Working Out our Salvation
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Introduction
Introduction
Now that we are past the first part of the year, we are going to go back into the book of Philippians where we left off at the end of last year and if you remember that far back, hopefully you’ll recall that one of the main themes of the book of Philippians is the life of joy that we were meant to have in Christ. Even with the turning of the calendar, I think we can all agree that there is still a need to recover much of the joy that was lost during the past couple of years. And to be honest, I’m not sure how long it will take for us to experience the fullness of joy again but I’m confident in God’s promise that He does turn our mourning into dancing.
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.
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.
The foundation of our joy as believers was meant to be the salvation that we have in Christ. If you think about it, this is what makes our joy different than the joy that the world experiences. After all, no matter what happens in this life, no one can take our salvation from us because there is nothing can take us out of the loving hands of God. Furthermore, our relationship with God comes with the promise of a better future, one with no more tears or sorrow or pain. And so, at least in theory, as things get darker, our hope in God’s salvation was meant to grow brighter. And regardless of how bad things may seem, the fact that we have been saved should be a steady source of joy in our hearts. This is the fountain of living water that Jesus gives to those who believe Him. But we all know, it’s not that easy and most of us tend to struggle with a lack of joy especially in these difficult times. This then brings us to the main point of this passage which is the simple truth that the salvation that has been worked in you by the Spirit of God now has to be worked out in your life. The reaason why we might be struggling with a lack of joy is simply we we haven’t worked out the salvation that God has placed within us. So we’ll look at this in its two parts:
How does God work His salvation in us?
How do we then work out that salvation?
Body
In the reading of Scripture, it’s important to understand how things connect and we begin this passage with the word, “therefore”, which tells you that the following thought is a direct conclusion of what was written in the the previous verses. And just to jog your memory a little bit, the preceding thought is one of the the clearest and profound teachings on the incarnation of Christ.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
And by virtue of His obedience, God exalted Christ and gave Him the name above all names so that at the mention of His name, every knee would bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord! Therefore in response to this good news, this gospel of Christ that has delivered us from death to eternal life, now live a life of obedience by working out your salvation with fear and trembling. But why should we fear and tremble as we consider the immediate ramifications of our salvation? Can we lose our salvation? Can we upset God so that He takes away the gift of eternal life? Can we sins so egregiously that God will not forgive us? To all those questions, the answer from the Scriptures is a resounding no! If you are truly saved, then you can find great comfort in the fact that God is yours and you are His and there is nothing that can separate you from His love.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
So if we have this guarantee, then why is there this need work our salvation with fear and trembling? The apostle gives us an answer that remains a mystery of the ages, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and work for his good pleasure.”
The words that Paul uses to describe our salvation are incredibly important because he doesn’t say, “work for your salvation” or “work toward your salvation”, but rather he writes, “work out your salvation” which essentially means “live out this salvation that God has worked in you”. Any one who has ever spent time working out and trying to build muscle knows that you cannot work out what you don’t have within. And this is not only by virtue of what you eat but also your God given body type and your genetics. I spent much of my college years trying to get strong enough to bench two plates, which is 225 pounds but I simply could not do it because of my small bone structure. I wanted to be that buff Asian dude but my slender frame unfortunately could not support that dream. I would reach 185-200 lbs and then I would get hurt. I wanted to be Carl Lentz for you guys but maybe it’s good I didn’t become that jacked. (Your can interpret that any way you want.)
But all of that to say, God has worked a mighty salvation in you, there are no limitations on how strong you can become spiritually. Each of us has vast reservoirs of untapped spiritual potential that can be released if we choose to work it out. The history of Christianity is filled with the stories of ordinary men and women who accomplished extraordinary things because they worked out the full potential of the salvation that was given to them by God. It’s simply amazing to hear about the beginnings of Christianity and how a handful of uneducated fishermen literally turned the world upside down and changed the spiritual destiny of millions of people. If we only understood, even in part, the unfathomable power of the gospel and the cost that Christ paid to share that power with us, we would be more in awe of this gift that has been so freely given to us. Clearly the apostle Paul understood what was at stake in our salvation because he reminds us of who we are, we are God’s shining light in the midst of this crooked and twisted generation.
And so what is the nature of this salvation that God has worked in us? The byproduct of the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit in us, which also serves as the undeniable assurance of our salvation is God’s work upon our will and his power over our actions. Most people assume that they have complete control over their will and their actions and they would be wrong. We have some control but not complete control. There are some things that people cannot do no matter how much they will themselves to do it. You may want to run 100 yard dash in under 10 seconds but that will never happen for you. You may want to invent the next breakthrough in technology but 99.9% of us don’t have the intellectual capacity to make that a reality. So when you tell your children they can do anything and be as good as anyone, well that is a downright lie and you are going to set them up for failure. Everyone has certain limitations and I’m sorry if I’m the first one to tell you that but that’s the reality of life.
And just as we have God given physical and intellectual limits, we were all born with certain spiritual restrictions, namely the fact that no one is able seek God or even decide to live for His purpose unless God’s Spirit works in them first.
as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.
I don’t think I have to explain this verse in much detail, it’s fairly clear. Of our own accord, no one is able or willing to seek God and even if they think they do, the cannot understand. Which leaves us with an important questions, “If that is the case, how can people be saved. How was I saved?” The clearest answer that we find in the Scriptures is the one that Jesus gives to Nicodemus in the Gospel of John:
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
This analogy of our salvation being like a new birth is the perfect explanation of the process by which we were saved. Just as none of us had any say in terms of being born into this world, so it is with those who are born of God. You may not like this fact, you may even disagree with this, but it doesn’t change it from being true. No one would be foolish enough to say I chose the day I was to ready to be conceived. In the same way, every true Christian that I know who has thought about the order of their salvation has confessed that God was the one who first pursued them. God began to stir something undeniable in their Spirit. Even though they weren’t looking for Him, God came looking for them. Even those Christians who ardently defend the free will of man in the process of salvation ultimately have to concede that unless God had brought them to that last point of decision, they would have never chosen Him.
