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Acting the Miracle: The Sovereign Work of God in the Believer’s Battle Against Sin · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform Thinking. I am your host and today we are
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  jumping into a deep dive on a topic that is, well, it is
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  pretty staggering to comprehend. Yeah, it really is.
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  I am thrilled to be here and unpack all this with you today.
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  Awesome. So you know, usually when we
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  talk about a physical workout, there is this expectation of a
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  direct 1 to 1 correlation. Oh, for sure.
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  You put in the work, you see the physical results.
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  Right. You go to the gym, you lift the
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  heavyweight, and the fibers in your muscle tissue physically
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  tear. Your body synthesizes protein to
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  rebuild those fibers and you get stronger.
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  Yeah, it is a closed biological system.
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  Yeah, it is your sweat, your muscle, your grit and your
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  result. No one else can lift the way.
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  For you, right? And no one else gets the
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  physical benefit. But then you step out of the gym
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  and into the world of Christian sanctification, into the daily
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  reality of growing in holiness, and suddenly that mirror
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  reflects something entirely different.
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  It really does. The rules of the physical
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  universe seem to just bend. Yeah, and we find ourselves
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  looking at this spiritual landscape that is just massive.
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  So our mission today is to untangle one of the biggest
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  tensions in the entire Christian life.
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  And it is a serious tension. It is the friction between God's
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  absolute sovereign control over the universe and the rigorous,
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  sweat inducing, agonizing effort required from the believer to
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  fight sin. It is the absolute definition of
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  theological tension. I mean, we're looking at a
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  reality where two things the human logic desperately wants to
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  keep separate are actually welded together by scripture.
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  Yeah, on one side you have the unshakable sovereignty of the
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  Creator. Right.
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  And on the other, you have the messy, exhausting daily
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  obedience of the creature. And the texts we're using for
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  this deep dive focus heavily on Providence, the mechanics of
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  faith, and how believers actually kill, sin and create
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  love in their daily lives. Which is incredibly practical.
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  Stuff. Oh, absolutely.
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  We will be anchoring our discussion heavily in two
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  specific passages, the Philippians 212 through 13 and
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  Galatians 35. Two incredible passages.
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  So I want to ask you, the listener right now as you are
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  going about your day. Maybe we're driving down the
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  highway, maybe you're folding laundry, or, you know, maybe you
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  are just sitting at your desk trying to survive the afternoon.
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  We have all been there. Oh.
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  Definitely, yeah. How do you personally handle the
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  daily grind against your own flesh?
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  That is the big question. When temptation hits, do you
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  fall into the trap of trying to earn God's favor through sheer
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  white knuckled willpower, or do you swing all the way to the
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  other side and just give up entirely?
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  Like expecting God to magically fix your habits while you sit
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  back and watch. Yes, precisely.
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  By the end of this deep dive, you are going to have an
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  entirely different framework for those daily struggles.
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  I am really looking forward to getting into.
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  This OK, let's unpack this. We cannot start by looking at a
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  microscope, right? Right.
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  We need to look at a telescope first.
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  That is a great way to put it, yeah.
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  We have to establish the macro level theological reality that
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  these biblical letters operate within.
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  So where do we start with that? Let's go.
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  Well, we have to start by gazing at the absolute sovereignty of
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  God. The theologians who laid the
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  tracks for this discussion, specifically the ones who
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  drafted the Westminster Confession of Faith, formulated
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  this brilliantly. Right in Chapter 5, Article 1.
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  Yeah, the Confession declares that God, the great Creator of
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  all things, of holds, directs, disposes and governs all
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  creatures, actions and things. From the greatest to the least
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  right. Spot on.
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  We were talking about cosmic Providence.
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  This means from the fall of a tiny Sparrow in a forest to the
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  movement of giant spiral galaxies, which is just.
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  Wild to think about. It is to the exact weather
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  patterns of this very moment, to the political movements of
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  nations. Oh, God is actively governing.
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  And, you know, the modern secular world might tell you
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  that we are victims of random chance.
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  Oh, constantly. Just biological accidents tossed
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  around by an indifferent environment.
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  But the biblical framework insists that even the
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  microscopic hairs on your head are numbered and accounted for.
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  So the tension immediately presents itself here.
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  Right. If God sovereignly governs the
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  fall of a tiny bird, and if He is orchestrating the exact
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  placement of stars, how does that cosmic reality intersect
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  with my daily, grueling battle against my own indwelling sin?
