Philippians: The Key to Joy - 8

Sometimes I mistakenly believe that it is impossible to live the Christian life, that it cannot be done.

 Philippians 2:12-18.

And we will, by the way, finish Philippians at the end of August. And then that's when Travis will start the first Sunday in September. I'm not sure what series he's going to start on, but he has been doing this a long time. He has a plan, I'm sure.

So Philippians 2:12, Paul says to us. So then, and that's based on the previous 5 verses, which we'll talk about in a minute. “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more. Or in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent. Children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that on the day of Christ I will have reason to glory, because I did not run in vain and I did not toil in vain. But

even if I am being poured out, Paul, (Paul is speaking here about his own life. He's in prison in Rome.) He says even if I'm being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I'm giving sacrificial service to your faith. And that amounts to my life being poured out. I rejoice and share my joy with you all. You too, I urge you, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.”

 Would you pray with me please friends? Father, this morning we are asking that you would both teach us and motivate us as we look at your word today.

Submit ourselves to you. We pray we'd be people who are open on the God word side. We ask you to please intercede in our nation. In the face of toxic

disagreements, violence, riots, sexual confusion. Perversion protests people

in intense personal struggles. We pray in your kindness you would bring

an end to the war between Ukraine and Russia. We pray you will preserve lives. We pray you would accomplish many, many salvations. We ask in your kindness that you would end the hostilities between Iran and Israel. We pray for the preservation of lives. We pray for salvation. We pray especially, Father, you would give your peace, your provision, your protection to your people, Israel. We thank you so much that you love this people and that you also love us, the church. We do pray for many people in the Jewish faith and many people of Jewish heritage and in the Jewish homeland to come to faith in Christ. Pray that you bring people to faith around the world, Father, in census loads. Father, there is one hope for our planet that is Jesus, and so we pray your work. We pray for our fellow brothers and sisters at Trail Christian Fellowship today who are hearing what is, in my judgment, difficult, hard, sad news. I pray you give all of them grace. I pray you give Travis and Tria and their daughters grace. In all of this transition. Pray for the lives of all of us at FC. Father, I know there are people here with health issues. Relationship issues. Financial issues. Uncertainties. Discouragements. Anger. Confusion.

All kinds of struggles. Father, we are so grateful that you walk with each one of

us in this fallen and difficult world, and we're just pausing now to cast their

lives on you. We need you to help us. We're clear about that. Beyond that, Father, we trust that you will help us. You are the kind of father who cares about us, and we are deeply grateful for that. You're the kind of father

with the power to help us. The kind of father with the motivation to help us.

You're able to help us. You know what help we need? And so we're deeply grateful to be in your family. And under the King. Deeply grateful to have a King in our lives, Father, and we praise you in Christ's name, Amen.

Friends, last week our friend Stephen Denton, who I consider to be a brilliant communicator, talked to us about this previous passage that we looked at. And he said in that, that Jesus humbled himself by taking on human form. Then he humbled himself to another amazing level to be crucified on the cross for our sins. And because he was willing to humble himself like that, he not only

accomplished our salvation, but he also gained the approval of his Father, who then turned around and exalted him. To give him a name above every other name. Jesus is the highest name that does exist, that will exist. That could exist. And so that's the background of these particular passages.

Of this particular passage we look at because Jesus is highly exalted and as Stephen mentioned last week. Paul was writing away, he was going somewhere, and he sidetracked himself with the praise of Jesus. He intentionally by the Holy Spirit's purpose, but probably not intentionally by

the argument of his book. He breaks out and writes to him.

Here's the hymn chapter 2. “God has highly exalted Jesus, bestowed on him a name which is above every name. So the name of Jesus, EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” This is the hymn that we have just come off of as we come into this new section. Now I'm not trying to repeat Stephen’s sermon, but I am trying to say that it is very critical to what we're about to look at because, Jesus was obedient to the Father, He humbled Himself, and therefore he was exalted.

And we are people who are called to have this same kind of behavior. And that our behavior needs to be shaped. By our reverence for and admiration for and imitation of Jesus Christ, He is the one who is shaping our lives. He's the one that we're doing our best to imitate.

