Your Work, His Power - Sermon On Philippians 2:12-13 Series

Philippians 2:12 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, 13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act for the sake of his good pleasure.

Introduction

From the time I was a kid I have always been captivated by David’s mighty men of valor. If you’re into superheroes, you’ll love 2 Samuel 23.

2 Samuel 23:8 … Josheb-Basshebeth … raised his spear against eight hundred men, whom he killed in one encounter.

9 Next to him was Eleazar … at Pas Dammim … the men of Israel retreated, 10 but he stood his ground and struck down the Philistines till his hand grew tired and froze to the sword. The LORD brought about a great victory that day.

11 Next to him was Shammah … When the Philistines banded together … Israel’s troops fled from them. 12 But Shammah took his stand in the middle of the field. He defended it and struck the Philistines down, and the LORD brought about a great victory.

In 1 Samuel 14 Jonathan wiped out a whole Philistine garrison by himself. He killed the first 20 men, and the rest panicked and ran away. And 1 Samuel 14:15 says it was a panic sent by the Lord. Do you notice a theme in all those accounts? In each case, the man did the fighting, and the Lord gave the victory. William Carey put it well. He said, “Expect great things from God. Attempt great things for God.” That is what each one of those men did, and God did great things through them.

Review

Last week we found that Scripture calls for strenuous effort in the Christian life. The argument of Philippians 2:12-13 is not, “God is at work in you, therefore stop trying, stop working, and just yield.” The argument is, “God is at work in you, therefore work your salvation with fear and trembling.” The fact that God is the author of our salvation, our sanctification, and all of our spiritual growth does not imply that we should be passive, rather it implies that we should be active, and that we should take that activity very seriously – with fear and trembling. We made it that far in the sermon, and then ran out of time. So last week’s was a heavy sermon. I imagine some of you left last week feeling pretty overwhelmed. Or maybe guilty, or discouraged, or burdened. You have been working as hard as you can, and not getting very good results, and then you hear a sermon about how the solution is to work even harder, and it just doesn’t seem like that matches up with what Jesus said in Matthew 11 when he said “Come to me and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” What do you do when the responsibility of the Christian life just feels overwhelming?

Your Work, His Power

One simple answer to that question is to remember this little phrase: your work; his power. If you feel overwhelmed, it may be because you have an attitude that says, “My work, my power.” Imagine preparations being made to put in a subdivision, but there’s a big, 500-foot-high mountain right in the middle of where they want to develop, and you are given the assignment of removing this mountain.

That’s a good illustration of what we are called to do in the Christian life. When I stand up and tell you to obey God, to humble yourself before others, to let go of pride and selfishness, to love your neighbor as yourself, to love God with all your being – I might as well be telling you to move a mountain. And some Christians say, “Ok,” and they grab a shovel and wheelbarrow and start digging. Imagine you do that on the job site, and your supervisor sees you doing that, and says, “What are you doing? You could do that for the rest of your life and not even make a dent in that mountain. We have equipment that actually has the power to move that mountain.” And he shows you the giant earthmoving machines. And he explains to you “That’s the kind of power you’re going to need to get this job done.” And so you say, “Oh, I understand now. I can’t do this with my own effort. It’s the machines that do it.” And so you get a lawn chair, and kick up your feet, and you just keep thinking to yourself about the power of those machines. After a little while you get another visit from the supervisor. And after a brief conversation, you get the very distinct impression that he’s not really on board with the whole lawn chair approach. He tells you in no uncertain terms to get up off that chair and get into that earthmover and get to work. So you go over to the earthmover and you start climbing the ladder to get up inside that thing. And you get about a third of the way up the ladder, and you are huffing and puffing, and all this climbing is getting so monotonous and burdensome, and so you stop, and you look over at the mountain, and it seems like it’s just as big as it ever was. And so you get discouraged and climb back down. You keep doing that every day. Some days you actually make it all the way up to the driver’s seat, but you find that putting that thing into gear is really hard, and you give up. One time you get it in gear, but you find the steering is really complicated and requires some training, and so you get discouraged and give up. And you keep checking the mountain, and it just doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller – even with all this work you’re doing.