Work Out Your Salvation with Fear and Trembling

Introduction

To work out your salvation with fear and trembling is to take faith seriously, and the Philippians 2:12-18 meaning is a call to shine like stars in a dark world. Revd. Mark Fletcher explains why we cannot do it alone: God works in you to will and to act, so do everything without grumbling.

Not far from here, just over the mountains in that direction, is a part of Switzerland which is known to be a dark sky zone. And what that means is that it is a place with very little light pollution. And it means that when the sky is clear, that you can see the night sky in all of its grandeur. And it is an awe-inspiring experience. In a place like that, despite the fact that it’s called a dark sky zone, you discover that the sky isn’t dark at all. It is ablaze with stars. And of course, for most of human history, that would have been all of our experience.

Stars were an experience of awe and wonder and beauty. They were also a way by which you could navigate and find your way safely home. And this wonderful passage in Philippians is a call to you and to me to shine like stars. So I hope you’re enjoying this remarkable letter to the Philippian church. It is written to equip Christians and to equip you to live well even in hard times, even in dark times. And Paul lays before them this wonderful call. He says in verse 12, Therefore, my dear friends, as you’ve always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Continue to work out your salvation in fear and trembling. It’s a wonderful phrase. I think it’s one to hold on to, to memorise. I don’t know when you started this journey of faith, whether that was a recent thing or it was many years ago. But what Paul is saying is that there is more that God has for you than you can possibly imagine. More to be done in our lives, more to learn, more to understand. Of course, our salvation has been won for us by Christ on the cross. As he said, it is finished. But the implication of this is that the outworking of salvation in our lives still has a long way to go. It will probably take a lifetime. You are a work in progress. And that work is not finished by a long way. That might be good news to you. It’s not finished yet. And I think it’s a really good thing for us to humbly recognise that we need work.

I think the phrase fear and trembling is quite a striking one. I don’t think it means quaking in your boots. I think it means in all seriousness. Work out your salvation in all seriousness. Although I think I would say that a healthy fear of the Lord is no bad thing. I don’t know if you know the saying which says, fear God and you need fear nothing else. And in our very anxious world, learning to treat God with the seriousness and respect that, frankly, he deserves is probably a very healthy thing. So what does it mean to work out our salvation? I’ve got two images for you, and I think we need both of these. So the first is that if we’re working something out, it is about understanding it better. And so if you feel like you’re not actually that clear on what it means to be a Christian, take that really seriously. Get to grips with it. Get to grips with the Bible. Take advice on what other people have found helpful in doing that. Look for good books or a good podcast. Seek wisdom from other people. You need to be working out your salvation, understanding it better so that you feel like you have a grip on what it is you are being called to do and to be.

The second is the idea of a workout. I know you’re all very keen on exercise and you, you probably have a very regimented plan for keeping fit. But there is a version of that which is about our spiritual health. A workout is exercise which improves our health and our strength. And I think we need that in our faith too. Christianity is not just about thinking straight. It is about living well too. It is theology, but it is also practice. Practice and good spiritual disciplines of daily prayer and Bible reading, of holiness of life, of working on your weakness may seem difficult, may require some willpower and commitment, but they are absolutely worth it.

Verse 14 says, Do everything without grumbling or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked generation. And in actual fact, I don’t know if you see, but there’s a reference there to a very famous Old Testament story, which is the, the, the Israelites rescued from Egypt, travelling through the wilderness on the way to their promised land. And I don’t know if you know that story. The thing that they were most famous for during that time was grumbling. They were never happy with what they had and what God had done for them. They were slaves in Egypt, and yet they spent their whole time looking back and thinking how great life was back then. And there is a real danger, I think, for us that we find it hard to put up with a little hardship now. You know, they were short-sighted. They were unwilling to sort of go through the difficult times for the sake of where God was leading them to. What God was doing was something amazing for them, but they found it very difficult to go through the wilderness. We were never promised that this would be easy, and we are investing in a life which will pay off. It pays off now, but it will absolutely pay off in the long run and in eternity. And we need to just kind of take hold of our tendency to grumble, to struggle with the hardship, to think things were better in the past. They are there as a warning to us. I wonder whether, in fact, the greatest witness to our friends and neighbours is our ability to travel through times of hardship, through times of wilderness, with hope, with faith, and with trust in the Lord. But here’s another thing, and it might be that this is actually the most important thing about working out our salvation, because you can’t do this alone. This might be one of the most sort of essential steps along the road. Verse 13 says, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose. You might be saying as we’re talking about these things that, well, this is all very well, but I’ve sort of heard this sermon before and I tried, but frankly, you know, it didn’t really really come to anything. If it feels like in your life of faith there’s quite a lot of trying and failing, that’s okay. There is grace enough for that. But I think also there is this kind of vital step of realising that actually you can’t do this by yourself. This isn’t self-help or self-improvement. It is salvation. It is God who comes to save us. And what that may well mean is therefore letting go of something essential, something like our pride or our desire to be in control, and being able to actually say to God, I need you because because I can’t do this by myself. You might know that the starting point of the hugely important and influential 12-step programme is to acknowledge that you can’t do this alone, that you need God. And if that’s true within the 12-step programme, how much more should it be true in our life of faith? There is this sort of essential prayer that you need to pray at some point in your Christian life to say, listen, God, I’ve tried. I can’t do it by myself. I feel like there should be some version of that every day. God, have mercy on me because I can’t do this by myself. Do you remember the story that Jesus told about the tax collector in the temple who just stood there and said, God, have mercy on me, a sinner. And Jesus was like, yeah. And he went home right with God. Realising we can’t do this by myself is an essential step of the journey. And the purposes that God has for you are wonderful. Verse 15, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked generation. And then you will shine amongst them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. It’s a beautiful picture. I’m always interested when Paul comes up with an image like that, and he’s so rooted in his Old Testament. So I discover that actually it’s a reference to the book of Daniel, which is a marvellous book of the Old Testament about these young men who are taken into captivity and yet are able to live so well in the midst of a very corrupt world, that they shine like stars. And the reference here is, and this is from Daniel 12, those who are wise will shine like the brightest of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and ever. Daniel says you are the wise, not because you are smarter or cleverer than everyone else, but because you have discovered the word of life. And this world desperately needs wise people right now. It needs trustworthy examples, faithful guides who can help people to find the right path.

So God is at work in you. It’s a remarkable thing that we say. And he is at work in you so that you might shine brightly because you show a better way to live. Your life shows the way to the one who is the source of life. So this is your mission if you choose to accept it. This is Paul’s challenge to you to choose to join in with what God is doing in your life so that you might shine as a light in the world like a star in the firmament. And one last thing: do you get the enormity of that? Because essentially what we’re saying is that what God is doing in the world right now you know when people sort of think, well, where is God? What’s he doing? Primarily what he is doing is that he is at work in ordinary people like you and me, restoring us in his image, building these communities filled with grace and truth that bring light and hope to a dark world. It’s an astonishing thing that we are called to be part of. And the legacy that you will leave in this world will be rooted in not what you own or what you’ve achieved, but in the person that you have become and the impact that that has on others. And that is a legacy that will never perish or fade, but will endure into eternity. But you cannot do this by yourself.

But if you allow God, if you will join in with what he is doing, he is at work in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purposes, that you will shine like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. Amen? Amen. Let’s just be still.