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As Josh mentioned in the pastoral prayer, our pastor, Tim Posey, is visiting family, some in-laws, and then visiting his grandchildren. So please keep Tim and Pam in prayer. My name is Mark Russell, and I am what you, the technical term is a candidate for gospel ministry. So that is my classification, which basically means I'm in a trial of testing under the supervision and shepherding of the session that is the elders, the leaders here at Spring Meadows. So it's a privilege to be able to preach the gospel to you this morning, which we will do so from the book of Philippians. So please, if you have your Bibles, turn to the book of Philippians. And it's still there, right in the middle of your New Testament. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. And I remember the great paradigm shift, how my life changed when someone told me General Electric Power Company. Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians. So you can't say you didn't get your money's worth today. All right, we are picking it up in chapter two, Philippians chapter two, verses 12 and 13. Philippians 2, verses 12 and 13. 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. That is the reading of God's holy inspired inerrant word. Thank you for giving it your full attention. And let's pray now that God by the Holy Spirit would take this word and work it into our hearts to be effectual for building up his people in holiness. Let's pray. Father, Son, Spirit, we know that your scripture bears witness to our salvation, and that the Holy Spirit takes what is true, that he takes the gospel truths and works them deep within us to prepare our minds for action, that we would be sober-minded as we listen to the preaching of the Word, and we pray that you would set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the final advent of Jesus Christ at his second coming. So today, would you just prepare us just incrementally just that much more for that day, and would you build within us a deep yearning to see our Savior return? We pray that the preaching would change us, that we would have a greater desire to mine out the riches of the salvation that you have won for us. Jesus, would you make this powerful by the ministering of your spirit who dwells among us this morning. Amen. Has anyone here ever used Airbnb to, I don't know, to do a vacation rental or if you're traveling out of town, you can stay in an Airbnb. And Airbnb is this business that bills itself as the world's largest hotel chain. And if you're not familiar with why that's the case, basically it is a software company that allows people to put up for lease, if you will, empty rooms that are in their house. So if you're not using a room that's in your house and you want to make a few nickels on the side, you can put it on this website and anyone who's coming into your city can experience the hospitality, your hospitality, as you lease your room out. Let me read to you the vacation rental from hell. Corrie Schoggle rented out her Palm Springs, California condominium through Airbnb. Her guests, as Airbnb refers to renters, had booked the property for 44 days, but they had only paid for 30 days by the time they checked in. After Airbnb notified Corey that it was unable to collect the balance due, she found out the hard way that under California law, the two men vacationing in her condo now had tenant rights. meaning she'd have to hire a lawyer to evict them. Compounding matters, while Corey attempted to get rid of the two men, they countered, how? By threatening to sue her for a variety of claims, including blackmail, damages caused by negligence and malicious misconduct, and medical bills after one of the men allegedly got sick from drinking unfiltered tap water at the condo. Her story made headlines, and thankfully, only a few months after it began, and due to the immense press coverage, media coverage of this event, the two renters moved out. And to Airbnb's credit, Corey said that they paid all of her out-of-pocket expenses, something she credits the media coverage to. Now what is the difference between that scenario and this scenario? A scenario where an enterprising couple is driving up and down neighborhoods and they identify a dilapidated Victorian home and they go, you know what? This thing has been neglected for such a long period of time, and it would be so great to live in that home. What if we just renovate it completely and fix it up so they secure the border so that no squatters can intrude into the house? Then what do you do? You replace the tile, repaint the walls, make sure all the light fixtures are in place. You crawl under the crawl space of the kitchen to rework the plumbing and make sure that house is working in tip-top shape. And then the last thing you do is remake the exterior and paint it. So what has just happened in the second scenario? This couple has redeemed this house. They purchased it back from the bank or whoever the lien holder was or the owners were. They purchased that house, fixed it up, in order to do what? to inhabit the house, to indwell the house. They