You Can DO This, God Is Working in You— Work out your salvation because God is working in you (Phil 2:12-13)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends on August 13, 2023

Dr. Bill Brown was the president of Cedarville University. A while back, I heard him tell a story about when he was working on his Ph.D. During this time, his wife was working somewhere, and the boss wanted her to do something unethical which lacked integrity. The boss wanted her to alter numbers so the company received more money. During this time, he was doing Ph.D. work, not earning much money. His wife’s income was their income. So, she went to her boss and said, “I cannot do this.” He said, “You have to.” She thought about it at her desk and returned and said, “I cannot do this.” He said, “You have to.” Again, she goes to her desk, calls her husband, and he says, “We must obey God and not man.” She tells the boss, “I cannot do this; I must obey God.” He said, “When you are here, I am your God!” So, she said she could not do it, and she was fired. Later that day, she went with her husband to deliver some manuscripts he was working on for a professor. He was editing a Greek text to make some extra money. The professor saw his wife and asked if she was off work. They explained the situation. He needed an assistant and hired her. She got a job typing what is now the NKJV Bible.

Why do I tell this story? I see in this story two themes that are important to today’s passage. One is the continual theme of Christians being different from the world. Incarnational. Christians must be light. Dr. Brown’s wife may not have made the boss happy; however, she had to be light in a dark world. The world may say, “Do what you have to do to get more money!” That is what her boss wanted her to do, altering the numbers, but Christ calls us to integrity. The world must see Christians with integrity; when they do, they will see us as light in a dark world. This is because we will be trustworthy.

The second theme from that story is reverence for God. The boss said, “When you are here, I am your god.” The passage we will look at will talk about reverence for God. So, let’s look at the passage.

My theme today is:

You Can DO This, God Is Working In You— Work out your salvation because God is working in you (Phil 2:12-13)

