Have you ever received a gift that made you want to be a better person, or that made you want to strive to do your very best? That’s a very common response when we receive a gift that overwhelms us because of the generosity behind it. Oftentimes a gift like this has nothing to do with money—it could be the handing down of a family heirloom, or an act of service or sacrifice.
Perhaps you’ve heard war stories that have captured this phenomenon. Sometimes we hear of acts of heroism where one soldier sacrifices his life to save another soldier, and the surviving soldier is so moved by this act that it affects the rest of his life. The surviving soldier lives the rest of his days remembering the gift of life that he received, and he is moved to live a good life because of it.
This phenomenon is also captured beautifully in the story Les Miserables. Perhaps you have seen the movie or the musical versions of that story. The story follows the life of a convict named Jean Valjean, who is given his parole after 19 years in prison and is told to report to a particular town. As he travels to this town he spends the night one evening with an elderly bishop, and when Valjean sees the valuable silverware that the bishop has, he steals it and runs away. The next day, Valjean is caught by the police and returned to the bishop for identification. But rather than press charges against Valjean and send him back to prison, the bishop tells police that he gave the silverware to Valjean as a gift and that they are to release him at once. Valjean is so moved by this gift of grace that he spends the rest of his life trying to do good for other people.
I’m sure you can see how the idea of responding like this to a gift is right at home in the Christian life. According to the Bible, we have been given an extraordinary gift by God—the gift of salvation—and in light of this gift we are to live in a different manner than before, in a manner that will honor God, who gave us the gift. In our study of Philippians thus far, Paul has expressed this idea clearly 1:27 when we wrote, “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.” The gospel is the good news about the gift of salvation, and we are to live in a way that is worthy of this glorious gift.
As we continue on today in chapter 2, we are still unfolding what it means to conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel. We have seen so far that it means to willingly endure persecution for Jesus’ sake; it means to live in unity with fellow Christians; and it means to embrace the humble mindset of Jesus. But lest we think that we’re doing this on our own, we receive an important reminder today in 2:12–13, where we will see that…
The Christian life calls us to live out the work that God is performing in us.
Would you turn with me please to Phil. 2:12–13? Let’s read these verses, and then we’ll take a look at the command in these verses, the attitude that we’re supposed to have with this command, and the reason that we’re supposed to follow this command with this attitude. [READ vv. 12–13].
Let’s take a look first of all at the command in these verses…
I. We must work toward spiritual growth in the Christian life
Paul starts in v. 12 by commending the Philippians for their continued obedience to God even though he wasn’t there watching over them at the moment. They weren’t behaving the way we did at times when we were children—mom turned her back for five minutes, and we were trying to eat the cookies that we weren’t supposed to touch. No, the Philippians were obeying even though Paul wasn’t there, and he commanded them to keep it going by telling them to “work out your salvation.”
Now this command has caused a lot of confusion because it seems to contradict what the Bible says about receiving forgiveness from God. What does he mean “work out your salvation?” Doesn’t the Bible tell us that we can’t earn salvation by our works? Wasn’t it Paul himself who wrote in Romans 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness?” What are we to make of this command?
I think this confusion can be cleared up by comparing the way that we use the word “salvation” to the way that the Bible uses the word “salvation.” What we will find is that we tend to use the word in a more restricted way than the Bible does.
In the Bible, the word “salvation” is used at various times to refer to three different aspects of one unified process. The first aspect is the one that we normally mean when we use the word “salvation”—it is the moment that we receive forgiveness from God by placing our faith in Jesus. The fancy theological term for this aspect is justification. This refers to the moment that we receive forgiveness, are reborn spiritually, and adopted into God’s family, and I cannot stress enough that good works have nothing to do with us receiving this aspect of salvation. This is the aspect of salvation that is described in verses like Eph. 2:8–9—“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
The second aspect of this process is what we usually call spiritual growth or “living the Christian life.” The theological term for it is sanctification, and rather than being a one-time, momentary thing like the first aspect, this aspect is an ongoing process in our lives. This aspect does involve good works as we live out our calling to be ambassadors for Christ. But what you may not realize is that the Bible uses the word “salvation” to describe this aspect of the process as well. We see this in verses like Phil. 2:12 here and in verses like 1 Peter 2:2 which says, “like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”
The third aspect of this process occurs when we receive our resurrected, heavenly bodies. The theological term for this is glorification. We see this aspect in verses that talk about salvation as something that is still to come in the future. A perfect example of this is the last part of Romans 13:11, which says, “for now salvation is nearer to us than when we believed.” Now perhaps you’re thinking, “Wait, don’t we have salvation when we believe?” The answer of course is “yes”—we have the first aspect of salvation and we set out on the second aspect of salvation, but while we’re alive we’re still waiting for this third aspect of salvation, which is what Paul has in mind here. We see this aspect also in 1 Peter 1:5, which says, “[we] are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Now, to help us clear up any confusion about this command in Phil. 2:12, we need to note how we generally use the word “salvation,” because normally when we use it, we are referring only to the first aspect of this process. Thus, as we read Scripture and encounter the word “salvation,” our thoughts generally turn toward this first aspect of the process, but as you can see that will create some confusion for us in verses like this, because here it seems that Paul is talking about the second aspect of this process. So if that’s the case, then he’s not telling us to work to earn forgiveness from God; rather, he’s telling us to work to grow spiritually, or as Eph. 2:10 puts it, he’s telling us to live out the “good works which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
So that is what we are commanded to do here, to put our salvation to work, you might say. And as we do, Paul says that we are to do so with a certain attitude…
II. We should work toward spiritual growth with an attitude of fear toward God
In giving his command, Paul also instructs the Philippians to have a certain attitude. He tells them to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” and we see from v. 13 that he is talking about a fear of God. If you have read much in other portions of Scripture, you’ve probably run into this idea of fearing God quite often. In fact, the Bible repeatedly praises an attitude of fear toward God as a healthy spiritual mindset. The book of Proverbs in particular talks frequently about the benefits of this mindset. Why don’t you turn with me to Proverbs and we’ll read a few of the verses that praise this attitude:
[READ 9:10; 10:27; 14:26–27; 15:33; 16:6; 19:23; 22:4]
So it’s not hard to see that the fear of the Lord is a very beneficial thing, but what kind of attitude is this exactly? It sounds kind of strange to say that we should fear God because one of the glorious truths of the gospel is that when we place our faith in Jesus, we are established in a relationship of peace with God.
