Partners in Power
Philippians 2:12-18
Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.
These words speak the basic truth of
this passage and its most famous verses: “work out your salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his
good purpose” (2:12-13). These verses
form something of a good news, bad news story.
Rightly understood, this passage is an awe-inspiring ode to joy: good
news. Unfortunately, these verses are
often abused into a message of guilt: bad news.
As bad news, these verses put major
emphasis on the phrase “work out.”
Workouts, as we all know, are vigorous displays of our own
self-discipline. They are no pain, no
gain. They hurt, and you’ve got to want
it! If this is how we understand the
phrase “work out your salvation…,” then the message today is this: “If our
faith is anything other than fit and firm, if our spiritual sense is not
sensitive and discerning, if our hope for heaven sometimes waxes, sometimes
wanes, then it is our fault. We need to
workout a bit more. We need to work
harder!” Do you hear it? Do you hear the blame? Hear the guilt? I hear this message of “work harder” and I want to say, “I’m
working as hard as I can!”
I think most of us who live in 21st
century America bow to the idol of self-sufficiency. We strive to work harder to do better in business and make more
money. We strive to work harder to do
better at home in order to raise better children. We strive to work harder to do better even in our recreational
pursuits so that we can tell ourselves and our friends that we maximized our
fun. We even strive to work harder in
our spiritual lives to be better people and to do better things. And where does
all this working harder lead us? To
exhaustion. To doubt. To a profound
sense of wondering if this is all there is.
As good news, these verse don’t tell
us to “work harder” but to “work differently.”
Notice that Paul continues his message beyond the part about us: “work
out your salvation with fear and
trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his
good purpose.” When Paul uses the term “salvation,” he means more than
having our ticket punched for heaven; he means a fuller, broader understanding
of the word in which we grow into the healing and wholeness and well-being of a
loving and joyful life of faith. As we
grow into the wholeness God desires, we do so with “fear and trembling.” The word fear in Scripture is different from
our common usage of the word; for the Bible, fear conveys a sense of awe and
reverence. As we work out our
salvation, we do so with awe and reverence and a sense of trembling because the
electric, awesome power of God is right here within us. Eugene Peterson’s translation, The Message, conveys this sense of good
news: “Be energetic in your life of salvation, reverent and sensitive before
God. That energy is God’s energy deep
within you, God himself willing and working.”
We now have a good news message: we are not alone in this life of salvation;
God is with us every step of the way.
This is not guilt but grace.
Without God, we cannot. Without
us, God will not.
To give ourselves permission to work
differently doesn’t mean that we become slackers, but rather it means we give
ourselves over to the reality that God is at work in our lives. Do you realize this? If it has never occurred to you, start to
think about it this week: God is at work in your life! You may not feel anything different. You may not know how or when God is at work,
but trust that God is there right beside you.
Pray that God will use you for his good purposes.
*****
I was blessed this past weekend to
be a part of spiritual renewal weekend in Texas, at what is called a Cursillo,
which is another name for a Walk to Emmaus retreat. As a spiritual advisor at this Cursillo, I was privileged to hear
several stories of ordinary folk like you and me who were able to get in touch
with the many ways God has been at work through them in their lives.
V
A
woman whose father had deserted her when she was ten years old grew up hating
the man. Two years ago, now in her
fifties, the woman found her father through an internet search. He was dying of cancer in a VA hospital in
Wisconsin. She drove up to Wisconsin to
see him, but once in the parking lot of the VA decided she couldn’t go through
with it. She prayed to God, “Lord, I
can’t do this.” An hour later she
walked out of the VA having told her father she forgave him. Without God, she could not. Without her, God would not.
V
One
man, a Croatian, had been a BBC reporter during the war in the Balkans. He went into Sarajevo for what was supposed
to be a 24 hour period, but after he entered the city, the Serbian army came
and surrounded Sarajevo. For the next
month the Serbs bombed the city, in which he had no place to stay. He told our group that the peace God gave to
him was so profound, that he was sorry to leave at the end of the month because
he knew he would miss that sense of peace.
He now runs a youth leadership forum that brings together Muslim,
Catholic and Protestants from Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia to promote the way of
peace between their peoples. Without
God, he could not do this. Without him,
God would not do this.
V
There
was the man who felt called to give the eulogy at his wife’s funeral. There was the woman who had to release her
husband to go to war in Afghanistan while she stayed home with their infant
son. There was the grandmother who
nurtured faith in her granddaughter by bringing her to church. There was the single mom who lives paycheck
to paycheck raising her daughter with no help from her ex. There was the
husband and wife who battle Parkinson’s together. There was the businessman who
sold his company for a “financial home run” but who knew that none of it
mattered if he could not use his blessing to bless others in the name of
Jesus.
For
all of these people, awe and trembling accompanied their stories for they were
coming to realize, many for the first time in their lives, that Almighty God
was and is at work in their lives. They were giving themselves over to the
grace of knowing that without God, they cannot. And without them, God will not.
*****
I
suppose some folks might object to all of this. Some folks might resist the notion that God is so intimately and
personally at work in our lives. I
suppose an atheist who believes there is no God probably won’t glimpse God at
work. The deist who believes in the
so-called “watchmaker god” who created the world and then stepped back and let
the world run on its own probably won’t glimpse God at work either. For both the atheist and the deist, their
philosophies get in the way of true belief.
But
what about we who confess to be Christians?
Isn’t it the case that sometimes we also resist the notion that God has
been, is and will be at work in our lives?
If we are honest, we will admit that some of us are “functional
deists.” That is, we confess belief in
the Lord God but we don’t really expect anything to happen in our day to day
living; we function as deists. Others
of us are “fearful deists.” That is, we would like to believe that God has
been, is and will be active in our living, but we fear what all this might
bring. We fear the intimacy with the
Almighty, perhaps. Or we fear the
giving up of our control, perhaps. Or,
perhaps, our greatest fear is that in giving ourselves over to God we will lose
us, our true selves. After all, who
knows what we will become if we give it up to God?!
The
reality, of course, is that we find our true selves when we allow God to be at
work within us and through us. We
discover our true calling is to be a school teacher. We discover our great joy is listening to those in need. We discover our spiritual gift is helping
others sort through their family finances and so begin to manage their money
well. If we work differently, and
invite God into our lives to work his good purposes within us and through us,
we become who we were created to be.
God
is like a wood carver who takes a piece of wood in his hand. The wood carver does not simply cut and
slice according to pre-fabbed dimensions.
Rather, the carver examines the grain and the texture and the location
of the knots, then begins to work with the wood to fashion it into a work of
art.
God
is like a painter who takes up a brush in her hand. The painter may have a picture in mind, but equally important is
the kind of canvass and the kind of paints to be used. The art that oil allows to be created is
different from that which water colors create.
The painter works with the raw materials rather than force a
preconceived notion upon them. So it is
with God. We do not lose ourselves when
God is at work within us and through us because God respects the raw material
of our lives.
*****
How is God at work in your life? How is God bringing you into a deep, energetic, joyful communion with his own life? My friends, don’t work harder – work differently. Allow God to be within you and through you, for without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.