Pastor Jeff Williams: December 4, 2011
Meet the Philippians, Part VI: Chapter 2:12-18.
I’m still struggling with a sore throat. I’ve been taking every remedy you’ve offered. I’m overdosing on Vitamin C, Ricola, herbal tea, Alka Seltzer cold, Tylenol and everything you can think of; so I’ll be talking softly again. Although, unfortunately for you, it won’t be any shorter than normally.
If we were to be honest, there are times when you and I struggle in our faith. There are times we feel like [asking], “Does God really know what He is doing? Would He have me here? Would He have me in this situation? What is it He is trying to teach me? I’m frustrated! I’m confused! I’m angry! I don’t really understand what’s going on.” Has anybody ever been there in your walk? We have bad hair days-at least some of us do-but we also have bad faith days. We have days when we don’t feel like following, days when we are just so frustrated we’re tempted to throw in the towel, whatever the case might be. Yet, we are in this struggle. If He’s the Master- He’s the Teacher-and we’re the followers, we don’t always get what He’s teaching us until we look back upon it.
We’re going to be talking about that struggle, that whole process that we call sanctification. It reminded me of a clip from a movie that I saw many years ago and enjoyed called, “The Karate Kid.” I told Pastor Jesse I wanted to use a clip from that on Sunday, and he reminded me that there is actually a newer version of that, so we’re able to see a little bit more of a modern version than the Ralph Macchio edition. This has Will Smith’s son as “Grasshopper.” It is a remake of “The Karate Kid,” and I want to watch this scene because I think there are some analogies we can draw from it. Let’s go ahead and show that clip, and we’ll come back and get into the Word. (The clip can be viewed by following this link: http://www.wingclips.com/movie-clips/the-karate-kid/everything-is-kung-fu).
It reminds me that so many times in our walk, the Holy Spirit grabs a hold of us and says, “Be firm. Be strong.” Jesus lives in everything you do; everything is about Jesus. There are times where we’re just confused and frustrated, but this whole process of sanctification is something that must be done. It’s a process of learning; it’s a process of growing, and Paul learned. Remember we read in Corinthians a month or so ago how he asked the Lord to take away the thorn and the flesh with His constant buffeting, this constant badgering. By the way, having said that word-badgering, “On Wisconsin!” Yeah! Rose Bowl! You distracted me. Let’s go back to where we were. Paul says, “The thorn and the flesh, take it away.”
God’s response is, “No.”
Paul says, “Take it away, Lord, please. I beg you. Take it away.”
God says, “No.”
Paul says, “I asked a third time, ‘Lord, please take this away.’”
God’s response was “My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
Then Paul says, “Therefore, I’ll rejoice in my weaknesses for when I am weak, then I am strong.” He found out that God was teaching him-through this frustrating experience that he was going through-how to glorify in his weakness. His weakness showed the strength of God.
Here Paul is in this jail, and the church in Philippi writes him a letter. They send a messenger and say, “We just want you to know we’re thinking about you. We know that things are hard for you. We want to encourage you. We know you must be depressed. We know you must be upset because your ministry has come to a grinding halt. You’re our leader and there you are in prison. Are you okay?” He ends up encouraging them instead of them encouraging him. Have you ever gone to somebody with the intent of encouraging them, and they end up encouraging you more? It ends up that the roles were reversed. That’s what happened here with Paul. Paul ends up encouraging them when their intent was to encourage him.
Here he is in prison, and he’s frustrated. He has lost his freedom. He lost his ministry, apparently. He’s frustrated, and he doesn’t understand why God “has me here. What is God doing?” Then the light begins to dawn on him. He has a captive audience. One by one, guards are chained to him, and they can’t go anywhere. He’s going to tell his story, and they will come to Christ-person after person, guard after guard. They’re going home, and they’re sharing what they learned from Paul with their wives, their children, and their friends. People are coming to Christ, and wonderful things are happening in the government, in Caesar’s government. As corrupt as it was, there was revival taking place. Paul says, “I might be in jail, but the Gospel isn’t.” What’s more, others are stepping up, and they’re preaching the Word as never before. There is a new boldness, and Paul begins to count all of his blessings. He begins to recognize that God knows what He’s doing. God is in control. He begins to surrender to God’s leadership in this situation.
Let’s open our Bibles up to Philippians 2, and we’re going to read Verses 12-18 (page 1162 of pew Bibles). We’re going to focus in on [Verses] 12 and 13 because I think those are the two we need to spend most of our time on. Let’s read the Passage in its entirety, and then we’ll come back and focus on 12 and 13. It says, “Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed-not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence-continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” In other words, this is serious stuff. Take this seriously. Approach this with a sober mind. Approach this very seriously because we’re dealing with eternal matters here. “…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.