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  Because on one hand you have the doctrine of justification.
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  And for anyone who might be new to that term, justification is
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  the legal declaration where God pronounces A Sinner righteous
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  right. Yeah, not because the Sinner is
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  actually good, but holy because of the imputed righteousness of
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  Jesus Christ. It is a courtroom verdict.
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  I mean, I do not contribute a single drop of sweat to my
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  justification. Christ did all the sweating,
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  bleeding and dying. That is the gospel right there.
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  But then on the other hand, you have sanctification, which is
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  the ongoing daily process of actually becoming holy in
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  practice. And sanctification seems to
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  require massive human exertion. It really does.
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  And this is where people get confused.
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  There are two massive theological ditches on either
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  side of this road that we can crash into.
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  Yeah, the first ditch is the Roman Catholic model of works
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  righteousness. Break that down for us.
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  Well, this framework suggests that you earn your final
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  salvation, or at least maintain your standing before God through
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  a progressive moral attainment. So it essentially blurs the line
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  between justification and sanctification.
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  Exactly. I mean spot on.
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  It turns the grace of God into a wage that you have to earn
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  through religious performance, sacraments and good deeds.
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  Wow. It places the crushing weight of
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  salvation squarely on frail human shoulders.
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  Yeah, you were always wondering if you have done enough,
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  confessed enough or tried hard enough to tip the scales in your
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  favor. Which is terrifying, because
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  human shoulders are notoriously weak.
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  If my standing before the Holy Creator depends on my moral
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  performance on any given Tuesday, I'm utterly doomed.
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  But we all are. But the second ditch is equally
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  dangerous, even if it sounds a lot more spiritual to our modern
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  years. Right.
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  This is what theologians sometimes call antinomian
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  lethargy or Keswick mysticism. Yeah, the Keswick movement
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  gained a lot of traction in the late 19th century.
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  It popularized the idea of the higher life or the victorious
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  Christian life. And the catch phrase that came
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  out of this movement, which many people still use today, is let
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  go and let God. We hear that all the time.
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  We do, But wait, Keswick mysticism sounds like a spell
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  from a fantasy novel. Let us break that down for the
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  listener. What actually happens in
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  someone's brain when they adopt A let go and let God mentality?
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  Well, it creates A passive expectation that Holiness will
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  simply arrive like a delivery package.
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  Like Amazon Prime sanctification?
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  Right. The underlying assumption is
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  that if you are striving, sweating and straining against
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  sin, you must not be trusting God enough.
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  So true faith in this distorted model is seen as complete
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  passivity. Yeah, it expects spiritual
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  growth to happen while the mind, the affections, the will and the
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  daily habits are basically asleep.
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  It suggests that any human effort is inherently fleshly or
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  unspiritual. Which is so far from the
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  biblical. Text I always picture the second
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  ditch like sitting in a rowboat with no oars.
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  You just sit there, hands folded, smiling peacefully,
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  expecting the invisible current to magically place you perfectly
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  at the dock. But then you look around and you
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  realize you are actually drifting toward a massive
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  waterfall. Right.
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  And that brings up a huge pushback from the everyday
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  believer. If God is entirely sovereign
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  over my sanctification, why do I feel so exhausted trying to obey
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  him it? Is a totally fair question.
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  Why does the Christian life feel like an absolute war zone if I
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  am supposedly resting in His sovereign grace?
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  If God is doing the work, shouldn't my spiritual life feel
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  like a gentle float down a lazy river?
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  What's fascinating here is how robust biblical theology answers
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  this exact frustration. God does not just demand
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  holiness from afar. He is not standing on the dock
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  yelling instructions through a megaphone at you while you panic
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  in your rowboat. No, you predestines, promises,
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  purchases, and actively produces that holiness within the
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  believer. So the exertion you feel, the
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  utter exhaustion of the battle against temptation, is not proof
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  that God is absent or that grace has failed.
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  Not at all. It is the very theater of His
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  Providence, the same sovereign God who ordains the ultimate
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  end, which is your final glorification and perfection,
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  also perfectly ordained the daily means to get you there.
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  And those means include your prayers, your agonizing
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  repentance, your sweat, and your daily obedience.
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  Precisely. So we have established this
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  massive abstract theological framework.
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  But to grasp why this theology is so urgent, we have to move
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  from the abstract realm of ideas to the messy historical reality
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  where these letters were actually written.
