Living as Light (Philippians 2:12-18)

Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 through 18.

Philippians 2:12–18

Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence, but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work, according to his good purpose.

Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world, by holding firm to the word of life.

Then I can boast in the day of Christ that I didn't run or labor for nothing.

But even if I am poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.

In the same way, you should also be glad and rejoice with me.

Please pray with me.

Lord, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for this particular section of Scripture that we're in here this morning.

Lord, we pray that you would have your way, that you would speak to us through your word, that you would speak through me.

Lord, anything that you want to do inside of each one of us here this morning, I pray that we would have the ears to hear, but not only hear, Lord, but the will to allow you to do that work in us here this morning.

Would you change us and would you make us more and more like Jesus daily?

And would you do that here this morning?

God, we surrender to you.

We're humbled to come before you, and we pray that your perfect will would be done in our lives.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So our text this morning, you probably noticed, starts with a therefore.

And what do you do when you see a therefore in scripture?

You go back to see what it's there for, right?

So we're gonna do a little bit of review of chapter two here.

So last week we saw the Holy Spirit, through Paul's hand, instruct the Philippian church to love each other like Christ loved the church.

And to do that by adopting the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus.

And then he listed out pretty much the attitude of Christ Jesus when he was here on this earth.

And it was just one act of humility after another act of humility after another act of humility, which led, it says in our text, to God highly exalting him, giving him the name that is above every name.

And today is more instruction for us, for the Philippian church, that we can apply also on how to live like Christ.

So he's going to focus on actions in our passage here today.

And if we were to just look at this passage all by itself, it may seem like, wow, this is preaching a works-based salvation.

So I don't want us to miss that in chapter 2, first he focused on love.

Then he moved on to our thinking, how we think.

And then, third, he started addressing actions.

Because if we just try to act like Jesus and try really, really hard to act like him before loving God and loving others, and before allowing him to change us and to change the way we think, our works are going to be in vain.

And works without love is legalism, really.

And it's allowing things to come into our life that shouldn't be.

It's a works-based salvation.

But on the other side of things, James tells us that faith without works is dead.

But our works have to be the result of faith and God changing us.

So just looking at chapter 2 so far, God wants to change the way that we love.

So now look at verse 12 with me.

Therefore, so keeping all of that in mind that we just talked about, it says, Therefore, my dear friends, just as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence, but even more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

So, first, let's recognize that this, he's writing to a church.

He's writing to a group of believers that are already doing this.

And this is simply encouragement to continue to work out their own salvation, even when he's not with them.

Now, the phrase that we're looking at here, work out your own salvation, that is kind of the first thing we come across that looks like, wait, is he talking about a works-based salvation?

Working, you know, working for salvation as opposed to Jesus did all of the work for my salvation and my faith is in him and he's why I'm saved.

Remember, Paul's writing to a group of Christians, writing to a church.

So this is not talking about a works-based salvation.

This is really talking about living out our salvation.

This is not talking about justification.

You know, Jesus already justified these people and he made them pure and holy in God's sight by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

And our works have nothing to do with justification.

But this is talking about sanctification.

That process that we are in as followers of Jesus Christ.

You know, sanctification, it's talking about this process that we are going through as we mature in Jesus Christ.

Sanctification is becoming like Christ in the midst of this world and in the midst of the temptations of this world.

This is the process of God making us holy in how we live.

That's what sanctification is.

So working out our salvation is how we live out our salvation.

And how we live out our salvation will be the evidence of our salvation.

Because, as we already said, faith without works is dead.

And Paul tells them to do this, to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.

You know, we need to take this process very seriously, becoming more like Jesus.

We need to take that process very seriously.

You see, we can't be saved and then go on living and doing and thinking like we did before being saved.

Part of this working out process is doing.

You know, we can't sit around and simply hope to become more like Jesus.

And at the same time, we need to realize that true change and true transformation also comes from the power of Jesus.

But we need to want it.

We need to initiate it and realize that we play a part in it and that we should take this seriously.

Now, let me explain this a little bit more.

If you remember when we're going through the book of Ephesians, how Paul said to put on the new man, do you remember that?

And we talked about how the Holy Spirit, in that way, really wants to help us get dressed.

He's the one that will empower us to put on the new man.

And then a little bit later in Ephesians, we talked about the armor of God and that we are to put on.

It's up to us to do so, to put on.

