Nobody Likes A Grumbler - [Philippians 2:12-15]

Thanksgiving for God’s Saving Work and Ongoing Grace

Before we come to the Word of God, let's go to the Lord and pray and ask His blessings upon our time. Our Father in Heaven, we thank You and we praise You that You have made us. Lord, that You think upon us, that You're looking down upon us even now and You are concerned with us.

And that just amazes us to think that the God of heaven, the thrice holy God, the King of heaven and earth, would be mindful of us. And yet we praise You that You are. We are thankful that You've not left us to ourselves, to our own devices, to our own waywardness, but that You keep us.

Lord, the people that are called by Your name, the people that You've been pleased to love, to set Your love upon, to call, to justify, to make Your very own through the finished work of Christ, we are so grateful that we are kept by the power of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

We're thankful that You have begun a good work in us and as Paul rejoiced in, he was so thankful that You would complete it, that it would be a finished work. And Lord, that You would conform us to the image of Your Son.

We're thankful for all the means of grace that You give us, and even this one, where we are to gather together as the people of God. And we're grateful that we can come in the name of Jesus Christ together before the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And what a needy day in which we live, where the world, as it were, it seems goes in one direction, so far, so wayward, so uncaring for the things of God, and yet You call out a group of people, a remnant for Your very own, and we swim against the tide.

Lord, we push and we go against the current of the system of this world and the thinking of this world, and our desire is to be a good testimony for Jesus Christ. I pray even this morning, as we consider Your Word and as we look at what it is that You have taught through it, that we would be helped as far as for our testimonies for this day and for this week, and for the remainder of this year, that we might finish well to the glory of our God.

So please, I pray, You would please bless us and be with us and draw near. And Lord, our desire is, as the psalmist would say, Lord, would Thou not revive us again that Thy people may rejoice in Thee?

We praise You in Christ's name. Amen. I'd ask if you would please to turn to the book of Philippians, the book of Philippians. In the book of Philippians, in chapter 2, we have Paul's exhortation to us to love, to unity and to humility based upon the example, the testimony of our blessed Lord in the beginning part of the chapter.

Working Out Salvation, Not Working For It

And Paul begins to give some particular instructions for the people of God that are not only for the church of Philippi many hundreds of years ago, but also are pertinent for us today. And if you will look with me, I'm going to begin reading in Philippians chapter 2 and in verse 12 from the King James where it says, Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

And that verse there, it says to work out our salvation, not to work for our salvation, as some would wrongly teach, because it is not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to God's mercy, he saved us.

There is absolutely nothing that we could possibly do to work in order for God to look upon that work and accept us, because all, as Isaiah prophesied, all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags. Nothing that we could do, not one thing that we could possibly, I can remember as an unbeliever, as a young teenager, there was a time there where I was thinking that I am not as bad as the rest.

And it's like there's a lot of people that are, when I read the news and when I look around me, there is a lot of bad going on. And I'm not participating in that wrongful behavior. And I look at myself and I'm kind of okay.

And there was that measure of self-righteousness there that for some reason God could look down upon me and because of what I had done, I could be accepted by God in some measure. And really, I did not understand until a couple of years later that when God looked down upon me and when God looks down upon anyone that is not a Christian, what God sees is a person who is completely undone.

What God sees is a person who is completely opposite of who and what God is. My wife and I, on the way in, were singing, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, Thrice Holy God. And when Isaiah saw the Lord high and holy and lifted up in the temple and His train filled the temple, Isaiah fell down before the Lord and said just that, declared God as being a thrice holy God and that He was undone.

And when God looks down upon us before we are Christians, before we are saved, the only thing that we can offer God is our sin. That's all we have. I don't care how many times you've been to church. It does not matter how many good efforts you think you've done as far as being there for, to meet the needs of other people, to give, to take care of the poor.

If it is done before Christ, if it is done in a lost state, there is nothing there that is acceptable with the Lord. And there is no work we can do that would somehow remove our guilt and remove our sin.