redeemed the house in order to inhabit the house. Much different than a tenant, even a regular tenant, or a tenant who forcefully and illegally intrudes into someone else's house. And that is what we're actually talking about today is we're making the case that since God redeems his people and we see that through the history of the scripture since God redeems his people he inhabits his people and that has a changing a life changing consequence to it. And that takes a shape, it takes a form. We are both body and soul, which means that our trust, and we'll get to this in a few moments, that since everybody trusts something, the trust for the Christian takes the outward shape, what it looks like after God has redeemed and indwelt, it looks like obedience, it looks like an embodied trusting. And so looking at verse 13 is where I just discussed that illustration for it is God who works in you. You see the truth statement is in 13 and the command what we must do or observe is in verse 12. So before we get to the sermon proper I do want to make two Two interpretive observations, maybe three and hopefully these these are sort of just extra you can put these on the side Hopefully these will help you in your own reading of scripture, but there is something fundamentally true about about the letters of Paul is that Never will you find a bear command Do this do that? without also an accompaniment, and it could be chapters before, without also a truth statement that comes along with it, that attends to it. So if you read a command in the letters of Paul, ask yourself, because of what is true, am I able to do this? In other words, we distinguish between what is true and what is commanded. We distinguish them, but we never rent them apart. We never separate them. Just as you cannot divide Jesus Christ, just as you cannot chop him in half and take his humanity and his spirituality and go, oh, I'm only gonna take the spirituality side of Christ. I'm gonna forget the whole fact that I'm united in his flesh. Just as you cannot do that with Christ, you cannot do that with his word. You can't do that with his commands. So, Broadly speaking, in this verse, we see him backwards, right? We see a command, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And what do you see in your Bibles there? Do you see a period there? You see a comma. Command, comma, what is true? Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Why? For it is God who works in you to will and work for his good pleasure. So this is just a perfect case study of what a, You know, of what a snooty theologian would call the indicative imperative distinction. The second observation I want to make, the second interpretive observation I want to make is that we are reading the conclusion of an argument. How do we know that? There's a word that tips us off, the word therefore. that Paul, what we just got finished reading about earlier in the verses that come before it, is this cosmic scope on how the eternal Son of God became man, was ascended to heaven, was exalted, given the name above all names, the eternal Son of God, excuse me, became man, then was exalted, given the name above all names, and this Lord Jesus Christ is now our Lord, therefore. What do we do? Because that is true. So this is also the conclusion of a long Christological argument that Paul has been making. So if you have verse 12 memorized, also memorize verse 13. They go together. And understand that the letters here, especially the Pauline epistles, are written often as arguments. And so we should understand them as such. So taking our cues from the force of this passage, which is working out our salvation with fear and trembling, that is obedience. And we're going to take that in three, we're going to look at obedience from three angles. One, obedience as embodied trust. Obedience that minds not minds as in mind but mine as in like a minor northern Nevada mining gold mines the riches of salvation and obedience as taking its motivation by intimacy with the exalted Christ. Number one obedience as embodied trust. Therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed. Okay, they always obey. We know that the general tenor of the letter in Philippians is that Paul is calling them his beloved. That these are, if there was a church that would get Paul's commendation, it could be the church at Philippi. But this obedience is not a virtue in the Greco-Roman society. Obedience is not a virtue in our society today at large, O-B-E-Y. is a four-letter word, right? We hate. Obedience just grinds on our sensibilities as 18th century post-Enlightenment people, right? We've seen so much injustice, right? My secular friends point to the injustice of the church, or the injustice of organized religion, or the injustice of political regimes, and they say, obedience? Obedience is just obedience to blind authority. You know, I'm not going to give some sort of obedience to that. You know, we're morally autonomous, that my mind is free. I'm free to travel. My mind is free to think how it wants to think. My mind is not going to be enslaved like you Christians and blind to some blind faith of