It’s Time For Your Workout – Philippians 2:12-13 Series

At Muscle Beach they've got this big platform area where guys have all these weights and they're working out. It's kind of entertaining because people who are good looking, you know, who really can lift weights and they're strong, and they do lift those weights, it’s fun to watch them lift the weights. It's just entertaining to do so.

Well Kenneth Leverich decided he would have some fun on Muscle Beach. He's a young guy, very strong, a weightlifter and could lift quite heavily the weights that he does. But he went and got himself decked out with Hollywood makeup, a whole mask that he put on, and decked himself out to be an eighty-four-year-old guy. Okay, so now he looks like an eighty-four-year-old guy, but he's really a really strong, young twenties guy. He goes on to Muscle Beach. He's joking with the guys and they're all laughing at this eighty-four-year-old guy because he's definitely out of place there on this pier area. And he says to one guy, “Oh what kind of supplements do you take? I take prune juice,” you know, it's kind of a fun and entertaining video. You can find it by just YouTubing or searching for “Muscle Beach old man.” You'll find it that way. Not right now. But maybe later on, you could do that.

But here's the fun thing. What he did was he went over and he saw these guys lifting weights and kind of competing with each other. And he said, “Hey, can I have a try there?” They're laughing at him say, “Oh sure, old man. Go ahead and give it a try.” He goes over there picks up these dead weights and throws them up over his head and lifts them up and then drops them. And everybody's going whoa. They're just so surprised that he could do this. He goes over to some other weights over there and he lifts those weights. Now a crowd is forming just because this is very entertaining to see this old guy doing all of these things, and they're laughing. Everybody's just amazed that he goes around, he's be able to do all this. At one point, he does a complete backflip. He's standing and he jumps up and does a backflip. Eighty-four-year-old guy, apparently, doing this backflip. Everybody's entertained by this. But for Kenneth Leverich this was just another workout. Another workout day.

Today I want to talk to you about a workout, a spiritual workout that we all need to be engaged in in our lives. The reason I use workout is because it comes directly from our passage in Philippians 2:12-13. If you look at those words there it says in the scriptures – Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There you go. Work out.

The words work out are right there, so I think what we're going to see here in the passage is what a spiritual workout looks like. I'm going to tell you what this passage says, I'm going to tell you what it doesn't say, and I'm going to give you several principles that are embedded right in the passage itself that can apply to our spiritual workout. My goal is that you'll be more motivated this next year to engage in more spiritual exercise in your life. I think that's what Paul is telling us to do here. And that's why he uses the word work out in this passage.

Well, let me read the whole passage to you starting at the beginning there. It says – 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.

Well let's look at that. Go to right at the beginning there you see the word therefore. Now that's going to take us back in the passage. Now if you remember in the passage, back in verses 2, 3, and 4 he was saying don't be selfish, think about other people is more important than yourself, and then he says, have this same mind in you which is in Christ Jesus. That's verse 5. So if you look back in your scriptures to verse 5, that's where the therefore is going. Because after verse 5 it’s illustrating how Christ was sacrificing Himself, He was humble, He was obedient, all these things that exemplify Christ. But the key idea there is have the same mind in you, which is in Christ Jesus, therefore…. So the word therefore is our first word.

I'm going to suggest that the first principle that we want to engage in in our Christian workout is to find a good trainer. Because that's what the passage is saying. Go back and look at Christ. He's the example. He's the motivator. He's the one there. So if you're going to engage in a workout, you need to have a good trainer. A trainer is someone who comes along and helps you do your workout. Of course Jesus would be the greatest trainer that we could have.