If you'll please stand for the reading of God's word. Our sermon text this evening comes from Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2, towards the back of your Bible. The sermon tonight is going to be coming from verses 12 through 13, but I'm going to read it in the context before, starting in verse 5. So we're going to read together, or I will read, verses 5 through 13. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant. Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 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. We pray. We ask, Lord, that you would be with us tonight. May the preaching and the reading of your word change us. May we be encouraged by what you have done and may we work hard for your glory, we pray in Christ's name, amen. You may be seated. When you think about Christian growth, maturing in the Christian life, do you have a tendency to think of it slightly more like floating down a nice lazy river? Or do you tend to think about it a bit more like paddling through whitewater rapids all by yourself? You think about the lazy river, it's relaxing, it's nice, you kick back. There's a gentle flow, nothing's too bumpy, you don't do much, you just sit back, you relax, you enjoy the ride, because why? It's all taken care of. The river is going to be moving whether or not you're doing anything at all. What this would look like in the Christian life is God's got it. Things are handled. The Lord is going to do His will. I can let my guard down a little bit. I can let the shield drop slightly because God's got things handled for me. Or, Whitewater Rapids would be, okay, I'm in the raft, I got one paddle, I can hear the rumbling, I can see the foam, the waters are bubbling, I can see the rocks ahead, and I must, I must, I must get past this. And I need to paddle very, very hard. Why? Because there's no one in sight. No one's gonna throw me a line. No one's gonna come and swim to the boat and push me through the rapids. It's me, and it's just me. We often, in some way, shape, or form, have a tendency to kind of bounce between one or the other when we think about maturity and growth in the Christian life. Sometimes we think, I need to paddle, paddle, paddle, but then other times we think, I can relax. Where's my water cup? Where's the straw, right? There it is. And so think through, before we get into the text, really, maybe this week, what's been your tendency, if you can even feel and understand what it might have been. What's been your way of thinking lately? The text tonight really is saying something very simple. You cannot outwork God in your own growth. You cannot outwork God in your own growth. So we have two very simple points. You work, God works. I know I didn't provide an outline earlier in the week, so that'll be in the back of this page if you're gonna write it out. You work, point number one, point number two, God works. We've come from kind of the heights, really, in Philippians. At the beginning of chapter two, he said, okay, brothers, sisters, unity, singularity of mindset, shared vision, goal, values. You are one body. Therefore, to be one faithfully, count the people next to you as more significant than yourselves. Humble yourself and see that they are higher and greater. That's how you will be one faithfully as a church. And then he shifts then, Paul says, as the example. Who is really the model of what I've just commanded? He says it's Christ himself. The one who really was, as we discussed last week. In the absolute heights, you don't get greater, you don't get more majestic, you don't get more honor than God himself ruling on his throne. And yet, he humbles himself. He becomes low, all the way to the very bottom. Not just becoming a human being, but like a slave, not just like a slave, but dying, and not just dying, as we heard this morning, dying a shameful, disgraceful death on the cross. And yet, when Christ does that, God raised him up, highly exalted him. And so now Paul is shifting gears, moving within the epistle to the next section to say, therefore, in light of all that, here's what's gonna happen. So point number one, you must work. The first part of verse 12 reads, therefore my beloved, As you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but how much more in my absence. And he's gonna say, work out your own salvation. So Paul then shifts from Christ's obedience to humbling himself to death to say, and so now therefore you, as you always have, I need you to keep obeying. And Paul is explaining this because This language of presence and absence goes back to chapter one. If you remember in the beginning, I should say towards the end of chapter one, Paul was saying, I don't know what's gonna happen. I could die, but I have joy. I can rejoice while being in prison and having execution looming over me because I know I will be rescued. And so what Paul is saying here is whether I come back to help you and serve you like I hope I can because you need it, or whether I really truly die and I'm executed and can never return, I want you to obey my beloved. And Paul's fatherly heart is really coming out here. You can see it again. He truly cares for these people. He wants the church to do its best, just like any parent, right? Any parent always is hoping that their children will thrive and do incredibly well, even when the parents are no longer in their life. When the child first gets a car, the parent is really, really hoping, I'm assuming, that the child is going to do great, because they can now go wherever they want, whenever they want. Or the classic example of when the parent has to leave for a period of time, maybe