Now we are looking at the word obedience
this morning, not that it is officially one
of the key words of the letter to
the Philippians, as the others are officially.
I hope we've seen that during the week.
But I think it's a very important word
in this letter, and it's underlying the whole
epistle, obedience.
We see a lot about the obedience of
Christ, and we see a lot about the
obedience of the Philippians.
And underlying it all is the obedience of
the Apostle Paul to the will of God,
first of all in going to Philippi to
preach the gospel.
Let us therefore commence our reading this morning
at the fourth verse of chapter 2 of
Philippians.
It's nice to see a goodly number out
again this morning.
You must be getting tired, if you're not
I am.
And I admire your courage putting up with
me.
He puts me up, you put up with
me for a whole week.
Think of that, I admire your grace.
The fourth verse of chapter 2, look not
every man on his own things or interests,
but every man also on the interests of
others.
Let this mind be in you, which was
also in Christ Jesus, who being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery, a
thing to hang on to, a thing to
grasp at, to be equal with God.
Simply because he was God.
But he made himself of no reputation, that
is he emptied himself, took upon him the
form of a servant, and was made in
the likeness of men.
And being found in fashion as a man,
he humbled himself and became obedient unto death,
even the death of the cross.
Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, given
him a name which is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, things in heaven, and things in
earth, and things under the earth, that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Wherefore my beloved, as ye have always obeyed,
not as in my presence only, but now
much more in my absence, work out your
own salvation with fear and trembling.
For it is God who worketh in you,
both to will and to do, of his
good pleasure.
The Lord bless to us the public reading
of Holy Scripture.
Work out your own salvation, said the Apostle
Paul to the Philippian Christians.
They were Christian people.
He had no doubts about this.
He led them to Christ.
He led them on with Christ.
And he was rejoicing in their faithfulness and
constancy in spiritual things, and yet he said
to them, work out your own salvation.
Now we must, of course, take this in
the context in which it is given, to
get the real sense and the message from
the Lord to our hearts this morning.
And let me start like this.
I haven't started yet, that's just by the
way.
Let me start now.
The entrance fee into God's kingdom is nothing,
but the annual subscription is everything.
And that's why Paul said, work out your
own salvation.
Now he said something like this, of course,
in Ephesians chapter 2.
And in verses 8 and 9 he tells
them that the way into the blessing of
God's salvation will cost them nothing.
By grace you save through faith, and that
not of yourselves, it is the gift of
God, not of works, lest any man should
boast.
Never let it be thought that the apostle
there is saying that faith is the gift
of God.
That is a wrong analysis of the two
verses.
And it's proved to be a wrong analysis
in five ways.
And the fifth way is this, that verse
9 would contradict that theory altogether.
Because it says, not of works, lest any
man should boast.
So faith is not of works.
Well that's a ludicrous idea.
The whole analysis must be around the subject
of salvation.
You are saved by grace.
You are saved by God.
You are saved, salvation is a gift.
And you are saved not by works, and
finally you are saved through faith.
That's exactly what the apostle is saying.
The word that cannot refer to faith.
It must refer to the first phrase, by
grace are ye saved, and that not of
yourselves.
It must do because of the gender.
The gender is neuter for that, and the
gender for feminine is faith, so that cannot
refer to faith.
It refers to salvation.
Let me give you the analysis again.
It's so important.
This is where hyper-Calvinism brings in an
unscriptural idea.
And very often many of them start at
this verse.
Anyway, I'm not supposed to be giving an
explanation of this verse, but it comes to
my mind, so maybe the Lord has brought
it there for somebody's good.
The analysis again is, you are saved by
grace, salvation is from God, salvation is a
gift, and salvation is not by works, and
salvation is through faith.
Now I reckon that is the correct analysis.
Please disagree with me as much as you
wish.
But you see, in the next verse, verse
10, now this is really in connection with
my subject this morning.
In verse 10 he says, now you people
who are saved without doing works must know
that God has called you to do works,
good works that is.
No good works will save you, but once
you are saved you must appreciate that you
were foreordained to do good works and to
glorify God in them.