It's God's power, but we have to take up those things.

You know, there's a difference between owning clothes and putting them on, isn't there?

God, so to speak, has filled our closet, but we still have to put those things on.

You know, when we come to Christ, God gives us the tools that we need to live out our salvation, to work out our salvation.

He gives us things like the Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit.

He gives us the ability to put on the new man as we just talked about, to put on the armor of God.

He gives us the ability to have the mind of Christ, to have the attitude of Christ.

You see, sanctification only comes through the power of Christ in us.

But we have to want it and daily draw from that power to live out our salvation.

Anyone here ever tried to dress a toddler that didn't want to be dressed?

Now, compare that to when the kid can't wait to get dressed because we're going somewhere that the kid wants to go or they have these new clothes that they can't wait to put on.

Don't be the first toddler.

The Holy Spirit wants to help us get dressed to put these things on.

But we have to want it first.

It's already supplied, but we are the ones that need to put those things on.

You know, we have an interesting relationship with God that is none like any other that we're ever going to experience on this earth.

We have to want to be like him, but he's also the one that provides the power to be like him.

You know, it's great to have role models in life, people that we really want to be like, or to even imitate Paul as he imitates Christ, as he said.

But as much as we want to be like someone else, those role models can never empower us to be like them.

God's the only one that can do that.

We want to be like him, and he's also the source of power that allows us to be like him.

Look at verse 13.

For it is God who is working in you both to will and to work according to his good purpose.

And there it is.

It's God doing the work in us.

Paul already told him in Philippians 1.6, I am sure of this, that he who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

That was just in the last chapter, 1.6.

It's God doing the work between salvation and completion when we're seeing Jesus face to face.

That word working here in 213, it's energyho in the Greek.

We get the English word energy from that word.

God gives us the power and the energy to do the work that He desires to do in us.

First, our will, it says, that desire to do his good purpose.

Psalm 37, 4 says, take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will implant his desires into your heart.

And as we mature in Christ and delight in him, he changes the desires of our heart, doesn't he?

To be more and more in alignment with him so that his will becomes our will.

As we put a thing, put aside the things of this earth, as we saw last week, as we put aside things like selfish ambition, as we put aside things like conceit, he will work in you his will.

But have you ever really wanted to do something?

And you know God wants you to do that thing, and then you don't do it.

You know, I really want to get up 30 minutes early and spend time with the Lord.

I really want to read through the Bible in a year.

I really want to share the love of Jesus with this person in my life.

And then you don't do any of those things?

It says it is God who is working in you both to will and to work.

He will work in you to get those things done if we let him.

If we allow his power to work in and through us.

2 Peter 1, 3 says, His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness.

There's nothing that he has held back from us that we need to do his good purposes.

He's supplied all of those things for us.

Like I said, our closet is full of all of those things, but it's up to us to take those things and to put those things on.

Do you see how this works?

If we delight in him, he'll give us the desires.

He'll give us the will to do it.

And then also the power to get those things done as well.

What did Jesus tell us in John 15?

That we can do nothing on our own.

We can do nothing without him.

You know, it's only in having the desire to do God's will, abiding in Christ, walking by the Spirit, that we can both will and work according to God's good purpose.

So I think that raises the question: what is God's good purpose?

It's to save us from sin.

It's to save us from ourselves, it's to save us from the world that we live in.

It's to adopt us as sons and daughters into his kingdom, his perfect eternal kingdom, all for his glory.

And then I think it goes further.

It's for us to live out our salvation, to be his disciples, and then to make more disciples, so that other people can eternally enjoy him as well.

This is his good purpose.

This is his good pleasure.

This pleases him and this brings him glory.

And what is to come here in verse 14?

It's how to practically live out our salvation.

So this is what will this is what he will empower us to do.

Look at verse 14 with me.

Do everything without grumbling and arguing.

So this is step one.

And oh man, this is a hard one, isn't it?

Yeah, couldn't he have started with step one, sing Jesus loves me?

No, it's do everything without grumbling and arguing.

I love the King James Version, it's murmuring.

You know, it's like are there any parents out there that hate it when their kids grumble or argue with you?

Guess where they learned it?

No, I don't even think you have to teach kids that.

It's our sin nature that we're born with.

You know, to look at what not what's not going right, to look at what's not going as planned, what's not meeting our expectations, and then we grumble.

You know, I'm not getting what I deserve.

