It's been amazing to me just
how practical the letter to the Philippians is, but just how
deep theologically it is, how spiritual Paul is in writing
this letter, how amazingly beautiful Jesus is to him in the time of
stress, in the time of impending death, in this time of wondering,
really, what will become of his ministry? What will become of
his church planting? What would become of the gospel?
For by his own confession, he has actually said that there
are those who preach out of vain conceit. There are those who
preach from wrong motives. There are those who preach just
to do him harm. But let them preach, for they
preach a good gospel. Though the reward is not theirs,
God can use them. But we also know that there are
many who preach a false gospel. And the text that we're in today,
I believe, is part of what we see really alive in America about
with this false gospel, with these false conversions, which
is the false church. No church at all. No gospel at
all. No conversion at all. And I want to tell you that if
I had to give a title, I say this a lot, but I never can entitle
my sermons. I don't know how they'd be. They'd
be several sentences long. But if I were to entitle today's
sermon, it would be obedience for the glory and the pleasure
of God. Obedience. Now see, already,
when you hear the word obedience, it strikes something in us. It
strikes something in us, either by the way of looking at our
own lives and saying, wow, there's some areas of disobedience in
my life. Here it comes. I'm going to get stepped upon
today. There's going to be some toe stomping. There's going to be
some conviction, some guilt. To which I would remind you of
what Romans 8 1 says, there is therefore now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus. But then there may be some of
us who would think about our neighbors or our siblings or our spouses
or our children or our co-workers. Yeah, they need to obey the word
of God. And we would forget the log in our own eye as we try
to take the speck from our brothers. It's not that we shouldn't, but
we should always be mindful that there is sin in our life. But when you start to talk about
personal obedience, when I start to, not just me, but when we
as the people of God, preachers of the Word of God, begin to
exposit Scripture in such a way where the obedience to the commands
of Christ are on the table, for the most part, this is what I've
heard lately. Well, by grace we're saved. It's
grace alone. It's grace alone. We don't need
to worry about being obedient. Either God's going to change
me or God's not going to change me. Oh, but you know what? God
saved me through Christ. Faith alone, faith alone. Que
sera, sera. Whatever will be, will be. And
if I come out holy, I'm holy. If I come out sinful, I'm sinful.
That's not the words of a true child of God. Because that's
not the mind of Christ. You see how Paul has built it
to this point? Have this mind among you, which is yours in
Christ Jesus, being in the very nature equal with God, in the
very form of God. He did not take equality with
God, something to be grasped, but became an obedient slave
unto death, a death on the cross. Therefore, God highly exalted
him. And he is the Lord. He is the
one whose name is above all names. He is the one who is due all
praise and all glory and all honor. Not just that he is the
Lord God of heaven, but he is the God man, the holy and righteous
human. Remember. Jesus is eternally
the God man. He is glorified his state. He
is eternally in the presence of God. He is eternally the sun
before the incarnation and then after the ascension. But he has
not been eternally the human God. This is frustrating. It's how do we don't do it? Just
let it sink in and slap you around a little bit and realize that
this is the unfathomable riches of the depth of the glory of
God. Christ is amazingly intricate, yet he is simplistic to the child. There is God, there is Jesus,
and he walks holy and he gave himself that I might have righteousness
that's not mine. He gave his righteousness to
me. Look at chapter two verses nine
through 13. We're going to. I'm just starting
there because it'll pick up where we are from last week to move
into where we are going today. Therefore, this is Him highly
exalted as He's been obedient as a slave, though He was equal
with God, He became like men. He took on His human nature. Therefore, God has highly exalted
Him and bestowed, remember last week, God gave Him the honor,
if you will, the God-Man, the Man-Jesus, the honor. He already
had the honor as God. The Man-Jesus, the honor. the
name that is above every name, in order that, so that, verse
10, at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and
on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that
Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God. Therefore, because of
that, therefore this is true, my beloved, Paul says, as you
have always obeyed, So now, only as in my presence, but much more
in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Because, for, it is God who works
in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. We're
going to stop there, because there's three or four sermons
in that, and I'm going to try to summarize them today. First, I want to
elaborate just a minute on what we ended on last week. That Jesus
Christ has been bestowed the name that is above all names,
that all glory and honor is due Him, and that every tongue and
every knee will give Him the honor that is His. You know what
that means? That in the eternity of judgment,
that all that the unbeliever will do, his entire existence
for all of eternity, is to be in torment while he's on his
knee proclaiming Jesus is Lord out of suffering and anguish. And that all the redeemed in
the fullness of joy, not out of obligation, but out of celebration
will do the same. Friends, this is eternal life.
And the reality is that every human being that has ever had
a breath in this world will forever proclaim the excellencies of
the name of Jesus for all eternity. The difference is those who are
His, who are redeemed by faith through Christ, who are celebrating
that, and those who are doing it out of anguish and demise,
they are still praising. One is out of love. One is out
of anguish. Jesus will have his due. It blows
my mind that people can ignore that. And you know what the Bible
teaches? There's never been a human being
to ignore the gospel. Ever. Romans 1 says that every
human being that has ever breathed has either seen it and received
it or seen it and rejected it. There is no such thing as just
a gray area. Don't worry about the gospel.
