00:00:00:49 – 00:00:24:40
Clint Loveall
Everybody. Thanks for being with us. Continue through Philippians. Glad you could join us for this study as we continue to work work our way through this book. We are in chapter two. Just finished a passage that is pretty well known in Philippians called the Christ Hymn. If you didn’t happen to see that it it might be worth going back to that it is.

00:00:24:40 – 00:00:52:28
Clint Loveall
It’s in many ways a cornerstone kind of text of this book, and it is very widely celebrated, and it may be helpful to have some of the background as we continue in this chapter with verse 12. Read a few verses here. Come back and we’ll have some discussion. Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only my presence, but much more now in my absence.

00:00:52:33 – 00:01:16:43
Clint Loveall
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you, enabling you to both will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without murmuring or arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God, without blemish in the midst of a crooked, perverse generation in which you shine like stars in the world.

00:01:16:48 – 00:01:37:08
Clint Loveall
It is by your holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ, that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. But even if I’m being poured out as a libation over the sacrifice and the offering of your faith, I am glad and I rejoice with all of you. And in the same way you must also.

00:01:37:08 – 00:02:09:05
Clint Loveall
You also must be glad and rejoice with me. Kind of. Maybe two, two sections or, front, half and back half in this passage. In Paul’s writing, we encounter this word, therefore, and it’s always a very important word. It’s where Paul takes what he’s been doing. Typically theologically and then translates it to practically. And so it’s a it’s it is very much a transition word that he uses in.

00:02:09:07 – 00:02:30:59
Clint Loveall
This is the case here. Therefore, my beloved, as you always have, not just when I’m here but when I’m not. And then Michael, he gives a verse that has gotten a lot of attention through the years. Again, probably because it’s a little bit hard to interpret. It’s a little bit hard to fully understand. Those are the things that attract people who want to solve those kind of mysteries.

00:02:31:10 – 00:02:57:20
Clint Loveall
Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. I think that’s not an instinctive verse. If we were to say that to someone, or to read that to someone and ask them what it means. I’m sure there’d be a lot of head scratching. I think the word fear, maybe in English, works against us a little bit. The idea is all reverence.

00:02:57:25 – 00:03:10:09
Clint Loveall
Fear is a part of that, but not exclusively to that. Work out your own salvation. And there’s, no shortage of conversation about what this does and doesn’t mean.

00:03:10:13 – 00:03:38:19
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, I think that we have to offer a caution, much like what we cautioned when we came to the Christ hymn, because we are still in a section. This may not have the same number of sticks and books written, but it has a lot. There’s a lot written about this, and it draws not just biblical literature scholars, people who care about words and syntax, but also theologians who really want to dig deep into what these words mean.

00:03:38:24 – 00:04:06:28
Michael Gewecke
All that’s important. All of that would be interesting, and you should be welcome to to study that across the ages. What we’re here to do today is to not look through and summarize all that content. What we’re here to do today is to see how this fits into this text, and why this transition word therefore pairs the Christ hymn and then moves so directly into this section, which is then going to be followed, I think, with some more clarifying thoughts.

00:04:06:28 – 00:04:31:34
Michael Gewecke
But before we rush to that, I just want to point out this idea of working out your salvation with fear and trembling comes immediately after a text in which we are told, if you remember that Jesus emptied himself, took the form of a slave found in human form, he humbled himself, obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross that was just a few verses before.

00:04:31:35 – 00:04:54:37
Michael Gewecke
Therefore, now work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. If the servant is not greater than the master, if Jesus Christ is the one who shows us the path towards salvation, then Christians have to reckon with the fact that that path is going to have a long at fear and trembling. Humility is going to ask something of us.

00:04:54:39 – 00:05:18:19
Michael Gewecke
It is going to be painful. And that goes around a lot. Today has always, and as Christians, there’s always been a version of the face that looks for pain, that looks for ways to to make it difficult. I don’t think that that is necessary. I don’t think if one is following in the way of Jesus, one needs to seek out trouble in life.