My life is so hard.

If only God would bless me like he blesses others, if only God would gift me like he gifts others.

You know, I think of Israel in the wilderness.

It's a great example of grumbling.

You know, not looking at all that God had done for them, not looking at the way that he was revealing himself to them in miraculous ways, and choosing to look at what they didn't have.

At least we had garlic and onions in Egypt, you know?

That's what they said that.

You know, the opposite of grumbling is gratitude.

It's thankfulness, it's looking on the bright side of what God is doing, it's counting the blessings that He has given you.

It's being content in every circumstance, as we've already talked so much about in this book of Philippians.

And let's put it this way: who would you prefer to hang out with?

Somebody that's always pointing out what they don't like, or somebody that's pointing out how God is working in every circumstance?

Someone who's always pointing out how hard things are, or someone always pointing out how God is bigger than any circumstance.

And in this context, I think this is just as much, if not more, speaking about us doing this against God, like Israel was doing in the desert.

You know, as his kids grumbling and disputing against him, doubting him, questioning him, complaining about the circumstances that we are in and he's not removing us from.

You know, there's such a big difference between asking God questions and questioning God.

There's a really big difference between, okay, God, I really don't like this, and if you really loved me, then you would remove these circumstances from my life.

Compared to, okay, God, I don't like this.

This is really hard.

But will you show me why I'm going through this?

Will you help me to understand what you want me to learn in this circumstance and how you want me to grow in this uncomfortable circumstance?

That's what God desires, is that second attitude.

David had a lot of just kind of, if you look through the Psalms, of just being honest and telling God exactly how he thought and asking God where he was.

Those things aren't bad, but when we start questioning God, when we start questioning his love and we start questioning his goodness, that's what this is talking about here.

So it says to do everything without grumbling.

And then he pairs that with arguing.

So this is not between others in the church.

This is an inward conversation, either with self or with God.

And I want to show you the Greek definition of arguing.

It says, the thinking of a man deliberating with himself.

A thought, inward reasoning, purpose, design, a deliberating, questioning about what is true, hesitation, doubting, disputing, arguing.

Do you ever argue with your conscience or with the Holy Spirit inside of you?

Where you know what's right.

But there's this internal argument between your flesh and your spirit, or between your flesh and the Holy Spirit.

You know, last week in verse 8, we actually got to see Jesus' example of what to do here.

In verse 8 of chapter 2, it says, He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even to death on a cross.

God so desires our obedience without grumbling or arguing.

He wants our trust.

He wants us to trust him completely with every circumstance of our life.

God's sovereign.

He knows the beginning from the end.

He knows what's best for us better than we know what's best for us.

And that might be the hardest thing for us to grasp.

He knows what's best for us better than we know what's best for us.

Paul believes this.

He's writing this while he's sitting chained to a Roman guard under house arrest in a foreign country awaiting trial.

And he's writing these things.

Paul is showing us what it looks like to be content in his current circumstance.

Now the question becomes: why does God desire this trust?

Why does he desire this obedience from us?

Look at verse 15.

So that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless and a crooked and perverted generation.

If we're saying yes to God instead of grumbling and arguing, we're showing a spirit of submission.

And that leads to becoming faultless, blameless, and pure.

And not to geek out too much here, but those verbs in the Greek, be and are, they come that come before blameless and faultless.

The way that these are used here speaks of an ongoing process.

You might read that and think, like, oh, I haven't arrived there yet.

This is an ongoing process.

So you could look at it and say, be becoming blameless and pure, or who are becoming faultless, is another way to look at it.

Again, we're still talking about sanctification, that process of becoming more and more like Jesus on a daily basis.

And we're called to live this way among a crooked and perverse generation.

We live in a crooked and perverse generation.

Perverse generation, don't we?

Just watch the news for a couple minutes and that'll confirm it for you.

The temptation that we have, the temptation that the Philippian church had 2,000 years ago, it's to become like the world, isn't it?

The world has things that our flesh still longs for, that our flesh still demands, even at times.

But the point of all of this is that we cannot follow Christ and continue to live like the world.

Those things cannot exist at the same time in our life.

And we should never reach a spot where we're comfortable with how much of the world we've given up and how much of Jesus we've become like.

We should never have that attitude of, you know, I'm really good where I am.

I'm not really like the world, but I'm not really still becoming like Jesus.

