Living In Light Of Eternity - [Philippians 2:12-18]

Living in Light of Eternity from Philippians 2:12-18

Standing here in the pulpit and opening God's Word and proclaiming it is a weighty task. It's an honorable task. It's a weighty task. And I want to make sure that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart are acceptable to the Lord.

So why don't we open with a word of prayer and then we'll get into our text. Our loving Father, we thank you that this evening we can come together as brothers and sisters in Christ to hear your word.

Would you, O Father, speak the word by your spirit to each of us that we would be a people that are eager and awaiting your word to receive it, to meditate on it, and to be transformed by your spirit work in us through it.

In Jesus' name, amen. All right, so this particular text that I picked is a... I've been preaching through the book of Philippians, but it's been in different churches and here at BBC I've preached a couple of sections and the last time I preached, I preached on Philippians 2 verses 5 through 11, speaking about this amazing work of Christ, who Christ is and what he has done.

And in light of that section, there's something that Paul says in our passage today, which is Philippians 2 verses 12 through 18. But before I dive into the text, I want to kind of lay out where I'm going with this text.

What is the thrust of this text and how do we best understand and apply it? So to do that, let me shift gears a little bit and ask you something about the way you live your life today. Are you the kind of person that likes to plan out your day and execute it according to your plan?

You're living in time, you're living in space and this coming week, do you already have some plans for what you are going to do? Do you have some ideas of what must be done and in what order? Maybe at work, maybe this is at your home or maybe something to do with your family members or even here within the body.

Last week began like that for me. I think most of us do. So I had a nice little plan. I said, this is what I'm going to do this week. But the Lord had a way of changing that somewhat completely. And given what transpired, I had to visit the hospital more than I visited my work.

And it was it was just wonderful to see that, you know, we make these plans. We lay them before the Lord and the Lord has ways of changing them. And you just have a new plan. You just adjust it and then you have a plan and you execute on it.

Now, most of the plans that I make tend to be focused on events that are in time and in space, things that I'm responsible for that I need to execute. And I try to make sure that I do my best in my responsibility to plan and do that.

Now, the question I have for us this evening is, do you want to do the same, that is to plan and to execute each day, but not just in the scope of time and space, but in the scope of eternity? Do you want to plan each day that you have in light of eternity?

And the question that should follow is, can you make such a plan and execute it? Or better still, what does such a plan look like? So, I'm going to try to unpack from our text this morning, this evening, Philippians 2, 12 through 18, how can we live in light of eternity?

And there are five vital questions that I think you want to look from this text and see, does this text tell me anything about how I must live my life and live my life in light of eternity and not just the job that I need to execute tomorrow?

So, I've already given you the answers in your sheet. There are five questions, who, what, how, why, and where. And I'm going to just kind of give you the answers right now, and then we will work through each of them.

Who? In matters of eternity, who is involved? Who are the key players in your life that you need to be considering as you make your plans? And I say there are four key persons or groups. One of them is you.

You want to be involved in your eternity. The second is God. God is actively involved, and how do we interact with him? And then we're going to see how Paul is involved in this particular text, and that translates to the leaders, the church leaders in your life, that spiritually lead and guide you, and the local church as well as part of group three.

And then the final group, four, is unbelievers. You will be surprised to find that your plans for eternity ought to include unbelievers as well. So, that's the who. You, God, your leaders, the church, and unbelievers.

What? In light of eternity, what exactly is your mandate? What are you called to do when you plan and execute your life? There are two high-level answers in your sheet. Work out your salvation and acknowledge God's work in you.

Those are the two major what that needs to be answered, and that's why we're going to spend the bulk of our time trying to understand and unpack it. The third question, how? In light of eternity, how must you live today?

And the two-word answer is, don't complain. Sounds like a very weird, weird answer, but we're going to try to understand why that is a key part of living our life in light of eternity. Don't complain.

