Working Out Your Salvation

Working out What’s Being Worked In

Philippians 2:12-13

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

Ever since God said, “let Us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26), the eternity He placed in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11) keeps us yearning to draw nearer to our Lord (James 4:8)! Though God created us “a little lower than the angels and crowned us with honor and glory” (Hebrews 2:6-7) our attempts to know and touch God sometimes feal like an exercise in futility. While we would like to blame the lack of closeness to God as solely being the inevitable by-product of living in a fallen world with so many temptations, countless people like Simon Stylites who sat on top of a pillar fifty feet high and the Egyptian hermit Anthony who lived in the desert just to keep from having any contact with the world did not lead to holiness but merely proved that what was learned on the mountaintops was of little value unless shared in a community of love. While it is unlikely that a person knows the Lord unless he/she “wants to extend the boundaries of the Master’s kingdom,” how does one “become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation” (Philippians 2:15), when the Bible states none of us are righteous, not a single one (Romans 3:10-18)? Obviously, it must be possible to please God if not then why would He command us to be holy as He is holy (1 Peter 1:16) and to let our “shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16)? The following sermon is going to examine Philippians 2:12-13 to suggest that the call to work out our salvation with fear and trembling is not an exercise of futility but one that is not only attainable but an expectation from the Lord because He is the one who works in us to will and act to fulfill His purpose! Apostle Paul masterfully explains that while salvation is attainable only by faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, we are called to put every effort into maximizing our spiritual potential by relying on His grace to transform our minds and enable us to obtain the full measure of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit!

Work out Your Salvation with Fear and Trembling

Considering the vicarious sacrifice of He who emptied Himself by becoming obedient to death (Philippians 2:6-10), even death on a cross, Paul says we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (verse 12)! Since we “did not receive a spirit that makes us a slave again to fear (Romans 8:15), “fear” is not meant to be taken literally to mean “cowering” that God will crush you for your sins, for this would go against His grace and mercy! For Paul “fear and trembling” in this passage refers to “quaking with a holy awe” at the majesty, sacrifice and supremacy of our Lord, Saviour, and King! We tremble lest in our “carnal security and recklessness” we might sin and in doing so disappoint and grieve the Spirit of God in whom we are sealed. The fear Paul is talking about is the same one whom Isaiah cried out “woe to me, I am ruined for I am a man of unclean lips” (6:5) and caused Apostle John to “fall down as though dead” in the presence of the Lord. From Paul we learn that salvation is deeply personal! Asking Christ to be the Lord of our lives is not a trivial thing but a life-time commitment to deny oneself, take up one’s cross and follow Him (Matthew 16:24)! Those who have been reconciled unto Christ are called to “live a life worthy of the Gospel” (Philippians 1:27). “Obedience is not defined in legal terms but in relational terms” for to have one’s mind renewed so that one might know and obey His perfect and pleasing will must be done in an act of awe and wonder of His love. While one is to fear the discipline of the Lord (Hebrews 12:6), our primary motivation as Christians ought to be to become more like Him by lovingly inviting and accepting His transformative grace in our lives! Working out our salvation by fear and trembling is also having a total reliance on God for His protection, wisdom, and strength to carry one through the darkest of valleys in life with the glorious hope and expectation that faith produces perseverance and spiritual maturity (James 1:2-4) amongst those who watch and pray (Matthew 26:41) without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:17) that one might be able to discern and obey His will for one’s life!

God’s Working in You

Before one can strive to realize “God’s love, peace, holiness, goodness, and justice in one’s life,” one must first become born again. Apostle Paul does not state one is to work “for” or “towards” one’s salvation but to “work out” the salvation one has already received. Since no one is righteous, and all have fallen short of the glory of God it is not possible for people to become saved till “God enlightens our minds and moves our wills to accept the way, truth and life found in His Son Jesus! To the church of Ephesus Paul wrote, “for it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast (2:8). It is not by human effort but faith in the atoning sacrifice of our Lord that one receives the gift of God of having the Holy Spirit regenerate a person from death to partakers of His divine nature, everlasting life, and inheritors of His glory. Paul uses the phrase “work out” in relation to salvation to remind us that our path to becoming saved is one solely based on faith in Christ’s atonement, grace and mercy. “So, in one sense salvation of every person is complete, and complete without any working on a person’s part, seeing that it is finished we are complete in Jesus!” It is not by secluding ourselves from the world by sitting on a flagpole or by isolating oneself in a desert, reading our Bibles everyday, praying without ceasing, feeding the poor or taking care of the widows that makes a person a son or daughter of the Father but through faith in Christ and by being born again of the water and Spirit (John 3:5) and therefore being adopted as His very own child (John 1:12)! If this were not so and one could earn one’s salvation, then grace would not be grace! Paul is not saying that once a person receives their new nature the old one is destroyed and one automatically becomes holy and attains the full measure of Christ but merely that the only part we play in passing from death to life is faith in Christ’s grace and mercy to save us from our sins, for without His aid one would forever be entangled in the wages of sin which is death (Hebrews 12:1; Romans 6:23).