And I would suggest to you today that if the Holy Spirit of God
through His Word is taking your heart through a blender, you
better listen. Listen. Listen and believe on
Jesus Christ. As the text closed in verse 9
and 10 and 11, as Paul then is going to get to another reality
because of what Christ has done. Therefore, God exalted him. And
the result of that is so that all creation would give him his
due praise. And the result of that is because
because of all this, therefore, my beloved see Jesus. is the one who purchased the
church. So as Paul is able to write these things, he is saying
that Christ, the human, has been exalted for the glory of God. Before the service, or as the
service started, I read out of the first half of John chapter
5, the healing of the invalid at the pool of Bethesda. And
what we're going to do is point to that in just a minute, as
Paul demonstrates what Christ has done, what he is now doing,
therefore what Christ is doing. As Paul has given commandments
to the church, and then therefore to us, then Christ has given
commandments to us. And Christ is commanding us to
do that which is impossible in the flesh, but which is greatly
possible with God, because Christ, for the glory of God, has been
exalted. And for the obedience of Christ,
He is glorified. Christ is Lord. And Paul says, Beloved. Beloved. Therefore, my beloved. This is no mistake. Paul is about
to talk to the church. Though sometimes there's an audience
of unbelievers amongst the people of God. The Bible is not written
to the ears of those who reject the Gospel. It's not written
for those who profess no Christ. It's written to those who either
who profess Christ, amongst whom would be unbelievers and believers.
Unbelievers who think they're saved, or unbelievers who are
sort of shady with it, or unbelievers who have put their hope in something,
but sort of think themselves believers by their own notion,
or their own inclination of things, or their own righteousness. And
then the true saints of God who have been redeemed by faith,
who believe fully that Christ is their only hope for salvation,
that Christ is their only hope against the depravity of their
soul. I was reading on a blog this past week of an article
that came out Monday that's absolutely despicable. And thank God for
some great brothers who have a lot of time and some good heads
on their shoulders. And they gave me some rebuttals,
and I posted some of those rebuttals online if you want to see it.
But I went and dug and dug to this blog and then saw the organization
and dug to this blog and saw the group of people, found the
board of directors, found their belief system, and I saw that
one of the things they reject, one of the things that these
groups of people who they call themselves traditional evangelicals,
that in other words they say that they stand for the majority
and the historical view of the theology of evangelicals, of
Protestants, They say this, that they reject the notion that people
are guilty before God because they're human. But that someone
is only guilty before God of sin when they first intentionally
rebel against God. How wicked of a burning-at-the-stake
heresy is that? Lord, thank You God we can't
burn people because I'd already been set fire by my enemies,
but I'd be setting a pyre as well. Because it is divisive
with the body. It is destructive to the church.
It is confusing to the world. This is not true. Let me tell
you something about humanity. Humanity, even when they can
comprehend the truth of everything the Bible teaches, which is rare.
and can say with all certainty, I know that's true, doesn't make
them born again in any iota. It does not satisfy the justice
of God against their depravity. The Bible teaches that all men
are born into sin. What in the world was Paul talking
about? Was he in a drunken stupor when
he said, in Adam all die? He should have been more clear.
He should have been more accurate. His theology was a little bit
waning if these people are correct. He should have said, well, in
Adam all die when they get ready to, when they decide to rebel
against God. To which we'd kick that can of
philosophy down the road to stupidity, down the road to depravity. Which
is where it roots. Why are you so frustrated? Because
it is teaching the people in the church and it's teaching
the people in the world that they can be okay with their self-righteousness. It teaches the parents of a rebellious
12-year-old, it's okay. He wasn't of the age of accountability.
And though he died, he's in the hands of God and God gave him
eternal life because he's so young and sweet. If he was so
sweet, why was he locked up? If He's so sweet, why don't you
pray for His salvation? Because I will tell you right
now, without God's grace, no man, woman, child or infant will
enter eternal life. And that grace is only effective
through Jesus Christ. And there's a lot we ought to
get upset about in our culture. There's a lot of things that
ought to freak us out as God's people, that the worldview in
which we live out there is just completely opposed to everything
we know. But I'll tell you this, we ought to get more upset about
small little lies and heresies and false teachings that plague
the church. It is more evil for the church
to have false doctrine than it is for the world to sin in the
most grievous way. It is more wicked for people who stand in
pulpits to proclaim false teaching about Jesus Christ, false teaching
about humanity, false processes of salvation, than it is for
the most amazing serial killer to murder as many people as he
could afford. Because the world who is wicked and lost does what
the world who is wicked and lost is supposed to do. And that is
to sin. The church should have no place.