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  Yeah, context is everything. The Apostle Paul did not write
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  Galatians and Philippians in a comfortable air conditioned in
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  academic office. No, these letters were forged
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  under extreme life or death pressure.
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  Let us look at the church in Galatia first.
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  Written around 8048 or 49. Paul is writing this letter with
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  holy indignation. He is absolutely furious.
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  He really is. He skips his usual polite
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  greetings and gets right to the point.
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  He is fighting a group known as the Judaizers, who are pushing
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  an early toxic form of legalism. The situation in Galatia was
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  critical. The Judaizers were demanding
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  that Gentile believers who had trusted in Christ also needed to
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  be circumcised to achieve true spiritual maturity.
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  So they were telling these new Christians, faith in Jesus is a
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  great starting line, but if you want to be truly accepted by
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  God, you need to add these ancient physical rituals to
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  secure your standing. Yeah, it was a subtle but deadly
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  return to a covenant of works. All recognized this instantly as
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  a heresy that completely dismantled the Gospel of grace.
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  The Galatians were being seduced into thinking they could perfect
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  themselves by human flesh after having begun their new life by
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  the Holy Spirit. Is the ultimate form of
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  religious box checking. It is.
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  And then we have the church in Philippi.
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  This letter is written later, around AD 60 to 62, and the
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  context is completely different from Galatia, but the cultural
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  pressure is just as intense. Philippi was a proud Roman
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  colony. The Latin term is colonia.
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  Right. And it was steeped in emperor
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  worship, military glory and massive civic pride.
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  A Roman colonial is essentially a miniature version of Rome
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  planted in foreign territory. Oh wow, so it was like a little
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  Rome away from Rome. Spot on.
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  Many of the citizens were retired Roman soldiers who had
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  been granted land and tax exemptions.
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  They wore Roman dress, they observed Roman law, and they
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  found their entire identity and their association with the
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  empire. They boasted of their societal
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  status and their military might. Yet Paul writes to this small,
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  vulnerable church embedded in this arrogant city and tells
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  them their true citizenship. The Greek word he uses is
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  Polytima is in heaven. This church was facing severe
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  external hostility from a Pagan culture that demanded absolute
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  loyalty to Caesar, and simultaneously they were dealing
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  with internal grumbling, disunity and relational
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  friction. You look at these two distinct
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  churches and they represent the false confidences of their
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  respective ages. Yeah, the.
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  Galatians were tempted to trust their own fleshly rituals, their
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  religious pedigree and their moral performance.
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  And the Philippians were tempted to trust Rome's vast machinery,
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  their societal status and earthly power structures.
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  And both of those churches had to learn a painful lesson.
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  Human moral resolve and civic structures absolutely cannot
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  produce true holiness. Placing these letters in their
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  historical context guards us from reading them as mere
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  inspirational self help manuals. Paul is writing to real
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  frightened people under severe threat.
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  He is telling them that true obedience is forged in real
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  places, under real, terrifying pressures.
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  But let us think about Paul's own situation when he wrote to
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  the Philippians. Yeah, he is sitting in a Roman
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  prison. He is physically chained to an
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  Imperial guard. To a Roman citizen living in
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  Philippi, a culture utterly obsessed with outward honor,
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  status and military victory, Paul being in chains looks like
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  a massive, undeniable failure. Right, It looks like God's
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  Providence has completely dropped the ball.
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  If I am a Philippian reading this letter, I'm thinking why
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  should I listen to a guy who couldn't even keep himself out
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  of a dungeon? It makes no sense from a human
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  perspective. How could Paul possibly leverage
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  his own humiliating imprisonment to encourage a church tempted by
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  Roman glory? That is the brilliant world
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  overturning paradox of the Christian Gospel.
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  Paul's imprisonment actually proved his theological point.
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  How so? Well, in a Roman colony where
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  every single person is aggressively grasping for
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  status, recognition and upward mobility, Paul points to Jesus
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  Christ. He reminds them that Christ, who
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  existed in the very form of God, did not grasp at equality with
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  God. Instead, he humbled himself to
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  the absolute lowest point, the agonizing, shameful death on a
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  cross. True glory in the economy of God
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  is not seized through self exaltation, it is received
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  through humble, costly obedience.
