Truth That Changes Lives

JP Jones: It's this abiding, connected, dependent relationship with Jesus.

Guest (Male): Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Joy. Let’s listen in as JP gives us part two of Philippians 2:12-18.

JP Jones: Every person who crosses the line in Jesus Christ has salvation. If you're a believer because you put your faith in Jesus, right now you have salvation. You may not look like it, you may not act like it, you may not talk like it, or you may not think like it. That's because you've got to work it out. You’ve got to exercise it out. You’ve got to live it out. Then what is already yours begins to take root and transform your mind, your words, your heart, and your actions.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Take ownership of your personal spiritual life. That's what Paul is saying here in Philippians chapter two. He relates it to this whole idea of having joy because not only do you become transformed spiritually, you begin to experience joy. Here is a third observation from this passage: we need to acknowledge our dependence on and our active trust in God's work within us.

I mentioned that this is talking about this divine mystery of God's part and our part because sanctification is us working out what God works in. It has to be both parts. God can work it in, but if we don't work it out, we don't get sanctified. We can try to work it out, but if we try to work it out without letting God work it in, we don't get sanctified. If we don't work it out and God doesn't work it in, we don't get sanctified. The only way we get sanctified is we work out what God works in.

The way Paul describes that is, "Therefore, my dear friends, as you've always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for"—key connective word—"for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to His good pleasure." We need to acknowledge our dependence on and our active trust in God's work within us.

So, as we are working out, it's not a working out independent of God working in; it's a working out in conjunction with God working in. In fact, it's a working out of what God works in. God is our audience. God's the focus of our relationship. Our relationship isn't with this church, it isn't with a denomination, it isn't with a religion, it isn't with a doctrine. Our relationship is with Jesus Christ.

So with fear and trembling because of a love relationship with Jesus Christ, we work out what God's working in. As I mentioned, Paul has already said that we can have confidence about this because he says in Philippians 1:6, "Being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ." God began a good work in us and He is in the process of completing it. Is He doing that independent of our working out? No, He's doing it in conjunction and through our working it out. But we work out what God works in.

So we are dependent upon Him, we are trusting in Him, we are relying upon Him, we are staying connected to Him, we are living out like what Jesus described in John chapter 15 about the branch and the vine. He says, "I'm the vine, you're the branches. If you abide in Me, you bear much fruit." And so Jesus said, "If you abide in Me, you'll bear much fruit. And if My words abide in you, you can ask for whatever you wish and it'll be done for you. By this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and you prove to be My disciples." It's this abiding, connected, dependent relationship with Jesus, allowing Him to work within us and to produce in us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

God's internal work begins at salvation, it continues up until eternity, and God's internal work always gets manifested externally. It's an inside-out job. Paul says in Second Corinthians 3:17-18, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's freedom. And we all, with unveiled faces, behold as in a mirror the glory of the Lord and we're being transformed into that same image from glory to glory, even by the Lord, the Spirit."

It's this transformation that God is working in our lives and He's encouraging us here in Philippians chapter two to be aware of, to be dependent upon, and to be working with. So as God works in, we work out. That's a healthy system. That's healthy spiritual growth. That's sanctification: God working in and we working out. That requires on our part a real dependence. It's the principle of Proverbs chapter three: "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding, acknowledge Him in all your ways, and He will make your paths straight."

There needs to be this connection that enables us to live in this world. It's like they're doing work right now up in space on the space station. It blows my mind, by the way, if you just think about it, that there are people up in space living and engaging and carrying on scientific experiments. But to be able to do that, especially if they're doing any type of work outside the module, outside the system, they've got to be fully connected. They have those space suits that they are in and then they have all the tubes and connections so they can get oxygen and all the life support that's available to them.

Because outside in space, none of that's there, right? They just die. If a person was just up in space, there's no oxygen, there's a different gravity level; everything would just come to extinction in terms of any kind of life. But inside the suit, there is the possibility and the viability of life because the suit is connected to all the life support systems that are necessary to live and to breathe and to function.

Well, we need to think of ourselves as living in an environment where there's nothing here to give us spiritual life. Nothing in this world to give us spiritual life. But when we're connected to Jesus Christ, we have all the life support coming to us to live, to breathe, to function, to serve, to share our faith, to glorify God, to live with significance. But the support comes from Christ. It's when He's working in us. So all of our working out is a working out in complete synergy with Christ's working in. That means we need to depend upon that and trust in that and stay connected to that.

Here is a fourth observation from this passage. Paul's talking about joy, but joy in the context of owning your spiritual life and disciplining yourself to work out your salvation. He says in verses 14 to 16, "Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing."