“Do everything without complaining or arguing.”
In other words, here is an example of what I mean when I talk about surrendering to God, when I talk about working out your salvation. If you’re living your faith without grumbling, complaining, or arguing with God, then you’re on the right track. Paul learned this…how? Through grumbling and complaining. That’s how he learned it. It doesn’t serve any purpose; it doesn’t help any cause. “Instead, when I’m going through those difficult times, when I’m struggling, I begin to ask myself, ‘What do I need to learn? How can I serve God through this? How can I glorify through this? What is He teaching me? How is this strengthening me as a person? How can I help others with what I’m going through?”
“…so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe…”
In other words, if you truly adopt what he is saying here and you follow and do the Will of God, you will stand out in the world.
He says, “…as you hold out the Word of life-in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I’m being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.”
[What Paul is saying is] “I will not stop; I will not change my attitude if the worst happens to me. If I’m poured out-if I die in this jail in Rome because of my faith-I will not change my mind. I will not change my attitude. I will not change how I look at things.”
He says, “I encourage you to join me and have this same attitude in yourselves.” What we’re talking about today is sanctification. It’s a theological word which means to be set apart for God’s purposes, to be conformed into the image of Christ, to become holy. All of these things are involved in the process of sanctification. Salvation, the word deliverance, begins, and once salvation begins-when we accept Christ-sanctification follows. That whole process of God working on our attitudes, our actions, our habits and conforming us to His Will and to His purposes-that is a process that begins and lasts for the rest of our lives. It culminates when we die or at His return. We are glorified and made in the image of Christ, so salvation is something that has begun in the past, is going on now, and will continue until it reaches its climax at His coming or our going when we are gathered together with Him.
This whole process is something we are going through, and there is a debate as to how much is our responsibility and how much is God’s responsibility. Where does God’s part end and my part begin? There are two schools of thought on this. There are actually more than that, but there are two dominant schools you hear about. One is pietism. Pietism teaches and emphasizes the will of man. Listen, if you want to be Godly, you have to work really hard. You have to strive, struggle, and you have to work the disciplines. You have to resist temptation. Basically, it is on you. God has given you all the tools, all the gifts you need, and it’s on you. You have to own this thing called holiness, and you have to strive, work, sweat, and sacrifice; and through enough effort on your part, you can become like Christ. You have to forsake the things of the world, focus on the things of the Kingdom, and become holy.
So pietism loves Verse 12 where he says, “…continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” Yeah, Amen, Paul. That’s right. We have to work hard. You might have come from a church that had a background in pietism. It may have been a very legalistic church. It might have taught you that “Christians don’t do this, and we do this. You have to dress this way and talk this way.” Greatly stressed was “hard work and discipline. Disciplines were good, but you have to work hard. You have to strive and struggle to be like Christ.” The oneness is on us.
The flipside of the coin is a school of thought called quietism. Quietism teaches quite the opposite. Quietism teaches just like it sounds-quiet. “Be still and know that I am God.” You simply submit. You don’t have to work hard. It’s not a struggle; it’s not an effort. If it’s a struggle and an effort, that means you’re not submitting. You simply need to just abide, “Like fruit in the vine…” The apple doesn’t struggle as it grows. The grape doesn’t struggle. It simply abides. You simply rest in His presence, rest in His promise. Then He will do the work. Your job is simply to get out of God’s way. That’s what the quietists teach you to believe. Quietists love Verse 13. Paul says, “…for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good purpose.”
To that, they say, “Amen. It’s all God. From beginning to end, it’s God. It’s not you at all.” The problem is Verses 12-13 are both in our Bibles. In fact, they’re both in this text. Paul is preaching as though they’re not at war with one another at all. They’re working together hand in hand. God certainly is a source of salvation from beginning to end, but we have a part to play too. God certainly is sovereign, but our wills make a place too. They have a role too. It is both.
We’re going to introduce a new theological term this morning. We can do that. Somebody has to start it, so we’re going to start it. We’ll call it partnerism. We could say Koinoniasm because it’s the Biblical word for fellowship or partnership-Koinonia. It’s probably easier to remember and say: partnerism. It is working together with God, partnering with God. It says, “We work out, and He works within.” Do you know what it says? “Work out your salvation for God is at work within.”
