SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lowell.
SPEAKER_00: I spoke with Jason this week and let him know that each week we are taking time in our service to pray for him, and he gave us uh some updated information which Lowell included in that, and they are very appreciative of the fact that we are praying and we care.
SPEAKER_00: Three weeks from today, three weeks from today, we'll have an installation service for Jason.
SPEAKER_00: I can't wait.
SPEAKER_00: A mile marker along the path of the history of this church as we celebrate but especially dedicate him and ourselves as a congregation to what God wants to be doing here.
SPEAKER_00: That's three weeks from now.
SPEAKER_00: Two weeks from now, we're going to be having a sharing service.
SPEAKER_00: It's been a while since we've done that, an opportunity in which we won't have a formal message, uh, for which some people will be profoundly thankful.
SPEAKER_00: I fully understand and realize.
SPEAKER_00: The message will be you.
SPEAKER_00: More accurately, the message will be what God is doing in your life.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're we're going to be doing, and I'm really looking forward to that as well.
SPEAKER_00: Well, today, today is the 4th of June 2017, and God is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He was all week long.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what your week was like, He was with us.
SPEAKER_00: He was there.
SPEAKER_00: He's on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He is today.
SPEAKER_00: We have no idea what this afternoon will bring.
SPEAKER_00: We know with a certainty that God is with us.
SPEAKER_00: He is still on the throne.
SPEAKER_00: And all the week ahead, forever and ever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: And that gives us cause for great joy, for perseverance, and for walking in faith.
SPEAKER_00: So this morning we're going to, you know, I've only got about three more weeks and I still haven't figured out how to turn this thing on properly.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see how we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to continue with our understanding and our study of the book of Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: I've chosen a number of favorite passages.
SPEAKER_00: As I told you initially, it would take me four or five months to work through the whole book the way I would like to do it.
SPEAKER_00: So rather than that, I've just chosen some passages which are my favorites.
SPEAKER_00: So I hope you will enjoy them.
SPEAKER_00: More importantly than enjoying them, I hope these are verses that you take to heart.
SPEAKER_00: It becomes part of the warp and woof of your spiritual life as together we journey in this walk of faith.
SPEAKER_00: So turn with me if you would, please, to Philippians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be looking just at two verses, two incredibly important verses, wonderful verses, mountaintop type verses, and I'll explain that in a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Several weeks ago, when we were looking at the passage immediately before this, I told you a story of a mountaintop experience I had when I was in one of my happy places, one of my favorite places, Otelboden, Switzerland.
SPEAKER_00: We lived just two hours from the High Alps for a number of years.
SPEAKER_00: And there is a valley in Switzerland, the Otelboden Valley, that is the most breathtaking, the most beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: My little corner of heaven is going to be at least like that, and maybe a whole lot better.
SPEAKER_00: But I told you a story that had to do with not burning the map.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you may remember that.
SPEAKER_00: And the point of it really was sometimes in order to go up, you have to go down.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way it was for Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The way down and then up.
SPEAKER_00: The way up goes down.
SPEAKER_00: Today's passage is a little bit different, but it also reminded me of Otelboden, Switzerland.
SPEAKER_00: And you've only got a couple more weeks to deal with me, so I promise this will be the last time I talk about it.
SPEAKER_00: But there was another path there in those beautiful Swiss Alps outside of Otelboden.
SPEAKER_00: This one was across the valley from the one I talked about last time.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a phenomenal trail to be on.
SPEAKER_00: It took about four and a half hours of hard, hard hiking to get up on top.
SPEAKER_00: But oh my, when you got to the top, the view was worth every belabored breath that you might have left within you.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't have many left by the time I got up there.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a it was on a ridge between two valleys, the Adelboden Valley on one side, and I don't remember the name of the other one.
SPEAKER_00: It was a long horizontal path.
SPEAKER_00: Once you got to the top, a narrow path that went for three or four kilometers, a very narrow path, actually, the kind of path Jane would never see if she knew what was ahead of her, and I loved her too much to try to take her with me at the time.
