Voices raised in a congregational choir. What a blessing that was to sing together. Philippians chapter number two. Philippians chapter number two. This is a passage that deals with one of those tensions of the Christian life. A tension between the sovereignty of God and the will of man. Because we come to this passage and we see the sovereignty of God so clearly told in verse 12 that God is at work, excuse me, verse 13, for it is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. And yet we see in verse number 12, we see the will of man. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And we have this tension in the Christian life, and we live in that tension each and every day as believers, and we, accept this tension and we live it by faith, trusting in the revealed truth of the word of God, trusting God day by day to live out, to have him work in us so we must then live out these truths of our salvation. I understand, I understand there's a good intention behind the phrase let go, and let God. I understand there's good intentions behind that phrase. Let go and let God. We're to let go of our self-dependency, and we're to trust in the Lord by appreciating the word of God, by appropriating the word of God, and by applying the word of God to our lives. We must submit to the Holy Spirit. Let him fill us. We receive the Holy Spirit at salvation. One indwelling, but many fillings. Because we need the Holy Spirit to control our life. We must yield. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. Be not drunk with wine, wearing as excess, but be filled with the Spirit, Ephesians 5.18 says. So we don't depend upon ourselves for our sanctification. We trust in the Lord. But at the same time, this good work that God has begun in us, that he desires to work out through us, involves spiritual disciplines, obedience, the action of faith, of obedient living, of righteous living. We were told, as we read in Philippians 1 and verse 6, as we studied a few weeks ago, being confident of this very thing, which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. What kind of a work has he begun in true believers? A good work. God is always at work. He is doing a good work in the lives of believers. And he will complete it. He will fulfill it. So this good work, it involves God working in us And in turn, then, we are working out our own salvation in fear and in trembling. So we see, first of all, this morning, the work of God in your life, the work of God in our lives, the work of God. Well, let's come back to verse number 12, wherefore my beloved. We see that transition word wherefore, and he's speaking to believers, my beloved, as he have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. He's saying, you have been obedient believers. Again, this church is about 14 years old. They have demonstrated some tremendous growth and maturity. Again, very little negative said about this church. Paul is once again commending them. He says, in my absence, you have been obedient, you have grown, you have taken root, and your roots have gone down deeply in the word of God and truth. And those who have ministered to you, we're not exactly sure who is the leadership in the church at this time or in the last decade. that Paul has been gone 10 plus years, 14 years now, but we know that they have responded to the truth of the word of God, they've responded to godly leadership, they've responded to the truth that they have been growing, and they have been obedient. And Paul says, even in my absence, you have obeyed. Now isn't that a delight as parents, or as a teacher, if you ever have to leave the classroom? It's rare that you can trust the class to behave. Oh, I know you can have that classroom monitor, right? And they're the goody, goody two-shoes. They're the nerd in the class. They're the ones that everybody points at, right? But even the classroom monitor can only do so much and write down the names and report them to the teacher. Nobody wants to be the snitch, right, the rat. But what about when we as parents, we leave the home or maybe as grandparents and, you know, there's that list of things that you tell your kids not to do. Certain chores, maybe you want them to have done. And when you come home, what's the first thing? Did you do everything I told you to do? What's wrong with the house, looking around, right? Paul is saying, I haven't been there as your pastor, as the missionary, as the evangelist. I was there for a time. There was persecution that came. We saw God bear fruit. The gospel bore fruit, the Philippian jailer and others. There's this church that has been formed and they have been growing, they're maturing. And Paul is saying, this is a tremendous joy to his heart, that even in his absence, they have been obedient, they have been faithful, they have matured, they have grown. There's great joy in that. He is speaking to the evidence of their salvation, but then at the end of verse 12, he says, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Work out. He doesn't say work for your salvation. He says, work out your salvation. And he says to do so with fear and trembling. and trembling. What's this phrase to work out mean? It means to continually, literally in the definition of the word, it means to continually work to bring something to fulfillment or completion. We see this word in our English language today. It's