Bulletins - HOPE BIBLE FELLOWSHIP

Philippians 2:12-18
Title: Playing till the Whistle
Date: January 9, 2022

Introduction:

Illustration:
As a boy I played football. There are a lot of things that I picked up from those times. Not all of them are probably good but there are several things that have some pretty good life lessons in them. One of the main things I remember is that you play till the whistle. When the center hikes the ball and you get on your block or you are chasing down the tailback, you go until the whistle and you don’t stop. If you watch football on tv you will see guys who seem like they are tackled and down and guys stop playing before the whistle and the guy with the ball ends up gaining even more yardage or scoring. Many of those plays could be avoided if guys would do a couple of really basic things. 1. Play good basic skill football, tackling and whatnot. and 2. play till the whistle sounds. A lot of guys give up before the game is over. I watched Kenan and Asher’s soccer team this year and one of the opposing teams had a kid out there who would get beat off the ball and would end up just sitting down on the field before the game was over. Play till the whistle.
Those of us who have trusted in Jesus for salvation are being made more and more into the image of Jesus through a process called sanctification. It is a lifelong journey from the point of salvation until God calls us home in death or Jesus returns for His church. There may be a temptation for us to say, “okay, I know Jesus, I’m going to heaven. I’m good.” But that is not how this is supposed to work. Yes, salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus’ completed work on the cross and His resurrection. After we are converted to faith in Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to reside in us and grow us in the faith. So how is this connected to today’s passage?

This morning we are going to dive from the diving board of last week's passage on the humiliation of Christ, right into the waters of verses 12-18 where Paul makes a dramatic change from theological contemplation to practical implication. He’s moving us from understanding and believing the truths of this previous passage into the working out of these things in our lives as we are sanctified. It’s a cool process so let’s take a look at Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 through 18.

Follow along in your Bible or on your device as I read:

Philippians 2:12–18 ESV
12 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, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. 14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.

PRAY

I got to preparing this sermon and there’s just too much that I want to say and that I feel like I need to say to do it justice so we’re actually going to split the passage into two sermons. I’m going to preach the first part today and then the second part next week.
I want you to notice a couple of things right away about this passage. Notice how Paul refers to them as my beloved. I knew a pastor who referred to his congregation in this way and it seemed a little odd to me because we don't use that language today but this shows Paul's deep affection for the members of the Philippian church. His tone is very pastoral. He loves them deeply and out of that deep love he is able to speak earnestly and even plainly say hard things for them to hear. When you love someone you will tell them things that they need to hear even if they will be difficult for them to hear and for you to say. But I want to point out that Paul had a relationship with these people. He had labored among them as partners in the gospel. These were not some strangers on the street that he was exhorting. It is vital that we understand that.

At the beginning of this passage, we find a connecting word, "therefore." This is where Paul pivots from the deep and important theological contemplation of verses 5-11 into the implications of those verses in the lives of the Philippian believers. He's basically saying to them: "because of what I just said about the humiliation and person and work of Jesus Christ, do this... Then he gives them instruction.

To do this, Paul makes three main connections that I want us to focus on as we pull this passage apart and examine what it means and what we are to do in response to it. Those three connections are:

1. The connection between our work and God's work. (V. 12-13)
2. The connection between avoiding grumbling and shining as light sin the world. (V. 14-15)
3. The connection between sacrifice and rejoicing. (V. 16-18)

So let's begin by looking at the first connection, between our work and God's work.

I. The connection between our work and God's work. (v. 12-13)

If we aren’t careful we can get all twisted up with this passage. Paul is not saying to work for your salvation. He is NOT preaching a salvation by works. What he actually writes is “work out your salvation...” That is a giant difference. God worked salvation for us by His grace. Jesus completed the work of salvation on the cross. He even said, “It is finished.” That is what we call justification. We are justified by the work of Christ on the cross. Sanctification, according to Merida, is “about living in light of this gracious gift of salvation, living in light of our new position and our new identity. “

As he gets into this connection, the first thing Paul does is notes their obedience to Jesus. He observed their obedience.

1. Paul observed their obedience. (12)

Paul noticed that they had been obedient to God. This is obedience to the will and plan of God and not obedience to Paul. He commends them on their faithfulness to the things of God. Their obedience was evidence of their faith in God. The same is true of us today. If you say you have faith in God but your entire life is devoid of obedience to Him and you especially lack the desire to obey Him then that is evidence that you don’t have faith in God.

1 John 2:3–6 ESV
3 And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. 4 Whoever says “I know him” but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, 5 but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: 6 whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

1 John 5:3 ESV
3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

The rest of this message is not going to matter much to you if your heart has not been captured by Jesus.

So Paul is commending them. They had been consistent in their obedience of Jesus. He then moves from commending the obedience that he had observed in them to instructing them in continued obedience. We see this pattern with Paul. He tells them what good he noticed and then moves to instruction or commanding a certain obedience. This is the pattern for good disciple making. We should be mingling our encouragement and our exhortation. It’s that pastoral tone that Paul has with those who are under him or who he is discipling or leading.

