Latest / Reformed Thinking / Grace-Fueled Effort: Divine Working and Human Obedience (Philippians 2:12–13)

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Grace-Fueled Effort: Divine Working and Human Obedience (Philippians 2:12–13) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed Thinking. I'm your host.
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  And today we are doing another deep dive, this time into one of
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  those paradoxes at the very heart of the Christian life.
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  It's a tension every believer feels, isn't it?
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  The one between God's grace and our, well, our effort.
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  Do I try harder or do I just rest?
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  And we're going straight to the source text that really frames
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  this whole debate. Philippians Chapter 2,
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  specifically verses 12 and 13. A very famous and sometimes very
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  misunderstood passage. It is because on the one hand,
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  you get this really active, demanding command, Paul says.
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  Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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  Right. That sounds like it's all on US.
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  Striving, effort, Exertion. But then in the very next
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  breath, He gives the reason. For it is God who works in you,
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  both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
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  And that can sound like it's all on God.
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  So which one is it? That's the question.
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  If God is doing all the work, why do I have to?
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  And if I have to work, does that mean God's grace isn't enough?
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  What we want to show today is that Paul isn't presenting 2
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  clashing ideas, he's actually describing a single, unified
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  reality. An integrated spiritual process.
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  Yes, the human effort and the divine work aren't in
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  competition. They're two sides of the same
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  coin, so we're going to look at the context, what this work
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  actually is, and what a gift it is that God is the one behind it
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  all. OK.
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  Let's start at the beginning, then the context.
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  Yeah, verse 12 starts with a very keyword.
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  Therefore, who is Paul talking to and what is he pointing back
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  to? This is, I think, the most
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  critical first step. If we get the audience wrong, we
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  get the whole passage wrong. He's writing to the church at
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  Philippi. And he's already called them
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  Saints in Christ Jesus. He has.
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  So these are people who are already believers.
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  They are secure in their standing with God.
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  He's not writing to people on the outside telling them how to
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  get saved. That's a huge point.
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  So this isn't a how to guide for becoming a Christian.
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  None at all. It's a how to guide for living
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  as a Christian. He's writing to the family,
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  telling them how to live in the house they already own, so to
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  speak. Which makes that command work at
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  your salvation mean something very different.
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  Completely different. It can't mean work to obtain
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  your salvation, it has to mean something else.
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  And that brings us back to that connector word you mentioned,
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  therefore. Right.
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  The Greek word there who stay is a strong inferential particle.
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  It means so then or. For this reason it forces you to
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  look at what came just before it.
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  And what came just before it is one of the most celebrated
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  passages in the whole New Testament.
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  The Great Christ Hymn, Philippians 2 verses 5 through
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  11. The passage about Christ
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  emptying himself, becoming a servant and being obedient all
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  the way to death on a cross. That's the one.
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  Paul's logic is this. Because Christ did all of that,
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  therefore you are to work out your salvation.
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  So our work is grounded in his finished work.
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  It's the Christological basis for everything.
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  The hymn shows Christ's perfect obedience and then his
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  exaltation by God. So Christ is now Lord over all.
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  OK, so that sets him up as the authority, the one we obey.
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  Yes, that's part of it. We live under the lordship of
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  this exalted Christ. Our salvation is secure because
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  He's secured it, but it's more than just his authority.
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  The hymn doesn't just establish Christ as the ground of our
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  salvation, it establishes Him as the pattern for our lives.
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  The pattern. So we're supposed to imitate
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  him? I think that's exactly what Paul
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  saying. Remember verse 5?
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  Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.
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  The mindset of humility and self giving.
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  Right, the mind of a servant. So when Paul says work out your
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  salvation, he's not just saying be good.
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  He's saying, let the shape of Christ's own obedient, humble
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  life be traced out in your own. So we're not inventing some new
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  kind of holiness for ourselves. Yeah, we're conforming to a
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  pattern that's already been set. The contours of our obedience
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  should look like his. That's a radical idea.
