Word of Salvation – January 2017
Fear and Trembling – by Rev. Dr. Steve Voorwinde
Text: Phil.2:12-13
Readings: Acts 16:11-40 Philippians 2:1-18
Introduction
I want to begin by letting you in on a little trade secret. It was one that I learned many years ago when I was still a student. As a group of aspiring young preachers we had a lecturer who told something like this: “When you are reading your Bible and a passage or a verse really strikes you, if there is something that jumps out at you, then maybe that is the Holy Spirit nudging you to preach on that passage.”
Well, that was certainly my experience recently as I was once again reading Paul’s letter to the Philippians. I was reading through it quite happily as I had always done, when bang! I was hit right between the eyes by the central command of our text: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
What’s that supposed to mean?
In all my years as a Christian had I ever done this?
Do I know anyone else who lives that way?
Or is it all just figurative language? Is Paul just using hyperbole, just exaggerating to get his readers’ attention?
As I thought more about this verse, I remembered an experience in my very early days. I was a boy of twelve. The American evangelist Billy Graham and his team had arrived in Australia and he was drawing crowds by their thousands. It was a spectacle that has hardly ever been seen in this country before or since. At the end of each sermon he would invite people to come forward and they would come in droves. One evening I was among them. And when I got to the front I was shaking in my boots. Billy Graham’s booming voice, the majestic choir, the masses of people, the solemnity of the moment – for a young kid like me it was all a bit overwhelming and really quite scary. And there were all kinds of questions that rushed through my head: Did I really mean what I was doing and would I be able to stick it out as a Christian?
Is this the kind of thing Paul had in mind when he told the Philippians (and us) to work out our salvation with fear and trembling? Is it meant to be a kind of scary and overwhelming experience?
These are extremely important questions, and if we look carefully at this passage we will find some challenging and also very satisfying answers.
As we examine our text, I want to break it up into three parts, and each part begins with the letter C. That should make it all pretty easy to remember. And the three parts are these:
1. The context
2. The command
3. The cause
The context, the command and the cause – there you have the message of vv. 12 & 13 in a nutshell.
I. So we begin with the context which is set at the beginning of v. 12, “Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed . . .” These words set the stage, or if you want another C word, they lay out the conditions for what it means to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” We can’t just skim over these words or pretend they aren’t there. They are vitally important for a proper understanding of all that follows.
A. Notice that the verse begins with the word “Therefore.” Now it’s always a good policy when you are reading your Bible and you come across a ‘therefore’ that you ask yourself what the ‘therefore’ is there for! And that applies especially to the writings of Paul because he is a very logical thinker.
So why do we have this word ‘therefore’ right at the beginning of this verse? Because he is linking these verses back to one of the most majestic descriptions of Christ that you can find anywhere in Scripture. Let me read vv. 5-11 again. This is a truly awesome passage:
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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. Therefore . . .”
If that is how great Jesus is, if that is how powerful and majestic he is, if he is indeed the one to whom every knee will ultimately bow, then how should you respond? What should you do? You “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” That’s what the ‘therefore’ is there for. It sets the context. It links this amazing description of who Jesus is to what our response should be. If that’s who you really believe Jesus to be – crucified, risen, exalted, all-powerful – then that is how you will respond. You will work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
B. But notice how Paul moves on. He calls his readers “my beloved.” He addresses them in very endearing terms. He is not trying to scare these people. He speaks to them very affectionately. This becomes even clearer at the beginning of chapter 4. There he calls them “my brothers, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown.” He really loves these people. They are close to his heart. They are special to him. He is not just trying to be nice and polite. He doesn’t often speak this way. He wants to let them know he is really fond of them.
