Our Old Testament lesson this morning is from 1 Kings chapter 8. I'm going to be reading from verse 54 through 61. Let's give attention to God's Word. Now as Solomon finished offering all his prayer and plea to the Lord, he arose from before the altar of the Lord, where he had knelt with hands outstretched towards heaven. And he stood and blessed all the assembly of Israel with a loud voice, saying, Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to his people, Israel, according to all that he promised. But one word has failed of all his good promise, which is spoke by Moses, his servant. Lord, our God be with us as he was with our fathers. May he not leave us or forsake us that he may incline our hearts to him, to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments, his statutes and his rules, which he commanded our fathers. Let these words of mine, with which I have pleaded before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God, day and night. And may he maintain the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel, as each day requires. That all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God, there is no other. Let your heart therefore be wholly true to the Lord our God, walking in his statutes and keeping his commandments. as at this day. Let's turn to our New Testament reading and our scripture text this morning, which is found in Philippians chapter two. I'm going to be reading verse 12 and 13. 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 for it is God who works in you both to will and to work. for his good pleasure. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we ask that you would incline our hearts to you this very hour so that we would walk in all your ways and keep your commandments even as we seek to have our hearts be wholly true to you as we read in the words of Solomon. May we not be merely hearers of your word and so deceive ourselves, but may we be doers also, and so be blessed as we heed the word that proceeds from your mouth. We ask this in Christ's name. Amen. To be a Christian is to be a most glorious, or is a most glorious reality. At one time, you and I were alienated from God. who are lost in sin and by nature, as Paul writes, children of wrath. But in God's kindness, in his goodness towards sinners such as us, it pleased him to be gracious to us, to save us, to forgive us, to wash us, to reconcile us, to justify us, to adopt us. To be a Christian is to be in Christ. One is no longer in Adam and in solidarity with Adam and his sin, his condemnation and his death. And Paul says, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone and a new has come. You've been crucified with Christ, buried with Christ, baptized with Christ, and now Christ lives in you. You bear the name of God the Father. You have been declared to be children of God. There is nothing in all the world that compares to this glorious reality that has been given to us who are in Christ. And as you and I marvel at what it is to be a Christian, to be in Christ, one question that arises is how then, for we who are in Christ, how then shall we live? If the gospel changes everything, how are we to go about our day-to-day lives now that we are in him? What does it look like to walk in a manner that is worthy of the gospel of Christ? And there've been a variety of responses throughout church history that have tried to answer this question. And this morning we're going to have a look at two responses before considering the answer that we find in our text in Philippians chapter two. We'll consider the answer by looking at the relationship of verse 12 to verse 13. And finally, we're gonna have a look at the workers that are involved and the manner of working by which these two workers, God and man, goes about their task. And so firstly, the first response that we're gonna look at this morning within Protestantism to answer the question of how then shall we live as those who are in Christ is found in what's called quietism. A view that was held by George Fox, by Hannah Whittle-Smith, who wrote The Christian Secret of a Happy Life, which is not a very good book, by the way, and sadly she was not happy either. As well as a view that is held by the Quakers as a whole. Quietism teaches that the Christian is to be entirely passive. or quiet in being renewed in the image of God. The goal for the Christian is to be inactive, to simply let go and let God. There is no working against sin by the Christian, for example. Only God works. The believer, and I quote, does nothing but trust. A believer is to simply surrender and to receive from God, to abandon themselves to the work of God like clay in the hands of a potter. And in subduing yourself and becoming totally still, totally quiet, it's as if you are plugging yourself into the wall socket like an electric cable so that the electricity of the work of God can flow and work through you. This thorough inactivity on the part of the believer ends up being very mystical, quite experiential and very subjective in focus. Now on the other end of the spectrum, we find what's known as pietism, quietism on the one side and pietism on the other. And pietism, it arose within German Lutheranism within the 17th century. And this was in response largely to the cold intellectual orthodoxy and lifeless formalism that was found in the church in the day. And this movement of pietism had the, had no interest, rightly so of, uh, of being involved in dead orthodoxy. They wanted to awaken a sleepy church. Philip Spina, the father of pietism gives us a glimpse into his teachings when he says that