Ho do I get unstuck when I feel stuck in my faith?

And let me invite you to turn your Bibles if you have one to Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

We're looking at really 1 through 14, but we're gonna read verses 12 and 13.

So, and that'll make sense as we go through.

Um, as we get started, let me kind of set up what we're talking about this morning.

I remember when I was little, and uh I got my first bicycle, it was a burgundy schwin with a big banana seat.

Uh and uh I think I was anticipating the back issues I would have later in life.

And uh the problem was when I got it, I did not know how to ride it.

And so my dad took me outside to learn.

And uh, the street we lived on was kind of a steady downward hill the whole way, and I don't know why that seemed like a good idea to him at the time.

Uh, but it seemed to have worked.

So he we went up to the top of the hill, and you know, the big banana seat had the kind of metal thing in the back that came up at the back of the seat, and so he held on to that and got me started.

And so I started going down the hill pretty wobbly, trying to just stay in my lane.

You know, it was it wasn't there weren't lanes, they were just going straight down, nobody was there.

So it was safe, but I was all over the place, but completely terrified.

And behind my Coke bottle glasses, I know my eyes were this big.

And then, you know, this moment of immense terror, I realized that running beside me was my 260-pound, six foot six father, huffing and puffing, holding onto the back of my bicycle still, just to make sure that I wasn't gonna eat it on the asphalt.

And when I looked and saw him there with me, I think I probably straightened out a little bit because I realized I can do this because my father is right here with me.

Okay, some of you who are thinking, head, like, that's what the sermon's about.

Because our father is right here with us.

And that's part of what we see here.

And that illustration, I think, for me, captures very well uh what Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13 say.

Philippians 2:12

Now, you stood for a while this morning, um, but I'm going to ask you if you're able to stand as we read God's word.

Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13.

Philippians 2:12

Therefore, my beloved, as you have 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.

Thus ends the reading of God's word.

There's a lot here for us to unpack.

So let's ask him to bless us as we look at this together this morning.

Let me pray for us.

What a verse packed with deep truths about life here and about you.

So we pray that you are great God and Father.

We pour out your spirit upon us in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to help us to understand the call that we have here to work out our salvation, but the the presence that we have that always enables us to do it.

Would you bless us and be with us?

And Lord, would you bless me?

Because not only do I need you to help me ride a little bicycle, but I need you, Holy Father, to help me to proclaim heavy truths that are beyond my ability to explain apart from your spirit.

Bless us all and be with us, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Have a seat.

I remember a few years ago being at a conference, and uh the preacher was talking about uh meeting with God in this wonderful kind of pastoral setting, and pastoral meaning like it's beautiful with trees and everything.

And and this room had probably 2,000 people in it, and up near the front, there was this young man who just started wailing, wailing and crying.

And in my mind, I've imagined this years later, is it had been a while since he had experienced God's presence.

It'd been a while since he had enjoyed the presence of the Lord.

It had been a while, maybe since he had felt relief for his sin.

He'd felt isolated from God, and then all of a sudden, in this moment, the tears of grief just started flowing.

I don't know if that was it, but I'd like to imagine that was it because it makes me sound really smart and I have people figured out.

Um but uh let me give you another scenario.

Years ago, Rebecca and I were in our 20s, I think it was in our 20s, and uh, we had both grown up in churches where there was not a lot of teaching.

It was mainly a kind of come to Jesus, dedicate your life, now go and be a good person.

And there wasn't a lot of teaching about the Bible or about grace or about Jesus and what he'd accomplished.

And we got involved with a campus ministry that was phenomenal.

We grew by leaps and bounds, we went to seminary, we'd taken classes, and both of us, I think, independent of one another, kind of came to this conclusion.

Well, I guess we've arrived.

We now know everything there is to know about Jesus and the gospel.

And boy, were we wrong.

Uh and so I start with these two things just to kind of point out that there's there's ebb and flow in the Christian life.

There really is.

There are times when you feel like I'm on the mountaintop and Jesus is here, and this is fantastic.

And then there are times you feel like you are really in the valley.

And it's kind of like, God, where are you in the midst of this?

There are times when obedience seems just instinctive and you just respond to what the gospel calls us to do.

And then there are other times when it feels like, man, this is really hard.

I just feel like I'm slogging along.

And that brought up a question that I was thinking about for us and you know that I've struggled with at different times in my life.

And that is, what do you do when you are stuck?

When you're stuck?

Now, we could go through a lot of things, you know, what do you do?