SPEAKER_00: When I say narrow, I mean that ridge and that path, although it was relatively safe, it was only safe if you stayed on the path.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the situation.
SPEAKER_00: On the right, the path was maybe five feet wide.
SPEAKER_00: If you stayed on the path, you were really pretty safe.
SPEAKER_00: You looked to the right, and you could see forever.
SPEAKER_00: You would see valley after valley, lush green Swiss valleys dotted with chalets.
SPEAKER_00: Chalets in Switzerland are places where animals live, not where you and I live.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So up in the high Alpine valley.
SPEAKER_00: But you could see all the way to Germany from that point if you looked off to the right.
SPEAKER_00: If you stepped off to the right, it was one of those go down and meet Jesus kinds of places.
SPEAKER_00: On the left, there was a beautiful vista and a beautiful view and these verdant alpine valleys dotted with chalets, and it went all the way to Italy.
SPEAKER_00: And if you took a step in that direction, then it was a thousand feet down, and you would by no means make it to Italy.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you rolled there or your body rolled there.
SPEAKER_00: It was beautiful and relatively safe if you stayed on the path.
SPEAKER_00: Off to the right, as attractive as that was, the problem was for me, is wherever I looked, my feet wanted to go.
SPEAKER_00: So I would look off to the right and I was drawn off that way, and I had to very intentionally stay on the path.
SPEAKER_00: Or I'd look to the left and my eyes were drawn that way, and I had to very intentionally stay on the path.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the passage that we're looking at this morning, these two verses, it's like there is beauty looking right, and there is beauty looking left, but we dare not look too long, otherwise we get ourselves in trouble because there is a path for us to walk on.
SPEAKER_00: So let me read that simple passage.
SPEAKER_00: Please follow along in Philippians chapter 2, verses 11 and 12.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, my beloved, therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the key of verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: Work out your own salvation in fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: But verse 13 then is the complement to that.
SPEAKER_00: For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Danger's over here, dangers over here, truth over here, truth over there, and yet if you focus too much over here, you get into trouble.
SPEAKER_00: If you focus too much over there, you get into trouble.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is yes and yes, and stay on the path.
SPEAKER_00: The one focuses on our responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: It's a manward focus.
SPEAKER_00: Work out your salvation in fear and trembling, and we're going to unpack that.
SPEAKER_00: The second is the Godward side of that.
SPEAKER_00: God, God is the one who works within you to will and to do his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Truth here, truth here.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is, on that ridge, on that narrow path, you can't look in both directions at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: If you're looking over here, you're not seeing over there.
SPEAKER_00: And our danger is if we get focused on the one side, then we're not seeing this.
SPEAKER_00: And if we get overly focused on this, if we get overly focused on our human responsibilities, the manward side of things, at the cost of the sovereign grace of God, then we get ourselves into trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Or if we look over here and we get fascinated, rightly so, with the glory of God, the sovereignty of God, the fact that God is still on the throne at the cost of our responsibility, you get into danger.
SPEAKER_00: Danger's on the right, danger's on the left.
SPEAKER_00: Truth on the right, truth on the left.
SPEAKER_00: Truth on the right, without the truth on the left, is dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: It's the kind of thing that splits churches and is destructive for our spiritual lives.
SPEAKER_00: Truth on the left, truth on the right.
SPEAKER_00: If you just focus on the Godward side at the cost of the manward side, I got my arms turned around here, the point is both end.
SPEAKER_00: Both are true.
SPEAKER_00: Both are true, both are revealed by God, both are inspired, and with our puny human minds, we cannot reconcile them.
SPEAKER_00: And the theologians for 2,000 years have wrestled with it.
SPEAKER_00: And if anybody thinks they have the responsibility of man and the work of man and the responsibility and the work of God all figured out and totally reconciled, they haven't really thought very far.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we're dealing with God, there are things that our minds don't know how to correlate with other truths.
SPEAKER_00: The absolute sovereign grace of God and the absolute responsibility of man to work out his own salvation, it's yes and yes.