Christianity is more about practice than it is about knowledge. These believers, they gave themselves to many good things. They gave themselves to the Bible study, to prayer, to the daily and personal reading of scripture, to spiritual disciplines and to the like. But the tragedy is that they went to another extreme. They shifted the center of gravity away from the work of Christ and onto the work of the believer. Their focus became personal practices and spiritual disciplines, and in time, This priority of my activity in holiness led to a self-righteousness and to legalism, to viewing themselves as much better than ordinary Christians. They were more earnest, they were more serious, they were more devoted. And so they became proud, they became arrogant and judgmental. While starting out with great intentions, they had become carnal, striving in their own efforts rather than working in the power and the grace of God. And it could be said of them as what was said of the church in Galatia, as we find in Galatians 3.3, that having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Instead of the quietest maxim of let go and let God, the pietists started out with God, but ended with their own devotion and their own disciplines. And neither the absolute passivity of quietism nor the carnal working out of unbiblical pietism reflect the teaching of scripture. Friends, doctrine and life, theology and practice, orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not set against each other. What we believe and how we are to live our lives are integrally related. They are connected. The knowledge of God and a love for God are not at odds. We love that which we first know. And when our minds are illuminated, they come alive by the doctrine and the drama of scripture, to paraphrase Michael Horton, our hearts will respond in praise, in doxology, as we marvel at who God is and what he has done in Christ throughout all the ages. And our minds will be filled with insight and understanding. Our hearts begin to swell in delight. Our lips will begin to declare the praises of God. And this very worship, in turn, turns and leads to discipleship, to obey the teachings of Christ. And this is what we find actually in the Great Commission at the end of Matthew's Gospel. When Christ says, go therefore and make disciples of me, he writes, followers of me, teaching them to obey or to observe all that I have commanded you, which is evidenced in the first and the greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind and with all your strength. Friends, the message of the gospel and the mission of the church are not at odds with one another. This is what we find throughout the pages of scripture. It's what we find in Paul's letter to the Philippians, the message of Christ and the mission of church of Christ are linked. for the mission of the church is to go and make disciples, followers of Christ, those who are obedient to Christ, whose chief end is to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. And we do this in the proclamation of the gospel, the gospel of Christ, the gospel of God's grace. This is what we are doing this very morning. This is what our text addresses, discipleship. conformity to Christ, being renewed in the image of God, which is the very nature of sanctification. And so our third point, let's turn now to our text and note the vital relationship between verses 12 and verse 13. And let's read these verses again. 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, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Verse 12 begins with, therefore, my beloved, In other words, verse 12 is connected to the broader text. It's connected to the Christ hymn that's found in verses 6 through 11. And Paul says with tenderness, with such affection, he says, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence. Here's the focus. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. And Paul in verse 12 has returned to exalting the church. And this exhortation to work out your own salvation actually goes back to Paul's primary exhortation in this letter, which is found in chapter one in verse 27, where Paul says, only let your manner of life as citizens of heaven be worthy of the gospel of Christ. And thus, what we find is that Paul is continuing to teach the church how it is that they are to live lives worthy of the gospel. Now, if we stop there, if we stopped at the end of verse 12, and we didn't continue on to verse 13, we might easily think that this verse, verse 12, has a pietistic flavor to it. As if it read like this, work out your salvation with fear and trembling exclamation mark. But Paul doesn't stop there. Verse 13 is integrally connected to verse 12. It begins with the word for or because it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. This is primary, so important. It's imperative for us in understanding how it is that believers are to work out their salvation. You see, if we don't have verse 13 as the foundation block in our thinking, then our theological house will collapse. If we are unable to affirm both verses 12 and 13 and know how they are connected, we may end up finding ourselves either in a pietistic legalism or in a quietistic lawlessness. Friends, at the core of these two verses are two statements. The first, in verse 12, is work out your salvation. That's the focus of verse 12. And then in verse 13, 4, that's the connector. That's the connector of verse 12 to verse 13, 4. Here's the primary thought in verse 13. It is God who works in you. There is no let go and let God in this text. You just can't find it there. There's