Book of Philippians VI, Holding Out for the Word of Life

And Jim, you can just keep your eye on the air and so on, Air Force. I can't ever tell up here, and let me, while you're turning to Philippians 2, let me just continue to apologize for those of you who are too cold one day, you can't stand it, and too warm the next day, you can't stay awake. It's sort of a function of what this whole building is like. Most of these air conditioners are 17 or 18 years old, and they don't work as publicized, so it's tough. And then when you add to it the extra heat that's generated by these lights and so on, these people here, they start dozing, and you over there can't believe it. I've had people send me hate mail. I have. I mean, I'm not kidding you. I'm not coming back. So I said, well, come back and sit in the middle, or sit there for the first half and get frozen and thawed in the middle and second half, whatever. But we are aware of it. The point I'm making is we're aware of it. We're not doing it to make you uncomfortable. Someone said, you're just doing that because you don't want us to be comfortable. All right, Philippians 2. Weren't you excited last week when John Hagai shared? It was really good, and if you missed it, I'm sorry you did. Do we have the tape of that? Yes, we can get you the tape of that time. And he just so happened, didn't know this, but he taught in Philippians chapter 3. So he gave my Philippians 3, 10 through 13 sermon. So I'll get to skip that when I get there here in August or September. All right, but tonight we're in Philippians 2. Let's read. Oh, my goodness, I forgot an important part of this message. Here's what I'm going to do. You read with somebody. I'm going to go get my important overhead. I hurried out here and forgot to get it. So you read with someone. You can read it out loud. Philippians 2, verses 12 through 18. If you read slow, I'll be right back. Very good. I'm impressed you're still reading. That's excellent. All right. Did anyone not have a Bible? You need me to read it. All right. Here we go. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure children of God, without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold forth the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I'm being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. The study of motivation is an amazing and fascinating topic. What makes people want to do something? I mean, what is behind the actions that people take? What makes them want to get out of the grandstands and onto the playing field? What makes them want to produce more, do more, provide more, cross new thresholds and new barriers that had limited them? What is it that motivates people to change? I know if you've discovered that, you can make an awful lot of money in today's culture. Motivational speakers, some of whom I know, contract for $30,000 for one speech. I was thinking about changing careers myself. $30,000. Why? Well, because top companies know that they're going to get more than $30,000 worth of productivity out of a well-motivated salesperson. And so they pay those kinds of dollars. Interestingly, I have discovered this now from several sources, Christian and non-Christian alike. Paul Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world's largest church in Seoul, Korea. John Haycock, the man we just had here last Wednesday night, one of the best-known missionary developers in the world today. And lots of other people in between. All come down. Now, you're not going to like this. You real spiritual types. The number one motivation of people over the long haul, not just today or tomorrow, but over the long haul, is what? Fortunately, it's not money. But it is self-interest. People will only be sustained motivationally if they believe that what they're doing is in their own self-interest. Christian or non-Christian, spiritual or non-spiritual, that's the way it is. I want to tell you, now, 10 years, we're starting year 11. We had a wonderful birthday week, I thought. Did you think it was great? It really was a wonderful time. God blessed us. If you missed Sunday, I wish we could send you a package and you'd take a pill and enjoy it all. But it was just a glorious evening and fun. But what I've discovered is that it's true. And I've found, now, I'm not talking about short bursts here. We can have something like SOAR coming up, and a few of you will say, I need to serve and do something. So you get involved and you serve for SOAR for that weekend. Great. And you may do it with absolutely no... I mean, I can't imagine how it would be in your self-interest to be with 900 junior hires. Probably doesn't make any sense. But over the long haul, what motivates people is self-interest. Interestingly, in this passage, now, the Apostle Paul starts with the word in verse 12 what? What's the word? Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, he is now doing what? He is going on and he is motivating people to obey God. He is motivating people to work out their salvation. We're going to look at what that means in just a moment. But he does it based on the motivation of Philippians 2, 5-11. Anytime there's a therefore, one of my seminary teachers told me, whenever there's a therefore, ask what it's... You must have the same person. What's the therefore, therefore? Well, it's there to tell us, because of what Jesus did, obey the Lord and work out your salvation in fear and tremble. Now, I just want to refresh your memory. It's been three weeks since we've had this teaching. Remember the dreaded D words? The seven steps of God's willing demotion in Jesus Christ. Remember those? Let's run down them. First of all, it says that he did not grasp equality with God, a thing to be held tightly. Number two, that he emptied himself. And number three, found an appearance as a man. We talked about the fact that Jesus becoming a man is infinitely greater than man becoming an ant. Remember that? And then we talked about being made in human likeness. Now, you may think you're okay, but for you, that's one thing. For God, we're not all that cool. We may think, but God's not that impressed. And then he took on the nature of a servant. Remember we talked about each one of these was a progressive lowering of himself. He didn't come as a king or an attorney or a president, but as a servant and humbled himself unto death. And we talked about he willingly, willingly gave his life. No one took it from him. The Bible says he willingly. But that wasn't even enough. We talked three weeks ago, just before Easter week, we talked about that he humbled himself to death on a cross. And we said dying on a cross was the lowest, most despicable way that a person could lose their life. Now, remember we said these seven steps that Jesus Christ modeled for us are to be a picture of how we live our lives. And nobody here left and bought the tapes, just like I said. Nobody wants to hear this stuff. This doesn't sell books or tapes. This is tough Christianity. But see, this is what Jesus said. Now, Paul says, therefore, however, happily he doesn't stop there because verse 9 says what? Therefore, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name. Now, we like this kind of stuff, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Now, how many of you could get excited about those three verses? Come on, let's be honest. I don't look forward to the servant part and the humility part and the death part and all that. But I look forward to the exaltation part and the seated at the right hand part and the name above every name. Don't you? Now, can you accept that what we're going to look at tonight is in your own self-interest because in the end, God will exalt you? Can you accept that what I'm going to share tonight about obeying the Lord, working out your salvation, isn't just because you've got to do it because you want to be a good Christian, but it's in your best interest? You see, if we could get a hold of what this means to us, we wouldn't have a problem recruiting people. We wouldn't have a problem going out and touching lives around. We wouldn't have a problem in filling up our children's ministry or touching our youth ministry or moving out in missions. We wouldn't because people would realize, wait a minute, what I'm doing, not only glorifies God like I know I should, not only pleases Jesus like I want to, not only as a testimony to the people around me, but it's also in my own self because the Lord says whoever humbles himself, what? I will exalt. Whoever gives himself, I will return. You see, the promises are real, folks. I love God for the fact that he doesn't tell us just to lay it all down no matter what, but he loves us enough to say, if you lay it down, I'll lift you up. Now, it may not be in the exact way that you're looking for. I know that. Not everyone that lays their life down suddenly rises up the next day at the top of the heap, but God, dear ones, is a debtor to no one and he'll always keep his promises. I just want us to lay that motivation right square in the middle of the table tonight so that you know that this is for you. Sometimes I feel like Jesus Christ seems to be so far out there that we don't know that we could follow him the way. You know, why do you think Jesus did that? Why did he do those seven steps? He loved us. And he wanted to please the Father, didn't he? And the Bible says in Hebrews 12 that how did he get through it? He looked at the cross, but he looked beyond the cross and bore the shame of it. How? Because he knew that there was a joy that came past. Now, all I want to get through to you tonight is that the same way Jesus made it through the tough part, that's how we make it through. We look past it. Aren't you glad Jesus didn't stop? Aren't you glad he was a man of follow-through? There's so few people to follow through anymore. Aren't you glad that Jesus didn't decide along the way that when the devil tempted him in Matthew chapter 4 that he'd say, you know what? I think I just might take your offer. Where would we be if Jesus had fallen to that? Aren't you glad that Jesus didn't fall prey to using his power to his own benefit? If you and I could change two fish and five loaves of bread enough to feed 5,000, just think how we would do on the New York Stock Exchange. We could market that company big time. Aren't you glad Jesus didn't succumb to the temptation to make him... Aren't you glad that Jesus, when he got into the Garden of Gethsemane and sweated like drops of blood, aren't you glad that he didn't say, you know, this isn't worth