Christian Living 101 - Genuine Character & Effort

Someone once observed that a wasted life is really nothing more than a collection of wasted days.

As God gives us life, each one of us starts the new year with the same number of opportunities, 365.

We can either use and invest in eternal things, or allow to drift by without taking advantage of these days, of this gift we've been given.

The difference between those who succeed and those who fail is not primarily found in talent or ability, but in diligence and effort.

There have been those that have accomplished more for Christ and more for the kingdom, who by certain standards or by the world's standards may have not been very talented, or maybe had great ability, or maybe they weren't as prominent, or whatever.

But because of their love for God and their diligence and their effort, accomplish far more for the kingdom.

And will be rewarded so, because of their effort and diligence and their genuine character and effort.

In Philippians chapter 2, verse 12 and 13, we see an example of what this genuine character looks like.

But then we also look at the conversation and the subject of, ultimately, who lives the

Christian life? Who is it that is responsible for your sanctification?

Sanctification meaning to be set apart as holy, to be set apart to God, and this would be a sermon for another day, but when we look at our salvation, there's many aspects to our salvation, both past, present, and future.

There's our justification when we are declared righteous by God, by faith. Our sanctification is what, in theological circles, we would call a positional sanctification.

And we've been studying this in Sunday school. It means you now were identified in sin, you were identified as being married to the law, needing to keep the law for salvation, but now we've died to the law and our identity is now in Christ, so we are positionally righteous, meaning we are now credited the righteousness of God by our faith.

But what is in view here in this text this morning is what we would call progressive sanctification.

The progressively, continually, day by day, growing in Christ -likeness, being continually sanctified, and the way we do this is by, as Romans 6 points out to us, putting to death the deeds of the body and putting our focus on the law of God, putting our focus on God, loving

Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, obeying Him, living for Him, and as we do these things, we grow in our

Christ -likeness, we grow in our ability to live in the way Scripture would instruct us to live.

And that question is sort of answered here in what you're going to see in these verses, but then also 2

Peter 1 does a good job of discussing this. This is one of those situations

I've told you about before, that two things in Scripture can be true at the same time.

And while it may seem that it's either a paradox or a situation that can't be resolved or something along those lines, it's because ultimately in our finite minds, in our limited capacity to understand things, that we have to have things revealed to us by God, and we have to let it stay and lie as He has revealed it to us.

And so two things, while they may seem contradictory, can be true at the same time. So what we're going to see this morning is two things are true.

One, it is based on our effort, and it is based on our works, and our progressive sanctification in the sense of us working out our salvation, working and putting forth effort to study and to grow in all these things.

But it's also said in Scripture that it is God that does these things in us. And you say, well, both things are true at the same time.

And I want to read for you a quote about this whole understanding of the two things.

Both things being true at the same time, John MacArthur in his commentary on the book of Philippians in regards to this subject matter says the following,

Christians who try to reconcile every doctrine, notice, in a humanly rational way are inevitably drawn to extremes.

So I see this a lot when people try to explain things, or we so badly as humans want to have everything make sense in the way that we can understand it.

So we will rationalize things and say, okay, I can see this working in this way.

Or I can understand it if it's this way. Well, when things are presented to us in Scripture in the manner in which we find it this morning, it goes beyond our finite capacity.

Because it's coming as revelation from an infinite being, an infinite

God that not only created us physically, but he creates us once again and raises us to life, and we are born again, born above spiritually.

And so it's true that both things are true, that yes, we are responsible.

We are expected to live out our Christian life, to grow in the grace of God, to grow in righteousness.

Now our justification before God, our salvation, faith is the only thing we are responsible for.

God does the work. It's Christ's works. Christ's death on the cross that satisfies my payment for sin.

I can't do that. You can't do that. But once we are saved, we are saved to be workmen, to be the workmanship in Christ, to follow the commands of God, to love the precepts of God, so on and so forth.

So when it says, as we're going to see in great detail here, that it's God that works in us, but at the same time, we're expected to work, and we're commanded to work out our own salvation, meaning work out your own sanctification, it seems like you're saying two contradictory things.

No, we're actually not. MacArthur goes on to say, after he refers, that if you try to rationalize that which can't be rationalized, you end up in extremes.

He says, to achieve their goal of fully understanding that which we weren't meant to fully understand, it eliminates the mystery or apparent paradox in our mind, but you have to inevitably emphasize one truth or aspect of God's Word at the expense of another.