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  So God's Providence was advancing the gospel directly
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  through the chains, completely subverting the world's honor
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  system. The chains were not a failure of
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  God's plan. They were the precise instrument
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  of His plan. Here's where it gets really
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  interesting. Having established those intense
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  historical stakes, we need to zoom in on the specific Greek
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  vocabulary the Apostle Paul chose to use.
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  The original language always adds so much death.
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  The precise words he selects review the actual mechanics of
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  how grace operates inside the human will.
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  Let us look at Philippians 212. Paul commands the believers to
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  work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
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  The Greek verb translated as workout is cater gasless.
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  The linguistic details here are incredibly illuminating.
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  Katkas, I'll say, is not the standard everyday Greek word for
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  simply doing a task or making something.
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  Which would be poor you. Right.
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  It is an intensified compound verb.
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  It implies an intense, exhausting completing labor.
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  So it is not just a casual effort.
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  No, not at all. In ancient literature, this
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  specific word was used to describe working a silver mine
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  or cultivating A harsh rocky field to bring forth fruit.
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  A. Silver mine.
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  Yeah, when you look at a 1st century mine, you do not just
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  glance at the rock wall, say a quick prayer and expect raw gold
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  to jump into your pockets. No, you grab a heavy iron
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  pickaxe, you enter the dark, claustrophobic tunnel, and you
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  swing that tool until your hands bleed and your muscles give out.
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  You labor to full completion. It denotes A continuous,
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  habitual agonizing action. So we have this command for
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  intense, sweaty, relentless labor.
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  We are called to swing the pickaxe.
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  But then in the very next breath, in verse 13, Paul
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  provides the theological ground for that exhausting command.
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  He says, For it is God who works in you both to will and to work
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  for his good pleasure. The word translated works.
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  There is energy. And that is the Greek root from
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  which we derive our English word energy.
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  I love seeing those connections. It is vital to recognize how
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  this word is deployed in the New Testament.
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  It is almost exclusively used to describe supernatural,
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  invincible divine action. So God is the one energizing.
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  The grammar here dismantles our natural assumptions.
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  God does not just offer a theoretical opportunity to obey.
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  He does not just level the playing field.
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  Inject a little bit of grace into your system and then step
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  back to see what you will do with.
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  It he actively, constantly generates both the desire, the
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  the Fatahian, the willing and the actual execution, the energy
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  and the doing. It is a total overhaul of the
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  human will. Wait, if God is causing the
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  willing and the doing, aren't we just biological robots playing
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  out a pre written script? How is that not just divine
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  puppetry? That is the genius of biblical
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  monarchism. It is not puppetry because God
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  is operating at the level of your desires.
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  OK, unpack that for me. Well, a puppet has strings
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  pulled against its will, but God regenerates the heart so that
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  you genuinely want to obey. I see the prophet Ezekiel
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  clarifies this beautifully in Ezekiel 3627 where God promises
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  the new covenant. I will put my Spirit within you
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  and cause you to walk in my statutes.
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  Notice the language there. He causes it.
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  He changes your fundamental nature so that your most
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  authentic, willing choices align with his decrees.
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  So it completely obliterates any notion of synergism totally.
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  For those wondering, synergism is the idea of cooperation.
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  Like two people riding a tandem bicycle.
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  I pedal 50%, God pedals 50% and together we get to the
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  destination. But the text is saying God is
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  the engine and we are the wheels turning as a direct result of
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  his energy. We see a remarkably similar
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  dynamic in Galatians 35. Paul rhetorically asks the
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  Galatians if God supplies the Spirit to them by works of the
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  law or by hearing with faith that Word supplies is
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  epitorragon. The cultural background of
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  Epitorragon is fascinating. Oh, I bet.
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  What does it actually mean? In ancient Greek civic life,
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  this word described A phenomenally wealthy patron who
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  stepped forward to fully fund a massive grand chorus for a city
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  festival. Like an ancient arts grand.
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  Sort of. But these festivals were
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  astronomically expensive. The patron had to pay for the
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  ornate costumes, the rigorous vocal training, the venue and
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  the daily wages the singers. It denotes an abundant, lavish,
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  overwhelming provision. Exactly.
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  Paul uses this word to declare that God is the infinitely
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  wealthy patron pouring out a literal torrent of the Holy
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  Spirit. It is not a stingy, measured
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  Drick of Grace. It is a flood.
