To Will And To Do

Philippians chapter 2 and reading from verse 12. Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Amen. May the Lord bless this reading to us.

A short reading, but I trust one that is significant to us nevertheless. The love of the Philippian church for the Apostle Paul and his affection for them is clearly evident throughout this epistle. Remember, from a few weeks ago, we spoke about the fact that this man Epaphroditus had been sent as a messenger, had been sent by the congregation at Philippi. He may have been their pastor. It's not explicitly said. He was certainly a highly respected servant and messenger of the church.

We may presume he was the pastor, but be that as it may, the congregation had sent him to Rome seeking information about the condition of Paul, their friend, and with a gift that they hoped would be of comfort to the apostle in his detention. Now this was a journey, I'm working in rough terms here, I hope I haven't got this wrong, but it was a journey of hundreds of miles, perhaps 800 miles. It would surely have taken some weeks by land and sea to make that journey. And it seems to me from this epistle, reading in some of the later chapters, that Epaphroditus being sent to Rome planned to remain in Rome and to support Paul during his imprisonment until either he got free in which case perhaps he hoped to take him back to Philippi or until he was sentenced to death. And this gesture greatly affected Paul. And in turn, Paul's letter of thanks praises and comforts the Philippians, of whom he says, every remembrance of them and every prayer for them is attended with joy for their close fellowship from the first until now.

And thus it is when the Lord's servant here calls these friends, my beloved, it isn't hyperbole. It's no overstatement. It's no exaggeration. Brotherly love and Christian affection is sacrificial and they are spiritual graces. They are guiding principles for the conduct of believers. Indeed, we are to love our brothers and sisters as we love the Lord. We are to love our brothers and sisters on account of our Lord's sacrifice for us.

And Paul knew the love and practical care that these believers had for him. He had seen their love in action and the feeling was mutual. In calling the Philippians my beloved, he is showing his own affection for them and confirming that love for the saints of this congregation. He's confirming that the reason for his writing, the motive for his instructing them and saying the things to them that he does is his love for them. And it is a fine thing, a fine thing when a faithful pastor like Paul loves his congregation and they love him in return. In that relationship, trust develops. They know he speaks as he does for their greater good. And he knows that they receive his message as from the Lord.

And therefore, for example, when Paul later, in this little epistle, encourages Euodia and Syntyche, who seem to have fallen out, to be of the same mind in the Lord, we might expect these two women to respectfully take his admonition and humbly resolve their problem as becomes the Lord's people. Not rather, as many people do, take the hump and go and find themselves another church with a more sympathetic pastor. You see, love ruled in the midst of this people and they appreciated the Apostle Paul and his love for them. And as we've seen in earlier verses, Paul has been advocating humility and heart loneliness of mind in the Lord's people.

And such a manner of life becomes the Lord's little ones. And it becomes the gospel that we profess because it accords with our own dear Savior's example to us. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, the Apostle says. This is the thrust of his letter. He loves these people and he wants these people to enjoy and experience the blessedness of their inheritance in the Lord, even in this life, even in this world. Christlikeness. is a believer's rule of life. It is our desire, it is our delight to emulate the ways, the character and attitude of our Lord and Savior.

And modesty and meekness, humility as Paul calls it, suits those who profess to be Christ's followers. Yes, there is a place too, there is a place as well for boldness. Believers are not wimps. We are brave soldiers in the ranks of our king but it is boldness of faith not pride of character and attitude, boldness of faith, boldness to speak the truth in righteousness, boldness to stand fast in the liberty of our sovereign grace gospel. Indeed, it is just such boldness that the apostle goes on to acknowledge. He has been calling for humility, but he also understands that there is an integrity, a boldness, in the way in which a believer stands for the truth. And Paul acknowledges this.

He expresses admiration for the steadfast sincerity of the Philippian church. He notes how their faith, their routines, their practices have remained constant and consistent with the gospel, regardless of whether Paul be present with them or absent from them. The faith of these men and women was firm and true. It has been said that the true nature of a man is what he does when no one is watching.

Well, there was no pretense, there was no hypocrisy amongst the Philippians. They stayed true to their profession. They were answerable to the Lord, and they knew it. They weren't answerable to Paul. They were answerable, first and foremost, to the Lord, and they knew it. And the obedience of the saints to which Paul refers lightly means their obedience to the gospel of Christ. They were staying faithful to the gospel Paul had taught and preached amongst them. And this too is Christian boldness. Christian boldness for the internal and the external battles that we have to face as men and women and young people in this world and the forces that come against us.