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  It's not about self improvement, it's about self denial.
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  OK, that. Clarifies what the work looks
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  like. But let's get back to the word
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  salvation. If he's not talking about
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  getting saved, what salvation is he telling them to work out?
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  This is where we need to be really clear on our theological
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  categories. We have to distinguish between
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  justification and sanctification.
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  Justification being our legal standing before God, yeah.
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  Right. A1 time event.
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  God declares us righteous based on Christ's work alone, received
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  by faith alone. That's done.
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  It's settled. So working out our salvation
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  must be about sanctification, yes?
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  It's the ongoing progressive transformation of our character.
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  It's about bringing that salvation we already possess in
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  Christ to to visible expression to maturity.
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  So live consistently with the status you've already been
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  given. That's a great way to put it.
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  If you've been declared holy in Christ, now you must pursue a
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  life of practical holiness. And the verb Paul uses here for
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  workout, I understand it's a pretty strong one.
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  It is the Greek is cater guest they.
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  It's an intensive verb. It doesn't just mean to work,
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  but to work something to completion, to carry it through
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  to its intended end. So this is not a casual
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  suggestion. Not at all.
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  It implies genuine exertion, real striving.
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  It's the language of an athlete or a farmer.
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  You don't just drift into holiness.
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  Paul is clear. You have to pursue it.
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  You have to actively put sin to death.
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  Which feels, I think, very countercultural to a lot of
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  modern ideas about spirituality being about relaxation and just,
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  you know. Being it's the opposite of that.
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  It's about doing and Paul gives it this immediate pastoral
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  urgency. He's says they should do this
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  whether he's present with them or as he was absent in prison.
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  So he's pushing them toward a maturity that doesn't depend on
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  him looking over their shoulder. He's saying you obeyed when I
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  was there, but the real test is whether your faithfulness is to
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  Christ, not to me. Their obedience can't be
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  dependent on human supervision. He has to be internally driven.
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  Internally driven by the grace of God, which of course is
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  exactly where He's going in verse 13.
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  So working out their salvation is proof that the grace they've
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  received is real and effective, transforming them from the
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  inside out. Yes, it's a demonstration that
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  Christ's Lordship is actually active in their community.
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  OK, so the work is sanctification, it requires real
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  effort, and it's patterned after Christ.
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  But what about the manner of the work?
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  That phrase he uses is it's pretty stark with fear and
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  trembling. It is, and it's so easy for us
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  to hear that with modern ears and just recoil a bit.
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  It sounds like terror, like we should be constantly anxious,
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  worrying if we're doing enough, worry that God is going to
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  strike us down. And if Paul were writing to
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  unbelievers, maybe that would be closer to the mark.
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  But he's not. He's writing to his beloved, to
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  Saints. Their relationship with God is
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  secure. So it can't mean a cringing fear
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  of punishment. It can't.
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  The fear and trembling here signifies something different.
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  It's a deep, reverent awe. It's the attitude you have in
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  the presence of a holy, sovereign God.
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  So the trembling isn't about my eternal security, it's about the
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  majesty of the one who secured it.
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  That's it precisely. It's the proper response of a
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  creature before the Creator, especially a Creator who was
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  drawn near in mercy. Think of Isaiah in the temple,
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  seeing the Lord high and lifted up.
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  His response was woe is me. But for us, that woe is me is
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  now tempered by the knowledge that we're forgiven in Christ.
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  Correct. So it's not the fear of
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  condemnation, but a sober recognition of who we're dealing
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  with. This God is not to be trifled
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  with. Holiness is serious business.
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  It's not, as you said earlier, casual self improvement.
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  Far from it. This whole process of
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  sanctification, it touches on the very glory of God.
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  It affects our witness to the world.
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  Eternal things are at stake. This attitude guards against a
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  flippant or a careless approach to the Christian life.
