How Do I Grow - Philippians 2:12-13 (Feb 11) Myles Holmes

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.

The spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

God, forever, you will be holy.

For all of eternity, not a single time will you fail.

Not a single time will you act against your character.

Not for a single millisecond will you cease to glorify your name throughout all of creation.

And so, God, we take this time to bow our hearts before you and declare this, Lord, that we are for you.

God, that our hearts are yours, that our lives are yours, Lord, that there is nothing off limits to you, God.

This is our prayer to you.

And so we pray, Lord, as we open up your word, as we hear from you, Lord, speak to us so powerfully by the presence and power of your Holy Spirit here with us.

Speak to us so powerfully.

God, encouragement, we need to hear that by your Holy Spirit you can speak the word that someone needs to hear, that is life or death, someone needs to hear.

You can speak it.

We believe in that, Lord.

And you can speak to each of us.

And so, God, we we bow before you, praising your name, declaring your glory, declaring your holiness.

And saying this, Lord, do your work in us.

Speak to us, Lord, change us, transform us as we gaze upon your glory.

God, we pray this in the name of your Son.

Amen.

Amen.

If you have your Bibles, and I hope that you do, you can open them to Philippians chapter 1.

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

If you don't have a copy of God's word, the ushers are going to be making their way to the front of the worship center, and you can slip your hand in the air, and they'll get a copy of God's word into your hands, and you can keep that.

This is our gift to you.

We love God's word at this church, and we would love even more for you to take this and to read it.

It's been said that truth is like a razor's edge, that it's difficult to stand on, and that air is like a football field.

It's easy to find.

And yet we know, according to Scripture, that to stand on truth, to live a life led by truth, is really to be led by to life and to light, while air is really to be led to darkness and destruction.

Now, this is especially true when we consider what I want to put before us now, this question.

And the question is this: who's responsible for your growth as a Christian?

Who's responsible for your growth as a Christian?

Another way you might frame this is this.

How do I grow?

Now, if you've been attending here for any length of time, one of the things that you've come to realize is like we're kind of like obsessive about growth, aren't we?

It's like it's very it's written in the mission statement that we want to be maturing Christians.

And so this question then becomes very important to us.

How do we grow?

And as we look through history, we really find that this is true, that finding truth in this is like standing on a razor's edge, because as we look at history, we really see that that most Christians fell into one of two camps.

On the one hand, there is what you could call the quietists.

The quietists, also known as the pacifists, believed this: that as we consider this question, who's responsible for our growth?

They believed that God was entirely responsible.

You've likely heard of the quietist movement before in phrases like this: just let go and let God.

In fact, kind of a slogan for them was, I can't, he can.

This kind of idea that if we're gonna grow, it has to like God has to do this supernatural work that we have really no part in.

Now, quietism, it sounds really good because on the surface it sounds really humble, and it really seems like it gives a lot of glory to God.

I remember one time I was preaching at a church and I'd labored over this manuscript and I'd driven all the way out to this church, and the pastor wrote me a card and they said, Thanks, I know you did nothing.

To which I said, I mean, I did some things, I did a few things.

You know, I drove here, I did write a sermon, and it kind of had this like idea of passivism, as though you don't do anything, it's all God.

Now, here's the danger.

You see, see, when we embrace this view, what happens?

Well, when things are going well in our life, when we feel like we're growing, what happens is we give all the glory to God.

But then what happens when with those things that you just can't change?

What happens with that sin that's like it's just not, you can't get it out of your life.

Well, all of a sudden, if there's any hint of this passivism in us, if there's any leaning towards quietism in us, we just get frustrated with God.

God, why won't you do anything?

You know I can't.

On the other hand, there is a historical movement called pietism.

And if the quietists were passive in the growth, in their growth, pietists were the opposite.

In pietism, you were the active, you're aggressive, and you're working on your spiritual life, doing everything in your power to live out your Christianity.