The fourth one is, why? What has complaining to do with eternity? And you're going to see three aspects here. There is something about your character that you need to pay attention to if you're looking at eternity.

There is something about your testimony, about how you are going to live your life out in front of the world. And then the last one is, how you showcase your lifeline, or how are you holding on to life as you go through life in time, as you plan for eternity.

And then the last one, the question is, when? Does your life ever matter? Sometimes you go through life like, if I didn't exist, everything would have been just fine. No, God has you here for a purpose, and you're going to see, and this is really where I'm picking out the term eternity.

If you will see this, there is a day of Christ that Paul has in mind as he's instructing these people. There is a day when you're going to cross over into eternity, and that day does matter, but you're not going to wait for that day to do the things that God calls you to do now.

So you're going to make those plans for today, the when is now, and the day of Christ. So those are the quick answers, if you will, before we jump into each one. So let's now unpack the five questions.

Who, in matters of eternity, who are the players whom should you consider as you look to live out your life with a view to eternity? So let's start with you. Throughout verses 12 through 18, you will see that this passage is about the believer.

Paul is writing to the Philippians. The Spirit of God is taking that very words and applying that to you and to me today. No-brainer, you are a key player in your own life. You are responsible for the life that has been given to you.

Now what is that life that we have? In Philippians 1 and up until this part, Paul covers a bunch of things about what God has done in the life of a believer. I'm going to just pick on those things as we go through, but you can just think of he who began a good work in you will bring it to the day of completion.

For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. That is something that has happened in the life of a believer. So everyone here who is a believer can unequivocally affirm, I am a child of God. I have repented of my sin.

I have believed in the finished work of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has saved me. He has given me a new nature. And now I have the Spirit of God indwelling me. This is who I am. I'm not just any evolved material person that is just using my brains to figure out my life.

I am a child of God. I have Christ given new nature. And I have the Spirit of God indwelling me. And this is who I am. My identity. Now with this identity, I have been and you have been placed on planet Earth for a very short time before you leap on to eternity.

I want that to sink in. Because people, we live like the world because we think like the world. The world thinks everything ends when they die. Our life just begins when we die. Our eternal life has begun already.

When you believe in Jesus Christ, you have life eternal. There is an already and a not yet. You have opened the gates as it were into eternity and that has begun now. And I need to be looking at eternity when I live my life in the present.

So when I think of my present, I want to see that this 10, 20, 50, even 100 years in light of an infinite time with an almighty God is a blip. But that blip, I am responsible for how I live. And when I think of my life in light of eternity, the choices I am going to make are going to be radically different than if all I said is I need to pay my bill and die an old man with my grandchildren around me.

There is a whole lot at stake in the life of the believer. You are a key player here and we will see how that works. You have a responsibility toward God now while you live in time and in space. Let me repeat that.

You have a responsibility for God now, the one who made you his child, adopted you into his family, the one who gave you new life and the one who has given you his spirit. You are now accountable for him to how you will live this life.

Remember, as a child of God, you are positionally perfect. There is absolutely nothing you can do to make yourself look better in the eyes of God. God sees you through the lens as it were of Jesus Christ.

You are robed in the righteousness of Christ. But you have the responsibility that we are going to look at is that you will practically demonstrate. You are positionally perfect. Now practically, your new life here needs to grow in time and in space until you are engulfed in eternity.

There are many passages that talk about this, but we'll jump on those things later. Think about this. When God created Adam, he gave him a responsibility of stewardship of the Garden of Eden. We all know how that went.

Jesus fulfilled that failed responsibility of Adam. And the question you and I must be asking is, what exactly does God want you to do while you're here on earth? Is that even a stewardship that you have today in light of the gospel that has saved you?

So that's one. You are a key player and you want to remember that before you figure out what that is in our text. The second key person here, and probably I should have started with this first, is God himself.

