Recently, our daughter Catherine completed a refinishing project. Se took an old chest, worn and marred by the years and transformed it into an elegant piece of furniture, which she is pleased to display in her home. She took an object that was ruined and unsightly and restored it in such a way that it is not beautiful and functional and treasured.
That is what God does with us in His great restoration project called salvation. He takes ruined sinners, stained and disfigured by sin, and transforms them into something new and lovely. It is what the Bible calls redemption, or, as Paul describes it here in Philippians 1, the “work” of God. “He who began a good work in you,” Paul writes, “will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6).
This “work” of God in you and me has three phases, and they are easily identified. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is a past, a present, and a future. We are told that God began His “good work” in us, that He “will carry it on,” and that, in time, He will bring it to completion. In fact, we are even given a due date. It will be “the day of Christ Jesus,” although we are not told exactly when that will be.
The thing to notice is that God is the agent who is active at every stage of this “good work.” It is He that is doing everything necessary for our transformation. The initiative lies with Him. The momentum is His. And even the date of completion is in His control.
That doesn’t mean that we don’t have a part to play, as we will see. We are not altogether passive like the inanimate chest that Catherine restored. But still, until God begins His “good work” in us, we may as well be a lifeless piece of dead wood. In fact, the Bible tells us that, before God takes steps to change us, we are actually “dead in [our] transgressions and sins” (Eph. 2:1). And the dead, of course, take no initiative.
So, let’s look at the beginning of God’s work in us. Paul says that “he…began a good work” in us. What does he mean? Our restoration began before the dawn of time. According to Ephesians 1:4, God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world.” That means that, before God created anything – before He said, “Let there be light,” He knew us, and He chose us. We should be deeply humbled by this because, remember, when He chose us, He was choosing sinners who would be marred and misshapen by our sin. He did not choose us because there was anything about us that would make us desirable to Him. He chose us because of His amazing grace.
In choosing us, He had in mind a plan to restore us, and that plan involved His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ came into this world to die for our sins, to pay the penalty we should have had to pay. And, as we consider what Jesus did, we attest that He laid down His life at the cross for your sake and mine and became for us the atonement for our sin.
And then, in an act of great mercy, the Holy Spirit brought you and me – dead sinners – to life. He illumined our darkened minds so that, when we heard the message of salvation in Christ, we could understand it, and He gave us a new heart so that we could believe it. And when we did – when we believed this good news about what Jesus has done for us – God declared us righteous. The biblical word for that is justification. He justified us. He gave us a right standing with Him. He declared us “not guilty.”
But that’s not the end of it. That’s only the beginning. “He…began a good work” in us. And, thankfully, He did not stop there.
In fact, we have the middle part to consider. Paul has written about what God did in the past. Now, what about the present? Paul describes this in verse 6 as God “carry[ing] it on.” Through His Holy Spirit, He continues the work He began. He has declared us righteous. That’s justification, remember. Now He will make us righteous. This is what the Bible calls sanctification, a word that means “to make holy.” And this an essential part of God’s work; indeed, the Bible says that “without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).
What does this process look like? You can get a glimpse of it right here in Philippians, chapter 1. It is what Paul says he prays for when he prays for the people in Philippi. Beginning in verse 9, Paul says, “And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ – to the glory and praise of God” (vv. 9-11).
All of this may be summed up with the phrase Paul uses in verse 11, “the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.” Remember, we said that we are righteous not because of what we have done but because of what Christ has done. Our righteousness “comes through Jesus Christ.”
But it bears fruit in our lives. As we said earlier, we are active in the life of holiness. We bear evidence of God’s “good work.” We produce the fruit of righteousness. And Paul lists here a sampling of the fruition of Christ’s life within us. It will be seen, first, as a love that abounds “more and more.” As the Spirit applies to us the benefits of what Christ has purchased for us by His death, we will become increasingly loving, more and more like Him. We will also grow in knowledge and in the ability to discern what is good and what is evil. And we will choose what is best.
Two other items in Paul’s “basket of fruit,” if we may call it that, are purity and blamelessness. The term translated “purity” here means that we are seen as pure when examined in the light of day. To be “blameless” means that we are not easily led into sin and do not lead others into sin.
Paul’s list is not exhaustive. It is merely suggestive. But it is enough to show us that God’s work in Jesus Christ doesn’t just save us from the penalty of sin; it also saves us from the power of sin.
That’s the middle part of God’s restoration project. That’s what He’s doing in the present. Now we come to the end toward which our gracious God is working. Paul says, remember, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” All of God’s work will be brought to completion one day.
When Catherine, our daughter, was restoring the old chest she had purchased, she had in mind what the finished product would be – a beautiful and useful piece of furniture suitable for her home. Likewise, God has in mind what we will be. One day, we will be presented to our loving God “without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24), “radiant…without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:27).
That day will be what Paul calls here “the day of Christ” (v. 10). The Apostle John speaks of that day. He says that, when Christ appears, “we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). This is the outcome which God has had in view from the start. This is the end He had in mind when He began His “good work:” to make us like Jesus.
With the sure arrival of that “day” in mind, let us keep our fixed on it. And let us lament how often we have failed to do so. How often have we made choices with no thought of the consequences to others or to us? Is there a commandment we have not broken? Likely, there is not, and each infraction of God’s holy law has endangered our souls. Paul speaks of disciplining himself lest “that after proclaiming to others [he himself] should be disqualified” (1 Cor. 9:27). If that can happen to an apostle, it can happen to us! How ashamed we should be for taking our eyes off the coming day of Christ! If joyful discipleship looks to that day, to look elsewhere for joy is to lose it.
But thankfully there is the cross. Our beloved Savior has died for sinners like you and me, bearing in his body our sins of negligence, distraction, and short-sightedness, and his perfect record of keeping his eye on the goal has been applied to us. Now, in gratitude, we may cast our vision to the day on which God will have completed his work in us, and we may live each day in anticipation of that day.
Picture that day in your mind just now, the day that you will stand before the judgment seat of God – with Jesus at your side, identifying you as one of his. Let that picture shape the choices you make each day – this day even! And find your joy in preparing yourself for the day of Christ, when God will have completed what he has begun in you.