The doctrine of antinomianism has been the very
biggest curse to the people of God in
this world for I don't know how long.
We are saved by grace, we've got everything
from God's grace in Christ that we need
for time and for eternity, so that's that,
and we're doing nothing about it, and that's
unscriptural, and you're on dangerous ground.
It's true, potentially we have all in Christ,
but the apostle says, the entrance fee is
nothing, but the annual subscription is everything, everything.
Because you have been foreordained to do good
works, and that's why the apostle says here
to them, you've always obeyed, keep on obeying,
and obey in this way, work out that
salvation that you have, for it is God
who worketh in you, both to will and
to do of his good pleasure.
Now when he said work out your salvation,
let's dismiss the thought forever that he was
telling them to get salvation by their works.
Far be the thought, or in other words
perish the thought, it's not in the idea
at all.
They were already saved, and they were being
exhorted to work out what they've got in
Christ.
And so you see, in this, well we'll
take these two verses together, the end of
verse 12, work out your own salvation within,
and verse 13, for it is God who
worketh in you, both to will and to
do of his good pleasure.
Let me analyse that section in this way.
Are you ready?
One, a personal appropriation, your own salvation.
Secondly, an outward exhibition, work out your own
salvation.
And thirdly, an inward realisation, it is God
who works in you.
And then fourthly, a defined direction, to will
and to do of his good pleasure.
In the first idea, your own salvation, we
gather this, that we are to make salvation
our own by faith.
In the second idea, an outward exhibition, we
get this idea, we are to make our
salvation, that we have manifest by works.
And in the third idea, an inward realisation,
we must make our salvation effective by dependence
upon the indwelling spirit of God.
And fourthly, a defined direction, to will and
to do of his good pleasure, we get
the idea of making salvation, work out his
will by obedience.
That's rather a lot to remember, but by
a cassette it's easier.
A personal appropriation, your own salvation.
He knew very well, I'm going to say
jolly well, this.
He knew jolly well that this salvation was
their own.
He had seen them receive it and appropriate
it and by faith with our works possess
it.
Your own salvation, a personal appropriation.
The only way to make God's salvation our
own possession is to exercise faith without doing
a thing.
Of course, this was Luther's strong point.
And this is the idea that turned the
world upside down in the Reformation.
Justification before God by faith without doing a
thing.
He even was so strong upon it that
he had very much doubts about the inspiration
of the James's epistle.
He even doubted that at times.
But you see, we must appreciate that these
two brethren, Paul and James, were not contradicting
one another.
Paul was talking about being just before God
by simple faith in the work of Christ
without our works at all.
Whereas James was saying, now if you say
you have justification before God without any works
at all of yours, then you must show
good works to prove that you've got the
real thing.
Just before God by faith, just before men
by works.
Just by the works of faith and just
by faith that works.
So they were not contradicting one another.
As a matter of fact, we've already seen
from Ephesians 2, 8 and 9 that this
is the apostle Paul's doctrine as well.
The entrance into God's kingdom, the entrance fee
is nothing, but the annual subscription is everything.
And so Luther was standing there before the
Diet of Worms.
I was standing on the spot myself some
months ago by the side of the River
Rhine there.
It is the Rhine, isn't it?
And I was standing on the spot.
There was a plaque there in a brass
plate, you know, it says, here Luther stood
and he gave the date.
And I've forgotten a date.
My memory is the thing I forget with.
I stood on the spot where Luther stood.
And this is what he said, here do
I stand.
He was standing before the Diet of Worms.
That wasn't a kind of health dish, you
know, a sort of slimming meal.
Oh no.
It was the council of the City of
Worms.
He said, here do I stand at this
geographical spot.
He was talking about standing on the word
of God and the fact that justification is
by faith alone without doing a thing.
And he said, I can do no other.
And if ever we get salvation, and I
know we possess it today, it is because
we did nothing but rested on the cross
of Calvary when he died there and then
rose again the third day.
Now it is your own salvation.
Of course it is God's salvation.
He thought it.
It is Christ's salvation.
He bought it.
And it's the Holy Spirit's salvation.
He wrought it.