Verse 13 talks about what God is doing in your life in light of eternity. The text, we're going to unpack this later, but it says God is acting in your life for his good pleasure. So your life, the plan that you're making, God is very much interested in and invested in and working in.

And he is acting in your life for good pleasure. But how does God act? God is eternal, right? He is not a creature of time and space like that. And yet this eternal God who is infinite and outside of time acts in time and space as you travel through time and space.

Now let's just think about your own life. When you look at the past, in the past he saved you. He justified you. He declared that you're not guilty. In the future, God will save you as you are one day brought into the presence of God in perfection and you are separated from sin forever.

But in the present, he is saving you. God now provides for you everything that you need for life and godliness while here on earth. Salvation is a past, present, and a future event. It is certain in your life.

You have the eternal security that God who finished that work will one day complete it. You have experienced the joy of justification. You have seen the joys of working through sanctification. But now we are going to intentionally look and see how that works for eternity.

God actively works in you every day in time and space in order to change you, transform you, and conform you into the image of Christ. And when God does this, he gets all the glory as his work is vindicated in you.

When you are transformed, God gets the glory. When you are transformed, God uses that to bring others into glory. We're going to see all of this in a moment. The third group is the leaders. You see this in verses 12, 16, 17, and 18.

We have Paul speaking to himself and we're going to expand that to leaders. Paul taught the Philippians these truths and he says in the end that he gets his joy and his reward when he sees these Philippians live out their life the way they are called in light of eternity.

Because it is that day which will reveal whether his labor was in vain or not. And like John who says, I rejoice when my children walk in the truth, so Paul echoes that. And for you today, your leaders likewise feel the same.

As Pastor Mike and Pastor Steve and as we proclaim God's word, as we come alongside you to equip you and teach you the truth, there is much joy in the leadership when we get to see how God is glorified in your life today as we get to see the work of God evident here in the midst of our church and he is exalted now and one day, that day, for eternity.

Now, the church is not mentioned in this passage, but if you go back, verse 12 begins with a therefore and if you say, okay, therefore, what is Paul referring to? You need to go from 5 through 11, which is the previous section.

It's talking about all about Jesus Christ, who, very God, becomes man in the incarnation, lives that life of perfection, dies and is resurrected and is exalted above every name. So that's the therefore that it's referring to.

But then that passage begins with a reference earlier and if you look at that whole section that Jonathan read so well for us, it's talking about unity in the church. He's talking about how in the church we want to be unified against the attacks of the enemy, how we want to be unified together, how we want to view one another.

So if you look at chapter 2, verses 1 through 4 and especially verse 3, you get to see how there is a responsibility for the believer to consider others more important than ourselves, to be humble and that's kind of what launches this whole conversation to where we are now in Paul's mind.

He's like, you need to be humble in order to be able to respect one another and treat one another with love and then he says, here's an example, Jesus Christ, the ultimate example of one who humbled himself for the sake of the others and then with that we come into this text.

And so you want to remember the church is in the background, he's already addressed it as he's coming here into our text. And then we move from the church and from the leaders to unbelievers. Verse 15 talks to unbelievers, it doesn't actually quite use the term unbeliever, the terms you will see there are a twisted and perverse generation and the term world with an implication that this is a dark world that we are referring to.

So believers are in the midst of this generation and this dark world and so Paul says there is something that you do in time and space that has significance for eternity with this fourth group of people which is the unbelievers.

And you and I were once unbelievers, these are not some alien creatures, you and I were children of the devil like they were. But God was so gracious to grab us and pluck us and make us his children and graft us into his kingdom.

Now, unbelievers have an urgent need because they too are on the tip of eternity to see something that they cannot otherwise see. Jesus is not walking on the earth today, he's not going to the cross, he has accomplished his work but he has left you and me to do something, we have a responsibility for something as their eternity is also at stake and we'll see what that is.

So the first point was who? In light of eternity, pay attention to yourself. What has God called me to do for eternity? What is God doing in my life for eternity? How are the leaders equipping me and what is my responsibility to the church and my responsibility to the unbelievers?