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  You know, it seems a lot of people think that grace should
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  remove that seriousness, that because we're forgiven, we can
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  relax about sin. And Paul argues the exact
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  opposite. Grace doesn't eliminate
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  seriousness, it intensifies it. How so?
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  Well, the one who understands the depth of their forgiveness
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  is the one who understands the true horror of their sin.
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  They know what it cost, the death of the Son of God.
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  So gratitude makes us take sin more seriously, not less.
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  It has to. If you've been shown immense
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  mercy, the last thing you want to do is treat the commands of
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  your merciful king lightly. You approach obedience with
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  gravity because you know the price of disobedience.
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  So how does this fear and trembling actually look on a
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  day-to-day basis? I think it means we start
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  treating sin like a minor slip up and start seeing it for what
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  it is, an offence against a holy God who loves us.
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  A casual attitude, says Hoops. I sinned again.
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  Oh well, God Forgives. A reverent attitude says I have
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  grieved the Holy Spirit. I have acted against the one who
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  bought me with his blood. I must repent and flee from
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  this. It guards against complacency,
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  keeps us from taking God's grace for granted.
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  And it also keeps us humble. Yes, if we do manage to have
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  some victory over a sin, the fear and trembling prevents us
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  from getting proud about it. We remember that we are weak and
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  it was only by the grace of a fearsome and holy God that we
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  were able to stand at all. Which is the perfect bridge to
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  verse 13. Yeah, we've talked about our
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  work, our effort, our attitude. But now Paul flips the camera
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  around to show us the engine behind it all.
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  The divine source. If verse 12 is the command,
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  verse 13 is the good news that makes the command possible.
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  He starts with that little word for work out your salvation, for
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  it is God who works in you. That connector is doing a lot of
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  work there. It's the whole logical hinge of
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  the passage. The Greek word is gar.
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  It means because Paul is giving the reason why we must work.
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  And the reason is not what we'd expect our culture would say.
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  Work hard because it's all up to you.
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  Or maybe a certain kind of piety would say work hard so that God
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  will then come and help you. But Paul says something far more
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  radical. He says you can and you must
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  work, because God is already at work in you.
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  Right. God's sovereign internal work is
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  the very thing that establishes and enables our human
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  responsibility. It's not a replacement for it,
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  it's the foundation of it. That turns our usual thinking on
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  its head. It means that the presence of
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  God's power is not an excuse for passivity.
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  It's the motivation for activity.
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  Believing that God is working in you makes it impossible to be
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  lazy. If God is supplying the energy,
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  how could we not act? To sit still would be to, in a
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  sense, neglect the very grace he is giving.
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  Let's get specific about this divine working.
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  Paul says God works in us in two ways, to will and to work.
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  This is an incredibly comprehensive statement.
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  It covers both our internal motivation and our external
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  action. It reaches from the root to the
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  fruit. Let's start with the root.
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  Who will? Why is it so significant that
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  God is the one working even the desire for holiness in us?
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  Because this goes right to the heart of what the Bible teaches
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  about human nature after the fall.
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  The classic Reformed understanding is that the will
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  left to itself is in bondage to sin.
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  It is hostile to God. So we wouldn't even want to obey
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  God on our own. No, we might want the benefits
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  of religion or to avoid punishment, but the genuine
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  heartfelt desire to please God and pursue holiness that is not
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  native to the fallen human heart.
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  So even the want to is a gift. It's all a gift.
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  When a Christian finds within themselves a desire to pray, a
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  longing to read Scripture, a pang of guilt over sin, and a
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  will to fight it, that desire itself is the first evidence of
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  God's effectual grace at work. He is graciously renewing the
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  will. That's an amazing thought, that
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  even the desire to be better is proof that God is already there.
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  It is. It means the work has already
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  begun and it flows from the root to the fruit, which is the
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  second part to work or to do. God empowers the action that
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  flows from the renewed desire. He does.
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  He enables us to translate that new want to into actual doing,
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  the concrete actions of obedience, turning away from
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  temptation, speaking a kind word, serving someone else.
