Save Yourselves? (07/08/24-07/09/24)

As I have already noted, this is a passage I have turned to often in my thoughts, and yet, coming to it now as the direct object of study, I find myself wondering if I have understood it correctly yet.  There are things about these two verses that seem somehow wrong.  Fear and trembling before God?  But He is our loving Father, our Husband, our Redeemer and Protector.  What would it say of us to still cringe in abject fear before Him?  How will this be light to the world?  Or, hardest of all to accept, this business of working our own salvation.  Is not salvation accomplished in that first response to the call of Christ?  Are not all saved whom God has ordained, sending forth the Holy Spirit into their hearts to enact the necessary change?  What’s going on here?

Well, let’s have a look at some of the terminology here, and for the moment, I’m going to divert past the first matter of encouraging obedience.  I want to zero in on the final clause of verse 12, as it reads in the NASB, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”  This is a passage to make or break our theology, as it seems.  If we are to work out our salvation, does this intend to imply that our salvation is yet dependent upon our works?  How can it be?  But if that’s not the point, then what is?  So much about this just seems improbable, does it not?  So, let’s have a look.

We can start with ‘work out.’  In simplest terms, “do what results in.”  And this, I should note, comes in the present tense, as do most of the verbs of these verses.  So, it’s potentially an ongoing activity.  It’s to be a constant in our practice.  We might see that implied in the preceding discussion of obedience, so it makes sense that we should indeed take this to be ongoing, lifelong instruction.  Keep doing this.  Always be doing this.  Always have an eye to what results in the indicated goal.

Now, we have the reflexive pronoun, ‘you.’  But this being an English translation, and without the benefit of Southern dialect, we are not given any immediate sense of scope.  Is this you individually, or you collectively?  Is it you, or y’all?  It doesn’t help matters that several of our translations make this, ‘your own.’  Now it’s personal, surely.  But there’s an issue.  The you here is plural, and as Thayer explains, when this pronoun is in the plural form, it can be used of reciprocal action.  I.e.  work with one another, or work on one another.  And add to this that the verb katergazesthe, work out, is in the middle voice, which also has the potential idea of reciprocal action.  It could simply be working as both the actor and the recipient of the work.  And this leads to an interesting possibility, though I have to observe that not one of the translations I have available pursues it.  Is it just possible that Paul’s call here isn’t to personal pursuit, but to mutual aid?

Consider what has brought us to this passage.  Go back to the start of this chapter.  “Don’t just look out for yourselves, but care for others.”  Be sufficiently humble in your self-regard, and consider others as more important than yourselves (Php 2:3-4).  We’re already looking at a discussion of mutual aid, aren’t we?  And how was it that Jesus humbled Himself?  What was He doing in this humbled estate?  He obeyed even to the point of death to what purpose?  To be able to present us to God as robed in righteousness, cleansed of our sins, His rightful enmity against us resolved such that He can indeed adopt us as family to Himself.  He was the ultimate provider of mutual aid, though the benefit to Him from our aid is a bit unclear, other than that in the end He obtains a people, a people after God’s own heart.  And we, absurd as the thought often seems, are God’s gift to Him!  Certainly, in our present condition, that would be a sorry gift.  But we are not given to Him as we are, but as we shall be.  And that, I think, must remain our sense of what is in view here.

Now then, if we are to be a people who care more for our brothers, who consider their needs before our own, it suggests, certainly, a developed humility in ourselves.  It requires, doesn’t it, that we are a people who think rightly of themselves, do not account themselves to be better than they truly are?  In that light, it becomes us not only to be looking to aid our brothers in their pursuit of holiness, but also to accept their aid in our own turn.  If we have a true self-awareness, then we must recognize that we remain a needy people.  We look upon the reality of having been saved by Christ, but we also look upon the reality of our current shortcomings.  We all still fall short of the glory of God, and this being the case, we should be most welcoming of any help our brother may lend in bringing us closer to that standard.  Can my brother save me?  By no means!  Nor can I save him.  But together, we can pursue the means of grace we are given as brothers, and seek to edify one another, to build one another up in holy faith.  Is this not why God has set us together in community?

From this perspective, I find the opening of verse 13 hits just a little bit differently.  If we are together working out our mutual progress in salvation, fearful not of God in His holiness, but of our own sorry state in our weakness of the flesh, how beneficial to know that even in this weakness, God is at work in us both, through us both, to the end of growing us both.  I don’t know as there is anything sweeter to be experienced in this life than to find one has been a source of growth in one’s brother.  Parents may relate to this in consideration of their children, grown into adulthood, who have taken shape in a fashion that gives them some small basis for pride.  And when those children are able to voice how we, as parents, have given them foundation, helped to build them into the adults they have become, don’t our hearts rejoice!  That, of course, is no guarantee that the times of heartache are past.  But in that place, with those attainments, we experience a warmth of emotion; the recognition that all that past pain and sorrow have been worthwhile.  I think of the conversations I have been able to have with my daughter this last several months, and especially that feeling that came when she told me that the only present she wanted from me for Christmas was to have these times to talk, and occasionally at least, to talk seriously, still as father and daughter, yes, but perhaps just a bit more as a sort of mentoring that she needs as she makes her way as an adult far from the home she knew.  And, as a dear brother of mine told me years ago, the relationship, though still of kinship, now takes on a more advisory quality, something not all that unlike how I, as a contractor, relate to my workplaces.  We cannot insist, but we can earnestly advise.  And given that we are now contemplating Christian relationship, we can pray, knowing that God is at work in us.

But in this reciprocity of relationship between believers, we can pray, as well, knowing that God is at work through our brothers.  We can pray for our own openness to that which we could learn from them.  We are not the one with all the answers, though we may have some.  We may even have many.   But we need those other perspectives.  We need the lessons that experience walking with God has imparted to our fellows.  We, too, need to grow into this salvation in which we stand.  It’s not about having arrived.  It’s about always being arriving.

Okay, so I touched ever so briefly on this notice of fear and trembling, and assuredly, it’s not a literal command as to how we approach our God.  An approach such as that would, at least to my thinking, deny that fellowship we now have with Him.  He is our Father, not some power set to crush us.  We are, after all, already brought into this communion with Him.  He is already in residence in the temple of our flesh.  By His choosing!  He has already seen to the issues the kept us apart and at odds.  These are resolved.  The writ of debt that once stood charged against us has been blotted out, paid in full by the blood of our beloved Savior on the cross.  So, that fear and trembling which Paul encourages here, however it is to be understood, cannot be understood of our concern lest God smite us.  No!  We have been freed from the penalty of the law.  We have died to that, and become instead bondservants of righteousness, sons of grace.

So, what then?  Deliver ourselves?  Deliver each other?  How can we?  In ourselves we remain just as powerless and directionless as ever.  Ah, but you have God in you, and I have God in me.  Yes, yes.  This is quite true.  But still, we hit this impossible command:  Work out your salvation.  And as I said, some of our translations make this to be work out your own salvation.  Don’t look for somebody else to do it for you.  And perhaps, in spite of my consideration of this mutual work in fellowship, there is something of a call to see to our own estate here.  And that, certainly, could give us cause for fear and trembling.

Do you know what gives me the greatest pause, the greatest cause for concern?  I am a temple of the living God!  This man!  This sinful flesh is somehow presently indwelt by perfect holiness.  And I cannot for a second consider myself fit for that service.  There is reason for anxiousness as regards my estate.  There is cause for fear and trembling.

Of course, fear, as is often observed in sermon after sermon, is not to be that sense of danger in us, not as concerns God.  We are not of those who shrink back (Heb 10:39)!  We are among them who have faith to the preserving of our souls.  We are not of those who will find an irresistible urge to hide when our Lord returns to take up His throne on earth, but of those who will be coming with Him, rejoicing at His righteous reign.  We will not be those who must be forced to admit to His Lordship, but those who sing loud hallelujahs in celebration of this most wonderful truth.

