Bible Study Series: The Book of Philippians
Bible Study Philippians 2.12-16 Working out what God works in!
By Fraser Gordon
Last time we were in Philippians Chapter 2 and looked at the greatest example of humiliation, the Lord Jesus Christ. We looked at how He lowered Himself from an exalted position and came down, down, down dying for the sins of mankind obedient even to the point of death, even the death of the cross. But God, after He paid the penalty of sin, exalted Him and lifted Him up, up, up and gave Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of those in heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father Php 2.9-11.
The context of our passage today is that there was strife in the Philippian church. Some were acting up, some were carnal and some were preaching Christ from wrong motives. In Php 2.3 Paul writes Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Paul calls the believers in Philippi to lower themselves and he gives the Lord Jesus Christ as the greatest example of this.
Work it out yourself
Php 2:12 Therefore, my beloved, as you 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;
Paul addresses the Philippian believers that just as Christ is their example now he wants them to work out their own salvation. Now, first up, salvation can't be worked for. There's nothing that you and I can do to earn a right standing before God except to take by faith the sacrifice that has been given for us. All we need to do is place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, His work upon the cross and his full payment for sin. This is by faith. Salvation had already come to the Philippians and wasn't something they were working for. Paul means that it's not a working for or working towards salvation but a working out that which has already happened. Paul is saying flesh it out, take stock of the calling by which you've been called and work out your own salvation. In other words, everything that has been done for you in the Lord Jesus Christ make it your own. Remember, Paul is writing from prison, he's not there to guide them or show them an example by the way he is living among them. He's speaking to them from a distance. It's a little bit like him saying, ‘I'm not there anymore you've got to work this out for yourselves’.
It's a little bit like teaching your teenagers to drive. I remember teaching my daughter, Ella, it was a very painful process for both of us. She didn't like me in the car and I was nervous. But there came a point when I had to get out of the car and trust her to drive on her own. My prayer is always, Lord, may she not kill someone. There came a point when I had to let her work it out for herself. Let her drive the roads and come across all the hindrances that came her way. It's a bit like this for Paul. He's in prison and not among the believers anymore. He writes to them saying you are to work out your own salvation. He is trusting them to work it out for themselves.
The busy bee vs the lump of clay
Php 2.13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
There's two types of Christians. One is works based where your salvation is on you and you have to do everything yourself. You have to get busy, ‘Have you evangelised your neighbour lately?’ They put a guilt trip on you that if you don't evangelise their blood hangs over your head. With this type of Christian everything is about activity, ‘The Lord's not going to get anything done unless you get busy’ type of attitude. It's a works based Christian. Then you have the passive Christian everything is about the Lord as the ‘Potter’. ‘I'm just a lump of clay, He is the vine’. ‘I'm a branch that hangs with my arms out wide’. Everything is about rest and everything is about letting go and letting God. They won't move because they think they are a lump of clay that God works on. He alone brings the activity. We often find Christians in one of these two camps. Who does the work, is it God or is it man? The answer is actually both. We work and God works. This passage is about working out your own salvation with fear and trembling. It is something we have to do in response to the high calling that has come upon us.
Then the scripture goes on to say ‘both to will and to do for His good pleasure. To be consistent with scripture, we see that both are active. Man is active and God is also active working on the will of man.
Rest and go forward
In Exodus 14 the nation of Israel has just come out of Egypt
Exo 14:10 And when Pharaoh drew near, the children of Israel lifted their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them. So they were very afraid, and the children of Israel cried out to the Lord. 11 Then they said to Moses, "Because there were no graves in Egypt, have you taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you so dealt with us, to bring us up out of Egypt? 12 Is this not the word that we told you in Egypt, saying, 'Let us alone that we may serve the Egyptians?' For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than that we should die in the wilderness." 13 And Moses said to the people, "Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. 14 The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace."