It's in this sense, it's in this context that the apostle goes on to speak about working out our own salvation. This is an interesting little phrase and it has been misrepresented in the past. We're going to address that now. But that's Paul's phrase, that the Philippians work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Now some have used that phrase to suggest that here, at least, Paul's otherwise unswerving commitment to free sovereign grace wavers. And he leans into man's own human works as somehow contributing to our salvation. It hardly seems necessary to contradict such foolishness. But I will nevertheless. It is nonsense to suggest that. Paul's gospel was clear. What did he say?

He said to the Corinthians, Brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved. if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.

You are saved by the gospel which I have preached, for I delivered unto you, first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. That's how we're saved, because Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures. That he was buried and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures. It is faith in that gospel, it is faith in that work which leads us into the experience of our salvation.

Paul's gospel was also comprehensive. He says in Romans chapter 1 verse 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth. And Paul's gospel was constant. At the end of his life, he preached exactly the same message as he had preached at the start of his ministry. And he says to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 1, verse 11, he speaks of the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which was committed to my trust. It hadn't changed.

All throughout his ministry, Paul kept the clear, sovereign grace gospel. the gospel of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, front and foremost in his ministry. Paul knew and preached that the salvation of every sinner who is saved is founded foursquare on free grace. He's already spoken of these saints at Philippi being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ. The righteousness they had was divine righteousness.

It wasn't human righteousness. It wasn't legal righteousness. It wasn't righteousness that flowed from their work. It wasn't in any way meritorious because they had performed some act of goodness, some act of sacrifice towards God. He knew that the righteousness that these people possessed was Christ's own righteousness, divine righteousness. And the fruits of that righteousness came from Jesus Christ. They didn't get their righteousness from the works of the flesh, it came by imputation from God. And this is the only acceptable righteousness that a man can have and the only righteousness he needs. for peace, for reconciliation with God. And that was Paul's gospel from the start to the finish. Salvation begins and ends with God.

It is revealed to us in this way. God the Father did from eternity purpose to save certain men and women from their sins and bring them to glory. We saw last week in our study together that he did this in order to glorify Christ and for the sake of his own love and mercy. But these chosen individuals, he calls them his elect. That's a phrase we pick up from Romans 11, verse five, and 2 Timothy, chapter two, verse 10. He calls them his elect, and these he chooses to salvation. He chooses to accomplish their salvation for them. He gave his own son to be their way of life. He gave his son to be the source of all their holiness and the appointed means by the shedding of his own precious blood for cleansing them from sin. 1 Peter 1, verse 2. God knew that his elect would fall in Adam. He knew that they would come under judgment and condemnation for sin. He knew that the righteousness of God, the law of God, would find fault in them. And he could, in all justice and purity, have left them there in that corrupt state, and no one could ever have said anything against that. Indeed, divine holiness would have required that had not His good pleasure settled on a better way.

A covenant of grace and peace. A covenant to honour His mercy, to vindicate His love and to secure His greater glory. So God the Father covenanted with His Son and His Holy Spirit, covenanted to ransom and save those who would be lost in Adam's fall. And He gave the elect, these chosen of God, to His Son and committed them into His care and keeping. Christ became their surety. And the Lord Jesus undertook to redeem his people from sin. And the Father undertook to conform them to the image of their Saviour.

And the Holy Ghost undertook to create new life in them by the quickening spirit of power. Though children of wrath in their natural state and condition, God willed and purposed to show mercy and bestow grace on these certain particular individuals, having loved them eternally with everlasting love. Jeremiah 31 verse three. Remember, remember, the Father loved these individuals freely. without reference to anything in them personally.

He did not look forward into the future to see who would believe and then choose them upon the merit of believing. He didn't examine whose works would be deserving, who would deserve salvation. His choice had nothing to do with human works or human will. He freely and willingly gave his son for the salvation of those that he chose. The son, too, loved these individuals. He willingly agreed to deliver them from the curse of the law by giving his blood to redeem them. The Spirit loved these individuals. Coextensive with the Father's electing love and the Son's cleansing blood, God the Holy Spirit covenanted to manifest saving grace to the souls of the elect through the preaching of the gospel and the gift of faith in Jesus Christ.

And this is the essence of Paul's ministry. This is the heart of free grace. By the extent to which our works contribute to our salvation, the value of Christ's blood and righteousness is correspondingly diminished. Salvation is entirely of grace, freely willed by God the Father, freely accomplished by God the Son, freely applied by God the Holy Spirit. It is founded on unconditional love and wholly without any contribution from the sinner who benefits from the work of God. It was eternally settled in covenant purpose, long before any personal knowledge of that salvation or of our conversion is brought into the experience of an individual soul. And this is why we believe salvation is of the Lord.