00:05:18:19 – 00:05:40:26
Michael Gewecke
Life brings that all by itself. And so working out our salvation, I think, looks like us being willing to follow the path that Jesus takes, being willing to be humbled in our own lives, trusting that we, like Jesus, will be raised, that God will do for us what he did for his own son. That we are Christians. We are little Christ.

00:05:40:26 – 00:05:52:10
Michael Gewecke
We are seeking to follow in the way of Christ, if that’s the case. But that’s a very large task and it is going to cost us something, and that is going to bring with it some trembling.

00:05:52:15 – 00:06:28:40
Clint Loveall
Yeah. What we’re not what we’re not being told here is individualization. In other words, when you hear something like work out your own salvation, it doesn’t mean find your own path. It doesn’t mean go your own way, doesn’t mean make up your own mind. It means pursue your own faith work. Put your faith into work, put your salvation into effect, and do so with fear and trembling, with humility, with or with reverence, with the wide range of things that would be communicated in this verse.

00:06:28:51 – 00:07:07:46
Clint Loveall
Take seriously your life of faith. Now, if biblical scholars and biblical linguists, if they want to dig deeper than that, we appreciate their help. We’re grateful for their guidance. But I think at the heart is Paul telling these Christians in Philippi don’t have a kind of faith that you just drag around with. You put your faith into practice and I think that is supported by the rest of the phrase here, for it is God who is at work in you.

00:07:07:51 – 00:07:39:01
Clint Loveall
So this is not this is not about me. This is not about my own individual beliefs. I am putting my salvation into practice because it is God doing that work in me. It is God who is at work in you. And I think, and maybe we may be working at this with those two phrases helpful. Maybe it’s not helpful, but I think you have to keep them together.

00:07:39:01 – 00:07:44:31
Clint Loveall
I think they they help define one another and they help think they help clarify one another.

00:07:44:33 – 00:08:19:39
Michael Gewecke
I can’t agree more. And in fact, I think the way that we know that worked out your own salvation is not some kind of individualistic work that is self-defined is because it’s immediately followed with because it’s God who is working in you. And I just want to be very clear, that is comforting on one level. And I think that we should see that certainly name it the fact that God is with us, even amidst difficulty, even amidst the lowering that happens in our lives, that is a comforting reality that we can hold on to.

00:08:19:53 – 00:09:00:21
Michael Gewecke
But Clint, let’s not miss. That’s also a very challenging statement, because what that means is the God who took on flesh, that God who did not, think that equality with God was something to be held onto, that God is living in you. And so what is the expectation, the same expectation that God has for God’s self. I mean, this is, I think very, very difficult for us to get our minds around and even harder to get our hearts around, because what that says is when Jesus is willing to die on the cross for us, that God lives in us, that brings me fear and trembling enough for this day.

00:09:00:34 – 00:09:20:58
Michael Gewecke
The fact that that God would ask for God’s people to do the same kind of sacrifice for the sake of the gospel, for the good news, for the witness to what God has done in Christ. God is doing in and through us, because it God is at work enabling us to will and work for not our good pleasure, his good pleasure.

00:09:21:03 – 00:09:39:36
Michael Gewecke
How do we know what his good pleasure is? Jesus defines it. Jesus shows it through his actions. How do we know it? It was in the hymn that just came before. That therefore is is pivotal, is critical to this text. And understanding what these words mean. I don’t think that the problem necessarily, Clint, is an understanding of this text.

00:09:39:50 – 00:10:00:59
Michael Gewecke
I think the problem here is the living it out in our lives that these words are easy to talk about when we’re studying it together. But when you face life’s difficulty, when you face your doubts, when you face the end of your human capacity and God wills and calls you to something beyond it, that’s where words are going to start to break down.

00:10:00:59 – 00:10:05:04
Michael Gewecke
That’s where we’re going to start learning with our souls what it means to be Christ followers.

00:10:05:04 – 00:10:30:46
Clint Loveall
And there’s a there’s a humbling reality here that I think we could read past fairly easily. Michael, we would understand the idea that God is enabling to work his good pleasure. God is helping us to do the work right. But Paul says more than that, God is enabling us to will and to work so behind before the work.