So, the fear to which we are urged is not cringing terror, but rather, godly reverence.  It is recognition of the presence of Holiness.  It is fear of the same sort we see in Isaiah at his commissioning.  It is recognition that our condition is not yet sufficient for such a Presence.  “Woe is me, I am undone!  I am yet a man of unclean lips, and now, my eyes have seen the King” (Isa 6:5).  It is the recognition of Peter in the boat, coming to recognize this Jesus Who had come out upon the sea with him.  “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, Lord!” (Lk 5:8).  I suspect we have all known something of this feeling.  It has been, perhaps, not so visceral, as our experience of the presence of God has probably not been so visceral.  Yet if we have lost this sense of wonder bordering on dread in consideration of the reality that perfect Holiness has drawn near to our sinful selves, then we have need yet again for humility.  We have come to think too highly of ourselves, and that is never a good place to be.  We have need to come back to the place of reverent fear, recognition of the true perfection of our God, and His true intolerance for sin.

And so, we come to that second term, the one for trembling.  No such positive spin seems to be evident for this term.  The best we can do is to seek how these combined terms have been applied elsewhere in Scripture.  I find the combination but once in the Old Testament, and there, I cannot find any means to give the matter a positive spin, other than as it drives the writer back to God for rescue.  “My heart is in anguish.  The terrors of death have fallen upon me.  Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me.  I said, ‘Would that I had wings like a dove, to fly away and find rest.  I would wander far away, to lodge in the wilderness, hasten to my place of refuge from storm winds and tempest’” (Ps 55:4-8).  But I can observe, as well, that in all of this, David, the psalmist, is contemplating not dread of God, but rather, the dire situation in which he finds himself, ‘because of the pressure of the wicked’ (Ps 55:3).

I have considered somewhat, already, the application of this phrase to Apollos, as Paul writes to the church in Corinth.  As concerns him, Paul assures them that, “his affection abounds even more towards you, recalling the obedience you showed to his instruction, receiving him with fear and trembling” (2Co 7:15).  This was surely not some cringing display, fearful lest the power of God be exercised by Apollos to their destruction.  Now, given the record of 1Corinthians, we might suppose they had at least some cause for such concerns.  But that’s not the point.  They received him.  They heeded his teaching.  This is not a note of dread, but of respect.  You recognized that God is working through this man, and you responded as those in whom God is working.  This is a good thing, this fear and trembling.  It demonstrates an urgent desire to obey.

We have the phrase again in the letter to Ephesus.  As Paul is iterating through the various relationships of life, he comes to that of slave and master, or if you prefer, with our modern sensitivities, of employee and employer.  You!  Obey those who have charge of you, according to the flesh.  Do so with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as if in responding to them, you are responding to Christ Himself.  Don’t comply as men-pleasers, looking like good little employees until their eyes turn elsewhere.  Do it as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering good service with good will, as to the Lord and not to the man (Eph 6:5-7).  You see again a connection between this fear and trembling and the matter of obedience.  I shall pursue that more in the next part of this study, Lord willing.

Finally, we have the phrase applied as coming from the lips of Moses as he approached Mount Sinai whilst God was, as it were, encamped upon its heights.  He had been given a caution to convey to the nation he led.  “If even a beast so much as touches this mountain, it will be stoned.”  This place was holy, holy, holy, for the Lord God Almighty was present, and present in a big way!  And so, from his perspective as he made his way to this same mountain, this same paramount Holiness, the sight of it was so terrible, says the author of Hebrews, that he said, “I am full of fear and trembling” (Heb 12:20-21).  Did Moses fear for his life?  Perhaps, just a little, yes.  After all, he had heard that same warning, and he understood, perhaps better than any, the implications.  And he had, I suspect, sufficient self-awareness to recognize his own sins.  He knew his past.  How else do we come to have record of it?  And I expect he had at least some sense of his own potential for future sins.  He was not somehow superior to this people he led.  He was of the same flesh and blood as they, even with his royal training.  And besides, that had long since been set aside for the life of a nomadic shepherd.  He knew hard living, and he no doubt knew some of the callousness that comes of hard living.  So, yes, there’s room for serious concern in approaching this perfectly holy God.  But it is not fear of destruction.  It is recognition of unworthiness, of being called into the presence of One before Whom we could not by rights expect to present ourselves in our present condition.

So, I arrive, at long last, at something of an agreement with the point Thayer makes in looking at this second matter of trembling.  When these two combine, though trembling has always this negative sense of cringing fear, the terms combine to, “describe the anxiety of one who distrusts his ability to completely meet all requirements, but religiously does his utmost to fulfill his duty.”  Now, it seems to me that the idea of doing anything ‘religiously’ has come to have its own negative connotations.  I am not at all convinced that this is proper.  I think it comes of a shift in the meaning, or a poor application of the term.  We tend to associate religiousness with strict adherence to some ritualistic observance of rules.  We make it out to be somehow less sincere, more a matter of compliance, hoping to pass inspection so we can get back to our lives.  Religiousness, we suppose, cannot come from the heart, but rather, comes from intellect, or worse yet, baseless habit.  But nothing is further from the truth.  Ritualism might well fit that conception of things.  If we go through a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer simply because it’s that point in the service, if we stand and sit, and sing our songs without actually engaging in the realities of worship, or we partake of communion with little thought beyond, oh, here’s a bit of bread and a sip of something, then our efforts are vanity and wind.  They serve no good purpose, and may very well be to our detriment.  But there is nothing inherently wrong with religiously pursuing an end.  It simply conveys a sense of God’s reign over us.  It confesses the Lordship of Christ every bit as much as our profession of His office.  In many ways, I should say that it makes a far better confession.

Go back to the parable of the two brothers, called by their father to come labor in the fields.  One says, “I will come,” but does not.  The other vocalizes refusal, but later thinks better of the matter, and comes out to work.  Which one obeyed?  Which one is more credit-worthy?  Neither is to be counted ideal, certainly, yet simple common sense and experience recognize that it’s the actions that convey compliance, not the empty words of promise.  A religious pursuit of fulfilling duty simply recognizes that this is in fact a duty, that God does in fact have the right and authority to direct our footsteps, and is in fact most worthy of our obedience.  And so, if we accept that God is speaking through the words of the Apostle, and we truly confess inwardly as well as outwardly that He is our rightful Lord, then, by all means, we should set ourselves to the task of complying, doing so with all the energy and care we can give it.

It’s not, then, a question of delivering yourself, nor even of aiding one another in mutual deliverance.  It’s a matter of devoting ourselves to that which we are called to do.  I find the BBE translation most apt in this case.  “Give yourselves to the working out of your salvation.”  Now, that may not seem to vary much from other translations, but that added note of ‘give yourselves to’ captures the matter.  It explains this sense of fear and trembling.  It’s not cringing fear.  It’s hungering devotion.  It’s urgent desire to please, and recognition of our limited capacity to do so. 

Oh, God, how I want to do as You say, how deeply my spirit within me seeks no other thing.  Yet, how readily I know my flesh will betray me.  How keenly I feel my weakness, my incapacity.  I want to do, but I cannot do.  Oh, wretched man that I am (Ro 7:24)!  Help me, then, to lean more fully upon You.  So work in me that I am willing to join You in the work You are doing in me.  At the very least, grant that I can stay out of Your way, but, oh, the joy my soul shall feel in being able to contribute in some small way.  Oh!  That I may indeed come closer this day, and hold the ground I have gained in You.

That is the call I hear in these verses.  Hunger and thirst for righteousness.  And do so knowing that you shall be satisfied (Mt 5:6).  For, God is at work in you, in us, and He will indeed work in and through us, for His glory.  Amen, Lord.  So be it.

A Duty of Obedience (07/10/24)

It is well that at the time I come to this passage our morning men’s group has been making its way through Romans.  After all, at the very center of Paul’s doctrine, so carefully explained in that letter, is the observation that our hope is certain.  It is certain because God Himself predestined us for salvation from before the beginning, long before there could be any work of ours to which we might point as having given Him cause to save us.  And I don’t really see that his whole line of argument leaves room for an understanding of this simply being prevenient grace, God looking down the tunnel of time and seeing how we would respond, and saving us on that basis.  I guess it can’t be ruled out, but I don’t think it fits the explanation given.  Even with God acting outside of time, and therefore at one and the same time acting before and in response to our actions, it would leave God’s act dependent upon our response, which puts us back to works.  And Paul’s theology simply won’t permit that.  He points us to Jacob and Esau, about whom the decision of redemption or rejection was made before they were even born, “in order that God’s purpose according to His choice might stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls” (Ro 9:11).  Esau, then, was hated by God not because of how he responded to grace, but rather, his response could be said to have resulted from God’s choice.  And he raises that point of God’s choice even more vigorously as he continues his argument. It’s in His very name, as He proclaimed it to Moses.  “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and compassion on whom I have compassion.”  It doesn’t depend on the man, not on his will and not on his effort.  It depends on God who has mercy (Ro 9:15-16).