obedience. And I will credit, I will grant that great injustice has been done in the name of I think what many people might colloquially call institutional religion. But if you're lumping Christianity in with that, I would argue that you're not quite understanding the claims that Christianity is making. You see, in Judaism, obedience was a virtue. And why is it a virtue? If we go all the way back to Exodus chapter 9, we get this picture of God's people, his chosen people are where? They're not free. They're in slavery to Pharaoh. And then God comes to Moses and he gives Moses a distinct message. He says go to Pharaoh and tell them the following. Tell tell Pharaoh to let my people go. Why. So that they may come and serve me and worship me. So what's God's what's God's purpose there to redeem his people. so that they may worship him. Now how is worship possible. How is it possible to worship the exalted high God. Well, he'd have to indwell with them. He'd have to be near them. And so we see again, after the Israelites come out of slavery, that they build a big tent, and it's called the tabernacle, and it's where God dwelt. His glory, this bright shining flame and glory cloud, would sit on the tent and show the people of God that he's with them, that he dwells among them. And then they go into the promised land and after the monarchy is established David's son Solomon builds something better than a tabernacle better than a tent builds a big temple. Now it's a permanent structure. And then again the same scene the glory of the Lord comes on that temple signifying that God is dwelling with them and now finally the people of God can worship can worship God. And then the Assyrians come and the rest of the biblical narrative plays out, the temple is destroyed, completely sacked, and now we get the next 400 years, there's no temple. There's, who are we? Our identity is gone. Where is God among us? And then one day, A prophet in the middle of the desert who wears camel skin and locusts says, I'm making way for the Lord. And Jesus Christ comes on the scene and John calls him the tabernacle. That the word of God has become flesh and he has pitched his tent among us. God is back. and He is among us. And then what Paul just got done talking about in Philippians chapter 2, what we talked about last time, is then this Jesus, Emmanuel, God among us, is crucified, dies for the sins of his people, is exalted, and that is key because we as New Testament believers are united to the exalted Christ, which is better than being united to Christ pre-incarnate, just like the old covenant people. Why is that true? Because when Christ was ascended, that is when the Holy Spirit came to do what? To dwell among his people, to be with us. And this morning, that is true. That God is dwelling among us by his Holy Spirit. And so the imperative to obey is anything but coercive. It's anything but Do this or God's going to get you. It's listen to me. The God who has created everything and who has redeemed you is pleased to dwell among you. And here's what this looks like in the life of a believer. Here's what this looks like in the life of a Christian. And this is good news which is why the Philippian church has always obeyed and Paul commends them on their obedience. You see, everyone, the question is not whether we will obey or not. The Bible assumes all persons obey. The question is what authority are you going to obey? What salvation, what is going to bring you salvation? You know, the two biggest salvation stories that we hear today are, I mean, if you go to the Las Vegas Review Journal's website, and you read of a verdict that has come down in a court, all of the comments, especially if it was a particularly heinous crime, all the comments call for what? More punishment, more justice. If only we could tweak our society this much more, if only these people were in power, if only this law was passed, if only this social program was put in place, then we'd have salvation. If only these wrongdoers were really, really hammered down, then we would have salvation. We need more law and need more teeth. Or alternatively, a salvation story that goes like this, no, I need to save myself. I need to eat the right things, believe the right things, say the right things, buy whatever media is telling me I need to buy so that I can be totally unique, just like two million other people who have bought the exact same sort of clothes. And then I will finally be able to save myself. You know, maybe what it looks like in our day-to-day life is, if I only obey the demands that my job is putting on me, the amount of time and hours and what I'm asked to do, if only I will obey those, then finally I'll be able to rest and I'll have salvation. If only I obey or acquire a new sexual identity, then will I have salvation. Well, what you're really obeying would be the cultural norms of telling you, dictating you what that actually looks like in a North American context. If only I obey my children so that they're happy with me, then I'll finally have rest. If only I get this amount of education or acquire this new skill or this new training, well... What