Verse 9. Because of Jesus' self humiliation, therefore God highly exalted him. Verse 12 Because of Jesus' exaltation, therefore we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, handsome or famous or accomplished or or anything. It is being closer to the Lord Jesus, the closer I am to Christ, the higher my life is lived on this plane.

And so here's our imitation. Here's our command, verse 12, Paul says so them, my beloved, just as you've always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. Workout your salvation with fear and trembling. This word translated obedience that I just read is a word that means under.

Dash hearing is a compound word under hearing. The classic New Testament truth about listening is I hear it. And then I put myself under it. I do it. The Bible is huge on the fact that I have not heard something unless I've responded to it. I have not heard something unless I actually put myself under it and do it.

James 1:22, “Prove yourselves to be doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves.” We are people who are. Because we love God, we keep His commands and therefore we are crazy out of step with this world system. We look crazy to the people around us. You are all crazy people.

What are you doing here on a Sunday morning? You could be out jet skiing on a really nice cold day like today in the lake, whatever. You could be out doing something. You're crazy. You're crazy to gather here with all these people and give glory to God. And I'm right here with you. I'm totally committed to the person of Christ and I'm totally happy to be out of step with the world and to look crazy to other people. We are fools for Christ, as Paul said, one, one place.

So there's two kinds of obedience, there's the initial obedience, and the initial obedience of the Christian faith is when I trust Christ.

And Paul calls that in Romans 6 and Romans 16, the obedience of faith.

We hear the message that I have a sin problem. I'm separate from God. I'm hopeless and helpless. Jesus paid for my sin. I'm offered to trust Christ for forgiveness and I make the decision, yes, I will trust Christ for forgiveness. It's

the obedience of faith. It's called salvation. And then the second part becomes the obedience of sanctification. That is where I began to obey the next 800 commands in the New Testament.

And that's the process of me growing up spiritually and you growing up spiritually and looking more like Jesus Christ. Paul already said to us, I want you to be people who conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Chapter one, verse 27. Now that you made the obedience of faith your trust of Christ, now let's do the obedience of sanctification, the ongoing work, the long term haul. But here's my problem, friends, it may not be yours. Sometimes

that long whole obedience seems utterly impossible. I cannot do this, believe me. I gave it to the old college effort, but it doesn't seem to be going well.

I keep, I keep failing. Let me let me see if you can relate to this dance. I dedicate myself to obedience and fail. This time I will really do it, but I don't this time. I mean it, but apparently I didn't. I'll never do that again, but I do.

This is the last time, but apparently not. I promise God. Another broken promise. So if you're a sane believer, you're deeply grateful for yourself. You have no motivation to live crazy. Your motivation is to live pleasing to God, the same as my motivation. And yet sometimes we feel like I don't even know if this can be done.

I failed so much for so long. I'm decades into I should be beyond this. Can this even be done? Well God says it can be done. Second Peter 1:3 seeing that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness.”

You and I do not lack one thing for godly lives that we have to appropriate them. We have to grab them, we have to use them. But we don't lack anything. God is not a Father who mocks us by telling us to do stuff but not enabling us.

Command #1 Vs. 12-13. Workout your salvation with fear and trembling.

Let me start with what that does not mean. That does not mean I accomplish salvation by my own personal work, by being real, sober and hardworking and doing what I should do. It clearly does not mean that this doesn't say work.

Your salvation, it says work out your salvation. And the idea is. God puts salvation in me by grace and then I work it out in my outer lifestyle. I make my outer life match my inner life. I depend on God to be a part of that. So the message of the Bible is very clear. I can't. I can't accomplish salvation by myself. I have no merit. I have no hope, I have no ability, Steven said last week. I wouldn't trust my best 5 minutes of life to get me into heaven.

It's a very helpful way to think about it. I said a few weeks ago, a dead person does not need motivation. They don't need a leg up, they need life. You can't motivate a dead person. They're just dead.

So Ephesians 2:1, “You were dead in your trespasses and sin.” Ephesians 2:4 “But God being rich in mercy because of his great love, which he loved

us even when we were dead in our transgressions, even when we had our fists in the face of God. He made us alive together with Christ.”