Now, for all that the Pietists got right, the one danger in this is that this over-emphasis on self-effort can either lead you to pride, right?

When things are going really well, you're kind of saying, Well, look at me, you know, I got it figured out, and these other people, these other messes in my small group, they know nothing compared to me.

On the other hand, when things aren't going well, it leads to this kind of life-crushing despair.

Now, the reason why I kind of do this brief historical sketch as we consider the answers to the question, who's responsible for my growth, is because I want you to understand that you and I often we kind of lean towards one of these camps, and that the dangers of doing so are great.

That it really will, if we don't answer this question rightly, it will either cause us to pride and despair, and often to, you know, kind of go in and out of both those things, or it will lead us to frustration with God.

And both these things are crippling to our lives.

And so here's the danger for us when it comes to answering this question, landing on truth is like standing on a razor's edge.

And yet, when it comes to our growth, it is so required that we stand on that razor's edge.

It's required that we find biblical truth, as we'd be stifled in our growth.

It was Jesus who said, who prayed, Sanctify them in your truth.

This is what we need, is truth as we consider this question of how to grow and who's responsible for our growth.

And in Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 to 13, Paul's considering this question.

Philippians 2:12–13

And what Paul really does is it's kind of like those, you know, those YouTube videos where it's called behind the scenes.

You get to go behind the life of your maybe favorite athlete or celebrity and see what like life looks like in a day in their life.

Well, that's kind of what Paul is doing for us.

He's pulling the curtains away from our growth as Christians, and he's saying, this is what it looks like, this is who's responsible.

And what we're gonna see that is that in order to answer this question of who's responsible for our growth and how do we grow, we have to embrace this biblical tension that says that both the quietists and the pietists got it right.

You and I need to live in this tension.

Otherwise, our growth will be stifled.

But but listen to me, once we kind of learn how to live in this tension of this reality that God does a hundred percent of the work when it comes to your growth, and that you do a hundred percent of the work when it comes to your growth.

Once you learn to live in this tension, significant growth is possible in your life.

And this is what Paul wants us to understand.

And so I want you to see first this.

I want you to see that growth requires an outward work I must do.

Growth requires an outward work I must do.

Now look at verse 12 with me, your eyes in God's word.

And look at that first word there.

Paul says this.

In fact, let me read the whole passage for us.

He says, Therefore, my beloved, as you've always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Now, the first word that we read here is therefore, and you've rightly heard it said, a good hermeneutic principle to kind of keep close to you, is that whenever you see the word therefore, you ask what it is therefore.

And so we look back to what Paul had previously been writing about, and we remember that over the last two weeks, as we've marched through Philippians, Paul has kind of been giving us this masterful Christology, this idea of the significance of what Jesus did.

And two weeks ago we saw, especially in verses six to eight, that Jesus came down.

Jesus humbled himself, taking on flesh, dying a death that he did not deserve to die, being obedient to the Father to the point of death.

He humbled himself, coming down from heaven.

But in verses nine to eleven, we saw that the movement didn't end there because as as Jesus humbled himself down, God the Father exalted him, lifting him up, giving him the name that is above every other name.

I want you to notice then that the significance in our life, in light of this reality of what Jesus has done in coming down and then being exalted and his name being lifted high, the significance is that we have something then to work out.

You and I have a salvation to work out.

I want you to notice something here right away about growth.

I want you to notice that it's only possible for those who have personally applied the salvation that God offers in Christ.

It's only once you start to believe what Jesus did in coming down to earth and then being exalted, given the name above every name.

It's only after you believe that that you can really work out your salvation, that you can really start to grow.

We see this all over verse 12.

Look what Paul says to them.

He calls them my beloved, term of endearment that is reserved in scripture for believers.

And he looks historically to their lives, and look what he says as you have always obeyed.

And if that is not enough, look at his exhortation here.

He says, Work out your own salvation.

Work out your own salvation.

