Philippians 2, beginning in verse 1, will especially be focused in this morning on verses 12-18. Listen closely to God's Word. Therefore, if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit. In lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, did not consider a robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation. taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore, God also has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, 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. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the Word of Life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain or labored in vain. Yes, And if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. For the same reason, you also be glad and rejoice with me. I remember quite vividly, and I'm quite certain I was under the age of 10, the first Saturday when my dad said to me at breakfast, eat a big breakfast because we have a lot of work to get done today and we will not stop for a lunch break. I looked at him and said, excuse me? We're not going to stop for lunch. What do you mean by that? Well, we'll just work right through and stop in time for supper. We have a lot to get done. And I ate up and we worked that day. And that was one of the first, I'd certainly worked with my dad before, one of the times that stands out in my memory of working with dad. At least in my family, and I think my kids would attest to this, when you work with dad, there are certain ways that things get done. There are certain rules about how we work. There are certain methods that are used. When you work with dad, at least for me working with my dad, I did not set the hours. My dad set the hours. I did not decide when it was a good time for a break. My dad decided when it was a good time for a break. I did not get to decide what my job assignments would be. or how we would go about doing a particular task. My job was assigned to me, and I went about doing that task in the way that I was instructed to do it. In working with my dad, I also did not get to choose the music that played on the radio. And my dad happened to like 1310 AM, The Music of Your Life, which was a station that played the greatest hits of the 20s, 30s, and 40s. Music that the titulars are barely old enough to remember. Well, the point is that when I worked with Dad, it was done Dad's way. And Paul here this morning, is calling the church at Philippi to recognize that God is at work in them and with them. And consequently, the work will be done not according to their plan, not according to their time frame, not according to their blueprint and the ways that they would like it done. But that because God is at work within them that they need to work and to submit to his plan for the work that he is calling them to. And so they're called here to follow his pattern that he is working out in them. Now, why is this reminder necessary for the church in Philippi? Why is this reminder necessary for us? Well, it's an important reminder for us because we naturally are lazy. We naturally don't want to work. We naturally want to push off our work on someone else so that we can have time off. It's also necessary because often We don't particularly like the way that God is working in us and the things that God is calling us to. These are difficult things. And so we need the reminder that God is sovereign, that His plan is the good plan, and that we need to submit to that plan without complaining, without arguing about it. It's also an important reminder for us because we very easily lose sight of the goal. It's easy for us in the midst of the difficulties of this life to forget what it is that God is doing in us. Why would God lead me through these difficult times? Why would God not make my life easy in this particular way? And remember, all of this, verses 12-18, is under the backdrop. It's all set up by the therefore of verse 12, pointing back to what? Pointing back to the experience of Jesus Christ. So Paul is making the argument here, if this was true of Jesus Christ, if it is true for Christ that humiliation preceded exaltation. If it is true that in order to please the Father that he had to humble himself and become obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Then as sons and daughters of God, as followers of Christ, as those who have been given the mind of Christ, We ought to expect the same pattern of humiliation preceding exaltation to take place in our lives and therefore see that this is what God is working in us. So Paul begins by reminding them in verses 12 and 13. First of all, you need to know that just because Father is working doesn't mean that you get the day off. My dad was or is still involved in education and he was a teacher while I was growing up. And when dad got a snow day, it actually meant that we worked harder at our home school work than when Dad did not have a snow day. We did not look forward to the school system calling a snow day, because that meant that academic rigor went up in our household, and that when the academics were done, that we would do other house projects along with Dad. Well, in a similar way, verses 12 and 13, Paul reminds them, God is at work in you, but that doesn't mean that you get to take the day off. It doesn't mean that you can just rest easy and say, therefore, I don't have any responsibility to do anything for my personal holiness. Instead, his argument is very much along the lines of, because God is working in you, you ought to work. And he calls them to work out Verse 12, your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now, this is a very important construction in verses 12 and 13, because Paul is very clearly saying, work