All of this must be retained as we contemplate what it is Paul is teaching here in these two verses.  When he insists that we make it our constant, ongoing labor to pursue salvation with all reverence for God and all dismay for our weak-willed flesh, it is not because salvation is at risk in those who have believed.  The testimony is too great on this point.  “Whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Ro 10:13).  “Whoever believes in Him will not be disappointed” (Ro 10:11).  And yet, here we are, being told to work, and work constantly, on this very issue of our salvation.  Beloved, whatever we take away from this instruction, it must be held together with the certain hope of our salvation.  God has predestined this for us, He has called, He has redeemed, He has sealed us with the Holy Spirit, Who Himself testifies within us that all this is so.  Oh, we assuredly have our times of doubt.  We see our latest sin and think, surely, I have driven Him away with this one.  But the Spirit comes to counter our doubts, reminding us that, no, indeed you are a child of God.  Repent, therefore, and be once more forgiven.  Don’t give up.

There’s a song of Peter Gabriel’s that I admire quite a bit for its pursuit of this very theme.  It may not have a godly turn to it, yet God seems to make use of it to address these periods of doubt.  If you can hear it in God’s voice, rather than that of Kate Bush, “Don’t give up, you’ve still got Us.  Don’t give up.  You’re not beaten yet.  You can fall back on Us.  Don’t give up.  There’s a place where you belong.”  Admittedly, it’s a stretch to have this apply to our question of salvation, but in its way, it does so, if we will allow the Spirit to make His application of the message.  It’s not about powering through.  It’s not about pulling yourself out of adversity by main strength, or about recalling your friendships in a time of loneliness, though even as we have been discussing on this passage, that has its place.  As I observed yesterday, this working is a plural effort.  There is at least the potential in these verses that it is a shared effort that is in view, God working through each one of us to bring about the salvation of all of us, or no, not to bring about salvation, but to mature each of us in the salvation we already possess as our rebirthright.

So, what’s the deal?  If it’s already ours, why are we working?  If the outcome is so certain, why get exercised about it at all?  Well, one thing is that we have this repeated connection of faith and obedience.  It’s here in this passage, if only obliquely.  Just as you have always obeyed, continue your obedience by working out your salvation.  But it’s not just here.  The connection comes through in other passages as well.  The author of Hebrews makes the connection, writing that Jesus, having been made perfect (and there’s a whole separate theological maze to explore), became the source of eternal salvation to whom?  To all who obey Him (Heb 5:9).  And Paul has this instruction for the church in Corinth when once they had addressed their moral tailspin.  “We are destroying speculation, destroying every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.”  Okay.  So far that sounds like frontline warfare against the darkness.  But then, a turn of thought.  “We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (2Co 10:5).  Well, that is not the most succinct passage.  Is it His obedience, or is it that obedience that comes by way of Him?  If it is the former, then it is suggesting a taming of our roving thoughts by making them subject to His obedience, or reminding ourselves of His obedience and what it has purchased for us.  If it a Christ-fueled obedience, then it is ourselves wrestling with those foolish thoughts that seek to wrest us from Him.  And if it is the latter, let me suggest we start by going back to John 10.  “My sheep hear My voice and no other.  I give them eternal life, they shall never perish.  No one will snatch them from My hand.  My Father gave them to Me, and He is greater than all.  No one is able to snatch them from His hand.  I and the Father are One” (Jn 10:27-30).  Get that into you!  You are included in that no one.  You are no more able to snatch yourself out of God’s hands by your failures and your doubts than Satan is by all of his efforts.

Yet, still, the call to obedience, the connection of obedience to salvation.  Peter writes of it as well as Paul.  “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (there it is again, God started it), “by the sanctifying work of the Spirit” (not your superlative effort, but God working in you, sound familiar?) “so as to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood” (1Pe 1:2).  Peter continues to his blessing of the church in greeting them, but look at that!  If I did not take note of it when studying that letter, I do so now.  The Triune Godhead is at work here.  God foreknew and ordained.  The Holy Spirit undertook the work, and now we are able to obey Jesus Christ.  This is the result of salvation, not the precondition.  You are sprinkled with His blood, you who are the called of Christ, you who are given to Him by the Father, Who foreknew and foreordained that this would be the case.  Your future is settled.  You are God’s possession.  You are among that royal priesthood, set among a holy nation, a chosen race for God’s own possession (1Pe 2:9).  This is no matter of genealogy, nor of earthly nations.  This is a matter of rebirth, and just as you had no say in your physical birth, I would insist you have no say in this spiritual rebirth.  You are born.  You are reborn.  That’s it.  It’s just a fact of your life going forward.

This, however, does not relieve you of all effort.  This does not give you a pass on exercise, on growing, on developing into a decent human being.  And neither can you blame your parents for those places where such development has not taken place in you.  They had their influence, certainly, but for all that, you are who you are now of your own choosing.  If they tried and failed to instill in you a sound moral foundation and trust in God, it’s not their fault.  You chose to resist and reject.  If they failed as parents, were miserable role models and ignored you or worse growing up, it remains your choice if you have decided to live your life as a victim of those abuses.  It will be your choice when and if you decide to be better than that.  So, too, in this life of the redeemed.  As pastor was preaching last Sunday, your future is established, this is true.  Your mission in this life is determined, and it being God’s determination, it will come to pass.  But you are not without involvement in it.  It may reduce to, “We can do this the easy way, or the hard way.”  You can be drawn along kicking and screaming, like a troublesome child in the grocery store, or you can walk with God, observing His course, hearing His instruction, and setting yourself to the task assigned.  God will win.  Understand that.  Be thankful for that.  But why make it a misery for yourself?

It comes to this.  Obedience is required of us.  We are, after all, servants of Christ, slaves of Christ.  However it is you hear that term, whether with all the dark connotations of the slave trade, or as being given an honorable position in the royal courts of God, the point is simple enough:  Your will doesn’t count, really.  You have given your will over to that of another, to that of your Lord.  I would suggest that in this case, you have gladly put yourself at His service, and He has graciously accepted your offer of yourself.  This is quite outside the matter of predestination.  This is the choice to walk with Him, rather than be dragged along.  But it’s no matter of shame.  It’s a position to be boasted of.  You hear it in Paul.  It’s a humble boasting, in that what is boasted of is not the self, but rather Him whom you serve.  “Paul, bondservant of Christ Jesus.”  Peter takes up the same identification.  “Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ” (2Pe 1:1).  How fitting to hold those two in such close connection.  Yes, I have this office, and the authority that goes with it, but I hold it as a bond-servant of Him Who authorized and appointed me.  I am not my own.

Okay.  So, we have this call to obedience, and it does nothing to damage or undermine the certainty of our hope.  But it sets us a task.  It gives us an exercise to pursue in order to strengthen our spiritual being, in order to grow and mature, in order to give evidence, if you will, of what is happening within us.  And this is, let me clearly say, an exercise of our will.  There can be no obedience without there having been a choice in the matter.  We hear often that complaint that a Calvinistic perspective on things like predestination leaves believers (and for that matter, unbelievers) as nothing more than automatons moved about not by their own volition, but solely by the will of God.  But this is not so.  Where obedience is called for, there must be an exercise of the will, a moral culpability yet remaining to us.  And this continues even though we are saved, and secure in our salvation.  Obedience is still required.  If it was an automatic, there would be no cause to exhort us to the effort of it.  If it’s a foregone conclusion, our spiritual computer simply running the program that was fed into it, no choice is being made.  It’s just operating the instructions fed into it.  A computer, to be clear, has no will.  And, in an absolute aside, I think that may be the thing that puts paid to the dreams of AI.  Try as we might, computers don’t think.  They react.