It is conversion, not cooperation, and Paul knows this. So what does he mean? What is Paul telling the Philippians in this verse? Well, as with all of scripture, it is important to notice who is being spoken to when we come to apply the text. Is it believers or unbelievers who are being addressed?

Here, it is obviously believers. These men and women are Christian brothers and sisters born again in Christ. Indeed, Paul calls them such. They're called the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi. Those who are in Christ, those who are sanctified in Christ, those who are set apart in Christ, which are at Philippi. Paul isn't speaking to them about how to gain salvation. He's teaching them how to live as believers. in obedience to Christ. How to live by faith to the glory of God.

Now he's already made this clear. He has set forth the path of their spiritual growth and development. Not by a set of rules, but in following the desires of their renewed heart. and the prompting of the Holy Spirit in their lives as a new creation. He has told them that he is hopeful that their love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment.

Chapter 1, verse 9. No law about that. He has told them that he wishes that they may approve things that are excellent. Where do you find that in the Ten Commandments? He has told them that it is his desire that they might live sincerely without offence until the day of Christ. Chapter 1 verse 10. And he believes that they will stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, striving together for the faith of the gospel.

Where do all these spiritual desires and ambitions originate? And the natural man? Hardly. Natural, carnal men and women are opposed to the things of God. These are implanted aims and objectives. These are the fruit of the spirit in the heart of a new creation. Nevertheless, that does not mean that contending and striving is finished. The Spirit is in the heart. The new creation has been formed. The Lord God has conformed these men and women to the image of Christ. But there is still a striving and a contending in this world. Believers have new man desires, but they have old man flesh and old man desires as well.

Paul knows, speaking about the Philippians, he knows that their resolve to live like Christ, to live according to Christ's example, will be difficult. He knows that our desire to follow after the Lord will be challenging. We will be hard pressed by the challenges from without and from within. Satan has been removed from the throne of a believer's heart, but he hasn't withdrawn from the battlefield.

As believers, we all need to be guarded and mindful of temptation to sin. And that's what Paul means when he speaks about fear and trembling. Fear and trembling doesn't imply cowardice. It means that we are to be vigilant and it means that we are to be cautious. When we're young, We have someone to tell us what to do and how to live. But as we mature, we have to learn to take responsibility for our own actions. And this, of course, is an intrinsic part of our Christian liberty. The life of a believer is not a life of rule-keeping, but of spirit-filled application. The outworking of our salvation.

I mentioned this yesterday. Legalism, at least superficially, legalism is easy. What have I to do? I do it. Of course, the problem is that from that grows pride and hypocrisy and all those other things. But superficially speaking, legalism is pretty straightforward. Christian liberty, on the other hand, is much more nuanced as we learn in our maturity to walk in the Spirit. Paul has a way of bringing this beautifully to a conclusion, and he ends with a great encouragement for these Philippian saints.

They are not alone in their labor. We do not serve the Lord in our Christian lives in a vacuum. God has placed his spirit in us, and he works his spirit in us. Indeed, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have all made their abode with the redeemed sons of men. We are his workmanship. Even if we often feel as though we're more work in progress than finished articles, we are His workmanship. And knowing that it is God who worketh in us inspires humility and it discourages pride. The Lord is accomplishing His perfect purpose within us, his good work in us.

I'm not saying that God is making us more holy. I'm not saying that he is ridding us of sin. Perhaps the more egregious sin, perhaps the more gross open sins, but sin will be with us as long as we have flesh. I am saying this, however, He is teaching us to live for His glory and to grow in grace and in faith, to trust Him better as we serve Him daily. By nature, we have no desire to honour God. By grace, as new creatures in Christ, we have new desires, a new sanctified will to honour and follow the Saviour.

Everything about the old man is marred and tainted with sin. Everything of the new man is blameless and holy in the sight of God. Everything that we have which is spiritual and good is from the Lord. In ourselves we have nothing of which to glory except in Christ.

And Christ in us is our hope of glory. It is a wonderful thing to behold the Lord working in me and the Lord working through me by faith. My own natural deficiency is easy to see, but simultaneously, The Lord shows his complete and gracious sufficiency for his people. May the Lord apply these things to our hearts and cause us to praise him and thank him for the fact that it is he who is in us to will and to do his purpose. Amen.

To Will And To Do

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To Will And To Do

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