You know when you’re trying to get a stain out that won’t come out? You have to work out. You have to put a little elbow grease on there, but it still isn’t coming off; so you go out and buy a chemical. You ask, “What works for getting this stain out?” They give you something, and you pour it on the stain and it starts bubbling. If it doesn’t bubble, it’s not working correctly. It has to bubble. I dropped my Alka Seltzer in the water, and it had to bubble. Otherwise it doesn’t work. If you see a bubble, you know it’s working. Pretty soon that stain starts to dissolve. You put a little elbow grease on it, and the stain comes out. You’re like, “Wow! I work on it, but this chemical works within it. We’re a partner. We’ve worked together to solve the problem.” That’s what it’s teaching. It’s the verb here “to work out.” It means “to bring to completion, to keep on working until something is done.” Paul is saying, “Be relentless. Work hard. There are no shortcuts to this thing called sanctification, Christ-likeness. It involves work, effort, and sacrifice on your part.” Notice he doesn’t say, “Work for your salvation.” He says, “Work out your salvation. You already have it, but now there are things you need to work on within yourself.”
How many of you have things you are working on within yourselves? Let me see your hands. The rest of you have already arrived. Maybe you should be preaching the sermon, telling us what your secret is. We all have things we are working through. God works in, and we work out. The old adage goes, “No pain, no gain.” Let’s say you go to the gym, and you want to increase your strength or your endurance-whatever that might be-the more you put into that exercise, the more you put into that workout, the more you’re going to gain, right?
I’ve seen it happen where I’ve gone to the gym or maybe when I was rehabbing my knee after one of my surgeries, and I’m trying to do some water workouts, and I see someone in there moving at a snail’s pace in the water. You are like, “Well, what good is that? How could that be doing anything?” They might be on a machine lifting the equivalent of what an ant could do. You’re thinking, “How does that help you?”
They might be on a treadmill and are barely moving. You just want to say, “You’re wasting your time. You’re never going to make a difference if that’s how you’re going to work out because you have to put in something to get something out.”
You hear these infomercials all the time. They say, “Would you like to lose weight without having to worry about diet or exercise?”
“Yeah!” They must sell those things because these infomercials have been going on as long as I can remember. People must be buying them.
“Just drink this.” “Just take this pill and you’ll look like this guy.” “Just stand there and hold this dumbbell. Do that for 20 minutes a day, and in three weeks you’ll look like this guy.” He has the six-pack, and you’re thinking, “Are these people just crazy?” But somebody must be buying this stuff.
This whole thing about the shortcut… [What is the truth?] “No pain, no gain.” That just isn’t true. Those pills do not exist. That drink does not exist. There are no shortcuts. You have to get on your gym clothes and work out. You have to run; you have to lift. When you lift, you tear that muscle down. When it builds up, that muscle fiber builds up stronger. The body says, “Oh, okay. We’re going to get some work done now, ha? Oh, we’re going to run now, ha?” The body starts gearing up. You have a part to do. You have to go work out. Then you have to get rest because you can’t work out hard, do your bench-press on Monday and then the next day and the day after do the bench-press again. You have to let those muscles rebuild. You have to give them 42 to 72 hours before you can go at it again. Then you have to add protein so those muscles can rebuild. You have things you have to do, but then God has put the systems to work in your body so that muscle will rebuild, so those lungs will work, and so that heart will pump. Your endurance or your strength will grow. Whatever it is that you’re working on, as you perform those exercises and put in diligent routine, it will make a difference.
Paul says, “Yes, God’s working within you, but you can make a difference in how productive that work is.” You can choose to cooperate with God, work with God and put in the time and effort. He says, “The disciplines are hard work. Prayer is hard work. Sacrifice and servitude are hard work. Using your gifts, growing in knowledge, fasting, and meditation-it’s hard work! It requires effort. Resisting temptation, spiritual warfare: it is hard work!” He says, “You have to be willing to pay the price. However, it’s not all on you. You’re not in this battle alone-far from it,” Paul says. He says, “For it is God Who is at work within you to will and to do His good purpose.”
