"God’s Good Work in You"
Philippians 1:6
Pastor Rick Bartosik
Mililani Community Church
August 12, 2001
Open your Bible to Philippians chapter 1 verse 6: "Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." People talk about having favorite Bible verses. I have to confess that Philippians 1:6 is one of my favorites. The truth that God has revealed here is something every Christian needs to understand. If you are a true Christian today it is because God began and is continuing a mighty work in your life. That work is absolutely guaranteed to turn out successfully, because it is God’s work not man’s. If you have been born again by the Spirit of God, then you don’t need to be afraid that you will ever be lost. God who called you will be faithful to complete the work he began in you.
In this verse Paul tells us four things about the good work that has begun in the life of a Christian:
First of all, Paul speaks of…
I. THE AUTHOR OF THE WORK
"Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
Who is the "he" of this verse? Of course it is God himself. Paul does not refer to the good work he had done in Philippi. Paul was the missionary who was sent by God to preach the Gospel in Philippi. Paul did a great work there. He established the church and built it up. But when he writes this letter he does not refer at all to the work he had done. It was God’s work -- through him. In Acts 14:27 when Paul and Barnabas returned from their first missionary journey they gathered the church together in Antioch, not to give an account of what they had done but what God had done: "On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles." It wasn’t Paul, it was God who began that good work in them! Salvation is a work of God.
It is not surprising that Paul should emphasize that salvation is all of God and not of man. Paul never forgot what he had been before God reached down and saved him. Turn to I Timothy 1:12-14: "I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus." He says, I was a blasphemer! I was a persecutor! I was violent! He was a blasphemer because he adamantly spoke against Jesus and denied he was the Messiah. He was a persecutor…a ravenous enemy of the faith. He arrested and imprisoned men and women and tried to make them renounce their faith. Third, he was a violent man. The word Paul uses here (hubris) means "a man of insolent and brutal violence." He delighted in inflicting pain on other people. But then as he was on his way to Damascus to persecute more Christians, the Lord suddenly appeared to him. Acts 9:3: "As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, ’Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’" It wasn’t Paul’s plan to become a Christian. It was God who initiated the work in him. He says in I Timothy 1:15-16: "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life."
Not only did God initiate the work in Paul. Paul remembered how God also initiated the work in the Christians at Philippi. In Acts 16 verses 6 and 7 we are told that Paul did not intend to go to Philippi. He wanted to go somewhere else. He wanted to preach somewhere in Asia. That seemed to him the right thing to do. But it says "the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to." Then Paul had a vision during the night. God gave him this vision. A man of Macedonia appeared to him and said, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." As a result of that vision Paul crossed the sea and landed in Europe.
When Paul arrived at Philippi, the capital of Macedonia, he spoke to some women gathered by the side of the river for prayer. As Paul preached, it says the Lord opened the heart of Lydia to respond to Paul’s message. It doesn’t say Lydia was impressed with Christianity and decided to try it. No, the Lord who brought Paul to preach opened her heart and the hearts of her whole family and they all became believers.
Then the demon possessed girl was delivered by the power of God. Her life was transformed. This made some people so angry that Paul and Silas got thrown into jail. In the middle of the night there was an earthquake; and the jailer got saved and his whole family too! Paul didn’t produce any of this. It was a work of God in Philippi. As Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, "We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus…"
The second point is…
II. THE NATURE OF THE WORK
The key to understanding this second principle is the word "in." "He who began a good work IN you." What Paul is talking about here is what the Bible elsewhere calls being born from above or being born again. A Christian is not someone who has simply changed his ways and decided to reform his life and be a little bit better and more religious. A Christian is someone in whom God has done a work that is so radical it can only be described as being born again. Sometimes the Bible refers to this change as being raised from the dead, or being transformed into a new creation. "God who is rich in mercy, MADE US ALIVE with Christ even when we were DEAD in transgressions…" (Ephesians 2:4). "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a NEW CREATION; the old has gone, the new has come!" (II Corinthians 5:17).
Becoming a Christian is the deepest and most wonderful change that a person can ever know. It is not a superficial and temporary change. It is a powerful work of God in the very center of our being. John Wesley called it, "the life of God in the soul of man." The Prophet Ezekiel describes it beautifully in Ezekiel 36:25-27: "I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws…" God performs a spiritual heart transplant. He removes our hard old heart and gives us a new heart -- a heart that loves Him and wants to follow His ways and obey His commandments.
What God begins he continues in us. "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion…" I have often told you the ABCs of becoming a Christian: A-stands for Admit you are a sinner. B-stands for Believe God loves you and sent Jesus to be your Savior. C-stands for Come to Him just as you are and trust in Him as the One who died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. But did you know there are also ABCs of spiritual growth? Yes. A-stands for ADVERSITY. B-stands for BUILDS. C-stands for CHARACTER. Adversity Builds Character! You can’t grow in Christ-likness without struggle. You can’t come to spiritual maturity apart from being put through the fire. The fires of disappointment, heartaches, and trials are all part of the great process of God continuing the good work he began.
A bar of steel worth $5, when made into ordinary horseshoes, is then worth $10. If this same $5 bar is manufactured into needles, the value rises to $350. If it is made into delicate springs for expensive watches, it is worth more than $250,000. The same bar of steel is made more valuable by being passed through one blast furnace after another, again and again, hammered and manipulated, beaten and pounded, finished and polished until it is ready for those delicate tasks.