The observation is this: we need to be positive witnesses for Christ and reject a negative attitude. We need to be positive witnesses for Christ and reject a negative attitude. It's interesting the way the Apostle Paul phrases this in verse 14: "Do everything without complaining or arguing." He could have said, "Do nothing with complaining or arguing." But he said it in a way that would put the emphasis on the right syllable. I mean, he said it so that we'd really get the point.

The point is the everything. When you read this in the Greek text, it's on the everything. And the everything is described as without complaining or arguing. Wow. Anybody this past week do any complaining or arguing? Yeah, I think guilty as charged, right? This must be pretty important to God because of the way it's phrased, because it's a command, because of how many times He hits on this issue both in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Our attitudes matter.

I was talking with my wife, Donna, about this because I know the women in our women's study have been doing a study on attitude from the children of Israel and their wanderings in the desert and how that's emblematic for all of us that we need to change our attitudes. It's part of sanctification. Part of becoming more and more like Jesus is that our attitudes need to be transformed and changed. And the standard's pretty high because everything is to be done without complaining or arguing.

The word for complaining here is the Greek word gongysmos. It's a great word. It sounds exactly what it's describing. Murmuring, complaining, muttering negatively and critically. Arguing is the word dialogismos. It's like having self-dialogue. It's where we get the word dialogue, but it's having self-dialogue and it's always used negatively in the New Testament. So it's talking about questioning, doubting, disputing, arguing, dissenting, reasoning, expressing your opinion, but never positively, always negatively.

And so what the command of this passage is saying is, in everything that you do, don't do it this way. So whether it's your marriage or your parenting or your job or your spiritual life or the talk that you have in the car after church about the pastor, don't do it this way. Do everything without complaining or arguing so that—this is what's interesting because in a lot of these epistolary forms of Scripture, these New Testament letters, every word is important because they're tying in logical relationships.

So he gives a command: "Do everything without complaining or arguing so that"—here's a purpose clause—"so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe." Do you want to be an example for Jesus Christ? Do you want to be a positive witness for Jesus Christ? Do you want to be a contagious person for Jesus Christ? Then don't be a complainer and an arguer. Don't be a gossiper. Don't be a murmurer. Don't be a criticizer.

That's what it's saying. It's really interesting because we tend to categorize sin, don't we? It's natural. We categorize sin and we think of certain sins as far worse than other sins and certain sins as obviously deserving of church discipline or excommunication or some type of censorship. And other sins we just think, well, that's just who I am, that's my personality, that's just the way people are, people will be people. So what we tend to do is anything that's of a sexual orientation, that's really bad. But the stuff like gossip, murmur, complain, critical attitude, that's just being human. Yet that's the stuff that kills marriages, kills families, and kills churches.

And it's the very stuff, according to this passage, that will rob us of our true identity. What is our true identity? We're saved people. What is our true destiny? To give that salvation away to others who don't have it. But if we're complainers and criticizers, that will rob us of being able to be that way and do that. Because that's the connection: "Do everything without complaining or arguing so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life."

See, he ties this into who we are and then what we do. What do we do? We're holding out the word of life to people. We're like stars shining in a dark universe. It's like Jesus said in Matthew chapter five, "Let your light shine before men that others may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven." See, the big idea is that we need to be positive witnesses for Christ and reject the negative attitude of any kind. Positively, we are to be blameless, pure, without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, which, by the way, our generation's just like their generation when Paul wrote it. It's crooked and depraved.

But we are to be like lights that shine in this crooked and depraved generation. We positively stand out when our attitudes are different. Not when we join in or even instigate negative gossip or criticism or murmuring. I mean, think about it this way. It's silly when you think about it, but this is the way a lot of this stuff is and we have to learn it like this. Think about running into your neighbor outside and you're talking about how was your week. Okay. And then you're just chatting with them.

And then before you know it, you name it: the President, Rick Warren, your church, the local government. You're just running it down. And everything: that pastor never does this or that for me; oh yeah, Rick Warren, he does this and that at Saddleback Church; oh, Obama, blah blah blah. And then you're just like, it's just negative, critical. And then you go, "Oh, by the way, I'd love you to come to my church. My pastor's talking about how to have a good attitude." Do you think they're going to go, "Yeah, I really want to go to church with you because you're really living that out"?

You see, this is the time we need to do a little honest evaluation. What's our reputation? What's our reputation with our neighbors, with our coworkers? Are we seen as a positive, encouraging, uplifting kind of person? Or are we seen as a gossip? Are we seen as a criticizer? Are we seen as a person with a bad attitude? Are we seen as a negative person? Are we seen as a person who just joins right in on any conversation, no matter what it is, no matter what it's all about? You see, we have the opportunity to shine like lights and to hold forth the word of life when we have a positive attitude.

And when we are owning that, we get to have joy because we are working out our salvation. One last observation. Paul's talking about joy from being committed to our own spiritual growth and disciplining ourselves to live out the salvation that's already ours in Christ. He says this in the last part of verse 16 and verse 17, it's where he ties it all in: "In order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing. But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and I rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me."