And he ends this quote by saying, doing so to the finite mind seems to fix the situation.

It seems to work it all out. Well, we referenced this in Sunday school, and I want to cover it again here.

We see this type of thing where instead of saying, okay, God's Word says this,

God's Word says this. And that's true, they're both true. We have two groups that sort of fall into these extremes that MacArthur warns about.

One's called the quietists, Q -U -I -E -T -I -S -T, the quietists.

How they got this, I didn't do a lot of background study on where they came from, how they come to get their names, so I can't speak that this morning.

I'm aware of the groups, and I'm aware of what they mean and how they operate. So how they came to get that name, I don't know.

Were they really quiet? Did they just sit around like monks and never speak? I don't know, but they're called the quietists.

And these people believe that Christians are fully passive in their sanctification, sort of like, well,

I'm saved now. I'm just going to sit back, fold my arms, and God's just going to sanctify me and make me extra holy and good and righteous, and I don't have to lift a finger.

I don't have to go to church. I don't have to read my Bible. I don't have to pray. I don't have to put in any effort or genuine character into the proceedings because, well,

God's just going to do what He's just going to do, and that's just the way it is. They tend to focus on personal feelings and personal experience.

You know, this is what happened to me. This is the way I understand this and all these sorts of things.

So you have the quietists that are one extreme of, well, you know, it's just God working in us, and, you know, we don't have to put forth any effort.

Well, the other extreme are the pietists, P -I -E -T -I -S -T -S, the pietists.

Now, the pietists are more aggressive. They're aggressive in their pursuit of correct doctrine and moral purity.

They stress effort to the expense or exclusion of divine power.

So in other words, it's all up to me. Nothing's ever going to happen unless I do something.

Yet I am needed. I must do. Well, this leads to all sorts of legalism, self -righteousness, judgmental spirits, and, of course, rank hypocrisy because nobody can achieve a perfect moral purity and correct doctrine in this life.

As much as I know about Scripture, there's an infinite vast of it I don't know, which is why I want to commit myself to continually learning.

I don't want to ever rest on my laurels and think I've arrived because there's nothing in Scripture where you can point to a verse and say,

Oh, I've done that. I've arrived. I've done everything I need to do in my Christian life. That's not how it works.

So you've got two extremes there. Both of them should be avoided. We should not be trying to do either one of them.

So, in light of the fact that these two things can be true, let's look at these two things.

Let's look at genuine character and effort. So in verse 12 of chapter 2, Paul says,

So then, my beloved... And if you will remember, this comes off the heels of the section we looked at where it talked about how in the

Incarnation, Christ emptied Himself. He took on human flesh. He was in the appearance of a man, meaning

He was 100 % God. He was 100 % man. God highly exalts Him. Every knee is going to bow.

Every tongue is going to confess the glory of God the Father. And then Paul says, So then, in light of, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence.

When he says, just as you always or have always obeyed, the word translated obeyed is a word in the original that means it's a combination of under and hear.

The idea is that you are listening, attending to, and acting upon that which you have submitted yourself under to listen to.

So you're hearing instruction, and then you're carrying out the instruction.

So in a sense, it's not, it wouldn't be, it gets a little tricky because when you sit under preaching, you obey the preaching, but you're not obeying a pastor.

A pastor doesn't have authority. Scripture has authority. It's the pastor's job to illuminate what

Scripture's saying, and then we all as Christians obey Scripture. Scripture's the final authority.

Christ is the head of the church. Pastors don't have the authority. Scripture has the authority. So when you listen to a pastor preach, it's not the pastor, the man, or him specifically speaking that you're obeying.

You're sitting under and hearing his teaching, but ultimately it's the

Scripture that you want to obey. It's the speaking of what Scripture says that you're obeying.

So in that sense, that's what Paul was saying here. He says, because Paul was one that had preached to them, been speaking to them, talking to them, and teaching to them, so they had heard what he had said, and he's saying, you have always obeyed.

Not that you're obeying Paul, like Paul's some kind of special dude or anything. You're obeying Paul because of what he was teaching you,

God -inspired revelation. And so that's what's in view here, and he's saying, here's where the genuine character part comes in.

He says, you were obeying God, obeying revelation, obeying what God would have you to do, not just when

I was around, but also when I was gone. And see, we read

Scripture sometimes so fast we miss stuff. Think about what's being said there. That's genuine character, is it not?