the word energy. We get the word energy from this phrase or this word worketh. It's also repeated in the phrase to do. So worketh and to do. That is the word that we get, our word in the English language, energy. Now we've been studying energy in science. We homeschool and I get to be, I have the privilege of being the science and the math teacher at home. I thoroughly enjoy it. I know that my student doesn't enjoy it as much as I do. But we just recently studied energy. We studied this, we studied energy. We talked about kinetic energy, energy in motion. We talked about currents, static electricity, potential energy, about electrons being concentrated in one place and then when something touches like a blanket on a cold day when you're all bundled up in the blanket and you go to kiss your wife and she gets shocked and it's her fault, not mine. Static electricity that jumps. There's energy. We talk about energy all the time in our culture. We talk about oil and all the petroleum products, and we talk about our utilities, and then we get into all of the solar and all the green types of energy. Energy is something that we are used to talking about. It's work being done. It's motion. Whether you're talking about electrons and electricity, or whether you're talking about oil and types of combustion, we're talking about work being done. Effort that results in something. There's a result to that effort. There's movement. There's growth. There's maturity. There's progress. There is work that's bringing about a result. Fulfillment. Completion. Again, this is working out, not working for. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Paul was writing to believers. He was concerned for their growth and their maturity, for it to continue. He wasn't saying, you have worked out your salvation really well, now you can just put it in cruise control, you can stick it in neutral, and you can just cruise the rest of the way to heaven. That's not at all what he's saying. He's commending them for their growth, for their maturity, for their faith, for their Christ-likeness, but he's saying there's a lot more work to do. We gotta keep working. You gotta keep working out your salvation. Remember, it is God that works in you. This work that he has begun in us, Philippians 1.6, it is ongoing until we get to heaven, until we reach that glorified state, until we are in the presence of God without sin. We're to work out what God has worked in. So this phrase, this word, this energy, It is used in the context of a few different areas. Some are in the Bible, as far as the use of this word. Some are illustrations from outside the specific context of the word of God, but we would be familiar with, and that they would be familiar with in the immediate context as he wrote to the Philippians by the inspiration of God. This word for energy, for doing a task, completing, bringing something to fulfillment, To completion by work, it would be used in the area of mining. A miner goes into that mine and is doing work to bring out coal or some sort of precious metal. There is a fulfillment. I don't know if any of you have ever had that kind of work or known people. I remember a gentleman who I met who was a coal miner in West Virginia. And that was what he did year after year after year for his career. And he would come home, and he would be covered from head to foot. And he would literally go straight to the shower. And he said they kept a bottle of dishwashing detergent, dishwashing liquid, because that's what he would have to use for his soap in order to get all of the powder and all off of his body. But there was a specific job. They were going in to mine that coal. It's used, this word is used in harvesting. Obviously, in an agricultural agrarian society, though they were a Roman colony, they would have been familiar with harvesting as well. Obviously, you go out and you plant a crop, you plant a garden, you go and you harvest that in the harvest time, in the harvest season. And there is a going out and there is work. Is there not work involved in harvesting? And I enjoy driving through the different fields around harvest time and there's huge combines. You know how you get stuck behind one on a two-lane road and you have to go 10 miles an hour until you can get around or they can move over or whatever? Huge amounts of work, huge silos, and the trucks that pull out into the fields, and all the work that is done in harvesting, just in your personal garden. All the work that has to be done in keeping the weeds out, and all the different animals that want to come and take your food, and there's all that work in harvesting. And then this is the same, this word is used in the same context of working out a math problem. So a few weeks ago, we were at our campus Bible study, and one of the Purdue students came in, and he had been working on, I believe it was, a calculus problem. And he described this calculus problem. And I said, sure, that looks like fun. No, I didn't say that. He brought this calculus problem into class, and he began to discuss how he had been working on this problem for hours. Students worked on it during our Bible study and they spent some more time afterward and were writing it on the board afterward. I cannot relate to calculus. That is working out a problem for hours. And I think he, I don't even know if he said he got it completely