If you would with me this morning
over to Philippians chapter 2. Philippians chapter 2. A passage that the Lord put on
my mind this morning. Philippians 2, we're going to
be looking at verses 12 and 13, but we're going to kind of skim
through a few verses in the first chapter and some in the later
chapters here in Philippians. But Philippians 2, verses 12
and 13 is what I'd like to look at this morning, if the
Lord would be pleased to allow us. Let's bow and have a word of
prayer. Our Lord, we thank you this morning
for all that you are and all that you've given us through
the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for the blessings,
eternal blessings that you have given us through our head, through
the one who is elected, the one who is given authority over all
flesh, the one who is ruling and reigning even now on the
throne of David, ruling over the nations, we in His kingdom. Father Lord, we are so grateful
to be a part of that kingdom. We're so grateful to grace, so
grateful to mercy, to your will, to your purpose, salvation. And so Father Lord, we just pray
that you just might give us this morning the ability to come before
you and to honor you and to praise you, to worship you, and truth,
Spirit. Father Lord, we just ask that
the Spirit enable us this morning to understand, to teach us. Lord,
we know that he is the true teacher. There is really only one preacher,
and that's the Lord Jesus Christ, and he preaches to his people
through the Holy Spirit, Lord. And so even though I stand up
here and I form words and I make noise, we know that without the
Spirit being the teacher, that we would know nothing. So we
ask Him to come and help us today. Pray for these brethren, that
they might be edified, that they might be given understanding,
that they might be drawn to You, Lord, that You might even today
among these that are here, that You might grant repentance and
faith to Your people, and that You might give them the right
understanding of the Gospel, that they might understand their
sinfulness before You and their need of Christ, And I follow
that they might believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ as their
salvation. And Father, that they might follow
in obedience to your command to be baptized, that we might
add them to the number of the church here. Lord, we just ask
that you just might continue to use our church here as a place
for people to come to be edified, or that you might draw your people
and build your church as you see fit, Lord. That you might
continue to give us faith, to keep us persevering in the gospel. Lord, that you might keep us
from error, that you might keep us from falling away. Lord, we
just pray that you just might protect us, keep us. In Jesus'
name we pray. Amen. I wrote something this morning,
posted it on Facebook. Kind of a premise of kind of
what my thoughts were. in these verses. I woke up this
morning thinking about these verses. Discussed these verses with other
men back and forth throughout the years. Debated these verses
with people of different faiths that do not believe like we do
over these verses and what they mean. For years, I preached Verse
13, or excuse me, verse 12, but never connecting it with verse
13, never finishing up with verse 13. Preach verse 12 hard. But brethren, we cannot, we cannot
know the good, cannot know the truth of verse 12 unless we know
the truth of verse 13. This morning I wrote on Facebook,
for those who haven't read it yet, I said, if all one sees
in the Scriptures is the literal practical teaching of them, then
that man has missed the greater purpose of those teachings. I
believe that's pretty common. We read, a lot of times we'll
read the Bible at face value and we'll take it and we'll try
to make some application, practical application to that whenever
there's a fuller, deeper spiritual application that is being told
here. And it's not the practical part
that Paul or Peter or Matthew, Mark, Luke, John is writing about. It's about, and of course they're
writing because of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is telling us
these things. They're writing a deeper, richer,
more fuller thing than what sometimes we stop to do. And the reason
for that is because we, and still in this flesh, love our self-righteousness. We love our work. We love our
duty. We love our good job. We did well. We like to pump
ourselves up, and it's natural for us to do that thing. You
know, I have awards that I've won throughout the years. I keep
those awards. A lot of people like to display
their awards on the wall and all their stuff that they've
done, you know. We like to pat ourselves on the back. We like
to pump ourselves up and show how good of a person or what
all the accomplishments we've made. We like to be told what
to do, therefore we can turn around and get after it and do
it so that we can say we have kept it, we've done it, we've
accomplished it, we've, you know, we're trustworthy. to do all
the things that we were told or given to do. And in some cases,
that's not bad, you know. Like me as an employee, you know,
I'm given to do a task or to go do a work and everything,
and I should do that to the glory of God. And I should go and I
should do my best. Whenever I'm at work, I should work my best
at work and not try to, you know, cheat my boss, not try to slack,
not try to, you know, do the very minimal that I have to or
anything like that. Do I do that sometimes? To my
shame, yes, I have done that. I do that sometimes. We all do.
We all slack. But we like the practical. We
love to be given the practical because when we're given the
practical, then we can try to accomplish the practical. And
when we accomplish the practical, then we get the praise and the
glory. And that's what our flesh loves. That's what we like to
hear. That's what we love to hear in our flesh, in our Adamic
man. I wrote this morning, to stop
at the practical application of the scriptures is to rejoice
in the shell while disregarding the kernel, what's inside. If you stop at the practical,
you're just stopping at what's on the outside, the surface part.
