Being a Christian means that we trust Jesus in such a way that it has consequences in our daily lives. It’s a bit like marriage. Getting married is relatively simple (you don’t need all the wedding pomp and fancy things). But once you are married, there will be years working the implications of your marriage out into your life. So, in the same way, it is simple to come to Jesus. We also spend a lifetime working our salvation out into our lives. And yet, it is not we who do the work, but God himself.

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PHILIPPIANS #8. Philippians 2:12-13

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, ¹³ for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12-13, ESV)

One of the ways the Christian faith is unique is that it holds a number of truths in tension with other truths. So, for example, we believe there is only one God. Yet we also believe that he exists eternally as three Persons. Or, we believe that Jesus Christ was God. We also believe that he was human. There are actually quite a few things like this in our faith. Today, we touch upon another one.

We hear, over and over again, that all we need to do is believe in Jesus Christ, and we will be saved. At the same time, we hear that our behaviour should be different from that of people who don’t believe. We should avoid sinning, and engage in the good things that the Lord calls us to. So, which is it? Do we have to behave a certain way to be Christians? Or are we simply saved by believing? There are verses that say it is just believing. In fact, it was in Philippi, after an earthquake shook that jail, that this was spoken:

²⁹ And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. ³⁰ Then he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” ³¹ And they said, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” (Acts 16:29-31, ESV)

It seems simple right? Just believe. And yet, there is a little more to it than that. The very next verse reads:

³² And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. (Acts 16:32)

So, Paul and Silas obviously explained things to them in greater depth than “just believe.” In addition, I think that in most cases, the Greek word for “believe” or “faith” is usually best translated “trust.”  In other words, it involves a lot more than just giving your intellectual assent to a mental proposition. In fact, James says that even demons “believe” in God in that sense.

¹⁹ You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! (James 2:19, ESV)

No, “saving faith” is a real trust in God that leads you to behave and think differently than you would if you did not have that trust. I’ve used this analogy before, but I think it’s really useful:

Imagine your friend tells you about the world’s greatest tightrope walker, The Great Bruno. He has walked across tightropes over deep canyons, and waterfalls, and cliffs. Your friend says, “Do you believe this?”

You think, sure, human beings are pretty amazing. I believe there is such a person as The Great Bruno, and I believe he can do such things. You are giving intellectual assent to the existence of this person, and to his abilities. But this is not at all the same thing as what the Bible calls “faith” when it applies to Jesus Christ. In fact, this kind of faith, mere intellectual assent, is the faith that demons have (as described by James, above).

Now, imagine you have come to see the Great Bruno perform. There is a tightrope strung between two skyscraper buildings, two hundred feet above the street. There is no safety net. You’ve heard about The Great Bruno, so when he asks “Do you believe I can walk across this tightrope and back again, without falling?” you say, “Yes!”

This kind of faith costs us nothing, asks nothing of us. If we say “yes,” it doesn’t really make any difference for us.

“Now,” The Great Bruno says, “who believes that I can carry a person safely across the rope and back again?” Again, you’ve heard of him, and you believe he could do that. Again, that faith costs you nothing, means nothing relevant to your actual life.

The Great Bruno now meets your eyes and points directly at you. “Will you allow me to carry you across on my back?”

Now, the question is about real trust. If you say “yes,” it will have direct consequences for your life. It requires actual trust from you. You have “skin in the game,” so to speak.

Another useful analogy is from marriage. If you want to get married, really all you have to do is repeat the vows after the pastor, and say “I do,” when he asks you. Is that really it? Yes it is. That’s all there is, in essence to getting married.

Is that all there is to marriage? Not by a long shot. You will spend the rest of your life working out the implications of what transpired when you said “I do.”

Do you have to behave like a good husband or wife in order to be married? Not necessarily, but if you don’t want to be a husband or wife, why are you getting married, anyway? Is it required that you behave a certain way after you are married? Again, no, you are married now, no matter how you behave. And yet, you normally will behave differently after you are married. Eventually, if you never actually behave in a loving way toward your spouse, you might lose your marriage. But you don’t lose it just by forgetting to clear the table after dinner once or twice. Ideally, you get married because you love each other unconditionally. Even so, after marriage, there is a great deal to “work out.”

So it is with trusting Jesus. All it takes is trust. Even so, we spend the rest of our lives “working out” the implications of that trust.

If we truly trust Jesus, as the Bible has revealed him to us, it will change the way we think and behave. Jesus said that if we want to follow him, we should die to ourselves daily. He said that we should put him above all other priorities. He said we should seek the kingdom of God first, and to not worry about little things like the necessities of life. He tells us to love our enemies. He tells us that we are forgiven, and that we should not continue to live in sin.

He says that we should live with our hearts and minds set upon the joy that is coming in the next life, that what we should truly treasure and work for are eternal things. If we follow Jesus, we might not be successful in the eyes of others. In fact, we might look foolish and humble. We might make decisions in following Jesus that other people do not understand or approve.  These are all things that require trust. This is not merely intellectual assent, but trust that profoundly affects the way we live, and the motivations we have.