out your salvation. He does not say to them, work for your salvation. Right. One of the temptations that we can fall into is thinking, I have to work hard so that I can earn favor with God so that I can merit so that I can deserve God's love for me. I have to work harder so that God will love me. And that's not what Paul is saying. He says, work out your salvation. And so And so, therefore, he's calling them then to live out the implications of their salvation, to live out what it means to be saved by God. Furthermore, he doesn't tell them merely be worked on for your own salvation. Right, so it's not as if we in the working out of our salvation in the Christian life are merely laying on the operating table under the power of anesthetic while God the surgeon slices away at the bad cancers within us. So it's not just work for your salvation. It's not be worked on for your salvation. And also, though, verse 13 is an encouragement to us. It's not just you are on your own and working out your salvation. No, we have here a relationship where God is at work within us and we are called because he is working to work out our salvation, to live out the implications. to live out the implications of what it means that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord. That Jesus Christ has given His life to save us from the power of sin, from the presence of sin, and from the penalty of sin. So that in every area of our life, we might be freed from sin and from its dominion over us. And so that in everything, in the way we think, in the way we act, in the things that we will, in our mind, in our will, in our emotions, that we are submitted to King Jesus. Work out your salvation. It's a proper imagery here to think of leaven, the yeast being kneaded into the dough. and needing to work its way through that entire batch of dough. And we are called to work the Gospel into our life. To work it into every nook and cranny of the way we are, the way we think, the way we live. So that in everything, we might be reflecting the great work of salvation. And it's important for us as God's people to note. Verse 12 calls us to what? What's the imperative? Work. Work is not easy. It doesn't. It's not comfortable for us. And so therefore, as God's people. You are called to labor at your sanctification. To labor at your growth and grace. God calls you to search the Scriptures. To search. To learn about Him. To learn what it is that He calls you to. To examine the different activities in your life. To examine the choices that you are making in light of the Scriptures. And to not just say, well, I'm saved so therefore now I can just do whatever feels right to me because I know that I'm a new man. No, the call here is for work. And it often means that as we examine our lives, that some of the things that we love most, some of the things that are most natural to us in the way that we respond in situations, have to be laid aside, have to be repented of and turned away from. I can't live that way anymore because I've been saved by Jesus Christ. And so there is sweat and struggle in this process of working out our salvation. But verse 13 reminds us that this struggle, that this work is worthwhile, that it's a hopeful, optimistic work because God is at work in you. If you didn't have the presence of the Holy Spirit, if it wasn't God's purpose for you to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, then it would be a hopeless task to say, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It would be just as hopeful for us to say, you know, why don't you get to work and, you know, lift some gigantic building? You know, it's just not going to happen. But the hope and the encouragement in this passage is that God is at work in you. And so therefore, as we work out our salvation, we can do so with encouragement with optimism and hope. We also then, because God is at work in us, as we work, there is to be a consciousness of the divine. Right? We're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. With fear and trembling that comes because God is at work in you. If you've ever been at a job where there's a district manager. I worked at a restaurant for a while, waiting tables. And once, maybe a month or so, the district manager would show up and our local store manager would let us know that you need to work extra hard, extra carefully because the district manager is here. Or just think about even in your day-to-day work when the boss is in the room. Well, that's the implication of verse 12. That because God is at work in you, Because you have Jesus in you, that therefore there is a fear and trembling that accompanies. The Holy God is with me as I do this, and so I want to do it right. I want to labor for His honor and His glory. God at work within us means that you are called to work. And so verses 12 and 13 are a call for you to repent of your passivity when it comes to holiness. For you to examine and say, where am I just in a relaxed state? Saying, it doesn't matter what I do. I can just coast through life. Because God's plan for our salvation is not for us to say, what's the least I can do in order to be saved? What's the least amount of sin that I have to deal with in order to be saved? That's not the question that the Bible poses to us. If we want to be saved, we say, I want to be saved from all my sin. And all of this wretchedness, get it away from me. And so God calls us to work and to work alongside him in that work of sanctification. This is in keeping with the language used in our catechism. The catechism talks about what is justification, what is adoption. And under both of those questions, it makes clear that adoption and justification are an act of