finished, but I don't remember the exact results of that. But I've taught algebra. I'm in the process of teaching algebra at home. and you get multi-step problems. One of the biggest things that I've often had to encourage students who hate math, who don't enjoy it, don't skip steps. You skip steps, you're gonna make mistakes. Don't try to keep it all in your head. Write it down. It takes time to work it out. You gotta write out the problem. You gotta rewrite. You gotta rewrite each step. You gotta put in the different, characters and numbers and you have to then do what at the end? You check your work. You substitute for the X and the Y. You make sure that things are all adding up or bouncing out. That takes work and I think that's one of the problems in education today is students who don't want to do work. It ought to be as easy as a eight-second TikTok video, right? It ought to be as easy as a 30-second reel or a short or a YouTube or a commercial. It ought to be that easy. I wish that life were that easy. I wish that everything would come that easy, but it doesn't, does it? Anything worth having takes work. And Paul is saying to believers, By the inspiration of God, preserved for us today, as well as the historical grammatical context, the spiritual life takes work. We are lazy Christians. And I'm not saying that it's wrong to be on social media. I'm not saying that at all. But social media quotes and verses and all those good little tidbits of good biblical advice that we can get in a quick scroll, those are good, they're encouraging, but that's not the work, the discipline of the Christian life that is necessary for good, solid, strong Christian character, integrity, growth, and the spiritual fruit that God wants to produce in our life. Oftentimes it takes trials, doesn't it? Oftentimes it takes the application of the Word of God in difficult times, in pointed times of decision, where we have to go to the Word of God, we have to get on our knees, we have to apply the truth of God's Word in order to work out what God has worked in through His Word, through prayer, through the Holy Spirit, that we work it out, that we Finish the problem. We harvest the fruits that we get the precious metal, the coal, whatever it is that we are mining. And we are sadly many times lazy, complacent, and sometimes just downright calloused Christians. We live in a world of comfort and convenience. And we think that Christianity, so often, we think that Christianity is just about comfort and convenience. And we just think that it should just come easily. We ought to be able to put our Bible underneath our pillows, lay down at night, and buy osmosis. We ought to be able to just get all of that. And we need to regularly, repetitively study, be a workman who rightly divides the word of truth so that we are not ashamed. as we're reminded in Timothy. Sanctification is a process whereby God works in us as we respond submissively to the word of God and to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The work of God in us is worked out in godly character, the fruit of the Spirit, the virtues of the Christian life that result in obedience and holy living. It is the wide road that leads to destruction, Jesus says. And many times, the neon flashing lights are the easy road, is the broad road, right? That's the easy way. Most often, The broad way, the wide road that leads to destruction is the easy way, because that's the way Satan masquerades it. Satan masquerades sin as easy, as fun, as convenient, as comfortable, and we get so conditioned by this world and this culture that it's sometimes scary to think of how far removed we are, really. from sold out committed service for the Lord into true disciplined sanctification that God is working in that we then must be working out. Why does he say we work out our own salvation? Because God is working in us, but notice how he says to work out our own salvation in fear and in trembling. This word fear literally is the word reverence. It's not wanting to offend a holy God. You ever had somebody that you just really looked up to? A coach, a teacher, mom or dad, whoever it is, have you ever had that person that you just really respected and you just didn't want to disappoint them? You just didn't want to displease them? brought tears to your eyes, you were extremely apologetic if you ever did or said something that you knew was a disappointment to them. Why are we not that way when it comes to our Lord and Savior, to our God? We're to work out this salvation, our own, our salvation, work out the salvation that God has by His grace saved us with. And we're now to be working that out as he has worked in us, as he's doing this good work, as we are working out our own salvation, we're to do so in fear, in reverence, in holy reverence, not wanting to offend our Savior, our holy God. Work out our own salvation in fear and also in trembling. Trembling is an anxiety, literally it's an anxiety about one's ability that causes a dependence on another. An anxiety about my ability that causes me to depend on another. Think about that. As we work out our own salvation, there's a fear, a reverence, a respect for God, a holy fear. There's a trembling. I am anxious about my inability. That's a good thing. because that forces me to depend upon the Lord. So even as I'm working out in the spiritual disciplines, in the