1. First, Paul exhorts us to work out our salvation.
   1. Philippians 2:12 (ESV) ¹² Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…
   2. Paul calls them brethren; isn’t that nice? He is continuing to write in family language.
   3. They have always obeyed. He says that. He says, “as you have always obeyed…” He is reminding them of their obedience to Him and to Christ. He is saying that he is absent but still exhorting them to keep obeying.
   4. Work out your own salvation…
   5. How can we work out salvation?
   6. Does this mean we are earning our salvation? Absolutely not! The very next verse, Phil. 2:13, makes it clear. God is working in us, and we allow that to work out of us.
   7. John MacArthur shares: Strabo was an ancient Roman scholar who lived about sixty years before Christ. He recorded an account concerning some Roman-owned mines in Spain. He uses the very same verb that Paul does in Philippians 2:12, katergazomai, when referring to the Romans as working out the mines. Strabo’s point was that the Romans were extracting from within the mines all their richness and value.
   8. That’s a fitting expression of what katergazomai (work out) means in Philippians 2:12. I am to mine out of my life what God has richly deposited there in salvation. I am to produce such precious nuggets of godly character from what He planted when He saved me.[1]
   9. Just because we have something doesn’t mean we don’t work to make it better. We can buy an old car, and we still need to keep it up. More so, we can buy an old car and fix it up. Maybe the car was junked by someone. However, in this case, God has bought the old car, and the old car is me. God will be making it new again, spiritually. But we have a part to do as well. We must allow Him to work in us.
   10. This is not about losing salvation but about completing salvation. This is not about losing salvation but making it look like we are saved. Just as with an old car, we want it to look new. We want it to look as if we own it. We want the way we live to show that God owns it.
   11. As a child, my dad always told me that my work will represent me. In the same way, as a Christian, what we do represents Christ, Who owns us and bought us with His life. It is important that we work out how we represent Him.
   12. Swindoll shares: We need to keep in mind that Paul is writing to Christians (“my beloved”), so obviously these words have nothing to do with his readers’ becoming Christians—they already are. Therefore, the idea of working out one’s salvation must be referring to living out one’s faith— carrying it out correctly. In other words, we, as God’s people, are charged with the importance of obedience. Just as Christ, our example, was “obedient to the point of death” (2:8), so we are to carry out our purpose with equal diligence. When a musician has a fine composition placed before her, that music is not the musician’s masterpiece; it is the composer’s gift to the musician. But it then becomes the task of the musician to work it out, to give it sound and expression and beauty as she applies her skills to the composition. When she does, the composition reaches its completed purpose and thrills the hearts of her listeners.[2]
2. This is about sanctification.
   1. Philippians 2:13 (ESV) ¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
   2. What does sanctification mean? This is not a verb that we use often. How many of you got up this morning and said, “Good morning, honey, are you being sanctified?” Sanctification is a verb to describe holiness. It really means to set apart for a purpose. This begins when you become a Christian and ends when you die. When you become a Christian, you are baptized with the Holy Spirit, and God begins a work in you.
   3. In this passage, this means God works in them to make them more holy; that is what verse 13 is about.
   4. For example: If I make brownies, and I love brownies, I am going to put white icing on them. This is because brownies are not good without white icing. Then over a few days, we will eat the brownies. But then I realize there are only two brownies left, and so I might tell Meagan, “Hey, please save one of the brownies for me!” So, she might put one of the brownies with the sanctified white icing in a place set apart for me.
   5. Likewise, as Christians, God is continually setting our lives apart for Him. He is making us different for a purpose. The brownie might be in a different location for a purpose. A Christian will be set apart in that they live a different life for a purpose.
   6. That is sanctification. God works in our life to make us different, holy, and set apart from the rest of the world. That is verse 13. God does the work.
   7. God does the work. Look at verse 13.
   8. It says it is God who works in you. Think back to Matthew 16:16-17. There is an amazing passage where Jesus asks the disciples who they think He is. Peter says, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Then Jesus says blessed are you, you didn’t get this from yourself but from God.
   9. 2:13 shows God works in us in two ways:
   10. He guides our will, which is our desire.
   11. When we are baptized with the Holy Spirit, we get new desires.
   12. He guides our actions. He guides how we operate.
   13. According to His good purposes.
   14. If you look at verses 12 and 13 there is a nice contrast. Verse 12 says “work-out” and verse 13 says “work-in.” Or really “works-in.”
   15. This sanctification process, this holiness process is two parts. We work and God works. Both must happen. God is great that He is sovereign while we participate and work. We are not robots.
   16. Do you know how sometimes there are things in the Bible that may just confuse you? A pastor of worship once said there are some passages in the Bible where he gets up in the morning, gets his coffee, gets the Word of God out, and then starts reading. But he reads a very difficult passage to interpret. So, he thinks, “well, I am glad I am not the teaching pastor or the senior pastor. I will leave this difficult passage to him.” On the other hand, a teaching pastor or senior pastor gets up in the morning, gets his coffee, and gets the Word of God. He also reads a passage that is difficult to understand. So, his response is, “I am glad I am not the seminary professor of the New Testament, I will leave this passage to them.” Then the seminary professor gets up…
   17. You get the point. There are some difficult passages in the Bible. That was a joke, but the point is we can easily move something up to someone else’s pay grade. This is above my pay-grade.
   18. This can be one of them. It used to be for me. How do we understand how God works in us and we still have freewill? It is beyond our limited understanding. But the more I think about it this passage is not that difficult.
   19. We read a passage like Ephesians 2:8, which says we are saved by grace.
   20. Then we read the text at hand, Phil 2:12: “Work out your salvation.” We must think, “Paul, make this easier to understand.”
   21. Here is how we understand this. There is no contradiction.
   22. Salvation is not simply saying a prayer and believing in Christ. That is future salvation. That is eternal salvation. But now that you have been saved, you need to show that with your life. You need to let God work in you, as verse 13 says. You work to become more like Christ.
   23. But why does it say with fear and trembling? Fear means intense reverence for God. Trembling carries the idea of extreme loyalty.
   24. Work to be made more devoted to God with reverence and loyalty.
   25. Why: because it is God that is trying to do this in you. Let Him!