00:10:30:46 – 00:11:08:34
Clint Loveall
We have to even want to do the work and even that God has to help us do that. There’s a sort of confessional in this, that there are many moments where we don’t even want to follow the right path. Yeah, it’s not that we’re it’s not only that we’re lazy. There’s at times we’re selfish, we’re unmotivated. And I think there’s a tremendous humility and understanding that Paul believes not only do we need God’s help to do the good work, but to even want to do it, we need some prodding.

00:11:08:34 – 00:11:34:22
Clint Loveall
We need the help of the Spirit of Christ at work in us. And and I think that that’s helpful. And and when you acknowledge that now there is some fear and trembling. Right. Like I because I confess about myself that I sometimes don’t want the things of God, I sometimes don’t want to follow the path of Christ. So I do have to work out my salvation.

00:11:34:22 – 00:12:01:03
Clint Loveall
I have to do the work. I have to let Christ work in me with honesty and with reverence and with far and yes, with some fear, because I know that I’m not up to the challenge. And not only am I not up to it, sometimes I don’t even want to do it. And I just think there is a there’s a lot of devotional theology even in these few sentences.

00:12:01:03 – 00:12:09:21
Clint Loveall
And I think if we if we’re humble enough to hear them, they’re, they’re kind of we, we maybe get the fear and trembling sense a little better.

00:12:09:24 – 00:12:13:37
Michael Gewecke
One that this hasn’t hooked you yet. Then let’s keep looking ahead.

00:12:13:37 – 00:12:14:29
Clint Loveall
Yeah. No, we can.

00:12:14:42 – 00:12:39:39
Michael Gewecke
Do all things without murmuring and arguing. I mean, I could just stop there and that would be enough. But. So that you may be blameless and innocent, without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Clint, this is not studied, but I think the human soul would like to pause on the. Yeah, we’re in the midst of a perverse generation.

00:12:39:39 – 00:13:20:02
Michael Gewecke
Everybody loves the idea that that we stand against the thing that is the problem. It would be easy to read past do all things without murmuring and arguing. How many times have Christians stood in the midst of a perverse and broken world, and the way that we’ve pushed back has been with murmuring and with arguing? How often have we been the ones who have worked out our salvation with confidence and yelling, as opposed to living in with a kind of spiritual humility that shows others with the self-giving that Christ revealed himself perfectly to the world.

00:13:20:02 – 00:13:42:47
Michael Gewecke
If we want to be blameless as Jesus Christ was blameless. Clint, this is going to ask something of us that we’re not capable of doing on our own, which of course connects back to it’s God working through us to do it. But friends, without murmuring or arguing, this is a how that I think most of us would find intolerable.

00:13:42:52 – 00:14:16:35
Clint Loveall
I think really, in a subtle way here Paul shows his understanding, his wisdom, because murmuring, I can do internally, right? Arguing I do externally. So there is a word here for the self, and there is a word here for relation with others. Paul, in just one phrase, has really covered all of our life relationally in just the simple instruction do everything, do all things without murmuring or arguing.

00:14:16:35 – 00:14:47:54
Clint Loveall
So without internal complaint or external friction, pursue your faith and live without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. And you’re. I think you’re 100% right, Michael. It it is easy to read that and focus on the perversity of the generation, right? The fallenness, the wickedness of the world. But that’s actually not Paul’s point. Paul’s point is, yes, the world is wicked.

00:14:47:54 – 00:15:26:52
Clint Loveall
So you have to be something else. You have to live in a way that is different than the world around you, so that you shine like stars, that that Christians stand out as something different, as something other. Not not a celebration of the wickedness of the world, not even a condemnation of the wickedness of the world. In this particular text, but an encouragement for us to be something different, to live in a different way, and to reflect the light of Christ as we do.

00:15:26:52 – 00:15:39:31
Clint Loveall
And I, I think these are really people love the Christ hymn and for good reason. But these words are both immensely practical and hugely challenging.

00:15:39:36 – 00:16:07:57
Michael Gewecke
I think that if you keep going just a little bit in the text, it’s by you’re holding fast to the word of life that I can boast on the day of Christ that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Friends, that phrase holding fast to the word of life, is one of those phrases that we would all be quick to read by, but I just want us to slow down for a moment.