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  That is the manifestation of God's prior work in the will.
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  This brings us to a really difficult intellectual point,
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  but one we have to tackle. Primary and secondary causation,
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  yes. This is where careful thinking
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  is required. If God is the primary 'cause if
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  He's working the will in the doing, what's left for us, Yeah.
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  Is my action truly my action? It is.
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  We have to affirm both truths at the same time.
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  God is the primary cause. His work is monarchistic.
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  He alone initiates and empowers, but the believer is a true act
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  of secondary 'cause. We're not puppets.
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  We are not puppets. Our choices are real, our effort
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  is genuine, and we are responsible for it.
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  But that entire apparatus of choosing and acting is itself
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  upheld and energized by God's primary work.
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  Can you give us an analogy? Think of a sailboat.
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  The wind is the primary cause of the boats movement.
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  Without the wind, the boat is dead in the water.
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  It can do nothing, but the sailor is a true secondary
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  cause. The sailor must hoist the sails,
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  trim them, and steer the rudder. The sailor's actions are real
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  and necessary. The boat won't go anywhere if
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  the sailor just lies on the deck.
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  But all the sailor's activity is just a response to and a
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  harnessing of the power of the wind.
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  Precisely. The sailor's work is entirely
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  dependent on the wind, but it is still real, strenuous work.
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  In the same way, our effort is real and necessary, but it is
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  simply our active response to the win of God's Spirit working
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  within us. So our progress is always
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  derivative. It's the fruit of grace, never
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  the source of it. That's the key.
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  Our striving is a required genuine responsive activity, but
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  it is wholly dependent on the preceding divine operation.
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  It changes how you view your own spiritual efforts.
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  You're not trying to generate power, you're trying to align
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  your sales to patch the power that's already being provided.
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  That's a great way of putting it.
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  And the final piece of this is the ultimate guarantee.
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  Paul says God does all this for his good pleasure.
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  Not because we deserve it or because we've met some
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  condition. No, He does it because it
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  pleases Him to do it. It's part of His eternal plan
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  and His fatherly delight to conform His children to the
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  image of His Son. What a source of comfort that
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  must be. It's the ultimate comfort
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  because our own resolve is so unstable, isn't it?
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  We get tired, we fail, we lose heart.
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  All the time. But our sanctification is not
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  guaranteed by our tenacity, it's guaranteed by God's good
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  pleasure. He started the work and because
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  it pleases Him, he will see it through to completion.
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  This is such a finely balanced system, it feels like it would
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  be very easy to fall off the tightrope on one side or the
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  other. History shows it's extremely
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  easy, and that's why holding all these pieces together in the
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  right way is so vital. It's a theological synthesis.
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  OK, so let's talk about the distortions that happened when
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  people fail to hold this balance.
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  You said earlier that the key is keeping justification and
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  sanctification distinct. It's the grid.
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  If you collapse them, you'll end up in one of two errors.
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  Let's spell out that distinction one more time, just to be
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  crystal clear. Justification A1 time legal
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  declaration. God declares you righteous.
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  It's based entirely on Christ's record, not yours.
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  It's received by faith alone. You contribute nothing to it.
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  It's your status, yeah, and sanctification.
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  Is your condition. It's the ongo of lifelong
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  process where God's grace makes you practically more holy.
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  It involves your real effort, your cooperation, your striving.
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  OK, with that distinction clear, what's the first major error
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  this passage corrects? It's the error of legalism, or
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  what we might call moralism. How does the legalist misread
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  this passage? The legalist essentially takes a
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  pair of scissors and cuts verse 12 off from verse 13.
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  They focus only on work out your own salvation.
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  And they interpret that to mean that their effort is what earns
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  them God's favor or secures their standing.
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  Yes, they turn sanctification into the grounds for
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  justification. If I try hard enough, if I'm
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  good enough, then God will accept me.
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  Which is a recipe for either pride or despair.
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  Always. If you think you're succeeding,
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  you become arrogant. If you know you're failing,
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  which is the more common experience, you despair.