Let it not be named among you, Paul tells the Ephesians. Let
this not even be a hint. I don't want to smell the cooking
of it when I drive by. I don't want to see the smoke
from the barbecue of such things being prepared amongst the people
of God. Do not let this be. It cannot be. and false teaching
and false interpretation. And I believe lazy scholarship
and lazy worship and lazy, just pacifist Christianity is sinful. Beloved, He's talking to you. He's talking to us. He's talking
to the Christians of His day. Beloved, the redeemed of Christ,
of the church made righteous through Jesus, who obeyed, you
see the context now, who obeyed the Father and submitted in all
things to the Father's will for the sake of the glory and the
honor of God the Father. Therefore, God exalted Him. Why? Because God couldn't exalt
any human being to the place of Lord. Because we can't obey
him. Because Adam sinned, it's impossible. We are guilty. Christ is not. He is holy. Beloved. As you have always obeyed. So
now obey. You see this. So this what we
call I hate to use the term. So-called hyper grace, you see,
it's everywhere. You don't know it because they
don't wear T-shirts. I'm a hyper gracious. I mean, some people
do. There's actually merchandise
for hyper grace theology and books and galore and they get
all the money. They're the they're the word of faith Calvinists.
That's what they are. If you can believe it. There'll
be a there'll be a CBN, a Calvinistic Broadcasting Network. It'll be
heretical reformers who are teaching hyper grace. And the hyper grace
says this, that God's grace is so sufficient. God's grace is
so perfect. God's grace is so satisfying. God's grace is so healing. And
I have I made a mistake yet? No, not at all. Here's the error
that you don't have to worry about obeying God. You don't have to think about
it. You don't. When you sin, you thank God for
the sin. I'm not kidding. I've heard it.
I've seen it. I've seen it in practice right
now in our community. I see it in practice. And what's
crazy is the way that some of the I hate to even use all these
labels, the way that some of these anti gospel, anti doctrines
of grace, churches and pastors and leaders are starting to act
is they're adopting a more hyper grace attitude than they are
a biblical attitude. Yes, there is no way to afford
salvation through works. There is no way to please God
through righteousness. But we who are in Christ are
commanded to be like Christ because we can be like Christ. And herein
lies the teaching of Paul. As you have always obeyed. Who's
he talking to? The Beloved, not the lost. as
you have always obeyed." So Paul is saying, he's already said,
what did he say? He's already said, I see the good work in
you and I know that God has started it and that He is faithful to
continue it and to complete it. Chapter 1. I know that you have
love for me. I know that you have partnered
in the gospel. You've partnered in grace. You're
partners in suffering. You are with me because God is
in you. You are the product of the gospel
of Jesus Christ. You are a display of the glory
of God's affection towards you. You are the genuine article.
So you have the mind of Christ, which is yours. So put it on.
Make it active. Is that not obedience? Does Jesus
not say, Himself, if you love me, you will obey my commands?
And do not the Pharisees and the Sadducees, in an attempt
to try to get Jesus to blaspheme, have Him pick which is the greatest
commandments of all? What's the greatest law of all
the prophets? 613, 614 laws. What is the greatest
one? Jesus says the greatest one is
this, to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul,
and strength. Therefore, in order to do that, you've got to obey
Him. If you love Me, you'll obey Me. So Jesus could have said,
to obey Me, which is love for the Father with all your heart,
mind, soul, and strength. But the second of equal importance
is to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, friends, if the Bible says
love your neighbor. And John and other places write
that we ought to love the brethren, even the ones who are hard to
love. Lest we be in darkness. Then
what's wrong with Christians who are not doing that? What's
wrong with Christians who won't even come to the table to have
the conversation about error? What's wrong with so-called professing
Christians and pastors and churches and deacons and leaders and elders
and everyone else who live a life of entertainment and immorality
and idolatry and then don't want to have anything to do with anybody
who questions any of it? I believe they're lost. I believe
that, as John would say in 1 John 5, we ought not to pray for their
sins. We ought to be praying for their
salvation. We ought not to be praying for
God to produce holiness in their life. We ought to be praying
that God give them righteousness in Christ Jesus alone. And that
makes them angry. It makes people angry. There
was a time in my life when I would have been angered if someone
questioned my faith. Now it's an opportunity to work out my
salvation, to see if I'm in the faith, to give testimony about
the grace of God, to reflect on the fact that if it were left
up to me and my decisions and my focus and my ability and my
discipline, that I would have no hope. Beloved, as you've always obeyed,
these Christians are fashioned in the liking of Christ. They
are fashioned so that their lives exemplify His example. Their
lives are so perfect, just like the Thessalonians. Their lives
were so perfect. Now listen, I didn't say perfect
as in that there was no error. If there was no error, then Paul
wouldn't be saying, hey man, you better have the mind of Christ.
He would have just sent a real simple letter. I'm doing okay.
I don't need your money. Everything works out for good.
YOLO. Jesus. Amen. That would have
been the end of it. But he didn't. He taught. He
taught the depth and the riches of the gospel. He showed them
that there are times when the flesh will rise up. So you have
the mind of Christ. Put it on. Put the death of flesh.
These Christians exemplify the example of Christ. They are suffering
as Christ suffered. They are giving as Christ gave.
They are praying as Christ prayed. They are trusting as Christ trusted.
They are doing all that they do to lay themselves down for
the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the glory of God, and
the establishment of the fame of His name. So they have always
obeyed. Had they not been obedient to
the gospel, this would have been more like 1 Corinthians. Had
Paul had to deal with a bunch of rampant sin running amongst
the people of Philippi, this would have sounded, don't let
me come down there. Do I need to come down there? Remember
the 1 Corinthians writing? I'm going to come down there.