00:16:08:02 – 00:16:33:31
Michael Gewecke
The word of life. It’s a living thing. It’s not just propositional, it’s it’s not just words about words. It’s not just a book that’s gets made and stored somewhere on the shelf. And as long as you memorize it, you’ve done the thing. No, it’s living, it’s changing, it’s transforming, it’s renewing. It’s always doing the thing that living things do.

00:16:33:36 – 00:17:02:09
Michael Gewecke
And what makes that phrase so spectacular is because it connects to the really practical things that we’ve already seen, that living involves how we conduct ourselves without murmuring, without arguing. Right? Living requires living our lives with the kind of humility, fear, and trembling in which God is alive. Network in us. And it goes even deeper than that. The word of life is fundamentally the fact that God took on life.

00:17:02:09 – 00:17:32:27
Michael Gewecke
This is what Christians use the theological word incarnation to describe God took on flesh. When we say that, we mean that the word of God became life. And so everything that we know and all of our imaginations that are shaped by the gospel, should be the kinds of shaping that leads us to be living people. And the reason I pause here so long, Clint, is our context always shapes our perspective.

00:17:32:42 – 00:17:51:45
Michael Gewecke
That’s the way it’s always been. We can’t get out of that. But the reality is the text is always shaping our perspective. And here he has something to say to us. This text has something. You say that Christians should be the kind of people that strive to live as blameless people, defined by the word of life living in us.

00:17:51:45 – 00:18:14:42
Michael Gewecke
And when our speech and conduct does not represent life in the Christ, sense the giving up, the giving for the transformation for the sake of if that’s not what our word of conduct and our word of speech is salted by then I think Christians need to step back and review some fundamentals.

00:18:14:47 – 00:18:50:01
Clint Loveall
Yeah, I think that’s good, Michael. And then I would just close by saying that in these last words in this passage here, I think we hear Paul as both pastor and as some sense parent, not literally, but the idea of a spiritual father over these people. And as people who have jobs as pastors and maybe speaking to people who have families, when you see someone that you love and care about, live out the faith in a real way.

00:18:50:06 – 00:19:31:35
Clint Loveall
There’s such deep joy in it. When kids in the youth group do go on a mission trip and they make connections with people and they serve others. When people in the church. You know, express their faith in deep and real ways, both by by words and by deeds. When your child stands up at confirmation and professes their faith and says, I want to be in the church, that’s I think, the sense that I get here from Paul when when you hold fast to the faith, I rejoice.

00:19:31:35 – 00:20:02:23
Clint Loveall
And I know that the work I did, the working out my salvation and sharing and trying to be blameless and all the rest that I know that it bore some fruit. And even if I’m being poured out, in other words, even if my life is forfeit as I’m now in prison, even even if I’m an offering on the altar at this particular time, I am glad and I rejoice with all of you, and I know that you also rejoice with me again.

00:20:02:25 – 00:20:26:18
Clint Loveall
Paul, in a wonderful way, brings this back to this relational level where he celebrates the faith he sees in the church. And if you’ve ever had the occasion to see faith in a person that you love and care about, I Joy is joy. Gratitude. Those are the responses. And I think that’s what’s being pictured here.

00:20:26:24 – 00:20:35:25
Michael Gewecke
Being poured out is not evidence that the system is broken. Being poured out is an opportunity for joy and rejoicing.

00:20:35:25 – 00:20:44:15
Clint Loveall
Well, because what did we see Christ doing? Emptying, being, being poured. Right. So to to imitate that is Christ like.

00:20:44:25 – 00:21:04:30
Michael Gewecke
And that is the kind of word that we can all live up to and aspire to and quite frankly, not achieve. And the good news, remember, is that God works that out within us and through us. It’s God’s work and not our own. And Fred’s, hold on to that. Hope you’re encouraged by it. Certainly give this video a like if it’s been helpful in your study of Philippians.

00:21:04:30 – 00:21:09:34
Michael Gewecke
Subscribe to you. Don’t miss studies like this one and others. We look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

00:21:09:36 – 00:21:10:12
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.