two days, three days, a week, the test is, what is the house going to look like when I get back? What will have taken place when I was gone from the kingdom? And Paul is saying, when I'm gone, and if I'm never able to come back, I want you to do great. I want you to obey and do well. The ground for this is again with the therefore pointing, the beginning of verse 12, therefore is pointing back to Christ's work. He's saying, because Christ obeyed, because he was obedient even all the way to death, sisters, brothers, continue to obey as you always have. But then he moves on to the good part. Second half of verse 12. I'll read the whole thing again. Therefore, my beloved, as always, you have obeyed. So now not only my presence, but much more my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. What a line. This whole idea of working something out. Paul's using the idea of a process. Something that is not a single time event, but something that is a continuous, ongoing thing that's taking place in the life of these Christians. The question is though, what's going on here? That sounds slightly interesting to a Bible reader's ears. Work out your own salvation? What is he saying? I think a helpful place is to really start biblically, what is Paul not saying? Read with me, turn with me to Galatians 2.16. Galatians 2.16 should only be four, five, six pages over from Philippians. The reason I'm taking you to Galatians 2.16 is because I think the single greatest temptation of a Bible reader when they read those words, work out your own salvation, is to possibly think that Paul is talking about your actual justification. That somehow Paul is telling them to contribute, play into, be a part of God rescuing you from your sins. One could maybe think that if they just read this verse and did not read the rest of the Bible. But one could never, ever, ever think that if they read Galatians 2.16. Paul says in 2.16, read with me, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. Because by works of the law, no one will be justified. Same author, writing to a different church, makes it very, very clear what Paul is not saying contribute to why God loves you. Make sure you work really, really hard so that God saves you. We can completely rule that out. Paul says, no way, that would never happen. Doesn't matter how much you've provided, doesn't matter how many good things you've done for the church, doesn't matter how much you love your family well, None of those things will ever be a part of why God has declared you righteous. That cannot be the case. The reason why for that, as we read especially in the book of Galatians, is because what is God's standard? Perfection. God is holy. God is perfect. Infinite majesty and glory. And so God says, to dwell with me forever. to come and be in my kingdom forever, to enjoy all that I have, namely enjoying me forever. You have to be like me in this way, ethically perfect, morally pure, and a sinful human beings from birth. That's ruled out. There's no room for any of us to do that, to work out that sort of rescue. We need someone far greater and far better. We need to have faith in the perfect one that Paul points us to in Galatians chapter two. Jesus Christ himself is the only one who was perfect. And it's by trusting and resting in his perfection that we are rescued. So if it's not about our being rescued by God, being saved by God, being declared righteous and holy by God, what is it? I think the next question to really work through is, what does Paul mean by salvation? Again, he says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. So there are some brilliant New Testament scholars who have different opinions on this. And one of them says is that by salvation, that word there can sometimes mean kind of social health and unity. And so what Paul is saying here actually really fits many of the themes he's been talking about, talking about unity, talking about loving one another faithfully. And so he's saying, this author would say, Paul is asking the church to be one in a new way, using different language. And again, he says the plural, yourselves, work out your own salvation yourselves, so it's a corporate idea. But there's a couple, I think, pushbacks on reading it that way. For instance, this word for salvation in all of Paul's 13 epistles, every single time It never means social unity, never means social health. It really is always talking about some sort of final rescue, like Paul uses of himself in verse 19 of chapter one. That final rescue to go to heaven and be with God. And secondly, using this idea of yourselves as a corporate thing, which is true, he does say, work out your own salvation, plural. He does say that in other ways too in the epistle. He says, count each other as more significant than yourself, plural as well. And so what I think here is Paul is talking about salvation big picture. Now when we think about salvation, again, justification is usually what comes to mind. But salvation encompasses far more than just being declared righteous in God's sight, doesn't it? I would say your glorification, being raised from the dead, that's part of your salvation. Being with God forever in heaven, that's part of your salvation. Being adopted into God's family, is that part of your salvation? Absolutely. And so as we think through the different aspects of salvation, and in particular as we look at verse 12 again, when Paul says obey, obey, obey, what part of salvation does it sound like Paul's talking about? I think he's talking about our sanctification. That part of salvation where we are called to obey, where we are called to put