Sermon Tone Analysis

Opening Illustration: What were you told would stunt your growth as a child?

Drinking coffee

Watching TV all day rots the brain

Smoking cigarrettes

Reminder of:

Paul is writing from a Roman prison (likely the palace prison) to a church that he dearly loves and planted years before.

It’s still a relatively young church in Philippi.

There aren’t a lot of Jews in Philippi.

It’s a Roman outpost where citizens there had the full privilege of Roman citizenship.

Philippi was setting itself up as a little Rome away from Rome.

It’s a beautiful, tender, rich letter of update, encouragement, contagious joy, instruction, all pointing to the God’s design for the individual Christian to be an integral servant in a thriving Gospel-Revealing local church body.

Philippians 2.12-18

Before we look at some of the wonderful dimensions of these verses, You need to know that there are basically 2 big ideas that we’re covering today...

2 BIG IDEAS

Work out Your Salvation…Together…with fear and trembling

Do EVERYTHING Without Grumbling or Arguing

Let’s look more closely at our text this morning...

1. Keep Obeying

“A long obedience in the same direction” (Eugene Peterson’s work on discipleship in an instant society)

There’s a great contrast here between the Old Covenant People and the New Covenant People.

OCP: Deut 31.27

You know the type…

the ones who only get close to the speed limit when they see the po-po.

the ones who only work hard when the boss is in town.

the ones who only engage when they’re being observed (kids, can you relate?

when your teacher is being observed?)

God knows the type, too…(Isaiah 29:13, Ezekiel 33:31, Matthew 15.8 & Mark 7:6)

The Philippians weren’t perfect, but they weren’t hypocrites.

At the core of our relationship with Christ is obedience.

Press rewind in your mind’s eye back to the wedding at Cana, hear Mary’s tender words to the servants as Jesus was about to speak...”whatever he says do, do it!”

2. Work Out Your Salvation

This “working” is not talking about matters of eternal security.

Instead, the focus is on the practical matters of how we ought to live out the gospel in our daily lives.

The word “your” (heautōn) (yow - tone) is plural in the passage, showing again Paul’s stress on the communal aspect of the body

We can’t do this on our own which we’ll be gloriously reminded of in the next verse.

So there’s no hint of arrogance that fits the child of God - we’re coming right out of a laying-your-life-down kind of humility from the previous verses.

If we look through our highly individualized lens at this this text with its command, “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” we miss the authorial intent.

This does not refer primarily to the salvation of individual believers but to working out our salvation within the church, the body of Christ.

The application of this text is first corporate (how the church must conduct itself) and then individual.

This is a both/and text that focuses first on the communal conduct of the church, which, of course, includes individual behavior.

The challenge to “work out your own salvation” to the Philippians was both to all of them as a body and to each of them as its members.

(Adapted from Preaching the Word: Philippians—The Fellowship of the Gospel Work out Your Common Salvation (vv.

12, 13)

This verse captures the previous calls to action given to the Philippians:

Walk in a manner worthy of the Gospel (1.27)

Be like-minded (2.2)

Consider others more important (2.3)

This verse focuses on the manner in which we’re supposed to execute these actions: with fear and trembling.

3. Fear and Trembling

In the original Greek, “with fear and trembling” is at the front of the final clause for emphasis.

Believers cannot have a cavalier attitude toward obedience.

Their final salvation has a present outworking among the believing community.

“Fear and trembling” (tromos kai phobos; Ex. 15:16 LXX) accompanied “salvation” (sōtēria; Ex. 14:13; 15:2) at the exodus, but there is one key difference: the “fear and trembling” at the exodus was external to Israel; it gripped the peoples surrounding them (Ex.

15:16).

God’s new covenant salvation is greater because God works fear and trembling within his people (“in you”; Phil.

2:13) because of their “salvation” (sōtēria) in Christ.

The next verse will further this discussion of “fear” as that which God works within us in the new covenant.

(Benjamin L. Merkle et al., Ephesians–Philemon, ESV Expository Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2018), 158.)

Why the call to such reverence?

4. God working in us…for His pleasure.

Augustine wrote, “Our deeds are our own, because of the free will producing them, and they are also God’s, because of his grace causing our free will to produce them.”

And he says elsewhere, “God makes us do what he pleases by making us desire what we might not desire.”

“...working in us...”

Nothing works…apart from Him.

Even though we live in a culture that values accomplishments far more than Christ-likeness…from Heaven’s perspective, for the sake of the Gospel-Revealing mission of the Church, and from the authority of God’s Word - NOTHING WORTH ANYTHING WORKS apart from Him.

He alone is the Author and the Finisher of our faith.

He is the head of the church.

It is in HIM ALONE that we live, and move, and have our being.

All of this is for OUR GOOD…but for HIS PLEASURE.

5. Do EVERYTHING without Grumbling

If it would have read simply, “don’t grumble and argue”, then many of us would have taken a pass on some demands of life.

We’d say, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that without grumbling or arguing…so I shouldn’t be doing this.

I don’t feel led to do that!

It’s not my calling!”

The command to DO EVERYTHING WITHOUT GRUMBLING OR COMPLAINING raises the standard.

Do it.

Work it out!

Don’t complain.

Here’s your calling: Do it…without grumbling!

In this book of joy, I want to remind you that there is no greater joy-robber than grumbling and complaining.

If we are reading Paul correctly, “do[ing] all things without grumbling or questioning” is a watershed state of the soul.

Those who persist in such murmuring are not obedient to Christ and his gospel and are rejecting the divine call to “work out your own salvation.”

They impede their own souls and the souls of their brothers and sisters in this matter.

They are undertows to the body of Christ.

So if you are one of these people, understand that when you finally stand before your Savior, you will answer with shame.

(R. Kent Hughes)

Grumbling: Poisonous, Contagious

Disputing/Arguing: Constant Questioning, Second-Guessing, sowing seeds of discord and rebellion.

You’ve met these people, they’re “contrarians”.

“It’s rarely the complaint club or the grumble group that do the heavy lifting in the church.”

This is what it looks like to work it out together.

But this is hard work.

Tony Merida brings some helpful grace to the matter:

Why would Paul mention this temptation to grumble?

One reason is obvious: Christian perseverance is difficult.

Discipleship isn’t an easy road.

Pursuing holiness, giving generously, practicing hospitality, loving one’s spouse and kids appropriately, sharing the gospel, and other facets of Christian discipleship could tempt one to complain and murmur.

The temptation to complain and argue is not only a temptation personally; it’s a big temptation corporately as well.

Remember the context: the Philippian church had some internal strife (4:2-3; see also 1:27–2:4).

They also had external pressure (1:28).

These problems could lead one to complain both to God and to one another.

Complaining is a temptation for anyone in a local church because people often can’t live up to the expectations of others.