But it's your salvation.
You sought it.
If you sought it by faith.
Well, it was God's plan for God so
loved the world.
He made it.
And Christ, the price, he paid it.
And the power of the Spirit made it.
But you have it and possess it if
by faith you have received it.
Of course faith must always have a worthy
object.
It isn't faith in the abstract that saves
anybody.
Or faith in anything that will get you
anywhere.
I mean to say, faith in the abstract
will get you nowhere.
You must have faith in something.
Now if you go to the city this
afternoon in the bus, you will have faith
in the bus driver and you will have
faith in the bus that the wheels go
around and the engine works and so on.
And to get there you must exercise faith
in something.
Faith in the abstract is no good.
Faith must always have a worthy object.
And it's the object of faith that counts
every time.
And if I'm going to get eternal salvation
through faith, the object of my faith must
be for one eternal Saviour.
Now let me say this, that Christ is,
as you know, God's salvation for you and
me.
The old man Simeon took him up in
his arms and said, mine eyes have seen
thy salvation.
Absolutely right.
Because the Lord Jesus confirmed this later on
when he said to Zacchaeus, I must abide
at thy house today.
And when he got there he said, today
is salvation come to thy house.
He is God's salvation for you and for
me.
Therefore if you have made this salvation yours
by faith, then Christ is your greatest possession.
Christ for me is the greatest possession of
my life.
Let others boast of heaps of gold, Christ
for me.
His riches never can be told, Christ for
me.
Your gold will waste and wear away.
Your honours perish in a day.
My portion never can decay.
Christ for me.
He is my prophet, priest and king.
He did for me salvation bring.
And while I breath I mean to sing,
Christ for me.
All right.
Christ is the salvation of God.
It is a personal appropriation for every one
of us.
And we make him ours and we make
it ours by faith without works.
Your own salvation.
That's point number one.
Now secondly, an outward exhibition.
And this is the main idea.
He says, now you've always obeyed.
When I first came to Philippi, you listened
to the word of God and there was
the obedience of faith manifested even to the
saving of your souls.
And since I've been away from you, you
have been obeying the impulses of the Spirit
in your hearts and the leading of the
Spirit in your assembly.
And you've gone on and on and on.
And they had remembered to do through the
years what other assemblies had forgotten to do,
to have fellowship with the great apostle in
his ministry of the gospel here and there.
You have always obeyed, he said.
Now obey in this thing as well.
Work out your own salvation.
There must be, he says, a continuous evidence
that you have salvation.
And this is what James was concerned about.
He was concerned about people in the assembly
who said they were saved and they were
no different from anybody else in the world.
That's what James was worried about.
And the apostle Paul was worried about that
as well.
He wanted everybody to work out this salvation,
that there should be some evidence of what
they had.
Now I saw my new grandson the other
day, and there was evidence, plenty of evidence,
that he was really possessing life.
He had new life.
Why, he howled and he squawked and he
wept and cried and almost yelled at a
few weeks old.
And he kicked and I don't know what
he didn't do.
There was every evidence of life.
And we must expect in our young men
and women in our assemblies, real genuine spiritual
evidence of a spiritual life.
And if it's not there, don't accept their
testimony that they're saved.
I know some Christian people, they say, these
young people of ours now, oh they're born
again but they're not very interested sometimes.
Oh but they're born again and you know
sometimes they come on a Sunday morning, it's
true they come to please us.
They don't love the Lord, they don't serve
the Lord, they do everything the world does,
but they're born again you know.
When they were seven they trusted the Saviour.
Rubbish!
If there's new life, it will find vengeance.
If I've got the life of Christ in
my soul, there's going to be an evidence
of the life of Christ.
Don't believe it!
There's no evidence.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Work out your salvation, make it manifest by
good works.
And this is what God is expecting from
us.
We are foreordained to good works.
Now in the context there, he tells them
how to work it out.
Did you notice that?
I don't think we read that verse, I'm
sorry.
We should have read verses 14 and 15
which says, Do all things without murmurings and
disputings, that ye may be blameless and harmless,
the sons of God without rebuke, in the
midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among
whom ye shine as lights in the world.