In fact, Paul’s epistle to the Philippians is probably the most positive letter he ever wrote. This is a church that is doing well. They have just sent him a generous gift, and it wasn’t the first time. This is a congregation he is happy with and thankful for. There are some things he needs to warn them against and a few people that he needs to rebuke, but this is a letter of warmth and love and joy. He is just really happy with these people. And yet it is precisely to them that he says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Of all the churches that he had founded it is only to those generous, joyful Philippians that he writes, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
And I trust that you will receive this message in the same spirit. Before this sermon I wasn’t thinking, “Now what heavy text can I use to bash this church over the head with? What would be a good fire and brimstone text to stir things up a bit?” Not at all. That wasn’t Paul’s motive and nor is it mine. These were people who were making good progress as Christians. They were a congregation he was pleased with. But even so, he addresses them with some very challenging words. And this morning I want to do the same with you.
C. But why is it that Paul is so pleased with the church at Philippi? Is it because they have just sent him a generous gift? Well yes, that’s part of it, but it’s not the whole story. There’s a deeper reason. He goes on by saying, “as you have always obeyed.” But in this verse he does not say what it is they have obeyed; he doesn’t say what commands they have put into practice. But we don’t have to look very far to see what Paul has in mind. Again the context will give us what we are looking for. Think of the commands that Paul gives them both before and after our text:
Verse 2: “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.”
Verse 3: “Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
Verse 4: “Let each of you look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.”
Verse 14: “Do all things without grumbling or questioning.”
So what is the bottom line here? What does Paul want for this church more than anything else? He wants church unity, he wants them to be one. He wants them to be of one mind – no factions, no splits, no disunity.
Now at Philippi that was always going to be a bit of a challenge. From the word go they had always been a rather mixed bunch. Think of the story of the church’s beginnings that we read earlier from Acts 16. Who had been some of the foundation members of that church?
· First there had been Lydia. She was from out of town, from across the sea at Thyatira. She was a businesswoman, a seller of purple goods. She was a cloth merchant. But she wasn’t just any old cloth merchant. She dealt in purple cloth. Now in the Roman Empire purple was the colour of royalty. Only the rich could afford it. So Lydia’s business would have been at the upper end of town. She was well off, and when she was baptized so was her whole household. She was a well-to-do woman.
· For the next convert at Philippi we go to the other end of the socio-economic scale – a demon-possessed slave-girl. It is hard to imagine anyone more socially and financially disadvantaged. Any money that she made from her fortune-telling went straight into the pockets of her owners.
· Then in between these two extremes was the Philippian jailer. He worked for the government. He had a steady job. He had a house and family. If there was such a thing as a middle class in Philippi he would have belonged to it.
But these three foundation members of the church were not just different in a socio-economic sense, their spiritual experiences were also very different:
· Lydia’s conversion was unspectacular. The Lord simply opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul (v. 14).
· With the slave girl it was a completely different story. She was possessed by an evil spirit and eventually after many days Paul had to perform an exorcism.
· And then there was the jailer who was converted after an earthquake and a suicide attempt.
These three conversions could hardly have been more different. These people could hardly have been more different. Yet it was with people like this that the church at Philippi started out. So Paul has to remind them again and again to be united, to be of one mind. And there’s a simple reason for this – church unity and harmonious relationships are so essential for spiritual growth. If you want to stunt spiritual growth, that’s simple – just cause division in a church. It works every time.
· In one of the churches that I served there was a particular group of young people that was really hard to get through to. I often wondered why. It turned out that a few years earlier that church had broken away from another church. At an impressionable age what kind of conversations had these young people overheard? What relationships had they seen broken? What division had happened before their very eyes?
· Sometimes as a guest preacher I would go to a church, and before I even met with the elders, I had been approached by a couple of people telling me all about the problems the church was going through. That’s not a good atmosphere for spiritual growth.
· At another church an elder told me how his church had really been making good progress in the local community, but all that had changed once divisions started to creep into the church. And then he said, “And the sad thing is that the first to leave were recent converts and the newest members.”