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  I love that imagery. It sounds like God isn't just a
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  high school football coach yelling instructions from the
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  sidelines. Will you get violently tackled
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  by the opposing team? Right, he's not just shouting at
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  you to run faster. He is a billionaire patron
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  giving you a blank check with infinite funds.
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  That is the epituricum part. But he's also the physical,
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  biological stamina firing in your muscle fibers when you are
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  swinging that heavy pickaxe in the mine.
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  That is the inner chair. That is a fantastic way to
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  synthesize those two ideas. But this raises a major question
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  for me. If God is the one supplying the
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  infinite blank check, and He is the one giving my muscles the
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  energy to swing the pickaxe, why in the world does Paul tell us
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  to do this with fear and trembling?
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  Yeah, that trips a lot of people up.
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  If God is doing the energizing, shouldn't my attitude be totally
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  relaxed and casual? That is a very common yet tragic
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  misunderstanding of the text. Fear and trembling, in this
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  specific context is not a cowering, servile terror.
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  So it is not the fear of an abused slave who is terrified
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  that a cruel master might cast them into hell for making a
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  minor mistake. No, it is a posture of Reverend
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  Awestruck's seriousness. You tremble precisely because
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  you suddenly realize that the Holy, Infinite, blazing Creator
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  of the universe is actively operating within the confines of
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  your own chest. Wow, it absolutely annihilates
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  any brand of flippant, casual, consumer driven Christianity.
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  You do not treat an active surgical operating room like a
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  playground. You act with intense care
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  because of what is happening in that room.
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  Right, and the grammatical structure of Paul's Greek
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  sentence binds these concepts together.
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  Florida State. He links the command to work and
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  the reality of God working with the explanatory conjunction gar,
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  which translates to for or because.
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  You work out your salvation because God is working in you.
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  The grammar insists that God's sovereign hidden work is the
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  unshakable basis for human visible work.
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  His sovereignty is not an excuse for passivity.
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  It is the burning engine that drives rigorous, confident
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  obedience. OK, if God supplies all this
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  continuous supernatural energy, this energy, how does the
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  everyday believer actually access it in the white hot
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  agonizing moment of temptation? That is the practical crux of
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  the issue. The discussion has to shift from
• 19:52
  the divine mechanics in the heavens to the human instrument
• 19:55
  on earth, which is faith. Galatians 3.
• 19:57
  Five states explicitly that the Spirit is supplied by hearing
• 20:02
  with faith. The Greek phrase is ex akois
• 20:06
  pistas. Faith is the open, empty vessel
• 20:09
  that drinks the torrent of the Spirit.
• 20:11
  But to understand how faith operates, we have to understand
• 20:14
  how sin operates. Believers are commanded to fight
• 20:17
  sin at the invisible root, not just blindly hack away at the
• 20:21
  visible branches. Hacking at the branches is what
• 20:23
  we usually do right? We focus entirely on behavioral
• 20:26
  modification. Which almost never works long
• 20:28
  term. We make strict rules.
• 20:30
  We say I will not look at that particular website anymore or I
• 20:34
  will not scream at my kids when the house is a mess.
• 20:36
  But we fail to address the underlying root desire that made
• 20:39
  us want to look or scream in the first place.
• 20:42
  Right behavioral modification is a losing game.
• 20:44
  Sin rules the human heart by acting as a brilliant
• 20:47
  manipulative salesman. It makes fraudulent promises.
• 20:50
  It is a liar. Reed promises absolute security
• 20:53
  says if you just hoard this much money, if you secure this
• 20:56
  promotion, you will finally be safe from the chaos of the
• 20:58
  world. Lust promises pleasure without
• 21:01
  any painful consequence. This image or this relationship
• 21:05
  will satisfy your deep loneliness and no one will ever
• 21:08
  know. Anger promises control in a
• 21:11
  chaotic situation. Bitterness promises a satisfying
• 21:14
  sense of justice against someone who wronged you.
• 21:17
  These are all calculating lies, and raw willpower alone cannot
• 21:21
  defend a promise that your heart truly believes.
• 21:24
  Willpower is a finite resource. It eventually runs out of energy
• 21:28
  and the heart goes after what it loves.
• 21:30
  So faith is the empty vessel that receives God's superior,
• 21:33
  truthful promises. It is the act of bringing a
• 21:36
  bigger, truer, heavier promise to the battlefield of your mind.
• 21:40
  It is a clash of promises. When the siren song of Internet
• 21:43
  pornography calls at 11:00 at night, promising immediate
• 21:47
  consequence free pleasure, the believer must ruthlessly wield a
• 21:50
  counter promise they might grip Matthew 58.