also no finish what God began since it's now over to you. It's just not there. The truth concerning how believers are to live in Christ is found in both verses. God is the one who is at work in you, and therefore, believers, you and I, are to work out that which God is working in us. It's both and. It's not either or. And it's here that we see that we need a whole Bible theology. We cannot pick one verse to the exclusion of another verse. If you and I have to overlook certain verses in our theology in order to make our theology cohere, the theology is not adequately biblical or even true. We must affirm the complimentary verses and texts and truths of scripture lest we fall into error. and even deceive ourselves. See, time and again what we find is the affirmation of two simultaneous truths in scripture. You may ask the question, is Paul the author of the letter to the Philippians or is God the author? Do we affirm the agency and the authorial intent of the Holy Spirit who out breathes the very word of God? Or are we to affirm the human instrumentality and agency of the various human authors found in scripture? Well, it's both with the priority that is given to God as the divine author. And this is exactly what we find in second Peter chapter one and verse 21, which reads as follows. For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man. But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. What about the sovereignty of God and the liberty of man? Well, in Acts chapter 17 verse 21, we see that man is never for a second ever acting independently of God. For in him we live and move and have our being. We live, we move, we act because of him. And so the God of the Bible is not deistic. He is not removed from the world after first creating it so that God is now thoroughly inactive when you and I act. But on the other hand, the God of the Bible is not pantheistic either. as if his actions kind of melded into our actions. So scripture, it affirms the priority of God in all things, as well as the legitimacy of our actions. You see, in God's divine providence, he foreordains and decrees whatsoever will come to pass, all the while Man's freedom is simultaneously established and maintained. And then there's the issue before us today in this walk of faith. Is it me who is working or is it God? Who is the worker? Well, let's consider that in our fourth point under work. In each of our verses, the language, that's meaning verse 12 and verse 13, the language of work comes to the fore. You can't understand these texts without noting how work plays a central role in what God is saying here. And it's because of this, you and I need to be incredibly careful and clear when we consider the agency and the agents of work. In verse 13, we see that it's God who works in us. In verse 12, we see that those who are in Christ work out that which God has worked in them. And so what we find in verse 12 and verse 13 is that there are two workers. Described here, there are two workers, but there are also two manners of working. They differ vastly, and this is vitally important for us to grasp. If we confuse these, if we confuse who works and how they work, we're not going to grasp God's design of how the believer is to live in Christ. And so it's worth noting that Philippians chapter 2 and verse 12 and 13 is actually informed by what Paul says somewhat prior, way back in chapter 1 and verse 6, where Paul says, and I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you, that's the origin of our salvation, will bring it to completion on the day of Christ. It is God who began a good work in you. It is also true that He is presently working in you even now. And He will bring this work to completion when our bodies will be glorified at Christ's return. We, on the other hand, are to work out our salvation. We are to work out that which God has worked in us. We do not work up our salvation. We do not work in our salvation. We do not work for our salvation or unto salvation. There is only one way in which you and I, as believers in Christ, are to work, and that is to work out that which God has worked in us. Listen to Paul's testimony in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 10. Paul says the following, he says, but by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace towards me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is in me. This working of God and man is not to be understood as a kind of 50-50 partnership, like a business partnership or an agreement. One does 50%, the other does the other half. It's also Not a picture of two commanders on a battlefield where the one takes the left flank and the other takes the right so as to win the victory. This is not a picture in verse 12 and 13, our text this morning of God first working so that we finish what he did not complete. God will complete the good work that he has begun in us. What's remarkable is in that text that we just read in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul says, I worked harder than any of them, meaning any of the other apostles, though it was not I, but the grace of God that was in me. This was Paul working and God working. Paul's worked out that which God was working in him. It was not Paul's strength or Paul's power, but God's grace, God's enabling, God's working, God's affecting. The same can also be seen in Colossians chapter one. And Paul says, Christ, we proclaim warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom. that we may present everyone mature in Christ for this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. The believer is