SPEAKER_00: And these two verses come beautifully together in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to try to explore that with you just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: So the context here, the context is sanctification or spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: So he's saying, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now also, as not in my presence only, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: And as we will see, when we put this verse in its context, it's talking about the present tense of salvation or sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the whole passage has been all about.
SPEAKER_00: And then the corollary to that, it's God who is at work within you, both to will and to do his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: These two truths, without any apparent conflict in Paul's mind, with great conflict in my puny mind, without any conflict in the revelation, the inspired, inerrant verbal revelation of God, no conflict between man's responsibility, God's responsibility in this process of spiritual growth.
SPEAKER_00: It's yes, yes, both and.
SPEAKER_00: And if we approach it any other way, we get ourselves in great danger.
SPEAKER_00: So he uses the little term therefore, and if you've been around expository Bible teaching very long, you've no doubt heard the old adage, and it's true.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you see a therefore, ask yourself what it's there for, because it's therefore a reason.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, now that word draws us into the preceding section.
SPEAKER_00: He's been talking, and now he's continuing and he's drawing conclusions based upon what he has been saying.
SPEAKER_00: It draws us into the context.
SPEAKER_00: And another old-fashioned statement that is absolutely true and is worth repeating is a text without a context is a pretext.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you can prove anything you want with the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, people prove the craziest things with the scriptures, but you can only prove anything you want when you take it out of its context.
SPEAKER_00: Because the issue is not what you want the text to say, but what is the passage really saying?
SPEAKER_00: These verses are given in a context.
SPEAKER_00: And the context for this is Paul's and the Philippians' walk of faith in the present tense, in the present time.
SPEAKER_00: So he's been talking about his own experience.
SPEAKER_00: You remember he was in prison and he talked about being fettered, but in his experience, though he was fettered, the gospel was free, not limited by his chains.
SPEAKER_00: He was chained to a whole series of members of the Praetorian Guard, day in and day out, for the time of his imprisonment in Rome, during which he's writing to the Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: And in all of this, Paul puts his present experience and he connects it with who God is and what God is doing, and he lets us see something about how he processes his present circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking about his own personal response of faith in the situation he finds himself in.
SPEAKER_00: And in the immediately preceding passage, he's talking about the Philippians.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And he talks about how what our experience of a walk of faith is to be.
SPEAKER_00: And so the whole context here is in dealing with growth in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: It's not talking about coming to faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's not really talking about going home to be with Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about our walk now.
SPEAKER_00: So whatever else we do with these two verses, we have to understand them in the context.
SPEAKER_00: They're talking about our present tense experience of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: I trust you understand that there are in the scriptures the word salvation is a very broad, very rich term, and it's been often recognized, and it's true, there are three tenses of salvation.
SPEAKER_00: We have been saved, we are being saved, we shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: In the past, we have been saved.
SPEAKER_00: We've been saved from the guilt and penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's called, theologically, it's called justification.
SPEAKER_00: We have been forgiven because the guilt and the penalty of our sin has been placed upon Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We have been freed from the guilt and penalty of sin.
SPEAKER_00: We have been saved.
SPEAKER_00: But it's broader than that.
SPEAKER_00: That's just one glorious aspect of our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Present tense, we are being saved.
SPEAKER_00: We are being saved from the overpowering control of sin, the dominating influence of sin in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We're not fully freed from it.
SPEAKER_00: It's an ongoing process.
SPEAKER_00: That's called sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's talking about in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: And then we will be saved, we shall be saved from the very presence of sin.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, how we ought to long for that.
SPEAKER_00: We've been saved, we are being saved, we shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: In the scriptures, the New Testament uses the word salvation in all three and actually other kinds of meanings.
SPEAKER_00: All I want to say is when he says, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
SPEAKER_00: The working out of our salvation is what we would call growth in the Christian life, coming to spiritual maturity, sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: And when he says, for it is God who is at work within you both to will and to work for his good pleasure, it's talking about the Godward side of our spiritual growth and our spiritual lives.
SPEAKER_00: Growing to maturity in Christ is what this is all about.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that it is neither without struggle nor automatic.
SPEAKER_00: We are on a narrow path.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Jesus spoke about the broad path.
