Work Out Your Salvation? | Theocast

The Fear of Condemnation and the Question of Good Works

Well, if you're watching this video, you probably have either read Philippians chapter 2 or heard a sermon on work out your salvation with fear and trembling and you're wondering, how did I get this right?

Am I really understanding what does Paul mean that I'm supposed to be working out my salvation? And when we start even thinking about the Christian life in general and our assurance before God, does God love me?

Do I love God? My good works. What are my good works for? Am I doing enough? Am I going to church enough? Am I reading enough? Am I praying enough? There's the enough about everything. And so when Paul says work it out, how do I know I've done that correctly?

When do I have that confirmation that I've done it enough? And what we're really trying to answer is have I proven to God and to others that I have legitimate faith? I am a legitimate Christian. So we use our good works in this case in Philippians chapter 2 as a means to prove or to validate our faith.

I truly am a Christian because here you can see I've been working it out and there's the evidence of it. Well, that's not what he means. I mean, literally he goes on, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do the good work.

So Paul can't mean that. We'll get into what he means here in just a minute. But I just wanted to stop and I want you to think about good works. And I want you to think about when we compare good works to what and why we do them.

And this whole idea of we're using good works as either a means to validate our faith or to confirm our faith or to prove to ourselves that we are saved. That's how we mostly use good works. And it shouldn't be that way.

You should not be living underneath the fear of condemnation. And you use good works to suppress that fear, to move it away. Like, I need to make sure I'm doing enough because I want to have that confidence in my salvation and your confidence is being pointed to your actions.

Peter, Divine Power, and the Promises of God

Here's why this is a problem. I want us to look at multiple passages from Paul and from Peter to ask ourselves, where do they put the confidence and then what are they doing with good works? It seems to be very different than this concept of fear of you better be working out your salvation with fear and trembling to prove to God and to others that you are a legitimate Christian.

So good works are really designed as a means of confirmation. That's what they're for. It's just always confirming our faith and always proving that we're not fake Christians and we're not going to be having false professions.

Well, let's turn real quick to Peter. I think Peter is going to be helpful here. So this is 2 Peter chapter one. And I want you to take special notice to where Peter wants your confidence to be as it relates to your salvation, your standing before God, your relationship to God.

He says this in verse three, his meeting God, his divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. Let's just stop there for a moment. He's saying everything that you need for this life and for godliness, that is to be in the image of God, to reflect God's nature, it's been granted to you.

There's no earning. There's no earning. He says it's been granted to you. He says not only has it been granted to you, but he says all things, not some things, not the starting point, not just your faith, not just your regeneration.

And literally, Paul says in Philippians, he who began a good work and you will complete it. Hebrews chapter 12, he is the author and finisher of your faith. So everything from the moment of your salvation to your glorification, the moment that he rescues you out of death and he brings you into glory, that whole scenario has been granted to you.

But he goes on, he says this, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, verse four, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises. So that through them, what through God's promises, not our actions, not our promises, God's promises, so that through them, you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desires.

So at this point, you're looking at it and saying God's promises to me are the means by which I can look to and know that everything for this life and the next has been fully granted to me by God. According to his sovereign power, not because of anything that I have or have not done.

So my standing before God, according to Peter, is based upon the promises of God. And what's that confirmation is that our faith in those promises is the guarantee that those come to us. Now, listen to this.

Then he talks about good works. So what does he do first? He says, there's nothing you can add. There's nothing you can earn. There's nothing you can lose. It's all been granted to you. You can't lose that which you did not earn.

And it says that it's wrapped up in God's promises, which means God's promises don't fail. For this very reason, what reason? What reason is Paul, what reason is Peter talking about in 2 Peter? He's saying the reason connected to what's been granted to you, your salvation.

He says for this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue and knowledge and steadfastness and godliness. He isn't saying you are obeying because you need to confirm. He says it's been granted to you.

It's yours. The promises belong to you by faith alone. Because that's true to your faith, this is what he says, for this very reason, to your faith. Another way of saying this is you now have the freedom and joy to live it out, to add means to this faith that you have in Christ.

Now you can do these things because there's no reason to try and confirm or to add or build upon because you already have received it. Not only that, all of these actions are not towards God. What's interesting is they're towards, they're not vertical, they're horizontal because self-control, right?

That is not for our sake. That's for the sake of others. Let me go to another passage of scripture. And Paul says it this way. So you have the first three chapters of Ephesians, right? And the first three chapters, if you have not read it, you should.

It's a glorious explanation of the sovereign God in his sovereignty and salvation. And it's beautiful. That's where he starts. So he grounds your faith in what Christ is for you. It says that the Holy Spirit is the one who's keeping your inheritance.

It's been granted to you by faith alone. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9, right? So that no one may boast. There's no reason for you to look at what you've done to receive salvation or keep your salvation. It's fully in the hands of God.

And then he says this in verse one of chapter four. He says, I therefore a prisoner of the Lord urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to what you've been called. So he's saying your life now is a reflection of who you are.

It's not you proving, maintaining validation. He says you've been called by the sovereign God into this relationship to this adopted child. You've been seated with the father at the table. All the inheritance that's been promised to Jesus is being promised to you.

And it's being kept by the Holy Spirit, not your obedience. The Holy Spirit's promise is to keep it for you. So Paul says you need to walk in a way that reflects your new status. You are actually obeying out of status change, not to change your status.

