Phil 2:12-18 - 12 Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear. 13 For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

14 Do everything without complaining and arguing, 15 so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. 16 Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. 17 But I will rejoice even if I lose my life, pouring it out like a liquid offering to God,[e] just like your faithful service is an offering to God. And I want all of you to share that joy. 18 Yes, you should rejoice, and I will share your joy.

Intro:

If the theme of the book of Philippians is “Joy” then the theme of chapter 2 could be “becoming like Christ!” 

The beginning of Chapter 2 lays out the attitude and disposition of Christ for all of us to glean from and establish as a bar of living for the believer. 

In Phil 2:6-8 we see three unique dispositions of Christ revealed for us. 

·      Submission 

o   Phil 2:6 - Though he was God, he did not think of equality with Godas something to cling to.

·      Humility

o   Phil 2:7 - Instead, he gave up his divine privileges he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

·      Obedience

o   Phil 2:8 - When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross.

Point 1: (Vs:12) Work Hard 

12Dear friends, you always followed my instructions when I was with you. And now that I am away, it is even more important. Work hard to show the results of your salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and fear.

I want to start by making note of what working hard does means and what it does not mean. 

What it does not mean: 

·      It does not mean that we can in some way or fashion apply enough effort to our devotion or witness for God that we would ever earn our acceptance or love from God. 

o   News Flash: God loves you already! 

o   1 John 4:16 - We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.  

o   God is not merely loving at His core, He is love. His existence is the completion and perfection of love. 

·      It does not mean that we can work our way into heaven or God’s graces. 

·      Eph 2:8-9 - For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.

What it does mean: 

·      Paul says we are to work hard at showing the results of our salvation! 

o   Especially by our demonstration of obedience to Him with reverence and fear. 

·      We need to work out what God has worked in. 

o   This tells me that there are going to be times when this does not happen naturally for us. If it becomes an exercise in “obedience” then maybe there is some internal opposition that happens in the life of a believer that would require some extra… 

The good news about this is: we aren’t left to ourselves trying and groping to achieve some modicum of obedience. 

o   13For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.

o   God places the desire within you and the power needed to succeed in your obedience to Him. 

o   I wonder how many believers God has been working in them and establishing His lordship over their lives but they have been pushing back and resisting? I wonder how many believers have had moments of great obedience to God in bringing Him glory but only to hold back and shun the power available to continue in that obedience? 

o   I believe that this is what Paul is making reference to when he says we need to “work hard” 

All this talk about work is really summed up with God both giving and doing all the work. It is a cooperation with the Holy Spirit in our sanctification.  

Point 2: (Vs:14) Don’t Complain

 14Do everything without complaining and arguing,

This may seem trivial or somewhat pointless (especially if you don’t have children yet lol). But when we begin to survey the whole of scripture we begin to see that God is very serious about the issue of complaining. 

Between the books of Exodus and Numbers we have no less than 14 different occasions noted that the Israelites complained about Moses or God or both. 

Almost from the beginning we see them start to complain. Here are a few of the complaints that they gave. 

o   Exodus 5 – They complain because Moses tried to free them so Pharaoh made it harder on them.  

o   Exodus 14 – They complained that Moses wanted to kill them when Egyptian armies were closing in on them at mouth the Red Sea. God splits the sea and destroys the armies showing them that He would protect them.  

o   Exodus 15 – After they were rescued by God at the Red Sea crossing they settled at the oasis of Marah but the water was too bitter to drink so they complained to Moses again. God changed the bitter water into sweet water to drink for them as a sign that He would refresh them. 

o   Exodus 16 – (one month out of Egypt) They complained about the lack of food. So, God gave them mana and quail to eat every day. (Moses told them that their complaints were toward God now and it would be God who would address them about it).

o   Exodus 17- They complained again about being thirsty. Moses has had it at this point.  

o   1At the Lord’s command, the whole community of Israel left the wilderness of Sin[a] and moved from place to place. Eventually they camped at Rephidim, but there was no water there for the people to drink. 2 So once more the people complained against Moses. “Give us water to drink!” they demanded. “Quiet!” Moses replied. “Why are you complaining against me? And why are you testing the Lord?

This was faithlessness. It is the heart that says, “I know better than God. If only he would follow my plan.”

Grumbling, whining, and thanklessness are not ultimately the heart’s responses to circumstances, but to God.

Thanklessness and grumbling — regardless of your situation, even your suffering — reflect your heart. They are sin.

It penetrates to the core and rots your heart from within.

In fact if you read through the book of Numbers you find that in chapter 14 all of the Israelites that were in Egypt would not make it into the promised land. It would be inhabited by their children. 

Only Joshua and Caleb would be allowed to enter into the promised land. 

All this because of complaining and arguing. 

God is very serious about this matter and Paul placing it in these verses only shows us that we are no different than those ancient Israelites in the exodus. 

Point 3: (Vs:15) Live Pure

15 so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people.

The Greek words for this verse can be translated as – Live pure, harmless lives… the Greek word for “harmless” is also used as “hornless”. It’s a word used to describe a sheep whose horns were cut off.

*We did this on a cattle ranch in Australia. The main purpose of cutting the horns off of the cattle (in this case) was so that they wouldn’t hurt each other and also because it would cause the meat to be tougher due to the healing after the wound.   

There is an obvious parallel to be taken from this wording. When we live clean, innocent lives we are essentially living harmless/hornless lives that will be for the protection of other people. We won’t hurt other sheep, and what’s more than that is we will become a powerful shining light pointing the way in a dark and lost world. 

Point 4: (Vs:16) Hold Firm

16 Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless. 

This exhortation by Paul is a little kick in the pants to the Philippian church. He was basically telling them “Hey don’t go ruin all this work God did in you and negate all my suffering for you!”. Like hey stay in this. It’s all worth it! It’s all going to pay off at the end of the race. There is a prize for every one of you who hold on firmly to the Word of Life! 

This is true for you and me also….