There are some wonderful promises here. The nation of Israel is hemmed in, the sea is on one side and the Egyptian army is on the other. They are boxed into a corner. Moses tells them not to panic and if they want to see God act then rest, stand still and the Lord will fight for them. Hold your peace, stop panicking and being afraid.
Exo 14:15 And the Lord said to Moses, "Why do you cry to Me? Tell the children of Israel to go forward. 16 But lift up your rod, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it. And the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. 17 And I indeed will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, and they shall follow them. So I will gain honour over Pharaoh and over all his army, his chariots, and his horsemen.
In this passage the Israelites are told two things; They are told to rest in the Lord, to stand still and put their faith in the Lord who will fight for them. But then the very next thing God said is to go forward. God says. Why are you still moaning and complaining? Go forward. Act. Get moving. The passive Christian, the one that is into the potter and the clay may have sat there and said, ‘No, no, we need to wait, God will carry us 4 inches above the ground all the way through the Red Sea. God will move. He has to act. We’ll just wait and be patient and He will fight on our behalf. He will carry us across this sea and our feet won't even get mud on them.’ However we don't see that, instead we see Moses telling the people that God will be active, but you need to get going. Kiwi’s would say ‘get off your backsides and get moving’.
So you see this contrast in scripture where God acts and we also act. Passiveness is not found in the Christian life. We do not sit and wait and everything is done for us. It is both man acting and God acting.
Solomon’s prayer
You are working out your salvation and God is also working on your will for His good works.
Ki 8:54 And so it was, when Solomon had finished praying all this prayer and supplication to the Lord, that he arose from before the altar of the Lord, from kneeling on his knees with his hands spread up to heaven. 55 Then he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying: 56 "Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant Moses. 57 May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers. May He not leave us nor forsake us,
Then look at verse 58: 1Ki 8:58 that He may incline our hearts to Himself, to walk in all His ways, and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, which He commanded our fathers.
Solomon is asking that God would work in them to incline their hearts toward God. This is the language Paul uses in Philippians that God works in you to will and to do for His good pleasure. We need God to move and act upon our hearts to keep our hearts faithful to Himself, that we may walk and keep all His commandments.
1Ki 8:59 And may these words of mine, with which I have made supplication before the Lord, be near the Lord our God day and night, that He may maintain the cause of His servant and the cause of His people Israel, as each day may require, 60 that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no other. 61 Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and keep His commandments, as at this day."
Do you see the contrast in verse 58? It's God that works on our hearts and our wills to keep us in the right way and keep His commandments. Then in verse 61 the personal responsibility is Let your heart therefore be loyal to the Lord your God, to walk in his statutes and keep his commandments. Both are there, the activity of man applying himself and the working of God on our fallen hearts to choose His will.
This is a consistent theme in scripture.
God’s part, Man’s part
2Pe 1:3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, 4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
That's God's part, all that God does for you and I. He's given us His precious promises, He's given us the Spirit of Christ that dwells within our hearts, He's given us everything that pertains to life and godliness through His Spirit which indwells us. Now you come to man's part and our responsibility.
2Pe 1:5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. 10 Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; 11 for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Paul exhorts us to work out our own salvation to flesh it out and apply diligence to this great calling we have as Christians. Peter says the same thing. Add to your faith all of these things. Don't be short sighted and forget you were cleansed from your old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble. It's the same language. Work out this great salvation, this great calling you have - to be called a child of the living God.
In Philippians 2.12 Paul addresses the Philippi believers and says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This isn't a fear of the punishment of sin, because that has already been paid for. This fear is a godly reverence of the Lord that all of us who are saved need. It is a reverence for the Lord and for the calling He has called us to. This was true of the Lord Jesus Christ who was our example.