We'll see more details on this as we look at the rest of the section. So let's move to the second question, what? And this is the central section, we're going to spend the bulk of our time here and the other questions will move rather quickly.

In light of eternity, what is your mandate? So when I opened up, I said, okay, I kind of know how to plan my day, my day planner for work and for home, but how does my day planner for eternity look like?

Here's the answer. There are two key things to keep in mind, you have a task, you know, just like you go to work, you have a task to accomplish, you finish it and you're like, okay, I finished what I was responsible for.

But also you have a source that you need to pay attention to. You have a task and you have a source and we're going to look at each of these carefully and see how you can now rewrite your day planner with eternity in mind.

So let me first read verse 12 when we speak about your task. Work out your salvation. Verse 12 says, Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Let me just pick out a few words here before we look at the key text. The first one is, you know, Paul's writing to the Philippians. This is one of his favorite churches. Well, favorite not because he was partial, but this was one of those churches that just loved the Lord, loved Paul and loved to serve.

And he expresses his affection for them even as he is talking about the command that comes. This is an imperative that Paul is giving them. And he uses the word, as you have always obeyed. Obedience is not just for children to their parents.

Obedience is something that we as children of God take much joy in when we recognize what our Father wants of us. And obedience, we could speak about this quite a bit, but Pastor Mike talked this morning, as the word is preached, we submit to it.

What does that mean? If the word comes to me and I don't like it, I say, no, you know, it is my Father's word and I want to come under it and listen to it and apply it the way that God would have me do.

So obedience is one of those things that as an unbeliever you were incapable of doing, but now as a believer we will see you have the power to obey and you have a responsibility to obey. But Paul says something a little bit more here.

He says, work out your own salvation. Work it out just like you did it with my presence, but now in my absence. And I'm thinking like, you know, when children... Let's think of one act of obedience. God has given us His word.

He wants us to read His word and I read His word. When I was a little child, I didn't always want to read the word. And my mom would come and say, did you read the Bible? And she'd be like, okay, mom, I didn't, but I will obey you because I know what the consequences will look like if I did it.

And sometimes my mom would just sit and read with me. So I get into the habit of obedience that I didn't quite have. But someday that child grew up and became a believer who out of his own desire wants to obey.

And still, because my mom is teaching me, I'm learning from her and I'm doing these things. But Paul says, you know, when Paul was first with them 10 years back, he was in the city of Philippi, he was teaching them, they loved him, they learned from him and they were seeking to grow in the knowledge.

And now Paul is in a prison in Rome and he is far away. But his desire is that their obedience would even grow further as they apply this for themselves in light of their relationship with the Lord. Now, let's keep moving.

So now we're going to jump into one key word, two words, or one word in the Greek, which is called working out your own salvation. Working out your own salvation. Philippians 2 has a couple of words that people get tripped up on easily.

You know, the first one is obviously kenosis. What happened to Jesus? We're not going to talk about that. You can watch the previous sermon or Andrew's upcoming sermon for that. But the other passage is this, work out your own salvation.

Oh, salvation by works? Well, if it was salvation by works, I think the preposition you would have that is work for your salvation, not work out your salvation. So this is not Paul saying, you know, you need to now somehow finish in your flesh what Christ has begun for you.

But what exactly does this mean, work out? The work out, the primary meaning of that word is to complete or bring to fulfillment or finish what has actually begun in you. You want to remember that when God began that good work, when Philippians 1, 6, he who began a good work in you, there is an inner reality which is positional.

You have become a child of God. And Paul now gives a command. Let's just be very clear. This is not just, let's reflect on this. He says, you, Corey, work out your own salvation. The working out of your salvation as God who has begun in you is an essential part of sanctification as you live out the life that God has given you.

Let me give you a couple of opposites so you know exactly what it is not. There are people who would claim to be believers, but their life has zero fruit in them. Can they claim to be believers?