See, Paul is giving us an exhortation that is reserved for believers.

If you're not a believer, then I just want you to understand, like I'm not trying to be rude here, this just isn't for you.

The reality is that you, unless you have a personal salvation, unless you have salvation that's your own, unless what Jesus has done on the cross in humbling himself to the point of death has been applied to your life, you don't have any salvation.

You have no salvation to work out.

Consider for a moment the Philippian jailer.

We read of him in Acts 16.

Maybe he read this very letter.

When Paul and Silas were in jail, God had sent an earthquake miraculously to deliver them from prison.

And I'm sure you can imagine what life would be like if you were the prison guard on duty that day when the earthquake came and all the prisoners came out, you'd be pretty, you know, worried to face your boss.

And so this man, really at the end of his rope, thinking that the only way out is death, meets Paul and Paul preaches the gospel, and the Lord does a work in his life.

And the Philippian jailer, we're told, he cries out, he says, What must I do to be saved?

Now it's significant then.

It's significant that Paul doesn't look at him and say, Work.

You gotta work out your salvation.

Instead, he says to the Philippian jailer, believe.

He says, believe in the Lord Jesus.

And you see, what Paul understood with his Philippian jailer is this that you can't work out a salvation that you don't have.

And you cannot be saved without belief in the work and person of Jesus Christ.

Now, here's my concern as we hear this: that if at a heart level you don't have your own personal salvation, you know what happens when you read this?

You start reading this as though it's talking about salvation and not sanctification.

And so there's many who read this trying to figure out how they're how they can be saved, and they come to this and they read these words, work out your own salvation.

And what they take that to mean is that Paul is saying, keep working for your salvation.

Keep working for your salvation.

That if you want to be saved, you better keep on working.

As though salvation is something that could be earned by going to church or reading the word or praying by your righteous works.

Others would look at this and interpret it as though it said, work to keep your salvation, as though God is saying, Here, I've given you something very good, and you better not mess this up.

You better not drop the ball on this one.

Here we see this salvation is given by God and God alone.

And once it's given, it has practical implications on the way you live.

Flip back with me then for uh and look at Philippians chapter 1, verse 27.

Philippians 1:27

Paul's already really talked about this, hasn't he?

Philippians 1 verse 27, he says this only let your manner of life be worthy of what?

Philippians 1:27

The gospel, the good news.

And so this is the first thing you and I need to understand about true gospel growth.

That that true gospel growth happens under the protection of salvation.

Your growth, it has nothing to do with yours being saved.

Only faith can save you.

Here's what that means: it means that the good deeds that we're required to grow in are based on the good news that you and I have already received in Jesus Christ.

We aren't working for a good outcome.

We are working in light of a good outcome.

There's a radical difference between those two things.

We don't work for salvation, we work in light of salvation.

See, this gospel growth, it says that the salvation I'm working out has been freely given to me so that I can work it out with this sense of gratitude.

Not working it out with this sense of like, oh man, God is really gonna get me if I don't get to church this Sunday, if I don't do this nice and kind thing for this person, God is gonna be really angry with me.

It says that salvation's already been applied, and so growth then is living in light of who I already am in Christ.

We say it like this it's belief before behavior, it's doctrine before discipline.

Now, how then does this work in our lives?

Like let's just get really practical with this for a moment.

Take envy as an example.

Envy, this sin of desiring what someone else has, wishing that they didn't have it so that you could have it.

How does the gospel root out the sin of envy?

Well, you know what it does?

The gospel, gospel belief looks at this promise that if you're in Christ, you, the scriptures say, are an heir of the world.

Your inheritance, scripture says, are the world.

You know what that does to envy?

If you truly believe that, what does that do to envy?

All of a sudden, when you come out of your, you know, your front door and you look at your neighbor's lawn, doesn't everyone here have that neighbor who's got the lawn that's way nicer than yours?

That's the nice thing about living in the boonies, you don't have any neighbors, so there's no comparison.

