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Introduction
One ad for the U.S. Marines pictures a sword, and beneath it the
words: "Earned, never given." If you want to become a Marine, be
prepared to earn that name through sacrifice, hardship, and
training. If you get it, you deserve it.
But if you want to
become a Christian, you must have the exact opposite attitude, for
the message of the gospel is: "Given, never earned." You cannot save
your own soul, and God will not save anyone who tries to earn
salvation, but only those who will humbly receive it as a gift
through faith in Jesus Christ. If you get it, you absolutely did not
deserve it.
The message of God’s Word is clear. We have all
sinned and come short of His glory. That is, we have none of us come
close to measuring up to God’s standards for us. Out of His great
love for us, God gave His Son, who suffered and died in our place,
and the good news is this: whoever wants to be saved, forgiven and
reconciled to God today, can be, by receiving and trusting in Him.
In the movie The Last Emperor, the young child anointed as the last
emperor of China lives a life of luxury with 1,000 servants at his
command. "What happens when you do wrong?" his brother asks. "When I
do wrong, someone else is punished," the boy emperor replies.
To
demonstrate, he breaks a jar, and immediately one of the servants is
beaten. In Christianity, Jesus reversed that ancient pattern: when
the servants erred, the King was punished. Grace is free only
because the giver himself has borne the cost. Salvation is extended
by a free act of God’s grace.
But, once saved, once brought into
a reconciled relationship with God through Christ there is an
expectation that we will grow into a closer relationship with God,
that we will mature in our faith and that we will advance in
categories of righteousness and personal holiness. And that process
calls forth intentional effort and obedience from us.
If a person
comes to saving faith in Christ, commits his life to Jesus and
becomes a Christian, but remains the same as an uncaring sinner, and
his life shows no effort of obedience to the Lord, there is
something wrong. In fact
1 John 2 says that the person who says he
is in a relationship with Christ, but does not do what He commands
“is a liar, and the truth is not in him.”
The unchanged Christian
is a contradiction in terms. The Christ-follower, by definition,
will have entered a process of change and maturity. And, though
there will be times of energetic, rapid growth, as well as seasons
of apparent standstill in the process, over the course of time, the
genuine believer is able to evidence genuine change in the direction
of the character of Christ.
In the Christian life there is a
balance of grace and good works reads:
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my
presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your
salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to
will and to act according to his good purpose.
We have studied
the section of
Philippians 1:27 through 2:11 and watched the apostle
call his readers to a high standard of spiritual living. Back in
1:27 he wrote whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner
worthy of the gospel of Christ. The following verses spell out what
that means—being in unity with one another, standing firm as
witnesses for Christ in spite of persecution, selflessness and
service, as well as humility. In
2:12 it sounds like the Philippian
believers are doing well, even though Paul has not been with them.
So he calls them to continue in this pattern of obedience and
growth. Performing the Right Works The first thing to leap out
at us is the admonition Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling. These words grate against the notion of grace, don’t
they? At first blush is sounds like Paul is talking about earning
salvation, and never being sure you’ve got it. It sounds more like
the Koran where the repeated promises of forgiveness by a
compassionate and merciful Allah are made only to those who have
done well at pleasing Allah. And if they have appeased Allah, they
have a chance at salvation, but they never really know.
But
Christianity is not that way. Christians are obedient because God
has saved them in His grace, not in order to be saved. As evidence
of His great love for us, the Bible says, Christ for us while we
were yet sinners. We were lawbreakers against God, yet He loves us
and gave His own son to die in our behalf so we may be saved. His
grace is given to us – never earned by us.
So, if all the rest of
the New Testament stresses that we are saved by grace and not by our
works, what does it mean when it says to us work out your own
salvation in fear and trembling? It doesn’t mean we nervously earn
favor with God, but means that since we are saved by His grace while
we are sinners, now we are able to “live out” that saved status. We
don’t sweat it out hoping our works are good enough; we trust that
He has already saved us in Christ, and we are now free to obey Him
and serve Him.
Why are we now able, as saved people, to do good
works that please the Lord, when we couldn’t please Him while we
were lost. There are two things to consider: first, Christians are
not trying to earn, or merit, salvation (nor are we trying to pay
God back and somehow even the score—that is impossible); we are
simply serving and honoring Him out of our saved state.
Secondly,
remember that when we became Christians, God not only forgave our
sins, but He also gave us His Holy Spirit to live in us and empower
us to live for Him. He enables us (vs.
13).
We have a picture of
God working His grace into our lives, and our working it out in our
lives in gratitude and love for Him. This is His plan.
Ephesians 2
says it this way: For it is by grace you have been saved, through
faith…not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God
prepared in advance for us to do. As Thomas Brooks put it: Saving
grace makes a man as willing to leave his lusts as a slave is
willing to leave his galley, or a prisoner his dungeon… or a beggar
his rags. Applying the Right Seriousness Then there is the
other seemingly troublesome part of
verse 12 – we are to work out
this salvation with fear and trembling. What does that mean? Aren’t
we saved and secure in God’s grace? This sounds like we’re afraid
we’re going to lose it or something! But that is not what is meant
here, because the Word of God makes it plain that nothing can
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, and that our hope
is sure in Him. We are never to be afraid God will change His mind
and take the gift of salvation away from us.
We don’t “fear” God
with a “frightened” kind of fear. The fear of the Lord in both
testaments means having appropriate awe and respect before God. What
is meant here by fear and trembling is that as I work out my
salvation, I should realize the tremendous seriousness of what I am
doing. Developing our faith and growing in our sanctification is
serious to us. It is no trifling matter that the God of the universe
loved me and died for me!