you're really obeying there are now the institutional authorities, the educational authorities that will become your new masters. You see, it's impossible to not obey something. But you see, in all of those relationships I just talked about, what do they all have in common? They all have in common that you have to obey first in order to get salvation. But what is so utterly distinct about the Christian gospel is that you have been given salvation. We're not holding out a promise and until you obey then you'll get delivered from slavery. You have been delivered from slavery redeemed. Therefore you have been delivered from slavery. You've been saved. You've been redeemed. And now here's what this looks like is new life in Christ. You see don't get it backwards. I would argue that if you're lumping Christianity in with all of these other systems you're getting you might be getting it backwards. And since we just said that Christ did not come as a ghost but he incarnated he became a man just like any of us are human that Christ was in his full humanity and that Christ himself obeyed and learned obedience. And since we are united to that exalted Christ we too are we to share in his same calling. The second point is that obedience mines the riches of salvation. We read, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Work out your own salvation. Now again, just the grammatical way that this is laid out, it's already implied what? That salvation has already been given. You see, Nevada is a, it's a big gold mining state. I know we're called the silver state, but I think Nevada's, Nevada produces, in 2013, Nevada produced 75% of all the gold that was the entire production of the United States. Pretty impressive. That's $9 billion worth of gold. Now what if I told you this? What if I told you, listen, you know this is true and I happen to own a gold mine. You know, I'm going to give it to you. You now own a gold mine, but I mean the gold is not laying on the ground, you just can't go and pick it up, it's in the mine. You know, you didn't have to do anything to deserve this, this is completely free to you. So here, here's a gold mine, but now it's up to you to go work it out. Now what's the incentive to go work gold out of a gold mine? When does a mining operation become functional? Well, the owners of the mining operation look to the market and see, okay, well, how much can I sell an ounce of gold for? And if gold is doing really well, then maybe if we were shut down for a period of time, we'll boot the mining operation back up, mine the gold out, and sell it on the open market. You see, it's incredibly valuable, gold is. Now, if that were true, that would be a great thing in this life. But what if I were to tell you that the salvation that you have in Christ is a far more infinite value than all the gold that I could possibly give you, than any gold mine in the state of Nevada that I could possibly give you. And so therefore you've been given such a great salvation. So why would we do anything else other than work out our own salvation? Already in the book of Philippians, what have we learned about our salvation? We've learned that Christ will, he's working to complete us in the day of Christ. That all love, all knowledge, all discernment is yours in your salvation. that the fruit of righteousness is yours, that you belong to a heavenly citizenship, that selfish ambition and conceit in the life of the believer have been totally turned on their head and we are curved outward, equipped by the ministering power of the Holy Spirit, curved outward to give mercy and hospitality to others. And this sounds pretty good. Sounds like a pretty good salvation. But it's a salvation that must be worked out. And where is this salvation often worked out? It's often worked out in the mundane things. You know, very rarely, I think, in our lives are there those three or four decisions that, you know. will dictate how the rest of our lives go, but rather it's the millions of decisions that we unconsciously subsidiarily make day to day that actually determine, well, in a secondary sense, the fact that God is sovereign, but determine what our lives end up looking like. This salvation is worked out in the mundane. What does it mean when a coworker crosses you at work And the Holy Spirit says, listen, according to the riches of Christ, you are free from condemnation and free from all guilt and sin, and that you stand totally righteous before the judge who sits on the throne of the world. What does it look like to work out that salvation in that situation? You're free from guilt of sin you are not condemned by God. What's it look like in our day to day course of activities to know that death is not what I'm working towards that death as a tyrant has been defeated at the cross and that Christ has swallowed up and gobbled up death. And I know that this life is a dress rehearsal for eternity and that what we do and that what I do in this Christian life does in some respect mysteriously impact eternity. What does that gospel look like in our day to day mundane lives? Not only are we to work out the salvation of