by Edwin Crozier<\/p>\n
Text: Philippians 2<\/p>\n
Jesus established the example. He left the throne of heaven and lived among us as a servant. God highly exalted Him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name because He was obedient even to the point of death on the cross. “Therefore<\/em>,” Paul says in Philippians 2:12, that is, because of what Paul has just said, that Jesus obeyed the Father completely, he is about to tell us something. Because Jesus obeyed, he says, “as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence<\/em>.” That is, because Jesus obeyed and was exalted, Paul tells us to obey. The implication, of course, is we will be exalted with Jesus.<\/p>\n But Paul doesn’t simply say we are to obey. He says, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling<\/em>.” That doesn’t sound right, does it? We just finished Ephesians. This same Paul said there that we are saved by grace and not as a result of works, so we can’t boast (Ephesians 2:8-10). But to the Philippians, he says, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling<\/em>.”<\/p>\n In this, we learn the significant difference between Paul’s teaching and that of the Calvinists who claim to merely be echoing Paul. For the Calvinists, because we are saved by grace and not by works, we don’t work. In fact, in their doctrine, even when we are working, we aren’t working. But that is not what Paul says. Paul says we are working. He even says we are supposed to work out our salvation. But why? Because God is working in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. The Calvinists tell us that because God is working, we don’t work. Paul tells us that because God is working, we should get to work. Do you see the difference?<\/p>\n If God were not at work, no amount of work on our part would accomplish anything. However, because God is working on us, in us, and through us, our work matters. By itself, our work is useless. But as Paul said in I Corinthians 15:58, in the Lord, our work is never in vain. If we tried to work out our salvation through obedience without God, we would certainly fail. We are not that strong, not that righteous, not that holy, not that godly. But, following behind Christ, confessing Him as Lord, God begins to work on us, in us, and through us. Suddenly, our effort, which is puny, minuscule, and ineffective by itself, becomes effective and powerful.<\/p>\n But Paul’s statement drives home another point. Why should we work? Because we have confidence in our work? Not at all, but because we have confidence in God’s work. Like Peter, who stepped out of the boat not because he was confident in his own ability to walk on water, we step out in faithful obedience because we believe in God’s effective power to walk us on the water.<\/p>\n When we work, God works. Let us put our confidence in God and His work by obeying God, working out our salvation with fear and trembling.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Edwin Crozier Text: Philippians 2 Jesus established the example. He left the throne of heaven and lived among us as a servant. God highly exalted Him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name because He was obedient even to the point of death on the cross. “Therefore,” Paul says in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[1543,55],"class_list":["post-95111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-good-works","tag-works"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":31874,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/do-you-support-conscientious-objection\/","url_meta":{"origin":95111,"position":0},"title":"Do you support conscientious objection?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Do you or your church support selective conscientious objection and conscientious objection? 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The typical teenage girl enters puberty around\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":37138,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/we-lost-the-surprise-somewhere\/","url_meta":{"origin":95111,"position":2},"title":"We Lost the Surprise Somewhere","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton I remember watching Mayberry RFD and related shows most of my childhood. Poor ignorant Gomer Pyle who worked as an auto mechanic was a notable character. 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Answer: We were taught to pray, \"Give us this day our daily bread\" (Matthew 6:11), but God still commands us\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":61889,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-book-of-my-life\/","url_meta":{"origin":95111,"position":4},"title":"The Book of My Life","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 23, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. 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We have been questioning the idea of everyone taking it a second\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95111"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95114,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95111\/revisions\/95114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}