We, for all the resemblance and similarities, are not computers.  We are beings with self-will, and with self-will comes responsibility, accountability for the things our will chooses to do.  We can go back to our state prior to salvation.  We were still exercising our will.  We might argue that our will knew no other choice than the wrong one, and therefore really had no choice at all.  And if we do so, I think we would find Martin Luther right alongside us in the argument made.  But then, we have to face the conclusion of Romans (which just keeps coming up, here, doesn’t it?)  What of those who haven’t heard?  It’s an argument made often enough even today.  And yet, the answer is laid out for us quite plainly.  They have heard!  Even if no man has ever gone forth to preach this gospel to them, yet “Their voice has gone out into all the earth, and their words to the ends of the world” (Ro 10:18).  Or go back nearer the beginning of that letter.  “Since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made.  They are without excuse” (Ro 1:2).  God made Himself evident to them.  If they did not pursue the evidence, or chose to bury it out of sight, we’re back to an act of choice, of will.  We’re back to moral culpability, and God remains just.

Faith does nothing to absolve us from the need to obey.  If anything, it increases the need.  You know better now.  You are possessed of greater knowledge, and granted the very power of God – everything pertaining to life and godliness, true knowledge – epignosis – of Him who called us.  You have been granted His promises, become partakers of the divine nature, and given escape from the corruption of the world (2Pe 1:3-4).  And where does he go from there?  Apply all diligence to your progress (2Pe 1:5).  Back to obedience.  You have this gift, now use it according to the instructions!  Set your will to follow your Lord.  You have a part in this work.  Do it!  Don’t do it to earn position.  And I would even say, don’t do it with an eye to earning greater reward when once you have come home to heaven.  That’s not the motivation.  No.  Do it because the love of Christ compels you.  Do it because it is pleasing in His sight.  Do it because it is the right thing to do.  Do it for love.

Here, then, is your fear and trembling.  Have you ever felt that nervousness when you have gone out of your way to obtain what you consider the perfect gift for your beloved?  Maybe it’s not even something all that special, but as you selected it, you knew that it would delight them.  And comes the time for that gift to be opened, for the careful choice to be exposed to their sight.  There’s a nervousness, isn’t there?  Will her response be as you hoped, or will it prove disappointing.  Did you get the right color?  Will it delight as you had hoped?  And oh!  The relief when that delighted response comes in view.  And more than relief.  There is a flood of joy at the sight of her joy.  Isn’t that rather how gift giving works, whatever the occasion?

Okay, let’s pull this back into the orbit of Christ.  You have been given this most marvelous of gifts:  Redemption, liberty, Life!  Jesus bought this for you, hoping it would indeed bring you delight, for it comes also as a dowry of sorts, paid for your becoming his bride.  And that, too, He no doubt hopes will bring you delight.  And He’s watched you open this wondrous gift.  Do your eyes go wide with wonder to see what He has given you?  Do you take it up, hold it to yourself, and spin about?  Do you demonstrate joy and appreciation?  Or do you look, say, “okay,” and just set it aside?

This obedience we’re looking at is that dance of joyful appreciation.  It’s not a seeking that He might shower more presents on us.  It’s not laboring to keep certain doom at bay.  It’s not hoping to earn enough to buy passage home.  It’s the dance of wonder, the rejoicing in the Lord always.  It’s the response of a heart transformed.  And we do it for the smile on God’s face, as He observes how we have received His most precious gift.

Not Us, but God in Us (07/11/24)

We are faced with something of a conundrum in these two verses.  On the one hand, we are called to work, and on the other, we are told that God is the one working.  Well, clearly, understanding is not going to be found by trying to sort out which of us is working, as both must hold true together.  So, the question really is how do these two things work together?  This might be answered by considering what exactly is entailed in God working in us to will and to work.  I tried to frame this thought as I looked at questions raised by this passage, but it’s hard even to define the distinction I have in mind.

Is it the case that God is so driving our will that we are only tangentially involved, and that He is doing the work such that we are but passive agents?  That would draw us nearer the standard complaint that Calvinist theology leaves us as little more than robots, or pawns moved by the hand of God with no real involvement in the action.  Okay, this can be rejected out of hand, I think.  For, if this was the point, then there would be no reason to urge us to the work ourselves, would there?  There’s nothing for us to do, if it’s all, as the mistaken bumper-sticker thought suggests, “Let go and let God.”  If this is where we are to land, then the social Christians had it right, and we should just eat, drink, and be merry.  But such thinking flies in the face of all that Scripture has to say to us.  It simply will not stand the test, even of the New Covenant law of grace.

What, then?  Is it simply that God has seeded some change in us, made the first shifting of the will, and then left us to sort things out for ourselves after all?  Well, certainly, as moral agents, we retain involvement.  We have some active part in this process.  If we don’t, then there is no moral agency.  There is only response to stimuli.  We’re back to that again.  But, if we are just given a nudge towards salvation and then required to make our own way through the rest of the course, then there is no assurance whatsoever, and those promises Jesus made back in John 10:28-29 are just empty encouragements, utterly lacking in power and having no real application.  This, too, must be rejected out of hand.  But what does that leave us?

Let’s go back to that plural reflexive pronoun in verse 12, with its middle voice action of working.  My first theory with this has been that it’s a call to mutual aid, mutual edification, along the lines of what Paul urges for the Corinthians in applying those spiritual gifts with which they have been endowed.  Use them to benefit one another.  And that, as I have observed, is certainly in keeping with the general flow of this chapter, with its call to think of others more than of self.  But we might also take this middle voice, reciprocal action as applying between us and God.  It is God who is at work, yet it is we who are working.  It is God who directs the will, yet it is we who are willing.  This, at the least, leaves us an active part in the operation.  It isn’t going to happen apart from God, but, as we might say, God is not going to act apart from us.

This almost draws me into that mindset so often expressed that God is a gentleman and won’t force Himself upon anybody.  That, I think, is patent nonsense, if one tries to apply it as a blanket rule.  If God did not in some way force Himself upon us, we would remain as lost as ever.  We admit to this when we consider the work of evangelism.  Even this morning, reading Table Talk, the point is made.  I quote: “No one can understand the gospel and believe in Jesus Christ unless God first gives the person a heart to do so.”  Well, that didn’t happen by invitation, then, did it?  It wasn’t a response to seeking, for even that seeking, being an act of the will, requires first that the will be made aware of something to seek.  No, God will not continue forever to strive patiently with the unrepentant rebel heart of a man.  As seems to be my habit in this study, I can go back to Romans once more.  “God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity” (Ro 1:24).  They did not want Him, so He left them to it.  Fat lot of good it did them.  “They exchanged God’s truth for a lie, worshiped creature rather than Creator, so God gave them over to their degrading passions” (Ro 1:25-26).  There can be no worse outcome for man.

But here, we are entered upon a cooperative work.  Here, it is not truth exchanged for lie, but slavery to the lie terminated and a new potentiality, a new service to holiness made possible.  The flesh, habitual creature that it is, still knows its penchant for those sinful old ways, but a choice has been made possible.  It is no longer slavery, to which there can be no resistance.  No!  Something has changed within us, and we have at the very least the capacity to resist, to flee temptation, to choose righteousness, choose obedience.  We have been shown a better way.  And it has not stopped at so working in us that we finally notice the exit ramp from the highway to hell.  No.  We have taken onboard a passenger who knows the way.  And He is, while not a backseat driver, a particularly apt navigator.  If He sees us going off-course, He speaks up.  No, lad!  Go this way, not that.  Set that aside, and pursue this other course.  This is the way.

So, yes, we act as moral agents, with a will to exercise and choices to be made.  Yet, we do so with an assurance of winning through.  Again, going back to Pastor’s message last Sunday, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.  But beloved, God does not lose sheep.  God does not lose.  He has called you His own, and His own you are.  He has taken you unto Himself to be His child, and He does not disown.  And so, we can perhaps concur with the sense of this that the NET provides with its translation.  “For the one bringing forth in you both the desire and the effort […] is God.”  God, as the BBE offers, “is the cause of your desires and your acts.”  Well, we should have to be exceedingly careful there, yes?  Certainly, when I opt to lapse into sin, this is not from God as cause.  Not that He wasn’t fully aware that I would do so, and to be sure, He will bring correction, and apply such discipline as is needed to retrain this rebel flesh.  But no, He is not the cause of my sin.  Not possible.  “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He does not tempt anyone” (Jas 1:13-14).  No, you were carried away by your own lust, and quite likely, with the Holy Spirit giving warning all along the way, warnings you opted to dismiss, like that pesky low tire pressure icon on the dashboard.