Well, you have your quiet time, maybe you talk to other people, have them pray to you.

Those are all fantastic and fine, but this passage is pointing us in a different direction.

And, you know, what do I do when I get stuck in my faith?

And uh, maybe we can use this, the the Philippians, as a test case for us.

Now, we're not gonna look at these passages, but you can read it for yourself later if you want.

But the Philippians uh came to faith, the church came into being and came to faith through the preaching and ministry of the Apostle Paul.

And it was powerful and it hit them like a ton of bricks in a beautiful and wonderful way.

And they came to believe, and immediately because it had had a life-changing impact on them, they wanted to go out and they became what Paul calls in the book of Philippians partners in the gospel.

And so they were very mission-minded.

They were the people who would say, we, you know, we just got to get out there and reach everybody that we can.

This will be fantastic.

And sometimes what happens for people is the mission outstrips the person, the message, the gospel.

And you can imagine that taking place to them, and I'll tell you why in a second.

But then there's other stuff that's going on that's beginning to weigh in on the church.

One is that when Paul's writing this, he's in prison.

Can you imagine that?

Some of you are kind of like, Stephen could be put in prison yesterday.

It wouldn't affect me at all.

That's okay.

That's good.

Um, the apostle Paul's in prison for preaching the gospel.

And so he's writing from prison.

Can you imagine them thinking, this is our pastor, our mentor, the guy that brought us to faith, and now he's in prison for preaching the same gospel?

That would weigh heavy on you.

And then, on top of that, there's a person who was very instrumental in their church, and he got sick and almost died.

So they've got all this worry about Paul, they've got all this worry about their friend, and then, because of all these things in the life of the church and them being like us, there's there's some people who are beginning to backbite, and uh, there's infighting, there's quarreling, and Paul has to address that as he goes through the letter.

And you can imagine that that might take the steam out of the life of a church for a little bit.

You know, that I'm sure that they were still active, they were still showing up, they were still involved, but losing steam, losing joy, and going being, you know, being stuck may not look like sedentary.

Sometimes stuck can look like being in a rut.

I'm in a rut.

I do all the same things I always did, but the passion's gone, the feeling's gone, everything else.

And this is the pattern for many Christians.

We become stuck, we get into a rut, and we can become stagnant in the Christian life.

Uh ebbs and flows.

I've been in that cycle, well, just like you have.

And I think that's part of why Paul says to this Philippians here is continue to work out your own salvation.

That's fascinating.

Like I always have this memorized in the NIV, and in the NIV, the word own is not there.

It just says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

But this says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

And I looked at the original language, and the word there is kind of like own, like kind of reflective on yourself.

And everybody's supposed to do this.

Continue to work out your own salvation.

It's not, so it's it's kind of like he's saying it's not just about doing the work and getting other people saved.

It's about you recognizing the depths of God's love and his grace for you.

It's about the ways of grace continuing to sweep over you and bowling you over with joy and peace and love.

And he's saying, this is what powers you in the Christian life.

Not your determination, not your commitment.

It's seeing Jesus.

That you don't have a job to do, you have a relationship to cherish.

And so seeing the grace of God in Jesus for us and experiencing his finished work again fuels this.

So we're going to deal with these two verses, just kind of walk through it and go to some other places in Philippians 2 as we talk about it.

Now, when he says, he says, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not all in my presence, but much more in my absence, continue to work out your own salvation.

Now that's tricky for people because they see work and salvation in the same sentence and they think, okay, you're working for that.

But that's not what we're what he's saying.

It's not what I'm talking about.

And so let's just talk about the word salvation for just a moment.

Um, it's a salvation that is purchased and secured by Jesus and not by us.

It's a salvation that was purchased and secured by Jesus on the cross 2,000 years ago and came into our lives when we came to believe.

I love the quote from Michael Scott Horton where he was asked, I think he was around 12 or 13 years old.

His Sunday school teacher asked him, When were you, uh when did you become a Christian?

When were you saved?

When were you saved?

And Michael Scott Horton said, I was saved 2,000 years ago on a cross outside of Jerusalem.

That's a great answer to that question.

Um what is salvation?

Salvation from sin.

So what is sin?

Sin is distancing ourselves from God's presence, disobeying God's will, and coming under God's judgment.

So it's distancing ourselves from God's presence, disobeying God's will, and coming under God's judgment.

And what the scriptures, what this passage is saying is that Jesus has saved us, particularly here, from sin's penalty coming under his judgment.