it? Aren't you glad he said, Father, nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done? Aren't you glad that when he was hanging and suffering and people were mocking him? You know, I'm reading right now just a gripping story written by Viktor Frankl. He's a Jewish psychiatrist from Nazi concentration camp days. And it's just really interesting and stirring reading. But one of the things he says, in the concentration camps, it wasn't so much the terror of the physical, it was the insult of the degrading that broke people. And I couldn't help but parallel that to Jesus. Aren't you glad that when they mocked him and spit on him and say, if you're the son of God, come on down, knowing full well in the moment he could have done it, he didn't do it. Aren't you glad that he had the courage to follow through on those demotions all the way to the end? Therefore, you see, you and I are the recipients of that tremendous, that's, see this Jesus is a man of substance. And I, that just, I look at him and I say, oh, that's the way I want to be a man that will follow through on my commitment to serve you and to please you. I don't want to stop halfway. And here tonight, we need to see something. That God is calling us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Let's write down, there's three little categories here. Not going to take very long tonight. Three things that we need to do to follow through with the Lord. Number one, our salvation is personal. Now this is important. Here it says, and we've all read this. This is one of the first verses I remember memorizing. It says, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. The word work out, by the way, is in the continuous present tense, which means it doesn't get done May 1st, next Christmas, two years from now. It's always happening. It's a word that means continue unto perfection. So folks, however good it is now, it's going to keep getting better. Amen? However much of a discipline it is in your life now to follow it, it's just going to keep being that way because we're called to work it out. It doesn't just happen. But people ask me often, how do I do that? My first point that you have to get tonight, if you're to be a person to follow through and follow Jesus on that cross so that you might be exalted, number one is understand your salvation is personal. You're working it out, Jerry, will be different than Jim's. And Jim's, thankfully, will be different than Max's. And Max's different than Gene's. And on down the line, different than Brad's. Why? Because God knows exactly what makes us up. You know, we're some weird birds here. Every one of us is unique. I mean, if every snowflake is different, how many of every one of us is really different? I mean, different nuances of personality and different likes and dislikes. God knows our interests, our backgrounds, our education. He knows our tweaks, the things that really... He knows what our gifts are. He knows our abilities. He knows our desires. And what it's going to take for your salvation to be fully realized, for you to follow Christ all the way through, God knows what that's going to mean. Now here's where a lot of people get hung up and make a big mistake. They start looking for formula Christianity. Do these things, make these confessions, do those kinds of disciplines, and you'll become thus and so. We all tend to want to do that because it gives us some kind of security. I've been part of, in times past, groups of people who set standards. Have you ever been part of churches where rules were put up? I've had people say to me, we should have a list of rules about what things are acceptable around here. I know Christian communities where they say, these are things that you can do and these are things you can't do. Did anyone here grow up in a denomination that said these are the things you can't? I have one person, any question that I ask, they've done it. Because I know it. She's not lying. I mean, it's true. Can't go to these kinds of functions? Can do these. It's acceptable to have this food on these days? Folks, listen. There is nothing life-giving in those kinds of required disciplines that may be fine. Maybe it's what you need, but it's not necessarily what I need. And the beauty about following the Lord is, folks, God knows what we need to do to fashion ourselves to become increasingly like Christ. People, you know, we'd love for the Lord to say, well, you can drive this kind of car. You can live in this neighborhood. You can have this food to eat on these days. You can go to these movies, but not these. You can dance this way, not that way. Listen to this music, not that music. You can work this many hours for me and be pleasing. You can serve this many ways and I'll love you. No, the Lord doesn't do that. He calls us all differently. You know, one of my dearest friends in college who just helped me to get fired up, wasn't the guy that led me to the Lord, but he was there beside me, especially the year after. And I thought he would have been a great pastor, a great leader in ministry. Just had all the right mix of things. But when the Lord called me into ministry, guess where he called this guy? Into the business world. And I watched this guy, and he took an entirely different track. And I believe, I