fear and trembling, but Paul also prescribes a manner in which we work out this salvation with fear and trembling, or this salvation, and it is with fear and trembling. Now, here's what he does not mean. Here's the fear that Paul is not talking about. Two middle school students fall madly in love, and they start texting, and the boy decides, you know what? I just got a text, I'm gonna wait two days. Just to wait. Why? Keep her in fear, trembling. Maybe I'm not interested, maybe I am. See that awful fear, trembling. Or maybe it's the husband who once a month, the marriage has seen better days, but it's the husband who once a month just goes, you know what, listen, divorce is always an option. See, fear, trembling. It's the servile fear, you know, the kind of fear that marks a child when their father gets home and the child is cowering with his hands over his head, not knowing, am I really a member of this family? Do I really belong here? That is not the fear and trembling that is being described here. This is a fear and trembling that belongs distinctly to who? Verse 12, my beloved. To who? Verse 14, the blameless and innocent children of God. This is a fear and trembling that marks a people who understand that the God who we serve is the God we read about in verses 10 and 11, that Jesus Christ has been given the name above all names, and that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that this Jesus Christ is Lord, and He has intimately indwelt you and given you salvation. Now, what is your response to that? Fear and trembling. In Psalm 2 is one of the several places in the Old Testament where we see this fear and trembling. And this is written to the kings of the earth written chiefly primarily with David in view. We know who the greater king is though. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the sun lest he be angry with you and perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled. The psalm doesn't end there but it ends with a blessing. Blessed are those who take refuge in him. It should really sober us up before coming to morning worship, doesn't it? That this God, who is mighty and powerful, desires to be close to us, and he is close to us, both individually with the indwelling spirit and corporately as God's people assemble. Hallelujah. The third point, obedience is motivated. in this text by intimacy with the exalted Christ. Intimacy and autonomy have an inverse relationship. What I mean by that is that it becomes increasingly difficult to exert your autonomy in a relationship with someone else and still expect to be able to maintain intimacy. Let me read to you a wedding vow I found. I'm sorry, I'm having a... Problem finding it. This is part of a marriage vow that, anyway. I pledge to support you and protect your freedom because although our lives are intertwined, your choices are still yours alone. Now, I appreciate the sentiment there, right? Personal freedom. But what is absolutely not true that our choices only affect ourselves? If you are in any sort of relationship with anyone else, your choices necessarily affect someone else. And isn't it true that the closer you grow to someone, it could be a friend, it could be your spouse, it could be your parents, the closer you grow to someone, the more sensitive you become to their needs and desires, and therefore intimacy increases, and you gain a whole new type of freedom, a whole new type of freedom opens up that was closed off to you before, a freedom to serve this person, you want to be with them, there's something great about being in their presence. A freedom to serve someone besides yourself. And this is not a coercive freedom. It's a freedom that comes from a positive desire to serve someone else. How much more for a Christian who has been intimately united and indwelt with Christ. Verse 13, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And so there are two wrong ways to understand this, that it's a partnership where I do my part and then God does his part and it works out, we're 50-50 partners, or Christ is a 99% shareholder in my life, but I'm a 1% shareholder in my life, I made the original decision for Christ, so that gives me some leverage. It's not like that, it's not a partnership. Neither is it like this. Well, the Bible says God is going to work in me So, I guess I can go sit in my Lazy Boy and drink a Frappuccino and open myself up passively to the Spirit and He will somehow work in me. It doesn't work like that either. How does it work is a mystery. What is true according to the scriptures is that God works in you and we work as well. Not to gain justification, not to gain any positive recommendation of God as if we could be saved by our own merit, but as the shape that the Christian life takes, shape of obedience. Not to get, but in light of what we have been given because we have been redeemed. Also, what Greg Beal says, he also says something along these lines, which I'll adopt, adapt a little bit. The grout in my kitchen counter needs cleaning, and I'm well aware that it needs cleaning. But cleaning grout is hard work. You know, I started off with a really, really rough, what