sins to death, where we are called to walk in righteousness, that is what Paul is talking about. I was reading Calvin on this, and of course Calvin is always wonderful, and he says, Paul here is calling the church to act suitably in light of the calling that God has given them. to act appropriately, fittingly, to work hard in light of the rescue, the justification that they have experienced, to walk rightly as faithful Christians, to live it out. The Westminster Shorter Catechism talks about sanctification in a way that really fits this passage incredibly well. The catechism says that sanctification is an act of God's free grace whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God to more and more live unto righteousness and to die unto sin. And that's really what Paul is talking about here. It is an act of God's free grace, and yet we put sin to death and we put on Christ at the same time. As we heard in our Sunday school this morning, Paul is telling them to become who you are. Think of it this way, if somebody in the Musk family, the Bezos family, Whoever inherited billions and billions and billions of dollars, they didn't yet have the money. They weren't able to spend all of it or write the checks, but they knew it was theirs. They knew it belonged to them. They just couldn't quite tap into its fullness yet. It would affect, it should affect, how they think, how they act, the way they speak, how they think about the future, how they treat other people. It should permeate the whole of who they are. And that's, in essence, what Paul is saying. And the manner of this working out their salvation, walking rightly in the gift that God has given them, is to do so with fear and trembling. Now, is Paul saying, be afraid that God's gonna change his mind? Is he saying, be afraid that God's gonna judge you? Is he saying God's gonna maybe send you to hell if you're not careful? By no means, again. If we have been found in Christ and we're righteous, that cannot happen. Christ has atoned, he has paid for our sins. What he is saying though, is we should take this gift incredibly seriously. just like the heir to the Musk estate should take that inheritance incredibly seriously. Paul is saying, with fear and trembling, know the responsibility, know the greatness of the task that has been laid at your feet, but also remember the glory of the gift that you have now received. The point is, Paul is pushing them to not turn off He's pushing them to not embrace the lazy river mentality, to not get drowsy, to not kick back, to not just relax. They can relax in the way that God has rescued them. They can be assured that they're saved and justified. But he says work hard, be diligent, be earnest in what God has given you and the task at hand. as I was thinking through maybe signs, markers of whether we're on the lazy river track. These are some of the things I was thinking of. Sometimes we begin to shift of thinking about the scriptures, not as much as the absolute word of life that I need every single day or I'm gonna starve. We begin to think of it as something that's pretty helpful, but it's not the utter necessity of existence. We begin to slowly want more and more comfort here and now. We begin to daydream and think slowly about things just if they could just be easier, if they could just be more simple. We begin to look at films or shows as a way to drift and escape rather than as a gift and looking at what God has given the creativity of humanity. We begin to be rash with our words rather than wise. We begin to dream and think about getting back to our hobby rather than our callings. It always, it does affect our prayers. The lazy river is a temptation, it always is. But Paul is saying no, work out, work hard, be diligent. So, The question then is, is the working all you're working? Let's see, the catechism did say an act of God's free grace. Point number two, God is working, verse 13. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Now Paul is doing a great kind of play on words here. The word for work out your salvation, and then he says God is the one who works, and he says to work and to will. Paul is kind of paralleling all of these words to show there's something very mysterious happening here. Paul is saying you need to work, but God is the one who works. And how exactly that works, we don't know. One of the best images of God as a master workman in scripture is the very beginning. You think about creation. We work six days a week and we rest on the seventh. Praise the Lord, we're here again that we're healthy and we're here resting together. But in many ways, Genesis 1 is showing that God is the master workman. That he can speak everything into existence from nothing. And then once he speaks things into existence like light or land, then he begins to shape, he begins to form, he begins to take things that are messy and unrelated and make them organized and beautiful and amazing. And so too, with you and with me, Romans 4.11 talks about God speaking into existence the things that were not there, when he talks about our salvation. That you didn't have a heart. And then he spoke truth, he preached the gospel to you, and he created a new heart in you. And this is the same God who doesn't just speak all things from nothing, making you a Christian when you were spiritually dead. but then he's the workman. He begins to organize, he begins to shape, he begins to toil and twist and turn to make you a beautiful image like Christ himself. This is the workman that Paul is describing. And it's interesting here, because typically, Paul will say what has happened first, and then give the