Here's the observation: we need to live in the present with an eternal perspective. We need to live in the present with an eternal perspective. The day of Christ that Paul has mentioned twice in this passage, the day of Christ, that's the end of all things. The day of Christ is a New Testament term that describes when this present order comes to its end and now we are in the next phase of God's kingdom program. Jesus Christ has returned and there's a great accounting.

So he's saying, live now with an eye on eternity. Live in a way now that you'll have confidence that you're going to receive, "Well done, my good and faithful servant." I think we need wake-up calls about this. I had one this past week, by the way. I was gone this past week, I was up in Northern California with my parents. My stepdad's 84, my mom just turned 80. We had to put my stepdad in a nursing care facility because of his health condition and my mom just couldn't take care of him anymore.

I came back and I told my wife when I got off the plane yesterday, I said, you know, it took everything I had not to just bawl when I walked into that nursing home and saw my stepdad. It's a great care facility, it is, and it's the best decision for our family and it's definitely the best decision for him and for my mom. But to realize that here's this man who's been so vibrant and vital. I was nine or ten years old when my mom met him and married him. I mean, he's a veteran, 22 years, fought in Vietnam, fought in Korea, fought in World War II. But he's just a frail old man.

And it was like this is like a no-brainer, but you know what? You either die or you get old. And then even after you get old, guess what? You die. Is this new for anybody here? But you don't think about it. You certainly don't think about it when you're 18, when you're 25. You start maybe thinking about it when you're 40. But you don't really think about it. But it is reality. It's reality. And I sat with my mom, and neither of my parents know the Lord, and I sat with my mom and I said, "Mom, you're going to die. Jay, my stepdad, he's going to die. And you know what? Not everybody goes to heaven."

"You're a good person, but just being a good person does not mean you're going to go to heaven." And I shared with her, as I have so many times, that God loves her, but the only way to salvation was through Jesus Christ and that the decision she makes now is going to determine what's going to happen when she dies. And I know it's one of these midlife moments, I know. I'm glad I don't have to pay all of you for the therapy I'm getting right now just kind of sharing you. But I thought, gosh, this is life. Your parents get old and die and your kids grow up and leave you.

Paul says there's a day of Christ coming. I'm right now being poured out like a drink offering. In fact, Paul uses that language in Second Timothy 4 when he talks about, "I'm being poured as a drink offering on the sacrifice of your faith. I fought the good fight, I've run the course, I've run the race. What is laid up for me is for the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, is going to give to me, and not only to me, but to all who love His appearing." The language even that he uses is talking about it's a snap of the fingers and then it's eternity. So live now with an awareness of that. Live now.

It's like the song came out years ago by a group called Mike + The Mechanics, "The Living Years." Do what you can in the living years because there comes a time when there's no more living years. Paul is saying in this passage, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Live a life that you are a positive witness for Jesus Christ. Look at your life now, but live it in the light of eternity. And you know what the payoff is? Joy and rejoicing. I think everybody here would love to have joy in their heart right now. Joy in their life. Well, this passage says here's a way you can have joy: take ownership of your spiritual life. Don't blame it on me or somebody else. Look in the mirror and say, "I need to respond to God. Me." And then commit yourself to discipline yourself spiritually and to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. The Bible says in this passage that if you'll do that, you can have joy. And that's what I want for me and that's what I want for you as well.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP Jones provides us with great insight. That is why we'd like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today's date. We'll send it your way for just $5. Or if you'd like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653, or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That's 949-916-0250. For your gift of $25 or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP's new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We're going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment, but before we do that, Pastor JP, did you have any insight from today's message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. You know, we live in an age and a culture where we want to talk about our rights but not about our responsibilities and obligations. And in the book of Philippians chapter two, the Apostle Paul is talking about spiritual growth and talking about the joy that comes from spiritual growth. And he says it's our responsibility and our obligation. We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. As followers of Jesus Christ, we have salvation. We have a new life, we have a new nature within us.

But we are to work that out, we’re to live in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, we're to obey the commands of Scripture, we're to discipline ourselves for godliness so that the Holy Spirit can transform us from the inside out. We work out what God works in, and it's our responsibility to do it. It is our obligation to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and to live in obedience to Jesus Christ. We're to express the new life that is ours in Christ. And when we do, God's promise is that we will have joy in the Lord, joy that's contagious to others. Do you want that kind of joy? It comes from working out what God works in. It comes from taking responsibility for your own spiritual life. It comes from being obedient to the commands of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit. Would you commit yourself to that?

Greg: God, we thank You that You have given us the gift of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ. We pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit, we would work out that salvation in being obedient followers of Christ. And we ask You to fill us with the joy of the Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.

We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives, 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California 92653. Or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.