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  There's no assurance because you're standing.
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  Depends on your shaky performance.
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  Now how does verse 13 completely dismantle that?
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  Verse 13 says God is the one working in you to will and to
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  work. So if even your desire to obey
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  and your ability to obey are gifts from God, what do you
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  possibly have to boast about? Nothing.
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  Your effort is just the evidence of His grace, not the cause of
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  His favor. You can't take credit for the
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  fruit when someone else planted the tree and sends the rain.
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  Legalism is crushed by the truth that our striving is itself a
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  gift. OK, so that's the error of
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  trying too hard for the wrong reasons.
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  What's the other ditch on the opposite side of the road?
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  That's the error of quietism, or what you might call spiritual
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  laziness. This one seems more common
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  today. I think the let go and let God
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  mindset. I agree the quietest does the
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  opposite of the legalist. They take their scissors and cut
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  verse 13 off from verse 12. They focus only on it is God who
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  works in you. And they conclude that since God
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  is doing it all, they could do nothing.
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  They should just be passive and wait for God to sort of move
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  them around like a chess piece. Right.
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  They think any active effort on their part will somehow
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  interfere with or corrupt the pure work of God.
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  It's a kind of hyper spirituality that leads to
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  passivity. And verse 12 is a direct command
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  that makes that position impossible to hold.
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  It's an unambiguous, imperative workout.
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  It's a command to strive. Paul's logic is devastating to
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  the quietest. The reason you must work is
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  because God is working. God's enabling grace is not a
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  substitute for our obedience, it's the reason for it.
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  Precisely. If God gives you a strong back,
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  he doesn't intend for you to lie in bed all day.
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  He intends for you to get up and carry a heavy load.
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  To be passive when God is actively empowering you is a
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  deep form of negligence. So the true Christian life is
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  the synthesis this What did you call?
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  It active dependence. The Christian life requires
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  effort that is completely dependent and a dependence that
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  is intensely active. If you separate the striving
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  from the dependence, you get legalism.
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  And if you separate the dependence from the striving,
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  you get quietism. But held together, it's a
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  beautiful system. You strive with all your might,
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  knowing all the while that the very might you're striving with
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  is a gift from God. That's the paradox.
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  You're called to work harder than the legalist could ever
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  imagine because you're fueled by a perfect grace.
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  And at the same time, you're called to rest more deeply in
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  God than the quietest, because you know that even your work is
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  his work in you. OK, this is a powerful
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  theological framework. Let's bring it down to the
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  ground. Let's make it practical.
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  What does this grace fueled strenuous effort actually look
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  like on a Tuesday? Well, it starts with the
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  deliberate pursuit of holiness. That means organizing your life
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  around obedience rather than around your own convenience or
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  comfort. Does that entail specifically?
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  It means active mortification and vitalization.
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  Mortification is a classic term for putting sin to death.
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  And not just in a vague sense, like I want to be less selfish.
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  Yeah, no, it has to be specific. It means identifying a concrete
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  sinful pattern, Let's say the habit of complaining or
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  grumbling and actively fighting it.
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  When the complaining thought arises, you recognize it, you
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  confess it as sin, and you refuse to give it voice.
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  You starve. It and vitalization is the other
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  half. You can't just create a vacuum.
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  You have to replace the sin with the opposite virtue so you don't
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  just stop complaining. You actively cultivate
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  gratitude. You intentionally look for
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  things to thank God for. You speak words of encouragement
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  instead of criticism. And all of this requires a huge
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  amount of effort. A tremendous amount, and it
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  requires engagement with what the Church has historically
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  called the means of grace. Scripture prayer, fellowship
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  with other believers. Right.
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  These aren't optional add-ons for the Super spiritual.
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  They are the practical arenas where God's inward work and our
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  outward effort meet. Let's take prayer, for example.
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  How does this Philippians 2 mindset change how you pray?