God's free grace. So they're a declaration by God, you are justified, you are adopted as my son, as my daughter, and it's over and done with. So one time declaration. And the question, what is sanctification, though, it tells us that sanctification is the work of God's free grace, whereby He enables us more and more to die to ourself and to live to righteousness. And so sanctification is a work that God is doing in us and that He calls each one of you to labor at as well. So it's a conscious, it's something that God is working in our consciousness. It's not something, like we said earlier, that happens while we lay on the operating table. It's something that God works and that we work with Him at. And so, God at work means that you are called to work. A second thing that happens when you are working with Dad So first of all, we know that when Dad works, it doesn't mean a day off for me. It means I work also. The second thing that we know about working with Dad is Dad sets the plan. There's the old TV show, Father Knows Best. And there's a definite on these projects. This will be done my way. I decide where the walls are going to go if we're working on a construction project. I know what order we need to do things in. And part of that reasoning is, of course, because Dad's been around the block a few more times than you have as the ten-year-old helper. He's been here before and done these projects before. And so he sets the game plan. Well, in a similar way, God at work means that we follow His plan. And the Scripture teaches us and illustrates for us over and over again that God's plan is a plan of humiliation followed by exaltation. Just think of the biblical characters. Noah. Noah goes through hundreds of years of being mocked and building the ark before he's vindicated. Think of Abraham and Sarah. walking around telling people, God's going to use us to start a new nation. And we're going to have all this land here that all these nations live in. And people would have looked at them and said, excuse me, you're in your 80s and you don't have any kids. How are you going to start a new nation? Humiliation came before exaltation. Moses. The life of Moses. Think about the children of Israel. wandering in the wilderness. And before they got to the promised land. King David. Before he is exalted. He is serving King Saul. Saul after his life. And of course, you can think of numerous other examples, but the most excellent example of this in Scripture is of course in verses 5-11 that we looked at last week. The life pattern of Jesus Christ. Of humiliation. followed by exaltation. And remember, one of the temptations of Satan in Matthew 4 and Luke 4 to Jesus was what? Bow down to me and worship me and I'll give you all these nations. You, Jesus, can have the crown without the cross. And that same temptation is a temptation that we can face. I want the glory, but not the difficulty. I want the sanctification and glorification, but not the humiliation that goes along with getting there. And so God's plan, though, for us, whether we like it or not, the plan that He is working out in us is this plan of humiliation and exaltation to make us into the image of Jesus Christ. It says there in verse 15, that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault. And this is not natural for us. It's like trying to take a big block of gold and shove it into some mold without putting it through the fire of melting it down so that it can be poured into that hole. And we like the end product of the coin. We want to be like the coin, but we say don't melt me down to get me there. But God's goal for us is that we would be made blameless and harmless. The concept there is similar to Job 1.1. You'll remember Job was a man who was blameless and upright. Blameless and harmless have the concept of blameless means that no one can accuse you of doing something wrong. So the idea of no sins of commission, things you've done against someone else, but also then harmless having the concept of sins of omission. You're actually the person you are supposed to be. That you are living in such a way as God has called you to. And so the plan that God has for you is to make you blameless and harmless children of God. And you and I may at times want a different plan. This plan, we might say, hurts too much. It's too difficult to be blameless and harmless. I just wanted a little bit of holiness, God. I didn't ask for entire holiness. I didn't ask you to take over everything in my life. I just wanted a little bit of holiness that would have been sufficient and God says no, no, no. The plan is for you to be blameless and harmless. And On top of that, notice verse 17, the plan is for us to be sacrifices and being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith. Romans 12, offer yourselves as living sacrifices. And that gets back to verse 15, children of God without fault. That's a word that's often used, like in the Greek Old Testament, to talk about the sacrifices. Remember, the lambs had to be without blemish. God is preparing us to be sacrifices in the mold of Jesus Christ. To be living sacrifices without fault, just as Christ offered Himself up. And so the Father has this plan for us. To be blameless and harmless. To be children of God without faults. To be living sacrifices. And to be living sacrifices so that, verse 15, so that we can shine as lights in the world in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Part of being made into the image of Jesus Christ is that we have not only the image of Christ and being blameless and holy, not only the pattern of Christ as living sacrifices, but also that Christ gives to us His ministry. The ministry of being beacons of light in the world. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. Part of God's kindness to us is that we are enabled as Christians, as little Christ, to be beacons of light as well. I am the light of the world, says Jesus, and Jesus also says you are the light of the world. So God's plan is to transform us so that we might be lights in the world. so that people might come to know about Jesus, so that every tongue might confess that He is Lord. So this is the plan that the Father has for us. This is the design. This is what you are working toward and what He's working toward in your life. And notice, Paul has been both worked on by God and he knows what the temptation is. And the temptation is, verse 14, to complain and argue. Our temptation is to say to the Father, I don't like this plan. I'm going to grumble about what you're working out in my life. This is hard work. I don't want to do it. To argue with God and to say I don't like this command that you've given to me. I would rather not keep this one. I'm going to justify my actions. And argue with what you've told me to do. But that's why we're told, do all things without complaining and disputing. God here is saying, I make the plan and you follow the plan. This is the way it is. This is the way we're going to work. You've heard that from your dad when you worked with him. Sorry, yes, it's difficult. This is the way it's going to be. This is the way we're going to do it. And God here is saying there's acknowledgement here. Yes, it's going to be difficult for you. But if God says that this is the most effective way. To transform you and me into the image of Jesus Christ, then we say, You know best, because I have no idea how to turn myself into the image of Jesus Christ. And so, God, if you say that this is the process. Then I won't complain, I'm not going to argue about it, I'm going to submit to your will and my life. Because you are at work and me. So God is at work in us and he calls us to number one, work alongside him. And number two, to follow his plan for the work that he is doing. And then the result that the passage tells us, the result is rejoicing. My father's goal when we worked together, I can assure you, was not my comfort in the short term. It was not to make it a fun day, a relaxing day, you know, a day at the end of which I could say my muscles feel well rested after today. No. The plan was, though, to have good results. Not short-term comforts, but long-term results. And in a similar way, God's plan for us is not short-term comforts for each one of you, but it's long-term rejoicing as you see the good results that He works in you. And that's one of the reasons Paul comes to the church in Philippi here with excitement. And he's happy that this is taking place. Notice verse 12, Therefore, my beloved, I love you. And so I'm excited because God's at work in you and calling you to work alongside him and he's doing good things and you. And so he's delighted, he's excited to bring this message. I'm telling you about this because I love you, because I think good things about you. God is going to make you a people without fault. That's a message worth getting excited about, isn't it? to think that God Almighty is working in the people in this congregation to make you a people blameless and without fault. And what it means is that good results are guaranteed because God is at work in you. God is working, God is working, verse 13, His good pleasure. And when God works His good pleasure, when God works good things in us, the result is, verse 16, verse 17, verse 18, Gladness and rejoicing. Gladness at what God has done. Gladness at the freedom from sin that God is bringing. And it should make us happy this morning. Should bring gladness to you that God is at work in you both to will and to do His good purpose. It should make you happy that no matter what your circumstances are this morning, that if you're in Jesus Christ, that God is using those circumstances to perfect you, to make you blameless, to shape you into the image of Jesus Christ, so that you might bring honor and glory to Him. And that's why Paul here says, verse 16, I'm looking forward to that day so that I might rejoice when I hear, well done, that your life has borne fruit. Verse 17, I am glad even now, even if I die, I'm glad because I see the fruit in your lives already and it's worth me dying for in order to see God at work in you. Verse 17, you ought to be glad and rejoice with me. Because God is doing this in us. And so when God works, the result is good. And it leads to rejoicing for us. Once again, what we see here is the pattern of humiliation followed by exaltation. Of submitting ourselves to the work of God. Of submitting ourselves to the call of God to work alongside Him. Of submitting ourselves to God's plan for us. and then of the hope and the encouragement that the result will be good and that we can rejoice because of what God is working. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your work within us. We thank you that you are transforming us from glory to glory. Lord, we confess to you our tendency toward indifference and laziness, our tendency toward complaining about the process, about arguing with you about the way that you are changing us. And we also confess to you, Lord, that we so often lose sight of the end product. Lord, we pray that we would be diligent to work out our own salvation. That we would see what you are doing and that we would rejoice even now instead of complaining and arguing with you. Lord, make us a willing people, a diligent people, people who hate sin, and who labor to identify sin in our lives and to turn away from it. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.