Division stunts spiritual growth. It hardly provides a context where people can work out their own salvation with fear and trembling. For that to happen you need a church that is harmonious, united and of one mind. You need the kind of congregation that is prepared to obey Paul’s commands in Philippians 2 – be of the same mind, have the same love, do nothing from rivalry or empty conceit, count others better than yourselves, do all things without grumbling or complaining.
II. So that sets the context for the command. Now we come to the command itself, our second C. Verse 12 continues, “so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.”
A. Before he gets to the command itself, Paul reminds them of one more factor. He must have been aware that he could sway people by the power of his personality. He was an imposing figure. He could intimidate people. And he knew it. But what he is about to say is ultimately a matter between the Philippians and God. Whether Paul is with them or not shouldn’t really matter. They are not to be in fear and trembling of him. They are to be in fear and trembling of God. They are not to do this because they have some charismatic human leader, because they have someone putting pressure on them, but simply because they mean business with God.
And surely there’s a lesson here for us. No doubt you’ve seen this as much as I have. You have a church that seems to be flourishing. They have a pastor with a real presence. He has a forceful character. He is a dynamic leader. He knows how to communicate. He has personal charisma. The church seems to be flourishing under his leadership, but then he accepts a call and goes somewhere else, and the church begins to decline. The church seemed to thrive in his presence, but it’s quite another story in his absence. Paul did not want that to happen in Philippi. He wanted that church to be obedient whether he was with them or not. In fact, he wanted them to thrive more in his absence than in his presence. He did not want them to be a church that fell in like a house of cards as soon as he turned his back. The church at Philippi was not the work of Paul, it was the work of God. In the same way the Christian Reformed Church of Geelong is the work of God.
B. And how does that work of God manifest itself? How does it become apparent? It happens when the people of the church work out their own salvation with fear and trembling! That’s when we know that God is working in a congregation. Not because they have such a capable and charismatic minister. Not because they have such fantastic leadership. It goes far deeper than that. It’s because they work out their salvation with fear and trembling.
But by now you are probably thinking, “Tell us what these words mean! You’ve kept us in suspense long enough. What exactly is Paul talking about?” And that’s a very good question because over the years there have been all kind of suggestions:
· Some say it simply means that you work out your salvation with an attitude of humility.
· Others say it means you do it with respect and reverence to others within the church community.
· Still others think the phrase refers to fear of failure or a nervous anxiety to do your duty.
· Finally, there are those who say that it refers to a sense of awe and reverence in the presence of God.
So who is right? With so many opinions can we ever be sure? With so many options surely the best approach is that we look at the biblical evidence and decide for ourselves. The phrase “fear and trembling” doesn’t occur all that often. So let me take you through the biblical examples and we can come to our own conclusion. There are examples in both the Old Testament and the New.
C. Let’s begin with the Old Testament first:
· When God thundered the ten commandments from Mount Sinai there were flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the people saw the mountain smoking. So terrible was the sight that even Moses said, “I am full of fear and trembling” (Heb 12:21). Why? Because he feared for his life and the life of his people.
· Again when the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the surrounding nations were terrified. We are told that “the chiefs of Edom were dismayed; the leaders of Moab, trembling grips them. All the inhabitants of Canaan melt away. Fear and trembling fall upon them” (Exod 15:15, 16). They are full of terror and dread. Why? Because they feared for their lives.
· Then on a couple of occasions in the book of Deuteronomy the Lord tells the children of Israel as they are about to enter the Promised Land, “No one will stand against you: the Lord your God will put the trembling of you and fear of you on the face of all the land . . .” (Deut 11:25; cf. 2:25).
· Then in Psalm 55 the Psalmist writes, “My heart is in anguish within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling fall upon me, and horror has overwhelmed me” (vv. 4-5). Clearly he feared for his life.
