A Word in Season: Willing and Doing (Philippians 2:13)

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A true Christian is always concerned for holiness. They want to obey God and do his will.

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They delight in his law, they meditate upon it, but they are inclined toward it because of the work of the

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Spirit in their heart, turning them from death to life and giving them those new appetites and new desires that always roll out in a life of principled godliness.

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That's what Paul expects from the saints in Philippi when he writes in chapter 2 and verse 12 of his letter,

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Therefore 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, for it is

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God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure. He's reminding them that the obedience of a

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Christian is not because somebody is watching over their shoulder, not because they've got an apostle on the spot who's checking them out to see whether or not they're actually doing what they should be doing, but it's that holy fear and trembling, that awareness of God in his relationship to them as true

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God and Savior, and so they work out their own salvation. There's a demonstration in everything that they do of their new identity in their new relationship to God in Christ Jesus.

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Now notice they're not working for their salvation, but they're working out their salvation.

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Having been saved, they labor to demonstrate in all things to whom they belong and where they are going.

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For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.

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That's where the origin of this appetite for holiness comes from. That's where this consciousness of God derives.

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It's God who is first at work in them, which is why they then work out that salvation which

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God in his mercy has bestowed upon them, and you'll notice what the Lord has given.

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He has granted that they should both will and do for his good pleasure.

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Now if they were only willing, only an appetite but no ability, that would be devastating, not just tantalizing, but crushing, to be always wanting to do something which is constantly out of one's reach.

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On the other hand, if there were an ability to do what pleases God but no appetite for it, then there would be no true pleasing of God because there would be no heart obedience.

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But God has given his people both a will and a capacity, both an appetite and an ability to do what pleases him, and it is out of that then that the believer lives this life of holy obedience, this righteous and childlike reverence for God by means of which he is always asking, how would

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God have me live? God has made known his pleasure. God has revealed his will for us, and it pleases us to please him because we have come to know him in Christ Jesus.

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And so because he is working in us to will and to do what pleases him, therefore we are seeking in all things to obey him, not out of the fear of man, not because someone's watching over our shoulder, not because we have to, but because God has been pleased to save us, and we by the power of his spirit at work in our hearts are entering eagerly, willingly, reverently, humbly into the work of salvation, the demonstration of that new nature which

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God has bestowed upon us. Now is that your nature? Is that your new character?

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One way that we can tell whether or not we're actually believers is to ask, do I want to do what pleases

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God, and am I able to do what pleases God? If I have no regard for what

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God says, if I have no thought of his government, if I have no desire to please him, no delight in his law, then that is an indication that in fact my heart is not right, that I have not been washed clean and made new.

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By the same token, although no believer is perfectly holy in this life, yet there is in a new creature not just an appetite but an ability, a growing capacity, as God works in us by his spirit to do what

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God desires and to live as Christ lived, to genuinely be conformed to his image.

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And so let this be both our appetite and by God's grace our ability, that because he is working in us both to will and to do for his good pleasure, that we are actively pursuing that and working out our salvation with fear and trembling.