You're not getting into the very good. If I was to give you a
pecan, and all of us have had pecans, if I was to give you
a pecan and you took that pecan and you just looked at that and
peeled off the outer part of that and ate it, you're probably
never gonna eat another pecan again, are you? You didn't really
get to the good of what that pecan really is. A pecan really
is more than just that outer shell. It's got something inside
that is rich, that is good, that is delicious, that keeps you
wanting to come back to pecans, okay? Because that outer shell,
it's not gonna keep you coming back to the pecans, okay? Unless you're some weirdo and
you like nasty, bitter, dry your mouth out stuff. Anyway, so if we come to the
Bible and we just come looking for those practical, give me
the practical things, preacher, just tell me what to do. If you
come to look at these things in just the natural things, the
physical things, and we don't see them, if the Spirit doesn't
give us to hear and to see and to believe upon the more deeper
and fuller things that are there for our learning and for our
understanding and for our growing in the grace and the knowledge
of the Lord Jesus Christ, then it's like having the shell and
not the goody inside. Any discussion I wrote, any discussion
or exhortation unto good works, which does not include a consideration
of the source and power of those good works, is but an exercise
in the flesh which will do nothing but confirm a man in his own
self-righteousness and stimulate his pride in his own obedience."
And I believe the scripture is very clear about that. Pride
puffs up. It puffs us up. Whenever we're
prideful about what we accomplish, it puffs us up. It makes us think
that we're something than we are. So whenever we look to our
any good works that we might be doing, and we believe that
we're accomplishing those good works, then it's gonna puff up,
and pride is gonna puff us up, and we're gonna, as I said here,
we're gonna revel in our own self-righteousness, and our own
obedience. And we're gonna talk a lot about
our own obedience. How much I've done this, how
much I've done that. This is what I've done. Whenever
we start talking about being saved and things like that, people
automatically go to, well, I go to church and I did give this
much, or I do this, or I do that, do that. Mrs. Mark, as a pastor,
and over the years, sorry guys, but my allergies or something
is killing me today. My eyes are itching, my throat's
scratchy. Back of my nose is just nasty. It's my wife's fault. She's been
cleaning all week. Got dust all in the house. Where was I? As a pastor over
the years, I often talk with people whenever they come to
our church and they're seeking to join our church and everything. And I begin to ask them questions
about a lot of things because we want to be very careful about
who we bring into membership because if they are not believers,
we don't, you know, we don't want them to be members of the
church if they're not believers. They have to be believers of
the gospel to be a member of the church. I mean, they have
to repent and believe, be baptized scripturally to be a part of
the local church. And so we're very careful with
that. And so I'll always ask them,
you know, how are you saved? You know, tell me about your
salvation. And if immediately they go into, well, I was such
a bad person, a drunk, a blah, blah, blah. Now I'm different,
totally changed. And I kept fighting against the
Lord, kept fighting against the Lord. And finally, I give in.
Or finally, I've let the Lord be the Lord of my life, whatever
the case might be. If it goes down to what they've
done, and now it's I do this, I do that, I do this, I do that,
then I see that that person doesn't quite understand the gospel. They haven't believed the gospel,
they're still believing in self-righteousness. They're believing in works, that
their salvation came by them accomplishing something, and
that the proof of that accomplishing something is that, look at me,
I've cleaned up my life now. I quit drinking, I quit smoking,
I quit you know, gambling, whatever the case might be that you want
to put down as an evidence of being cleaned up, okay? So again,
what we're doing is we are confirming our own self-righteousness and
we're confirming our own obedience as what is to be accepted by
God. And so again, if we do not consider
whatever the Bible tells us, because the Bible is full of
admonitions, it's full of, what's the word I'm looking for,
it's full of what we see as commands, you know, to press forward, to
do this. If we look at all those things
and think that we, by our own efforts, can just decide to do
that, get after it, and accomplish those things, then we're sorely
missing the goody inside of the pecan. But thinking we, by our
own efforts, are able to perform one good work, we are self-deceived. The Bible says that we can do
nothing. The Bible says that we have no
good works, no righteousness. Now, some of you may say, well,
wait a minute, doesn't the Bible say that we were predestined
before the foundation of the world unto good works? Absolutely,
but thin works are not our works. Those works are the works of
God. They're the works that have been
given to us by God. And so that's kind of what I
wanted to look at this morning is in Philippians chapter 2 and
verse 12. And like I said, I preach verse
12 hard and heavy before God gives me the understanding of
the gospel. Back whenever I was a religious zealot who just was
preaching duty faith, who was preaching self-righteous works,
and we didn't call them that. We didn't say that, that's what
they were, that's what I was preaching. But we didn't view
them that way because I didn't know any different. I thought
that's what it was, just like Paul. Whenever Paul mentions,
and in fact he mentions it later, in this letter to the Philippians. He says, though I might have
confidence in my flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath
whereof he might trust in the flesh, I am more. So if he says,
if we're talking about comparing who's the best in the flesh,
I can take the prize right here. He says, circumcise the eighth
day of the stock of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, A Hebrew of
Hebrews touching the law of Pharisee. Concerning zeal, persecuting
the church. Touching the righteousness which
is in the law, blameless." But Paul said, while I thought all
those things were gain for me, those were things to pat myself
on the back, to look at myself as a very righteous person, a
godly man. Paul said, but what things were
gain to me, those I counted loss. Christ. Yea, doubtless I count
all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus
my Lord for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do
count them but dumb that I may win Christ and be found in him
not having my own righteousness which is of the law. So he says
Everything that I'm telling you, and this right here is after
Paul says what he says that we're fixing to read. Paul is saying,
all this that I'm saying here is not to tell you to go out
and try to keep the law so that God will look on you as righteous.
