Sometimes in our modern society, we misunderstand words like submission and obedience, sometimes these words can be off-putting, but they’re only off-putting because we don’t understand them. It’s because our society has manipulated or changed the meaning of them.
Joy in the Bible is directly connected to obedience.
It’s the faithful daily obedience of believers just like you throughout time that has changed the world for Christ. And it will be the daily, consistent obedience from believers just like you that will continue to change the world for the better, for Christ and the Gospel. And it’s the daily, consistent obedience from you that will lead to your true and lasting happiness. That’s the truth of God’s word. Yes, God cares deeply for your happiness. God desperately wants you to have joy.
However, God cares more about your holiness than your happiness.
God does care about your happiness and God wants you to be happy, but He knows something that we, as believers, often forget – that true happiness, lasting joy comes by way of holiness, through obedience, by way of righteous living, not through selfishness and self-seeking. You were created by God for His glory.
Your happiness will not come about completely in your life until you are living in the purpose for which you were created. It’s that simple. Otherwise, we will continue to seek it through other things and we will continue to not find it. We have a purpose for which we were created and living that purpose brings joy.
You bring glory to God by obeying His commandments.
That is what Paul wants us to understand. We keep waiting for this grand moment in our life when we arrive. You’re already there. Start being obedient where you are. He will reveal what He wants through your obedience over time. I think this is a wonderful concept that Paul is trying to get us to understand from Philippians chapter 2 that though he already had a plan, he wanted to do his part through the Philippians and through you and me. One step of obedience at a time.
Philippians 2:12 Paul says “So then, my beloved. Just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence only, but now much more in my absence. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
Here Paul is saying, work out your own salvation. If I never come see you again, continue to obey Christ and His commands in your life. He’s offered them accountability in the past, but what Paul knows to be true is what you need to understand today is that the responsibility ultimately to follow Christ must come from an internal desire, not an external motivation. As real and lasting obedience comes from. The heart, not compulsion and not manipulation.
Obedience is a joy filled thing.
You cannot earn your salvation through the acts of obedience that you do. Because you already have salvation, you know what you can do? You can go to the spiritual gym. Practice the spiritual disciplines, obey the Lord and watch God grow your faith. There’s a pesky personal pronoun here that I feel like I should mention because it helps me. What does Paul say? Paul says to work out your own salvation. You can’t work out and expect other people to get stronger. Just like you can’t work out spiritually and expect to change people. That’s not your job.
He’s saying, stay in your own lane. Keep your eyes on your own paper. Worry about your salvation. And though you can’t give other people salvation, you can grow them in salvation. What you can do, you can encourage them. You can be an example to them and you can inspire them. This doesn’t cancel Christian church discipline. It doesn’t cancel your loving effort to discipline your children as a parent. But what it does is it removes the stinger of judgment.
The root is the salvation that God has given you. The fruit is your acts of obedience and your spiritual disciplines.
Salvation is a free gift from God because He loves you. But sanctification is a process by which God grows you in your salvation through the Holy Spirit. Why? Because you love him. You cannot earn your salvation, but you can work because of it. In a way, salvation is kind of like life. Sanctification is like life. That’s why I think we call it being born again. Now, when you’re born into this world, you have life. It’s just like salvation. The moment of your justification when you trust Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, is that salvation? Yes, we call it justification.
But as you grow in your salvation, is that salvation? Yes. What do we call that? Sanctification. And then one day you’re going to die, you’re going to be buried, you’re going to go to heaven. That’s also salvation. We just call it glorification. And God is in charge of it. And Paul says, work in it. Grow in it. He says, with fear and trembling, not with arrogance or even ignorance, but with humility like Christ. Fear means both to tremble and rejoice because of what you have in the Lord. Paul picks up on both here, takes that Old Testament concept, and brings it right to the New Testament.
Why would you tremble in the presence of God? Because your smallness is being compared to His greatness and on your own, without Christ, God has the power and He’s going to judge sin. But as believers, that’s not the only state that we’re in. We also rejoice because Jesus died on our behalf. He was buried. He absorbed God’s wrath for us. He rose from the dead. If we repent and believe, we will be in the everlasting, loving arms of God as a father forever.
That’s how you work out your salvation with respect and reverence for God and appreciation for what you have in Christ. Knowing that you could never earn it on your own, but every day, giving it your best. This is where the process of working outcomes in.
How do you know about God? Pray. And read about him, he reveals himself to you. There are a lot of attributes about God that we have forgotten that we need to be reminded of. That you’ll never learn unless you read about them for yourself. Things like He is eternal. He is wise. Faithful. Holy. Omnipotent. It just means He’s all-powerful, omnipresent, which just means He’s everywhere. He’s omniscient. It means He’s all-knowing, righteous, sovereign, loving, merciful and good because he is God. These are His attributes. And if you don’t know them, you don’t know Him.
To work out your own salvation, to cultivate the soil that God has given you, will take daily spiritual discipline. Prayer, fasting, reading, memorizing, applying, and sharing the truths of God’s Word. This is the discipleship process.
Physical fitness is a never-ending process. Your spiritual fitness is the same way. You’re never going to arrive. But you can always be growing.