Though the work of Jesus does save us from all of that.

He saves us.

There's outside of Christ, there is no escape from God's judgment.

None.

You can try anything, but it's not going to work.

In the Old Testament, there was the Old Testament sacrificial system that was set up with cows and bulls, goats, all of these things.

And they would sacrifice these animals, and what people in their minds probably thought is all my sin is placed on this animal.

And that animal is going to be killed, and that is the atonement for my sins.

And the reality is, well, those are more of a place marker until Jesus came.

Because the blood of bulls and goats can never take away our sin because cows aren't sinners.

There's no sin in a cow, and they can't represent us.

So a cow can make a really good patty, a beef patty.

And when we read in Philippians 2.8 this, it's talking about why.

And being found in human form, this is in Philippians 2.8.

Is it there?

No?

You got your Bibles?

Got your phones?

Oh, you turned your extinguished your phones.

You don't have those anymore.

Philippians 2.

And being found in human form, he, this is Jesus, Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

So why did Jesus take on the form of human?

So he could represent us.

Cows can't represent us.

Jesus became one of us and he represented us.

That's why he took on flesh.

In Philippians 2, 1, it says that when you when we believe in Jesus, we're in Christ.

Which means that's where we're safe, is in Christ.

Because outside of Christ, the storm of God's wrath, his judgment will fall.

But in Christ, there is no judgment that falls on us because it falls on him.

We had a right gully washer yesterday in Wildwood, up where we live.

It was fantastic.

And the rain was just coming down everywhere.

And uh, you know, I had to go out for just a moment to throw out some trash.

And so I opened the garage door, and it's like 10 steps around the corner, into the trash can, back through, and I did walk in reverse, just in case you're wondering.

And uh in that moment, I was drenched.

Meanwhile, my wife is in the house, and she is completely dry because she's were she's under the roof.

She's in the house, therefore the rain that was falling did not fall on her.

That's a picture of why he says in Philippians 2 1 if you have any encouragement from being in Christ, we're in Christ.

When you come to faith in Christ, you're in Christ, and the wrath of God has fallen on him while you are completely safe because the wrath is taken by him and paid.

And this is what he's telling us in this passage.

This is part of what Paul is saying is the reason people often get so stuck is because we lose sight of Jesus.

And we start thinking that somehow what I'm doing is making God love me more.

It's removing some of the guilt, the sin, all these kinds of things.

I'm doing, and we start thinking, these are all the things I'm supposed to do to experience and feel God's love towards me.

And those things become the point rather than the fruit of looking to Christ.

So it's salvation by grace through faith.

That's the freeing and empowering motivation for the Christian life.

And if you had your phones, which I'm sorry now, I told you, ignite your phones, ignite your phones.

Um, in Philippians 2 1, he says, so if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from his love, any participation in his spirit, any affection and sympathy, he's not saying if you have any of that, he's saying if you're experiencing this, and then this is the fruit that comes out of it, right?

This is this is where in Jesus all my sins were paid.

He loves me apart from my due.

I know that he loves me apart from what I do, and that fuels.

I have encouragement, I have comfort, I have love for other people.

There's nothing that you do to be saved other than believe in Jesus, and it's a gift that's freely given.

So why then does he say, work out your salvation?

Work out your salvation.

Chapter 2, verse 12.

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only is in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Work it out.

Now again, he's not saying work for your salvation.

He's not saying to work to secure your salvation, like it's it's handed to you.

Now you've got to work and make sure you hold on to this thing.

That's not what he's saying.

The word therefore connects what Paul's saying here to all the gospel he's talked about already in Philippians 2.

So that's not what he's saying.

The language of work out in this passage is something like produce it.

Produce your salvation, or to bring it to fruition, to put it into practice.

So, in other words, it's like a seed that's been planted, planted, and it's producing.

It's producing something.

Paul is calling us to live within a reality that has already been brought to pass and already begun.

That is, you have it, work out what's already there.

Put down your roots, let it grow, plumb the outworkings, work it out, like you work out an equation, some sort of mathematics problem.

So, uh what does it mean?

What does it mean?

That God loves me.

He's redeemed me and called to live a new life.

What is that?

What would that look like?

So I've got a fascination.

I'm not ever gonna pull the trigger on it.

Um there's there's a subscription box, and don't don't do that.

I don't want it.

I don't want it.

We don't need more stuff in our house.

There's a subscription service called a bespoke box.

Um a bespoke box is a box, I think, that comes like every month.