Or not to go out and keep the law so that you might have some
sort of an assurance because you're keeping the law. He's
saying, I'm telling all of this stuff about good works I'm telling
you all of this because it's a statement of fact. It's a matter
of fact. This is who we are and this is
what is happening in us if we are the people of God. It's about
believing on Christ. That is the work that God is
calling us to do. Everything else is outward fleshly
things that can be mimicked by any person, by the way. Any reprobate
can mimic the things outwardly that Christians do. They can
go to church. They can give a tithe. They can
pray a prayer. They can be baptized. They can
give to the poor. They can go and help their neighbor,
do whatever their neighbor needs help with. They can read their
Bible. They can memorize the scripture.
They can do all these things, they can do all the religious
activities, but they cannot believe on the Lord Jesus Christ alone
for their salvation. They cannot look to Christ and
say, I know that in me dwells no good thing, but that my salvation
is of the Lord, that He has been my substitute, that I don't have
to do anything that He's given to me freely. Christ has performed
all that is required of me. They can't do that. They still
think there's something that they have to do. They still think
that there is something that they have to accomplish. And
Paul was saying here, and be found in him not having my own
righteousness, which is of the law, keeping outward ordinances,
because the works that God has given us to do, should I say,
and we're going to see this here in a minute, the fruits of righteousness,
the fruits of righteousness is not outward appearance, but it's
inward work. It's spiritual works. It's spiritual
gifts that is given to us. It's spiritual works because
it's done by the Spirit of God that's in us. Therefore, the
works are spiritual. Therefore, those are things that
are on the inside that are working themselves out in us, not outside
of us, necessarily. Now, that doesn't mean that that
doesn't appear outwardly by stuff, but the works that are being
talked of our inward works. And he says, not having the righteousness
which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of
Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. The righteousness
that we have is by the faith of Christ, His work, His faithfulness. Our righteousness is His obedience. Mike's righteousness is not him
obeying the law, keeping all the good works that are there
to do, outwardly. That's not Mike's righteousness.
Mike's righteousness has nothing to do with do. Mike's righteousness
has everything to do with what Jesus done. If I have a righteousness
before God, that righteousness is the faithful work of Jesus
Christ that He did in His own person. Not that something that
he give and put in me that is to be worked out of me and therefore
if it's worked out of me therefore now I am righteous. No, the righteousness
that we have and the only righteousness that we have is one that was
a substituted righteousness that was accomplished by Jesus but
laid to our name, laid to our account. And that's what Paul
is saying. I don't want to have a righteousness
that's of my own according to the law because I know that that
righteousness does not exist. It cannot exist. It will never
exist. I am enabled because of my flesh, because of who I am
in Adam. I am unable to keep the law which
requires perfect obedience all the time, every law. not part
law, not the moral law, not the civil law, not the ceremonial
law, okay? It's all the law, everything. If I don't keep that, I'm a sinner. And if I sin against God, then
I deserve God's wrath. The wages of sin is death. So
if I'm relying on the law, if I'm relying on the good works
that I perform for my righteousness, to show forth my righteousness,
to keep a righteousness, to make God say, hey, good job, fella. Then I've misplaced my faith
in myself instead of Christ. And so I'm no longer looking
unto Christ, but I'm looking to myself. I'm now not obeying
the gospel. I'm not living by the fruits
of righteousness. I'm living by the flesh. I'm
not walking in the spirit because the spirit will lead you in the
paths of righteousness. What is the paths of righteousness?
The paths of righteousness is not do this, do this, do this,
do this, do this. The paths of righteousness is
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who is your righteousness. But let's look here, verse 12,
Philippians chapter 2. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye
have always obeyed. Now we know that that's not true
if we're talking about laws, right? If we're talking about
laws, this is not true because we know
the Philippian people have not always obeyed God's laws. But
what's he talking about? As ye have always obeyed, not
in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. How
has these Philippian believers, Always obey. Well, if we look
back in chapter 1, and turn with me to chapter 1. Let me read
verses 1 down through 6. It says, Paul and Timotheus,
the servants of Jesus Christ. Timotheus, by the way, is Timothy.
You know the two letters that he wrote to Timothy? That's who
he's talking about, Timotheus. The servants of Jesus Christ
to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi with the
bishops and deacons. Grace be unto you and peace from
God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God
upon every remembrance of you always in every prayer of mine
for you all making requests with joy for your fellowship in the
gospel from the first day until now. So he's given a time frame. What's the time frame that he's
put in context here, that he's writing these brethren? From
the first time they begin to fellowship in the gospel until
the time he's writing this letter. So whenever that was that he
first went to Philippi, and we know that the first time he went
to Philippi was after sometime around the Council of Jerusalem
in Acts chapter 15. It was sometime after that. Don't
know the exact dates. Someone that's smarter than me
might know that. We know that it was after that,
so from that point until he writes it, that's the time period. But
what is it that sparks that beginning of time? The fellowship in the
gospel. When they begin to fellowship
in the gospel. He said there was a time whenever
we began to fellowship in the gospel. What does fellowship
in the gospel mean? The Bible talks a lot about Christian fellowship,
about unity, about being united in our fellowship with other
Christians, right? And people talk a lot about being
in unity. They have unity services. A lot
of times they'll have unity services at all these other churches.