See, your status already changed. He adopts you. He declared you righteous. He gave you all of the obedience of Christ. What's amazing is that promise of you were regenerated by the Holy Spirit. You will be sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

You don't do that work. That's the Holy Spirit. It's monergistic. It's one doing the work. And you will be glorified by the Spirit. This is why Paul rebukes the Galatians. He says, wait a minute, you start by the Spirit and you're going to perfect yourself by the flesh.

You don't perfect yourself. You don't sanctify yourself. So he's saying walk in a manner that reflects, or he says this way, walk in a manner that is worthy of the calling to what you've been called. And what does that look like?

He says with humility and gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love and eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bond of peace. What's interesting is that again, he stabilizes your faith.

He stabilizes your future. He says, there's nothing else for you to do. Now I need you to be gentle and kind. And he points you where? Towards other people, to love other people, not to earn, not to confirm, not to maintain, not to validate.

Working Out Salvation in Philippians 2

He says, because you are my child and because you have everything you could ever possibly need, you don't need to add to this. You, as let's go now to Philippians, you need to work it out. Let's back up a little bit in Philippians.

Let's look at some context here. Philippians chapter two, verse one, it says this. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, stop for a moment. He's saying, if you found to be encouraged in Jesus of what he is and who he is for you, any comfort from love, looking at the love of God for you, any participation in the Spirit, the Spirit comes, you know, he's living within you because he's given you faith, you can't have faith unless the Spirit's given it to you.

Any affection and sympathy complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord in one mind, he's saying you unify yourself around that encouragement, about those realities, then he says this, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Is he saying this out of fear? Is he saying this out of obligation as far as you need to validate your faith? No, he's saying if you've been encouraged by Jesus, go encourage others. If you've been strengthened by the love of God, count others more significant than yourself.

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others, having this mind among yourselves, which is in yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but he goes on to describe how God lowered him, Jesus lowered himself and unto the point of death, and that's the encouragement that he's giving to church, that this is the comfort, this is the love, this is the declaration of Jesus' sacrifice to us, and it's all yours by faith, it's been guaranteed, it's been granted to you by God's sovereign promises, and that's why we obey, and that's why we love.

For out of gratitude, let's go down and we can read how Paul said it in Philippians, right, he says, therefore, therefore what? You got to, therefore, it's got to be connected to something, and what is it connected to?

He's connecting it back to the promises of the security of who we are in Christ. He says, therefore, my beloved brothers, as you have been, so now not only as in my presence, but also much more in my absence, work out your salvation, and reverence and awe, meaning that fear and trembling means reverence and awe, and that you are the child of the king, you are the adopted one of the father of the universe, it's unreal, and he says, just to encourage them, by the way, when you do these good works, it's God who is doing them in you, for it is God who works in you, both to will, to have the desire, and the accomplishment of it, the work, for whose good pleasure?

For God's good pleasure, not for your confirmation, not so that you can earn something, not so that you can maintain something. So, the Christian life seems to be very simple. We focus our attention on who we are in Christ, what we've received, the technical term of that is our union, how we become one in Jesus Christ, our union in Christ.

From that, as Paul says, we walk in a worthy manner, we add to that, we work out, we take what's been given to us, and we use that as a reflection, right? For Sean says, we love because he first loved us.

So, if you're hearing, if you're being told that you need to be obeying, or else you're going to be proving that you're a false believer, you're a false Christian, wrong, that's not the motivation of the New Testament, that's not what these passages are telling us.

I mean, we can look at even Hebrews chapter 12, right? Laying aside the weight and the sin, why? Because we're looking unto Jesus and what he's doing it in reverse now, the author and finish of our faith.

We're not laying those things aside because we're trying to earn something, we're laying them aside because we don't need them, they're not necessary. We have everything that we could ever possibly want or need in Christ.

So, we, I mean, the whole book of Hebrews, what is it about? It's all about Jesus and how Jesus is sufficient and Jesus is all that we need. So, my encouragement to you is that if you're dreading to obey God, if you're dreading good works, if you're doing them every day and it's exhausting you because you can't, you never feel like you could do enough, maybe we need to go back and ask ourselves, how did the New Testament writers use good works?

Well, just in these couple of examples, we could look and see that it's always we ground ourselves in our salvation, our justification by faith alone in Christ alone through the sovereign work of God that's been granted to us and it's held by him, from that we take it and we obey.

James, the Law of Liberty, and Life Without Condemnation

Because here's the thing, James says it this way, here's another great verse, James 2 .13 or James 2 .12, he says, so speak and act as one who lives under the law of liberty, meaning that you are set free from the condemnation of the law and you now live in grace.

You live in freedom, you live in liberty. What that means is that you will never be condemned. There's Romans 5, right? There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Paul is grounding them in the first 11 chapters of Romans to set them free for the work in chapters 12 that go forward.

We are always grounding ourselves in that we have been set free from condemnation. There's no more work to be done. It's all done by the sovereign work of God and because of that we go and love neighbor and we are gentle and patient and kind because we've been set free from the condemnation that is upon us.

So hopefully this is encouraging to you. I'll provide some more information down below. If you've not downloaded our free ebook, it will talk a little bit more about how do you find this rest and in there I have another chapter about rest leading us to obedience and you can get that on our website at theocast .org slash primer.

We'll see you next time.