And you know what's really bad about that? Is that Paul wrote to them,
the Corinthians, Corinthians wrote to Paul, said, everything's
roses. Chloe tattletaled and said, they're lying. Here's some
problems. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians. He
says, I'd like to talk to you as mature, but I can't your babies,
your infants, your children. I'd like to talk to you as spiritual
people, but you're not. You're acting like idiots. You're acting
like worldly people. You're acting as though Jesus has never come
to you. The gospel has never been preached. What's going on?
Do I need to come down there with a rod? You know what you
better do, Corinthians? You better straighten up in my
absence. Obey. Put that sinful stuff that's
going on inside your people out. You know what that means? You
can't talk to them, have fishing with them, go to lunch, have
coffee or nothing, until they weep and rip their clothes at
the altar of Christ, they cannot be fellowship with. And when you clean that up, I'm
going to hear of you, and we see 2 Corinthians. It's a whole
different story. God was faithful to restore His
people. And the sinners were put out from them, those who
said they were in the light, but they did not walk in the
light. They walked in the darkness. They were put away. Obey. As you've always obeyed, friends,
why is that so difficult? We are to obey Christ, the difference
in a Christian. Who obeys and a non-Christian
who obeys is a non-Christian who obeys, well, good, they're
doing what they're supposed to do. God commands us to be holy for
he is holy. A Christian who obeys is actually doing that which
God has produced in them. So God gets the credit. Let's think about it for a minute. So now obey. This is an expectation
Paul has for his people. You've obeyed already. You've
walked with Christ. You're walking with Christ. And
when I was there, I saw it. Isn't that how it works? When
parents are home, kids act somewhat, but when grandparents come over,
or somebody that they like, or a friend shows up, oh yeah. You
see my room, how clean it is? I keep a clean room. No you don't. No you don't. You clean that
junk up like 43 seconds before they walk in the door. Don't
look under the bed. We do our lives the same way.
We clean our lives the same way. Oh, you know, pastor's coming
over. Let's put the Time magazine under the couch. Where's those Bibles we had? And you forgot that Mormon Bible
that you picked up at the Holiday Inn sitting out there. Oh, we're
studying the cults. And that's what happens. We put
this show on. And Paul's not stupid. He knows that they're going to
be better when he's there. And that's with any religion.
That's with any religion, any cult, any false religion in the
world. When the king of that religion
shows up or a good prophet of that area shows up, everybody
dresses up and dresses nice and smells good and shaves and puts
on better shoes and cleans the house. They wash the outside
of the bowl while the inside is dirty. And Paul is saying,
so now obey. So it's an expectation. And here's
the cool thing about it. Paul commands it. So now obey. So guess what? It can be done.
There's there's something that we don't like. It can be done. Now, let's allude to John 5,
John 5 and a paraphrase. Here's this here's Bethesda. Here's this pool with about a
thousand invalids, blind, lame, deaf. And it was a myth. We know it because we've seen
it written in the Jewish writings. There's a myth that happened
during that day that people thought that angels would come and touch
the water with their wings. And that when they heard the
water stirred, the first person in the water was healed, a superstition.
And so that's why they laid there. They laid there so that they
could hear the water and the ones who were blind or deaf,
you know, I guess they watched it and they would go in. And
you know what's killer is nobody was ever healed, I don't think.
Much like we see on TV. You got a pain, you know, your
ear aches. Let's put you in this wheelchair.
Roll you up here. Get out of the chair. Yeah. Hallelujah.
Slap you. You fall down. You can't tell anybody any difference.
God can heal, but he does not heal for profit. And he does
not heal for show, as you're about to see in John 5. And that's not even the point.
The point is this. There's a thousand invalids.
Jesus walks into that place and he sees one man who's been an
invalid for 38 years and he asks him the dumbest question. You
want to be healed? No, I'm just laying here for
the fun of it. I'm burning to a crisp in the desert sun for
the fun of it. No, what does he say? Of course
he wants to be healed, but he didn't even say that. He goes,
nobody's going to help me get healed. I can't get in the water
because I can't walk 38 years. And nobody helps me. The water
gets stirred and they run over me like a herd of elephants and
just run and take my healing away. And so what he's thinking,
this man's thinking, Jesus is going to stand there with him
and help him into the water when it's time. But what does Jesus
do? Jesus commands him. He doesn't
say, do you want to stand up? The man didn't even say he wanted
to be healed. Jesus commands him, you, right
now, take up your bed and walk. That is so ridiculous. And the
man obeyed him. The man obeyed him. He got up,
he picked up his bed, and he walked. And he goes to the Jews,
and what do they say? Who told you to take up your
bed, man who's never walked before, walking in here? Talk about blind. Who told you? Paul is saying,
so now obey. Jesus is saying, so now obey. So let's obey. Because he's effectually
given us the ability to obey. You know when we disobey? When
we fail to believe that He's sufficient. When we long after
something, when we run after something, when we lust after
something, it's because when we see Christ, well, it's because
we're not looking at Him. We're not looking at Him at that
moment. We're looking somewhere else. And for some silly reason
in our flesh, we listen to the temptation of our flesh which
has been crucified with Christ. Which is dead. and decaying. And we go after that. But God
is faithful to restore us. But He's commanding us. Obey
now. This invalid had no ability to
do what he did. None whatsoever. There was no
physical or metaphysical way that it was ever going to be
possible for that man to obey Christ. And you know when the
Jews ask him, why did you take up your bed? He said, because
some man commanded me to. Now who obeys in that culture? Any faithful Jew obeys their
rabbi. And this true teacher from God
came. God come to teach, commanded
this man to do what he could not do, and he did it. Because
Christ healed him. Friends, when Christ comes back
to him and says, you are healed now, go sin no more, less something
worse happens to you. What could be worse, hell? Go send no more. So Jesus, I
find it interesting that He healed one out of a thousand, and the
Bible says that He just sort of vanished out of there. He just
sort of left out of there. Because there were many sick. His purpose
was wanting to heal them all. And then when he taught that
man that this situation that you're in right now that gives
you the greatest hope is nothing because you're going to die again.