• 21:53
  Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
• 21:55
  You have to fight a lying promise of fleeting pleasure
• 21:58
  with a guaranteed promise of supreme, eternal pleasure.
• 22:01
  And when greed attacks, whispering that you need to
• 22:04
  hoard your wealth and nor the needy to be secure, the believer
• 22:08
  fights back with Hebrews 13 five through 6.
• 22:12
  I will never leave you nor forsake you.
• 22:14
  You deliberately taste the superior, unshakable
• 22:17
  satisfaction of Christ, which renders the deceitful, hollow
• 22:21
  promises of sin tasteless by comparison.
• 22:24
  Theologians often refer to this dynamic using the concept of the
• 22:27
  expulsive force of a new affection.
• 22:29
  It is a great picture. You cannot simply empty a glass
• 22:32
  of air by commanding the air to leave.
• 22:35
  Right. You must pour water into the
• 22:36
  glass, and the water forces the air out.
• 22:38
  A superior love drives out an inferior lust.
• 22:41
  But let us pause here, because I want to ask a highly practical
• 22:44
  question for you, the listener. We all know exactly what it
• 22:47
  feels like when the lie of sin feels overwhelmingly louder and
• 22:50
  more tangible than the truth of Scripture.
• 22:52
  Oh, absolutely. In that exact moment of
• 22:54
  temptation, your brain is flooded with adrenaline.
• 22:57
  The anger feels so justified and so good.
• 22:59
  Lust feels so immediate and demanding.
• 23:02
  How do you actually retune your hearing when the false promise
• 23:05
  feels so physically real in your own body?
• 23:09
  Do I just mechanically quote a Bible verse and expect the anger
• 23:12
  to instantly evaporate? This raises an important, excuse
• 23:16
  me, a crucial question, and it is vital to state that the
• 23:19
  biblical text does not offer a soft, easy answer.
• 23:22
  It does not promise instant emotional relief.
• 23:25
  No, this is precisely why the New Testament repeatedly uses
• 23:28
  the brutal language of violence against the flesh.
• 23:31
  The Puritan theologian John Owen summarized this Florida State
• 23:34
  when he wrote Be killing sin or it will be killing you.
• 23:38
  You take the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of
• 23:40
  God, and you hack those lusts to pieces by violently forcing your
• 23:43
  mind against its immediate fleshly desires to savor Christ
• 23:47
  above the urge. It is an agonizing mental pivot.
• 23:50
  You do not just passively wait for the desire to fade away, you
• 23:53
  actively attack the lie with the truth, even while your body is
• 23:57
  screaming in protest. Yeah, it is not modern secular
• 24:00
  self help. It is brutal spiritual warfare
• 24:02
  relying entirely on the supernatural strength of the
• 24:04
  Holy Ghost. You pray the promises back to
• 24:07
  God out loud if you have to. You speak to your own soul
• 24:11
  saying sin is lying to me right now.
• 24:13
  God is true. Christ is better than this.
• 24:16
  You are acting out the miracle of obedience, but you are
• 24:19
  relying entirely on God to cause the miracle within you.
• 24:22
  And this fierce, exhausting fight against sin is not just a
• 24:25
  private monastic struggle that happens in your own isolated
• 24:29
  prayer closet. We need to transition to how
• 24:32
  this plays out in the messy, visible, deeply uncomfortable
• 24:35
  reality of the local church. Which is where the rubber really
• 24:38
  meets the road. I want to highlight a massive
• 24:40
  grammatical detail from the text.
• 24:41
  The phrase your own salvation in Philippians 212 is plural.
• 24:45
  Paul is writing to an entire congregation.
• 24:47
  If he were speaking in the American South, he would be
• 24:50
  saying workout y'all's salvation.
• 24:52
  Right. That is a crucial, often missed
• 24:54
  insight. Paul immediately follows the
• 24:57
  command to work out salvation with the command to do all
• 24:59
  things without grumbling or disputing.
• 25:02
  He clearly has corporate sanctification in view.