This word work is the word we get energize from, energy. It’s the word energize. God is at work energizing. God is relentless; God doesn’t give up. It’s like the old ad campaign for the Energizer Bunny. He just keeps going and going and going-like one of my sermons. It just never ends (congregation laughing). It just never ends, right? God is in you, and He’s energizing. He’s relentless. It’s like when you have a bad attitude; God doesn’t give up on you. God works to help shape that attitude to a right attitude. When you become lazy or complacent, God energizes you and He works on you to quicken you, to get you to wake up, to get you to get back in the game. When you become distracted and start paying attention to things that you shouldn’t-like cell phones, shopping, or whatever it might be-God draws your attention to where it is supposed to be. Don’t feel bad if you’re one of those cell phone people; it happens to me too. It happened to me last night. My cell phone went off during the sermon. It happens; don’t feel bad whomever you are. This is the kind of thing: when I get distracted, God brings me back. When I’m discouraged, the Holy Spirit works to encourage me. When I need guidance, He works to give me guidance-even when I’m at rest. How many of you have ever had a situation where you’ve said, “Lord, I need wisdom! Lord, I need direction,” and you go to bed not knowing what you’re going to do? You don’t know what decision you’re going to make, but when you wake up, you know what to do. You have an understanding about what to do? Has anybody experienced that? Yeah, it’s like God is at work even when I’m asleep. There have been times when I’ve been grappling with how I’m going to illustrate something in a sermon. I’ll go to sleep thinking, “I don’t know how I’m going to illustrate that. I’ll wake up and say, “I’ve got it!” First thing in the morning, I’ll wake up and say, “I have to write that down!” Now I text myself instead. I give myself a text message, and it’s right there. God is just relentless. He just keeps working. When we’re tired, He keeps working. When we say, “I just need to rest,” [He continues to work].
You go to the airport, and they have those people movers in there. You have your luggage with you. If you are walking at a normal pace, you don’t slow down; you can walk a little faster because it just never ends. There is no wasted movement. It’s always moving you forward, but there are times when you’re tired. You might use that thing for just a little bit of a rest period. You can put down those heavy suitcases. I’ve been in airports like that where sometimes I’ve used it to get from one end to the other quickly. Other times, I use it for break time. I put the load down and just relax a little bit. I keep moving forward. God does that too. Even when we’re tired, He can keep moving us forward. Even when we say, “I just want to rest. I just want to put this down for a while,” He energizes us. He keeps going and going to bring us to completion.
So when asked [which is better: pietism or quietism], the answer is it’s both. We don’t need to argue about this anymore. Pietists and Quietists shake hands and give each other a hug. Become partners. Realize that we are working together.
Let me give you an illustration from the Scripture of this. Let’s look in the Book of Nehemiah together, Nehemiah 4. What’s taking place here is Nehemiah is leading this endeavor to rebuild the wall around Jerusalem. Jerusalem is the capital, and they have been taken into captivity. Now they are returning from captivity, and they’re going to reestablish their nation. Their first line of defense is their wall. If you don’t have a wall, then you’re vulnerable to the enemy. You are exposed to attack. You had to have a wall, a literal wall around your city. Otherwise you’re a laughing stock. So if they were to become a country again, if this were to be their capital again, the wall had to be rebuilt.
Nehemiah sets out for this quest, and it’s an ominous task. They’re discouraged because of the sheer volume of the task; but if that were not enough, they have enemies. Those enemies do not want to see Israel reestablished as a nation. They do not want to see Jerusalem as a capital, so they are working against Nehemiah. They start off by insulting, mocking, and ridiculing them. One of the men by the name of Sanballat says, “If as much as a fox jumps on that wall, it’s so weak that it’s going to fall down.” That’s one thing, but when Israel continues their quest to rebuild the wall and then gets to the halfway point, it looks like they’re really going to get this done. They see that as a threat to their security as a nation, so they then begin to threaten Israel. They begin saying, “We’re going to attack them.” They don’t tell Israel that. They just talk amongst themselves. They say, “We’re going to attack them. We’re going to kill them. We’re going to literally kill them to prevent them from reestablishing.” Word begins to get back to Nehemiah of what they are plotting to do.
Let’s pick up the story in Verse 10 (of Chapter 4, page 475). Watch for signs of partnerism here. “Meanwhile, the people in Judah said, ‘The strength of the laborers is giving out, and there is so much rubble that we cannot rebuild the wall.’”
They’re tired, and they’re saying, “Look, we’re just tired, and there is too much to do. We can’t do it.”
Verse 11, “Also our enemies said, ‘Before they know it or see us, we will be right there among them and will kill them and put an end to the work.’” Surprise attack-that element of surprise was huge, and they were just going to spring on them when they least expected it. They were going to kill them and destroy them.
“Then the Jews who lived near them came and told us ten times over, ‘Wherever you turn, they will attack us.’”
What he’s saying here is that there are these Jews around that are like spies. They’re hearing this, and they’re going back to Nehemiah and saying, “Look, we are surrounded. They’re going to attack. Everywhere we turn, anywhere we go, they’re going to be there. You have to do something about this because they are going to attack.”