Anyone can perform or put on a show or do what is, quote -unquote, expected when they have an audience.

Think about the classic example, right? Children and parents. How often have we seen situations where they say, man, those kids really know how to bathe

Mom and Dad around, but the second they walk out the door, they just become little aliens. You know, that's that whole funny example.

People, some people even at jobs, work really well when the boss is around.

But when the cat's away, the mice shall play. Is that not right? So is that genuine character?

Or is that selfish conformity? Meaning, there's benefit for you to conform and do what you're supposed to do if someone's around to see it.

But true character, genuine Christian character is forged when someone does what is right in the absence of an audience because thus doing what is right because it's the right thing to do.

You're going to do what is right even if nobody knows it, even if nobody sees it, not because of what you may stand to gain, but because it's the right thing to do.

That is genuine character that Christian living is all about.

And it's that type of character that's going to be required for what we're looking at here in just a second.

But Paul sets the stage here by referencing that. And think about what that must have meant to these

Galatians. This is someone they looked up to. This is someone they wanted his approval.

Think about it. If someone told you that, if you're a child, your parent were to tell you that,

I'm so proud of you because you don't just do what I would ask you to do when

I'm around. And this is something we can say about our daughter, Hannah. We get reports from her teachers, a report from, say, her grandparents if she's staying with them.

And we're always getting reports that, hey, she's doing what she needs to do. She's respectful. She's sweet.

All the things you would expect and want her to do. So it makes me feel good as a father to know that my child would do the right thing, not just if I'm around to see it, where she might get in trouble if she doesn't.

But even when I'm not there, she's doing what is right because in her heart, she knows the right thing to do.

And she wants to do what is right, not because of what may happen if she doesn't do what is right, but because she loves

God and wants to do what's right. That's good, genuine character. That's what we want, not just from our children, but I want to be like that.

You should want to be like that. And so this is great high praise here from Paul to these people.

You're doing and obeying and doing what you should be doing, and I don't even have to be there. Which brings us to the thrust of the message this morning, what we really want to look at.

He says, he says, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Basically meaning this fear and trembling, you know, even at this point in time, it's still a difficult, there's many other preachers that can explain this much better than I.

Explaining how we are to have a fear of God, and that be a fear born out of reverence for God.

But at the same time, these words mean literally trembling in terror.

And there is a sense in which we as his creatures should be frightened of God. Especially if you're unsaved, because think about it, the

God of the universe that spoke all this into existence, how terrible would it be to fall into his hands as a sinner?

There is a sense in which we should fear God and understand, and it's not that we should be scared of him, that he's somebody to be feared in that sense, but it's a sense in which we understand who he is in comparison to us, how great and mighty he is, and how small of a person

I am. And so it's a very difficult thing, I'll admit to you for pastors, to try to explain how we reverently fear

God. We work out our salvation with, yes, fear and trembling, but it doesn't mean that you're left alone.

It doesn't mean that God is someone to hide from or be scared of in that sense. And it's a very difficult thing to explain, but Paul says we must do this.

But here's the first of the two things that are true at the same time. He tells these people, you work out, and when he says, work out your salvation, what he's saying is, work out your own salvation.

Don't worry about, I'm not supposed to worry about Russell or Dave, I worry about my own, worry about me, my own salvation.

Now, he's not saying here, and this is the

Holy Spirit at work, we discuss this in great detail in Sunday school. He's not saying that you're justified in Christ by the

Spirit of God, now all of a sudden it's up to you to do something to keep yourself safe. It's not what's in view here.

Remember the context, going all the way back to the beginning of the chapter. He's talking about how Christians live, how we live amongst each other, how we follow the example of Christ.

He's gonna use examples that we'll get into starting next week in verse 14, where he gives some explanation about doing all things without grumbling or disputing, holding fast the word of life, this, that, and the other.

He's using examples to make his point that would imply or show that he has sanctification in view here.

He's talking about how Christians live and operate day to day. He's not teaching here about justification.

So since he is not talking about justification, when he says, work out your salvation, you can't take that phrase and assume he's talking about justification.

So that's a very wordy way of saying he has sanctification in view here, not our justification.

So he's not saying, well, you won't be saved if you don't work on it. No, he has sanctification in mind.