Jesus, in his generosity, we have been saved. So that's what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that I had some ability to work for my salvation. That's a fool's game. I played it for a while. Biblically, it's a fool's game. Here's what it does mean. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. It means that God works in us and that we work with God. And in the crazy economy of God, the eternal God of the universe, the all powerful God of the universe wants to cooperate with us in our spiritual growth.

Now, friends, on one level this seems like insanity. That God would come ask me to be a part of this. If you come to me and say, Dave, I'm going to need you to help me team teach a class on organic chemistry. You don't want to partner with me in that. Now, if you need me to pick up the end of a table, yes, that's right in my wheelhouse, I'll help you move a table. But we don't ask people to partner with us and stuff that they're not capable of doing. And God is saying to us, I want you to be a part of this work of your personal spiritual growth. I need you to partner with me in your spiritual growth and in your spiritual impact.

God's the same being. He's not, He's not crazy. And so he thinks this is a good thing to do. So He is enabling us to do what He's calling us to do.

Galatians 5:16, “But I say walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”  I'm a person who is called individually and we are people who are called corporately. This whole Philippians 2 is full of corporate words. We're called all together and individually to do this, to walk in a way that's pleasing to God. How do I do that? Well, I do it in two ways.

Dependence and diligence in that order.

The very first thing I do is I cast myself on God. I get up every morning and say, Holy Spirit of God, I need you to help me. I can't do this in and of myself. I can't obey Christ. I can't honor Christ. I can't live the life I need to live. I can't drive like a Christian. I can't do any of this unless you're going to help me. And so I cast myself on him.

Independence. And the second thing that I do is I strive to obey Christ.

It's a crazy balance of depending and working. The New Testament is full of Labor words, Paul said. I work harder than any of them. This is we are people who must work in what we're in, to depend and strive, but always in that order. And he says, do it with fear and trembling. That is, I do it with a sense of desperate need. I do with a sense that I have great adversaries. The world, the flesh and the devil hate me. They're greater than me. I'm not up to the battle. It's three against one. I'm not up to it. And so I have this circumspect,

this sober spirit that says, Lord, I need. Help me, I can't do this. He's not

saying to do this with panic and terror. He's not saying to be terrified. He's saying to be circumspect about the battle that we're in and about the enemies that we have and about the great dependence that we have on God. Depend on God, and when I'm a sober person, I will depend on God. Here's the reason for doing it, verse 13. The reason for obeying this is because God is actively working inside of us.

The Ghana University is actively working inside of you. He's up to something in you. He's up to something in me, he says. I will give you the will, the desire, the motivation. God is providing the motivation we need.

Now think about this for a minute. Whenever I say to myself, yeah, I don't feel like doing that. God has already given me motivation. I just haven't tapped into it. He's also providing me with the ability. He's given me the very power to do it. Now if God is giving me the motivation and the power. Seems like I should be able to do this.

What else do you need? Well, you just need to engage in it. You need to

join it. You need to submit to His spirit and exert your own energy as well.

This makes no sense, but the God of the universe partners with us in our spiritual growth. And in our spiritual impact.

We cannot do that without Him, and He will not do that without us. That's

the decision that He made to draw us into that. So I submit to the Spirit.

A writer, a writer named Doctor Wurst said it is, this is not a let go and let God affair. It is a take hold with God kind of business. It's a mutual cooperation with the Holy Spirit in an interest and activity of the things of God. The Saint must not merely rest in the Holy Spirit for victory over sin. He must in addition to this depend upon the Spirit. Say a positive no to sin, and exert himself in his doing.

What is right? I'm joining God. He's kicking in the motivation, He's kicking in the power, and now I just need to engage with that, working out my own salvation with fear and with trembling.

Verse 13, Here's the result of that. The result of me doing that is that God is delighted. The God of the universe is delighted. He experiences delight. The word is udokia, delight, pleasure, satisfaction. We get our word euphoria from that word. God feels euphoric, so to speak. When I obey, when you obey, when we grow, it just delights Him. And what a joy for us to be people who are delighting God. The Bible is full of places that say we make it our ambition to be pleasing to Him.

Paul talks about that in a number of places. We want to delight God in what we are doing. It's not for the sake of earning salvation, It's for the sake of being pleasing to God, living life on the highest plane, being more mature, being in less bondage, having greater impact for other people around that. So God generously put salvation into it, into us. Then we work it out in our outdoor daily lives. It's inside here, but in my lifestyle, I work it out.