But you all of a sudden you look out and you see that lawn, and there's no envy because you you remember this gospel truth.

I'm an heir of the world.

And you see that that nice car, and there's no sense of envy because you remember this truth, that my inheritance is in Christ.

What does the gospel say to us about jealousy?

Well, when you believe that you are the Father's treasured possession, that you are his, and that, as he says in Zephaniah, he sings over you with joy and with delight.

You know what that root does?

It roots out all jealousy because you realize that there's nothing in the world that could be given to you like what the father has given you and being delighted in you.

And you see, here, the the god the belief in the gospel, belief in what has been accomplished and given to you in Christ, it's what leads to growth.

Growth will not happen in your life as you sort of just pull up your bootstraps and you say that we believe in Christ.

Is that we look at our faith.

See, the rent and the reason I'm so convinced that many don't grow is that because they lack the strong horsepower engine of faith.

And your Christian growth, it's like trying to push a car with no engine uphill, and you can make it a few inches, you know, you can produce a little bit of change if you just work hard enough.

But man, it it lacks what faith provides.

And you will never experience gospel growth apart from faith in Jesus Christ.

But notice that Paul says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

You see that there in verse 12.

We're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, he says.

Now, the fear and trembling here, I want you to understand, it's it's not like the fear and trembling that a criminal would have if, you know, he were breaking in your house and he heard the sirens coming down the street.

Paul says, There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

And so the fear and trembling with which we're to work out our salvation, it's not this fear and trembling of like, if I don't work out my salvation, then I'm gonna receive judgment and condemnation.

I truly believe that's really important for us to hear right now, because I believe that there are many, even in the Christian world, and I believe even in this church, who are who are kind of driven to this sort of religious obedience by this kind of fear.

This fear of judgment.

This fear of like, if I don't do this, God He's gonna catch me.

But this fear, this fear, if that's a fear that is part of your walk with the Lord, it's it really is a failure to recognize what kind of a father God is.

See, he God is not a father who is constantly displeased with your efforts and ready to lash out at you at any given time.

And yet many of us treat God like this.

Many of us treat God like with this idea of like nothing I could ever do will be enough.

I always feel this sense of guilt.

I can never do enough, and so I just keep trying to do more, like trying to please God.

And yet, look in this very verse, look at the end of verse 13, look at what all of this is to be done for.

It says, for his good pleasure.

Do you know, Christian, that if your faith is in Jesus Christ, God delights in your acts of obedience.

You show up to church on Sunday, you know what God says?

He doesn't say, Finally, you're here.

He's delighted that you're here.

You get to that place in the morning and you open up the word, he doesn't say, Oh man, I know all the sin you did yesterday.

You shouldn't even be, you don't even deserve to be here.

Instead, he is delighted you are at the place you need to be.

When you turn to him in prayer, and you don't feel like you know you're sufficient for this.

What kind of father is God?

He's a God who welcomes you.

You know, I'm really one of the greatest blessings of my life right now is to have a six, four, and two uh year old daughters.

And that means that I'm in like the daddy phase right now.

Now I'm very aware, you know, I talk to men in our church who have girls that are older.

I'm very aware this phase is coming to an end.

And so I just soak it up.

I soak it up as much as I can, but I'll regularly come home from work and And I'll find that there's all these drawings done for me.

And you won't believe this.

When I pick up that drawing, I don't look at my daughter and say, You got the color scheme all wrong.

In fact, my daughter right now, she's drawing me with this giant belly, which I find incredibly offensive.

However, I take that and I love it and I cherish it.

And you know that God does the same for you.

The works that you do for him are his good pleasure, and his desire is to work in you so that he can see more of them.

It has nothing to do with condemnation, it has everything to do with his good pleasure.

He is pleased in you if you are in Christ.

And so it's not this fear of judgment that Paul is talking about.

I also want you to recognize that this working out your salvation with fear and trembling, it's it's not a fear of uncertainty.