This week I had meeting with a former software engineer who had a radical encounter with God in his 40s and now is going into pastoral ministry. He began reading the Bible to prove to his wife that she shouldn’t believe in God anymore and stopping going to church. But as he read, something began to happen inside of him, every morning for 3 days, he would find himself awake at 5 am and he would just start weepinng as he experienced the presence of God’s Holy Spirit. During that time, he would recieve visions from the Lord and one of them really struck me as being so relevant for those of us working in the tech industry. In this particular vision, he saw a robot that was unable to carry out his function and then someone came in and downloaded the right software into the robot so that the hardware could actually carry out the purpose for which it was created. Amazingly, God found a way to explain the mystery of salvation in such a way that even a computer engineer could understand. Every human being has the hardware necessary to live for God but until God supplies the software, you are unable to fulfill the ultimate purpose for which you were designed.
And for those of us who have recieved this gift of salvation that was given to us by the grace of God, how can we neglect so great a gift? How can we not marvel at how the God of this universe has chosen us to be his children as flawed and broken as we are. Why would God who is infinitely beautiful and perfect in all his ways, decide to sacrifice His Son as an act of love to save a people like us. These are the type of questions that should cause us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.
There is an old Christian children’s song that perfectly conveys this sense of wonderment at God’s work of salvation in our lives:
Why have You chosen me out of millions Your child to be?
You know all the wrongs that I've done
Oh, how could You pardon me, forgive my iniquities
To save me, give Jesus Your Son
But Lord, help me be what You want me to be
Your Word I will strive to obey
My life I now give, for You I will live
And walk by Your side all the way
But here is the interesting thing about working out this salvtion that God has worked in us. It’s a lot more practical than people make it out to be. Working out your salvtion doesn’t mean understanding all the doctriens of the Christian faith, that will come in time. It doesn’t even mean sacrificing everything in order to live for God. Again in time, God will let you know what you need to give up if you want to walk more closely with Him. Oftentimes, as Christians we neglect the simple acts of obedience thinking that it’s not a big deal but it actually is a much bigger deal than we realize.
The first thing that our passage mentions in terms of working out our salvation is to:
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,
I could probably make this another entirely new message but I wanted to make this point that we often neglect the basic matters of our faith, thinking that we are more mature than we really are. It may not even dawn on us that the greatest hindrance to us being the light of the world is our complaining and our in-fighting. Yet it makes all the sense in the world, doesn’t it. How many of you like people who complain and grumble all the time? How many of you like peolple who are contentious and argumentative? No one! But before you imagine that certain person in your mind, that person that really bugs you, we need to first direct our attention to ourselves. As Jesus reminds us, before we try to tak the speck out of our brother’s eye, let’s examine the log in our own.
No one likes to imagine themselves as being argumentative or being a complainer and we use all sorts of subversive tactics to hide what it really going on in our hearts. We share our complaining under the guise of:
Concern - I think we should pray for so and so and you spend 1 hour complaining about the person or situation and maybe 1 minute praying about it.
Constructive Criticism - Make sure that it builds up and doesn’t tear down
Collaboration (Collaboration doesnt’ mean sharing just your ideas but sharing in the work.)
Confidence - Be careful of gossip
Why is complaining especially in the church such an important matter. Besides diminishing the light that we shine to the world, it’s a grave sin against God. When Paul wrote these words to the Philippian church, he actually had in mind the example of the Israelites in the desert with Moses.
They have dealt corruptly with him;
they are no longer his children because they are blemished;
they are a crooked and twisted generation.
When you look at the example of the Israelites, you are able to see that the all of their sins against God started with grumbling and disputing.
Why did God bring us into the desert to die when we could have eaten leeks and chives in Egypt?
Why do have to eat this manna from heaven, why can’t we get some real food?
Why do we have to follow the leadership of Moses and Aaron, are we not able to hear from God ourselves?
And Moses said, “When the Lord gives you in the evening meat to eat and in the morning bread to the full, because the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him—what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord.”
Conclusion
Conclusion
Some of you may still not be convinced that you don’t have any faults in what you communicate and how it adds fuel to the fire of division and conflict in the church but no one is innocent of these things.
For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.
Unless you have neared sinless perfection, the appendage of your body that probably sins more times that you realize on a given day is your tongue. And this goes for pastors and deacons, CG leaders, new beleivers and those who have been walking with God for years. The taming of the tongue is probably one of the most accurate signs of a person’s maturity and points to the fact that they are trying to work out their salvation. A clear sign of someone’s immaturity is their inability to control their words. When gossip, anger, bitterness, and dissension come out freely from someone’s mouth, this is a clear sign there is something wrong spiritually.
I love the way Bishop Handly Moule describes this connection between our salvation and the hard work of living out that salvation.
“We have still in our ears the celestial music, infinitely sweet and full, of the great paragraph of the incarnation, the journey of the Lord of love from glory to glory by the way of the awful cross. May we not now give ourselves awhile wholly to reverie, and feast upon the divine poetry at our leisure? Not so; the immediate sequel is—that we are to be holy. We are to act in the light and wonder of so vast an act of love, in the wealth and resource of ‘so great salvation.’ We are to set spiritually to work.”
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,
yet he opened not his mouth;
like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,
and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,
so he opened not his mouth.