You might even get paralyzed again. You might get hit by a
camel on your way to the market. And I'm sorry, that was funny.
And you won't walk again. If your joy is in that, I was
so stupid. If your joy is in that. You're
going to have no joy. But your joy needs to be in the
fact that I've saved you and your soul is clean. You have
eternal life because I'm going to give you my righteousness
and I'm going to on the cross take your guilt. That's in essence
what Jesus is trying to communicate. The man didn't understand it,
but of course later he probably did. So now obey. Be holy. Because God has willed us to
be holy. we can do the impossible. And
obey, like I said, not in the presence. Don't be more holy
in the presence of each other. Don't put on your best to come
to the fellowship. If you're in a bad mood, let
me see it. If you're in a bad mood, come
in the door and say, how's your day? How you doing? Be honest. That's not even about that. But
I mean, don't sit there in your car thinking, okay, Come on,
get a Jesus face on. And go in there and just, hey,
everything's good, and get in the car and cry all the way to
the house. How about we weep with you when you weep, we rejoice
when you rejoice, we take care of your needs, and in turn, when
you have something and we have needs, you take care of us. Authentic,
be real. And Paul is saying the authentic
Christian is an obedient Christian who strives and presses into
holiness. And so here is the thing that's
on everybody's mind. All right. So we can do well
when others are in the house. Those who are parents, don't
we discipline our children a little bit more tactfully? Not necessarily
differently, but aren't we more conscious of what we say and
how we say things? Don't we think through our thoughts
a little bit more when somebody's in the house? Maybe not. good. Maybe you're authentic
all the way through. I know there have been many seasons where
I just wanted to sort of rack one of my children over the head
with a bat and you know I can't do that when people are watching
this. It's in trouble. I made a joke like that in California.
I got a really long letter from a woman. We don't hit them with
bats. Broomsticks. But you know what
I mean. We want to be holy today. We
want to talk the Jesus talk. We want to have the attitude
of gratitude. We want to do all the cool stuff.
Friends, Paul is saying, not just in my presence, but in my
absence also, strive for more holiness. Because we're never
absent from our Lord. We're never apart from the eyes
of God. The reformers knew it well when
they used the phrase Coram Dale in the face of God, we stand
in the face of God, we live, we dream, we speak, we think
we sleep. In the face of God, God is the
audience at all times. Jesus Christ sees and knows all. Are we honoring Him? Are we glorifying
Him? Are we showing Him our love for Him and obeying Him when
we're alone? So more so in my absence. Not for me. Don't obey for me,
Paul says. Don't obey around me. Don't strive
for holiness because I'm coming over there. But it reminds me of the parables
that Jesus teaches about being ready. The bridegroom and the
bridesmaids. Being ready whenever. Keep the
oil in your lamp lit. Be diligent to keep fuel in it.
Always be on the watch. For you never know when the bridegroom
is coming. He's coming and he's ready to
take his bride. And if you're ill prepared, guess
what? You're not the bride. This is where Paul's coming.
This is where he's going. When He says, work out your own
salvation. Philippians has a really bad
verse. 4.13 is a really bad verse in
abuse. This is a bad one. People like
to tear this one up. See, we've got to work for our
own salvation. It's what it said. No. Context, it says this. Therefore, my beloved, as you've
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,
for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for
His good pleasure." There's the sentence. That's the sentence. That's one sentence. It's not
a phrase. It's not a punchline. The Word
of God is not fortune cookies. You can find some of them in
Proverbs, but they still have a context. This is not for us
to work our own salvation out the way we choose, the way we
please. In the context here, Paul is saying you have the mind
of Christ, you have the heart of Christ, you have the power
of Christ, you have the prayers of the saints, you are the body
of Christ at the cost of His life. He died and He rose from
the dead and He has willed for you to obey Him and you can. So strive for it. Therefore,
work out your own salvation in fear and trembling. Don't put it on God. Oh God,
if you don't give me the heart to walk in holiness, I'm not
doing it. And you wake up tomorrow and you'd rather go live in the
world than in Christ, and you blame God for your wickedness.