Isa 11:1 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse, And a Branch shall grow out of his roots. 2 The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord. 3 His delight is in the fear of the Lord, And He shall not judge by the sight of His eyes, Nor decide by the hearing of His ears; 4 But with righteousness He shall judge the poor, And decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
This is a prophetic passage about the Lord Jesus Christ and it says His delight is in the fear of the Lord. In Hebrews 10.5 He said, …a body you have prepared for me and in verse 7 'Behold, I have come-- In the volume of the book it is written of Me-- To do Your will, O God.' " In other words the fear of the Lord is a reverence for His specific calling for you and for Him to do with your life as He chooses. So working out our own salvation with fear and trembling is a reverential calling and understanding that God has plans for you and I. They are good plans. Isaiah 66.2 says "But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.
To will and to do
Php 2.13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.
F.B Meyer writes about the immanence of God as being “the distinctive peculiarity of our holy religion”. In other words this calling we've been called to by God “can be in us not robbing us of individuality but side by side with it, clothing Himself with it, so that just as He was in Isaiah, but Isaiah greatly differs from Jeremiah, just as He was in John, but John was an altogether different man from Peter, so God enters the human spirit, and, without robbing us of our power of volition, individuality, or personality, He waits within, longing to burst through every restraint, and to reveal Himself through us in all the beauty and glory of His nature”. I really like that and it’s so true. God is in you, working in you to will and to do His good pleasure. God is working on the will of man but He'll never override your free will or your individual personality. He quietly works on our will so that it eventually comes in line with His will. We are all absolutely individuals and God loves it that way and doesn't want to change it. God is both the working, the willing and the doing. He does that without robbing us of our own individual will, free choice or personality.
If you have a really strong independent will then you'll be like Jacob. He's one of my favourite characters in the Bible because he was so strong. Jacob goes through so much turmoil once he comes into a relationship with God because he's used to doing his own thing in his own way. He won't bend so God works on him for 20 years under his uncle Laban who was more shrewd, cunning and deceptive than Jacob himself. God wore him down. He dealt with Jacob over Esau, and Jacob wrestled with a Man all Night. This was a Christophany where Jacob realised he had seen God face to face. He wrestled with an Angel of the Lord - the Lord Jesus Christ before he took on humanity. The Lord injured him, so that he walked with a limp from that day on. Jacobs life doesn't stop there and his end is beautiful. You see a will that eventually submits to God. When Joseph wants Benjamin to come to Egypt Jacob doesn't want to let him go and he's trying to find a way to keep him. But then all of a sudden he says, okay, I'm going to have to trust God with this and if I'm bereaved, I'm bereaved. God worked on Jacob his whole life, trying to bend his will, relinquish his human strength, and trust God. His end is beautiful, worshipping on his staff, in tune with the Spirit of God as he changes his hands to bestow the greater blessing on Joseph's younger son.
Work out your own salvation, but God is also working in you and I both to will and to do the works of God. God becomes both my willing and my doing. This was always true of the Lord Jesus Christ, Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me Heb 10.5. There is a purpose for this, and it is for God's good pleasure. We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works Ephesians 2.10. This is all for God so that He may have another body on earth by which He can shine forth and show Himself to the world.
Do you remember when the Lord Jesus Christ was baptised? He came up out of the water and the Father said this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. He was pleased with the Lord Jesus Christ. And the question has to be asked, what did Jesus do? He was 30 years of age when He was baptised, He had done no miracles, hadn’t raised the dead, and had done no preaching. He had lived pretty much in obscurity and learned from the Father during those first 30 years of His life. But the Father could say my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. The Lord Jesus Christ adopted an attitude toward His Father where He learned the will of the Father, and that pleased God. God is at work in us that we would choose to do the will of God. It is for God's good pleasure so He has hands and feet in this world.