And here this text is not saying to work for our salvation. It is to work out our salvation. This text comes and this book comes to, if you look in Philippians chapter 1, verse 1, Paul and Timothy, the servants of Jesus Christ to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which are at Philippi with the bishops and deacons.

Paul is writing to a group of people who have been saved already. These are people who are in Christ. The only way that you can be in Christ is by the powerful work of God. God visits you because beforehand we are outside of Christ.

And we are going our own way. We are rebelling against God. We are living our life and it pleases us not to please God. That is our life before Christ, outside of Christ, hopeless and helpless. But this is written, this epistle is written to a group of people who are called saints.

And they didn't get that by doing something. God made them that. God made them holy ones. God made them his very own. And that is through the finished work of Christ, his death and burial and resurrection on our behalf.

And God gives us repentance to where when we were going in one direction, thinking certain thoughts about ourself, like I was saying earlier, we are self-righteous, thinking about God that maybe he is an ogre or maybe I just don't care about God.

And God takes, like the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus, and God stops us. God arrests us and gives us or grants to us the grace of repentance. And we turn and go the other way. It is a 180. And God visits us and we turn from our idols, as it says, the church in Thessalonica, Paul's testimony of them was that they turned from their idols to the living God to serve the living and the true God.

That is salvation. God gives not only repentance, but he gives faith. And those that believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ are those that are found in Christ. God saves us and places us into Christ. We become part of the family of God, children of God.

And we're going to kind of touch on that in a moment. But we did not get there by our own effort. But to him that worketh not, says in Romans, but believeth on him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

It's to the person that does not work. And we have too many people teaching too many wrong types of teachings in churches that are leading people astray in that they are saying that you have to do something to earn favor with God.

And if you're to earn favor with God, then you might as well take the word grace and throw it out. Because if you are doing something to earn favor with God, then you deserve it. And if you deserve it, then it's no longer grace.

That's what Paul was saying in Romans chapter 11. He says, if it is of grace, then it is no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it is of works, then it is no more of grace, otherwise work is no more work.

So it's one way or the other. And of course, we who sit here this morning, and we understand that God has rescued us, and we understand that God has delivered us, we understand that our forgiveness, our acceptance with God, we didn't accept God.

I mean, I know that it can kind of be semantics. I know that it can be kind of close as far as we did receive Christ. We did embrace Christ. We did want to be saved. But we got a want to given to us, did we not?

It is something that God did to us. And when it comes to who accepted who, who is it that saved who? It is all of God, and it is all of grace, because if we could have done something to work for it, for God to accept us, then we're the ones who can set up a pedestal and get up on top of it, and we can boast.

But for by grace are you saved through faith, Ephesians 2 .8 and 9, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God, lest any man should boast. Because if we could believe, if we could save ourselves, if we could pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, if we could somehow, we're sinking in sin in the ocean storm, and if we could somehow get ourselves out of the water, then we could say that we saved ourselves.

In the Apostle Paul's testimony and all the testimony of any disciple, of any apostles written in the scripture, and particularly Apostle Paul puts it very well in 1 Corinthians 15, around verse 10 or so, where he says, I am what I am by this grace of God, by this favor of God.

And Paul's, his continual drumbeat throughout his whole life is, and this book in particular in Philippians is, is that God saves sinners. Sinners cannot save themselves. God saves sinners. And because of that, you ought to be a people who greatly rejoice.

And the whole theme of this book is joy. It is rejoicing. It is to remind people of who they are so that they can rejoice in the Lord and rejoice in whatever circumstances they find themselves into. You remember Paul's circumstances going to Philippi in Acts chapter 16.

He goes by the waterside there and there's Lydia and there's a group of people getting together who have this fear of God and he brings the gospel and they are converted. There's a young woman who has this ability, this power, and she's taken advantage of other people to make money off of this, out of this ability that she has.

She's converted. And then they turn on Paul and Silas and said, these Jews are here, they're preaching something or they're teaching this stuff and stirring up things. And the magistrates take Paul and Silas and throw them into prison after they had beaten them.

