear that we should have.

Proverbs 9:10 ““The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

So when we live in awe of God, we submit to his command to go and work out our faith.

But it is not something that we do alone.

Guys scripture calls us to live differently.

If we are going to work out like no one else on this planet is doing,

We have to focus on our faith just as much.

And when we do this, we want to share Jesus with others.

College is the time in your life where you will have one of the largest evangelism fields.

For most of us we are going to start our job, be in an office, or building, or job site, but we are going to be around the same people every day.

For me I see the same 4-5 people every day.

That is the reality of life and yes some jobs you get to interact with the public, with others, but you are in a spot where you get to be close with all your teammates.

If thats football thats over 100 other guys.

Other sports, I know your rosters can be big as well.

And forget about sports, there are going to be hundreds of new people step foot on this campus every fall and you guys are going to have new players on your teams.

You have this opportunity to live out your faith.

to pour into others.

Like I said we need people in our lives to point us to Jesus.

But you also need to be pointing people to Jesus.

That is living differently.

Evangelism can be hard.

But again, it is God working in us to will and to work according to his good purpose.

So we should live for him.

We love our sport, so we work at it.

We should love God so much that we work at it every day.

Questions

In your life, what practical steps can you take to 'work out' your faith as discussed in the sermon?

If someone examined your last 30 days the way a strength coach evaluates training, what evidence would there be that you are intentionally developing your faith?

How can developing spiritual disciplines help you grow closer to God?

What are some common blind spots that you have seen among college students that others might need to help identify?

Is your current community sharpening you spiritually or just socially? What would need to change for it to sharpen you?