Philippians 2:12 Explained: Work Out Your Salvation

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. We’re coming near the end of our series, This Is My Story, where we’ve heard from various of our ministry leaders how God has worked in their lives in very similar ways to how he worked in the lives of the people that we read about in Scripture. And this last week, we heard from Bill who described how God began faith in him, how God has continued to grow his faith within him and will one day bring it to completion.

Bill referenced Philippians 1:6, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion, and Philippians 2:12, work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you. And so the question this week is really, who’s doing the work of salvation? Is it us or is it God?

Is it we decide, put our faith in him? Is it God does something in us and then that’s why we are saved? Who’s actually working on us? Are we working? Is God working? Philippians 2:12 is work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you. So who’s the one doing the work?

Is it us or is it God? Philippians 2:12 seems to say both. However, Philippians 1:6 says that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to the day of completion. So, where did it start? Well, that says God. God’s doing it. Then in 2:12, it commands us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

So what’s going on here? Who’s actually taking the steps, making it happen, for us to grow into our faith? You’ve probably heard me explain it this way before, but I always find it helpful. Growing in faith, I say, is a little like falling in love. When you meet somebody and there’s fireworks and you’re moving toward them and you realize this is bigger than just an attraction, there’s some depth here and you start to fall in love, it feels much more like it is happening to you than you going out there and creating it. And when you’re in moments like that, this thing that you’re a part of somehow works in you to change what you’re doing. You might do all kind of crazy things that your friends make fun of you for. You write poetry and buy flowers and take trips and miss other things so you can spend time with this person.

You’re on the phone till 3:00 a.m. and then you’re tired for work the next day and people are like, why are you doing this? And you say, I’m in love, right? This thing has happened to me. It is changing who I am. It’s similar to that. Additionally, when we’re in moments like that, when we feel like we’re falling in love, something’s happening to us.

It’s not like it’s against our will. We want it to happen. So it’s not like we’re getting dragged kicking and screaming in this direction toward this thing that’s happening. We’re participating in it. So it doesn’t really contradict our will. The better way to say that is it has changed our will.

Now we want this thing. There’s a lot of songs about I used to make fun of people who fell in love and then acted this way, and then it happened to me. What I used to be making fun of, now I am actually doing because the thing happened to me. This is what happens in conversion. A thing happens to us and then it changes our will and now we want it.

We’re willing, we’re participating in it. The illustration of falling in love eventually kind of breaks down because you can have those feelings for another person and you can resist them, you can walk away. And with God, when he starts to work in us — Philippians 1:6, he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion — there’s no ifs, ands, or buts about it. God will win. Whereas in the analogy, sometimes we can resist what’s going on with us for whatever reason. God is a little bit different. So the analogy does break down, but it’s still a helpful framework to understand who is really working here.

When you’re in love, yes, you go do these things. You are participating. But why are you participating? It’s because something has happened to you, in you, that has transformed you to change you into the kind of person who now wants to go do those things. So I hope that’s helpful, gives you a picture of what’s going on, of who’s working, how we participate. We’ll see you next time.