They beat them, whip them, stick them in prison. And you'll remember when Paul is in prison with Silas, he looks to Silas and he goes, oh man, we got a raw deal today, didn't we? And he said, I can't believe this has happened to us.

I mean, we gave up our day. Basically, we gave up our week. Silas, we gave up our lives just to come over here because of that dream, that Macedonian call, and here we are and we're doing the work for God.

And here we are, we get beat up because of it. We get punished because of it. And we're in the innermost part of the prison and, oh, woe is us. And, oh, is it worth it? I mean, is that their testimony?

Now, the testimony of Paul and Silas in Acts Chapter 16 is when they're thrust into the innermost prison after being beaten. And I'm telling you, what they received was not just a slap on the wrist. It was excruciating and it was a physical nightmare, so to speak.

And they're in the prison and it says in Acts 16 that they were praising God and they were singing. Praising God and singing. Now, we get a flat tire. You know, we get a little hangnail. You know, there's no milk in the refrigerator.

And it's the end of the world. And we are just not thinking right. And Paul always and continually is reminding Christians as he's writing, and particularly in this book, whatever circumstances you are in, and he could speak by experience.

He had been in a Philippian jail. He had been beaten. And there he was singing praises to God in the midst of his woes. And singing praises. And I believe because if you read and see in Acts 4 and 5, you'll see in there that the disciples did the very same thing.

They were just so amazed that God would save them and God would use them in ministry and count them worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus Christ. And really, when it comes down to it, that's the same thing that ought to be true and evident of us here that sit in this room.

There's absolutely no reason why we should be Christians. Absolutely none. There's every reason for the opposite to be true. For God to have left us alone to go the way of our wayward heart where our heart is described as being there's none that understands, Romans 3, 10 through 12.

There is none that seeks after God. They are all gone out of the way. They are together becoming profitable. There's none that does good. No, not one. We deserve for God to pass over us and to leave us alone and to leave us to our heart as Jeremiah described it, which is desperately wicked.

Who could know it? It's deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who could know it? It is a den of vipers. It is just a spider web. I mean, have you ever gone down the basement and just run into one of them things?

I mean, you just get that feeling. I mean, some of you probably it doesn't bother you, but it's like I believe that that type of feeling that we get is the reaction of God towards our sin. It's like it just goes against him, his very nature, and yet God rescues those that don't deserve to be rescued and he works and he's begun to work on them.

And notice in verse 12 there it says, for we ought to work on our salvation with fear and trembling for it is God which works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. God is working upon us and not only did he give us the want to, not only did he, as Ezekiel prophesied, that he would take out the stony heart and give us a heart of flesh and that we would be a people that God would cause us to walk in his ways.

If the Lord didn't cause us to walk in the way of God, we would never walk that way. We would continue to walk our own way away from God and praise be to the Lord and we have every reason to rejoice this morning that we sit here, those of you in this room this morning, that can say that I'm a Christian, that I know that God has worked on me, that God has come and visited me, God has broken into my life and made me something that I was not before.

I can't even maybe explain it fully to you. It's almost like the blind man in John chapter 9 when he's asked about what Jesus had done to him. He said, you know, whether he's a prophet or not, I don't understand the whole thing, but this one thing I know.

Before I was blind, but now I can see. And when you're a Christian, it is something that has been done to you and you understand that, that God has come to us and he has, as the description is in 2 Corinthians 5 .17, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature or a new creation.

Old things are passed away. Behold, all things have become new. There's something different about our lives and we recognize that it is nothing short of the powerful work of God to save our souls. And so we're Christians made that way by God, yet God doesn't leave us alone.

The Lord just doesn't leave, you know, save us and that's it. You're on your own. Take care of yourself. Here's the Bible and by the way, you know, you just need to live up to what I've written in there.

But we are continually assisted by God. The Holy Spirit comes to teach us and to convict us and to lead us and to guide us and to help us. God has given us his powerful word, which is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.

And God is continually working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. He gives us the want to, the desire to go on and to please him also, but he gives us the ability to do his good pleasure.