No, it doesn't work that way, beloved. We are at fault for
our wickedness, and if we are in Christ, we're definitely at
fault for our wickedness, because we're rejecting the very power
that's within us. Lord, I want this in my flesh,
and even if it's hard and almost immovable in the context of our
ability to withstand, we can cry out to our Father. Lord,
stop me, save me, help me. You know, by the time you get
through crying out for about ten minutes, all that desire is gone. Work out your own salvation. with fear and with trembling. Now, there's a very, very, very
tender place here that we need to be careful. We need to be
careful not to say that we have to have fear in our salvation,
wondering if we're saved. That's not the point. John and
Paul and a lot of other people write very clearly that we can
know we have eternal life. These things are written that
you may know you have eternal life. 1 John. These things are
written that you may know you have eternal life. John chapter
20. We know we have eternal life
because, as Paul says to the Romans, that the Spirit of God
testifies to our spirit that we are the sons and the children
of God. And if sons, then heirs. We are in Christ. When we doubt, we resolve to
trust in the fullness of the gospel. The good news that Jesus
is our hope, not our own self. We don't measure our ability
to know that we're saved by our holiness. But we definitely need
to use it as a test when we find ourselves not walking in holiness.
Am I in the faith? So I'm going to work out. I'm
going to build up. I'm going to get stronger in
my own salvation. I'm going to work through the
problems. I'm going to work through the confusion. I'm going to work
through the temptation. I personally am responsible for
being diligent and being disciplined to be obedient to the commands
of Christ. And I'm not going to lay that
on Jesus when I fail. But when I do fail, I'm going
to lay my righteousness on Jesus, because without it, I'm not going
anywhere. You see the difference? It means to honor. Fear means
to honor. Work it out with fear. It means
we honor. We live in our Christian life
with honor to God. Do all things for the glory of
God. How many times have we all said that? Time and time again,
year after year after year, do it all for the glory of God,
whether we eat, whatever we drink, whatever we do, do it all for
the glory of God. And then how many times are we
actually putting that into practice? And say, oh, that's OK. Sorry,
I'm just. And friends, let me tell you,
it's not always about sin in the in the sense of evil acts,
it's also about sin and the things that we're not doing that we
should be doing. I write about the experiences
that I've had, three of them in my lifetime, where I was prompted
and encouraged and engaged in the opportunity to share the
gospel and walked away. In those three situations, those
people died within just a short time. Two of them in a day and
one of them in 30. That was sin on my part. It was sin because I did not
do that which I should have done. It's sin on my part when we feel
compelled to pray and we don't because our television show is
coming on. It's sin on our part when all the emergencies of life take
place and take precedence over our intimacy with the Word of
God. When this is what gets us through. It's much like Spurgeon
says that he prays several hours a day And on days that he had
very stressful days with very little time, he prayed four to
five hours a day. Why? Because God can do much
more in little than we can do with a lot. We're working out our salvation
with honor. I think we work out our salvation with fear and that
we understand the gravity of our salvation. We understand
the cost of our salvation. We understand the need of our
salvation. We understand the what if we had not been saved.
We understand. The Christ of our salvation. What does it mean? For someone
to have gravity, What does it mean for us to have
a grave heart and spirit when we contemplate the gospel? It
doesn't mean that we walk around melancholy. It means that, man,
we just missed death. This is serious. Being saved is not an experience
that you just, yeah, you're saved now, let's do a Wanna program.
It's saved. You want to play on a softball
team? And I hate to make jokes, but that's the kind of garbage
that's happening in our churches. Now I sound like a fundamentalist.
Forgive me. Maybe I am. But these things
that take the place, where is the gravity? Where is the gravity
knowing that if I stand before you and I speak the Word of God,
that I'm held accountable for every breath I take? Between
words. James 3.1. Where's the scripture
at? James 3.1. Not many of you ought
to be teachers, brethren. For you who teach will be held
to a stricter judgment. That means you will be judged
harder. You'll be held to a greater level
of examination than those who do not teach. Gravity. Working out our salvation with
fear means that we have a willingness. We have a willingness that we
are striving for holiness. We have an earnestness that we
want to please our Father. We want to release and reflect
and to expose the work of God. We want to be a living testimony
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Friends, this is not an easy
task. It is costly. It is a task that
cost us sometimes sleepless nights when we should be resting in
the sovereignty of God. We are up laboring over our own
salvation and over our own holiness and over our own sin, only to
know that the morning comes and we are renewed day by day by
the mercies of God. For the mercies of God are new
daily. You can't take this sermon and
live on a week. This sermon ought to be a meal
for you to cause. You ever eat a whole lot before
you go to bed and you wake up starving about four in the morning?
That's what the Bible should be for us. We should come to
a place where we're eating the Bible and the more we do, the
more we want it, the more time we spend, the more intense it
becomes for us. Friends, that is the answer.
That is where our hope lays. We ought to work out our own
salvation with fear and trembling. We ought to tremble. Much like
we trembled not a month ago riding to Savannah when a very. brain-dead person driving the
truck coming down the highway at about 100 miles an hour goes
around us and between a truck and us with little more than
15 feet and skirts off into the exit. I think, wow. One half a second difference
and we'd all been spread across the interstate. You know how that is. And the
adrenaline hurts. And I was tired, but now I'm
not! You think, if I just had a tank...