SPEAKER_00: The way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who are on it, but there is a narrow path to which we have been called, a path of radical obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he's talking about in this context.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about straining forward, pressing on in the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about fighting the good fight of faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about disciplining yourself unto godliness.
SPEAKER_00: It's talking about what we are needing to do as we grow in this process of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't happen by itself.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just happen to us.
SPEAKER_00: There are many out there who are preaching a gospel of basically name it, claim it, you've got it, just enjoy it.
SPEAKER_00: That is not the gospel of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: We are called to a life of radical obedience, radical discipleship, struggling, straining, pressing forward, fighting the fight, running the race, finishing the course, and that's what Jesus was called to, and that's what we are called to.
SPEAKER_00: So our work in this in verse 12 is to walk, to fight, to press on.
SPEAKER_00: This is the narrow path, the path of continually being transformed into the image of Christ as we walk in faith, as we use the resources that God provides for us, as we persevere, as we finish our course.
SPEAKER_00: And it is not easy.
SPEAKER_00: If your Christian life is easy, I have to honestly ask you: are you on the real path?
SPEAKER_00: Because it was not presented in the New Testament as this wonderful, everything's groovy, let's just enjoy life.
SPEAKER_00: And I know some of you enough to know it's not easy.
SPEAKER_00: And I know myself.
SPEAKER_00: Fifty-two years ago I started on a path, I think it was 52, yeah, it would have been.
SPEAKER_00: 52 years ago, 48 years ago I started on a path with this woman over here.
SPEAKER_00: But 52 years ago I started on a path with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And oh my, have there been difficult times.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, you shall have tribulation.
SPEAKER_00: But be of good cheer, I've overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: We're not in this alone.
SPEAKER_00: And it was difficult for Jesus, and it is difficult for us.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 3 verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: I count everything as loss because of the supreme worth, surpassing worth of knowing Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For His self, for His sake, I have suffered the loss of all things and then counted gain in order to be.
SPEAKER_00: That I may gain Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing easy about this.
SPEAKER_00: If you are following an easy path, I'll say it and then I'll get out of town in about three weeks.
SPEAKER_00: You're not on the path of faith.
SPEAKER_00: If that's what you're expecting in the Christian life, you don't read your New Testament very well.
SPEAKER_00: I love you.
SPEAKER_00: And because I love you, I have to say that.
SPEAKER_00: Do we expect heaven on earth?
SPEAKER_00: No, heaven is our destination.
SPEAKER_00: There's a narrow, difficult path we walk.
SPEAKER_00: That is not a popular gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It just happens to be the gospel of truth, as revealed in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul says, verse 12 to the believers, you have always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, that's an interesting comment.
SPEAKER_00: The fact of the matter is there was not always a time in which these believers were Christians.
SPEAKER_00: They came to faith.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a time and they weren't obeying.
SPEAKER_00: And there are times in the Christian life that we don't obey.
SPEAKER_00: There's ups and there's downs, there's failures, there's progress, there's good times spiritually, and there's difficult times spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: We sin.
SPEAKER_00: It's up and down.
SPEAKER_00: So how could he possibly say, you have always obeyed?
SPEAKER_00: Have you always obeyed?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Have I always obeyed?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yes, of course.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a pastor, so I've always obeyed.
SPEAKER_00: Bologna.
SPEAKER_00: So what does he really mean here?
SPEAKER_00: True believers, and this is the reality of the Christian life, are normally obedient, though not perfectly and not consistently.
SPEAKER_00: The walk of faith is not a walk of perfection.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a walk without stumbles in sin and beginning to wander off the path.
SPEAKER_00: The true believers are normally obedient, though not perfectly obedient.
SPEAKER_00: The picture of obedience for the Christian in the New Testament is a trajectory.
SPEAKER_00: It's a direction of our lives over time.
SPEAKER_00: It's an upward direction.
SPEAKER_00: It'd be kind of like following the stock market.
SPEAKER_00: Although recently the stock market's been going like this, just wait, there'll be a 10% correction.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you're assuming that.