It's not an uncertainty as to whether or not we will endure and eventually be saved.

Christianity is not that.

In fact, this is the way that Christianity separates itself from all the other religions of the world.

All the other religions of the world say if you just keep working, keep climbing up the mountain, then God is going to be pleased with you.

And so you can talk to your Muslim neighbor and you can ask them this question: what assurance do you have right now that you'll be saved?

And their assurance is really like this vague hope.

Well, I just hope I've done enough.

And all the religious systems of the world are like that, but the gospel it separates itself in saying this, that you can be assured of your salvation.

That when you place your faith in Christ, you are given a certain salvation, a salvation that you no longer have to work for.

See, God offers us so much more.

And so we need to ask this question: what does it mean to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling?

Well, I love how Tim Keller defines this fear.

Look what he says, it's gonna come up on the screen.

He says, To fear the Lord is to be overwhelmed with wonder before the greatness of God and his love.

And you say, well, why don't they just use the word like awe then?

Why don't they we just say like to fear the Lord is to work out your salvation in the awe of who God is?

Well, it's because fear really is a part of awe, and that's what Paul is picking up here.

You understand that you can't be devoted to something without really having a fear about that thing.

Let me let me illustrate how this works for you.

Take materialism as an example.

If your pursuit in this life is material things, if you think that joy is found by getting nice cars and the newest phone and the biggest home, well, you know, as much as you think that that will give you joy, you are also filled with this fear.

This fear of what life would be like if you didn't have that thing.

What if other people's praise is your pursuit?

Like the thing that like makes, you know, you're most happy when other people are just pleased with you.

Well, you know, as much as you are devoted to getting other people's praise, you are fearful in light of that, because you you imagine this world constantly, it keeps you up awake at night.

Like, what if that person doesn't like me?

See, everything you love is also driven by this fear.

And so the fear of the Lord, then, is this recognition of how great he is, of how awesome his love is, and how really pointless life is apart from the reality and assurance of his love.

You see, Paul says we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, with this sense of God's greatness, with this recognition that there is no greater pursuit than the pursuit of growth in the salvation that Christ has purchased for me.

And so let me ask you something, even as we consider these words, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Let me ask you this: what is your pursuit in life?

And is there anything in your life that is more important than the pursuit of growth?

Here is my greatest fear.

As a pastor in Newmarket, you know, in order to live in Newmarket, you kind of have to be successful in the world, don't you?

Or you had to like buy 30 years ago.

But to live and do it now, you kind of have to be successful, don't you?

You kind of have to have accomplished some things in life.

And let it not be so that we would we would experience this career success in life, that we would experience this family success in life, that we would experience this sort of social success in life, but not experience the success of gospel growth.

Don't miss the most important thing here.

The most important pursuit is the pursuit of maturity.

And this can only come when we have a sense of the fear of the Lord, the greatness, and his worthiness to be followed.

Second thing I want you to see here then is this.

Christian growth, first we saw 100% Christian growth, it requires an outward work I must do.

I want you to see the other side here that Christian growth, it requires an inward work that God must do.

Now, we've already seen that that growth happens because of our work.

We need to work out our salvation.

But here, look at the words that Paul is saying.

He says that if you're to grow, then God needs to work in you.

There is a working out, and there is a working in.

And so you and I look to this and we say, Paul, is this kind of like doublespeak?

What are you talking about here?

Who's doing the work?

And the thing that Paul is very ready to embrace is this that it is both God and both you.

That it is not 50% your work and 50% God's work, that it's not even 20% your work and 80% God's work, that it is all God's work and it is all your work.

We see here then the motivation for our work.

Look in verse 13.

He says, for it is God who works in you.

For it is God who works in you.

Why do we work out our salvation?

We work out our salvation because it is God who works in the life of a Christian.

See, recognize this reality right now.

Can you personalize this right now?

That if you're in faith, personalize this truth that God is at work in you.

