Work Out Your Own Salvation

Work Out Your Own Salvation – Phil 2 – Oct 25, 2020 – Pastor Matt Davis, cobonline.org Todays transcript picks up where the message starts at 2 minutes and 10 seconds in the video – Today we’re going to be reading from Philippians chapter 2 – if you have your Bibles with you and we are going to talk about specifically, working out our salvation and more broadly, We will be talking about shining as lights in the world. You know, we’re supposed to represent Christ. But before we can represent Christ, we must also belong to Christ. I’m going to start in verse 12 in Philippians 2 and Paul says wherefore my beloved, As you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. So Paul says wherefore and by the way, you know, this word always means in light of everything I’ve said. I’m going to say what I’m gonna say next. He says they have obeyed the church and the Philippians. Paul loved that church because they obeyed – this was a church we don’t read a lot of rebuke from Paul to the church in Philippi. Rather, This is a letter of encouragement – several times 5, 6 times throughout this letter Paul says to rejoice. So this is a letter of encouragement. He is writing to believers who have obeyed but he says, not only in my presence, but in my absence, so, he says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. The reason I focused on the fact that they have obeyed is because this text says to work out your salvation. This does not mean you can lose your salvation. For far too many people interpret it that way. No, Paul is talking to people who are already obeying the word of God – They’re already saved. So this text that’s often misused to instill fear into people and attempted to tell one and they can lose their salvation. But what does Paul mean to work out our salvation with fear and trembling? Now Paul can hardly be discourage unbelievers to live in this continuous condition of fear on this roller coaster where I’m saved today and tomorrow I’m not. Paul cannot be encouraging this that would contradict all of Paul’s extortions of Peace of Mind, Of Courage, of confidence in Christ and in God. Now it says fear and trembling here – Lets look as the Greek that is translated as fear here, and we must keep this in mind as we read the Bible – fear means we have a respectful reverence. So Paul tells us to work out our salvation with the reverence of God, you know, we don’t want to offend our God – we’re going to have this respectful reverence of him. Paul uses this example of the phrase in second Corinthians 7:15 as he refers to Titus. He says we referring to Titus as being encouraged by the Corinthians reception of him with fear and trembling. People didn’t fear Titus, but they received him with this reverence. The Sense to which we are to work out our Salvation in fear, and trembling is two-fold. First, the Greek. The Greek word rendered work out means to continually work on something until its completion. We are saved the moment we confess Christ. But we have to remember that Paul also says here in Philippians that the work Christ began in us, He would continue until completion. Paul tells us to do the same thing. Paul tells us to work on our self until completion. Now we won’t be complete until we are dead or raptured. So what Paul is telling us as far as long as we live to continually work on and improve upon ourselves, to improve upon our understanding of the Gospel, improve on our ability to be reflectors of Christ. We do this by actively pursuing obedience in the process of sanctification. When we get saved, we Begin this process of being Sanctified. Where our sin passes and we become more and more like Christ and we need to be obedient and willing vessels in that. Paul explains this further in Philippians chapter 3. He describes himself as straining and pressing toward the goal being Christ like. This is verse 13 and 14. The tremble in the experiences is the attitude Christians are to have in pursuing the sanctification – a healthy fear of offending God. Trembling also refer to a shake and due to weakness but this is a weakness of higher purpose when which brings us to a state of dependency upon God. Now the reason I felt led to talk on this today is, how often do we grab our shovel and dig up doubt where we’ve already planted a seed of faith. We firmly plant and plant ourselves in the existence of God and how often are we digging up doubt on whether or not God exists? We firmly plant ourselves in the hope that Christ blood has saved us. We are saved and we find ourselves digging up this doubt that maybe I’m not saved. Maybe I’m not – did I really get saved or did I just fool myself into believing I was saved. Am I really a Christian? I can give hundreds of examples, I’m not going to, but we are constantly we have our struggles out and we are digging with our shovels, looking for doubt where we have planted faith. And we need to stop doing that. That’s my encouragement to you, slightly different from what Paul is trying to say here, is to stop digging up doubt where we have planted faith. We are going to do that by the working out our own salvation with fear and trembling. And we will know if we work out our own salvation every day. We can never come to a point