Shine as lights in the world
Php 2:14 Do all things without complaining and disputing
Paul now starts to address some of the issues going on in the Philippian church. Christians should not continually moan, complain, and grumble about everything that comes their way. It's so easy for us to do, and we're all guilty of it. We're all guilty of complaining when a car pulls out in front of us, if we have to stop at traffic lights too long, if we can't find a park, or if there's a long line of people when we’re buying something. If there's a person in your way it’s almost enough to cause you to lose your sanctification. The greatest example of this in Scripture is the nation of Israel. They complained and grumbled for 40 years. They grumbled against God in Egypt and they grumbled against God when they were free. They grumbled against God when they didn't have any food and then they grumbled when they were given food. They grumbled about water, they grumbled about God’s provision, and they grumbled about the leadership they were given. For 40 long years, they walked round and round and round and complained, moaned and grumbled. Paul writes Do all things without complaining and disputing. In other words, we are to be different. We're to have a different voice in this world, and it's not one of continual moaning.
Php 2:15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
We should be blameless and harmless. That means pure, without mixture. Our lives are to shine forth so there's nothing anyone can say about us that causes offence. The only charge they could bring against Daniel was that he was a worshipper of God. What a complaint! If only that was all they could bring against you and I.
Look around the world today and we certainly live in a crooked and perverse generation. But notice that Paul says in the midst of. We're not called to be separate as in isolated from the world, we're called to be separate in the world but not of the world. We're not called to withdraw ourselves into isolation, away from contact with people. Jesus even prayed this in John 17:15 I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. It's easy to withdraw from the world, from those around us that aren't saved. Yes, they are unbelievers in darkness and their deeds are wicked but we are not called to isolate ourselves. We are to be without fault in the midst of, right in the middle of, a crooked and perverse generation. So when they look at you they will see something of the glory of God.
Paul goes on to say among whom you shine as lights in the world. There are three things that shine; the sun which gives light to the day, the moon and the stars which give light in the darkness. Remember the children’s nursery rhyme, ‘this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine’. Well, it's very true. We are called to be lights in the world, even if it's only a small flicker it can still be effective. In the tribal areas of the Philippines there's no electricity in the huts, only candles. I remember looking up the valley one night and it was pitch dark, black as anything. The only thing I could see on the hillside as I looked up the valley was a little flicker here and there in the huts. They were just candles but it was amazing how just a little flicker could dispel the darkness. So it is with us, in the midst of the world we must shine as lights. Even if it's only a little flicker it will be effective and give light to those who are in darkness. Jesus said that He is the light of the world. No one will shine like Jesus but we can all be little lights, little flickers in the darkness to those all around us.
Hold fast
Php 2:16 holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or laboured in vain.
So we stay in the midst of the world with our lives directed toward God. We shine forth the glory of God holding fast to the word of life. This is for us and it's also for others. The word holding fast means holding out towards. In other words, we use the word of God for ourselves and portray the word of God to unbelievers because it is the word of life. It's the Gospel of salvation and the only thing that is true in this world. It can bring life to all those who put their faith in God's revealed word. It's beneficial to unbelievers that we hold the word of God out to them. It's beneficial for believers because the word for holding is also to hold firmly, or to grasp hold of. In this day and age believers need to hang on to the word of God, to hold it firmly, and to apply it to our lives. If you want to work out your salvation, apply the word of God to your life, hold it firmly toward yourself and hold it out toward unbelievers.
I'm thankful for Paul and I'm thankful that in this Christian life, it's both us working and God working. God works on our will so that we yield and always want, as the Lord Jesus Christ did, to do and be obedient toward the will of the Father. He is both the willing and the doing. Our part is to work out our salvation and yield our will to His greater calling on our lives.
Father, we thank you for the word of God. We thank you for your great calling on our life. You call us to work out our salvation and take stock of it. We thank you that you are the one that works in us to yield to Your will. Give us a heart, as Solomon said, that is inclined toward you that we would love to do the will of God. We love to have you working in and through us and we thank you that we are in this world, and even though we're in the midst of it and it's hard, perverse, and crooked, we ask that you would shine forth the Lord Jesus Christ. Even if we are just a little flicker of light. Thank you for working in our hearts and we pray that you would accomplish these things for Jesus sake. Amen.
God bless saints.