Sermon Tone Analysis

Paul is eager to get on with the message now for he wants to see God’s will done in the lives of those for whom Christ came.

Paul, characteristically starts with another ‘therefore’.

So, the mantra is; if there is a therefore find out what it’s there for.

So, we have to look back to last time.

Do we remember what was before, what was in the previous passage?

None other than the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, in His making himself nothing, becoming human, becoming a slave, becoming obedient to death and now being exalted to the right hand of God where every knee must bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

His obedience leads to our obedience.

To whom is this obedience and what is obedience?

Some have thought that verse 12 is obedience to Paul because he is an apostle, the founder of the Church at Philippi and therefore its leader.

Others have thought that this is about obedience to God.

So, let’s see what Paul says about it elsewhere:

Does this answer what is obedience?

Whilst we do not have time to expound these verses fully now it does gives us an insight into what is disobedience: Which are arguments, pride, and thoughts against the knowledge of God.

All these have to be brought into obedience to Christ.

So, obedience has to do with the knowledge of God.

Every thought needs to be a slave to Christ.

So, here we have the answer: obedience is to Christ.

not to Paul, obviously.

Paul mentions obedience again in

The obedience required is faith.

Obedience is trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and submission to His name.

The ‘therefore’ is because Jesus is exalted and to Him everyone has to bow the knee; obedience then includes submission to Jesus.

It is hardly surprising that obedience is mentioned in Philippians for it has to do with Paul’s obsession: That is, obedience to the Gospel of which God commands people everywhere to repent and believe.

Faith in Christ becomes expressed as obedience to Christ.

Paul is a little concerned for the Philippian Christians because he is not present there to sort out some of the silly disputes and disagreements happening among them so he writes for them to keep the main thing the main thing – that is, the Gospel has to have precedence over petty grievances; the Gospel has to have precedence over petty grievances.

It is important to note that Paul is addressing the Philippian Christians as a whole rather than to individuals.

We have a tendency to make everything that is said individual and that is fine, even here, but we can lose out on Paul’s gist that he is wanting the whole community of believers to be getting on with each other and that the whole agenda should be about Christ.

Work out your salvation together.

We’ve got to work out the flab Irena said to me four years ago.

We have to work out the fat.

Indeed it is the only way we are ever going to look good and feel healthy.

And after four years of working the flab I am now even flabbier.

We keep talking about it but I am obviously not working on it.

Work out one’s salvation.

Clearly it is not saying that you work to get salvation but once you have salvation one has to work.

What does this mean exactly?

Let me read ten verses from Ephesians that sets out what it was like before we were saved and what it is like now that we are saved:

We received salvation as a gift, now it’s time to work.

We love because He first loved us; we work because He first worked for us.

That is what Ephesians is saying giving us a contrast between the gift and what we do in response.

And why shouldn’t we?

When we have received a lifeline; been given Heaven; received every blessing in Christ Jesus!

It is only natural that we would want to return His love.

The main thing to notice here is that we are His work and He is working through us.

Again it is important to note that the work out your salvation, the ‘your’ being plural meaning it is addressed to the whole community of which we are individuals.

Yes, we are saved individually but it is so we become a people for God’s name.

We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

There is a place in the Old Testament where we see fear and trembling mentioned together:

For those of us who have put our faith in Christ we can hear again the words of:

But we need to hold God in holy awe and wonder with whom we have to do with both now and one day.

Kiss the Son means worship the Son and acknowledge His Lordship.

Blessed are we who put our trust in Him rather than ourselves or others or things or fate or science.

Because we have become obedient to the faith of the Gospel we know better who God is and to hold Him in proper respect.

For those of you who were there on Wednesday at the introduction to the Book of Deuteronomy we found that two verses truly encapsulate its purpose:

Deuteronomy 31:11-12 “(11) you shall read this Torah before all Israel in their hearing.

(12) Assemble the people, men, women, little ones, the sojourner within your towns, that they may hear and that they may learn, that they may fear the LORD your God, and be careful to do all the words of this Torah.”

It’s clear purpose was to read, to hear, to learn, to fear and to do.

Let me give you an example of when in the past we were able to do electrical wiring all by ourselves without the need of a professional.

Once the power is off to change a fuse box you still cannot touch the 240 volt cable entering the house for in doing so can lead to death.

Now what do you do?

You have a right to fear, not a debilitating kind of fear, but one that makes you pay the utmost attention to what you are doing.

You know your limitations for you know what 240 volts can do to you.

Arrogance can lead to death.

We have limitations and we should have the right kind of fear.

What limitations should we be putting on ourselves knowing the fear of God knowing what He is more than able to do.

How careful are we in living our lives?

How humble are we before Him?

Sometimes we can prevent God from having His way in our personal lives and corporate lives.

We can stop Him from working by hardening our hearts through sin; by filling our lives with pleasures with lusts; with desires other than living for the will of God.

We are playing with the proverbial 240 volt wires hoping it will not bite back.

Instead we should be open to His leading for, Paul says, it is God who is empowering you to work out your salvation for He is at work in each of us whether we are aware of it or not through His prior knowledge and action.

God is revealing that He is on our side working out His purposes in our lives according to His good pleasure for those of us already found in Christ.

This is fantastic news.

Yes, we have a responsibility to see that we are not directly opposing God but what is clear is that God’s purposes in our lives are being fulfilled and that they are good.

The One who is supplying us with the power to live for God is God Himself.

To live out the Divine life we need His omnipotence in us which we have by His Spirit.

It is God who is doing and willing not by us obeying a set of rules but in transforming our minds to be the mind of Christ, the mind of the Spirit.

Christ is our example: He only did what the Father told Him.

We must become like Christ.

But it is not done by willing ourselves to do it but in the transforming renewal of our minds.

Being led by the Spirit means that you know what He wants and we can only know what He wants if we are His and if we are His we hear His voice and if we hear His voice we are led by the Spirit.

Therefore, the good, acceptable and perfect will of God can be known and this allows us to do what the Father tells us to do.

Sounds easy, right!

Well, we are His children and He wants us to know.

As we are His we now desire to do what He wants even if our actions have not quite caught up with us yet.

God is at work in us to do the good.

We have God on our side.

When God speaks, He speaks with a purpose.

Part of that purpose relates to what He wants to accomplish through us, and part of it relates to what He wants to accomplish in us!

Are we willing to hear His voice?

When we pray the Lord’s prayer and say: “Your Kingdom Come, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven” are we serious about God doing that in us?

He will empower us for what He has called us to do but praying for His will to be done here (in this Church) or here (in one’s heart and life) could mean a whole lot of rearranging!

If we are not willing for God to do the rearranging it may mean that we do not want to hear His voice.

Even so, God is working in us.

Why is God at work in the Philippians to will and do for His good pleasure?

He is working everything out to His own desire and purpose.

This sounds very self-serving until we realise that God is altogether good, that He does not have evil desire, that He is, in fact, very interested in the good of those whom He has saved.

We benefit when He works.

It delights God to delight His people.

And He wants others to experience this and be subjected to the Kingdom of God.