Becoming Who God is Creating Us to Be

0:55They've been ordered to bring him home to his mother, who has already lost two other sons in the war. And as the movie progresses, we witness Captain Miller and his men endure incredible hardships and many of them die. They lose their lives saving this one man. And in the end, they accomplish their mission. Private Ryan is saved. But as the mission ends, Captain Miller is shot and lies dying. And as he's dying, he pulls Ryan close to him. And with his last dying breath, he gasps.

1:30James, earn this. Earn it. Of course, we know what Captain Miller is telling young private Ryan. Hank's character didn't mean earn it in the sense that Ryan had to go save himself all over again from the enemy troops, but earn it in the sense that he was now to go back and to work and to live in such a way that was in line with and enabled by what had already been done for him, what had been accomplished for him, namely his salvation. I think that scene is illustrative of today's text, Philippians 2, verses 12 through 18. Now, we're going to walk through the whole text, but my main focus this morning is going to be verses 12 and 13, where we find the main command of this passage, which is to work out our salvation, but we do this working out of our salvation in line with and enabled by what has already been done for us.

2:32To help us dig into today's text, I have a thesis statement that I think kind of sums up and encapsulates this passage. So I'm going to give that to you, and then I'm going to go back to the text and try to prove that statement from the text. So here's my thesis statement for this morning. We are to actively, earnestly, and humbly become the people whom God is actively, sovereignly enjoying. Joyfully creating us to be. Now, I know that's a mouthful, so I'm going to say it again.

3:04We are to actively and earnestly and humbly become the people whom God is actively, sovereignly, and joyfully creating us to be. I believe that Philippians 2, especially verses 12 and 13, are one of the most important passages in all of the Bible. I believe it's one of the most important passages to understand an aspect of our salvation which we call sanctification. Sanctification is the process in our life by which we are becoming more holy, that we are maturing, that we are growing spiritually, becoming like Christ.

3:46And in this text today, we see the great mystery of our real responsibility for our own spiritual maturity and God's absolute sovereignty over our spiritual maturity. So look with me at verse 12. Verse 12 begins with the word therefore. So just like last week, I'm going to stop right there. I always stop when I say a therefore because, as you've probably heard before, you need to ask why the therefore is there for, what it's there for. And so this points us back. It points us back to something, back to what? Back to what we studied last week. And if you recall, last week, or chapter 2, verses 1 through 11, they themselves pointed back. To chapter 1, verse 27, where we saw that those who are going to live lives worthy of the gospel are called to pursue unity in the church, a unity equipped by gospel realities, chapter 2, verse 1, evidenced by a humble mentality laid out for us in chapter 2, verses 2 through 4, which is ultimately empowered by our new identity in Christ, chapter 2, verse 5.

4:57So we had to have this mentality which is ours in Christ. And so in verses 6 through 11 of chapter 2, we have this beautiful Christological hymn that describes the self-sacrificing humility of Christ that we are called to and empowered to emulate. So I want to read some of those verses again, those mind-blowing verses. Let's go back to verse 6. We're going to pick it up with the word though. Though he was in the form of God, did not, as referring to Jesus, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant and being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient. Now there's the key word. I want to see how that connects with today's text. He became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So the therefore in verse 12 of today's passage, Is pointing back to this text, and we see a connection with the word obey. There's this obedience of Christ, and we're told in this text, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed. Their obedience was to be modeled after Christ's obedience of chapter 2, verse 8. And what was the essence of Christ's obedience? It was self-sacrificial humility. It was this humbling of himself.

6:24And so, this obedience was to be the consistent pattern of their lives, not just what they did when the spotlight was on them. As you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence. I'll give you an experiment to try at home. If you have children in the home or wives, if you have a husband, all right? I'll give you an experiment. An hour before supper, cook some really good cookies, their favorite cookies. They're hot and warm, and oh, the smell is amazing. And then put those cookies in a little plate there and say, you know what, we've got an hour before supper. You can't have any cookies until after supper. And then I want you to leave the room. But set your phone up with the video camera rolling.

7:13And I can almost guarantee you, with the children and perhaps the husbands, they might at least go over and smell those cookies. It might break off a little piece of one of the cookies. It might just go ahead and take one. I mean, there's 20 cookies there. Is she going to miss one if I just go ahead and eat it now? But of course, the measure of our child or our husband's obedience isn't what they do when you're in the room with them, it's what they do when you leave the room. So, too, the measure of the genuineness of our Christian walk is what we do when no one is looking.