command. And in many ways, he's done that, talking about Christ humbling himself, his obedience, and then from there, shifting to say, obey, work hard. But in this little phrase, it's really the sense of, he gives the command first, and he says, work out your salvation, and then he says, because God is the one who works. The reality that undergirds, the grounding for our working hard comes after. in the second sentence. But is this new in the epistle to the Philippians? Not at all. Think back to chapter one, verse six. Look there. It should be on the next page. Chapter one, verse six. What does he say? And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. I mean, that is just really encouraging. How many times has it been that you really deeply want to grow in something? I mean, you are just trying with all of your might to conquer and overcome something. And yet again, you fail. And again, you make the mistake. And again, you slip. And you think to yourself, I am working, I am trying, I am working out salvation. And it's not happening. But then Paul says, it's not all you. You're not just down the rapids in just your paddle. Keep working hard, yes, but the Lord is the one who is changing you. The Lord is the one who will finally bring the sanctification that you need. But on the flip side, there are moments of growth that we're surprised at, or they're not. There are times where you realize that you have overcome something in your life And you think, I wasn't working hard at that in the way that I think I would have. I was listening to a YouTube video a few years ago. And this kind of guru guy was talking about people groups and organizations and things like that. And he said, it's often the case that when people are trying to build an organization, they're thinking about growing it like a machine. They're aiming for incremental growth, slow, steady process, slowly building up, up, up, like building a building. He said, but that's not how organizations grow. Organizations rather grow like a body. If you look at your child, what do they do? They eat, they sleep, they eat, they sleep, they eat, they sleep, and sometimes they don't change at all. And then sometimes in a matter of two weeks, they sprout up like three inches. You're just like, how did that happen? Nothing, we do, everything's the same here. And it's just explosive from nothing. And in the same way, as we as Christians, as we work hard, as we toil to know the Savior more, to obey his law with all of our heart more and more, it can seem like, Lord, I am eating, I am sleeping, and I haven't grown a centimeter. What is happening? And yet in his good timing, in his infinite wisdom, sometimes he says, okay, Now's the time. And you just blew. But it's both. It's work hard and trust in the great workman. He then says, it's not only God who works, but it's God who works both to will and to work for his good pleasure. The beauty is he is the one who gives you the ability. He is the one who enables you to work out the salvation. He is the one who gives you the power to actually obey His law. And not just in action. He's the one who gives you the power to want to. The desire to actually be like Jesus. To love your neighbor. To be generous, to care for the people next to you, to shut your mouth when you know you need to and you wanna speak. He is the one who helps you to do these things. To will and to obey, and it's for what? It's for his good pleasure. God loves to watch you become like Jesus. Do you remember that? God loves to see you thrive and obey. He wants to see you become mature, to count others as more significant. It's for his great pleasure. He delights in it. He delights when we are unified. He delights when we serve one another. He delights when we bear each other's burdens. It brings him incredible joy. And he is the worker that is constantly working towards this. Pastor Eric was discussing the sermon with me and he was saying, just think about your kids. How much do you love to see your kids get along? when you're not in the room and all the toys, the favorite toys are there, with my kid's age, and they're sharing. They're not trying to yank it from each other. They're faithfully, lovingly sharing. It brings you great delight. But when they're fighting, they're trying to rip it out of each other's hands, that is not the pleasure. But part of God's sanctification, isn't it? There's often two growth stunts we can think about here. The Lazy River and the Whitewater Rapids are sort of two ditches that we can fall into. The extreme of the Lazy River is God doesn't want it, so it hasn't happened. I'm still addicted because God hasn't freed me, so I'm just going to keep in this until God is the one who rescues me. God hasn't allowed me to stop being bitter at this former friend or this former family member, so I'm just gonna keep being bitter. I'm gonna try, but I'm not gonna try that hard because he hasn't freed me or rescued me yet. I can be okay with when I make mistakes and foolish because God hasn't been the one to rescue me from my own folly. In many ways, as Christians, that's a really extreme example, but it's kind of mirroring the way that the world thinks about things themselves, isn't it? The world often will say, it's not your fault. The little idiosyncrasies you have, it's just genetics. The mistakes you make, it's just your childhood upbringing. It's just society, it's just the way that you've been shaped. There's nothing that you can really control, so just kick back, relax, let it flow, and don't worry. Again, that's an extreme, but there's a tendency of the human heart to slowly be a part of that, just