I mean, I did for a little while, but I'm good.

I mean, I'm saved, but I'm also comfortable.

Or have the attitude of, you know, if I become any more like Jesus, the world's just gonna think I'm so weird.

So I'm just gonna stand pat.

I'm good where I am.

Jesus called those people in Revelation lukewarm, said he wanted to spew them out of his mouth.

The ones that were good where they were.

God's desire, his will, his good purpose, as we've been talking about, is for us to become more like Jesus constantly, which means less like the world constantly, to the point where we begin to hate sin.

Because if we can live this way while in the world, look at what happens, the second half of verse 15.

Among whom you shine like stars in the world by holding firm to the word of life.

We're gonna stand out in a wicked and perverse generation.

You know, stars, if you think about them, they're unique because you can see them so clearly in the night sky while they're surrounded by darkness.

You know, from our perspective, they look like these little light generators that stick out so clearly in the night sky.

It's obvious to anybody that looks.

You can see that there's obvious light there, surrounded by obvious darkness.

And that is what God is calling us to: to shine like stars in the night.

In Matthew 5, 16, Jesus says, Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

This is what it looks like to be in the world, but not of the world.

Lights that stand out in darkness.

And like Jesus, the darkness will not overcome us in Christ Jesus.

And how do we do this?

It says right here, by holding firm to the word of life.

I think Paul did this on purpose.

Holding firm has a dual meaning in the Greek.

Meaning holding fast to, but also holding forth.

For all to see.

To the word of life.

So Jesus.

Holding fast to him, but also holding forth Jesus as well.

He's the light of the world.

He's the word of God.

He's the way, the truth, the life.

And we need to hold firm to him and hold him forth as a light for the world to see as well.

This is all part of how we are to work out our salvation, to live out our salvation for the glory of God.

Look at the second half of verse 16.

It says, then, so if you're living out your salvation in this way, then I can boast in the day of Christ that I didn't run or labor for nothing.

Paul wants to be able to boast in them, to rejoice over them, to be proud of them and the race that they ran in the day of Christ.

When they come face to face with Jesus.

And this isn't so he could say, look at what I did.

You know, like all those people, those souls, because of my work, you know, that's why they're here.

He wants to boast and rejoice in how awesome they are in Christ.

To be able to know that everything he's done, everything that he has sacrificed for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of this church, was not done in vain.

I think he wants to know that his persecution and his suffering and the sacrifices that he's made for the sake of the gospel, were all of those things were for a glorious, eternal purpose.

Even if that means him dying for that sake, which is what he's talking about in verse 17.

Look at it with me.

But even if I am poured out as a drink offering on the sacrificial service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.

So drink offerings are a part of the Jewish sacrificial system, but they're also something that pagans would practice as well in this time.

So this is a mainly Gentile church that he's writing to.

And so they would understand this, even if they didn't know the Jewish tradition, they would know what a drink offering was.

But for Jews, this was wine, as prescribed in the Old Testament, that would be poured out on the altar of fire along with another sacrifice.

And the drink offering was really a foreshadowing of Christ spilling his blood for the sake of you and me.

So with that, notice the wording.

If I am poured out as a drink offering, on, it says, on the sacrificial service of your faith.

Paul's talking about if he dies here, he's already sacrificing, but if he is also to be poured out as a drink offering, on the sacrificial service he's already giving, he will rejoice.

He told him.

And being poured out for the sake of others is one more way Paul is imitating Christ, isn't it?

And calling this church to imitate him as well, to imitate him as he imitates Christ, that is.

Living and sacrificing for the sake of each other.

Another way that Paul's calling them to work out their salvation.

And even if this is Paul's fate and he dies for the sake of the gospel, he's rejoicing.

He will rejoice.

And now look at the encouragement that he gives them in verse 18.

In the same way, you should also be glad and rejoice with me.

Even if Paul's poured out as a drink offering and he's martyred, he doesn't want them to be concerned about him dying or even the possibility of him dying.

He wants them to rejoice with him if that ends up being his fate.

You know, the eternal perspective of Paul here is incredible, isn't it?

Saying, I'm going to rejoice in my death or life, and you should rejoice in my death or life too.

And he will not end up dying during this imprisonment, but he will in the next known imprisonment, and only a few years from the time he wrote this letter.

Which makes me wonder how the Philippians took it when they did hear of Paul's death.