7:48It's how we live when no one's paying attention. So, Paul says here, obey, yes, like you do when I'm there, but even much more in my absence. Therefore, my beloved brothers, as you've always obeyed, and now we get to this exhortation. Okay, this is the main command of this text: work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. So, this call to work out our salvation is the act of obedience, and the substance of that obedience, again, is for us to imitate Christ's self-sacrificial humility, which, as we learned last week, is the key to Christian unity.

8:29So, we are to work out, and this is a present tense imperative, meaning that it is a command, not a suggestion. This is not an optional exercise. But what does it mean? What does it mean to work out? Well, this verb, katurgazomai, was also used by secular Roman writers to describe the working of a mine with the goal of extracting all of the precious metals. It was also used by secular writers to refer to the work. Of a field to reap the harvest. So it clearly implies hard work to produce something.

9:07But we don't just have to look at the secular Roman authors. We can look at how Paul used this word. He uses it 19 other times in his epistles. And in most of those usages, when Paul uses this verb, our English translation, our English Bibles translate it as the word produce. Produce. So for example, 2 Corinthians 7:10, for godly grief produces, it's the same verb, cater gazomai, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. Whereas worldly grief produces, there it is used again, death. So we see that word translated in most of the cases as the word produce, but then in other places it's translated in our English as to cause or to bring about.

9:52So the Apostle Paul normally uses this verb to mean to produce, to cause, or to bring about. And so we need to assume that that's how he's using it here as well. But when we substitute those words into this passage, it sounds strange to us. To produce your own salvation, to cause your own salvation, to bring about your own salvation. It sounds like heresy when we use those words. Doesn't the Bible teach that we cannot produce or cause or bring about our own salvation? Well, yes, it does. Hence why many commentators on this this passage are hesitant To give the same meaning to Paul's usage of the word here that he has in other places. But, friends, I don't think we have to dance around the meaning of this word. I just think we need to understand in what way we are called to produce our salvation and what aspect of our salvation that we are talking about. So, the question is, therefore, what does salvation mean here? What is Paul talking about? So, we need to understand that Paul uses the word salvation or the verb to be saved in three different ways in his epistles. First of all, sometimes he uses the word to be saved or salvation in the past tense, and when he's using it in that way, he's usually referring to our justification, our justification. This is what God has done for us, it's a monergistic work of God. The only thing we can contribute to our justification is the sin that necessitates it. But God does all the justifying. And then there's the use that Paul uses of this salvation or be saved in a present tense sense, and I think that's how he's using it today in reference to our sanctification. Our sanctification is this synergistic work where we come alongside what God is already doing in us and we participate in it. We still don't get any credit for it, it's God's work in us, but we participate in it. So, that's more the present tense use, and then there's a future tense use of the word to be saved or salvation. Salvation that refers to our glorification. It's something still yet to come. It's what our justification secured, and it's what our sanctification is heading toward. And that is that we will one day be perfect and complete.

12:12So, to make it real and not just some abstract theological categories, let's look at the Bible at three different uses of this word from three different texts of Scripture. First, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. And this is the past tense. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. And then let's look at 1 Corinthians 1:18. This is more of a present tense use of this word here. We see, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. So there's this word that's working something in us right now. And we'll see later on in the sermon that the word of God is actually the means God uses to sanctify us. So there's this power happening right now as we are being saved. And then there's a future use. And so I chose Romans 3:11. It says this, besides this, you know the time that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer. Okay, so it's referring to something yet to happen. Salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. So I think that in today's text, it's my opinion that in today's text, we are being taught that there is an obedience that is a self-sacrificing. Humility that produces or works out sanctification, that is, the present tense sense of salvation. So there's this present tense salvation that is working out in our lives as we are obedient, self-sacrificing, humble. It works itself out into our lives. I think we see something similar in 1 Timothy 4:16. Paul says this to young Timothy: Keep a close watch on yourself and your teaching. Persist in this, for by doing so, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Okay, Timothy can't save himself or his hearers in the justification sense of salvation, but his obedience and his persistence in teaching sound doctrine can produce holiness in them. It can make them more like Christ. So that he is saving them in the sanctification sense of the word. So when we live selfless, sacrificial, humble lives, we are living lives of obedience in step with the example we've been given in Christ, and we are thereby being sanctified. We are actually becoming more like Christ in the process. We are being conformed to his image. Holiness, Christ's likeness, therefore, is being worked out. It's being produced in us. It's being caused in us, brought about in us, and we are active participants in it. This verb here, work out, clearly implies active, earnest, hard work.