Personalize this truth for a moment.

If you've ever done anything that has brought God pleasure, like you look back on your life, and you know, some of us are kind of like constant Debbie Downers, so it's hard for us to find anything, but just find me one thing.

Find me one thing.

And this is what Paul is saying.

It was God's work in you.

God is at work in you.

This I don't know if there's anything more motivating than this than to know that God is at work in us.

Why?

Because we ask, who is this God that is at work in us?

This God who is at work in us, in you and I, if your faith is in Jesus Christ.

It it's the God who created the world.

Remember in Genesis 1, he said, Let there be light.

And in this miraculous work of creation, light came blasting from his mouth, and the world was filled with light.

And that God who worked in creation, he works in you.

It's the same God who, in Exodus, for the people of Israel, worked by splitting the sea in half.

And you can imagine Israel walking through the Red Sea and looking up at these giant walls of water and recognizing how powerful God is and how tender his care is for them as they walk through these walls of water and then get to the other side and they look back, and their enemies are crushed in judgment.

This powerful work of God.

It is the same God whose work when Lazarus died was to look to Lazarus and call him to life.

And because he has such power, Lazarus could not help but be risen back to life.

It's the same God who's already defeated sin and death on the cross, the greatest work of power he could ever accomplish.

This is the God who is at work in you.

And so, what happens then when we consider our growth and we look at God's resume, and we're by faith, we hold on to this truth that that God is at work with you, in you.

What's happening?

What is the Holy Spirit driving into your heart right now?

For me, it's this sense of confidence.

This confidence that the effort that I put into growth will be used by God.

There's no greater news than this.

It's news that God, through faith, is at work in you.

He has committed himself in these times to work in you.

And it is a significant work.

So many of us, we read the Bible and we say, God, I just wish you would work like you did for Israel.

Would you just lead me by a cloud in the sky?

Would you just cast out demons in my presence?

Heal the sick in my presence.

That's how I want you to work.

And God's looking to each of us this morning and saying, I'm doing a much more significant thing.

You know what I'm doing?

I'm working in you.

And we say, Well, what are you doing then, God?

What are you doing?

I don't see it.

Well, look what Paul tells us.

He tells us exactly what God is doing, exactly the work that he does in our midst.

Both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

To will and to work for his good pleasure.

The work that God is doing, and as first we're told, is a work of willingness.

It's a work of willingness.

You recognize that the neutral state we're told in scripture of every human being is a state of enmity against God.

Remember the engine of your heart, when it's in neutral, it is at enmity in opposition to God.

The flesh, we are told in Romans, it desires nothing that leads to life.

It only desires death.

And in your flesh and sinfulness, this is all you can desire.

The heart is wicked and deceitful above all things.

And so, if there is going to be any movement towards grace in your life, you know what's required?

What's required is that the God who in the beginning of time said to the darkness, Let there be light, come into your heart, and in the darkness of your heart, that same God must say, Let there be light.

Otherwise, there would never be any willingness to move towards him.

And you begin to understand what's happening here.

Yeah, God did a lot of amazing things throughout the Old Testament.

Jesus did a lot of miraculous things throughout his life.

But the issue with these things is that they were external.

And the people there who witnessed those things, they could witness those external miracles but still walk away unchanged.

And God is looking at you this morning, and if your faith is in him, he's saying, I'm not letting you go.

I will not let you go without working this miracle in you.

This miracle of turning your heart, which is naturally hardened to me, to softening it, so that there is a willingness to follow me, replacing your heart of flesh with the Spirit of God leading you, leading you to life.

There's such encouragement here.

You know, as you look back on your life, every decision that you have made towards grace, do you know who has been behind it all?

It has been God who has been working in you.

You have never desired anything in your life, you've never willed for anything good in your life that the Father has not placed in your heart.

And so even if you're here this morning, there's such encouragement here.

It's God who brought you here.