No.

If a believer is in the vine, that vine will necessarily produce fruit. If there is the Spirit of God within me, there will be the fruit of the Spirit that is evident in my life. But we are going to look at this more closely.

There is a mindset that sometimes gets into people where it's like, you know, these things are automatic. I became a believer and I will just happen, those things will happen in my life. No day planner needed for me because, you know, I'm a child of God.

If that was the case, there would be zero imperatives about working out your salvation. It would be like, take the bed covers, slip right underneath it, and then you'll wake up in glory. There is an urgent need for believers to recognize the command that is given here.

In light of eternity, I have a responsibility to work out that transformation. And if there is an inner life, that life needs to show itself, and I have a part to play in the way in which it works out.

This word, energio, you're talking about labor. You know, if you want to get muscles, you go to the gym and work out. If you want to have fruit, you're not staying under the spiritual bed covers, as it were, and waiting for, you know, you to have love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control.

You know, the Spirit of God is active in you, but you have a responsibility. And I'm going to repeat this. I meet and counsel people who struggle with many areas in their lives. And that's partly because, not fully, but partly because, we have not invested in those things that God has called us to work out in our lives for eternity.

We'll come back to this in a moment. But the second part of this verse that I want you to pay attention to is fear and trembling.

Let me ask you this.

When was the last time, and I was very convicted when I was thinking of this verse. In fact, this week was a good week for me, because this verse had percolated in my life from the last few weeks. And I was like, okay, I kind of know what I need to be doing, at least.

When was the last time you looked at God with fear and trembling? Fear and trembling is one of those expressions that is there in the Bible. And it talks about a believer, a child of God, that comes into the presence of God, and is overwhelmed by the awe of who God is.

That there is this holy reverence of an infinite transcendent being in the presence of whom we stand. And that causes a trembling, a shaking, as it were, when you recognize that you want to please this God and not offend this God who loves you so.

Koram Deo, living your life before God. And again, your day planner becomes a lot easier when you say, okay, what am I doing for my manager? What am I doing for my Savior and my Lord today? Awe, reverence, fear.

When I think of my manager, I got into a little trouble. Friday, Saturday, some of you know that, working desperately to fix some things. And I'm like, ah, I don't want to look like an idiot before my manager.

I want to make sure that we fix this problem before Monday morning. We could do it out of servile fear and say, oh, I could lose my job. But rather, if you really respect your manager as you are, do you want to say, I want to please my manager, work as unto the Lord.

And when I think of my life for this week, and I've made some plans, and I'm working through those things, do I do them with the same kind of reverence of like, I want to please my Savior, the one who gave his life for me.

Do I want to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord, or do I just go ho-hum? How do you consider your walk today in light of this God before whom you ought to have fear and trembling? By the way, that's a command too.

It's not like an emotion, like when I feel like it, I'll feel fear and trembling. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. So if you're not working out your salvation with fear and trembling, you are disobeying this direct command of the Spirit of God to us.

So we ought to pay attention to this and say, what must I do to be in the presence of God, recognize who He is, and how I live my life before Him. Alright, that's your task. Okay, that's the hard part.

Well, maybe not. We'll look at the second part, and that's just as important, or even more important, and that's in verse 13. Paul then says, For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure.

It's God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Just remember this. On your own, in your flesh, you and I cannot do transformation. We are not changed. I was trying to blow a balloon for Judith's birthday last week.

I'm terrible at this.

I even used a pump. But they have these balloons that you're supposed to make into, you know, I don't know, magical creatures. All I can get is a slinky sausage with a long tail. I can't get much past that.

And then, by the time I finish and I try to tie it up, it goes,.

Flat.

I mean, that's our life without God. You know, we can try all we want. There is going to be zero transformation if God is not working in me. And the interesting part is, I won't even desire the transformation.