Working Out the Gospel in Daily Life

Now, I want to get particular in something about this text here that is very important for us this morning. Paul had been appealing to this church to live out their Christian life, to not work for but to work it out.

In the Greek there, it's almost like an algebraic equation. Here is this X squared plus 3X plus Y something equals and you've got to work it out to completion. Basically, that's what he's saying here with this word is that we are to live out what God has begun in us.

And we have the word of God and we have the means of grace to be able to gather together to encourage each other in the things of God and to avail ourselves to the means of grace to pray and to seek the Lord's face and to fellowship with believers and to read the word of God and meditate upon it and saturate ourselves with the word of God so that we can grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord.

And we work this out as God is working in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Paul's desire and appeal to them was to do this, but he's going to warn them because he knows that they will be tempted to do things that are unpleasing to the Lord and that they ought to guard themselves from this.

And his first point is to exhort them to do everything that they do in verse 14 without murmurings or disputings. Without murmuring, that's his first exhortation to them and we may just park it there for a while this morning.

What is the basis of this argument? What is the basis of this exhortation? He says, do all these things without murmurings and disputings and he says there's a good reason to guard yourself, there's a good reason to live differently and he gives them that reason in verse 15.

He says that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God. His argument or the basis of his argument is, as he's saying to them, is that since you are the sons of God, since you are the children of God, you must not murmur, you must not dispute.

As a matter of fact, you should live just the opposite. And of course he also gives them this admonition in verse 15, being blameless and harmless. You were to live differently. His exhortation is for them to a proper moral living and it's based upon the fact that he is reminding them that they are the children of the living God.

It kind of reminds me of Matthew chapter 5, I'll turn there, you don't have to if you don't want to, Matthew chapter 5, the teachings of our Lord Jesus, where Pastor Mike might get to maybe by the year 2002, possibly, I mean 2007, I'm not sure, two years from now.

But in Matthew 5 and in verse 44, the words of our Lord Jesus, but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you.

Notice verse 45, that you may be the children of your Father, which is in heaven. And he goes down and he says through this, basically, that we are to live this way and these principles come to bear upon our lives because we're different, because we're the children of God.

And Paul is saying the very same thing. It has something to do with who we are. And Paul reminds them of who and what we are and the same exhortation can be profitable for us today. For us to consider and to remember and to look at, as I've kind of introduced in the Sunday school class this morning, who we are.

We're God-made people. We're different. We're a peculiar people. We are something that we did not fashion ourselves. Not only God physically created us, but he spiritually recreated us. We're new creatures in Christ.

We've been born from above. And we love Ephesians 2, 8, 9, where we have this grace and that we are saved by this grace. And this is not of ourselves. It's the gift of God, lest any man should boast. But the verse goes on to say,.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus on two good works, that God has before ordained that we should walk in them. We're God's poema. The Greek there, it's God's handiwork. We're being fashioned by God.

God is working upon us that we might live and look like and be a different people. And Paul reminds them here that whatever you do, in everything that you do in your life, do it without murmuring, do it without disputing.

And me particularly, while I was thinking about this, for the year of closing here, the year 2005, that we might finish well, one of the things that is difficult and something that we ought to guard and be careful about and something that we ought to make sure that we protect and guard is the unity in the body of Christ in the church.

And one of the things that can strike at the heart of unity is murmuring and disputing. And we need to be careful, and Paul is reminding us here, as he reminded them in Philippians 1 in verse 27, he says, Let your conversation be as it become at the gospel of Christ.

Your manner of living ought to reflect the gospel. If you've been saved by a powerful gospel that God has said in His Word changes lives, then we ought to be a people who live a changed life if we've embraced this gospel of Christ, if we've been saved by this gospel.

And Paul is reminding us, I believe, there in that verse, that we must obey the call of God and live according to the rules of the gospel, live a life that fits the gospel. Sometimes I have said to my son when he goes out, and I've said it to some of my children, when they're heading out the door to go do something, I'll just remind them and I'll say, Remember who you are.