I'm sure it was with great sadness, the loss of a friend, at the loss of a spiritual father.

But I wonder if they grabbed this letter one more time and they read it again after hearing of Paul's death.

Reading where he encouraged them to be glad and rejoice with him.

That he was poured out as a drink offering, was now living in the gain that he was telling them about.

The gain of being with Christ for all eternity.

Paul's contentment here that we are seeing in Philippians so far, and the contentment that he's encouraging the believers in this church with, it's hard, isn't it?

Because this contentment does not rely on circumstance.

One bit.

If I live, rejoice.

If I stay in prison, rejoice.

If I'm set free, rejoice.

If I get to visit you again, rejoice.

You see, working out salvation, living out our salvation, living in God's will and for his glory, it really allows us to rejoice in every circumstance.

Trusting in God's sovereignty in everything.

Trusting that he not only knows better than us, but he wants what's best for us.

That allows us to trust him.

That allows us to be content in every circumstance, knowing the care and the love that he has for each one of us.

As believers in Christ, we have an eternal hope of glory.

To be with God forever in perfection.

We have the love of a perfect Father, the love of a Savior that died for our sins.

We have the helper, the Holy Spirit that was sent to live inside of us.

And they, God, they want what's best for us more than we want what's best for us.

And what's best is living out our salvation, as Paul just laid out for us through the Holy Spirit.

So just kind of as a recap, it all starts with delighting ourselves in the Lord and allowing Him to implant His desires into our heart.

And then for us to submit to those desires without grumbling or complaining.

And then allowing His power to move through you to accomplish those desires.

I want everybody to turn to Romans 12, 1 in their Bible, and we'll end with this.

It's a handful of books to the left in your Bible.

And I want to go here because Paul pinned these words to the Roman church, and he's now living out these words when he finally makes it to Rome, even though it's through an imprisonment that he makes it there.

But he's living out his salvation for many to see, and he's being a light in a very dark place.

He's being that star that he described to us just a few verses ago.

So Romans chapter 12, we're just going to read verses 1 and 2.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Says, Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true worship.

Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

I think that just sums up so well what we just read.

And Paul is having the opportunity now in Rome to live out what he wrote to that Roman church.

So again, delight yourself in him, and he will give you his desires.

Then submit to his desires without grumbling or complaining, and then allow his power to move through you with the tools that he's provided us to accomplish those desires.

This is what a living sacrifice looks like.

This is our true worship to him.

This is what working out our salvation looks like.

You please pray with me.

Lord, first we readily admit that we can do nothing without you.

Lord, as we look at this passage, this was a hard passage today.

To live with contentment and if in any circumstance, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Lord, wanting and desiring to become like Jesus and then allowing your power to work in and through us in that way.

So, Lord, we pray for deeper submission to your will.

We pray for a closer, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ.

We pray that you would help us to walk by the Spirit moment by moment, day by day.

And in this process, Lord, that we would learn from your word and that we would allow it to transform us.

That we would pray and spend that time with you and just grow nearer and nearer.

That we would delight in you daily, so that you can change our heart, you can change our desires, you can change the way we love, so that you can change the way we think.

And Lord, so that you can change the way we do things, the way that we work out this salvation to the end.

Help us to never become legalistic about it, but to realize it's by grace that we have been saved, by faith.

It's not of our works that we've earned anything, that we've earned salvation, that we have done anything that's of eternal worth.

So help us to come with that humility, realizing we can do nothing without you, but having those desires to take up those tools, to put on those things that you have given us and allow your power to work in and through us.

God, we love you so much, and we just want to become more and more like Jesus.

So would you show us how to do that?

With all eyes still closed and heads bowed, this was very much a message for the church this morning.

But if you're seeing the love of Jesus in this passage, the love that God has for you, and this morning you want to enter into that relationship with Him.

You want Him to forgive you of your sins, to wash you and to cleanse you.

Do that today.

It's a wonderful day to do that, to enter into this relationship and allow that work to happen in your life.

And it's by faith.

It's by simply saying, I accept you, Jesus.

I accept the sacrifice that you made for me on the cross.

I believe that you were raised from the grave three days later, and now you are my eternal Savior.

You can do that right in the seat where you are right now.

Surrender to Him.

Start to delight in Him and allow Him to change you and to start that work of sanctification in you here this morning through His power.

God, we love you so much.

Be honored and glorified in all that we do.

We pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.