SPEAKER_00: And if you looked at, if you looked at it in the downward side of the ups and downs, you would say the trajectory, the end result, is disaster.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at it over the long haul, yeah, there's ups and downs.
SPEAKER_00: But the trajectory of our spiritual lives are up, is up.
SPEAKER_00: The reality of this is that the question is really not, my dear friends, how are you doing today spiritually?
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question.
SPEAKER_00: But you may be in an awful place spiritually today, if you were very honest.
SPEAKER_00: And if you gave me the privilege of walking with you for a little while at a heart level, might find that we're not all in good places.
SPEAKER_00: The question is really, what's the trajectory of your walk of faith?
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing today compared to a couple of years ago or five years ago?
SPEAKER_00: As a pastor, what interests me is what's the course of your spiritual life?
SPEAKER_00: If the overall course of your life doesn't have an upward, godward direction to it, then you are in deep trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're on this phase, you can be in trouble if you stay there.
SPEAKER_00: But the question is really not how am I doing with God today?
SPEAKER_00: But is my life being transformed?
SPEAKER_00: Am I the same rotten, obnoxious person I was five years ago?
SPEAKER_00: Or whatever your tendency towards sin is.
SPEAKER_00: If there if it's not making a difference now.
SPEAKER_00: We spent how many months in the book of James, my goodness?
SPEAKER_00: Faith works.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get saved by works, but a saving faith works.
SPEAKER_00: We change, we're different, we grow.
SPEAKER_00: We're not the same people we used to be.
SPEAKER_00: And what he is really saying here is you are believers.
SPEAKER_00: Now keep believing.
SPEAKER_00: You are people who obey.
SPEAKER_00: That's your character, that's your nature.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Lowell, um Lowell's a runner.
SPEAKER_00: He's a runner.
SPEAKER_00: Um the exhortation is Lowell, keep being who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Keep going, keep persevering in that.
SPEAKER_00: You're a runner, now run.
SPEAKER_00: You're a believer, now believe.
SPEAKER_00: You're growing, now grow.
SPEAKER_00: You're being transformed in.
SPEAKER_00: That's who you are.
SPEAKER_00: That's your identity.
SPEAKER_00: That's the inner core of who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Keep becoming who you are.
SPEAKER_00: See, our words don't work very well.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but that really is what's concerned about.
SPEAKER_00: Are you more inclined to make a big deal about God today than three years ago?
SPEAKER_00: Instead of making a big deal about yourself, are you more inclined to make a big deal about God?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you just as inclined as you've always been to make a big deal about yourself?
SPEAKER_00: That's really the kinds of questions that deal with sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you, I know enough about some of you, you've been in difficult situations for months and months and months, and in some cases years.
SPEAKER_00: Are you persevering?
SPEAKER_00: Are you giving up?
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: What's the reality?
SPEAKER_00: And there's ups and downs, but by it's by the very definition.
SPEAKER_00: We are believers if we've trusted Christ, if Christ has transformed us.
SPEAKER_00: We're on a path, we're on our journey, a journey that takes us homeward.
SPEAKER_00: And it has its ups and downs, but over time there is progress and growth.
SPEAKER_00: And if there isn't progress and growth, you are not on the journey.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difficult reality of it all.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he says, not only in my presence, but all the more in my absence.
SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: The reality is that real Christian obedience, the sign of spiritual maturity is when obedience comes from within rather than being forced or compelled from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we are being changed.
SPEAKER_00: We're not just being socialized, although evangelical churches are really good at socializing people, especially young people when they're growing up.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to do this, you've got to act this way, you've got to have these thoughts, and so you learn to play a game.
SPEAKER_00: But if it's only on the outside, if you're only obeying because you have to, that is not Christian obedience.
SPEAKER_00: This becomes most evident in child raising.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I can talk about this now.
SPEAKER_00: Our kids are all out of the home, and you don't know them, so I can talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, the reality is when you have a young child, um, it's pretty easy to get compliance with a young child.
SPEAKER_00: At least on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, after all, you're bigger than they are.