honestly believe, he's fulfilling God's call in his life. He's working out his salvation. Now, the salvation, by the way, did I say this? We're not talking about necessarily, you know, whether or not in the end God accepts you. We're not talking about that. We're talking about the whole, actually one commentator I read said, we could use the word sanctification. Work out the wholeness of your life in God. He's working out his whole life in God, serving Christ in the business world. I talked to a person from Trinity Seminary. Who knows where that is down here, the Episcopal School for Ministry, down in Switler, or Ambridge, I guess it is. And they'd been down there about a year. This person was quite successful in the business world, a person in their late 30s. They were saying, you know, I've been here a year. I said, it's not clicking for me. In fact, I don't even like it. This seminary stuff isn't... Now, this person had started three companies, was making over six figures in income on an annual basis, had money saved up to be able to do this, but was miserable. I said, well, why did you do it? He said, well, because the church that I had gone to taught us that if you really wanted to follow Jesus and you really wanted to be a person that was working out what it meant to follow Christ all the way, then you'd go into ministry. And folks, a lot of us feel that way. A lot of us feel like we'll never be all God wants us to be unless I finally get up here and do what I'm doing. That's just not true. God has a plan and a pathway for you that's unique to you. You know, God can even make our mistakes into good things. You know, if you took the wrong job in your mind 10 years ago, you can either say, I wasted 10 years, or you can say, God, would you please take those 10 years and invest it so that my next 10 are the best they've ever been? That's what Romans 8.28 means. All things work together for good to those of us. There's no single way to do this. And something else I'll say in working out this salvation, this is a tough one. What the Lord required of you three, five, seven years ago may be different than he's requiring of you now. You know that? In the 1970s, 1976 was a big year for patriotic Christianity. Why? Bicentennial. We're sharp. Some of us were much younger then, and we remember that, okay? And I remember 1976, the Lord called me to fast on a weekly basis. And I did that for like six years. Every Friday I would fast. And, you know, for whatever reasons, you know, it was a hassle some days, but it really wasn't back-breaking. I just kind of did it, and it wasn't a big deal. Now, I'm a person who used a lot of calories. My body metabolism is very fast. So, I mean, I was hungry, but it just didn't bother me because the Lord called me to it. He hasn't called me to do that in the 80s, late 80s and 90s. I fast, but I don't fast that regularly. You know what I do differently now that I didn't do 15 years ago? I make myself get away from all of you for a while. And I have tried to be disciplined about getting quiet, getting solitude where I can hear the Lord. The Lord's requiring that of me. Now, I don't know what that might be for you, but whatever it is, folks, get in touch with it. Work out your salvation. Find out what it is for you. Don't wait for me to come to you. The second thing I want to tell you is this salvation, put it up, Debbie. The second thing, please. This salvation is something God's got to work in you. Don't wait for me to come tell you what you need to do. I am not your personal spiritual guru, and neither is anyone else here, dear one. I don't mean that to be cute. I don't have your answer for how to work out. I'm willing to talk to you about it, surely. But people come and say, well, should I do this or should I do that? What would you say? God is more than willing to tell you how to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Don't look at Brother George over here or Jim here or Nancy or Kent. God may have Kent in a whole different path. And I know one of our biggest problems is we look around and we compare and we say, well, if I did what he did or if I could only do like he did, I'd be so much better off. No. The Holy Spirit wants to tell you exactly what you need to do to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. I mean, really, it's okay to have models out there. I don't have any problem with that. But don't think because God led this man this way that he's going to lead you that way and you'll get to the same end. There's a lot of pastors out there, for example, right now, in dead and dying churches living frustrated lives because their model was a pastor and they thought they could please God if they were pastors. There's a lot of frustrated people sitting right here tonight who make your Christian model some TV personality that you think you should be like if you say what they say. It just doesn't work that way. The Holy Spirit wants to make alive God's pathway for your discipline of following Christ and your exaltation. He's very personal that way. You can trust him to be very right on with what you need. And it's not that easy sometimes to hear. You know what I discovered? Interestingly, I hadn't thought about this really, but when I shared Isaiah 42 about the Lord not