where, well, we don’t think we are saved. The devil can’t use that on us because when I wake up today, I’m going to work that out and I’ll get in the word and I’m going to know what the word says. You know, John, I think third John. I’m going to make myself look stupid if I’m wrong, but I think it’s in third John. It’s only one chapter there. John writes, He says he writes these things that you may know you are saved. We have a know so salvation – Not a hope so, or a think so. But we have a know so salvation.It’s so if I woke up and start daily by going right back to the word of God, the very thing that saved me ,John says these things are written so we know .So by going back to this, I know we I’m saved and I can’t be fooled because his word is never far from my heart or from my mind. And if I do find that there’s a period of time where I break away from the word and then I can just keep busy or have all these excuses as to why reading the word and really Renewing my mind is not doable. I find that’s when I start to dig up the doubt. When I break away from the word when I break away from prayer. Now, does anybody here know what the word busy really means? It means being under Satan’s yoke. It’s an acronym – Satan wants us busy because when were busy the word is not right where it needs to be. And so the hardest thing to do is Christians is to make this our priority. I’ll tell you what everybody may come to church thinking, I’m (Pastor Matt) great at making this my priority every morning, but I have the exact same struggle as everyone else. You know, I miss my alarm, I wake up and I’m already running 45 minutes behind. I’ve got all this stuff to do and can put the word of God off until maybe tonight. I’ll read the next two chapters before bed. I’ll make up for what I missed in the morning. But the problem is my day never goes right when I do that. Instead I’ll make up for it, because I have a goal. I want to get through the Bible every 60 days. So every two months, I read it cover to cover. That’s my goal. Sometimes it takes me three months. And so that’s my line of thinking is why I can just make it up – but you can’t make up an entire day of things going wrong because you did not start your day with God. I can make up for reading for a timeline, but I can’t make up the renewing of my heart. I can’t make up all that lost protection for the 12 hours where I was attacked and deceived and had doubts because I did not start my day off with God. So Paul tells us work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Paul continues I want to get through this passage, it just goes through Verse 18. So in verse 13 He says for it is God which worketh in you both to Will and to do of his good pleasure. So when we work out our own salvation, what we really are doing is we are making Him the center of our life. It is hard to be saved without a relationship with God – if we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, God then works in us both to Will and to do of his good pleasure. Now I find that the the easiest time I have struggling with anything is if I make all my priority. Counterintuitive to be 45 minutes behind and then say all right, Well, I’m still going to take a half an hour and read even though I’m already 45 minutes late for what I needed to do. But I find that somehow it still works out because those days that I don’t do that then I find that I need to have the extra 45 minutes or half hour because everything is going to go wrong. But I find when, even though I start late, if I start with God, if I took an extra half-hour to get started, I finished early because I’m just starting with God. My mind’s not been distracted. I’m not being attacked because God is protecting me from The Wiles of the devil. And so everything that could go wrong and make me go later into the day doesn’t even go wrong. And so I finished my day early despite starting an hour an hour and a half late. It’s counterintuitive, but it’s how God works in US.Paul says it is impossible to please God without faith. It’s impossible. So if we don’t work out our Salvation. if were not sure we belong to God and we’re digging up that doubt, then God cannot work in us as verse 13 says and we cannot please him. We need to have faith to please God. He says do all things without murmurings and disputings. Oh, this one is so hard. I’m Great at murmuring. Waking up and going man, I wish this wasn’t Sunday. I could sleep in another hour. I Do that. I’ll be honest. I love being here and once I get here, it’s not a problem. It’s the process of waking up getting all the stuff loaded into my car in the morning. I have a three hour drive ahead of me. It’s like how do you do that without murmuring? when someone figures that out, let me know. Because I murmur every single week, but Paul says to do without murmurings and disputing’s, because we’re workers of God. And we do this because we work for God. Whether we are working at Walmart, working for the government ,working for yourself, a Pastor, truck driver, whatever it is that we’re doing we are doing unto the Lord because we live for him and we hope that whatever capacity we work in that we can represent him and we can reach someone – but it’s hard. I tried this it has hard to represent