do they call it, the pads of, Brillo pads, thank you. Brillo pads, you know, really scraping those down. It's clean and then the next morning they get dirty again. Oh, well, maybe this idea will work. Maybe if I do it in sections each morning, then if I do that over a long enough period of time, maybe then I'll just sort of reach a nirvana where the ground is clean and it never needs to be touched again. But no, I went on YouTube and what do you, I mean, right? I don't know, what, you can, you know, it's, maybe YouTube will solve all my problems. How to clean tile grout, you know, without work. And then, of course, some ingenious guy went to Harbor Freight and built a tool that you put on a specialized belt, and oh man, if I could, one day I will build that tool. And just the way he was cleaning, and his grout was way worse than mine, and it was floor grout. See, what's the point? Like, he has a tool that is custom made to clean grout equipped to go and clean grout in his kitchen. I don't have that tool, so I'm just like dragging my feet. Man, I can't go clean the grout. But you see, here's what is true, is that God in Christ Jesus promises that we will finish the race. That is guaranteed. There is no Christian who is called by the Lord Jesus Christ and who will not finish the race, and that is what Paul alludes to But what else does Paul says? He says, run in such a way that you will win the race. Now that is a mystery, how that works. But what I am telling you is that the benefits that are yours in salvation allow us to run the race, that allow us to understand that it is God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And isn't that just the thing that bugs us the most? Is that it's not for our pleasure, it's not for our purposes, but it's for God's pleasure. In Bologna, Italy, there are many, many towers in the 13th century. In the 13th century, there's a lot of, there's a lot of sort of mythos behind a lot of these towers, but one working hypothesis is that a lot of the wealthy landed people in Italy would build these towers, some of which have more than 500 steps to, or almost 500 steps to reach the top, build these huge towers in order to, well, basically showcase that I can build a tower. And we do that today, right? I'm gonna put this blog out there, build my own tower. I'm gonna leave a legacy in my business, building a tower. I'm going to build a tower with my family. I'm gonna build a tower with my church, with my ministry. I'm going to build a tower just like those guys in Shinar who wanted to build a tower for their own sake to go reach God. And that indicates to us something very interesting, and that is that no matter what you say, humans act, we all act as if we have been given a purpose. But the truth of the matter is, is that if you are in Christ, God is willing and working in you, not for your own purpose, but his purpose. And Christ is also on a building project. That the building project of Christ is that he is building together a holy people, a people that he will one day present clean and spotless as a bride to his father. Paul, in 1 Peter, we read that in Christ the whole building is joined together and rises and becomes a holy temple in the Lord. In Him, you are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives. Did you hear that? In which God lives by His Spirit. See, it doesn't say we're built already. Hopefully that's obvious enough, but we are being built, and that God is dwelling in us, but one day the building project will come to an end, and Christ will present us as a completely built-up city of God in whom he will dwell, where the Lamb will be the light, and Christ will be the light for us. You have been given a truly great salvation. And by trusting in Christ, you're forgiven, accepted, justified, united to Christ, and all the benefits from Christ flow to you. And these are the benefits that we can mine out in the salvation that has been given to us as God works alongside us. Let's pray. Our Father, we have been reminded this morning of the great salvation that you have worked, the mighty and awful salvation of overthrowing, of overthrowing the tyrants, of overthrowing the sin that so easily has entangled our heart. All that which we desire to worship besides Christ, all of the false idols in our life, you have overthrown those. You have granted us free access by the blood, by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. and that this is a great salvation. You have redeemed us and now indwell us. And so we pray that this week you would equip us as we go back to our homes as we go back to our workplaces. As we wherever we find ourselves here in Las Vegas that there is a reality of a new presence in our lives that is true. That is the Holy Spirit who is working as we work and that is so encouraging to our hearts. Lord thank you that that is true. Jesus thank you for earning and winning the presence of your Holy Spirit for us. I pray that we would not neglect a salvation so great. Thank you. Amen.
God Redeems in Order to Inhabit
설교 아이디( ID) | 14181612112 |
기간 | 37:30 |
날짜 | |
카테고리 | 일요일-오전 |
성경 본문 | 빌립보서 2:12-13 |
언어 | 영어 |