· Finally, in the book of Isaiah, there is a prophecy about Egypt, where he says, “But on that day the Egyptians . . . will be in fear and trembling before the hand of the Lord.” (19:16)
D. So the picture we get in the OT is pretty clear. When people experienced fear and trembling, they were in fear of their lives. Will this pattern repeat itself in the NT? Again let’s examine the evidence:
· When Paul reflects on how he first preached the gospel in the city of Corinth, he is very open about his feelings, “I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” (1 Cor 2:3). Now was this a case of stage fright? Was he a nervous preacher like an RTC student delivering his first sermon? Maybe he was, but that’s hardly the point. In town after town he had been persecuted and sometimes he had escaped within an inch of his life. Would it happen again at Corinth? Would his opponents finally get him this time?
· Then in writing the Ephesians at one point he particularly addresses slaves. He tells them to “be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart as to Christ.” (Eph 6:5). Why were they to be in fear and trembling? Because in the ancient world masters had the power of life and death over their slaves. A disobedient slave could be whipped, tortured, crucified, exposed to wild animals or even be burned alive. It was tough being a slave in the Roman Empire.
· Finally, we have the case of Paul’s assistant Titus visiting the church of Corinth. He had been given the difficult task of setting that church straight. And it all went amazingly well. Titus succeeded where Paul himself had failed. So later Paul can write the Corinthians, “His affection abounds all the more toward you, as he remembers the obedience of you all, how you received him with fear and trembling.” (2 Cor 7:15). Now obviously Titus wasn’t their master who could put the Corinthians to death. But what they did recognise was that he was there on serious business. He was dealing with matters of life and death.
E. And that now brings us back to the words of our text, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” because it’s a matter of life and death! Your situation is every bit as serious as that of a Roman slave, or of Moses and the children of Israel quaking in their boots at the foot of Mount Sinai when the commandments were given, or of the people of Canaan when the Israelites were advancing. Let’s make no bones about it. Your situation (and mine) when it comes to salvation is one of life and death. Let me say that as plainly as I possibly can. There are no two ways about it. For all of us the stakes could not be higher. It is a matter of life and death. It is a question of eternity. It is a matter of heaven and hell.
Let me give you an illustration that I heard from this pulpit. It was given by the guest preacher one Reformation Sunday. He began by saying that he and his family were into all kinds of extreme sports. I forget now exactly what they were. They may have jumped out of aeroplanes or out of moving speed boats or skied down icy cliffs. I’m not sure, to be honest. Maybe some of you will remember the details better than me. In any case it was death defying stuff. It was the kind of activity where bones could be broken and lives could be lost. But then came the punchline: “You think that’s dangerous. Going to church is far more dangerous than any of that. It’s a matter of life and death.”
You see, when you hear the gospel preached you can’t just take it or leave it. You can’t just put it off till another day. There may not be another day. Eternity is at stake. So if you are here in church this morning and you know in your heart that you are not right with God or you are not sure, then I beg you to have the matter settled before you hit your pillow tonight. Don’t delay. Don’t put it off. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” One day we must all appear before the judgment throne of God.
And if you are a Christian, if you have settled accounts with God, don’t take your faith for granted. Don’t let 2017 be a year where you just cruise along, where you coast and where you begin to drift. When you come to church don’t regard the sermon as just so much more interesting information. Act on it. Put into practice. Like the Philippians be obedient. Unless you do, you will slowly begin to harden. Your faith will wither and you will ultimately fall away. Sadly, we’ve all seen it happen in the lives of some people. May it never happen to any of us. Let’s all work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Don’t just come here to hear the word. Put into practice.
III. But at this point you may be objecting, “Yes, but isn’t this all a bit one-sided. I thought salvation was all of grace. Didn’t Paul himself say, ‘By grace you have been saved, through faith, not of works, so that no one should boast.’ Isn’t salvation God’s work and not ours?” Yes, you’re right. Point well taken. You see, Paul isn’t finished yet. In verse 13 we come to our third C. From the context and the command he now moves to the cause, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
A. And I wonder whether the mystery of this has ever struck you. Let me read the command and the cause to you again: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” Who is doing the work? Is it God or is it us? It is both. Our salvation is both God’s work and our responsibility. Verse 12 gives our side of the equation and verse 13 gives God’s side. When it comes to salvation we can work it out because God works it in.