But, lo!  Let’s have a look at the way Phillips understands our passage.  “Work out the salvation that God has given you with a proper sense of awe and responsibility. For it is God who is at work within you, giving you the will and the power.”  Work because God is at work.  He has given you the will, so use it.  He has supplied you the power, so apply it.  Work together with your Maker.  This is surely for your good!  Weymouth, on the other hand, leaves more of this on God’s plate, and less on ours.  “For it is God Himself whose power creates within you the desire to do His gracious will and also brings about the accomplishment.”  Now, at some level, I would have to hold that this is quite true.  And yet, it moves me too close to that uninvolved, passive behavior, and again, I cannot justify that when the call is to work.

So, one more.  The Amplified Bible observes, coming into verse 13, that the work to which we are called in verse 12 is “Not in your own strength.”  They continue.  “For it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and the desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.”  That rather strikes the right balance, doesn’t it?  God creates the desire, yet you will.  God supplies the power, so that you are able to pursue your willing participation in His will.  And, if He is indeed supplying will and power, can there really be any doubt as to the eventual outcome?  Do we not return to a place of assurance, even as we labor in fear and trembling?

This perspective, I think, also adheres well with the testimony of Scripture.  It fits.  It fits with Paul’s observation and assurance at the start of this letter.  “I have seen your participation in the gospel from the start, and I am confident that He who began the good work in you will perfect it to the day of Christ Jesus” (Php 1:5-6).  And of himself, he says, “It is by God’s grace that I am what I am, and His grace has not been given me in vain.  I have worked more than all the others.  Yet, it was not I who achieved, but the grace of God with me” (1Co 15:10).  The work of ministry is no cause for boasting.  There can be no, “Look what I did.”  If it was effective at all, it was because God was in it.  Again, going back to this morning’s Table Talk, “We must pray for those to whom we witness that God will give them hearts to believe.  If He does not, they will certainly not trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.”  It’s His work to bring about faith.  It’s our work to obey and proclaim His truth to all who will stop long enough to listen.  And in that endeavor, the prayer of the author of Hebrews will certainly apply.  “May Jesus our Lord equip you in every good thing to do His will, God working in us such as is pleasing in His sight through Jesus Christ, to Whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen” (Heb 13:21).

If Jesus is not receiving the glory for that which we do in service to Him and His kingdom, then what we are doing is not in fact in service to Him or His kingdom.  It’s still about us.  If we are more concerned about how we are perceived and received than with the saving of the lost, it’s still about us.  Far be it from us!

I find myself inclined to accept that this middle voice, reciprocal effort should apply in both senses.  On the one hand, and in keeping with the message of this chapter, yes, we should be working towards our mutual salvation, lending our faith to that of our brother, that he might grow with the benefit of our growth.  And we should welcome that which our brother contributes to our own development.  This is never a one-way transaction, for every believer has some gift from the Spirit by which to contribute to the edification of all (1Co 14:26).  Let all things be done for edification.  Build one another up in holy faith, pray in the Spirit, abide in God’s love, and wait upon the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ (Jude 20-21).  And in all of this, walk humbly with the Lord your God (Mic 6:8).  For, apart from Him, all your works remain as filthy rags.  Apart from Him, it’s all dung, even the best works we seek to do as His representatives.

So, let us set ourselves to perceive His will as we go forward.  Let us seek how He would have us to think, act, respond.  Let us listen attentively to the voice of our Advocate, the Holy Spirit, as He sets us on our course, supplies us with instruction, warns us of the dangers into which we are heading.   Let us receive correction with grace, and let us set ourselves resolutely to walk and work with God towards the goals He has set for us.

A Place of Joyful Service (07/12/24)

Let’s look now at the goal here:  God’s good pleasure.  I notice that the NASB has His in italics, indicating that the word itself is not present in the text.  Fair enough.  It’s the nature of Greek, though, that the pronoun is often assumed into the verb.  And as to the proper reference for this matter of good pleasure, we should have to look to its form.  I have observed how, throughout this brief passage, all the action is indicated in the plural.  It’s you inclusively, not you the individual, who obeyed, who are called to get to work, and to will and to work for His good pleasure.  But when it comes to this goal of good pleasure, it is a singular noun, a singular object for our plural activity.  And being singular, we must direct it back to a singular actor, and that brings us back to God.

God is at work in all of you, and you all are working out this life of salvation, and willing to the work as God has so worked upon you all that you all are in fact not just willing in some grudging sense, as acceding to the inevitable, but gladly willing.  This is where I want to focus today.  This is not the drudgery of necessity.  This is not the hard, undervalued labor of one forced to his duties.  This is joyful service, undertaken from the glad prospect of giving pleasure to one we love.

And we can add to this that this very one we would please is working alongside us, or rather, that this service into which we have entered consists in working alongside Him.  Seeing that He is here working with us, and setting the direction for our actions, we have the added joyful prospect of knowing that we are working toward a sure goal.  Whatever opposition may come against us, it cannot matter all that much.  God is with us.  He is directing our course.  He is supplying our power.  He is walking with us, abiding in us, guiding us unerringly through every pitfall, and acting as our strong tower should we find ourselves in need of refuge for a time.

I can’t help but think of Israel entered into the wilderness as I consider that prospect.  If ever there was a people with cause to doubt their prospects, considered only in their own meager abilities, it was them.  Here was this great mass of humanity, a people who had labored under harsh conditions and ill-treated these last few centuries.  The men may have developed some muscle, I suppose, laboring as they did, but the spirit must surely find itself sapped of hope.  And for all that, this great crowd had no weapons, nothing by which to defend themselves, for who was going to give arms to their slaves?  Now, they found themselves up against an uncrossable sea, and the armies of Pharaoh coming up rapidly upon them.  Honestly, facing such things, I’m not sure but that I would just sit down in the dust and give up.  What’s the point in fighting so impossible a fight?  But the fight did not come to them.  It came to a Strong Tower, a tower of roiling fire that blocked the path, allowing Egypt’s might no approach.  And, then, too, the waters that blocked their way were parted; parted sufficiently that dry land, able to handle the traffic of this people and their livestock, presented itself before them.

Let me just observe here, that for those who suppose it was just low tide or some such, think what the bottom of a pond or even of an ocean is like.  It may be sand or dirt, but it is saturated, even super-saturated.  I think of that event up in Maine not so many weeks back, when a woman walking the beach hit a patch of such saturated sand and found herself suddenly waste deep in the stuff.  This is not the sort of surface that conduces to moving a few million people and cattle across at speed.  Even were the way paved, one has to think it would take a good deal of time to move such a crowd through, even if they were urged on by fear of that army, or by fear of the wonder of that pillar behind them.  Both, I should think, would give a certain impetus to one’s feet in getting clear, but just to say, it needed something more than some generic natural occurrence to have the ground not only exposed for them to cross, but also sufficiently packed down and able to support their passage.  And, I might add, that for that same way of passage to become a mire when once the wheels of Pharaoh’s chariots and the feet of his soldiers entered on their crossing just flies against such an idea.  If they were getting stuck, surely Israel, having crossed first, should have had it worse, not better.  But God.