 Command #2 verses 14 to 16. “Do all things without grumbling and disputing.

It's a very interesting phrase because it literally says all things do without grumbling and disputing. He puts the word order in a real awkward way to say, let me help you understand that this command relates to everything, all things do, everything do without grumbling and without disputing. And it is very clear that he wants us to be people who are living in different kinds of ways. Our

Lives are open and laid bare to the eyes of him with whom we have to do. God sees it all. I'm hiding nothing from him, but he's saying to me, I want, I want both your inner lifestyle and your outer lifestyle to be pleasing to me.

Now we have, we have 3 lives, friends. We have a public life. That's the life everyone sees. We have a private life. That's what our family sees. And then we have a secret life. And that's what only God and I see. God and you see.

And God is concerned with all three of those lives.

It matters to him how I am on Tuesday morning at work and how I am on Tuesday night in the home. But also imagine what's going on in my private life that I am hiding from everyone. He's committed to all those looking in a way that's pleasing. So verse 14, do things without grumbling. This is the initial activity of discontent. The word means murmuring, muttering, a secret debate, a secret displeasure that is not. Publicly avowed, that means if I am grumbling

that inside of me, there's going on this secret.

Murmuring, grumbling. I haven't said that to anybody, but in my heart, in my mind, I'm abusing others. I'm abusing others inside of me. Now listen friends, God doesn't approve of abuse in any way. God doesn't do abuse. But if I'm murmuring and grumbling in my mind, I am abusing other people inside of my mind. And inside of my heart. And he says even though it's secret, it's still abuse and it's not the right thing to do.

Everyone of us needs to say I am a grumbler. Do I have inside of my heart secret abuse, ridicule of other people going on inside of me, and we need to say I am grumbling about something that actually amounts to putting my fist in the face of God.

Remember the people of Israel. God saves them from 400 years of bondage.

He saves them from slaughter by Pharaoh at the dead at the Red Sea. He takes him into the desert. It's about an 8 day walk to the promised land. Obviously they made a 40 year walk out of it, but it's about an 8 day walk to the promised land. And they start grumbling against Moses because we miss our leeks and onions. We don't have any water, we don't have any bread.

We don't have any food. Why have you brought us out here to die? And Moses says you're not just grumbling against me, you're grumbling against

the God who brought us out here.

I kind of ask myself the question, am I grumbling against the God who created this body? Am I grumbling against the God who's up to stuff in the grumbling that goes on?

Command #2 Do all things without grumbling and disputing. (v. 14-16)

Here's the second step, verse 14. Do it without grumbling. That's the secret inner abuse going on. Do it without disputing. This is the outcome of the activity of grumbling. It grows into a dispute.

Disputing, arguing. I'm spreading my discontent throughout the body and the question I need to ask is, Am I a person who has started grumbling inside of myself and then started spreading my dispute to other people. I started making other people miserable with my own misery. Am I disputing maybe against God himself in all of this?

Now, friends, I mean, there's no way for me to plan timing and stuff, but it just occurred to me as I was putting this message together this week. I mean, I plan to do this message here today that I'm doing today about 12 months ago? Seriously, I made a preaching calendar. 12 months ago. Ruth, Ecclesiastes, Christmas, relationship series and Philippians.

But it occurred to me that we hit this on a day when it would be easy for us as members of this body to grumble and to dispute. We could say things like, I don't like that new stage, You know, what's that about? That's too modern.

It's never been us before. We could say things like, well, what is this VBS stuff all over the lobby? I mean, this is all in our way. I don't like this new pastor we're getting. I don't like all this focus on outward evangelism. I don't like this, that and the other thing.

I need to ask myself, am I a Grumbler, please don't hear me doing this to you. I'm doing this to me. What am I grumbling about? And have I let that slop out into an outward dispute? And in the process of doing that, have I actually put my fist in the face of the God of the universe because he's behind a lot of stuff that goes on. And I need to ask, am I grumbling about that?

So do all things without grumbling or disputing? Reading now, there's a very critical distinction here, friends. I can be a person who disagrees. And ask hard questions with grace and ask for some clarity. And I'm utterly in the middle of

the will of God. That's, that's grace and truth relationships. If  something is weighing on me, I need to open up my mouth and ask about it.