So what he has in view here is your progression as a Christian, your progression in Christian living, your progression in Christ's likeness, all that's involved in that as a

Christian, you need to work that out. And here's how we know that. The word, and I think in most

English translations, it's translated work out your salvation.

The term that's translated work out there in the original is a word that means to effect or bring about by labor or by effort.

It's to do those things which bring about a certain result.

It's a word that means to work or put forth effort with an end goal in mind or a state of definitive conclusion in mind.

And it's translated here work out, okay? Now, just in passing, in the next verse, when it says

God who is at work in you, that's a different Greek word that means something differently when we translate that into the

English word work. So we'll deal with that separately. Here in verse 12 when it says work out your salvation, in the original it's a word that means to put forth effort towards that intended completion or end.

What's being said here? Think about other scripture that talks about, you know in New Testament scripture when it talks about working to become a mature man in Christ or mature woman in Christ or God is working out to the perfection of the saints.

A lot of times when you see that word perfection in English, it's a word in the original means to the completion, a complete man lacking nothing spiritually.

That's also how we know he's talking about sanctification here. He's talking about working out your salvation, meaning you

Christian, to put this in the simplest terms, you Christian need to be putting forth effort.

You need to be working. You need to be active, engaging in your

Christian life to be growing and to be learning and to be growing in your capacity to serve.

That is the working out that he has in view here. And notice we do this with fear and trembling so it looks and at least appears if we stopped here and didn't go any further that the onus on our growth as Christians is completely on us.

But then we go right to the next verse and it looks like it's saying something completely different.

Verse 13, for it is God who is at work in you.

And this word translated work here just simply means working to be operative, to be accomplishing something, to be engaged.

So it's saying that it is God that is operative, that is working, that is engaging, that is the one accomplishing in you, both to will and to work or to will, to desire, and to operate, to work.

Notice for his good pleasure. Now, which is it?

Are we putting forth effort to grow in our Christian life or is

God simply just working in us to make it happen? Both are true.

Both things are true. Both things are equally true. Both statements are an inspired, inerrant

Scripture which means it seems or may seem like a paradox or something that's contradictory but when we say things like God has empowered me to do thus and such, that's true.

And at the same time, I had to actually lift the finger to do thus and such. Yes, God lives the

Christian life through us because it's his Spirit that resides in us. But yes, it's true that my

Christian life will never advance if I don't get out of bed and put forth effort to do the things that are necessary.

Bring this into my world, so to speak, here. As a preacher, a teacher, as a pastor, two things can be true at the same time.

Yes, it is true that it is God that speaks through me. It is God that provides the message.

It is God, the Holy Spirit. Don't make no mistake, I'm not saying inspiration on the level of an inerrant

Scripture because God inspired and carried those men along to write exactly what he wanted.

But in a sense, the Holy Spirit carries the pastor along.

That's why you'll see pastors when they preach, a lot of times they'll pray and say, Lord, guard my mouth. Help me to say only what you would have me to say because that's the true pastor's heart.

So yes, it's true that God, it's God's message, his message for the people. I'm simply an instrument.

But remember the quietness and the pietas? If I take that to the quietest extreme, I'm not really up here preaching to y 'all right now.

I'm just some kind of robot or some kind of tool that's just, I'm passive. I'm just sitting here and somehow

God is moving me and making my lips move and I'm speaking and I'm not really doing anything. Well, the pietas would say, look at me,

I'm so smart and great and I've studied all this and you need to hear what I have to say and God ain't got nothing to do with it.

This is all me. Both of those are wrong. So yes, it's true that God ultimately is the one preaching the message to you this morning.

But yes, it's also true that if I don't spend time studying and laboring over the text and praying over the text and thinking, okay, this is what

I want to present, this is what the text is saying, but also the people that are in front of me need to understand it, need to draw application from it.

It needs to be said in a way that's, it's hard sometimes, but not too wordy or use these fancy words to make myself look smart.

Forgetting all that, how do I need to present this where it can be understood? I have to put in the effort and if I don't,

I will rightfully fail. And there's times where I've stepped away from pulpits thinking, that was a disaster.

I don't know how anybody got anything from that. On the way out the door, people are like, man, that's the best sermon you've preached. I'm like, what? How you got anything from that is beyond me.

There's times where I'm thinking, man, I nailed this. These people are so lucky they got to hear me this morning.

Everybody's like, not your best, sir. They avoid me, go out the back door. So I'm like, what's wrong with these people?