in a sort of divine Christian way. I've even found myself thinking at certain points in life, the people that seek growth, the people that are always trying to grow, those are those moral Christians. Those are those Christians over there that I just, you know, they're always trying to grow and I just get annoyed by the way they talk about it. Something we have to be careful of. But the other ditch, the Whitewater Rapids, is the I have to. I have to be the one to be more patient. I have to make it happen. I have to be more thoughtful. And I need to get in my brain and figure out every way possible to be more thoughtful or else everything is lost. I'm not maybe I'm not a Christian, because I'm not caring for others in the way that I need to. And whether we realize it or not, that's kind of falling into the way that people in the world think about that they can reshape themselves, that they can change themselves, that they can reinvent themselves, that they can have a next new me. And for those of us who fall into that, we think, okay, I'm not gonna be like those lazy people that always say God's gonna take care of it. I need to make it happen, because I know if I don't make it happen, it will never happen. The truth is, friends, Sanctification is at the same time an act of God's free grace. He is the master workman. It's something passive in a sense, but it's also putting on and putting off. It's also working hard at your salvation in the sense of sanctification. It's also trusting and obeying, not just resting. There are always two workers. But like I said in the beginning, who's working harder? God will always outwork you for your own growth. No one wants you to be more mature, more faithful, more loving, more like Jesus than God himself. And he is working endlessly, day and night, in ways that we will never see to make that happen. And yet he says, work with me. So what if you have worked really hard and you think, Lord, why am I not growing? Why am I not changing? Why is there not a shift? Why hasn't it even been a single centimeter yet? I think the thing to do if we're found in that place is to run in two very clear lanes, two very clear things that God has commanded us to do. One, to look to the Savior. to look to the perfect one, to look to the sinless holy one and trust him yet again, and two, to obey in the simple ways that we can. Even if you are failing in one particular way, there's so many other ways that we can still be faithful and wait for God to grow us in this. And so when you pray, Lord, I am begging you, I need to change, help me. Rest in the Savior, trust in what Christ has done, knowing that he has been perfect where you have failed, and keep doing things like you're doing tonight. Right now, sitting in your chair, you are being obedient to God. You have come to hear his call to worship. You have come to sing praises to him. You have come to pray to the infinite God. You have come to sit under the ministry of the word and partake of the means of grace. That is such a perfect place to begin if you're challenged with not being able to grow. Meditating on the word, like we heard this morning, to find more joy and be more hopeful. It's the clear, simple things that God calls us to do, and then we wait. He will bring the growth spurt. And if it's even not in this life in the way that we hope, after we die, that's the biggest growth spurt you will ever experience, won't it be? Immediately shot, skyrocketed into glory. Brothers and sisters, may we remember, God does not love us because we obey. He doesn't love us less when we fail to obey. He doesn't love us more when we obey more. He loves us infinitely more than we can ever know because like the Galatians 2 passage, it's not by works of the law. It's by faith in Christ the Savior, being united to Christ the Savior. It's actually being connected to the master worker that the worker himself loves us. You can never be loved more. You can never be loved less because you are loved as much as God loves himself. Now that is mind boggling. Christ is our holiness. He then sends his spirit to make us holy and he's our holiness to set us free, to make us like himself and conform us into his own beautiful portrait. May we rest and trust in him as he does so. So what is your tendency tonight? Is it the lazy river? Is it the Whitewater Rapids? Christ makes you holy, he enables the work, and he is working harder than you will ever work for you to be like himself. You cannot outwork God. But yet he says, work in fear and trembling. May we rest and yet beg, may we trust and yet toil and labor fiercely, amen. Let's pray. Lord, how good it is that we can rest. That we can trust that we cannot be condemned. That no matter what happens in this life, we have an inheritance coming that is far greater than any single individual will ever experience in this life. No matter what takes place, Your kingdom will be ours. We will reign with you on the throne. We will partake of the tree of life. We will live in a world without curse, beholding you. And there will be nothing greater than knowing you, just talking with you, being loved by you, being encouraged by you, speaking with you, asking you questions, trusting you, delighting in you, Lord. May we look forward to that day. May it drive us deeper now into your word. And again, may it stretch us in this moment further and further into the world to come in our hearts. May we work hard because the day is coming, but may we rest hard because you work far harder than we ever could. Holy Spirit, only you can do such work as this. And so we ask and beg and rest in the fact that you will do so. Amen.