SPEAKER_00: You can make them sit in the chair and eat their peas if you want to.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I my mother made me sit in the chair and eat lima beans, and I promptly threw everything up on her plate.
SPEAKER_00: But I was a rebellious sinner.
SPEAKER_00: But at least at one level, you can compel a child, you can conform a child to certain standards.
SPEAKER_00: As they get older, it gets more difficult.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you can you can set a limit on device time.
SPEAKER_00: So they only have a maximum of 12 hours a day with their devices or whatever it is, you know.
SPEAKER_00: But there comes a time, I mean, you can you can take the car keys away up to a point.
SPEAKER_00: But if all that happens is that our kids get socialized and do Christian things because they don't have really any other acceptable choice, then that's not what Israel is, that's not what parenting is.
SPEAKER_00: And I will never write a book on parenting.
SPEAKER_00: I will never write a book on parenting.
SPEAKER_00: It's a walk of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And there are more questions than there are answers.
SPEAKER_00: But what we don't want is just conformity on the outside.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my question is your obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Is your obedience just because that's what Christians do?
SPEAKER_00: That's what good Christians do?
SPEAKER_00: Or take a teenager.
SPEAKER_00: The goal with a trying to shepherd and serve and love a teenager might be expressed in the idea that they wouldn't binge drink.
SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't binge drink, not just because they would have the wrath of mom and dad calling down upon them, but because they really don't want to.
SPEAKER_00: Or they more desire not to than they desire to.
SPEAKER_00: See, there's this internal reality of a heart of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: So loving.
SPEAKER_00: How about you?
SPEAKER_00: Giving.
SPEAKER_00: Where's Gary?
SPEAKER_00: Did he slip out?
SPEAKER_00: That rascal.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: There you are up there, brother.
SPEAKER_00: Preach it.
SPEAKER_00: We have an opportunity now to give.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
SPEAKER_00: Do we give joyfully?
SPEAKER_00: Do we give sacrificially?
SPEAKER_00: Do we give because it because we want to give, or do we give because we have to give?
SPEAKER_00: I'm a heretical pastor.
SPEAKER_00: I'm inclined to say, if you don't want to give, then keep your lousy money.
SPEAKER_00: It does no good whatsoever.
SPEAKER_00: If you give from the wrong motives, we don't need that.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't need that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you have to learn, you have to discipline yourself, but if the only reason we do Christian things is because we feel like we have to, and we aren't learning from the inside the joy of sacrificial giving?
SPEAKER_00: Or learning to love people that you don't like?
SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of people here in this room, no, I won't say it that way.
SPEAKER_00: There's a bunch of people out there that I don't particularly like.
SPEAKER_00: Does that give me a free pass then from loving them?
SPEAKER_00: Or do I love and serve people because I love people?
SPEAKER_00: Not because, and I'm not by nature a loving person, but God gives me a heart and a desire to be who I'm not naturally.
SPEAKER_00: And why do we do what we do?
SPEAKER_00: Is it just from the outside, or is there something flowing from within?
SPEAKER_00: Rushing flow of living waters from within.
SPEAKER_00: That's the goal of spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: So continue to work out your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The details of the text, it's a present imperative.
SPEAKER_00: For all of you Greek scholars out there, that basically it's an over-translation.
SPEAKER_00: It's keep doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Keep working out your salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Keep believing.
SPEAKER_00: Believe.
SPEAKER_00: But there's two kinds of imperatives, and one of them is this present ongoing action, keep believing, continue to work out your own salvation, and that's actually the way NIV translates it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a sense of perseverance, of keeping at it until the whole process is complete.
SPEAKER_00: For, verse 13, this is the other side of it.
SPEAKER_00: We'll deal with it much more briefly.
SPEAKER_00: For God is at work.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: This is a rich verse, and verbally, it's just so much fun to spend some time with this verse.
SPEAKER_00: And the concepts of working, Paul has plays on words all the way through here.
SPEAKER_00: Keep on working out what God is working in you is very much what he's saying here.
SPEAKER_00: Keep working out what God, for God who works in you, what he has been working in with you, you work out.