The Israelites labored alongside God in making this crossing.  Whether they knew the joy of service in doing so, or only the anxious necessity of getting clear of that slavery which was intent on crushing them, they moved alongside God.  The pillar was clear evidence of it, and would remain so.  Indeed, Moses would go so far as to inform God that unless He continued to accompany and to guide His people, he himself wasn’t going anywhere.  Now, I could hardly advise you to take Moses’ example, and undertake to bargain or parlay with God.  That’s not the point.  Nor do I think that was fundamentally Moses’ intent, though it comes across as such.  No.  He was recognizing the reality of the business.  If You don’t go with us, we will never make it.  And beloved, this remains true of us today.  As we seek to work out our salvation, as we seek to improve upon our track-record in pursuit of sanctification, making our slow way towards home, if God doesn’t go with us, if He is not at work in us to have us willing and able, we’ll never make it.  This flesh of ours is too prone to temptation.  The spirit within may be willing, but oh, the thoughts of our empty heads!  They are too easily stirred to distractions, drawn off after the input of our senses.  Whether one accounts sheep stupid beasts or not, the fact remains that they have need of a shepherd, not only as one who knows the way to clean water and good pasture, but as one who will pull us back from where our wandering noses have taken us.

So, bit of an aside there, but worthwhile.  We are on course toward a sure goal.  We are working, hopefully with our all, but not with the deadening prospect of an impossible goal, no!  Were we left to our own devices, ala that conception of God as watchmaker, winding us up and watching us go with no thought of further intervention, then we should indeed labor in hopelessness, with no prospect whatsoever of success.  But that’s not our story.  God is at work in us!  He walks with us, leads the way.  And He watches over us, not as passive observer, but as active shepherd.  When we go off course, He knows, and He attends to the issue, getting us back on the right path with however much forcefulness may prove necessary.  If we are smart sheep, it won’t take much; just the hearing of His call.  I think of those videos I come across of a shepherd and his dogs, working the flocks.  Those dogs don’t require a great deal to know their duty.  A whistle, and they have their command, and pursue it.  Now, imagine a sheep with the good sense of such a dog.  One note from the Master’s lips, and it’s, Oh, that way.  On it, chief.  Other sheep may not have such a developed awareness of their Master’s voice as yet.  But they may see the wiser sheep responding, and be led by that.  Or, they may need a sterner sort of intervention, the rod of the Shepherd, disciplining them, training them towards the sort of responsiveness those wiser sheep have developed already.  God knows what’s needed for each individual member of His flock, and this, He will do.  For God does not lose sheep.  Not a one.

Get that into your soul.  “I guarded them, and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (Jn 17:12).  Why?  Because “I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me.”  Okay, you may say, but this is surely restricted to the apostles, or at least to those disciples who stuck with Him to this point, isn’t it?  Only in that it is speaking of past performance.  But it goes beyond past performance, and looks futureward.  “You gave Me authority over all mankind, that to all whom You have given Me, I may give eternal life” (Jn 17:2).  His prayer is not “on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine” (Jn 17:11).  And, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word” (Jn 17:20).  For all who believe are His, drawn to Him by the will of the Father, the same God Whom Paul now observes to be working in us, individually and collectively, to pursue this course of salvation.

Our future is settled.  That’s the point I am laboring to bring home.  That’s the point we ought to be laboring to establish in our understanding.  We can’t lose!  God is winning, and must win.  He is God.  But let us not fall into thinking this assured future is grounds for a complacent present.  If you find yourself complacent, just continuing along as you always have, no change of heart, no change of habit, then I fear I must question whether in fact you have heard His call at all.  I must question whether the Holy Spirit is indeed resident in the temple of your heart, for what this indicates is an absolute absence of growth, absence of the renewed spirit.  Will there be lapses?  Almost certainly; certainly enough that I would be surprised indeed to encounter one in whom this is not true.  But we’re talking trendlines.  We’re talking trajectories.  Where is your life headed?  Are you still on that same wide road to perdition?  Then, you are no sheep of His pasture.  Do you stray?  Of course.  You are a sheep, and your nose does too much of your thinking for you.  But when you hear the Master’s voice, do you respond?  If so, then fear not.  Fear not, but try harder.  Give all you’ve got to this activity of walking with Him.  There is your place for fear and trembling, lest you should wander and get yourself in trouble.  Will He come rescue you?  Assuredly.  But that’s no guarantee that there won’t be painful consequences.

Let me get back to the joyfulness of this new life we live.  We are working with the certainty of making progress.  Yes, we have this almost overwhelming concern for doing so, because we have been given to recognize just how high the stakes are.  We’re dealing in questions of life and death, and either in eternal duration.  We know we are His, and yet, our failings leave us so often concerned for our standing with Him.  We know our periods of doubt.  But when doubt comes to dissuade us from continuing, we hear the clarion call of our Lord.  If God is for us, who can be against us (Ro 8:31)?  If we are in the hands of God, what power is there that is capable of prying us out?  But let us not grow complacent.  Let us know the joy of making progress, the joy of finding ourselves with a part to play in this ongoing work.  Yes, we know just how readily we can stray.  We probably don’t have to think much farther back than yesterday, or perhaps this morning, to recognize just how readily we do so.  And the world has made certain that we have plenty of distractions in hopes of causing us to stray more often.  It takes great effort of will to resist.  It takes mind and muscle trained to the way of obedience.  It takes a thought life that remains focused on Christ and His kingdom.  What did He say of that?  “Seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, and all these necessities of daily life will be added to you.  Don’t be anxious for tomorrow.  Today is a sufficient challenge for you, and tomorrow will see to itself” (Mt 6:33-34).  Be anxious, instead, but with the anxiousness of joyful anticipation, for your progress towards that kingdom.  Be joyfully concerned to stick with your Shepherd.

That’s the call Paul has set before us in this passage.  You have obeyed in the past, and you are obeying presently.  Yet, give yourself even more to this obedience, to this task of pursuing salvation.  This is the same encouragement we find from him towards all the churches.  It’s the same note he struck in writing to the Thessalonians.  You’ve been doing wonderfully.  Keep it up!  Indeed, build on what you’ve got, and do what you’ve been doing all the more.  I come back to that lesson taught me in my brief tenure as a manager.  When giving reviews to your people, always leave room for improvement in your assessment.  Paint them too positively, and they lose the motivation to improve, and there is always room for improvement.  And let me just say, we are our primary employee.  We are the first and foremost individual we need to assess and review.  And we had best recognize that for our part, there is most assuredly room for improvement.

So, get to it!  Take it seriously, this matter of sanctification.  Look about you at those means of grace that God has so richly supplied, and make use of them.  Don’t expect spiritual muscle tone to happen by magic, as it were.  Don’t suppose the protein drink of a Sunday sermon is sufficient to build you up.  This needs daily exercise, constant feeding.  Work at it.  Work at it constantly, and work at it with the humble acknowledgement that apart from God supplying will and work, we should find it impossible to even bother trying, let alone succeeding.  But God is at work in you and me.  He is shaping our will, renewing our minds to think along new and better lines.  And He has granted us all necessary power to progress.  Rejoice, therefore, in this duty to which you are called.  Rejoice because you know that as you set yourself to the purpose of your being, it brings great joy to your Beloved.  Contemplate, if it helps (and it should), that which He has done on your behalf, to bring about this possibility of joyous fellowship and communion with Him.

Consider that!  This work to which we are called is not done in isolation, but in communion with the very God you love.  Whenever we are pursuing this path of salvation, of sanctification, we do not walk alone.  We walk with God.  This is our time in the garden, if you please.  Go back and look at your parents.  “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden” (Ge 3:8).  Now, I grant that by the time this is written, it was too late.  Sin had entered.  But recognize that this was not some one-off event.  This had been their experience until now.  Daily, we might reasonably surmise, they were familiar with God walking in the garden, the garden where they dwelt, that was, at that juncture, their whole world.  They had daily communion with Him, daily fellowship.  They could observe Him firsthand, chat with Him, ask questions and receive answers.  They could bathe in His love day by day, knowing beyond doubt His love for them.

But we can do this as well.  This is the function of those means of grace.  When we pray, it is a time to talk with our loving Father, to express our joys and fears, to give recognition for our love of Him.  When we come to Scripture, particularly in times of study (as opposed to surface reading), we have the pleasure of hearing His thoughts, receiving His advice.  We have also, His commands made clear, that as we go into our day, we go with a renewed sense of direction.  And we can pause in the day, and return to praise, return to prayer.  We could probably, if we would give it but a moment’s thought, find times to return to these Scriptures to get a recharge.  Perhaps our work is such as would permit of listening to sermons without it having undo impact on our performance.  Or perhaps we can surround ourselves with such songs as will keep us mindful of our constant Companion.  Let us consider what it will take to heed that advice of Jesus to seek first His kingdom and righteousness.  That’s not some one-time deal.  That’s our constant need.  And to the degree that we neglect said need, we do ourselves a great disservice.