You pay a subscription fee for it, and it has man stuff.

Man stuff like hatchets and knives and man clothes and hats and boots.

It's got man stuff in it.

Yeah, you can probably buy one of those for me.

I need to go into my I need to go into that.

Um, and then it has other stuff I would never use, you know, like but it's like you get a subscription, but you never know it's coming month to month.

So when the box shows up, you open the box, oh, look at this thing.

I don't even know what that is.

And you know, you're just opening this box and bringing out all the treasures that are inside of it.

You in other words, you work it out.

You you open what you received, and then you say, What is this?

What does this even mean?

So oftentimes we think the gospel is just forgiveness, but then you find you have a new identity.

What does that mean?

I have a new identity?

I have an inheritance kept in heaven for me?

Well, what in the world would that mean for living life here?

Gifts of the Spirit, I've been adopted as God's child.

What does that mean?

So when he says work out your salvation, he's not saying work to make sure that you're saved.

He's saying, I want you to make sure that you know that you're already saved and work out of that.

And Paul tells us this is continual, it takes a lifetime.

It's not like God uploads everything at once when you first become a Christian.

It takes time.

And if you stop with the first truths, like, oh I'm forgiven and walk away, you're gonna be in a rut.

You're gonna be in a groove, you're gonna be stuck.

It's like, what do I do with all of this?

We grow over time and we participate in it, so he gives us an important lifelong call and some incredible encouragement.

He says, You've been united to Christ.

You're in Christ now.

You have this reality in your life now.

Work that out.

What does that mean?

What does that mean?

What would that look like?

And maybe, maybe we see it in Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 and 4.

Philippians 2:3

Ignite your phone.

Um, get on my glasses.

Oh god, I have glasses out there.

Maybe it looks like this.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit.

But in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Maybe that's how it looks.

To believe this.

And to seek to live it out.

I believe this.

So, what does salvation work look like?

Laws and rules?

No.

Love.

Humility.

I better keep these out.

Service in the kingdom.

But he also says this, and this throws us off a little bit.

He says, to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

And uh it's, you know, if we've been saved, why do we fear?

It may not mean what we think it means.

The words fear and trembling actually point us to another passage in the Old Testament, to Psalm 2, which is the inauguration psalm of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.

You go back and read, it's a prediction of the coming of Jesus, it's a prophecy.

And it says in Psalm chapter 2, verses 11 and 12 Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

Psalms 2:11

Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

And so it's interesting that as we, you know, if we were to have read this.

This morning in Philippians chapter 2, it talks about Jesus, and it says that he, uh, being uh human was uh became God, and he humbled himself to obedience, even death on a cross.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place, gave him the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

And then it goes on to say, therefore, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

He's bringing the Old Testament idea.

So it's not saying we do it in terror or fear because maybe God isn't going to save us after all.

What he's saying is, no, it's Jesus has been exalted to the Father's right hand, and that means that he has become our first priority.

That's what it means, trembling and fears.

He becomes our anchoring reality.

You do what you do in fear and trembling of saying, I live before him.

No matter where I am, he's my primary uh priority, my first priority, my anchoring reality.

And I was trying to think of what this would mean, you know, in terms of our lives.

And for some of us in here, that has to do with, you know, a great illustration would be our spouses.

Is we, when we go somewhere, we make decisions based on whether or not we are married.

We make those decisions.

There is a person that is there right at that moment that I can't see, who's not there to tell me no or to tell me yes, but I make decisions with a particular person in mind.

This is what he's meaning, with fear and trembling.

Your foundational concern.

Faith is not just something you do, it's an identity, it's who you are, it's every part of you.

And so when he says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, he's saying, work your salvation out in faith.

I believe you.

I don't just believe you died, I believe everything that the Bible says about you.

So what does he say that a person who is working out their salvation looked like?

What attitude?

Well, I have been loved, and I extend love to other people, the way he talks about in this passage.

And then he says something that I think we all need to hear.

Because we do get into a rut, and uh we think it's about what we're doing.

And we when we find ourselves in a rut or when we find ourselves stuck, we do the right things.

You know, many of us, it's like I'll keep reading my Bible, I'll keep praying, I'll keep showing up, and hopefully I'll come out of the rut.

And sometimes God meets us in the midst of that.

So, like working out your salvation, he says, and what's the reason?

For it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

We're a little bit like Christmas lights, and meaning that the power source is not in the bulb itself, the power source is in the wall, it's elsewhere.

But plugged in, those lights all come on, they're powered, and the brightness and the glow and the beauty is seen.