Yes, Dad. You're a Jeffreys, right? And the desire is, of course, is that we don't ever do anything, and I know that I don't want to ever do anything that would bring reproach to the Lord, but nobody even wants their own name reproached.

I mean, I don't know, anybody just wants to have your name stuck out there to have holes shot through it and dragged through the mud. Nobody does. We want to live and have a reputation, but in particularly that because we're Christians, Christians, the name of Christ, Christ's name being in there, you know, Americans.

They're from America. And, of course, Americans don't have a great reputation abroad, do we? Some of you that have traveled to other countries. But when it comes to being a Christian, we ought to not ever do anything, as the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 6 .3, I think he says, giving no offense in anything that the ministry be not blamed.

We ought not to do anything that brings down the name of Jesus Christ. And his desire as he reminds them of this, of who and what they are, and as he's wanting them to understand that no matter what state they're in, they can be content and they ought to rejoice in what God has done in their lives.

But we're not just left, we're not just saved and ushered into heaven or everything is kind of just put on hold. We are a people who are to work out the salvation. We are a people who are to strive and to be a people set apart for God, to live differently, to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, to be stronger as far as the knowledge of the word of God, and as a testimony for Jesus Christ that we would be good ambassadors of Jesus Christ, good representatives of heaven.

Our citizenship is in heaven and we ought to live lives that reflect that we are a people who are born from heaven and going to heaven one day and our life ought to match up to that and it ought to fit that.

And he says it won't if you're murmuring. And he uses this word, and I believe the Apostle Paul may have had the children of Israel in mind, when he remembered that God had chosen them and singled them out from all of the nations, called them to be his chosen people, and God showered them with blessing upon blessing.

And we've seen this in our Sunday school classes when we've looked at the history of the people of God and God dealing so bountifully with them. He delivers them out of the slavery of Egypt. He gives them the promised land in Canaan, but then what happens?

In the book of Numbers, we find that they murmur. They are a group of people who murmur against Moses and they murmur against God. They constantly complain and they argue and they get tired of this food that comes down from heaven.

I mean, we drive through. This dropped through. I mean, this dropped down. I mean, miracle. Day after day, some folks say they've estimated how much food had to be delivered by God to the people of Israel, and it could equate to like 40 boxcars, railroad boxcars full of food daily for them.

And yet they loathe the light bread. And they want meat instead. And we have to be careful what we ask for, right? Because they did get some meat one time. God gave them some birds, pretty high amount, and they ate them until they blew them out of their nostrils, basically is what they regurgitated them.

They complained about the leadership of Moses. They wanted to go back to Egypt. I mean, come on. What was in Egypt? Oh, the leeks and the melons and the great food. But what else was in Egypt? Have you forgotten what else was there?

Yes, slavery and toil and death and brick and mortars without straw and 400 years of misery and woe when they're crying out to God and God delivers them. And what Paul is saying to the church at Philippi and to us today is guard your heart.

Guard your heart no matter how difficult it gets, no matter what you go through, don't complain and don't murmur. Don't fall into the same sin of the Israelites. The Scripture was written for our example.

Paul knows this. He looks back on the Old Testament and what had taken place there, and he says it's for our example not to fall into the same sin. And when the Lord brings us into difficult places that we don't like, that we don't understand, the temptation will be to murmur or complain.

Just the opposite of what Paul's testimony and experience is. Remember Philippian jail? He's singing, praising God and singing with Silas. I mean, they got this great duet going in the midst of their misery.

And I know they weren't singing, Oh, woe is me. You know, I might have encountered many blessings. Name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. And did or did not God bless them for their faithfulness?

Did not God deliver them in a powerful way? The earthquake comes and the jail is ripped wide open and they're able to go out and God sets them free. But what do we do? Murmur at times. Oh, why me? Oh, why now?

Why is this happening to me and not somebody else? There's somebody else that deserves it. God, look at that person down the end of the road. They deserve it. You see, our hearts are in the wrong place there.