If this life of sanctification is become a burden to your soul, if it is too much of a bother, cramps your style, or whatever, well, consider that this is a warning light on the dashboard of life.  Consider that perhaps, “You have left your first love” (Rev 2:4).  This is not the end.  This is not such sin as admits of no repentance.  Indeed, in that God gives warning of your condition, it is a call to repentance.  It is the call of a loving Father to his wayward son.  Come back.  Come home.  You’re going the wrong way.  All is not lost, but all needs to change course, to remember yourself, to remember your Father, your standing, your inheritance.  Don’t toss it in.  Come.  Come back and enter into the joy of your Father, that you may know once more the joy of serving in His household, not as a servant and a slave, but as a devoted son.

Set yourself to this joyful duty.  Give it your all.  Know this transformed life that has become yours.  Rejoice in your God Who has made it possible, and seek with all that is in you to live henceforth in a fashion worthy of His effort on your behalf.  Seek to live in such a way as will demonstrate to the world around you the wonders of His skillful handiwork in you.

Father, let this be.  Let this be in my attitude, even today as I work.  Show me how I can demonstrate You to these coworkers at distance.  Grant me the wisdom to maintain a joyous and godly demeanor even in the challenges and mundanities of work.  Help me to set aside my innate cynicism, to be shot of this critical spirit, and to display instead the compassionate and careful nature of You, my Father.  Let me walk as a true son, and keep my eyes on You, that I may rejoice in doing so, seeing You alongside me, and knowing Your hand upon me.

Application (07/13/24)

As I have worked through these two verses, there has been something of a tension in my understanding of them, perhaps a dual tension.  First, there has been the question of whether this is a personal working towards personal sanctification, or a communal working towards mutual sanctification.  And here, I would have to say that the proper resolving of the tension would be to accept that it is both.  We cannot, after all, help our brother much toward his sanctification if we are doing nothing toward our own.  You know, we have that saying that those who can’t do teach.  That may reflect somewhat the reality of things, but it hardly describes the ideal.  If one were to look about in the trades, and observe how instruction works, this certainly would not prove to be the case.  And I expect that anybody who has departed the world of education for employment in the field for which they have been prepared would fail to recognize how much they can learn from their coworkers.  The wiser ones will perhaps seek to learn from those who have been around longer, and particularly, to associate with and learn from those whose skills are evident.  This is where the real teaching begins, and it comes more in the shape of mentoring.

Certainly, in the trades this is how it is done.  The master employs an apprentice, and the apprentice, if he is not too full of himself, learns from the master, and thereby gains not only the knowledge of whatever regulations may apply, but also those tricks of the trade, the lore of their craft, so as to be more fully equipped for such challenges as the job may bring.  Likewise, even with more years in my own career than I tend to think have passed, still there are those from whom I can learn, as well as there being those for whom I may prove something of a mentor.  This weakens somewhat with distance, but it is still there in some degree, I think.

Now, we come to the workplace of sanctification, of God’s holy work in us.  And we recognize, as Paul causes us to recognize, that in this workplace, God is at work.  And we are at work.  And we are not at work in isolation.  We are called into community, into fellowship with others who, like us, are pursuing this trade of holiness, of doing good as God defines good.  And from other places in the Scriptures, we see how this is supposed to work.  I’ve already contemplated that somewhat in connection with this passage, so I won’t labor it further.  But we have that within by which we can in fact serve to mentor our brother, and he, in turn, has his own strengths and improvements by which he can mentor us.  No man comes to this as a finished work, nor does he, for all that, depart this life a finished work.  We remain in progress, and we remain so right up to the finish line.  It is only as we come before our Lord that we find the transformation complete, and even with that, we yet await the transforming or transfiguring of our physical plant.  Now, what does waiting feel like in eternity, in a realm outside of time?  I don’t know.  Nor do I expect to know until once I am there.

Back to our tensions in need of resolution.  While we remain in this life, we remain, if we are wise at least, in communion with others on the same journey.  We are not at the same stage perhaps, unlikely to be perfectly matched as to our development.  But we are on the same journey, serve the same Lord, and we each of us have something to give, and something to learn.  It is, if you will, the ultimate mutual aid society into which we have been called and placed.  And as much as our chief end in life is to worship God and enjoy Him, a large component of that main purpose is to fulfill His purpose in us.  That purpose, as it is revealed, may have some component of evangelical mission to it.  We may have such gifts as equip us to go out and reach the lost.  I know that this is more often taught as being pretty much a necessary component; that we cannot be good Christians if we are not actively engaged in the task of fulfilling the Great Commission.  And where this is the focus, it seems that it is most often seen as an active involvement in engaging outsiders, reaching the lost personally.  But to my thinking, that makes null the statements of Scripture that inform us that each has his own gifts from the Spirit, that to one is given this, and to another that, all in service, to be sure, to the one gospel and our one Lord, but different as to what those gifts are specifically tooled to accomplish.  If all are evangelists, who sends?  Who supplies the needs of the missionary, if we’re all off on our own missions?  Who disciples the converts if everyone’s gone off to make more?  No, there is more to the Church than one task, one duty, and there are more giftings than those associated with any one task or duty.  We are called not to one, common exercise, but to one organization, one body.

So, in this community in which we are each growing, maturing in our obedience to Christ our one Lord, it may very well be that we find individual members pursuing very different courses, very different trajectories.  Yet, they do so without abandoning that unity of Spirit.  They do so without becoming seeds of schism or heresy.  We are still one.  We just have different roles.  And as we each pursue our unique roles, we mature in different ways, at different rates.  By doing so, we discover that we have certain strengths and talents that another may lack but desire.  And we can, in that place, serve to mentor and guide.  We will also discover places in our own development that don’t measure up to the example we find in this brother or that, and we may feel the lack, feel the need for improvement.  In such a case, we can look to that brother both for an example to follow, and for wisdom from God to aid us in our own growth.

Okay, let me move to the second and larger tension:  Who’s working?  We have this clarion declaration that God is at work in us, and here, I think I must accept that suggested resolution to the tension of ‘you.’  It is us individually and collectively.  As a body, God is at work among us.  As individual members of that body, God is at work in us.  But then, if God is at work, if He is the one willing and doing, what’s my role?  Well, as I have been observing, it can’t very well be passive, can it?  Even with just these two verses, any such conclusion is ruled out.  If it’s all God and none of me, then this urging to work out salvation makes absolutely no sense, and Paul, my friends, is eminently sensible.  And so, I must conclude that we are presented with a mutual work.  God works, but He won’t work without us.  We must join Him in the work.  God wills, but we must be willing to His will.  He has made it possible.  I might even argue that He has made it inevitable.  How else can there be any assurance in faith?  Yet, in so working upon us as to render us capable of willing, it still remains to us to actively will.  Daily, hourly, there remain choices to be made, matters of will to establish and pursue.  Moment by moment, this remains true.

As I pursue these morning studies of mine, there is ever the choice of will as to how much time I shall give the exercise, when to stop.  There is an exercise of the will in choosing which points I shall pursue, and which I may set aside after all.  Then, of course, there is the question of what I shall do upon wrapping up this pursuit.  How shall I spend the precious coin of the day?  How shall I engage with my employment, if it’s a weekday?  How shall I engage with the needs of house and family?  What use shall I make of my leisure time?  And in all these things, there is also that choice of with what attitude I shall pursue those various ends.  And in each of these things, the question of how well my willing aligns with God’s will must be a serious consideration.  If it is not, have I not already enacted my will by dismissing His out of hand?

