Philippians 2:12-18
The call to unity through humility culminated with Jesus as our example of both mindset and activity. The mind of Christ is the conviction that considers others more significant than ourselves and the fruit of that conviction is obedience to the call of God, it is never thinking too highly of ourselves but rather reveling in the joy that Jesus counted me more highly than Himself and so I will respond by counting others in the exact same way. This joy is the realization that leads to salvation. It is the revelation that Jesus loved me more than Himself, that Jesus loved me enough to become my sin and to make me His righteousness. Salvation is not born out of the fear of hell; salvation is born out of the joy of Jesus. Romans 2:4 tells us that it is God’s kindness that leads men to repentance, humility is a joyful response to being loved and to being saved.
As we move forward in our study of Philippians today we will discuss Paul’s command in 2:12 “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Just two weeks ago we saw Paul’s calling for us to reject fear and to give it no room in our lives when he told the church in Philippi to not be “terrified in any way by your adversaries”. How can he tell us to flee fear and then tell us to work out our salvation with fear? That is a question I hope we can answer today. The fear of the Lord is a necessity in our lives and work is a necessity in salvation. What I pray we will see today is that fear and trembling is not the same as being afraid and working out our salvation is not the same as working for our salvation. We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. This is the truth of salvation, but while we do not and cannot work for salvation, once we have plunged into the incredible ocean of grace we must work out our salvation, we must effort to unfurl all of its benefits and to fulfill all of its callings.