15:00Scriptures never refer to our Christian growth as something passive that we just sit back and let happen to us. Rather, the Bible calls on us to strive or to toil or to put sin to death or to put off the old and put on the new and so on and so on. The Christian life involves active, earnest, hard work. We are called to be productive. And this hard work should be done with fear and trembling, according to the Apostle Paul here. That is, we should feel the weightiness of this command. I'm sorry, if you don't feel the weightiness of the command to work out your own salvation, then perhaps there's something else wrong in your heart. We should feel the heaviness of this. And so it is to be done with fear and trembling. Not a fearful anxiety which frets over our weaknesses, but in awe that puny old us are called to such a task. In awe that we are called to come alongside and participate in what God's doing. It's an awe that should drive us to our knees in prayer, begging God to equip us for the task. It's an awe that recognizes that we can only do this. We can only do what God is commanding us to do here if He's at work in us.

16:19We can only mine the precious metals from that mine if the precious metals are already there. We can only harvest the field if God has already planted something for us to harvest. And so, to go back to my first illustration, if we could see the rest of private Ryan's life, I don't think there was a sequel, not that I'm aware of, but if we could see the rest of his life, I'm sure that he lived his life with a certain amount of awe and reverence for what had been done for him.

16:50I'm sure he lived his life that way. And so, Paul here makes it clear: work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For, and now we come to the ground: for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. And therein lies one of the most powerful statements of God's sovereignty alongside our responsibility. So, we produce sanctification through our obedience only because he is at work in us through his indwelling spirit. So, it's outward acts that are enabled by inward facts.

17:28As John Piper put it, he said, God causes the miracle of our obedience that leads to salvation, but we act the miracle. But the reason I think that it's important for us to understand that this word work out is an active, earnest producing is because sometimes when we get to verse 13 about God's sovereign work in us, we can default to sort of a fatalistic let go and let God attitude. This passage of scripture does not allow us to have that attitude. We cannot be let go and let God. I'll just sit back and see what God says. Does we have to hold on to the tension? Now, I've used this illustration before many times because it helps me understand the tension between God's sovereignty and our responsibility. So, let's imagine we have a wall over here that represents God's absolute sovereignty. And we have a wall over here that represents our moral responsibility that we're given by God through free agency that we have as moral creatures. And so, we have a bungee cord attached to this wall. And we have a bungee cord attached to this wall. And what we want to be able to do in our tiny little minds is to figure out some way to hook those two together so that we can kind of let go of the tension and say, okay, I understand it completely now. God's absolutely sovereign, yet I've got to make free choices. And we want to be able to somehow just explain it away, but we can't do that. The tension's there in the scriptures. And so we have to hold on to both those two bungee cords. You know what happens when you're holding two bungee cords tight? Your muscles begin to ache. And so that's what happens when you embrace the tension of what the Bible says about our responsibility and God's sovereignty. It causes your spiritual muscles to ache. But you've got to hold on to both of them because if you let go of one or the other, you fall into error. If you let go of our responsibility, you end up with that, well, let go and let God attitude, and you end up doing nothing for the Lord. And then the flip side, if you let go of God's sovereignty, you think it's all about you and your power and your strength. One leads to fatalism. The other leads to legalism. We have to hold on to both sides of these bungee cords here. We are called to, as one preacher said, I think it was Kevin de Young, but I cannot remember. We are called to spirit-powered, grace-enabled, gospel-driven, faith-fueled, hard work. That's what we're called to.

19:51So, this text that we're looking at today is actually kind of lived out by the Apostle Paul. We see it paralleled in Paul's testimony of his own life in the very next chapter. So, let me just jump over to chapter 3, verse 12, real quick, and it says this. And this is Paul talking about his own spiritual maturity and his desire to be like Christ. He says in verse 12, not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own. So, there's the hard work. I press on to make it my own. But here's the ground: because Christ Jesus has made me his own. So, back to my thesis: we are to actively, earnestly, and humbly become the people whom God is actively, sovereignly, and joyfully creating us to be. We are becoming it. It's a process. We are becoming who God is at work in us, making us to be, all right? If that makes any sense, we're becoming whom God is creating us to be. So, now let's look more at that inward work that God is doing in us. Look at verse 13. For it is God who works in you. Now, the Greek Tense of this verb to work indicates an ongoing action. So we are called to be working because he is actively and continuously at work in us. For it is God who works in you. Again, this word work is the Greek is energeo. And the verb here, as you can tell from the sound of it, is where we get our word energy from. Energeo. So I really like that. It's God's energy empowering and enabling us to do what? To will and to work. This points to our will and our work. He is at work in us to empower our will and to energize our work.