Now, does this require us agonizing over each little decision in our day, pausing for prayer and quietly awaiting answer before, say, grabbing a cup of coffee, going to the bathroom, showering, dressing, or what have you?  I know some who would say yes, but as I have probably written before, I find that more to be evidence of immaturity than of maturity.  The mature child no longer finds it necessary to ask mom and dad what to do in every little thing.  She doesn’t need to be reminded to go potty, nor to wash afterwards.  She doesn’t need mom and dad to enforce some curfew in order to get a good night’s sleep.  He doesn’t need to seek permission as to what he may eat, nor can he expect food to just magically appear before him, prepared and waiting, as once it might have been.  He won’t be called to the table, and must see to it himself.  But these are not the ill-informed, agonizing matters that they were when we were young children.  They are things we are competent to handle because we have learned, we have grown up.  We have matured, and with maturity comes the capacity to see to such matters, the knowledge to do so, and the wisdom to do so well.  It is such evidences of maturity that please a parent, and their absence that gives parents restless hours of concern.  Don’t you suppose that God has a similar response to our own progress?  Don’t you suppose, were He perhaps a tad more human, that He would be rather frustrated with us if we still couldn’t navigate the simplest of decisions?  Don’t you think He expects that we, as His sons and daughters, ought to be arriving at such development of character as arrives at the right decision with the right attitude, as it were, by nature?  This is what maturity does.  It learns.  It incorporates.  It becomes.

Yet, there is always room for growth.  There will always be those challenges, those moral dilemmas, that are new to us, beyond our experience.  And in such places we may very well find cause to pause, to put off decision until we have had sufficient time for prayer, and to gain a solid perception of God’s leading in the matter.  Certainly, when it comes to the business of the Church, and the decisions of those entrusted with shepherding the Church, we expect such godly deliberation, and we trust God to guide their conscience, again, both individually and collectively.  When we select such leaders, we count on God to do so with us as individual members of the congregation, that by our votes we may truly put into effect the plan of God for this time and place, established on godly leadership by those of His choosing.

And still, in all of this, if we would see God work, we must work.  If we would see God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then we must be willing to do that part of the work which falls to us to do.  What will that look like?  I think the larger part of it consists in remaining aware of our Lord’s company as we go through our day.  But there is also an aspect of training and retraining ourselves to keep attention on Him and His kingdom.  I proposed such questions as these as I prepared my way through this passage.  What needs attending to today, as regards salvation?  And I have to say, from my experience, this consists largely in seeking to recognize where it is that God is working today in that regard.  I can become entirely too preoccupied with some character flaw, or some habit of mine, which may be of concern, but is more likely a symptom of some other, greater issue.  It just happens to be more visible, more likely to embarrass at some point, and so, my energy goes into battling the symptom.  But I’ve not looked where God is looking.  And so, my efforts prove fruitless and frustrating.  I’m trying to work on my own, without guidance and without strength, and the result is inevitably poor.

My greatest example with this must still be the matter of smoking.  For years, I battled it, more or less in secret.  I sought to hide my habit, both from family and from my fellow believers.  It was an embarrassing short-coming, something I knew to be unwise, and something I knew I should have long since set aside.  And I tried most every solution man had to offer; raw will-power, patches, cold turkey, slow reduction.  Nothing worked.  Then, I began to look to God, to seek out why it was that He was being no help in the matter.  Even my atheist brother had observed that surely, with God as my help, I should find it an easy thing to be rid of this stuff.  And yet, here I was.  Well, the problem wasn’t the smoking.  The problem was the hiding.  The problem was pride.  It needed humble confession to my brother elders (as happened to be the case at that time).  It needed acknowledgement that I wasn’t up to the task on my own, and had need of their prayers.  And that shift, turning my effort to where God was at work, rather than where I wanted to see action, proved decisive.  Where all else had failed, with that one humbling of pride in confession to my brothers, the issue resolved.  The urge was gone, and it hasn’t come back.  Can I say my attitude has been what it should be throughout the years since, as the effects of that addiction slowly recede?  No.  But never again have I felt the frustrations of the day, however high they may build, pushing me back to my old way off relief.  Things have changed.  The urge is gone.  In that matter, at least, I have found where God was at work, and joined Him in the doing.  I have turned my will to the solution advised by His will.

Okay.  Today is a new day.  What circumstances may come my way today?  And when they do, to what degree will I consider them in light of how they contribute to the cause of salvation, whether it is mine, that of my loved ones, or that of some random stranger encountered in the course of my activities?  This is a question of awareness, of remaining attentive to the fact that I walk as a child of the King.  If I live as His bond-servant, which I surely ought to do, then in each of these areas, my first, most fundamental concern ought surely to be what purpose He has in the event, and how He would have me to pursue my part in it.

It comes down to letting God make the call.  He is, after all, the Lord.  I confess Him to be so, and I do so with awareness of what Lordship means.  I am not my own.  I am a bond-servant of my Lord Jesus Christ.  And that must require that His word is law to me.  His desire is my command.  And isn’t that exactly what Paul lays out here?   Don’t work for self-improvement.  Don’t work for personal gain, or for reputation.  Work for His good pleasure.  This is your goal.  This is your purpose.  This is your function.

If I may just inject an aside here, how wonderful for our earthly relationships when this same perspective holds true.  How lovely the marriage of two joined as one flesh, a man and a woman who have each set themselves to work for the good pleasure of the other.  How much more satisfying the friendship, when both friends have real concern for one another, and give way to one another, not seeking their own gratification and interests, but those of the other.  Where this is a two-way street, it is indeed wonderful.  Of course, as we abide in this fallen world, it will often prove not to be a two-way street.  Ideally, in such conditions, we are the one giving way, seeking, so far as it falls to us to do so, to be the peacemaker, to think more of the other than of ourselves, and consider their wants and needs more critical to supply than our own desires.  Obviously, there are limits to this.  If the other seeks and desires that which is sinful, no, we don’t accede, and we certainly don’t supply.  But within the bounds of godliness?  Nothing will more improve a relationship than such give and take.  And nothing will destroy it faster than to take without giving.  Yet, in such a state of imbalance, we are called to persevere in doing good, not to be overcome by evil, but to overcome evil by steadfast commitment to doing the right thing, to following God’s lead.

And in this, let us ever and always be mindful that we cannot follow God’s lead except we do so in God’s strength, strength He has graciously supplied in abundance.  This is our work; to love God.  This is our work; to lay hold of that which He has supplied and put it into action.  Listen.  God does not need our participation.  He is complete in Himself.  He does not need our fellowship.  He does not need our worship.  His ego doesn’t require strokes.  He is complete.  But God is gracious.  He condescends to give us a part to play in what He is doing.  He knows our limitations.  He knows our failings.  Those are factored in.  We can still be a part of His work.  This is to a purpose.  If nothing else, it grants us the self-respect of being useful.  I could turn again to the example of ‘helping’ my father when I was younger.  But I’ve probably reviewed that example often enough already.  Suffice to say that he didn’t need my help, and doubtless found it more an impediment to progress than help.  But he did it.  And I, for all that I resented the demand on my time, gained by it.

Walk with God, then.  Have every reasonable doubt as to your own ability.  To borrow once more from Romans, let none of us think more highly of himself than is right.  But then, let none of us think less of himself than is right, either.  That’s just pride in a particularly heinous disguise.  But as we walk with God, it is not from our own strength that we draw, but from His.  We walk as those being matured by the walking, learning from the Master, gaining by His skill, and making His ways our own.  Nothing else will do.  And nothing will please Him more.  If we work for His good pleasure (which we surely should do), there is no better way of doing so than to emulate the example He sets, and do so to such a degree that it becomes our own way.  Thus do we become true sons and daughters of the kingdom.  Thus do we grow to be men and women of that kingdom, and do so in such a way as will bring glory to God our Father.

Lord, let it be so!  Help me to keep my eyes and my mind on You today.  You know the way I walk, both the course and the habits.  You know, and I know readily I can get caught up in my pursuits, in the needs of the day, the things on my todo list, and the things on my want to do list.  You know how I feel the limits on my time, and how readily I can resent anything that impinges on these few hours of less obligation.  But give me a heart after Your heart.  Grant that my thoughts may remain with You, watching for Your lead, and seeking Your ends.  Even as I pray this, I can feel things rising up in me, insisting that this is an empty prayer and I will happily revert to just doing my thing.  May it not be so, and even where it is, may it yet be informed by Your abiding presence, that whatever I may do today may be, in some small fashion, unto Your glory, put to use by You to improve the progress of salvation in me, in my beloved, in whomever.  Amen.