They'll have unity services and they'll have the Methodist and
the Presbyterians and they'll have the Church of Gods and the
Church of Christ Catholic Church, and they'll have the Episcopalians,
and they'll have the Assemblies of Gods, and they'll have all
these other denominations all coming together, and they'll
come together in the sake and under the banner of unity to
all get together, put our differences aside, and we're all coming together
because we all love Jesus, and we all are serving the same God,
And they believe that that's what unity is. That's what fellowship
is. They're fellowshipping with each
other. But brother, that's not what
biblical fellowship is. Biblical fellowship is fellowship
that is always, will always, can never be anything other than
fellowship in the gospel. And that's fellowship in the
doctrine of Christ. And if they do not have the doctrine
of Christ, then they are not to be fellowshiped with. That's
why we don't share church services with people that don't believe
like we do, that don't believe according to the gospel. Because
they don't believe according to the gospel, we can't fellowship
with them. The Bible says, what fellowship
hath light with darkness? You say, well, that's kind of
harsh to say that those people are darkness. Well, the Bible
says they are. The Bible says that if they are
not preaching Christ, then they're anti-Christ, right? If they're
not preaching Christ, they're anti-Christ. If they're not preaching
the gospel, they're preaching a false gospel. And Paul said
in Galatians, as we've learned as we've gone through Galatians,
that there is no other gospel. There's only one gospel, and
every other gospel is a false gospel, and if anyone's preaching
a false gospel, he's not a servant of Christ. Therefore, these other
churches that are claiming to be servants of Christ, churches
that are worshiping Christ and preaching Christ and fellowshipping
in Christ are just going through motions of pagan things. They're
going through the motions of anti-Christ rhetoric. They're going through the motions
of anti-Christ religion that is robed to look like an angel
of light but really isn't. It's a deceiving thing. And they
think that they're fellowshipping But we can't fellowship with
that because it's darkness. It's falsity. It's wrong. And so we don't fellowship with
that. Here Paul is saying they begin to fellowship in the gospel. Their fellowship wasn't in, oh,
I like you and I like you. Oh, you're a good preacher. Well,
you're a good preacher too. Well, we ought to get together and
fellowship because you're a good preacher. It isn't about that.
It isn't about who cooks the best food. We like to go and
fellowship with the church of Choctaw, right? They always have
good food. It's always great to go to their
conference and have three days of good food, but guess what?
We don't go to fellowship because of the food. And eating around
the table, as great as it is, and as edifying as it is whenever
we're preaching or whenever we're visiting with those that we haven't
seen in a long time, eating the lunch together isn't necessarily
fellowship. What makes that fellowship a
lot of times is the fact that we are fellowshipping in the
same gospel. This brother here believes the
same gospel as I am, and we love each other because we both have
been given to believe the same thing. Therefore, we have fellowship
one with another because we have the same gospel. That's whenever
this began. So whenever Paul says, wherefore,
my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, how have they obeyed? They have obeyed the gospel. They have obeyed in not only
the preaching of the gospel, the defense of the gospel, but
actually the belief of the gospel. They have believed on Christ
alone for their righteousness and turned away from the worst
religion that they thought that they might have of righteousness
before God from good works. They've turned away from that
and they are looking only to Christ. They are walking in the
spirit or walking in faith towards Christ Jesus. That's how they've obeyed. That's
what he's talking about when he said you have always obeyed. So from the time we first began
fellowship in the gospel, whenever Paul came and preached to them
and the Lord had already quickened those brethren and given them
ears to hear and eyes to see, and they received the gospel
and they believed it, from that moment they began to fellowship
in the gospel. And from that time until the
time Paul's writing this letter, they have continued and not been
pulled away like the Galatians did. They have not left the faith. They have not become lukewarm
like the Laodicean church. They have obeyed God. They have preached, defended,
and they have continued to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ. And
so they have continued to walk in faith. They have continued
to repent of dead works, repent of false gospels, and to believe
the only and true gospel and look to Christ alone for salvation.
Look at verse 6. He says, being confident of this
very thing that he which hath begun a good work, who began
the good work? Christ. Who's the good work being
done in? He who hath begun a good work
in you will perform it. Who will perform it? He will
perform it. He who begun a good work in you
will perform it in you until the day of Jesus Christ, the
day that Jesus comes again. So these Philippians began their
fellowship in the gospel whenever God had not only quickened them,
given them new life, raised them from being dead in trespasses
and sin, and give them spiritual understanding, giving them spiritual
eyes, giving them spiritual ears, and they believed the gospel.