That's the honest, truthful thing to do. Be gracious and be truthful. This is not a message against those kinds of things. This is a message, again, something that's different, which is grumbling and disputing. You understand that if a drop of water falls one inch to the West of the Continental Divide, it will end up in the Pacific, and if it falls one inch to the east of the Continental Divide, it will end up in the Atlantic. There's 2 drops of water that fell down two inches apart, and they're going to a different place.

Sometimes I think there's a thin divide between my wanting some honest answers and my grumbling, disputing, and it's up to each one of us in our hearts to say, what am I doing? To be very careful about that thing. So the results of doing this, if I would do all things without grumbling and disputing, here's what would happen.

Verse 14, “We would prove the genuineness of our faith. We would show people that I'm actually going about life in a different way.

He says #1, We'll be blameless. That doesn't mean that there's never anything I could be blamed for. That means that at the current time, I'm a person who has dealt with my sins. He said I will be innocent. That doesn't mean I'm never

sinned. It means that at the current time my life is pure. And I've dealt with my impurities above reproach. I cannot be charged with any justifiable criticism. Doesn't mean I've never sinned.

Simply put, I'm a person who strives for personal purity and who deals with my sin as soon as it comes to my attention. I am addressing this stuff that I have failed to do. Here's the second thing. Not only do I prove the genuineness of my faith, but I appear as a light in the world.

Verse 15, You and I stand out as lights in the world when we're living in these different kinds of ways. Friends, where do you use a flashlight? In the dark.

Not on a sun drenched beach. You use it in The Cave and we are flashlights in The Cave. And I will tell you that I've experienced quite a lot of discouragement being a light in a dark place. It can be quite discouraging in our country to be a light in a dark place, but it's critically important that we continue to do that. John Wahlberg said A changed life is a platform on which Christian testimony can go forth.

How many times have somebody said I first got interested in God when I saw a stark change in my father? We are that kind of light in the world.

Verse 16. The next thing is that we hold fast the word of life. We grab on to the word of life and we hold on to the Bible. We read it, we study it, we meditate

it on, we reflect on it, we talk about it, we apply it. We are people who hold very fast to that verse 16. We validate the investment of our mentors. Paul said on the day of Christ, I will have, I will glory because I didn't run in vain in my ministry to you. I know it actually worked. And if we are those kinds of people, we will validate the testimony of our mentors as they see us run to the end.

Verse 17. Here's an attendant circumstance that means something that is also going on while the main flow of the story is going on. The attendant circumstance of verse 17. “Is that Paul's life being poured out as a drink offering.

Old Testament offerings, of course, pointed forward to the offering of Christ.

They also cost people something. If you brought a lamb or a bull or you bought grain or wine or whatever you brought, it cost you something and you poured it out as a gift to God.

It's a sacrifice, David said in First Samuel 224-2424. I won't offer to God that which cost me nothing. And so we bring sacrifices to God and they cost us something. And Paul says one of the sacrifices that we bring is that we.

Slowly pour out our lives for the benefit of other people. We're an offering to God. We're not the kind of offering that's burned up in a flash. We're the

kind of offering like the wine poured out by the altar with a little poured out today, a little tomorrow, a little the next day. It just keeps pouring out.

Paul's life is being poured out for them, and he is verse 18 rejoicing at it.

Command #3: . Rejoice and share your joy with me (v.18)

Paul said, ”I've suffered a great deal. My life is pouring out. It's going away.

But it's not being wasted. I'm rejoicing because my life is being invested in you, the Philippians.”

It is very well worth the investment. It's part of what we need to remind ourselves. It is worth the investment. When you're given a gift, it also comes with responsibility. If you're given a job, you have responsibilities. If you're given a wife or a husband, you have responsibilities. If you're given faith in Christ, you have responsibilities. And one of those can be suffering.

One of those can be suffering and Paul says I've had that and I'm being poured out and I'm fine with it. I'm rejoicing in it.

Central Truth: Friends, when we submit to God's work in and through us, he is delighted, people are helped, and we are joyful. He is delighted. People are helped and we are joyful, he says. I'm giving you all the motivation and all the power. Now I'm asking you to invest your own energy in it.