That's the first way.
And secondly, holding forth the word of life.
Now he's given us a balanced way in
which we can work out our salvation.
In your life, shine.
Be good in your life for the glory
of God.
And in your witness, preach not your own
philosophy, but the word of life.
Holding forth the word of life.
Now it's not enough just to live the
life.
It is not enough just to preach the
word.
The balance is essential.
We get so Insymmetrical.
That's the right word.
We get unbalanced.
We major on one thing and forget the
other.
The Lord Jesus said, This you should have
done, yes, but you should have not have
left the other undone.
It is you should shine in your life
and witness to the word of God with
your lips.
You see, we as believers are both Christ's
prose and God's poem.
In that verse I've been quoting in Ephesians
2.10, the Greek word is poema, which
means, well from which we get our English
word It's translated handiwork or workmanship.
Could be translated literally, we are God's poem.
And it says also in Corinthians that we
are Christ's.
You are living epistles, living prose, read and
known of all men.
Put the two together, you get the balanced
Christian life, working out the salvation that you
had in Christ in a balanced way.
Some people are good at the poems, bad
at the prose.
Some are good at the prose and bad
at the poem.
You think of Millium, she got the ladies
together and they started singing and dancing and
they had a lovely time of community singing
and they sang unto the Lord and said,
Sing unto the Lord for he hath triumphed
gloriously, the horse and his rider hath he
flown into the sea.
And she started backbiting and criticising and she
was smitten with leprosy at the tent door
because of it.
Very good at the poems, bad at the
prose, just like the disciples.
I'm not going to continue with this, it's
a separate letter to read.
But the disciples you know, they sang a
hymn.
They sang I suppose parts of Psalm 113,
14, 15, 16, 17 and 118.
They sang a hymn, good at the poems.
And they went out and fought.
So you go on all the way through
the scripture like that.
And the exhortation is to do it in
a balanced way, shine in your life and
a witness to the word of God in
your testimony.
An outward exhibition, make salvation manifest by work.
Now you see salvation is a finished work,
you know that.
That salvation is an unfinished process.
God finished salvation for us at the cross
through Christ.
But it's a process in our lives which
has to be worked out to the glory
of God day by day.
Salvation is an inward blessing, we all know
that.
But salvation is an outward working, and we
should all show that.
It must be manifest.
And you notice what it says in the
context here, uh, work out your own salvation
with fear and with trembling.
How carefully we must do this, working out
our salvation with fear, lest by any word
or act of yours, you spoil or thwart
or put back God's work in your life
and God's work through your life with fear
and trembling.
How easy it is for me to grieve
the Holy Spirit.
Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Now your salvation of course is your greatest
possession.
Not your house or your boat or your
car, but your possession of the Holy Spirit
of Jesus.
And He is to be manifested through our
lives, and no man can but by the
Holy Ghost.
And that brings us to idea number three.
An inward realization.
I thank God He didn't stop at the
end of verse twelve.
An inward realization, an inward secret of the
exhortation He's giving to us, and how we
can fulfill it.
It is God who works in you, both
to will and to do of His good
pleasure.
So we make salvation effective by dependence upon
the indwelling Spirit of God.
You know that the Spirit of God that
indwells every believer is both the Spirit of
the Father and the Son.
There are not two Holy Spirits, you know.
There's only one.
The Lord Jesus said in speaking of the
coming of the Holy Spirit, If any man
love me, my Father will love him, and
I will love him, and we will come,
the two of us, we will come and
make our abode with him.
And He was talking about the coming of
the Holy Spirit.
So we will come, the Father and the
Son comes to us when we are converted,
and indwells our hearts.
He is the Spirit of the Father and
the Son.
This is what the Apostle says here.
That Spirit of God, that Spirit of Christ
is the secret for you, so that you
can not in your own strength and fleshly
energy work out your salvation.
The arm of flesh will fail you.
You dare not trust your own.
But by the Spirit of God, thank God
our need is met.
We can, we can, we can, because He
can through us, and He is the Almighty
One.