screaming in the streets, I've discovered that Holy Spirit revelation that we all want to hear usually is very quiet. And lots of times if you're a younger Christian or sometimes an old stodgy one, you don't want to hear it when it comes. The Lord will prompt you to do something or to say something or to somehow act on something and you'll say, I don't think so. Think for a minute. Now, when is the last time you told the Lord I don't think so? The Lord says to you, you know, your next step on your series of seven demotions is to be a home group leader. You may think that's a promotion. I think that's a demotion for most people because it's a humbling job. You say, no, I don't think so. Now, usually, very few of us would say if we knew it was God, very few of us would say, no, thanks, Lord. Really, I know how spiritual. But you know what we do say? Is that you, God? Is that you? Because, you see, if we can somehow think it's maybe just me making it up, then we don't have to worry about obeying it. And so the Lord nudges you and says, you know, you ought to come to worship Saturday night so you can serve Soren's ministry Sunday morning. But the Lord nudges you and says, you know, your next step is to be willing to tell the people you work with that you're a Christian and you'd like to share your faith with one of them. I don't think so. God, you don't understand. Listen, I have discovered that's how I grow. And you read any of the great devotional leaders of our faith, you read the Oswald Chambers and the Andrew Murrays, they'll tell you, you stop your growth when you start ignoring those little promptings of the Holy Spirit. God just puts you on a, you know, a couple summers ago when we were out in Colorado, one of the trains, we went on one of those beautiful train rides that goes up in the mountains. And we got to this one, yeah, the Silverado, no, Silverton Railroad, yes. And we were going up the mountain and one time we got off in this side track. Couldn't figure out what was going on. Why? Well, coming down the other mountain was the other train. There's two of them. One of us had to get off the side track. Well, what happens with us, if we're not listening to the Lord and obeying, we just get off in the side, we just sit there. And we wonder why all the trains keep passing us. Or we start getting mad at the trains, or they're not really the spiritual design, but why are they going? Folks, listen, the Holy Spirit, you got to listen to him. How do I do it? Just be a little bit quiet, sit in front of God and ask him to. It's amazing how easy it is. That's how we work out our salvation. And by the way, it does say there, doesn't it, with fear and trembling. What does that mean? Do you ever ask yourself what that means? Are you supposed to be afraid of God? Let me share with you. No, I don't think it means like, oh, God, if I don't do this, you're going to whack me with your big hammer. You know what fear means to me? It means respect. It means a sense of awe. But it also means this. It means, Lord, I wouldn't want to disappoint you. I wouldn't want you to think that how you felt was unimportant to me. Some time ago, I was at a piano recital. One little girl kind of fumbled through, didn't do all that well, but came back and walked up where I was sitting, came back to her dad. She had some tears in her eyes. Dad said, well, you did a good job. He was trying to encourage her. He said, Daddy, I was so afraid I disappointed you. And I think that's what the Lord is saying here. That we should have a holy sense of, Lord, this is my only life, and I don't want to disappoint you with my life. I want it to matter. I want it to please you. And we need to do it in a way, verse 14 there, I think, is very important. It says to do whatever he calls you to do, whatever the Holy Spirit urges you to do, how? Verse 14, look at it. Without complaining or arguing. Now the word there, listen to the word, it's the Greek word, gungusimus, which is the word that means murmur. I like the word murmur. We read about it in number 16. The Israelites murmured. Murmur is one of those words that, there's a few of them that sound like what they are, right? Let's all try it. Or, you know, there's a few words, what's that called, some of our English people? Onomatopoeia, that's right. It means buzz, you know, buzz. One of my favorite words like that is drizzle. Drizzle, you know. So we don't murmur. What does that mean? It means that we choose, when the Lord calls us to do something, not to mumble about it, argue about it. God is not real blessed. If he asks you to do something, and you say, how many of you have kids when you ask them to take out the trash? I mean, they have this little ritual they go through. They haven't done anything in six days in the house, and you tell them to put their socks away. I'm talking about all that stuff, by the way, starting Sunday, with how we parents survived these incredible years. But I don't think God's any more pleased when we mumble to him. And we do mumble, folks. I wish I could tell you. I mean, you know, at the risk of sounding like I'm dumping on you, and really it's not so much the Wednesday night crowd as the balance of the church that's not here. But so many people don't follow through, or we ask them to, you