God when we are disputing when we are murmuring and complaining about your life. You know, who wants to follow a God, you know, we say he’s so great, but who wants to follow a God that is so great that were always complaining about our life. And so we need to work out our Salvation because when we have our Salvation worked out and we know where we stand there is nothing more to complain about I have to pull something up and read this to you. So somebody asked me yesterday.This is not on Facebook. By the way. So this is on quora – Shawnee calls me the quora preacher, but somebody asks me and they were trying to they’re trying that Christians look bad because of the Year 2020, everything in 2020 is just gone to crud, right and so they wanted to try and make Christians to look bad and they asked me a question. They asked, can you honestly say as a Christian that you have been through a lot In 2020, But God has still been with you through it all?I like this question, not so that I can make all look good to him. But I was already thinking about this message when he asked that question I’m thinking about working out my salvation and how I like to dig up doubt. I liked to answer this question at that time as I was thinking about this, and how I can no longer dig up doubt when we reflect on things like this. We’re not digging up that, instead we’re looking,we’re going man, you know rather than digging up doubt, I can just remember God was with me here and with me there. So I gave him an answer.Reading it – Let’s start before the pandemic begins early winter, my local internet company – You guys will remember this – was installing fiber optic lines to houses. And I work for the County fire department and we are we not only get dispatch alerts to our radios but to our cell phones via text. This particular day, I was about 80 miles from home and I got a dispatch alert to my phone for a gas line that was hit and exploded. And imagine my surprise when I heard my own address in the recording. I don’t think I’ve ever driven 80 miles faster than that day and my wife and I got to spend a little bit of time away from home courtesy the internet provider. It all ended well and fast forward three weeks after that my wife calls and informs me that my basement that is flooding. Turns out that a week after the internet company hit our gas line, that they hit the water main for the house above us, and over a few weeks, the water made it’s way into my basement. I continue to explain, and I’m not going to read the whole thing because you guys know about the battle with the insurance and how that ended. But We ended up with three thousand dollars of extra money that we weren’t expecting the or needing. So I go through that and then I say this is now the third week of March right before the covid pandemic, I’m drivable from evening services at church and it’s dark, and I hit a deer doing 70. I had absolutely wrecked and totaled my car. I always carry full coverage on my vehicle, but I thought there was no way I would get much for it and this is where God is with me is as we look through this God was there in the flood he was there and allowing the The insurance company to stall – He was there when he made them give me extra money I put set aside here. He was there when I wrecked my car and I know no injuries to my wife or I. But he was also there when the insurance company wrote me a check for $6,500 for a car I paid $6,000 for. It never happens when you drive a car, the value drops. It doesnt go up, it goes down, and somehow I got made $500 and I talked about how I couldn’t find that car. But I did find a year newer and the model up, but I needed an extra $3,000 which I happen to have from when my home flooded. I ended with, Wow, I’ve only reached the quarter Mark of the year, and I’ve already gone through a lot as this year and I’ve gone through more as millions of others have. But I can tell you this, never once have I lacked for my bills, never once have I gone hungry, not once have I lacked for anything. No matter what happens in 2020, I can say the Lord has been behind me, has been beside me, and has gone before me. I can also say never once throughout the pandemic have I worried about what would happen to my future as a result. So I like this question as I was planning this message because as I was talking about working at my salvation. Somebody gave me an opportunity to sit and reflect on where God has been this year. This year alone, I have seen God countless times. He is been Everywhere and so at no point in 2020, no matter how bad things get, can I sit down and go God, where are you? Because if I work out my salvation, part of working it out – It’s remembering remembering how we felt when we got saved, remembering the circumstance that brought us, remembering what God has done what he has promised to do. When we do that, we start, you know, we do the reverse. We’ve been digging up all this dirt with doubt piled over here and we began taking the shovel and fill in the hole back in. We replant our seed, our faith, you know, if we do the same thing continually that hole never gets very big. Verse 15 – He says that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse Nation. Wow, Now I didn’t read this verse before