I am master of every situation in Christ
who makes me strong, and through the Spirit
of Christ who indwells my life.
So we are God's handiwork, because it is
God who is working through us.
The doing, the working, is by Him.
We read of Barnabas who was a good
man.
He did good things.
And he gives us the secret.
In the same section it says, Barnabas was
a good man, full of the Holy Ghost
and faith.
Now he was good because he was full
of the Holy Ghost.
He found a place in his heart and
life for the Holy Spirit to control him
completely.
That's why he was good.
No man can but by the Holy Ghost.
It is God who works within you by
the Holy Spirit.
And of course he was full of faith,
because that's what he needed at the time,
because he was filled with the Holy Spirit.
And the result was he was a good
man.
Talking about Luther again, Luther's maxim was this,
you don't become righteous by doing what is
righteous, but having become righteous in his righteousness
would begin to do what is righteous.
Now that's not a conundrum.
Let's use the word good.
It means the same.
You don't become good by doing what is
good, but having become good in his goodness,
you begin to do good.
By his indwelling presence that is.
The almightiness, the power, the working, the doing
is the Lord.
It is God who works within you.
Paul says, his working works in me mightily.
Well if his working works in me, it
must work in me mightily, because he is
the Almighty One.
So the thing to do is to acknowledge
the person within, to depend upon the person
within, and to obey the person within.
Now since you've got a good record you
Philippians, you've really always obeyed him as far
as I know.
Keep it up, obey him, let him work
through you, and when God's Spirit is wanting
to work through you, let him have his
way.
Acknowledge his presence within.
Never hinder his working through unbelief.
Never hinder his working by criticism, or scandal,
or evil speaking.
Let him work on in you as well.
And then finally, a defined direction, to will
and to do of his good pleasure.
Shall I give you the whole verse again?
Work out your own salvation, for it is
God who worketh in you, both to will
and to do of his good pleasure.
And if the first idea of your own
salvation is, make salvation yours by faith.
And the second idea is, make salvation manifest
by works, work it out.
And the third idea is, make salvation effective
by obedience and dependence upon the indwelling Spirit.
Now this idea must be, make salvation work
out his will, by obedience to him at
every turn of the corner.
Now we have seen the obedience of Christ
in this passage.
What a wonderful example of obedience we have
here.
It says he became obedient unto death.
It says he became the servant of Jehovah.
He took upon himself the form of a
servant.
And he behoves a servant to be obedient.
And so it was, he was obedient unto
death.
Now have you ever thought about that?
Death, for you and for me, apart from
the coming of Christ, death is a necessity
for all mankind, except one.
And for the Lord Jesus, death was not
necessity.
He did no sin.
Death comes by sin.
For him, death was an obedience.
And he said, I am come to do
thy will, O my God.
And that was to die, not to live,
thank God for his life.
Not to teach, thank God for his teachings.
But to die, and to give his life
a ransom for many.
He was the only man for whom death
was an obedience.
Thank God he was willing to do the
will of God and go all the way
to the cross of Calvary, having you in
his mind and me in his mind.
You have always obeyed.
He, the Lord Jesus, was obeyed.
Now keep it up.
And when the Spirit within you, the Spirit
of God who wants to work out this
salvation through you, not only giving evidence that
you are born of God, but bringing blessing
to people, God's heavenly, divine, spiritual blessings to
those who are in need of them through
you, then let the Holy Spirit have his
way and obey him, so that the will
of God will be performed through you.
And that's the very, very best for every
one of us.
And when God works in you to confess,
I have an apology to make today.
My memories let me down.
I have two bookings for tonight.
So I, the Holy Spirit tells me I
must confess my error and ask forgiveness.
When the Holy Spirit of God works in
you to confess, then confess.
When the Holy Spirit works in you to
witness, then witness.
When the Holy Spirit of God works in
you to repent, then repent.
When God's Holy Spirit works in you to
apologize, then apologize.
When God's Holy Spirit says to you that
you must make restitution, then you must obey
and make restitution.
Notice what it says.
God works in you to will and to
do of his good pleasure.
God gives the desire to will.
God gives the power to do.