know, they say they want to participate, and we go to press the button, and, you know, gee, I really can't do it now. Or, oh, I've been stuck, you know, two weeks in a row I had to be in the parking lot. If the Lord's calling you to serve him, whatever it is, here or out there, or across the seas or wherever, don't murmur about it. Don't take your joy out of it. And if the Lord's giving you a simple little discipline to follow, don't ruin it by mumbling and complaining about it. It's not going to bless you or God or anybody else if you do that. The reason you can be sure it's going to get done is because the Bible says it's God that's at work in you, both to will and to do your good pleasure, his good pleasure. That verse has meant so much to me. Have you ever had God tell you to do something and you didn't want to do it? I have that all the time. And this verse promises us something. Listen, even if you don't want to, you can say, God, put the want to in me. And the word, by the way, that says, for God is at work in you, let's look at it. Please put this in your minds. It's in your Bibles. It's not just me flaming on here. It's God who works. You see the word in verse 13? That word is anergomai. It's different from the other word where you're working out your salvation. This word is anergomai. And that's the word from which we get energy. So as it were, God is your energizer. If I had the money and the time, I would have gotten you all batteries tonight. God is your energizer. When he calls you to do something, to take a step of faith, to follow him, he's going to give you the energy to do it. He's going to put the will and the strength to fulfill his good pleasure. Never think that God will lead you someplace you can't succeed because he won't do it. If he leads you there, he'll enable you to finish the job. And if you quit, it's because you quit. Not because God fell short. Powerful stuff, isn't it? In conclusion, why is it then that the Lord tells us to do that? Well, because our salvation is proof, number three. Our salvation is proof to the world around us. Our salvation's personal. It's empowered by God. He's the one that makes us accomplish it. But let's look at these last verses quickly here as we conclude tonight. It says that, verse 15, you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life. I have a little bit of a theory that I just want to test with you. Do you think the people that you rub shoulders with out there in the marketplace, not here in church, but out there where you live in your neighborhoods, your workplaces, what are they really looking for? What are they really looking for? To be left alone? It seems to me most people are looking for quality of life. Not necessarily lots and lots of money because they're smart enough to know that that doesn't mean that they're going to have everything they want. You can't buy love. You can't buy nice kids. You can't buy those kind of things. But everyone wants quality of life. They want a life where they feel at peace with themselves and with the significant others in their lives and where they have enough stuff that they're living comfortably. They want quality of life. And I want to submit to you that if you are following Jesus Christ and doing His will with all of your heart, if you're living a salvation that's personally in tune with God's plan for you, I want to submit to you that you will live a quality of life that will shine like a star wherever you are. Why? Because the peace of God in you is something nobody can duplicate. It doesn't matter how much stuff they have. I've been with wealthy people, successful people, people on top of their game, so to speak. It does not buy life. It does not buy peace. And see, Paul has the secret here. He says if you do the will of God, if you follow His plan for your salvation with fear and trembling, he's saying you're going to shine like a star. That's a neat picture, isn't it? I told you about the time I took my son Jonathan out. In fact, we just got back from shopping, some basic, it was a dark night, no moon. We're up in this little hilltop, and I was holding him. He was only like four or five years old, home like this. Walked out in the street, and I had taken some astronomy as a kid, and I showed him the Big Dipper. And he looked over in the horizon, and he saw this one star. It was really bright, brighter than any other star. He said, what star is that, Dad? And just from my own, I knew it was Venus. It was a planet. It was in the summertime. You can only see it certain months of the year, and it's really bright because it's low to the horizon usually. I said, that's Venus. He said, wow, that's really bright. They must have all their lights on. I said, yeah, they probably do. But that picture there, God has you shining, and it's very clear to me. It's very clear to me. He uses the words crooked and perverse generation. Morally bankrupt. Folks, it's an erosion here. That's all it is. It's eroding away. God's mercy just lets us go on. But you're the ones that shine. Your salvation, your life is what's going to draw people. And notice what Paul says as I conclude here tonight. He says this. I don't want to say that I ran or labored for nothing. If I'm going to be poured out like a drink offering, verse 17, on th