And every time in your life you've opened up God's word and you have sought Him and you said, God, I know that your word is the bread of life, and I know that there's nowhere else that I can find sustenance.

Every time you've done that, you look back on your life and you see this has been God's work.

Every time you've been urged to any act of righteousness, it has been a willingness that God has placed in you.

I want you to see this though, that it's not just the willingness.

It's also the work.

Paul says that he works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Well, here's the tension then.

That we must work, and God must work.

His work is a hundred percent of the reason why we will grow if we grow.

And our work is a hundred percent of the work of the reason we will grow if we grow.

And so the question for us is this what do we how do we live in this tension?

How do we live in light of this tension?

Let me leave you with this.

That in light of the reality that that growth is an outward work that I must do, and that growth is an inward work that God must do, our response needs to be to act the miracle.

Now let me explain that.

You ever read the gospels and you've seen the miracles that Jesus has worked in people's midst?

You remember the lepers he cleansed with a word of power?

He freed them from their sickness.

You remember the lame people, they couldn't walk, and Jesus came to them and he said, Rise up and walk, and they walked.

My question for you is this build a theology around those stories.

How do those people, when something miraculous happens in those people's lives, what do they do?

They live in light of it.

They act the miracle.

Could you imagine if you're you know friends with the person who couldn't walk for his whole life and Jesus came and he said walk and your friend didn't walk?

What would you say to them?

You're crazy.

Jesus just healed you.

Jesus did just, he did this miraculous work in you.

Walk in light of it, act the miracle.

You don't need to heal your own legs.

You just need to live in light of the miracle.

Each of these people that Jesus healed, that he cleansed of demons, that he called the lame to walk, each of them had experienced a miracle, and the work that they were to do then was to live in light of it, to act the miracle.

And can I suggest that that's the same thing that you and I need to do?

That if your faith is in Jesus Christ, you have been given this promise that God, with an even greater miraculous power, is working in you.

And so you live in light of it.

You do not need to work the miracle.

You don't need to do it yourself.

You only need to live in light of it.

God's working in you, both to will and to work.

And so we act the miracle of his work.

We pursue growth, knowing that growth is now miraculously possible in him.

Who's responsible?

100% God and 100% you.

And so we act the miracle.

This morning we have the opportunity to come to the communion table, and with great significance, we do that to remember the perk personal, miraculous nature of what Jesus has done.

You see, Jesus on the cross, he shed his blood so that the supernatural power of slavery to sin could be absolutely destroyed in your life.

But he not only did that, he did it in such a personal way that he looks to you and I this morning and he invites us to the table as a reminder that his blood and body is for us.

And so on the way in, you were likely given a communion cup.

If you weren't, the ushers are gonna come down the aisle, you can just slip your hand in the air, and they're gonna get one into your hands.

There are two reasons why you would not take this this morning.

If you're an unrepentant sin, you're unwilling to deal with your sin, God's clearly calling you to change your life, and you're looking at God and saying, I'm not gonna do it, then you should let the cup pass.

And if you're not a Christian, if you haven't placed your faith in Jesus Christ yet, then we would ask that you let this cup pass.

The worship team is gonna lead us in a song, and I would just ask that in this time you you maybe stay seated.

Joel's gonna invite us to stand and sing with him in a moment, but just stay seated and take communion at your own time during this song and reflect on what the Lord has done for us at the cross.

We praise God that he invites each of us to the altar and he invites us to experience this significant work he is doing in us so that we can work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

And church, there are a few ways that we would love to serve you this week and care for you.

And one of those is through prayer.

You can leave us a prayer request at rcn.church, and we pray through every one of those this week.

We're also gonna have some elders at the front that that if there's anything pressing on you, maybe it's this week, maybe it's something that Lord, the way that the Lord has spoken to you in this message, we would love to pray for you here and now.

And so please come up and experience the power of prayer as these men serve you in prayer.

Church, have a great week.

Know that you are loved.