He gave them faith to believe. That wasn't their faith, it was
Christ that gave them the faith to believe on Him. That's not
the faith that justified them. The faith that justified them
was the faith of Christ that actually performed the works
of righteousness when He walked on earth. The faith He gives
them is the faith that receives that work that Christ did on
their behalf and says, I believe that that's my salvation and
not alone. I can't do anything to gain it,
only He can. And He did it, and I trust that
He's given it to me. That is the faith of Christ given
to us, and it doesn't justify us before God in any legal way
whatsoever. He which begot a good work in
you. What good work? The belief of
the gospel. repentance of dead works. That
good work that causes us to fellowship in the Gospel, He has begun in
you and He will perform it. Who will perform that good work?
Christ will perform it. He's the one who gives the measure
of faith, the Bible says. The Bible says not all men have
faith. Have you ever read that in the
Scriptures? The Bible says that all men have not faith. I thought everybody had faith.
Did they have faith? And if we just take our faith from this
object and put it on this object? Now, you know, take our faith,
we're putting our faith right now in the object of our self-righteousness
and our works. But now I'm taking my faith and
placing it in the object of Jesus Christ alone. Is that what? I mean, if everybody has faith,
then everybody can change the object of their faith and move
that object around. Well, that's what I used to preach.
That's what I used to believe. And sadly, that's what a lot
of people still believe. A lot of people, we call them
Armenians, but that's what a lot of people believe.
They believe that their faith is their faith and that their
faith can be changed by their choice from looking to whatever
and looking to Christ. But it's not their faith. The
Bible says that faith is the gift of God. If it's a gift of
God, it means that it was given to you. And if it was given to
you as a gift, that means you didn't have it to begin with.
Right? It's Adamlee's birthday today.
She got a gift from Kalen. She got some shoes from Kalen. Before Kalen gave her that gift,
she didn't have those shoes. Now she has those shoes. Can
we say that those shoes were hers? They're only hers because Caelan
gave her the shoes. They're now her shoes. But the
shoes are actually Caelan's. Caelan bought them, Caelan gave
them to her. But she didn't have them before.
The faith that we have is the faith, yes, are we the ones who
have this faith and work this faith? Yes, we're the ones who
actually trust in Christ Jesus alone. But is that our faith? No, that was a gift. It was Christ's
faith that He gave us because we didn't have faith to begin
with and He gave it to us. And now we have that faith and
we are now able to have that faith to trust in Christ Jesus,
that's why He gave it to us, so that we can trust because
without that faith that He gave us, we cannot trust in Him. We
cannot do it because only His faith given to us can trust in
him alone because our natural faith that we have in our natural
man only trust in ourselves and trust in our words. So the only
people that can ever trust in Christ are the ones who have
been given a faith that is not their faith outside of them gives
them a supernatural faith, a divine faith that only looks to Christ
alone and that faith will only look to Christ alone for their
salvation. It now becomes their faith, but
it's not their faith. It's because of Christ. And they're
not working that faith because that faith is not part of this
fleshly man. It's something from above. And
the only thing that's in us or part of us that is not of our
flesh is that new creation that has come down from above that
now dwells in us. Who gives the measure of faith? So the reason that these brethren
have always obeyed, and in the context, the obeying is the obeying
of the gospel, believing on Christ, is because the he which began
the good work is performing it until the day of Jesus. They
will continue to be obedient to Jesus as long as he gives
them faith. Look down at verse 11. It says,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by
Jesus Christ under the glory and praise of God. The fruits
of righteousness. Repentance and faith are fruits
of righteousness. Love for God. Love for the brethren.
Fruits of righteousness. These are inward works. Inward
things. But they are by Jesus Christ. These fruits of righteousness
are things that we can do or work ourselves. I can't just
decide, okay, well, I'm going to be repentant today. and just
do it. God has to do it. God has to
give me the mind to say, I need to turn from that. Look at verse
25. Having this confidence, I know
that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance
and joy of faith. Paul's ministry among them, as
is any preacher, their ministry is for the furtherance and the
joy of the faith. is to edify us, is to confirm
the truth of the gospel in the ears of the brethren, providing
them encouragement, providing them confidence in what the Scriptures
say. It's there for their furtherance
and joy of what? Faith. Look at verse 27. Only let your conversation Be
as it becometh the gospel of Christ. Let your walk be that
which is of the gospel of Christ. What's the gospel of Christ?
That Christ has done it all. There's no works involved. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. So how is our conversation supposed
to be? How is our walk? That's what the conversation
means. The word conversation doesn't mean talking back and
forth. Conversation in the biblical term here means the way that
we walk. our action, our attitude. What's
our action, our attitude? To believe the gospel. Let our actions or let our conversation
be as becometh the gospel of Christ, that whether I come and
see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye
stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for
the faith of the gospel. Now the faith of the gospel here
means the doctrine, the body of doctrine. the body and doctrine
of the gospel. What are they to stand on? What
are they to stand in? As a church, what do we stand
on here? We stand on our love for each
other. Well, our love for each other
can only come if we have something else. That's a love for God's
word, a love for the truth. the love for the gospel. The
love of the gospel is what comes first. God gives us a desire
or a repentance from dead works and a desire to believe that
Christ is our only. So the gospel is what we, everything
is surrounded around. And I'd say Christ is what we're
surrounded around because he's the, he's the message of the
gospel, but we come surrounded because of the gospel. We surround
each other because of our love for the gospel, because of our
walk in the gospel. Look at verse 29, for unto you
it is given in behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, so
what is given to us? To believe on him. It's given
to us, so that means we didn't have it. Just like Abishu, she
didn't have those vans, but she does now. Why? Because it was
given to her. All men do not have faith, but
when Christ gives them faith, it's not them, it's not theirs,
it's Christ's. All right, back to chapter 2.
Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, we know now
that that's talking about belief of the gospel. Not only as in
my presence only. So they weren't fair weather
believers. They didn't just believe when
the preacher was around. We see that all the time, you know.
Whenever the preacher's around, everybody starts acting right.
Start talking religious. I see that often whenever people
that I work around, whenever they find out that I'm a preacher,
all of a sudden they want to start talking religious. And
most of the time, what they're saying isn't biblical or spiritual,
it just sounds religious. They start using religious, vague,
general religious language. But Paul is saying here, listen,
you guys are obeying the gospel, not just because I'm there. You're
doing it whenever I'm not there, which shows it's a genuine work.
Faith is a genuine thing that's been given. We're not just believing
the gospel whenever we're here at church. This is really something
that is part of our life. Everything that we are, we believe
Christ Jesus. He says, but now much more in
my absence, he says, And here it is, and this is where I'd
always stop. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
And I would preach that. Work out your salvation. You've
got to work out that salvation that you've got from Christ.
Christ saved you, so now you've got to get in there and work
it out. You've got to get in there and prove that salvation
by your good works. Get in there and prove that salvation
by your righteousness. We've proved that we've been
saved by all these things that we do. We've changed life, man. We've turned around. We're becoming,
we're being sanctified and maybe become more holy. And that's
not what the Bible is teaching. It's not what it teaches. It's
not what it teaches about sanctification. It's not what it teaches about
our holiness. It's not what it teaches about
our flesh and our ability to do. It's not talking about what
our works are. That's not what the Bible says.
That again is that religious thing that has been taught to
us over and over and over and over and over again in the philosophies
and the traditions of men that have become so ingrained into
our mind that unless the Holy Spirit teach us, that's the only
way we have to be taught this, by the Spirit. Because if the
Spirit doesn't convince us, there is no convincing otherwise. because
the flesh is always going to gravitate towards worse. If the
Spirit doesn't teach us this and then give us the confidence
and therefore give us the rest to rest in Christ alone and not
worry about, I don't have to perform all these good works
to be righteous. My righteousness is not my righteousness,
it's God's righteousness, it's Christ. That rest only comes
from the work of the Spirit in us. Work out your own salvation with
fear and trembling, but verse 13 is there. You can't ever divorce
verse 12 with verse 13. And the very thing that I wrote
this morning on Facebook, where I said, if we just stop at the
practical, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, and
not move into the deeper, richer, fuller spiritual understanding
of where does that good work come from? How is that good work
accomplished and what kind of good works are we talking about?
If we don't go past that superficial, work out your salvation with
fear and trembling, that right there is music to the flesh's
ears. Great, give me my list, tell
me where to go and I'll get after it. But if we move on to verse
13, it says, 4, that word 4 there means because. Work out your
salvation with fear and trembling because. The reason that you're going
to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, this charge
or this, what it seems like, command is a statement of fact
And he's telling us, wherefore my beloved, as ye have
always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my
absence, as ye have always obeyed, as you have always, as you have
from the very beginning walked in continuance of the gospel.
As you have continued to walk in faith, as you have continued
to look unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of your faith,
as you've looked at Jesus as the Alpha and the Omega, the
beginning of your salvation, the end of your salvation, as
you look at Him as all in all, as you look at Him as your righteousness,
as your substitute, as your surety, as your redemption, as your sacrifice,
as your obedience, as you look Christ for everything, work out
your salvation with fear and trembling. Turn from dead works
and keep looking to Him as you have always been doing. Paul
is exhorting them to continue to keep looking, quit walking
and don't walk, don't turn back, don't turn back to looking to
works as you have always obeyed Continue to obey. Obey what? Good works? Drinking? Smoking? Not doing those things? Doing
good works? Going to church? Reading the
Bible? No. Continue in what? Believe in
Christ. Looking to Christ. Work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling for or because it is God which
worketh in you. Who's the one that's doing the
work? You. Do we have works that God has
before ordained that we should walk in? Yes. But who's doing
the works? Not us. Him. It's God's works. For we are His workmanship. We are His workmanship. That
means God's doing the working. And He's created us. And He's
working in us. He's the workman. We are His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that we should walk in. And we are
going to walk in them. Why? Because He that hath begun
a good work in you will perform it. He that hath begun the good
work, who's doing the good work? He. Who's going to perform it? How long? Until the day of Jesus
Christ. So Paul is exhorting them something
that he already knows that God is going to do in them because
he's already laid the claim by the Holy Spirit that he which
began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus
Christ. So Paul knows that if these people are truly children
of God and have been given divine faith to trust in Christ Jesus,
then from the moment that God has given him that faith, that
he will continue to keep them in that faith until the day of
Jesus Christ or they die and go to be with him one or the
other. He knows that as a fact. He has laid that down as biblical
doctrine because the Holy Spirit said, write that down. Okay.