today. I decided to do it here. Crooked and perverse Nation – there’s no doubt that the Roman nation was crooked and perverse. But boy does this reflect on our country today? Crooked and perverse among whom he shined as lights in the world. So that’s the whole point of everything. We read we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Allowing God to work in us and doing things without murmuring. He says so that we can be blameless in our nation that’s wicked and among them being lights in the world – Now last week I told you that Christ said that the if we follow after him, we walk not in darkness by in light. Okay. So this is why we work on our Salvation. We are to be a light in this wicked, wicked Nation among these people who seek after their own desires and less among these people who care not about God. We are a light unto them and they see it. That’s why they hate us – they don’t hate us because we’re Christian, they hate us because we dont live normal lives, because we’re Moral, because we’re happy. And they like to pretend to be happy and put smiles on their face, but go home at night and they lay their head on their bed and they worry about their bills. They worry about their home. They worry about their kids, if they didn’t kill their kid before they were born. They go home they fear, they go home and they get stressed, and depressed over everything they do and we don’t and that’s why they hate us. But we need to be light unto them. I can’t think of a better time than the covid-19 2020 pandemic to shine as lights to everyon. Everyone who is worried right now what better time than to shine and show how great and marvelous, how glorious is our God. Verse 16. He says holding forth the word of life. Now. Let’s be clear, this is the word of life. This is what he’s talking about holding forth the word, that he may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain either labored in vain.I think the year, this is discussed in digging up our doubt where we have planted faith. If we work out our Salvation every day it today. I’m sure I’m saved of tomorrow. I’m sure I’m saved. If I’m not saved, I’m going to get saved.. No one can spend that much time everyday working out their salvation and not get saved. It’s better to work it out salvation daily and to go back to the basics to remember what the word of God says and ensure my salvation, then to work on it for a little while and fool myself into a false salvation, that the have run and labored in vain.Remember the heart of a Christian will always produce fruit. We are not continually improving if we are not going through this process of sanctification. We have run in vain, because if we are Christian, if we are saved then we are being sanctified. So this is how we can measure salvation – do we have a heart of Christ? Am I being sanctified? And I being a light to the world. If we can’t answer yes to these things and we need to work that out so that we can and that we have our Salvation. I’m starting to sound a little bit like I’m talking about works based doctrine – but I’m not, because we’re not saved by our works – but works absolutely always follows salvation. Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says that we are saved by grace through faith, this not of yourself, as a gift of God, not a result of works, that no man may boast. But there’s another verse, verse 10, says for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. So we are saved by grace not of works, but we are born again. Paul says we have a new heart we are born again and we’re born anew in Christ unto good works. So good works always follows salvation. This is why James Says For faith without works is dead. Not because the work saves but because if you have faith that faith will lead to the works. And if those Works aren’t there…. So going back to working at our Salvation. We can review these things. We can look upon herself and self-reflect. We can look upon others and we can measure we can gauge has this process begun and we can work it out and know so that we do not run in vain. The last two verses 17 and 18 Yea, and if i be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me. Paul says all of this, this is cause for Joy. so As we work out our Salvation, lets be joyful. Paul says countless times in this letter to the Philippians rejoice.I have to say this year, 2020, the pandemic, car accidents, floods, surgeries, whenever – yeah, I forgot about that one reflecting how many Tire blowouts of I had this year alone too many to count (Responding to a congregant) . I remember one in particular. I was on my way to church and I got sick. As I was coming up Cedar Mountain. Because I got sick I decided to turn around and as soon as I got off the mountain my tire blew out. I believe, I don’t want to believe that God will cause me to get sick, but believe that day God caused me to get sick to turn me around so my tire blow out on flat ground and not with a two thousand foot drop to the side of me. So God knew, he knew that was going to blow up. God knew where I would be when it did if I did not turn around. So God also know that if He had told me to just turn around that would just go “haha, you’re funny devil” and continue driving to church because any time