And what he's saying is you're not in this whole process by yourself.

The ebbs and flows, all of these things.

God is at work in you.

And even the times when you feel distant from him, he's there.

And he's going to bring you out.

But the whole lives are completely dependent upon him.

When we're stuck, we often feel like there's something we can do to get out of it.

So we try to read our Bible more.

It's about reading the Bible more.

It's like, that's helpful.

But not if you're just checking that off a list.

I'm gonna pray more.

That's helpful, but not if you're just checking that off a list of saying, if I if I do the deed, then God is going to show up.

But that's not what he's telling us here.

He's saying what he's calling us to do is to work out our salvation, is to look to the one who has purchased our salvation.

To look to Jesus because that's what changes our hearts.

That's what softens our hearts.

And so he starts with the whole passage with if you have any encouragement from being in Christ, that's what's powering the whole of this.

Working out the salvation is working our way.

And I find this to be very, very comforting.

Another verse in Philippians, you can write down when you have your phone available.

Philippians 1, verse 6, Paul says, I'm convin, I'm sure of this, I'm convinced of this.

Philippians 1:6

That he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

God starts it, he's going to finish it, and he's there when we're stuck.

I tried to find a picture on my phone, but it's not on.

And um it's of me uh playing in the water down at our the beach we go to every year.

I'm probably four years old, and I imagine that's the age when this happened.

I can remember the incident, but I don't remember exactly the age.

I was cute.

What happened to you, Stephen?

I don't know.

And I got older.

And um, but we the how we always rented houses down by the shore.

And so we would run out onto the beach to play and then run back up to the house.

And there was this one day when I was following my three older brothers out through the sand dune, and in South Carolina, where the beaches are, there are sand spurs like crazy.

And so we were running through the sand, and the sand was, you know, in the baking sun, so it was hot, and we went just wanted to get through the sand as quickly as we could.

And I stepped on a sand spur that felt like stepping on a nail.

I felt like it had gone all the way through my feet, you know, four years old.

And all of a sudden I stopped in place and I kind of screaming in pain, and I reached to pull the sand spur out.

And back then I didn't need to hold on to the podium to do that.

So reached down to pull the sand spur out.

And when I did that, the heat from the sand started coming up through my other foot.

And it was so hot, I just immediately, without pulling the sand spur out, put my other foot down.

And then tried to wipe the hot sand off my foot.

And when I did that, you guess what happened?

Hot sand on the other foot.

Hot sand on this foot.

So pretty soon I'm just doing a jig out in the sand, trying to keep from getting burned, and I am wailing on the beach, four years old, wailing on the beach.

And the next thing I knew, I could see out of the corner of my eye this movement.

And the same person who later on would help me ride my bicycle was coming, 260 pounds, you know, coming through the sand to right to where I was, picked me up, and I don't know how many sand spurs he got in his foot coming to get me.

But he picked me up and he carried me down to the water, pulled the sand spur out, brushed off the sand, cooled my feet in the water.

At that moment, I needed my father to do what I couldn't bring myself to do because I was stuck.

I wanted to move.

I w with everything in me, I was like, I gotta get out of this situation.

But I needed my father to come and he heard my cry.

If you're stuck, your father sees, your father hears, cry out to him.

You know, we're concerned is uh not just getting on the bike, but finishing the race.

And he's he's there, our father.

Reminded of another story as I was thinking through this.

One of the most beautiful moments in sports history, Derek Redmond.

Any of you know that name?

He was a British runner, represented his team in the 400 meters at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

Barcelona.

In the 400 meters semifinal, Derek's Olympic dreams were crushed because as he started running, he got about halfway through the 400 meters and tore his hamstring.

And he just crumpled onto the track.

There's a video of it, I think you can see, on YouTube.

And so he gets up and he starts trying to limp his way forward, and it's just so much pain, he can't do it.

And then his father, Jim, who's in the stands, comes out of the stands to where Derek is, and he gets his arm around him to make sure he can finish this race that he's worked so hard this whole life to get to.

You're not gonna finish the way race under your own power.

It's gonna be through the power of the God who is at work in you to will and to act according to his good pleasure.

Philippians 1 6.

I am sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Behind every call to obey that God gives us in the Christian life is a summons to depend upon him and his power to do it.

He is there he calls us to work at our salvation.

And then he tells us because it's him, it is he himself who is at work within us to will and to act according to his good pleasure.

He helps his children.

Let me pray for us.