I mean, you think you could win a war when that happens. And
all of a sudden, your heart's... And then after the adrenaline
goes down, your body hurts. And you think of the gravity.
You're trembling. You're like, wow! Look what could
have happened. Look what could have taken place.
Look what could have come had we been in just a different position. Just a few inches different.
And of course, for us, we glorify God, and had we died that day,
we could have glorified God. But friends, our salvation is
going to be difficult. It is going to cause us trembling.
It is going to cause us pain. It is going to cost us dearly.
Following Christ is a costly endeavor. and by the grace of
our Lord through His Word and with the presence of His eternal
and ever-present Holy Spirit, we are able to walk as believers. We are able to love supernaturally. We are able to do all that we've
been commanded to do right here in this text. How? For, last verse, it is God. That says it all. It is God. It is God who works in you, both
to will and to work for His good pleasure. I'll talk a little
bit more about that next week, but let me give you the thrust
of this. You obey as you have obeyed,
beloved, for Christ is yours and you are Christ's. His mind
is yours. His power is yours. His faith
is yours. His righteousness is yours. And
you are his. He is the Lord of all things.
He is the master of all things. Christ is able to sufficiently
satisfy your righteousness because He is holy. Because He is Lord,
He is able to will and to work in you obedience to the Lord
God. He is able to expose the work
that He did in creating you at the cross of Calvary. He is able
to show and to reveal the glory of God in His body who is the
church of Jesus Christ. Jesus is able to do this because
He is giving glory to the Father. We are able to do this because
Christ is the standard of obedience. We are able to obey because Christ
is victorious over sin. His death was not just a meal
to God. His death was a satisfying propitiation
to God. It wasn't just incense of an
offering that fades in the wind. It was an eternal, effective,
satisfying death. Because His life was an eternal,
effective, satisfying holiness. Jesus is victorious over sin. Therefore, we are able to walk
in obedience in Christ, following Christ, because God has willed
it in Christ. This means we are able to walk
in victory over sin. We are able to walk in obedience
because Christ has finished the work of redemption. We aren't
waiting. Yes, we're waiting for the fulfillment
of glorification, but we're not waiting to be redeemed. We're
as redeemed today in the sense of our justification as we will
be in five million millennia after Christ has returned to
take us to be where He is. We are justified through Jesus
Christ by faith alone, and God has willed it in us. Therefore,
it is in us. God has willed that we be holy
and reflect the nature of Jesus. Therefore, it is Jesus when He
says these things. Truly, truly, amen, amen. We say amen, amen. It is so,
folks. God has established holiness
in the hearts of His people. That is why when we see areas
of all the New Testament where the church has people among them
who live in continued disrespect and rebellion against the commands
of Christ, they are to lose their very place in society among the
people of God until such a time when they see the need and the
ability to repent by the grace of God. Because it is grave. It is serious. And it is something
that at the minimum, which I think is the maximum, blasphemes the
gospel. Blasphemes Jesus Christ. We are able because Christ has
done. Both to will, because God has
willed you His own, beloved. God has claimed us, therefore
we are. What does John say? Oh, what
kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called
the children of God, and so we are. So we are. We are the righteousness of God,
not by name, but in essence. We have been given the righteousness
of Christ, therefore we can walk, put Him to death, because God
has willed it so. He has willed that we pray. He
has willed that we strive for holiness. He has willed that
we obey, therefore it will be. What happens if I can't obey?
What happens if I find myself in a place where I can no longer
walk with Christ? Maybe you are not in Christ.
Maybe you should come to the place of seeking to find hope
in Christ by crying and screaming and asking God to give you a
heart, to show you your sin, to break you in such a way that
you would see the light of the gospel, not just with your eyes,
but with the very core of your soul. It is God who willed, who works
in you both to will and to work. What is it that Paul teaches
the Ephesians church? For we are God's workmanship,
listen, created in Christ Jesus. to do good works, which God prepared
beforehand for us to walk in. God has snatched us out of the
domain of darkness, out of the place where we were sons of disobedience,
out of death, out of destruction, out of the place where the objects
of wrath live. and He has transferred us to
the light of Jesus Christ. The light that John explains
in John 3, that Jesus says is coming to the world, and those
who do not come, do not come lest their works be exposed.
But those who come to the light clearly come so that it may be
seen that their works have been carried out in God. that God
gets the glory for my obedience, God gets the glory for our hope,
God gets the glory for our faith, God gets the glory for our repentance,
God gets the glory for our study and our worship, and everything
we do in the name of Christ, God is glorified in it, He is
the one who gets the credit, and I don't care what people
like to say, and how weirdly man-centered they want to make
the gospel, It is all about the glory of Christ and the glory
of the Father. Jesus Himself, who was God, submitted
His glory, submitted to not revealing His divine nature in the sense
that He would give all the glory to the Father. And in like manner,
we as human beings should do the exact same. So for anyone
to teach that God is more interested in the ways of men and in the
hearts of men than He is His own glory and His own worship,
they are liars and are stupid. And I say that and it's very
polarizing. And people say, Tippins, don't say stuff like that. But
the only other word that comes from my mouth would cause me
to step down from this pulpit for a few minutes. Because it
is ridiculously wicked for people to claim such things and then
dare say that what we believe as Christians is false. It is
stupid. It is stupid for someone who
says they're in Christ to reject the fact that God loves His own
glory more than anything else. Why? because it was stupid for
the devil, who was created by God to reflect the nature of
the glory of God, to walk up to him and say, you know, I've
been looking in the mirror lately, and I like what I see. And I
think I'm just as pretty as you are, God, so I want to stand
next to you. I don't want to take your place.