And God gives the direction according to his
will and according to his good pleasure.
And that must always be so.
When God works through us, we obey his
working.
It was through the obedience of faith that
Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel
eventually found themselves on the other side of
the Red Sea and eventually at Eden.
No, not Eden.
Elim, resting in their God by the waters
beneath the palm trees and by the springs
of satisfying water.
You see, it began like this.
Moses said, let my people go.
And Pharaoh said, you want to go, you
can go and worship.
But he said, worship God in the land.
Moses said, no, we must obey God.
God has sent three days journey in the
wilderness.
They were driven out and came back.
And Pharaoh said, didn't you want to go
and worship the Lord?
Yes, Moses and Aaron said, that's just what
we want to do.
All right, he said, go and worship the
Lord.
But he said, don't go very far away,
stop on the borderland.
Moses said, no, we will obey God.
And God sent three days journey into the
wilderness.
Moses and Aaron came back after a while,
a few plagues and things.
And Pharaoh said, see, let's see, didn't you
want to go and worship the Lord, your
God, in the wilderness?
They said, that's exactly what we want to
do.
God has commanded us and we must obey.
He said, all right then.
He said, you go and worship the Lord.
You need to stop in the land, you
need to stop on the borderland.
You can go three days journey into the
wilderness to worship the Lord, your God.
Then he said, but half a minute, he
said, now who's going?
Well, he said, we're all going, our wives
and our little ones with the men.
Moses said, oh no, said Pharaoh.
You menfolk wanted to go, and that was
a lie.
God wanted to deliver them completely.
And Moses said, no, we will not accept
that compromise.
We will obey God, and it's going to
be a complete deliverance.
And we're going with our wives and our
little ones.
And then they were brought in again, after
a while, and a bit more plague and
tribulation.
He said, let me see, didn't you want
to go and worship the Lord in the
wilderness?
Right out in the wilderness with your wives
and your little ones.
Exactly right, said Moses.
But he said, listen, he said, well that's
all right.
But he said, of course you won't take
your flocks and your herds with you, will
you?
You'll leave them in Egypt, won't you?
You'll leave your business here.
He said, no we won't.
We're going to obey God completely, and take
with us our business as well as our
families in the will and way of God.
But does obedience pay?
A thousand times.
And after the firstborn were slain, they were
brought into Pharaoh's presence again.
And this is what Pharaoh said, and he
said it twice over.
He repeated himself, and it wasn't their repetition.
He said, go and serve the Lord as
ye have said.
As ye have said.
They had it all their own way, because
their way was God's way.
And when our way is God's way, God
is the almighty one who will see us
through to victory.
And they got over the Red Sea.
Mind you when they got to the Red
Sea there was a problem.
Speak unto the children of Israel.
Oh, first of all it was stand still.
And that was hard to do with their
enemies around them.
But they obeyed in faith.
And they saw the salvation of the Lord.
And the next command was hardest of all.
Speak unto the children of Israel that they
go forward.
And the next step took them into the
Red Sea.
And they obeyed in faith.
And they didn't get into the Red Sea
because God opened up their way.
And the God that lived in Moses' time
is just the same today.
And for those who obeyed by faith, he
will certainly open up their way.
And he will work out his full salvation
through them day by day.
And Miriam and the girls, they got together
and sang and said, the Lord hath triumphed
gloriously.
If it had been left to them they
would have failed miserably.
But by the obedience of faith they left
it to him.
And he triumphed gloriously.
And they entered into his glorious triumph.
That's the way of blessing for me and
blessing through me to others.
Brothers and sisters, what a great salvation you
have.
It's your own.
It is the person of Christ himself.
Work it out, not in the flesh, but
by the indwelling Spirit of God.
And then his will, as you obey, will
be performed.
Lord, lead us on, and on with thee,
depending not upon ourselves, but upon the enabling
and the almightiness of thy gracious indwelling Spirit.
Teach us not only to trust, but to
obey.
And see thy perfect will being worked through
us, by thy perfect servant, the gracious Holy
Spirit.
We pray this giving thee our thanks for
thy word, in the Saviour's precious name.
Amen.