Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In 2006, MySpace was the most visited website in the United States.

It was on MySpace that you publicly identified your top friends and played a love song for your sweetheart and posted your life’s manifesto on the powerful new platform of the blog.

And, today, I’ll pay anybody in here $100 if you can login to an active MySpace account.

Myspace plummeted from the most used social networking platform in the world to total irrelevancy with the speed of a Beanie Baby’s depreciation.

Doesn’t it seem a lot of the time that the Christian life cycle is similar to that of MySpace?

You start out, and your red hot.

You want to do everything and be everywhere.

You can’t get enough of being in the church and your name is on the top line of the mission trip sign up or the community outreach.

But, then, within a couple of years or even a couple of months, you’ve gradually backed down so that even mere attendance feels hard.

There’s been this clear arc in your Christian life in which you started, grew like crazy, and then crashed hard at the end.

There’s a lot the can be said about an arc like that.

Jesus says in the Parable of the Sower that many seeds will spring up in shallow dirt, but their fruit won’t last because their roots don’t take.

Often, I think the case is burnout.

You’ve done and done and signed up and signed up, and one day you look at everything and can’t really remember why you started.

The ministry or mission trip didn’t go like you thought it would and slowly your heart has been distracted by work and family so that growing in God becomes a marginal part of your life rather than priority.

You’re frustrated by doing so much and still feeling so guilty.

You’re just tired.

You just want to rest.

And, unintentionally, a short rest turns into total withdrawal until your passion for Jesus feels like a note on your Wikipedia page instead of the central pillar of your life.

This morning, Paul is going to address this with the faithful, serving Christians of Philippi.

God’s Word

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A Stumbling Baby, not an Arc

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed...” Just as in verse 9, Paul uses ‘therefore’ to show us the very practical and real reaction of God the Father to Jesus’ humble obedience, he uses it again in verse 12 to show what our real, practical reaction should be to a Savior as wonderful, as humble, as obedient, as sovereign as Christ.

Jesus changes our actual lives, not just in theory, but in reality.

He changes our lives, and he keeps on changing our lives.

It’s easy to be theoretical Christians.

We’ve all heard the coach talk about what a priority his faith is in his speech to parents but then that faith apparently has no place at practice.

That’s theoretical Christianity.

As parents it’s easy to say that Jesus is most important and the center of our family but never actually talk about Jesus and change the priorities of our family to reflect that Jesus is the center.

It’s theoretical Christianity.

But, Jesus didn’t just teach obedience; He actually was obedient, even to the point of death on a cross.

Jesus was born in obedience, and Jesus died in obedience.

He lived in obedience and died in obedience.

So, the Christian life cycle is not intended to resemble an arc that trends up for a while, peaks, and then crashes.

Rather, the Christian life cycle is intended to resemble the steady growth of a baby who stands up, falls down, and is put back on her feet by her Father again.

It’s to be a life of messy, uneven, stumbling growth that lasts until the end.

So, we see How Christians Keep Growing in Christ (headline), how Christians respond to the glory of Jesus with, not just a life, but a lifetime worthy of the gospel of Christ.

Work “Hard” to “Obey”.

v. 12 “as you have always obeyed…work out your own salvation” Paul presents our growth in Christ as being the result of our work in Christ and of Christ’s work in us.

So, first, you see that you are to Work hard to “obey.”

There’s a specific reason that I say here that this is an explanation of how a Christian keeps growing in Christ.

Notice how he opens this up in verse 12.

He says, “as you have always obeyed.”

The Philippians were already viewed by Paul as growing, obedient Christians.

Their growth curve had already started.

They had already moved from the milk to the Gerber’s.

But, the goal is not short-term behavior modification.

The goal is not to get them to stop cussing and to start attending small group for a little while.

The goal is a lifetime faith being lived out as lifetime faithfulness.

It’s a real transformation, a real, lasting life-change.

We’re Saved, We’re Being Saved

There’s something here that probably looks strange to us who believe (like Paul) that we’re saved by grace alone.

He says to ‘work out your own salvation.’

But, we know that our salvation is not the result of our works, but of Jesus’ works, not the result of our righteousness but of Jesus’ righteousness.

So, what does this mean?

If you’ll allow me two theological words here, they’ll help to explain.

This is about the relationship between justification and sanctification.

Both are encompassed in our salvation.

We most often think of salvation in terms of justification.

Justification is God accepting us.

And, through Christ, He has! Praise his name, we are accepted into the Kingdom of God despite ourselves!

Justification for our sins happens at the instant that we place our faith in Jesus.

We are saved!

But, not only are we saved, but we’re still being saved.

This is where we come to sanctification.

Sanctification is God’s changing us.

It’s bringing our life into greater submission to Christ.

We have already been made God’s children, but we don’t yet fully live like it.

We have already been assured the Kingdom of God, but we are not yet fully surrendered to his Kingdom.

We have been justified, but we are being sanctified.

Christ has made you righteous before God, but you are not yet fully righteous in your living.

We have been “saved”, but we are still being “saved”.

Display Jesus’ Masterpiece

Eternal “salvation” is marked by lifetime “transformation”.

And, the point of verse 12 is that you play an active role in God’s changing you.

You play an active role in the transformation that God is bringing about in your life.

When we read “work out your own salvation”, it’s not saying “Work yourself into salvation” or “Work out a way to save yourself.”

Instead, it means to ‘carry out’ the salvation that has already taken place.

You’re a slave that’s been set free so carry out your freedom and stop living as a slave.

Jesus has given us the honor of expressing what He has accomplished.

He has painted the picture.

He is the artist that can take the most wretched and present them as the most wonderful before God.

So, he has painted the picture, but now we are to put it on display.

We are to show how wonderfully Jesus has saved us by humbling ourselves as Christ and obeying as Christ and love as Christ.

We are to carry out in the fullest degree what Christ has already accomplished.

We are to display his work in every way and in every place.

Redeemed Works

“fear and trembling” It’s easy to embrace a cheap grace gospel that believes that you aren’t saved by your works so your works don’t matter.

It’s the cheap grace of believing that God will save you without continuing to save you, that Christ’s work for you will lead to your works in him.

But, when Jesus “redeemed” you, He “redeemed” your works, too.

He redeemed every, single part of you.

No longer would your good works add to your condemnation; rather, they would be used by Christ to reveal your justification.

He says that with ‘fear and trembling’ you are to bring your feeble efforts and your broken passion into the presence of the Almighty.

You aren’t working out your salvation to prove your value to God; you are working out your salvation because God has revealed his own value to you.

He is worthy of all that you have and so much more.

He’s worthy of all that you are, and the awareness of his worthiness and the awareness of your own wretchedness creates in you a trembling desire to grow more worthy of the Name that He has given you — Son and Daughter.

A Sinner Isn’t Easily Changed

APPLICATION: So, work hard to obey because a sinner isn’t easily changed.