And he wrote it down. It's the Holy Spirit who has
given us to know that truth. Therefore, they have always obeyed. Why have they always obeyed?
Because God's principle of he who began a good work will continue
it until the day of Jesus Christ. He will perform it in them. Christ
is performing faith in us. That's why they have always obeyed.
And Paul knows they are going to continue, but he's exhorting
them. Does, is he giving them a charge
to do something that they can just pick up and do? No, he's
exhorting them so that we know, exhorting them to, you know,
my boss tells me, all right, now when I go in there, don't
grab that, don't grab that thing that's got a thousand volts on
it, it'll kill you. Well, is he telling me something
that I, I already know that. I'm already, I'm already convinced
that if I grab that thing, it's going to kill me. But what's
he doing? He's encouraging me in that. Just a reminder. Just a reminder. Just a reminder. Just a reminder. Paul is going here and saying,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And we know
that's going to happen because it is God which worketh in you,
both to will and to do with His good pleasure. And I've gone
a little bit longer than I thought I was going to go. But let me say this
because I really want to hone in on this 13th verse which says,
both to will and to do His good pleasure. Now brethren, I don't
see how any of us can argue over the fact that this Scripture
is plain and clear. That any working out of salvation
is because God is working in us. I don't think anybody, even
Arminians, aren't going to deny that fact. But here's what we
have to understand. He said God is working this in
us, but what's He working in us? Both to will and to do. See, nobody wants to look at
that where it says God is the one who works in us to will. God is the one who is working
our will. If I'm looking unto Jesus and
trusting Him alone, why is that? Because God is working my will
to do so. If I love my brother as myself, how am I doing that? It's not
by my ability because I fell and do it. And even at that,
we don't do it perfectly in this flesh. But if I have any kind
of love towards my brother in the fellowship of the gospel,
It's because He has caused me my will to do so. If I read my
Bible, if I study, if I give, if I help, whatever I do, it
is He who gives me the will to do that. So what does that mean? We've got to think of these things
because a lot of times we say, yeah, we believe that. God gives
us the will, He gives us the desire. to read these things,
to do these good works. But let's think about this for
a minute. He's the one who causes us to do also. To will and to do. He gives us the will to do it
and then he gives us the enabling to do it. He gives us the will and the doing. If He gives us
the will to do it, that means He is having to overcome an already
will that doesn't want to do it and giving us a will that
does want to do it. Right? Is that not seen right? It says, For it is God which
worketh in you both to will and to do If I am to will to do and
do that which He gives me the will to do, it's because God
has exerted a force of supernatural work upon me outside of myself,
a divine work. His Spirit, I would say, has
exerted that upon my will. Mike's fleshly will and overcome
Mike's fleshly will and the spiritual will is taking charge and is
doing what God wants me to do. Because it says here, to will
and to do of His good pleasure. Now, you can take this in a couple
of ways. You can take this in a couple
of ways, and it could probably mean both, I don't know. I'll
stand for correction here. But I've always thought in the
past it means to will and to do His good pleasure, meaning
to do His law, to do His will, to do His commands, all of His
commands. So it's God who causes us to
will and to do His commands. And then we go around and say,
well, God would want us to keep all the law, right? Wouldn't
God want us to keep the law? You mean God doesn't want us
to keep the law sometimes? I mean, surely God wants us to
keep all the laws. Well, then why doesn't he, if he's the one
that's causing me to do, if he's the one that is exerting his
will so that I will do his good pleasure, his law or his commands,
his good works, then why doesn't he exert that will all the time?
If in fact he is doing it, he therefore has the power to do
it, and if he has the power to exert over my will and make me
do something that I naturally would not have done or could
not do, then he has the power to do it, right? If he has the
power to do it, why doesn't he exert it at all times? So that
I will never do anything that is not according to His good
pleasure, or His will commands laws. That's one way to look
at it. The other way to look at it is,
for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do at His good pleasure, or in His
good pleasure, or because of His good pleasure. It says, to
will and to do of, and the word his there is not in the original
Greek. It's been added by the translators to help with the
flow of English language to move forward. But it says, to will
and to do of good pleasure. I think it's more consistent
with the Scriptures that God exerts and causes us to will
and to do the things that He wants us to do. When He wants
us to do it. You say, well, wouldn't that
always be to keep the law? Not necessarily. Not necessarily. Did he want Pharaoh to keep his
law? No, because he hardened his heart
so that he would break the law, so that he would be rebellious
against Did God restrain David from lusting
after Bathsheba? No, He didn't. God could have
exerted on the will, the will for him to turn away like He
did with Potiphar when Potiphar's wife came to Joseph. Potiphar's
wife, the king or the leader, the ruler, his wife came to Joseph
and started to flirt, trying to get Joseph to commit adultery.
And just as soon as she began to do that third, Joseph took
off and ran. He didn't just say, I'm sorry,
I can't do it. No, he took off and just like removed himself
from the whole situation, took off and ran. He could have done
the same thing with David. He could have exerted upon the
will of David and he could have caused David just like he did
with Abimelech. Whenever Abimelech had taken
Sarah and Moses had lied and said, this is my sister and not
my wife. And Abimelech took Sarah into
his A harem with all of these other wives. But yet God kept him from laying
with Sarah. He restrained Abimelech from
sinning. He could have done that with David.