study, in the faithfulness, in the church attendance, in all of the areas of Christian character that God is developing, even in all of that, I'm doing so in fear, reverence, and in trembling, recognizing it's not my ability. I'm dependent on Him. I must depend upon the work of God in my life the Holy Spirit, the truth of God's Word. Appreciating the Word of God, appropriating the Word of God, and applying the Word of God, and submitting to the Holy Spirit. I know this tension, it comes to mind as we read these passages. And it's a tension that we all face as true believers, that Paul wrote about so well in Romans chapter number 7. that's summarized even in John 15 in verse five where Jesus said, I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me ye can do nothing. Work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. This is the work of God in our life. And then we come to verse 13. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure. God has an intended purpose for His work in our life. It is Christ's likeness. Romans 8 and verse 29. His good pleasure means for his glory. So in the context, we can conclude that God's will for our life is Christlikeness. And he will always do, God will always do what is best to produce Christlikeness in our lives. We're gonna sing a song, Lord willing, tonight about the steps of a good man. And in that song it says, Lord make me Christ-like, whatever it takes. That's a hard verse to sing. Because we don't always like what God decides is best to make us Christ-like. And when we get bitter and we get angry and we fight against what God has deemed best, we find ourselves in a lot of trouble. We find ourselves kicking against the pricks. And we don't have the joy of the Lord that he desires for us, that is our strength, as Nehemiah says. So in understanding that God is at work, both to will and to do of his good pleasure, we have to submit to what God knows is best to produce within us Christlikeness. That means a willingness. That means a submissiveness. That means an obedience. I remember studying and I remember straining over what the will of God was for my life. I knew that God had called me to preach, but where and when and how and all that, that struggle and going through college. not having a girlfriend, and not coming out of seminary, and not having any prospects, and just wondering what God was doing. We get to those times in our life, and we wonder, and we struggle, don't we? What is God doing in this working out both the will and to do of his good pleasure? And see, the temptation, the temptation is to try to find easy or the comfortable, the convenient way out. But when we discipline ourselves to service, to supplication, to study of scriptures, to sanctified living, to soul winning evangelism, we find that there is great joy in seeing the will of God, the will and to do of his good pleasure worked out in our lives. Paul, near the end of his life, said, I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. While also saying in Galatians 2 in verse 20, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul lived in that tension. He taught that tension. We live out the spiritual disciplines trusting in the power of God at work in us for God to fulfill his will and for us to experience the joy and the rewards that he desires to bless us with. But it's all ultimately for his glory to produce Christ-likeness within us. This tension is hard for us because we want to go to one extreme or we want to go to the other. The temptation can be even to, well, I'll just expect if I just do the certain dutiful things of the Christian life, if I just check the boxes, then I'll just become spiritual. Or the other is to just become overly lazy and comfortable and convenient and try to stay out of all the hard work and discipline and service of the Christian life. I'm not gonna step out. go into the deep waters, I'm not gonna cast the net on the other side, because I don't want the fish that God probably has for me. I'm gonna have to cook and clean and do all, and that's the way, that's our attitude sometimes. And yet we see unbelievers sometimes much more serious about their sin than believers are about their sanctification, sadly. I fear sometimes that we aren't where we should be as believers. As God works in us, he wants to work out that salvation in the service of the Lord. Faith, as I often say, faith has hiking boots on. Faith has running shoes on. Faith has work boots on. Sometimes faith has slippers of compassion, because our ministry of service is compassion. Sometimes our faith has the, as we're told that we should have on all the time in the armor of God, our feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. That should be on all the time, the opportunities that God gives us to share the gospel. But it's over and over throughout scripture that we see that our faith has work has effort, has service, has discipline associated with it. But it is ultimately God who is doing the work in us to fulfill his will to do of his good pleasure. So we see the work of God in our lives. And then we come down to verse number 14, and we see the witness of God through our lives. The witness of God through our lives. See, why does Paul go to verse 14 and speak of complaining and griping, murmurings and disputings? Because he just addressed what God is doing. in our lives, both to will