You can be as sure of heaven as you could be if you were there.

Steve Brown:
You can be as sure of heaven as you could be if you were there. Let’s talk, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
God’s grace changes everything, how we love, work, live, lead, marry, parent, evangelize, purchase, and worship. This is Key Life, with practical Bible teaching to get you home with radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. We’re studying the Book of Philippians. And we’re looking at two great verses, Philippians 2:12 through 13, where Paul says.

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but how much more in my absence, continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, to will and to act according to his good purpose.

Now, if you were listening, we talked about the importance of leadership being measured by what happens when the leader is gone. Did you know that IBM at one time, I don’t know if they still do this, and the only reason I found out about it is because a plane went down years ago and the plane was chock full of some of the major IBM leadership in the company. And a friend of mine who worked for IBM said, I said, Gosh, you guys are going to be in real trouble with all these leaders dying in that plane crash. And he said, no, we won’t. And I said, why is that? He said, because a part of our corporate culture is that the first thing a leader does is to pick and train somebody who will replace him. Mm, that’s what Paul did. That’s what you should do as parents. That’s what we should all do. But then yesterday we turned to the main thrust of this particular text and that is working out your own salvation. And I suggested yesterday I was going to get letters from you. And you were going to say you don’t work out your salvation, it’s like pregnancy, either you are or you aren’t, it happens. You might even quote Acts 16:31 to me.

Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.

And by the way, you would be quite right in quoting that verse and others like it. So, it seems to me, before we go any further, that we stop and define terms. You always do that in debate, and you always do that in good teaching. The word salvation comes from a Greek word, and it means deliverance, preservation, safety. And when you become a Christian, that is exactly what happened to you. My friend John DeBrine, and I miss him a lot, he’s in heaven now, I used to teach my students that he was the best Bible teacher in America. And they would say, well, who’s the second? I’d say John DeBrine is the best Bible teacher in America, when he’s on. And then the students would say, who’s the second best Bible teacher in America? And I would say John DeBrine, when he’s off. He was a wonderful, incredible communicator. And I’ve heard John say a thousand times, you can be as sure of heaven as you would be if you were already there. I love that. And that can happen when you become a Christian, you receive salvation. He found you, you were saved, you were forgiven forever, you have settled it, and it is an accomplished fact, and you can live in that and dance and sing and laugh in front of the throne of God, because it is done. You’re justified, and you’re saved. It’s a one time thing. Now, we could debate theologically about when it happens. A friend of mine asked an old guy, he said, When were you saved? And he said, About 2,000 years ago. And I thought, well, that’s true, too. But it is a one time thing, and once it happens, it happens. Jesus is the only physician, someone has said, who never turned a person away unhealed. That’s true. If you have repented, in other words, if you agree with God about who you are, and give yourself to him, then you’re saved by the blood of Christ. Now, there’s another aspect of salvation, to be perfectly honest with you, and this is arrogant. If I had been Paul, I would have used another word than the one that Paul used. I would have used the word sanctification. Work out your own sanctification, but you see, God didn’t consult the theology books before he gave Paul the word to use. Nor did he check with me. So, we’ll go with the way God said it. Work out your own salvation, is what he said. Philippians 2:12b

Continue

I’m going to expand this a little bit, and appropriately.

Continue to work out your salvation.

The verb work out is a good translation from the Greek. The Greek word has the implication of bringing to completion. Barclay translates the sentence as follows.

Go on until the work of salvation is fully and finally wrought out in you.

I heard someone say that a preacher at a funeral talked about a man in the church who was a pain in the neck, and he said he was a Christian, he just wasn’t a red hot one. That’s true. He had, that’s what Paul was talking about. Sometimes we’re Christians and that’s settled, but we’re not a red hot one. And what he’s doing in this passage is teaching us how God makes us red hot Christians. You can call that sanctification, that’s growth in Christ. If you are a Methodist, and I was ordained a Methodist and then became a Presbyterian. My mother always said that I was a Methodist missionary to Presbyterians. But when I was ordained, the Bishop asked you this question. Are you moving on to perfection? And I wanted to say, not much. I’m a little bit better, but you won’t be able to see it very well. But I didn’t say that because I understood what he was talking about. He was talking about exactly what Paul is talking about in Philippians.

Work out your own salvation, move toward Christian maturity, see the work of God’s sanctification in your life.

Let me tell you something about salvation. We are at different places in the working out part of that process. And that’s why we need to cut slack for each other. If I should become a Christian and you became a Christian at the same time, and I led people to Christ, studied the Bible, memorized the passage of Scripture. And you smiled at one person in a week when before you scowled all the time. It could be that God is more pleased with you than He is with me. And that’s what Paul is talking about in this particular passage. He’s talking about moving to maturity, getting better, things beginning to clarify for you. Understanding things you didn’t understand before. Loving people you couldn’t love before. And that’s what Paul is calling Christians in Philippi to do. When he says.

Work out your own salvation.

Doing drying in a laundromat, and I did a lot of that when I was in graduate school. I would take my books and sit in the laundromat and wait for clothing to dry. And I don’t know if that’s true, but it seemed to me that it took a very long time. And I was in a very great hurry. I had things to do, and places to go, and tests to take. So, I would occasionally, during the process, open the dryer, and check the clothes, and inevitably, they would still be wet. They’d be less wet than they were before, but still wet. The illustration applies to us. Work out your own salvation, get better, even if slowly, for Christ’s sake. That’s hard sometimes, but it’s possible. And clothes take a while to dry. Be patient. You’ll be glad. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Thank you Steve. Well, that puts a bow on this week of teaching from Philippians. On Monday, Matt Heard will join us again for another special Advent episode. Don’t miss that. But first, tomorrow we’ll have Friday Q&A with Steve and our good friend Pete Alwinson. Among other questions, they’ll tackle this one tomorrow. Are all angels created equal? You know, I may just have to tune in to hear their answer for that one. So, what is God like? Well, God has answered that question, and Christmas is part of that answer. Steve gave a sermon called Grace: The Heart of the Incarnation. And it speaks to this subject. What is God like? What does it mean to live by God’s grace? We put that classic sermon on CD, and we would love to mail it to you for free. So, claim your copy right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. Or if you’d like to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Again, just ask for your free copy of the CD called Grace: The Heart of the Incarnation. And finally, if you’ve been blessed by the work of Key Life, would you help share that blessing with others through your financial support? You could charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or simply text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word or two. It doesn’t matter. Just text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.