And so, though we do not earn God’s love, or salvation, through what we do, our salvation does have profound consequences that must be worked out in practical ways in our lives. This is what Paul is talking about when he says that we should obey, and that we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Paul’s words here apply in two different contexts. First, we are to work out the implications of our salvation personally, as I described above. But we are also supposed to work out our salvation in connection with our fellow believers. From the very beginning of chapter two, Paul has been talking to them about how to go through life together as fellow-Christians. Salvation puts us not only in a new kind of relationship with God, but also a new kind of relationship with others who are being saved. So we need to be diligent about letting our salvation influence how we interact with our fellow believers. Paul has already told us that this involves being humble with one another, and looking out not only for our own interests, but also the interests of others. We should be focused on the same goal, keeping the same attitude, thinking together about things from the perspective of those who belong to Jesus.

Today, in Western culture, this also means that we should have a level of commitment to one another that is maybe unusual in the larger culture. I confess, I think this is harder for people in typical, large churches. But, as you can, find a group of fellow believers with whom you “do life together.”

I think too many Christians look at churches as if they are consumers. They ask, “What will this church do for me? Does it have programs that will benefit me and my family?” Some of those questions are natural when you first move to a new area and are looking for a new church. But Christians should also be asking things like this: “Am I on the same page with these people concerning the Bible? Can I see myself going through life, side by side with them, being an encouragement to them, and leaning on them when I need encouragement? Could I be a blessing to these people in some way?” When Christians have no long-term, meaningful commitment to other Christians, they suffer. They are not fully embracing the life Jesus intends for us. They are not fully “working out their salvation.”

There is one more, extremely important, piece to working out our salvation:

“…for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure”

We are not the ones doing the work of working out our salvation. It is God who does it, in you and through you. In fact, it is God who even causes you to want to work out your salvation. This reminds me of something Paul wrote to the Colossians:

²⁹ For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. (Colossians 1:29, ESV)

You see two pieces here. Paul is toiling, but he is using not his own strength. The energy with which he toils is power that comes from God himself. Jesus taught this himself. He used the analogy of the vine and the branches:

⁴ Remain in Me, and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in Me.
⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in Me and I in him produces much fruit, because you can do nothing without Me. (John 15:4-5, HCSB)

Our first task is to make sure we are closely connected to Jesus.  Next, we make our voices and hands and minds available to him. Finally, we leave the results up to him.

Above all, this text is calling us to believe that the whole enterprise is not ours, but God’s. Working out our salvation into all areas of our lives is something God is doing. He is the one who works in us and through us. Even the will to grow in Christ comes from God himself. The more we trust this, the more we will act like it is true. The more we act like it is true, the easier it gets.

Now, why does Paul talk about obedience, and fear and trembling? This process—God working in us and through us through faith—is a beautiful, holy thing. God himself is at work in your life. We should take this seriously, out of reverence and gratitude. It is no small thing, and we should approach it with respect and joy.

I think the key to all this is to be willing. Part of being willing is making our bodies and minds available to God.  For example, one part that is essential for us if we are to work out our salvation is to read the Bible. If you aren’t a reader, listening to the Bible is just as good. God will not take over your body, make you walk over to the shelf, take down the bible and open it up. You have to do that part. Or, you have to call up the audio Bible on your phone and start it playing. But then, once you read or listen, what you get out of it is up to God. This may surprise you, but the Bible is very clear that results are God’s business, not ours. You need to put the bible into your mind and heart by reading or listening. But the second part – the growing and learning and changing – that is what God himself will do, in his own way, and own time. I have spoken to many people over the years who say they aren’t getting much from their Bible reading. That’s OK. What you “get out of it” is God’s business, not yours. Don’t stop reading, just because you can’t tell what is happening spiritually when you read.

I don’t remember every meal I’ve eaten during the past month, but even so, those meals nourished my body. In the same way, the scripture I’ve read during the past month has nourished my soul. Sometimes, I can feel my soul being built up as I read. Sometimes I can’t. But I give God my time and willingness, and he provides the growth in his time and way. I read the Bible almost every day. Many days, what I read does not stay in my conscious mind for very long. But after 40 years or so of regular Bible reading, God has implanted his word deep in my soul, and he uses it to bear fruit on many occasions. How it bears fruit, and when, is up to him.

So it is with everything. Jesus wants to love and bless my family through me. I have to give him my time and my words, but the way those things bring blessings to my family are up to Jesus. I have to be willing to spend time with other people Jesus has put in my life. I need to be willing to speak, or help them in practical ways. But even as I give my time and my physical actions, it is  God who uses those things to bless others. I have been saying “I,” but truthfully, this is for all of us. It isn’t just for preachers: Paul makes that clear here, and Jesus made it clear in the John 15 verse I just gave you. This is how we live. We use our voices and minds, and hearts and bodies, but it is God working in and through us at the same time.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.