21:40Okay, so God energizes our energy. The word here for our work is the same Greek word. God energizes our energy. I like the way the New Living Translation renders this verse. For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases Him. So think about this. I love how God works. If He only worked on our will, that is our desires, well, then we'd be left unfruitful because we wouldn't have the power to carry out what we desired. On the flip side, if God only empowered our work, then we'd be in danger of doing things for God begrudgingly. But our God is holistic, He works in our whole being. He enables the will, our desires, and He gives us the power, our work. He empowers the heart and the hands.

22:30And this is the way the Bible talks. All over the place in the Bible, you hear the Apostle Paul talk like this, Colossians 1.29. For this I toil, so there's the work, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me. Or 1 Corinthians 15, 10. I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. And so Paul's always talking this way. I'm working hard, but actually, it's God working in me. And so this inward reality that God is at work in us, empowering our will and our work, results in him getting all the glory. 1 Peter 4, 11 is a Bible verse that I used to have taped to the pulpit of the church. I preached that for years. And it says this, Whoever speaks as one who speaks the oracles of God, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies, in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

23:39And nothing gives God more joy, friends, and nothing should give us more joy than for God to be glorified. And I believe this text speaks of God's joy. I said in my thesis statement, God is actively, sovereignly, and joyfully working in us. Look at verse 13. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work. Why? For his good pleasure. God delights to work in his people. For when he works in his people, he is glorified. The author of Hebrews said in Hebrews 13, 21, as he's praying, he prays that God would equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. So what is pleasing to God is the glorification of the Son. So that should motivate our joy as well.

24:33So we are to work hard on our spiritual growth. We are to put forth real effort, and we can have confidence to put forth that effort because we know that God is at work in us. As you've already seen in Philippians, Philippians 1:6, 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 so we joyfully work because we know God is at work in us. He's going to complete what he's going to do, what his plans are, and that's going to exalt his name. It's going to give him all the glory. And that should make us thrilled.

25:05If your reason for pursuing Christian maturity is that people will look at you and applaud you, that will never give you joy in your life. It's a temporary vain satisfaction that will disappear in a heartbeat. But if your goal is to give God all the glory, maybe no one ever knows about you, they never hear about your preaching, they never know about your service, you work quietly, humbly, sacrificing yourself for others. Others in the body, that glorifies God. And you know what? That'll produce a joy in you that's unquenchable. Unquenchable.

25:41So we come to the remainder of our passage now in verses 14 and following. And I've got nine minutes to get through it, so we're not going to obviously spend as much time on these verses. But I do think they bring us back to the humble mindset that we are called to have. So look at verse 14. Do all things without grumbling and disputing. These things are the opposite of humility, the opposite of counting others more significant than yourselves. We're to do everything, all things, without grumbling or disputing. Grumbling here means complaining or whispering or murmuring. It's actually an onomatopoeia, if you know what that is. It's where the word actually sounds like the actual meaning of the word. So in the Greek, it's gogus mos, right? Gogus mos. So it sounds like grumbling, right?

26:30Gogus mos. All right? That's grumbling. It's murmuring. It's whispering. It's gossiping. It's complaining. Can you believe Pastor Allen made that decision? I mean, really? And then there's disputing. Do all things without grumbling or disputing. That's to debate or to be argumentative or to fight over words. Now, I'm sure that's not a problem here at all. I'm sure that you're not like every other Baptist church on the planet. I'm sure there's no grumbling on social media, no disputing, right, in your lives. I'm sure there's no argumentative spirit or complaining attitude. Oh, friends, it's everywhere, and we all must actively fight it in our own lives. Matter of fact, we live in a culture that's dripping with grumbling and disputing right now. And unfortunately, the church resembles the culture in many ways right now. Filled with grumbling and disputing. And so we are to do the hard work of putting these things to death in our lives. We are to kill grumbling. We are to kill complaining because it's the opposite of humility, and therefore it will destroy unity. It will destroy unity. So be obedient by killing these sins, and in doing so, work out your sanctification. You are being made more holy as you fight these things, and that's exactly what we see in verse 15: that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish. Don't give in to backbiting and to gossip and to slander and arguing. Fight hard against those things so that you may be more like Jesus, namely blameless and innocent. Of course, we'll never be perfectly blameless or innocent on this side of heaven, but progressively, more and more, we should be growing in holiness. And again, what does this result in? It results in God's glory. Because it says here, we're to be children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. Among whom you shine as lights in the world. The church, right now, in the midst of this culture, as I said earlier, that is dripping with arguing and complaining, the church should shine as something different.