SPEAKER_00: Or keep working out what God works in you, saying it in a slightly different way, and yet the way the word God here is used, it's almost as though it's a title for God.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you find these lists of the names of God.
SPEAKER_00: You could call God the worker, God the worker.
SPEAKER_00: The God the worker is working.
SPEAKER_00: He's working in you.
SPEAKER_00: And the word for work is the word for energy.
SPEAKER_00: The verb and the noun form are what we get the word energy from.
SPEAKER_00: So God the energizer, I don't mean the energizer bunny, I mean God Almighty, the God of creation, the God of all power.
SPEAKER_00: God the energizer energizes us with spiritual energy.
SPEAKER_00: That's who God is.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: The point of this is that God's work in sanctification is to empower us, and our work in sanctification is to work out what God is empowering us to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's both and.
SPEAKER_00: It's not one or the other.
SPEAKER_00: We're to respond.
SPEAKER_00: We have responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Interesting thought.
SPEAKER_00: The word responsibility, have you ever noticed that responsible means response able?
SPEAKER_00: We are capable of responding.
SPEAKER_00: We are able.
SPEAKER_00: God, as Christ transforms us from within, we become able to respond to God the way he wants us to, because we want to and we experience the power from within.
SPEAKER_00: We are responsible.
SPEAKER_00: So act responsibly.
SPEAKER_00: Work out, cooperate with what God is doing.
SPEAKER_00: We make no contribution to justification or to glorification.
SPEAKER_00: That is only and exclusively a work of God that is done to us.
SPEAKER_00: There are those who suggest that in the Christian life it's all God's doing as well.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the way this passage talks about it.
SPEAKER_00: God working within us.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody rightly said Paul exhorts us as if he were an Arminian.
SPEAKER_00: The Arminians focus on the manward side of God or of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, not always, to an exclusion of the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_00: But he exhorts us as if he were an Arminian, and he prays as if he were a Calvinist.
SPEAKER_00: The Calvinists who make constant focus on the glory of God and the goodness of God and the sovereign grace of God.
SPEAKER_00: I love him.
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's both and it's not either or.
SPEAKER_00: Paul exhorts as though he were an Arminian, and he prays as though he were a Calvinist.
SPEAKER_00: He's neither.
SPEAKER_00: He's a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And he feels no inconsistency with the two, and he makes no attempt to reconcile divine sovereignty and human free will, which I succeeded Freudian slip leaving it off of the thing there.
SPEAKER_00: All right, real quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Just two things by way of application and conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: One probing personal question, and one that I hope will be a comment that will be an incredibly reassuring promise.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: A probing question.
SPEAKER_00: For you.
SPEAKER_00: For me.
SPEAKER_00: What evidence is there in the course of your life?
SPEAKER_00: Not just today, but in the course of your life, what evidence is there really of an upward trajectory?
SPEAKER_00: Say that six times publicly, I dare you.
SPEAKER_00: An upward trajectory towards spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: What evidence is there in your life?
SPEAKER_00: That's what the book of James is all about.
SPEAKER_00: Faith works.
SPEAKER_00: So you say you believe, great.
SPEAKER_00: Show me your works and I'll believe your faith.
SPEAKER_00: What real evidence is there?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 12 alone gives the impression that it all depends upon us.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13 alone gives the impression that it all depends upon God.
SPEAKER_00: Both are true, but what about your what about personal conflicts with people?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have just as many conflicts and difficulties getting along with people now as you did four or five years ago?
SPEAKER_00: That's a fair question.
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to tell me, you need to answer that yourself.
SPEAKER_00: What about your struggles with despair?
SPEAKER_00: I get that, I understand that, but is there no progress in your spiritual life over the course of time?
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean this week versus last week, I mean over the years.
SPEAKER_00: Is God working in your life in concrete ways?
SPEAKER_00: What about your thought life?
SPEAKER_00: What about persevering through the months and the months and the months of pain and God not taking it away from you?
SPEAKER_00: That perseverance is a glorious work of God and you work out what God is seeking to work in.
