Working Out Your Salvation

Conclusion – We can Finish Well

Let me conclude by saying that our light shines brightest when it is submissive and deeply in love with the One who have given us life! It would be remiss to not mention that the passage today was a letter to the church of Philippi which stressed the working out of our salvation not only for our own benefit of drawing nearer and becoming like God but also to let our light shine before the world! “To esteem others instead of “depreciating them” or worse yet writing them off as unredeemable, means one needs not only to exhibit a meek and lowly spirit of love towards others that is best demonstrated by holiness that can only be found by becoming a living sacrifice that is transformed daily to know and obey His “good, pleasing and perfect will” (Romans 12:1-2). If our appeal as Christ’s ambassadors, that all be reconciled unto God, be holy and acceptable in His sight, then our inward transformation received by grace and faith must be evident not only in our own lives but amongst the people of this world who are dying in their sins! Yes, if we are to let our Light shine “like stars in the sky” (Philippians 2:14) “our life must be spent in constant watching, and, as we find ourselves tripping, we must add constant repentance, perpetually praying to be upheld for the future, unceasingly struggling to attain something yet beyond, pressing forward evermore” to attain the goal in which Christ Jesus has laid before us. May we never forget that “God’s willing always comes before our doing,” but out of love for Him and those around us may we never forget the privilege, honor, and divine enabling we have received to do miracles in His name with assurance that through the blood of Christ our feeble attempts to be holy as He is holy can and will be realized as a sweet fragrance unto Him! And if we work out our salvation with fear and trembling then when the Lord returns, we will be able to “boast that we did not run in vain!”

Amen!

Sources Cited

James Montgomery Boice, Philippians: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2000).

C. H. Spurgeon, “Working out What Is Worked in,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 14 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1868).

Gordon D. Fee, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995).

John Wesley, Sermons, on Several Occasions (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1999).

Anthony T. Evans, “Good Works: The Responsibility of Spiritual Growth,” in Tony Evans Sermon Archive (Tony Evans, 1997), Php 2:12.

F. F. Bruce, Philippians, Understanding the Bible Commentary Series (Peabody, MA: Baker Books, 2011).

Markus Bockmuehl, The Epistle to the Philippians, Black’s New Testament Commentary (London: Continuum, 1997).

Ben Witherington III, Paul’s Letter to the Philippians: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge, U.K.: William B. Eerdmans Company, 2011).

G. Walter Hansen, The Letter to the Philippians, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009).