• 25:05
  In our modern context, we tend to excuse grumbling as a
• 25:09
  harmless personality quirk, just a way of letting off some scheme
• 25:13
  when things do not go our way. But Paul treats grumbling as a
• 25:16
  severe toxic sin of unbelief. He is drawing a Direct Line back
• 25:21
  to the wilderness generation of Israel, the people who grumbled
• 25:24
  against God immediately after he miraculously saved them from
• 25:28
  slavery in Egypt. God split the Red Sea for them
• 25:30
  and a few days later they were complaining about the menu.
• 25:33
  Exactly. A complaining spirit actively
• 25:35
  declares that God's Providence is unwise, that his daily gifts
• 25:39
  are insufficient, and that his timing is intolerable.
• 25:43
  It is a direct assault on the character and goodness of God.
• 25:46
  The Philippian church had to deal with severe internal
• 25:48
  fractures. The text specifically mentions
• 25:51
  Ewodia and Cintiq, 2 prominent women in the congregation who
• 25:55
  were locked in a public bitter dispute.
• 25:57
  They had to learn how to work out their salvation corporately
• 26:00
  while living under the crushing pressure of a hostile Pagan
• 26:03
  city. The love that God created inside
• 26:06
  them had to become visible to the outside world.
• 26:08
  They had to actually forgive one another, bear each other's heavy
• 26:11
  burdens, and speak the truth and love so they could shine as
• 26:15
  bright lights in the middle of a twisted and crooked generation.
• 26:18
  But looking at our Western culture, we are intensely
• 26:22
  individualistic. We treat faith as a private
• 26:25
  consumer product. We read the Bible as a personal
• 26:28
  letter addressed only to me. My personal devotions, my
• 26:31
  personal growth, my personal quiet time.
• 26:34
  If this command is plural, does my private hidden failure to
• 26:37
  kill a secret sin actually damage the local congregations
• 26:41
  public witness? So what does this all mean?
• 26:43
  It means that private failure inevitably damages the corporate
• 26:47
  body. A holy community cannot be built
• 26:49
  with unholy individuals. The biblical framework
• 26:52
  thoroughly dismantles the modern seeker sensitive model of church
• 26:56
  that focuses on theatrical entertainment, polished
• 26:58
  programs, or just individual inspiration.
• 27:01
  The. Text demands messy corporate
• 27:03
  sanctification. Your private holiness is the
• 27:05
  fuel for the public light of the Church.
• 27:07
  If you harbor a secret bitterness against a brother, if
• 27:11
  you refuse to forgive an offense, or if you privately
• 27:14
  nurture a hidden lust, you are actively dimming the spiritual
• 27:17
  light of the entire congregation.
• 27:20
  The unbelieving world does not need another rock concert.
• 27:23
  It needs to see a countercultural community whose
• 27:26
  radical humility, courage, absolute purity and self
• 27:29
  sacrificing love announced that there is a different Lord ruling
• 27:32
  the universe than Caesar or money or whatever idol the
• 27:36
  culture currently worships. To bring this deep dive to its
• 27:39
  climax, we must trace all these intense commands, all this
• 27:42
  agonizing sweat, all this corporate struggle back to their
• 27:46
  absolute, unshakable source. The finished work of Jesus
• 27:49
  Christ and the glorious future hope of his return.
• 27:52
  We have to look at the immediate literary context of Philippians
• 27:56
  Chapter 2. The command to work out your
• 27:58
  salvation directly follows what theologians call the Carmen
• 28:01
  Christie. The majestic, breathtaking hymns
• 28:04
  in Philippians 2 five through 11 that details Christ's
• 28:07
  unfathomable humiliation and subsequent exaltation.
• 28:10
  Christ did not grasp at his divine privileges.
• 28:14
  Instead, He emptied Himself, took the form of a lowly
• 28:17
  servant, and obeyed the Father perfectly, even to the point of
• 28:21
  a humiliating death on a Roman cross.
• 28:23
  He is the last Adam. He is the true and faithful
• 28:26
  Israel who obeyed perfectly in the wilderness where everyone
• 28:30
  else, including us, completely failed.
• 28:32
  Yes, and from Galatians 313 we learned that the Holy Spirit,
• 28:37
  the divine Person who provides all this energizing strength for
• 28:40
  our daily obedience, is a purchased benefit.
• 28:43
  Christ became a curse on the cross to satisfy the holy
• 28:46
  justice of God. Therefore, the Spirit is poured
• 28:49
  out not as a reward for our good behavior, but as a blood bought
• 28:53
  inheritance for the Saints. Sanctification completely
• 28:56
  bypasses human moralism because every single conquered
• 28:59
  temptation, every moment of genuine love, is a direct
• 29:02
  purchased result of Calvary. Let's use an analogy here to
• 29:04
  make this crystal clear. It is like Christ's purchased
• 29:07
  grace is an infinite, unbreakable trust fund.