When we think that way, how come I'm not blessed like others? God, don't you see that I'm living for you? And we begin to murmur. And that word means it's a muttering. It has been described as a low, threatening, discontented muttering of a mob who does not trust their leaders and they're on the verge of an uprising.

That's where the word comes from. Listen to my pronunciation, I'll try, of the Greek word, gagusmos. I mean, doesn't it sound like muttering? I mean, it is displeasure. It is complaining. It is grumbling.

It is grudging. Got to do this. I mean, God, I have to go through this every day, murmuring. And it's this muttering, and it is a result of a stubborn will. And it is an indication that the murmurer is questioning God's love for them.

And they complain, and they begin to lose their love for and trust in God. And they first murmur, and after murmuring, then they dispute. It has to do with doubting. And the minute we begin to doubt God's love and we'll begin to doubt everything, and consider the children of Israel again.

They had seen the wonderful working of God's awesome power on their behalf, as evidenced in the ten plagues, the deliverance from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the continual supply of manna and water in the wilderness, and so on.

And yet, in the midst of all of that, there's this muttering, complaining. And I wonder if we're ever caught in that situation, brethren, where, you know, if everything's going good, and if the skies are blue and the grass is green, and the red carpet is rolled out, and everything is well for us, the job's going well, the kids aren't sick, and there's money in the checkbook, blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine. And we're way up here. Everything is fine. But as soon as things get a little bit difficult, and God, for purposes only known to himself, will test us, and cause us to go through the fire, and go through, as it were, the flood, as it were, come up over our head, has God changed towards us?

Has his thoughts towards us changed? Never. Can anything separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ? Nothing can. Is God doing something that he ought not to be doing? Well, God can't do that.

Is God doing something that is not good? No, because the psalmist said that we ought to praise God for his goodness towards us. And God has always done that which is right, always done that which is good towards us.

That's the way that he acts towards us, because he is our Father who cares for us, and whether it's good times or bad times, we need to remind ourselves about the character of our God. God is holy and just in all his ways.

He's good, and he acts towards us accordingly, according to his attribute of goodness. He's always righteous in his dealings with us. We never have to question what he's doing, never question his love towards us, and we can be confident that he will always treat us in a good and a fair way.

And if you feel the grumbles coming on, what's the best thing to do? Stop and consider the impeccable nature, glory, splendor, character, love, and faithfulness of our Heavenly Father. And when we do that, we'll come to the place, brethren, where we'll understand that whatever it is that we're murmuring about, whatever it is that we're complaining about, it is not worth it.

It is not of such great importance that it ought to cause our hearts to swing that way and to begin murmuring about the Lord. And when we begin to murmur about the Lord, it is going to come and affect the body in the church because we're just going to be out of tune, and we're not going to be living harmoniously, and we're not going to be treating each other in the way that we ought to because our hearts are not in the right place.

The Children of God Must Live Without Murmuring

Now, let me ask you a question. Can anybody here give me any reason, when we think about, let me put it this way, of all the people on the face of the earth, the people with the most hope, the people who ought to have the most joy, the people who are the most blessed, are the people who are, as Isaiah, I think it was Isaiah who put it this way, he says, we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.

We're God's very own. We are the apple of God's eye. We are loved of God. That is amazing. That is just absolutely awesome. Loved of God. God has shed his love upon us. He has bestowed his love upon us.

John put it that way in a tremendous way. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons or the children of God. Is there any reason, has God given us any reason up to this point that we should not trust him and that we should not love him and that we should not continue to serve him and we should doubt God?

Is there any reason? Has he to this point done that? Of course, the answer is no. But what is it that, and I'm going to open up the question to you, what is it that people in the day in which we live will murmur about?

What is it that causes people to complain? Anybody got any ideas today? Price of gas. Although it has come down a little bit, right? The world is against us. Right. But God is for us. Anything that you can offer, you can always outdo it multiple times because of how favored we are of the Lord.

I mean, the price of gas is up, brother, right? But we have cars to put them in. I mean, think about it. We don't have to go. I read some of these biographies of some of these men, even in New England, like we heard recently of David Brainerd.