and to do of His good pleasure as we work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. What's the temptation? When we don't like what God has deemed best for us to produce Christ's likeness, to bring Him glory, what's the temptation? I've done it. I still do it to my own shame. I wanna gripe and I wanna complain. These are convicting words, verse 14. This word murmuring has to do with muttering. It literally refers to secret debates, secret displeasure. We've all dealt with it, we've been guilty of it on the other side, maybe as a student, as a child. But there's that muttering when the child is not in agreement. when the student is not in agreement. Oh, they're not gonna speak it out and say it, right? We talk about body language. I've dealt with students and sat them in my office and sat them down and, oh, I didn't say anything disrespectful. I said, but did you roll your eyes? Well, what about your, and I start going through the body language. And so I'll even, I would even say to students that everything that you said, did, showed, looked, Did it express respect? And then I would find that they would drop their heads and they'd realize that their body language showed disrespect. And then there's that quiet, right, kind of underneath their breath. Teacher, mom, dad can't really hear or understand what they're saying, but there's something, that's the murmurings. The secret debates, the secret displeasure in our hearts. That old saying where I might be standing up on the outside, but I'm sitting down on the inside, as that child is obeying, but not in their heart. Murmurings, and then he says disputings. This is doubting deliberations, questioning what is true. These are literally specific criticisms of the ways of God. Saying, God, you are not fair. God, this isn't right. Why are you doing this? And we understand that there's a time where, in a respectful way, we can ask why. Job did that. But this is that disrespectful why. God, you don't know what you're doing. Those irreverent accusations, questioning what is true, complaining, griping, murmuring, disputing, it is a sign of personal displeasure at God's sovereignty over the affairs of our life. That is convicting, because griping and complaining, murmuring and disputing, ultimately is a sign of a lack of faith in God. It is questioning the very goodness of a holy God. When a Christian gripes and complains, the unsaved take notes. Our children take note when we gripe and complain, doubly so begin the ministry when or if I let the burdens of the ministry become a complaint and a griping, then why would my kids want anything to do with church, with the ministry, with serving God? What about for those who aren't in vocational ministry, just in the church? when it's roast preacher for lunch, when it's roast church member, and potluck member broiling in the oven in the crock pot. And we don't take it to God, we don't deal with it in the Matthew 18, Galatians 5, Galatians 6 method. But we instead, we gripe and complain and we pick up Confederates, and the next thing you know, there's gossip and backbiting. And the stirring up, and Paul has to even remind Philippians of the two women who are stirring up controversy in the church that he's concerned about. How dangerous griping and complaining can be. The unsaved take note, our children take note, others in the ministry take note, those in the church take note. The believer's faith, the believer's commitment begins to be questioned. The very truths of the word of God even become doubtful. and reasons for accusation. We know the illustrations well. We often think of the children of Israel. When we think of complaining, that's one of the first groups of people that come to mind, besides myself, is the children of Israel. God brought them out of Egypt. They were slaves. They were being mistreated. God delivered them. 10 plagues. crossing the Red Sea, they get into the wilderness and they're complaining about lack of food, lack of water, as if God wasn't going to take care of them. Over and over and over we see the complaining of the Israelites to the point that God would send plagues. Thousands of Israelites died in the wilderness. Because of griping and complaining, yes there was immorality, yes there was idolatry, and eventually those immoralities and those idolatries would creep into the kingdoms of Judah and Israel and lead to their conquest by Babylon and the Assyrians. But think about in the wilderness where God was leading them in a theocratic kingdom with the law and providing for them every step of the way and they would complain even to the point that they would rise up like Korah and they would bring accusations against Moses and God would literally open up the earth and swallow up those in rebellion. Where even Miriam, Moses' sister, was struck with leprosy. complaining and griping. It is a serious sin. It is an accusation about the very goodness and holy character of God. God did not take it lightly and still does not. And Paul's warning the Philippians, he's warning us. God is warning us right here in this context, as God is doing his good work. Working out, excuse me, working in and we are working out in fear and trembling our own salvation and God is working in Both to will to do of his good pleasure watch out that we don't become murmurs and disputers gripers and complainers He says rather in verse 