Furthermore, I know my own weakness, my
proneness to sin, my constant need for His renewed forgiveness in my
life of stutter-start faith and sin-weakened progress. I never want
to take for granted the love and forgiveness of God. I want to serve
Him and please Him. Christ’s love compels us, Paul said in
2 Corinthians 5:14. To obey with fear and trembling simply means we
are to be serious about the benefits of a closer relationship with
the Lord.
There is another word in
verse 12 that we need to
consider carefully—the word CONTINUE—continue to work out your
salvation with fear and trembling. The working out of our salvation
with fear and trembling is to continue unabated. I think Paul was
urging the Philippians to constancy. Because we are weak and we fall
victim to the temptations of the flesh, our dedication to Christ is
often in short bursts separated by long bouts of lethargy or
pleasing ourselves instead of Christ.
It’s the difference
between the musical terms staccato and legato. --Illustrate with
keyboard--
Hebrews 12:1 reminds us to run our race with
perseverance and never give up. In May, 1982, Leonid Brezhnev was
president of a country that no longer exists--the Soviet Union. In
Baltimore, a lanky shortstop named Cal Ripken played the first game
of what became known as "the streak."
The 6' 4" fielder was
considered too tall for the position. Yet he just kept plugging
away. 2,131 games later, he set the all-time record for consecutive
games played by a major-leaguer. Greatness comes not just from
ability, but also from consistency.
It is this kind of
consistency to which we are called as we live out our salvation in
the world around us. We are to work hard at honoring the Lord, even
when no one is looking, even when we’re not in a church service.
Paul said, not only in my presence but now much more in my absence.
Will Rogers used to say, “Live in such a way that you would not be
afraid to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” It honors God when
we take seriously how we live in His name, when we grow in the grace
and knowledge of Him.
Perform good works as a Christian – it is
your calling. Give appropriate seriousness to this calling. Play
your part like a Cal Ripken, to the glory of God. And finally, Giving the Right Credit
Verse 13 begs us to return to the
balance of works and grace. For it is God who works in you to will
and to act according to his good purpose. When the Christian is
doing good works and staying the course of a righteous life, WHO is
at work? Yes, it is GOD who is at work in US. It is by His Spirit,
His power, His divine operation in our lives. That ought to relieve
us in at least a couple ways: 1) we are not left to our own
strength. We know that if we were left to our own strength to honor
God with our lives we could only despair. But Paul says God is at
work in us.
The second encouragement is this: the power and
resource to live well for God is limitless. Since it is not we
ourselves who power this thing called the Christian life, we can be
confident that the word given us last week is true –
His divine
power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through
our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
Notice: it is not your glory and goodness, but His!
You don’t
have to worry about measuring up! Our only concern as followers of
Christ is to devote ourselves to one task—staying close to Christ.
Letting Him fill us with His Spirit. Letting His work flow through
us. The last time you failed to live in a manner pleasing to the
Lord the engine didn’t fail, you forgot to fill up!
Eph. 3:20 says
it is His power at work within us.
This is a most astounding
truth—God is at work within/through believers. His power and life
are driving our righteousness and our good works. How exactly does
God do that?
Verse 13 says it clearly: He works in you TO WILL and
TO ACT according to His good purpose. Never congratulate a Christian
for his good works. Why? Because he didn’t do it—God did! Paul said,
It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live
in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me. (Galatians
2:20) Applaud God!
Listen now,
you are not center stage, you are not the star and you are not the
one who gets the credit when you do the good works God intended for
you to do. God gets the credit! For it is He who is at work within
you to do two things: to WILL and to
ACT in accordance with His good
purpose. It is God’s work from beginning to end, because He is
giving you the WANT TO and the CAN DO! The desire to do good, and
the ability to do good!
And, of course, all that God leads us to
do in living for Him, all that He empowers us to do, is
according to
his good purpose. You will never receive godly leading to do wrong;
the Holy Spirit is all about directing you to doing God’s will. To
will and to act according to his good purpose. And you will never be
empowered by God to do wrong, or to live for yourself. All that kind
of strength comes from your own carnality.
I am still fascinated
by the GPS systems in automobiles. I’m the guy who always gets lost,
and eventually stops at the service station to get directions (which
are usually wrong). Just imagine—the benefits of an entire satellite
system, scanning the globe, right there in my car to give me
pinpoint directions!
The Spirit of God within you is faithful to
lead you straight into the things God wants you to do—a divine GPS
system, if you will. Just imagine—the benefits of the wisdom of the
almighty God, scanning your life and surroundings, right there in
your heart, to lead you, and empower you, in the good works He has
for you. Your job, fellow Christian, is to stay tuned and obey. This
is, in a very real sense, the only good work you are required to do:
Be filled with His Spirit. He does all the rest. And gets all the
credit. Conclusion Take a look at this chart for a minute. I
think it summarizes in a simplistic way the beauty of God’s plan of
balancing His grace and our work. Living as Christian servants and
witnesses in the world to God’s glory—the whole idea is by His grace
working with our response in a divinely-inspired cooperation.
It’s about His power at work within us, and that divine power is
activated as soon as we in faithful obedience say “yes” and
appropriate His power.
It’s all about His plan and His good
purpose. The accomplishment of His purposes does not exactly depend
on our obedience—He will get His will done through someone else or
some other means. But if we wish to be included in His glorious
purposes, we are called to obey.
Finally, it’s all about His
glory. No one deserves the credit and the honor for the
accomplishment of His good purposes, but Him. Astonishingly, He
welcomes us into His purposes through Christ, and actually lets us
play a part.
May we be found faithful as we yield our lives
continually to Him. As those who understand the gravity and the
grace of this truth, may we always continue to work out our
salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us to
will and to act according to his good purpose.
In my life,
Lord, be glorified
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