Could have done that with Cain. But
God had other purposes. He could have done that with
Joseph's brothers who threw him in a pit. sold him into slavery. Lied to his father, said that
he was mauled by an animal. They could have said anything.
I mean, God could have turned and changed all that, but the
Bible says that it was by His determined counsel. So to me, at least to my understanding,
For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. We are willing
and doing at God's pleasure, whatever God wants us to do.
People say, well, so you're saying that we, that we're robots then. The Bible doesn't use that term.
The Bible uses that we are clay. That he's a potter and
we're the clay. He makes us into whatever he
wants. The Bible says that our hearts
are like rivers of waters and he can turn it wherever he wants. The Bible says the king's heart
is in the Lord's hands and he turneth it wherever so he wills.
God can turn the heart of the king and make the king do something
the king didn't want Remember Nebuchadnezzar? Nebuchadnezzar
riled up against God. God caused him to go on like
four legs and grew hair and ate grass against his will. Made him do that. At the end
of all that, Nebuchadnezzar's heart was a lot different. Changed.
God turned his heart. The Bible says that he can turn
our heart wherever he wants us, wherever so he wills. Well, because
He can turn the heart wherever so He wills, then I can say right
here that God is in us to work, to will, that's changing our
heart, to do what He wants us to do. To do His pleasure. What
He wants. Because we are just His creation. We are His clay pot. He can mold us. turn us in any
direction. He's the potter. We're the clay. Are we robots?
No, we're His creation. We serve His purpose, whether
it be as the elect of God or whether it be the reprimand.
We serve His purposes. We serve Him at His will, in His determined
counsel. So whenever we work out our salvation
with fear and trembling, that is to continue to walk in faith
towards Christ Jesus. And he does that by changing
our will, causing us to do that. And he does that at his good
pleasure. Why? Because he's the one that
gives the measure of faith. Some 30-fold, some 60-fold, some
100-fold, 90-fold. He gives it to some and he doesn't
give it to others because not all men have faith. He does it
at his prerogative. He does it at his will. He is
the one who gives us growth in the grace and the knowledge of
the Lord Jesus Christ. He's the one who causes us to
become more wise, to have more knowledge. Matter of fact, we
see in the passage, if you want to look with me over in the Philippians, in chapter 3. He says in verse
9, And be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which hath
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness
which is of God by faith. He says in verse 16, Nevertheless,
weren't you we have already attained? Let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same thing. Chapter
4, he says, Stand fast in the Lord. Stand fast in the Lord. Not here on the works, but stand
fast in the Lord. Stand fast in what He has done.
Stand fast in what He is doing. And I may just comment on a brother's
deal with this. A lot of times we have, we deny or we neglect the work
of the Holy Spirit to keep us, to work in us, We have full confidence
of what Christ has done for us, objectively, outside of us, as
our substitute, but then we turn around and we negate everything
that we're saying that we believe in what he has done by denying
the work of the Holy Spirit. When I say deny, I'm not saying
stop the work of the Holy Spirit. I'm saying we do not give credence
to, we do not give We do not give any kind of outward
confirmation that we even believe this. Whenever we then turn around
and think that it has to be accomplished by us, that somebody has to be
saved because a preacher got to them, that the Spirit can't
do that work without the work of somebody else. The Spirit
can do that work. Bible says that Christ has been
given power over all flesh to give life to whomever He wills.
Not to whomever the preacher gets to and preaches to, but
to whomever He wills. That's the big one again. He
gives life. The Spirit is the one that teaches
us. It says you don't have any need that any man should teach
you, but that anointing which you have from above It will lead
you in all truth. It will teach you. It will be
your teacher. The Spirit of God has been given to be our comforter,
to be our teacher. And yet we say, well, we can't
do that unless we have John Gill telling us what that actually
says, or what John Calvin says, or what the Confessions decree. Oh, let's look down. What did
the churches all say all through history? We've got to make sure
that we line up with them. Otherwise, we might be unorthodox.
Well, the majority of churches down through history were unorthodox.
They weren't orthodox, they were unorthodox. Meaning, they come
from the harlot church. They continued in their harlot
ways. They didn't have the true gospel. A lot of those confessions
and creeds of old, those ancient fathers, those fourth and fifth
century fathers, They were Catholics! Who cares what they say? Is it
in line with the Word of God? That's what we care about. This right here tells us what
it's all about. All right. Anybody got any questions? Anything you'd like to say? Lord, we thank you today for
your word. We thank you today for your grace and your mercy.
We thank you for Christ Jesus, and we thank you for the opportunity
once again to be here today. We pray for Brother Ed this morning,
Lord. We ask that you be with him while they're in Oklahoma
at the nursing care facility that he's at, and we ask, Lord,
that you might be with all those who are attending to him. Lord,
we just pray that you might help him get back into right health
and right mind, He might be able to maybe once again be able to
be with us. And Lord, we just thank you again
for all that you are and all that you do. And Lord, we just
praise you for your grace and your mercy that we have in Christ
Jesus. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.