28:46But we shine not as sources of glory, but as reflectors of his glory. We are to shine like a city on a hill whereby the world sees our good works and does what? Gives glory to our Father who is in heaven, according to Jesus in Matthew 5. So when we obey God by exercising self-sacrificial humility, it leads to unity and it becomes a witness to the world of the power of the gospel and the glory of God. Is this not what Jesus prayed for in John 17? When Jesus, in that great high priestly prayer, he prays, at least partially in that prayer. I think the main focus of that prayer actually is our unity. Verse 23, he says this, speaking to the Father, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me. Why does Jesus pray for our unity? So the world may know something, namely about his glorious gospel work.

29:48That's the ultimate goal, our God and his gospel magnified in our unity. And so we obey. We humble ourselves and we do the hard work of. Working out our salvation. And what's a key to doing that? Well, the key, I believe, is in verse 16. Holding fast to the word of life. That is the word of God. The word of God is the instrument of sanctification in our lives. Jesus said in that same high priestly prayer, John 17, verse 17, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. But it's interesting here. In verse 16, this Greek verb to hold fast could also mean to hold out or to offer. So what does Paul mean here? Is he talking about us holding on to the word of life or holding it out or offering it to others? Or perhaps he intentionally means both. After all, we shine like lights in the world, not only when we believe God's word and are shaped by God's Word, but also when we proclaim God's Word. So it should all be happening in our life. We're shaped by it, we're obedient to it, and we're proclaiming it to the world. And God gets all the glory.

31:07Verse 16. So that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. 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. Simply what Paul is saying here is he's demonstrating, actually, his self-sacrificing humility. He was imitating Christ. He wants them to imitate him just as he imitated Christ. And he poured himself out. He poured his life out for them, for their faith. And that gave him great joy. That's why he was glad and he was rejoicing. As I said earlier, what will give you great, deep, tremendous joy is to serve others, to lay your life down for others in sacrificial, selfless humility, to build up the body of Christ. After all, that's what you've been called to do. Matter of fact, Alan's job is to equip you to build up the saints. And so you build up others by living the way Paul lived here, allowing your life to be poured out like a drink offering. And it gave him great joy, and it should give us great joy when we do the same. Verse 18, likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. And so, to the degree that they, imitating Paul as Paul imitated Christ, poured out their lives in obedient, self-sacrificial humility toward one another, to that degree they would be filled with joy. So, brothers and sisters, the unity we are called to is a happy unity. It is a happy unity that we pursue with happy obedience, after which we happily give God all the glory because he's the one at work in us.

33:01You see, saving Private Ryan wasn't actually about Private Ryan. It was about Captain Miller and his men. They're the ones who did the saving work. They earned it. But then Ryan had to go out and live it. So, friends, I urge you to actively, earnestly, and humbly become the people whom God is actively, sovereignly, and joyfully creating you to be. Let's pray. Father, as we come to this time of the Lord's Supper, I just pray right now that you would continue to do a work of unity in this body. I thank you for this church. I thank you for their stand on the gospel. I thank you for their confidence in the infallible, inerrant Word of God.

33:55And so, Father, I pray that they would let that word be a sanctifying work and force in their lives, and that they might, in obedience, pursue selfless, sacrificial humility, serving one another, just as Christ gave Himself up for us. And in the process of doing that hard work, Lord, may they give you all the glory. May they recognize that you are the one who's actually doing the work in them. Father, I praise you for those in here who are. Are already living lives in that sort of way. But Lord, there may be some in here who cannot, cannot live their lives in the way that Paul is calling us to do because they don't have you in them yet. And so, Father, may this Lord's Supper table be a proclamation of the gospel to them. Lord, I pray that you'd help these people see, if there be any here in the room today, that Christ gave Himself, He poured out His blood, and He allowed His flesh to be torn so that we could come in faith, repenting of our sins, trusting solely in Jesus, we might come and be made new creatures and then be in this process of being made into the ones that you've created us to be. So, Father, we thank you and pray now that you be the rest of our time. In Jesus' name, Amen.

35:24Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.