Now that’s easy to say, but let’s not play down the mystery here. This is one of the great mysteries of the faith. It is of the same order as the Trinity or the two natures of Christ. The nature of God as three in one yet one in three is ultimately beyond human understanding. We can grapple with it, we can wrestle with it and so we should. We can try and come up with illustrations, but in the end we’ll never be able to figure it out. The same is true with the two natures of Christ. He is completely human yet perfectly divine – not 50% each but 100% both. And the same is true when it comes to our salvation. It’s both a matter of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. It’s not that when we do our bit God does his bit. Again it is not a 50-50 proposition. Our salvation is completely God’s work and totally our responsibility. “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (you can’t put human responsibility any stronger than that), for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure (you couldn’t wish for a stronger statement of God’s sovereignty).” So there you have it. Salvation is 100% God and 100% us. It is ultimately a mystery.
B. Now before we despair let’s not forget that there are mysteries in creation as well. I understand that scientists believe light to consist of both particles and waves. You can’t explain the particles in terms of the waves and you can’t explain the waves in terms of the particles. It’s what is called an antinomy. You can’t resolve the one in terms of the other. This intrigued me so much at one point, I asked a science lecturer whether this was true. She assured me that it was. And then she said something that I will never forget: “Scientists believe that light consists of particles on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and that it consists of waves on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Then on Sundays they pray for more light.”
When it comes to salvation Paul is a bit like those scientists. In verse 12 he teaches that it is matter of human responsibility. In verse 13 he teaches that it is a matter of divine sovereignty. Both are true and you can’t explain the one in terms of the other. It’s like that narrow gate that Jesus talked about in the Sermon on the Mount. Before you go in it says “Enter”, but when you have gone through the narrow gate and look back it says “Elect”. Both are true. We work because God works.
C. Now in practice it’s so easy to get this wrong. I remember two teenage boys in one of my catechism classes who weren’t particularly good students. In their case a little knowledge turned out to be a dangerous thing. When I challenged them about commitment to Christ, they told me there was not much they could do about it. They had heard about predestination. So they figured that until God zapped them, there really wasn’t much they could do. And if God hadn’t predestined them, they couldn’t become Christians anyway no matter how hard they tried.
Now that of course is a perversion of Paul’s teaching. Believing in God’s sovereignty is not some kind of fatalism. You can’t say, “Well, if it’s all a matter of God working in me, then whatever will be will be. If it all depends on God working in my life, there’s not a whole lot I can do about it.” That’s not what Paul says. It is precisely because God works in you that you are to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Don’t use God’s sovereignty in salvation as an excuse for sitting back and doing nothing. Don’t be like those teenage boys who twisted this biblical truth to suit their own purposes. Be more like the young woman who would not give up on her search for God and crossed land and sea until she finally found him.
D. Before we close there is one more important point that Paul makes here. When God is at work in you, when he is working on your will and on your actions, then ultimately he is doing it “for his good pleasure.” Paul doesn’t say, “for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work – full stop.” He says, “it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” That last phrase really puts us in our place. He doesn’t work in us because we are such good people, because we are so nice or so loveable. Paul doesn’t even say here that God works in us because he loves us, true though that may be. Ultimately he works in us and he saves us for his good pleasure. I remember in my youth hearing a sermon on the theme that God sometimes does things purely for his own good pleasure. And I thought, “How dare He! How can God do something for his own good pleasure, simply because it makes him happy? Shouldn’t we figure in there somewhere? Doesn’t that make God selfish?” No it doesn’t. Sometimes we just have to let God be God. He can do things for his good pleasure. He is God and he can do things for no greater reason than that will make him happy. And the salvation of his people makes him really, really happy. Your salvation and mine gives him the greatest pleasure (cf. Isa 46:10, 13; Ezek 36:22, 32).
Therefore work out your salvation with fear and trembling!