that I get a distraction that try some prevents me from being here, I blame on the devil. God, God would have known that too. So instead God caused me to get sick and pukey.As soon as I got home, I felt better, but Gods purpose for me being sick was served. And so, you know on this is kind of off topic but when things happen like that, sometimes we just have to start saying, okay God, Is this you? And I know it sucks when I call everyone here and say hey, I’m sick today, and I’m not coming but then we maybe have to question. Okay, God. What’s going on? But why are we not having Church? Why am I sick? So a few more words of encouragement when we work out our own salvation this the whole purpose for today’s message is I feel like, I know I have, and I feel like maybe some of you may have as well and digging up doubt where we have planted faith. And I’m guilty of that I am, and so I want to encourage you today. Let’s let’s not Dig up what we have planted. Because if we dig up what we have planted that’s what the devil wants, the devil wins. But we don’t lose our salvation, but when we dig up that doubt we become ineffective for the kingdom. We lose the desire to be part of church. We lose the desire to share, we no longer shine. The Devil, if he can’t bring us to hell he wants to stop us and bring another people to heaven. So let’s not dig up doubt. Remember what Paul says in Ephesians 6, he tell us to put on the whole armor of God. And putting on the armor of God, if we work out our Salvation daily, then we already have the armor on, we have the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of Truth. We had the sword. We have our loins gird. We have our feet shod with the gospel. Above all, we have the Shield of Faith – because nothing will defend us more than a shield. That’s what we need is a Shield of Faith. I listen to a preacher, and this might sound weird to you guys. I’ll get a little private here – when shower I listen to sermons. I just play a sermon on my phone because it is a time where I’m not doing anything anyways, and so I can listen to the word of God. So today when I was showering I was listening and I heard, this will be my last word of encouragement, I heard a preacher say this last thing that I’m going to leave with you. He says do not stand on the foundation of your feelings. When we dig up doubt that’s feelings – stand rather, on the foundation word, of your faith. Because our feelings they will change day to day to day. Today, I’ll wake up and I’ll feel great. I woke up on the right side of the bed, right on. Let’s get this day started. tomorrow, I wake up. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed and it’s like, can today end before it begins. We’ve all been there. Our Feelings change. You know today, I believe, I hear a good message on the creation of the earth, and I’m all I’m great and tomorrow I hear some Stupid secular scientists talk about Evolution and the devil starts confusing you – you get these mixed up feelings and if we stand On the foundation built upon feelings, we’re on sinking sand. We need to stand on the foundation of the word – whether we feel like this is right or not, it’s still right whether we read it today and go, you know what God, I just don’t feel it. We stand on it because all other ground is sinking sand. For those of you listening online some of you maybe saved, some of you may not. And if you’re not saved if you’re listening to my story today about how God has been with me through the thick and thin. How He has Gone behind me, been beside me, and gone before me and you’re going man, You know, I want that. No, I don’t want to work in vain. I don’t want to be miserable. I don’t want to be worrying about covid and everything. The Lord Jesus Christ says it’s as simple as confessing him – Matthew 10:32 and 33. He says if you confess me before men, I will confess you before the father. But if you deny me before men, I will deny you before the Father in heaven. So if you’re listening to this go, “I want that” – you can begin working out your own salvation today right here right now. by admitting you are a sinner and Confessing Christ before your fellow man. So I’m going to ask everyone to please stand and we are going to pray – if you want what we have, Please repeat this prayer after me. If you are saved already then we’ve been praying for a one, we all have one we are praying to come to Christ. So take this time pray for that person for God to get a hold of them and bring him to the foot of the cross. Father God, Lord Jesus Lord. We thank you Lord, We praise you. And Lord, we come to you broken more we come to you as sinners in need of repentance and we confess that we are guilty of our sin. We confess that we have offended you with it and we know that that just means death for us. It means sorrow and trouble and Lord. We don’t want that. We want peace. We want joy. We want eternal life and Lord we want to be with you. And we just we confess you as Lord God In the Flesh, Jesus Christ who died and rose – and we believe this with all that we are, we ask you to fill us and begin this work of sanctification in us and we just ask that that we this process begins and never ends. Not until you bring us home in Jesus name we pray. Amen.