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  It changes everything. You no longer pray as if you're
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  trying to convince a reluctant God to help you.
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  You pray with the confidence that He is already working in
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  you. 2 will. So my prayer might sound
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  something like, Lord, thank you that you have given me the
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  desire to be more patient. Now, please supply the strength
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  to actually be patient in this upcoming difficult conversation.
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  That's a perfect example. You are acknowledging his
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  primary work, giving you the will, and you are actively
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  striving in prayer for the secondary work, the ability to
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  carry it out. You are wrestling in prayer,
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  which is hard work, but you're doing it in complete dependence
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  on Him. It's at active dependence again.
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  It is constantly asking God to supply both the will and the
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  ability, step by step. And, you know, we should also
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  point out that Paul wrote this letter to a church, not just to
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  an individual. There's a corporate dimension to
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  this command. A very strong one.
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  When Paul says work out your salvation, the your is plural.
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  He's speaking to the whole community.
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  And given the context of the whole letter to the Philippians,
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  that's really significant. It is earlier in chapter 2
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  before the Christ hymn. He warns them against selfish
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  ambition and vain conceit. He tells them to do nothing from
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  rivalry. There were clearly some unity
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  issues in that church. So for them, working out their
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  salvation had a very specific, practical meaning.
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  It meant getting along with each other.
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  It meant repenting of divisive attitudes, of grumbling and
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  disputing. Their corporate effort was to
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  maintain unity and humility together.
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  So. Sanctification isn't just a
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  private individual project, it's something we do together.
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  It has to be. The church is supposed to be the
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  visible expression of the Christ pattern.
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  When a community of people who are naturally selfish start
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  genuinely putting each other first, that is a powerful
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  witness to the God who is at work within them.
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  That raises the bar quite a bit. It means part of my work is
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  bearing patiently with the brother or sister who gets on my
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  nerves. And forgiving them and serving
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  them. That is hard work of
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  sanctification played out in community.
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  OK, let's bring this all together for the person
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  listening who feels exhausted, who feels like they're failing
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  at this work. What is the final word of
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  assurance from this passage? The assurance is found
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  completely in verse 13. It's in the character and
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  purpose of God. The knowledge that God is
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  continually and effectually working in you for His good
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  pleasure is the anchor. Our hope isn't in our own
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  ability to hold on. Not at all.
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  It's in His promise to complete the work He started.
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  So when you look at your life, even amidst all the failures,
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  and you see even a flicker of a desire for God, a small longing
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  for holiness, that's the evidence.
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  That is the evidence that He is still at work.
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  Your first response shouldn't be I need to try harder, but thank
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  you God that you are still working in me.
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  Our obedience, however flawed, is a testimony to His
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  faithfulness, not a measure of our own strength.
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  We work because he is working. That's the resolution to the
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  whole paradox. It is.
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  We strive with all our energy, and we rest in the knowledge
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  that the energy itself is His gift.
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  That's a great place to land. So to sum up this deep dive,
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  we've seen how Philippians 2 holds together this critical
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  tension. The believer is commanded to
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  exert real strenuous effort to strive with a serious, reverent
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  awe. But that effort is never the
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  source of our standing or our strength.
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  It is wholly derivative, resting on God's prior and continuous
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  work within us. We are summoned to obey
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  precisely because we have been enabled by grace.
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  And I'll leave you with the final thought to Mull over the
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  perfect obedience of Christ that we see in Philippians 2.
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  Verses 5 to 11 involve the path of descent of humility,
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  suffering and self emptying that led directly to His exaltation
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  and glory. The path down was the path of.
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  Right. So what does it mean for you
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  that your imperfect, grace fueled obedience is designed by
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  God to follow that very same pattern?
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  Your daily work of putting sin to death, of choosing humility
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  over pride, of serving others when you'd rather be served?
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  That is your own small participation in the pattern of
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  the cross. Think about this, how is the
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  self denial you are called to today?
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  The descent setting the stage for the final glory you are
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  promised on the day of Christ?