active, active with the energy and power of God. Earlier in Colossians chapter one, Paul talks about walking in a manner worthy of the Lord. This language worthy of the Lord reminds us of what we find in Philippians chapter one. Though this time in Colossians one, he uses the language in the light of walking in a manner worthy of the Lord of being fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. See, friends, for Paul, walking in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ involves working out your salvation. Paul refers to himself as an athlete who disciplines himself, who fights the good fight, who runs the race, who finishes the race, who has kept the faith. I mean, listen to his exhortation in 1 Corinthians 9. He says, do you not know that in a race all the runners run? But only one receives the prize. So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath. But we, speaking of believers, an imperishable one. So I do not run aimlessly. I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and I keep it under control lest after preaching to others, I myself would be disqualified. There's just no quietism here. This is not the language of letting go and letting God. This is a man who is working out what God is working in. Paul says, I've kept my body under control. That's the language of self-control. What's interesting is that self-control can be understood in two ways, two senses. The first is that self-control can be viewed as kind of pure discipline. It's filled with grit and focus and determination It's the kind of thing that you hear in the New Year's resolution at the beginning of the year. It's all about you and about your willpower, what we're gonna do. Just tough it out. This is what we're gonna take hold of. But this control is not what Paul is getting at. See, what Paul is talking about in his life is about self-control, the fruit of the Holy Spirit. as seen in Galatians chapter 5. See, Paul is controlling himself in reliance upon the power and the enabling grace of God. We need to bring this to a close and continue on next week since there's just so much that's found in these two verses. It's just hard to do justice to what we can do in one sermon. But before we do so, let's remember back what we read last week in the verses that immediately precede our text this morning. What was it? Well, we saw the Christ Him in verses 6 through 11, which is a creedal like statement concerning Christ who humbled himself by becoming obedient unto death, even death on a cross. And so God exalts him and gives him the name that is above every name. But immediately following these words, Paul says the following, therefore beloved, or one might say, so then beloved, as you have always obeyed, that is, as you have always obeyed Christ, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Follow the pattern and the example of Christ who lived in perfect obedience unto the will of God and unto the holy law. What's interesting is that in Romans, Paul writes twice about a little phrase, the obedience of faith. You find it in Romans one and verse five and Romans 16 and verse 26. It's the obedience of faith that belongs to those who are in Christ. And this actually is one of the characteristics of saving faith. The faith that rests upon Christ, that receives Christ, serves Christ, obeys Christ. We might remember that in James chapter two, we read that faith without works is dead. James is not referring here to what's known as justifying faith. He's referring to a dead faith, a faith that is entirely passive and that cannot produce any good works in obedience. James is not speaking about what Paul is concerned about in Romans, where the believer is saved by faith alone. James is saying that the faith by which a believer is saved is a living faith is unto obedience. And here we find the Westminster confession of faith to be incredibly helpful. It says that good works are the fruits and the evidences of a true and a lively faith in which the fruits of our lives are unto holiness. This is what Paul is getting at when he says later on in his letter to the Philippians in chapter four, he says, I, I can do all things through him who strengthens me. That's probably one verse in the Bible that is quoted out of context most frequently. And so friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, take heart, stand firm. God is presently working in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Let us discipline our bodies. Let us fight the good fight. Let us run the race so as to win the prize and to keep the faith. And let us do so all in the power and the strength of the Holy Spirit as we set our gaze upon him, upon Jesus, the founder and the perfecter of our faith. Let us read our Bibles, let us pray, not because we are pietistically better than other Christians, but because we recognize our great need for a savior. Because we desire to commune with God and to grow in our fellowship with Him. Because we delight in God's law and because we seek to renew our minds according to His matchless Word. And in our war against sin, let us fight not with mere personal discipline or rugged determination, But let us work out our salvation with fear and trembling, laboring in the power of God that is at work in you. Take heart, dear friends. Stand firm. Christ is with you, interceding for you, at work in you by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's pray. Thank you, great God, that you are at work in us even now. May we go from this place laboring in the power of God, which is so powerfully at work within us. We give you great praise. Amen.