• 29:09
  When we are swinging the pickaxe in the mine, fighting our sin,
• 29:12
  we are not sweating to earn the gold.
• 29:14
  We are not trying to pay off a massive spiritual debt to God.
• 29:18
  The gold was already secured, the debt was already paid in
• 29:21
  full by Christ's blood on the cross.
• 29:23
  Our daily obedience, our exhausting swinginging of the
• 29:26
  pickaxe, is simply drawing upon an account that is already
• 29:29
  infinitely full. But considering how incredibly
• 29:32
  difficult and slow the fight is, does the agonizing case of our
• 29:35
  growth ever mean that God has failed?
• 29:38
  If God is completely sovereign, why doesn't he just perfect us
• 29:42
  the exact second we believe? Why leave us in the war zone?
• 29:45
  If we connect this to the bigger picture, we arrive at the
• 29:49
  beautiful concept of Sully Day. O Gloria, glory to God alone.
• 29:52
  God has absolutely not failed. The agonizing struggle, the
• 29:55
  painfully slow, stumbling pace of our sanctification is the
• 29:59
  very theater in which divine Providence magnifies the worth
• 30:02
  of Christ. The biblical framework suggests
• 30:05
  that God sanctifies believers slowly to continuously,
• 30:08
  repeatedly humiliate Satan. Every single time a weak,
• 30:12
  exhausted, struggling St. chooses the unseen Christ over a
• 30:15
  temporary, glittering, visible sin, Satan has proven to be a
• 30:18
  liar. The principalities and powers
• 30:21
  are put to open shame. That is a staggering, massive
• 30:24
  thought. Your quiet resistance to a
• 30:26
  momentary temptation on a random, boring Tuesday afternoon
• 30:30
  is actually cosmic warfare that humiliates the enemy of God.
• 30:35
  Your invisible obedience echoes in the heavenly places.
• 30:38
  But the texts also firmly point to the escalogical horizon, the
• 30:42
  literal, badly triumphant return of Jesus Christ.
• 30:46
  This grueling war against the flesh does not last forever.
• 30:49
  No, it ends definitively. Glorification, where the very
• 30:52
  presence of indwelling sin is eradicated permanently, we will
• 30:57
  be instantly perfected. And when the redeemed believer
• 30:59
  finally stands before the throne of God, they will not boast of
• 31:03
  their incredible discipline, their Bible reading plans, or
• 31:05
  their supreme willpower. They will cast their crowns at
• 31:07
  His feet and declare that the decisive performer of their
• 31:10
  obedience gets all the glory. To recap the massive reality we
• 31:13
  have covered today, believers are called to violent, sweat
• 31:16
  inducing warfare against their own sin.
• 31:19
  We do not sit passively in a rowboat hoping the current does
• 31:22
  the work. We are armed with the superior,
• 31:24
  satisfying promises of God. And we are fueled entirely by
• 31:28
  the sovereign, energizing Providence of the Creator, all
• 31:31
  of it forever secured by the blood of Jesus Christ.
• 31:34
  We firmly reject both the passivity of expecting God to do
• 31:38
  it without our active effort and the arrogant self-reliance of
• 31:41
  thinking our effort operates independently of God's
• 31:44
  sustaining grace. So to you, listening right now,
• 31:47
  the weariness you might feel in your fight against sin today is
• 31:51
  completely valid. It is a grueling, exhausting
• 31:54
  war. But do not give up and do not
• 31:57
  dare try to fight it in your own strength.
• 31:59
  Which brings us all the way back to that gym mirror.
• 32:01
  From the very beginning, when you look at your spiritual
• 32:04
  growth, you are not looking at your own muscle.
• 32:07
  You are looking at a divine miracle being worked out in real
• 32:10
  time. That is the beautiful,
• 32:12
  exhausting reality of the Christian life.
• 32:14
  So I want to leave you with the final thought all over.
• 32:16
  If the Almighty God is currently actively and infallibly
• 32:19
  operating within your chest to generate both the desire and the
• 32:22
  action for His pleasure, how does that alter the very next
• 32:25
  mundane, ordinary decision you make the second you take off
• 32:28
  your headphones?