15 that ye may be blameless and harmless the sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom he shine as lights in the world that you may be what blameless and and harmless. Blameless literally cannot be criticized because of evil. As one commentator said, cannot be criticized because of evil. Free from fault or defect. Faultless is how it's also translated in the King James. Blameless. If there's a dart, and you throw it at the dartboard, it sticks in the cork, but it doesn't stick in the metal or whatever hard surface you have behind, hopefully you have behind the dartboard so that you're not putting holes in the wall, right? It sticks in the drywall, sticks in the cork. That's the idea of these words, blameless and harmless. Harmless is basically the same kind of nuance of meaning. Harmless means sincere, pure, innocent. A believer's life obviously should be holy, should be pure, but the idea here is there's nothing to stick to. That even is continued down where we see in verse 15, without rebuke, really Paul is kind of turning the prism, blameless, harmless, without rebuke. And these all kind of capture the same meaning of the believer's life being above reproach, that the dart has nothing to stick to in our lives. That the mud that they want to sling at us doesn't stick to our lives. It falls off because we are above reproach. Not perfect, not sinless, but blameless, harmless, without reproach. Not bringing reproach on the name of Christ because of our sinful activities, because of our immoral choices, or questionable morality. Believers who are more like a Teflon surface, that there's no accusation of sin or evil that can stick to it. Not being able to lay a charge of sin against us. Peter talks about this. 2 Peter about our lives as believers not contributing to the sins and the vices of this culture. When we are contributing to the sins and the vices of this culture, the sins and the vices that the world is known for, then no wonder when accusations are made that the dart sticks, the mud sticks, because the believer's life is not holy, harmless, blameless, above reproach. And again, in the context, God is working out His will in our lives, to will and to do of His good pleasure. In the context, He talks about complaining and griping, murmurings and disputings. But then he continues in these analogies. He talks about sons of God as true believers. We should be blameless, harmless, without rebuke. And he says, in contrast to what? In contrast to a crooked and perverse nation. Philippi was a Roman colony known for its Roman citizenship and all of the standards and rules and laws of a Roman colony. They would immediately put that in the context of different from the Romans, who had adopted some of the Greek culture and the mythologies and the paganism. And we know that Rome is known for its immorality and its idolatry, its paganism, deifying emperors. Literally, the Roman Empire collapsed from within. Yes, eventually, the barbarians, the Goths, and the other groups came in and conquered it, but it was imploding. because it was corrupt from within. Are we not seeing that in America today? We are imploding. We're seeing threats from all different kinds of places, but if we don't have the character, the integrity, the godliness, the righteous character, then we have no defense against the wiles of the devil. And he's saying here that you live in a crooked and perverse nation. We have no doubt, no doubt today that we live in a perverse and crooked nation, don't we? It's on the news all the time. But believers should stand out like stars in the night sky. I have enjoyed a little bit growing up in the city. I have been able to be outside a little bit more in the country and less city lights. I have a little astronomer in my house now, and we've enjoyed getting outside and seeing the moon and enjoying some of the night sky. And the other night, we were out, I forget exactly where it was. We were at the Clark's house. And we were coming home. We got out, and we looked up. Wow. The stars. We just had not been aware, I guess, of being in the city so much. I remember going to Kenya and being on a mission trip and we were down right along the equator and came out and looked up and it was incredible, the number of stars, unbelievable. I'd never seen anything like it. We as believers should stand out, not an obnoxious, rude, known for our wrong kind of spirit, wrong disposition, but known for our Christ-likeness that shines bright in a dark world, that shines bright like stars in the night sky, known for our righteousness, our holiness, our harmlessness, our blamelessness, being above reproach. that is distinct and different from a crooked and perverse nation. Crooked means literally out of line, out of order. Is our culture not out of line, out of order from God's holy standards? Perverse has to do with opposed to the very plan and purposes of God, turning aside from the right path. Are we not in a nation now in a culture that is opposed to God? His Word and the purposes, the plans, and the designs of God for this world, we are in that kind of crooked and perverse nation. And we're to shine as lights, bright lights. In doing so, we are also, in verse 16, to hold forth the Word of Life. Shining as stars, bright stars. with the background of a night sky shining as righteous, godly people in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, we