• Applications:
  1. One more thought about this before we talk about the rest of the text: apply it!
  2. Are we allowing God to work in us?
  3. Do we have loyalty to God?
  4. Are we reverent to God?
  5. We are losing this fast in America. Worship is not entertainment, and if we think it is, we are not loyal to God. We are loyal to entertainment. If we cannot be at worship or Bible study, or devotion time because everything else gets in the way, then we must question our loyalty. Question your reverence.
  6. We must understand that we must be humble and recognize it is God that works in us. It is God that keeps us out of some things and gives us spiritual growth. It was God… it was God… It is God.
  7. We must always work on holiness. It is never over. Charles Swindoll asked an older missionary how he handles lust. He said, “I am still working on it.”
  8. We must hold fast to the Gospel and the Scriptures.
  9. We must work out our salvation with reverence (fear and trembling). This is a serious matter. Christianity and Christian growth is serious. We must take it seriously.
  10. God is working in us according to His pleasure. It is always about Him (Phil. 2:13).
  11. Our spiritual growth is always about His will (Phil. 2:13). It is not about our will, but His will. We must be seeking His will in our spiritual growth. This follows the Christ hymn from Phil. 2:6-11 and Jesus was submissive to the Father’s will. Jesus sacrificed and so must we.
  12. Our spiritual growth is always about His pleasure. If we make it about us, if we make it about boasting if we make it about being better than others, then we are in the same problem the Pharisees were stuck in. It is about Him (Gal. 6:14: boasting only in Christ).

We are never too old to grow in Christ:

Swindoll shares in “Laugh Again” pages 92 and the following:

I came across an article way back in 1967 that I still return to on occasion. Entitled “Advice to a (Bored) Young Man,” it communicates how much one person can contribute, if only—

Many people reading this page are doing so with the aid of bifocals. Inventor? B. Franklin, age 79.

The presses that printed this page were powered by electricity. One of the first harnessers? B. Franklin, age 40.

Some are reading this on the campus of one of the Ivy League universities. Founder? B. Franklin, age 45.

Some got their copy through the U.S. Mail. Its father? B. Franklin, age 31.

Now, think fire. Who started the first fire department, invented the lightning rod, designed a heating stove still in use today? B. Franklin, ages 31, 43, 36.

Wit. Conversationalist. Economist. Philosopher. Diplomat. Printer. Publisher. Linguist (spoke and wrote five languages). Advocate of paratroopers (from balloons) a century before the airplane was invented. All this until age 84.

And he had exactly two years of formal schooling. It’s a good bet that you already have more sheer knowledge than Franklin had when he was your age.

Perhaps you think there’s no use trying to think of anything new, that everything’s been done. Wrong. The simple, agrarian America of Franklin’s day didn’t begin to need the answers we need today.

We must always reflect Christ. We are ambassadors for Christ. Let Him work in you.[3]

Swindoll gives an example of Tom Landry. Landry was on the board of the Dallas Theological Seminary, and Swindoll got to know him there. Swindoll writes:

As head coach of the Dallas Cowboys for twenty-nine years and a member of the National Football League Hall of Fame, his record speaks for itself. But what I find even more admirable are his character, his integrity, and his humility. Now that I have gotten to know the man “up close and personal,” my appreciation for him has only increased.

Most of us were surprised and disappointed at the way a new owner of the Cowboys released Coach Landry from his position. I had the privilege of watching and listening to him during that time . . . even having a few personal conversations without microphones or television cameras or news reporters nearby. He had ample opportunities to blast the new management by criticizing their methods and defending himself. Not once—not a single time—following his forced resignation did I hear an ugly remark or a blaming comment cross Tom Landry’s lips. The only response was something like, “You know, Chuck, a fellow in my position has to realize it’s going to be taken from him whether or not he is ready for it to happen. It’s just a matter of being willing to accept that.” Those are the unselfish words of a man who was told rather hurriedly to clean out his desk and be on his way . . . after giving almost three decades of his life to something he loved. Most others in his place would have held a news conference within hours and blasted the new management unmercifully.

I have been with Coach Landry on numerous occasions since then. We have had him at our church to speak to a gymnasium full of men with their sons and friends. It has been delightful to observe a total absence of bitterness in the man and, at the same time, the continued presence of a sense of humor and the joy of Christ. Personally, I am convinced his current attitude is a greater message to those to whom he speaks than all those years of success and championship seasons. It is reassuring to know that joy can endure hardship as long as that Christlike attitude of unselfishness is in place.[4]

[1]https://www.gty.org/library/blog/B140707?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=gtyblog

[2] Swindoll, Charles R.. Laugh Again (p. 97). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

[3] Swindoll, Charles R.. Laugh Again (pp. 93-94). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

[4] Ibid, pp. 88-89.