2. Paul instructs their obedience. (12)

Paul is appealing to the entire community of believers, the whole church, to keep on in this obedience.... and that would mean adopting the humble attitude of Christ in their relationships with one another. You see the connection back to the previous passage and that wonderful Christological hymn on Jesus’ humiliation and exaltation?

What does Paul mean by working out one’s salvation? I said earlier that he’s not talking about earning salvation but is writing of sanctification.
We play board games at our house. When the boys were little guys, one of their favorites was the game “Sorry.” I can remember when one of our babysitters wanted to get them calmed down for bed one night she decided they would play a game and they chose “Sorry.” What poor Emma didn’t realize is that in our house “Sorry” is basically a full contact, blood sport. If you’ve played, there are these cards that allow you to take the place of one of your opponent's’ pieces who is farther along than you and send them back to start. It’s a free pass for you to get ahead in the game. Sanctification doesn’t work like that. There are no skip cards or pass cards. You can’t sit idly by and advance on the board. So Paul says to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. This just basically means with reverence and awe before God.
Working out our salvation means following the example of Christ day by day. The example was given just prior to this exhortation in verses 5-11.
Humble
Others-focused
God glorifying obedience
So, does your life look like those verses? If Christ has captured your heart then God in the scripture adjourns you to be like Jesus. Do the things Jesus did. Not to earn His love or acceptance but because you already have it!
There are no shortcuts. You have to step out everyday and live following Jesus. It is what Eugene Peterson called, “a long obedience in the same direction.”
I get it. It’s not sexy to the world. Some people want to go to church one Sunday and boom, be right there already. That’s not how this works. The life of a typical Christian is day in, day out faithfulness in the ordinary mundaneness of life. It’s truly being a Christ follower and imitating Him wherever He has placed you. He’s placed you in the job you have, the church you are part of, the school where you attend, the family you are in, etc… Will you be faithful to your God in all things in those places where He has placed you as His ambassador?
This working out has a personal component to it for sure. It also has a corporate component. The verb work out and the pronoun your have a plural form. This tells us that this is also a call for the believers to work to restore the harmony and unity in the church by serving each other and not looking alone to their own interests. We work out our own salvation but we also do so within the context of the local church alongside our brothers and sisters in Christ.

3. Paul offers encouragement. (13)

Paul then gives them this encouragement. It is not them doing the sanctifying but God working in them. Again, God is the only one who makes this possible in the life of a believer. D.A. Carson has a helpful note on this:

Exalting Jesus in Philippians (Comforting (2:13))
God is not working merely to strengthen us in our willing and acting. Paul’s language is stronger than that. God himself is working in us both to will and to act: he works in us at the level of our wills and at the level of our doing. But far from this being a disincentive to press on, Paul insists that this is an incentive. Assured as we are that God works in this way in his people, we should be all the more strongly resolved to will and to act in ways that please our Master. (Basics, 62; emphasis in original)

This is incredible motivation. God is working in us. So when He’s working on your heart and life, don’t resist. Live with reverence and awe before God and what He is doing and trust Him.
It is constant dependency on God. And we have sweet truths of Scripture to cling to:

Philippians 1:6 ESV
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

And He is working for His good purpose. Let that be comforting and encouraging to you.

Conclusion to Part 1

So how are you doing with this? I’m sure sometimes you feel like you’re doing better than others. The secret is not being perfect. You’re not going to obtain that on your own. Jesus lived perfection on your behalf. The secret is when you get off track you run back to Jesus. So where are you running this morning?
Has Jesus Christ truly captured your heart?
Are you ready to live your life before God in reverence and awe as you follow Jesus day in and day out?
Are you ready to serve others selflessly?
Are you ready to work out your salvation before God and the brothers and sisters of your local church family? Are you ready for harmony and unity as we travel this road together at different paces and each of us in different places along the road?

Prayer and response time.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
II. The connection between avoiding grumbling and shining as lights in the world. (v.14-15)

I’ve been going through the book “Lead” , by Paul David Tripp and I stumbled upon this quote yesterday and I knew I had to drop it into the sermon because it was so spot on with this.

Even though I may not be aware of it, my complaint about the bad service at a restaurant is not just a complaint about my particular server but also about the manager who trained her and watches how she does her work.Grumbling about horizontal difficulty is at once a complaint against the one who lords over those difficulties.
And here's what's deadly about this. A life of quiet or not so quiet complaint hammers away at your confidence in the wisdom, goodness, and faithfulness of God. It causes you to rest less comfortably in his care. Why? Well, because you tend not to seek out and rely on someone whom you no longer trust.

By holding firm to the word of life.

III. The connection between sacrifice and rejoicing.

Conclusion and call to action/response
- - Philippians 2:12–18HCSB

I. The connection between our work and God's work. (v. 12-13)

1. Paul observed their obedience. (12)

2. Paul instructs their obedience. (12)

3. Paul offers encouragement. (13)

II. The connection between avoiding grumbling and shining as lights in the world. (v.14-15)

III. The connection between sacrifice and rejoicing.

Philippians 2:12–18HCSB