The writer of the book of Hebrews reminds us in chapter 12 that just as a Father disciplines the son he loves, the Lord disciplines us. Hebrews 12:5-8 and 10-11 in the Living Bible says: "My son, don’t be angry when the Lord punishes you. Don’t be discouraged when he has to show you where you are wrong. For when he punishes you, it proves that he loves you. When he whips you it proves that you are really his child. Let God train you, for he is doing what any loving father does for his children. Whoever heard of a son who was never corrected? If God doesn’t punish you when you need it, as other fathers punish their sons, then it means that you aren’t really God’s son at all -- that you don’t really belong in his family…Our earthly fathers trained us for a few brief years, doing the best for us that they knew how, but God’s correction is always right and for our best good, that we may share his holiness. Being punished isn’t enjoyable while it is happening -- it hurts! But afterwards we can see the result, a quiet growth in grace and character."
We may not be able to understand it now but in the future we will see how these things are all part of the great process of God continuing the good work he began. He has a ultimate purpose in the work he is doing. What is the purpose of this work?
This brings us to the third principle…
III. THE PURPOSE OF THE WORK
Paul gives the answer: "Being confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus."
We are being prepared for the Day of Jesus Christ. What is the Day of Christ Jesus? It is the great day when the Son of God will return to this earth in power and glory. This is the day of God’s final triumph over evil. And when Christ comes we will share in His glory! Listen to how Paul describes this coming glory in Romans 8:18-19: "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed."
The picture Paul draws in Romans 8:18-19 is of the whole creation craning its neck, waiting with eager expectation for that glorious day when Christ returns and the sons of God are revealed. At a wedding, when the bride comes down the aisle in all her radiant beauty, everyone cranes their neck to get a look at her! You are the Bride of Christ! You are being prepared now for the Day of Jesus Christ, when He comes as the Bridegroom to claim his chosen bride. On that day all the universe will stand in awe of what the grace of God has done. In Ephesians 5:26 Paul says that right now He is making the church holy, cleansing her by the washing of the Word, in order to present her to Himself as a radiant church, with out stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
Jesus speaks of that future glory in Matthew 13:41-43: "The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of their Father."
Nothing God permits in your life is accidental or without design. He is shaping you and preparing you for the glorious future he has in mind for you when the whole universe will stand in awe at the workmanship of God. By the grace of God we are destined to shine like the sun in glory in the Day of Christ Jesus.
Finally…
IV. THE CERTAINTY OF THE WORK
There is no doubt about it, says Paul: "I am confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." His confidence is based on the character of God himself. God never starts a work and leaves it unfinished! That would be a contradiction of his character. God is not like man. We start things but we do not finish them. Thank God that my hope in Christ does not rest upon my will power. It rests upon the fact that God would never have started the work in me if he had not decided to finish it. Paul says the same thing in Romans 5:10: "If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." What Paul means is: if Christ died for you when you were an enemy and a rebel and hated him; how much more, then, will God keep and sustain you and finish the work he began. The character of God guarantees the completion of the work.
Paul Billheimer wrote a book I have been reading this week entitled, Don’t Waste Your Sorrows. When you relapse into discouragement, resentment, bitterness and defeat you are wasting your sorrows -- not realizing that the sorrows, heartaches, disappointments you are enduring now are being used by God to conform you to the image of Christ and to prepare you to reign with Him.
CONCLUSION
The vital issue for all us is to know for certain that this work is taking place in us. How can I know that God has started this good work in me? In his book Why Good People Do Bad Things, Erwin Lutzer relates that during the 1700s a revival spread in New England. It was called the "Great Awakening." Critics insisted that it was nothing more than a man-made religious phenomenon based on emotions and mass hysteria. To defend this revival as a genuine work of God, theologian Jonathan Edwards wrote a book in 1746 titled Religious Affections. In this book he addressed the question, how can we know when a person’s conversion is genuine? He agreed with the critics in one sense, that Satan imitates spiritual experiences, making people think they are converted just because they prayed a prayer or had an emotional feeling. Edwards feared that some members of his own congregation who thought they were saved would discover in the day of judgement that they were eternally lost. But Edwards also believed that many conversions are genuine.
So his question was: What are the marks of true conversion? Jonathan Edwards argued that the main sign of true conversion is a change in our affections, that is, a change in our desires. When we are converted, God implants a new love within us. We cannot make ourselves love God. But this new affection arises because God implants it in us. It is one thing to change what a man believes, but it is another thing to change what he loves. Edwards said that if a bad man is to be made good, he must turn from his love of evil to a new love for God. True conversion reaches down to what he called the "affections." Affections are not emotions. Emotions change. But what we hate and what we love are for the most part constant. All true believers have a God-implanted love for Christ. Peter says in I Peter 1:8: "Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy." Only God can cause us to love someone we have never seen.
Many conversions fall short of the real thing. There are false conversions accompanied by zeal and a change of habits. But what is missing, Edwards said, is a fervent love for Christ and "an abiding sense of sin." In contrast the unconverted do not love God. They want to use Him. They have no hunger for His Word. They might study the Bible, but they see the Bible as an interesting historical book, not a place they come to feed their souls. They cannot say with David, "Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands make me wiser than my enemies" (Psalm 119:97-98). The happiness of the unconverted is found in circumstances, not in God. They would never think of finding their delight in God. They cannot identify with David when he says, "Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart" (37:4). They might turn to God for help when their lives fall apart, but when all is going well, they would never think of finding their joy in Him. But those who are truly converted love him because they are "partakers of the divine nature" and his life has been created in them.
Can you say this morning: Yes, I do love the Lord Jesus Christ with a fervent love. I have a hunger to know His Word. My heart longs to please him, and it grieves me to think of disobeying His commands. My delight is to live for Him. Whatever he brings into my life I know he is using it to conform me to the image of Christ
If this describes you then there is evidence that God has begun a good work in you! I pray that each one here this morning can join the great Apostle Paul in saying, "I am confident of this, that God who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."