So what does it mean to fear God? It doesn’t mean that we fear that he’s going to harm us. He certainly will discipline us when we need it, but remember, that is not for our harm. We can compare the fear of the Lord to that melting feeling that we experience when we meet someone important and powerful, like the governor or the president. If you’ve ever had an experience like that, its very common to feel weak and uneasy, and psychologically to feel very small in comparison to that person.
A few years ago I had the experience of seeing President Bush’s motorcade drive past my former church in Kansas City. I was able to walk right up to the road as he went by. I didn’t meet, and in fact I didn’t even see him, but I experienced that feeling because I felt very small and insignificant compared to the tremendously powerful and influential man who passed by me.
That’s the idea behind the fear of the Lord—it’s the proper recognition of who we are in relation to God. One author put it this way: “To fear god means to acknowledge His superiority over man, to recognize His deity and thus respond in awe, humility, worship, love, trust, and obedience.”* This attitude is well illustrated by the disciples in the gospels, when the authors tell us that when Jesus performed some of his miracles the disciples became afraid or amazed. They weren’t afraid that Jesus was going to hurt them, but they realized that they were dealing with someone who was much greater than themselves.
So we are called to have this attitude toward God, and as we see in v. 13, it’s not simply because we are dealing with God, but because God is dealing with us. In v. 13 we discover why we should have this attitude and why we should obey this command.
III. We should have an attitude of fear toward God because of who He is and what He is doing in us
Let’s read v. 13 again, and let me begin reading from the command in v. 12 [READ v. 12b-13]. Here is the reason that we should work out our salvation; here is the reason that we should fear and tremble—because God himself is dealing with us! God is giving us godly desires and the strength to act upon them. What we have here is both an encouragement and a very sobering reality. It’s an encouragement because as we strive for spiritual growth, we’re not doing it alone—in fact we’re simply cooperating with the work that God is doing in us. But its also a very sobering reality because we see that God wants to accomplish his good pleasure in this world through us, which means that we have a very important role to play, and we don’t want to be found neglecting God’s work within us.
This lesson means that when we have godly desires, it is not merely our upbringing coming out, or some vague notion of seeking the welfare of our community—it means that God is at work in us and we therefore need to act!
If I may say so, friends, I believe this lesson reveals that the Christian life is a dreadfully serious matter! If we don’t think that living out our faith is a serious matter, we’re not just “missing out”—we are resisting the work of God! That is a very sobering thought, and as Paul says it should lead us to have an attitude of astonishment and wonder, an attitude of fear as we understand who we are in relationship to God.
Now when I say that our faith should be a serious matter, I don’t mean that the Christian life should be grim or gloomy. Philippians reminds us that there should be joy in the Christian life, and joy oftentimes produces happiness and light-heartedness. But Christian joy is not the same as ignorant bliss. If you’ve seen the movie Finding Nemo, do you remember the character of Dora, who joined up with Nemo’s dad? That is ignorant bliss! Or you can think of the character Goofy from some of the Disney cartoons. Christian joy is uplifting to the soul, but our souls should always be anchored by the sobering reality that God himself is working in us to accomplish his good pleasure in this world.
So although we might take ourselves lightly, we must not take our calling as Christians lightly. God is leading us to join in his mission in this world against sin and Satan, with all of the sacrifices that such a mission requires of us. We are called to be ambassadors for Christ in a world that does not want to hear our message, a place with a ruler in the Devil who will oppose us at every turn.
But we should remember the encouragement of this passage as well, that as we seek to work out our salvation, we are merely cooperating with God’s work in us. God is on the job, and when the struggles of this life overwhelm us, we will find in God both the desire and the strength to live for what pleases him, so that we might continue on the way.
* Roy B. Zuck, “A Theology of the Wisdom Books and the Song of Songs,” in A Biblical Theology of the Old Testament, ed. Roy B. Zuck (Moody Bible Institute, Chicago Illinois. 1991) pg 215.
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