hold forth, we hold out, we hold forth the word of life. It literally has to do with holding forth like a serving dish that someone can then take their plate and their spoon and dish out. It's holding forth the word of life. taking the gospel, declaring the truth, preaching, teaching in our homes, sharing the word of God and evangelism, and pointing people to the truth in our homes, our workplaces, wherever God has called us, holding forth the word of life. He says in verse 16, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ. Paul says there's the day of Christ coming. The Day of Christ references the glorified state, it references the rapture, the resurrection, we can put it in a general category. It's the idea of the Day of Christ, of the time that Paul enters into glory, and the believers eventually all with him in the Day of Christ. They will be rejoicing that the Word of God has been declared, that there has been a harmlessness, a blamelessness, that there has been a shining light of Christian character, of godliness, that there is a rejoicing. He's speaking even to rewards in heaven, that the way we live now matters for eternity, that God is keeping in account that there are heavenly rewards, that there is treasure being laid up in heaven, that there is gold and silver and precious stones, and we are not to be laying up wood, hay, and stubble, but gold and silver and precious stones, that there will be a rejoicing in the day of Christ. And Paul says that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. He's even saying the working out of the will of God in those lives of the Philippians would bring rejoicing to him and to them in the day of glory, in the day of Christ. But also it is a personal satisfaction to Paul that their spiritual growth and maturity shows that his ministry has not been in vain. Paul says this in humility. He's not in pride and arrogance saying this. But again, I cannot help but relate as a pastor, or even as a father, seeing our children walk in truth, seeing God's people who God has called a man to lead and seeing them grow, seeing them have victory over sin, seeing them mature in the faith, seeing them raise their kids right and getting baptized and all of the growth and the truth that is worked out in their life. There is great joy and there is a satisfaction in that. And as parents, we know that there's no greater joy to see our children walk in truth. That's the aspect that Paul is writing in in verse 16. But we close in verses 17 and 18. Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. You see the theme again of joy and rejoicing in their growth and their maturity and their walking in the truth. For the same cause also do ye joy and rejoice with me. There is a great mutual joy and joy and satisfaction. and coming alongside believers, seeing people saved, and coming alongside believers in the discipleship process, seeing the word of God work, seeing good Christ-like character being developed, seeing sin overcome, and Paul simply concludes in verses 17 and 18 that there is a mutual joy and satisfaction that brings great Glory to God. Yes, satisfaction to our lives as we see each other grow in our relationship with the Lord, and see relationships restored and done right, and marriages last, and kids raised, and going out to serve the Lord, and setting their affections on things above, and seeing ministries develop, and not just ministries for the sake of ministry, but ministry for the sake of Christlikeness and growth and maturity. Seeing all of those things, seeing God's people serve, and seeing God's people step out in faith, and seeing God's people have victory. All of that brings great joy and rejoicing for both the discipler as well as the disciplee, for the mom and the dad as well as for the child. And there is nothing else on this side of heaven that can quite describe that joy. But that's what God desires and you feel almost sense as you read in this passage the heart of Paul. And that is God's desire for us. He wants his best to be worked out in our lives. So as we live with this tension of God working in our lives and working out our own salvation, fear and trembling, it should keep us dependent upon the Lord, reverence and respectful, loving what God loves, hating what God hates. And the result will be the witness of our lives shining as bright stars in the night sky in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, displaying and declaring the word of God in sacrifice and service for the Lord. That's the same cause. Also do ye joy and rejoice. with me that Paul writes about. May that be true of our lives here at Berean Baptist Church to God's honor, to his glory. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for the truth of your word. Thank you for the burden of Paul. Thank you for the inspired word of God preserved for us that we can read from your holy word these great truths and apply them, Lord. May we go out from here, doers of the word, that we might see the joy and the rejoicing in each of our lives as we see you do your work in our lives, as we work out our own salvation in fear and trembling, being harmless and blameless and above reproach as sons of God shining as lights in the world. May that be true of us as you do your work in our lives. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Jake is going to come.