I want to stand next to you. I want to receive the honor that you're
getting because I look just like... He forgot that he reflects the
nature of the glory of his Creator. So, I think stupid is the only
word I can come up with. But friends, we're not stupid.
We've been given wisdom in Jesus Christ. We've been given hope
through the hearing of the Word. We've been given life through
the Spirit of God. We've been given glory that awaits
us as we will be like Christ. You know why the imagery of Christ
as the head and we as the body is so important? Because Christ
is holy and righteous. And His body will look exactly
as He is. And we are His body. So our holiness
is an opportunity. Our obedience is an opportunity
for the glory of God to be exalted. Now let me step into a few places
that may sound in disagreement. When we do this, and when we
see the glory of God made much of in our lives through obedience,
We gain the greatest reward. Why? We don't gain salvation
through obedience, except for the obedience of faith, as Paul
would say, that's a whole nother class. We gain holiness and salvation
because of God's grace alone, given us only through the word
of God, empowered by the Holy Spirit, by faith. There's a lot
there. Don't have time to unpack it.
We are gaining the reward and the greatest treasure in our
obedience because that which we love the most, who is Christ,
is honored, so it gives us the greatest joy. The one who has
given his life for us and allows us to be joy and pleasure seekers
of the highest grade, which is found only in God through Christ
Jesus. So we then are able to say, I
am looking in the face of Christ and I have become one who has
received the greatest thing that I could ever receive. So it pleases
us. It gives us our joy. Right. These things that are joy that
indeed our fellowship is with God and his son, Jesus Christ.
And if your fellowship is with us, then our joy is complete.
Paul says, make my joy complete by being of one mind. Why? Because when we can see Christ
amongst us and in us and in our lives, we have joy because we
see that which most pleases us. Do you see that church? We are satisfied in holiness
and obedience because it pleases us. Because we see our Lord.
We see His work. We were digging through storage
over the last few weeks and cleaning out a building that our family
has been storing things in since 1960. Well, not necessarily storing,
but since 1982. And there are things we found
in there from the 1940s and things we found from the 50s and 60s, 70s and
80s. Really neat stuff. And we're starting to dig through
all that and look at that. You know, my mother, she's very
sentimental, and she sees papers that we drew in preschool. Oh,
I'm not going to throw this moldy, roach-infested paper away. It
gives her pleasure to see the work of her children. We look at letters, pictures,
people we don't even know and we'll never meet. They've been
dead long ago. I think, wow. I share some of them with some
family that haven't seen them since 1954. Wow, that's so-and-so. Oh, that's me. The joy it brings
to see something that we love and remember as good. How much
greater is seeing the work of our Father, the work of our Savior. How much greater the joy in seeing
us when we walk in obedience because we can see the hand of
Christ. And it's not an obligation, but
it is for the Christian, John says, that the law of God is
not burdensome to the believer. Why? Because we love it. We love
we love to walk in Christ. It does give us the greatest
satisfaction. And so for whatever it's worth,
know that our obedience is worked and willed by God. And as we
tremble and fear throughout this life, we traverse in such a way
that we would many times over just throw it away. But God is
faithful to hold us and to sustain us and to keep us in his righteousness
through Jesus Christ. Are you in Christ? Are you in
Christ? If you were not in Christ today,
my heart for you is that you would cry that Christ would receive
you. That you would see and that you
would know that your only hope is to know that Christ has satisfied
your judgment and that He has been raised from the dead to
give you eternal life. Will you believe forever that
Christ alone is your only hope? Let's pray. In Christ alone, Father. Our
hope is found. What a wonderful lyric to a great
hymn. Father, we're so glad that that
is true, it's not just a love song for us to reflect and wish. It's the gospel. That we know
because we know you, the one true God and the son whom you
have sent. Father, please, by your infinite
mercy and love, Would you save all who hear the gospel today? Would you bring them to conviction,
to brokenness, that they would cry, not just this moment, but
cry out every day, Jesus is my Lord. And that their lives, that
our lives also, would exude and exemplify and reflect the nature
of this good work that you've done and are doing. Father, plant
the words of your heart and mouth and the hearts of our children,
that they may come to faith, that they may strive for holiness,
Lord, and let them see their parents repent and forgive and
walk in striving for righteousness sake. Remind us, Lord, when the
accuser comes, that we are forgiven in Christ and that we are the
righteousness of God. And Father, please continue to
work in us the discipline to strive, to seek after Your grace
through Your Word that we might walk accordingly. We thank You,
Father. We praise You for the answer
to our prayers. We praise You for the praises
that You've put upon our hearts and lips. May they really be
a sounding board of what is truly inside of us. And we pray these
things in the name of Jesus. Amen.