SPEAKER_00: Are you just as shy and isolated as you were 15 years ago so that you struggle in interpersonal relationships?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you coming to understand who God has made you and to become trusting God for that and better able?
SPEAKER_00: Not that you're the most gregarious life of the party, that's not what I'm talking about, but are your interpersonal relationships healthier and better than they were a few years ago?
SPEAKER_00: That's an important question.
SPEAKER_00: That's where our Christianity works itself out over time.
SPEAKER_00: Are you still driven, driven by the approval of other people, so that if anybody says something negative about you, you are devastated.
SPEAKER_00: Or are you learning to find in Christ the sufficiency and the reality and the foundation for your life?
SPEAKER_00: And the list goes on and on and on and on.
SPEAKER_00: And there are areas in my life and I would say, yeah, I think I'm getting that.
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm no longer who I was.
SPEAKER_00: And there's areas in my life that are not yet the way they should be.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the reality of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: But honestly, a probing personal question.
SPEAKER_00: What evidence is there in the course of your life of an upward trajectory towards spiritual maturity?
SPEAKER_00: That's what these two verses ought to cause you to be reflecting on.
SPEAKER_00: And finally, an incredibly reassuring reminder.
SPEAKER_00: In this book of Philippians, Paul has already said, I am sure of this, that he who began a good work within you will bring it to completion in the day of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You are not in the battle alone.
SPEAKER_00: You are not in the struggle alone.
SPEAKER_00: You are not persevering in the faith alone.
SPEAKER_00: Emmanuel, God with us.
SPEAKER_00: God with us.
SPEAKER_00: God is working within us to will and to do his good pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul could say he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him in Philippians 4.13.
SPEAKER_00: That's why he said, you can rejoice and be content in whatever circumstance you find yourself in.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4.11.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you can be anxious for nothing but thankful for everything.
SPEAKER_00: Philippians 4, 6.
SPEAKER_00: That's God is at work.
SPEAKER_00: He is working within the believer.
SPEAKER_00: And you have your days, I get that.
SPEAKER_00: You have your weeks.
SPEAKER_00: You may have seasons in your life.
SPEAKER_00: But what's the trajectory?
SPEAKER_00: And do you see the reality of God who has promised to be with us?
SPEAKER_00: Emmanuel.
SPEAKER_00: These are the kinds of things that we need to keep in focus.
SPEAKER_00: Dangers over here, dangers over here, but these are the things that keep us on the path.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father.
SPEAKER_00: If this of this is true in our lives, we have nothing but praise to offer you.
SPEAKER_00: You are at work within us.
SPEAKER_00: We can't do it on our own, but we don't do it on our own.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Father, we long for greater freedom from the power and dominating influence of sin over us.
SPEAKER_00: That's sanctification.
SPEAKER_00: We long to grow in grace, not just in knowledge and truth, but in grace and spiritual maturity.
SPEAKER_00: We long to be more and more who we are, who you have made us.
SPEAKER_00: And we trust your Holy Spirit to work.
SPEAKER_00: We trust the Word of God to be living and active and powerful.
SPEAKER_00: We trust the church to be a community of faith where we build one another up.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, we need that so much.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, keep us from a false confidence and a false hope.
SPEAKER_00: But keep us on the path.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we love you.
SPEAKER_00: And we just want to stay on the path.
SPEAKER_00: I pray for us at Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Help us stay on the path, Father.
SPEAKER_00: Help us as individuals stay on the path.
SPEAKER_00: We love you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to follow you.
SPEAKER_00: We want to be more and more who you have made us to be.
SPEAKER_00: And we commit ourselves to that in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me have you stand and uh receive the benediction.
SPEAKER_00: Now, my friends, go into the world in peace.
SPEAKER_00: Have courage.
SPEAKER_00: Hold on to that which is good and honor all men.
SPEAKER_00: Strengthen the fainthearted.
SPEAKER_00: Support the weak.
SPEAKER_00: Help the suffering.
SPEAKER_00: Restore the wandering.
SPEAKER_00: Comfort the grieving.
SPEAKER_00: And share the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And may the grace and the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.