Don't they know that's the best sermon ever? That's where pastors have to be careful about the sin of pride.

We got to remember, this right here has nothing to do with me. Has everything to do with God and your sanctification and your growth in Christ.

So that's what we're looking at here. Yes, it's true. You've got to put forth effort. You've got to study your

Bible, be around God's people, pray, put to death sin in your body and present yourself as a member and as an instrument for righteousness.

But yes, it's true that you would do none of it without God working in you. Both things are absolutely true.

And both things are exactly why you and me can and will grow as Christians in this thing we call

Christian Living 101. It's a beautiful, beautiful text here.

And such deep meaning that we gloss over so quickly. So before we close,

I want you to turn with me to 2 Peter chapter 1. 2 Peter chapter 1.

And I want to kind of read through verses 3 through 11 here.

And I want you to notice with me the same basic theme and the same point that Paul was making in Philippians 2 is largely being made here as well.

2 Peter chapter 1, verse 3, it says, Seeing that His divine power, so we've got the

God working part here. Remember, God's divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness through the full knowledge of Him, that Him there, meaning

Christ, who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these, meaning that the these there is the full knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

By these, He, Christ, has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises so that by them, the them there being the precious and magnificent promises, by them, you may become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

That's referencing our salvation, our justification there, being saved from sins, being saved to righteousness.

Verse 5, Now for this very reason also, now, we'll stop here for a second.

Up until this point, it's been about God working in us, God's divine power. God did this.

We were merely the recipients. God gave us the magnificent and precious promises. God gave us and saved us from the corruption that is in the world.

But notice, the author here switches it too. Verse 5, Applying all diligence in your faith, supplying moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self -control, and in your self -control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love, and it goes on and on and on there, don't it?

For if these things are yours and are, notice this, increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the full knowledge of our

Lord Jesus Christ. I love the harmony and consistency of Scripture.

Nobody will ever tell me that this book doesn't have one message. Here are two different authors writing about the exact same

God in the exact same way. Let me, I'm sure y 'all already know this, but just for the sake of in passing here, let me say this out loud.

All the New Testament and Old Testament authors didn't sit in one room and compare notes.

That's the beauty of it, that it's inspired, and Aaron, it says the same message, and they weren't sitting together when they wrote their individual books.

So here's Peter saying, divine power is bestowed upon you, all those things, but then flips it and says, you,

Christian, must apply all these things. And if you do so, you won't be useless or unfruitful in your

Christian life, and you will grow a guarantee and promise from Scripture into the full knowledge of Christ, meaning you have to put forth effort, but ultimately it's

God working in you and not you yourself. Like, those two things seem contradictory, but they're not, because Scripture says they're not.

Scripture says both of them are true at the exact same time. Scripture says you must supply moral excellence.

You must supply knowledge, self -control, perseverance. These are all learned behaviors that take time.

I keep telling my wife all the time, it seems like every day we have this discussion, I'll reference something that happened at work, and it makes me angry, and I want to react one way.

I really do, and there were certain times in my past that I might have not handled it the best way

I probably could have, but now I'll say, Gina, I exercised restraint. I didn't say what

I wanted to say. I didn't look at them the way I wanted to look at them. I did this instead. She'll say, you're such a good boy.

I'm so proud of you. Like, I haven't always been good at restraint. It's taken to the age of 40 to do so.

Learned behavior, it took effort to get to this point. It took me learning from a whole host of mistakes.

God was not just going to, we're going to wrap it up here. I'll sort of close it with this example.

How many times have we said in our lives, Lord, give me patience. Does the

Lord just snap his fingers and make you more patient? No, he does not. What does he do?

This is rhetorical, I know, but what does he do? He gives you opportunities to learn how to be more patient, doesn't he?

He works in you to be more patient, but he expects you to learn and increase in your patience, in your perseverance, in your knowledge, in your self -control, in all these things.

And that is why Christian living is about that genuine character, whether someone's present or not doing these things, but it's also about effort and about perseverance and pursuing

Christlikeness. But here's the good part about this. Knowing that your effort and that you're applying yourself will never be in vain because we have the guarantee of Scripture that the very

God that created you is going to empower you to do exactly what you're working towards.

That goal I have of being Christlike, I know I can reach it if I put forth effort because God's going to give me and work in me to get me there.

And you'll never have to be alone in your efforts and according to inspired and errant