Philippians chapter 2 verses 12 and 13, these are God's words. Therefore, my beloved, as you 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 works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. So far, the reading of God's inspired and inerrant word Here the apostle is commanding the Philippians and the spirit is commanding us to pursue that holiness without which none of us will see the Lord, to pursue that likeness unto our Lord, purifying ourselves as even he is pure, because it is our hope. that when we see him we will be like him and he will be the firstborn among many brethren. What he has just finished setting before us in the preceding passage is the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. And if we are going to be those who love His glory, we need to pursue holiness with the right fear, with the right fear. So he says that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. And there's this crescendo of the glory of the Son and the Father being glorified in the glory of the Son. And he says, therefore, my beloved, as you pursue holiness, I don't want you to do it out of the fear of men. Do it out of the right fear. Because the apostle knows that when he comes around, everybody straightens up and acts a little bit better when the apostle's around. Or sometimes we try to avoid, those around whom we feel like we have to be better when they're around in our fleshliness. I once stood on the porch of a family that wasn't ready for a family visit, even though they knew it was coming, and listened to the mom say, shh, shh, shh, he's here, as they proceeded to not answer the door. And in those days, because we were poor, I had ridden my bike, and so I rode my bike home the couple of miles praying for that family. But you children know what it's like, too, when mom or dad come around the corner and suddenly you behave better than you were before. Or maybe you're just so involved in your wickedness at the time you finish those last couple of words. The apostle doesn't want them to obey like that, does he? He says, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. He says, if you are going to love Christ's glory instead of loving your own glory, then you are going to, when you don't have the extra pressure, and it's good pressure of the apostle being around or of your parents being around, which is good pressure, the Lord applies to you to love him and obey him. And so mom or dad come around and they say, now when mom or dad aren't around, or the apostle here is telling the Philippians, now when I'm not around, you're gonna have to work even harder to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Because then it is only God who sees, and he isn't applying that extra pressure. He says, therefore, since we should love the glory of Jesus, And there are those moments, whether it's in your secret heart, or where only God can see, or those moments and times where even your actions, only God can see. Those are the moments where the only thing that's going to happen by you being holy is, well, it's good for you, but only Jesus is going to be glorified in that moment. Because you're not going to get any glory of that. The apostle isn't going to say, oh, look how Iodia is doing today, and praise God for what I just saw Syntyche do. The only one who's going to get praise when you're by yourself, when you're not seen, is the Lord Jesus. And so he wants us to pursue holiness out of the right fear, a love for his glory, knowing that our Savior is glorified by his salvation being worked out in us. Not just a right fear, but a great fear. a great fear. Now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation, your own salvation with fear and trembling. Why? Because as you pursue holiness, You are participating in a work that is so great that as we just finished hearing last week in verses nine through 11, and the apostle is referring back to Isaiah 45, verses 21 through 25. And in that passage, the Lord said that he alone is God, there is no other. He alone is Savior, there is no other. And then he sends his son and says, my son is Savior. What's he saying? He says, my son is the alone God. My son has that name that is above every name. My son is Yahweh in the flesh. And so Jesus is being shown to be the creator who became a man to die for us and save us by your growing in holiness and my growing in holiness. What we do with him What we do in partnership with Him, in dependence upon Him, we'll see in a moment in verse 13, is glorious, is in the neutered sense of the word because it's overused, so overused, awesome. Is in the old sense of the word that many wouldn't understand, terrible. We are to tremble at the greatness of what is happening as you and I grow in holiness. Sophia is three. There's a lot she thinks she can do. There's a lot that we think she can't do. And there's a lot that she can do that we don't know that she can, because she's just getting smarter and more capable, faster than we can keep track. One thing that she has recently begun to do for me is when she sees me come in with my empty tea mug and she sees me go into the cabinet for some of those individually wrapped tea bags that we have in there, she says, me, me, me, me, me, and she comes running and she takes She takes those teabags, and then I know that I've got a minute or two. I can go use the restroom or whatever else it is I need to do because she has mastered opening those teabags just rightly and taking them out and putting them in the mug and draping the string over the side and placing the mug very carefully onto the hot water cooler right under the hot water spigot. And praise God, she is not trying to do the hot water part because that could She could hurt herself, damage herself with that. But I go and I come back and there's my tea mug perfectly placed with the bags perfectly in it. And she takes that so seriously. There isn't another person in this room who takes putting tea bags into a mug as seriously as Sophia Hakim. Why? because it's something that she can do with her daddy that makes a difference. The living God glorifies his son in the sanctification of those whom he is redeeming. And every single one of you has one person's sanctification that you are more involved with than anybody else's. your own. Work out your own salvation as someone who has been given to do something in partnership with the living God who has been assigned the sanctification of one particular individual in which Jesus Christ is going to be glorified as Yahweh in the flesh. So that as you learn to Put to death that rising heat of anger that comes from your flesh with that fruit of the spirit of patience and gentleness and self-control. as you learn to speak those words, always edifying words, no idle words, no harmful words. Your tongue is sanctified by God the Holy Spirit, and the labor that you put into that, and all the times where something comes out and you just, you wish it was a thing, right? Like when you send an email and you say, undo, undo, undo. Well, you can't undo the words. And as you wrestle with that, But you realize you are involved in this glorious, awesome, terrible, in the right sense of the word, activity of the sanctification of one of God's saints. And so pursue holiness with the right fear. And pursue not just with fear, but fear and trembling. Pursue holiness with great fear, but pursue it with great confidence. Don't tremble at how badly you feel it is going. It's not going to go that badly forever. Don't tremble at how weak you still are. Because the one with whom you are working, which is the reason that you're trembling to begin with, he's not weak. He's infinitely strong. And so as you pursue holiness, don't just do it with the right fear, a love for Christ's glory and not your own, fearing God instead of man. Not just with a great fear, fear and trembling, but with a great confidence. For it is God who works in you. Isn't that the application that the apostle made about the Philippians in the first chapter when he was thinking about them and he's thanking God for them? Says being confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. So there's that past point and then there's that future certain point. But all of your pursuing holiness are midpoints, aren't they? along the same process, God is working in you. You say, but I don't even want to be holy like I... He works in you to will. The thing that I do want to do, as far as the Lord has given me even good desires, I keep failing it. He works in you to do. He works in you to will. He works in you to do. It pleases Him. Not just the stuff that He's making you will, and the stuff that He's making you do pleases Him. it pleases Him to work in you, to carry you along. And so you can pursue holiness not just out of the right fear or love for His glory, not just out of great fear, amazement at who it is that you're working with, but with great confidence because of who it is who is working in you. The pursuit of holiness is a marvelous thing for a Christian. We live in an age in which in many of the churches they actually teach and think that pursuing holiness vigorously is somehow opposed to the gospel. Nothing could be further from the truth. Because if you love Christ's glory, and if you love to do that which brings Him glory, and if you have confidence that He is the one doing it, then you will pursue holiness with the right fear, with great fear, and with great confidence. Let's pray. How we thank you, Lord, for this portion of your word. How we thank you for the reality that you set before us in these two verses. Help us to see Jesus as we pursue holiness so that we will love the glory that he gets from that pursuit. so that we will be amazed at the greatness of what's happening as we pursue the holiness, and so that we will be dependent upon Him and confident in Him, as You work in us by Your Spirit, applying Your Son to us unto His glory and Your glory in Him, in whose name we ask it. Amen.