“Therefore I stationed some of the people behind the lowest points of the wall at the exposed places, posting them by families, with their swords, spears and bows. After I looked things over, I stood up and said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, ‘Don’t be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes.’
“When our enemies heard that we were aware of their plot and that God had frustrated it, we all returned to the wall, each to his own work.”
So there was a timeout. Nehemiah began to rally the troops. The enemies of Israel found out that there was no surprise attack, and that was a little discouraging to them. Although the threat of attack was still there, they were frustrated by that, by how that got leaked out to their enemies. Israel began to work, but it was different.
It says in Verse 16, “From that day on, half of my men did the work, while the other half were equipped with spears, shields, bows and armor. The officers posted themselves behind all the people of Judah who were building the wall. Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. But the man who sounded the trumpet stayed with me,” says Nehemiah.
“Then I said to the nobles, the officials and the rest of the people, ‘The work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Wherever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there.’” Listen to this next phrase, “‘Our God will fight for us!’”
Here are two schools of thought: if you are a Pietist, what might you say here? There is a battle going on. Forget the work. Forget the wall right now. Everybody pick up a sword. Everybody pick up a spear and a shield. It’s time for battle. We have to start training. We have to start practicing. We have to start going through drills. We have to begin sharpening our weapons and making weapons. We have to be in a warfare mentality. We have to attack our enemies and defeat them, and we have to work hard, train, and go fight to win.”
The Quietist would say, “Oh, no, no, we don’t. We don’t need to pick up warfare weapons at all. It’s God’s wall. It’s God’s city. It’s God’s task. Turn your back and don’t look back. Don’t even worry about guards. This is God’s project. All we need is brick and mortar. Let’s just rest in God. We’ll pray on the wall, but we’re going to trust because He sent us here. He told us that this was His wall, so we’re not going to worry about that. We’re simply going to build the wall. That’s all we’re going to do. We’re just going to have fun. We’re going to whistle. We’re not going to worry about the enemies because God is greater than that!”
What does Nehemiah do? Nehemiah takes the role of somebody who is in partner with God. He says, “God will fight for us.” Did he mean they’re going to lay down their weapons? No. He says, “We are going to be ready. We are going to be prepared. We are going to have our weapons, and we will fight if necessary. However, if we fight, we are trusting God. He will energize us. He will give us wisdom, discernment, and strength; and He will ultimately give us victory. It is going to be us working on the outside and God working within.” There is going to be a partnership.
That's why Paul talks about the weapons of our warfare are mighty. They’re not carnal, but they’re mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. He encourages us. He says, “You’re in a battle. You’re in a fight, so pick up the shield of faith. Pick up the sword of the Spirit. Be ready. Be ready to fight, and at the same time trust and rest in the provision of God.” They work in agreement. They work in harmony. They work together.
I ask you to just reflect right now on your walk. What does it look like? Are you one who is striving, trying, and just struggling? You’re failing because you’re just trying to simply do things on your own strength. Maybe you’re one of the ones who just says, “Let go, and let God.” You’re finding that hasn’t been effective either because you’ve actually become spiritually complacent and lazy. Paul says, “For this, we labor and strive because we’ve put our hopes in the living God.”
You say, “Well, there’s no striving. There isn’t laboring in my walk.” The truth of the matter is it is both. There is submission, and there is work to be done. There is a partnership between the Divine and the human. There is the sovereignty of God, and there is the will of man; and we work together to form Christ-likeness in ourselves. I’m not alone. “The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want.” He doesn’t delegate that to anything else. He doesn’t delegate it to your pastor, your Sunday school teacher, a spiritual mentor, or an angel. God Himself takes on that task. It says, “God is at work within you to will and to work His good Purpose.”
Let’s pray together:
Father, as we come to communion, we think about this partnership. We recognize that You are the One who started it all. What separates our faith is that Christianity is not man who reached up first to God; it was God who reached down first to man. He offered friendship, offered relationship and fellowship, and partnership. If we are to reach up by faith and take that hand, we have made a commitment to live for You, to trust You, to serve You. Lord, it requires work; it requires sacrifice and effort. Lord, you are there. You’re within us. You energize us. Lord, when we’re working out, it’s wonderful to have a Partner or Trainer who can spur us on, who can encourage us and teach us. It’s wonderful to have that Trainer live within us and be our God. How wonderful is that! God is at work within us, and that is the promise of Scripture: that He will bring to completion what He has promised. So, Lord, today we come to remember the Lord’s sacrifice, His love, and His grace that is put among us to share. It’s in His name, we pray, Amen.