Do I want to look like Christ? Or do I just want to continue looking like me? You know, just put a little makeup. The thing is, on my own, it is impossible. So, let's now look at the second part of how God works in us.

Now, a little bit of theology and then we'll look at this particular text. We have Christ in us, which is the hope of glory. You have the Spirit of God indwelling you. He is the one who convicts when you sin.

He is the one who encourages you to continue to pursue the life that God has called you to. He is the one who empowers you in order to live out this life.

With the ability to do it.

Now, you know, I was thinking of the imagery of my life before Christ and after Christ. You know, I was trying to think of the oldest car, Jalopy, that is rusted as a bucket and doesn't quite move. In fact, its engine is so rusted, it just falls off.

There is nothing there, just the shell. You know, that's my life before Christ. No life. And when I became a believer, I now have like a jet engine or a SpaceX rocket or whatever. Think of the power of God that has been given to me, that God himself, the creator of the universe, who speaks everything into existence, now says, He works in me.

That's the power that has now been given to this rust bucket. And the cool part of it is, this rust bucket gets transformed. It doesn't stay as a rust bucket because one day you get a glorified body, but today, you get to see how God is visible.

And we'll see that in the later verses, as God does his work inside out in you. And so, now you might say, OK, what should I do? The previous verse was very clear. You have a responsibility to work out.

But let's think about this verse for a moment. When was the last time you thanked God for His active work in you? You know, the day planner that I have, I probably should come to the end of the week.

And check those things off.

That God has enabled in me and be grateful for the work that He has done. Yes, I approach the week with fear and trembling as I stand my day before God Himself and with a desire to please Him and recognizing that any good that has come is indeed of God.

In fact, yesterday was a very interesting day and I wasn't sure how it was going to transpire. But God's word was very clear. Here is your priorities. Here is what you need to be doing. Don't worry about the consequences.

We'll talk about that in ethics class.

Utilitarianism.

We are not utilitarian people. We live as a people that obey and trust God. And here, in this particular scenario, I look back at the end of the day and I say, this is impossible for Pradeep to do. And there is joy in what has happened.

Lord, there has been an amazing work that You have done. I give You thanks. And I want to continue to rely on You. I wish every day would be such as opposed to just one particular day where the stress has become so much that I fall on the face of God and recognize His call on me and His power working in me.

So the two things God does is will and works. The desire that you have for any good the Bible says is God who gives you that desire. You know, when you think of sanctification, normally you think of what?

Putting off, putting on. What gives you the desire to put off? Sometimes I'm going through sin and I'm like, eh, you know, I can kind of get away with this for a little longer before, you know, the chastisement comes.

But there is a time when you just hate your sin that has come into your life. I'd like to think that I just got smart and I decided, you know, that was something to put off. This is God at work in me as He changes my heart from a love for whatever it is that is tempting me away from Him to saying, hate that, throw that away, put that off.

And likewise, when there are things that oh, you know, I could prioritize a lot of other things, my day planner can be filled with X as opposed to what is pleasing to the Lord. And all of a sudden the Lord just draws your heart toward those things.

You're like, why am I even thinking this? It is the Lord who gives you that desire. He enables you to want those things and people, remember this, it is so easy to think like the world, 1 John 2 15 through 17, you know, and earlier.

We can just, if you go into autopilot, you're just going to go doing your own thing. But God is the one who quickens you, He is the one who gives you this desire, and even after you get the desire, what makes you empowered to do those desires, to put them into practice.

You know, this temptation is way too hard, Lord. This call to ministry is just impossible for me. SpaceX engine. I don't know what's more powerful, but I'm sure there's something else. There is God at work in you, that enables you to kick that thing that just wouldn't walk away from you.

There is God at work in you to do those things that is humanly impossible. We have plenty of examples in the Bible about what has happened, and you know God has done that in your life before. But will that be in your day planner?

Or will that just happen as life goes.

On? Work out.

Your salvation with fear and trembling, because it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do.