Grace and Responsibility
Joy Half Full - Week 8 (Philippians 2:12-14)
This week's message is a powerful reminder that spiritual growth isn’t just about striving harder—it’s about humbly relying on God’s grace every day. We’ll explore the balance between God’s work in us and our responsibility to respond, discovering how true transformation happens when we “work out what God has worked in.” Join us as we learn how to walk in victory, not by effort alone, but through daily dependence on His grace.
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Now, we've been looking at this great book.
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It's an incredible book, calling us to live life from a different perspective, seeing life not from optimism, pessimism, but from God's perspective.
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And this morning, we're gonna b- just be looking at a very short passage in chapter 2, just verses 12 and 13.
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Um, at first, it might almost seem a little con- confusing, almost contradictory what, what it's calling us to.
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Uh, but there's some incredible truths there.
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And so, we're always gonna start by reading the word, and, and i- I encourage you, if you have a Bible to open it up to Philippians, so you could follow along with us, 'cause we're gonna constantly come back to these verses.
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But let me start by reading Philippians 2, starting in verse 12.
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"Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my, as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure."
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May God bless the reading of His word.
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Let me pray.
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Father, thank you so much for the privilege that we do have to come together this morning.
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Thank you for your word that's so relevant, that's so practical.
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Father, thank you for what you continue to teach me in my own study, and I pray now that Father, you would speak, that your spirit would speak through me and even in spite of me.
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Father, help these not to be the words or opinions of a man, but that somehow through a flawed man, that you would speak your timeless truth to each one of our lives and hearts.
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I pray your blessing in our time now, in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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Now, I've been told by those who study languages that English is one of the more difficult and confusing languages to learn.
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Uh, there's some strange rules even in the English language.
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One of the strange concepts is that of an oxymoron, and most of us are familiar with what that is.
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It's, it's the idea that you have 2 words that, that are opposite in meaning, and somehow, you put them together, and, and somehow it makes sense.
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You know, so you have an open secret.
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I mean, opposite ideas, but
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0 or a small crowd.
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I mean, how do those ideas go together?
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They're opposite meaning.
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Uh, sweet sorrow.
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Sometimes, you can even look at
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In, in a store, and you have oxymorons that are
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They're all around us.
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So have you ever seen something advertised as genuine imitation leather?
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I mean, how do you have that?
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A non-dairy creamer.
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I mean, that's, that's a contradiction.
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Uh, virtual reality or almond milk.
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I mean, come
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Are you milking the almonds?
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I mean, what
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That doesn't make any sense.
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Or others, you know, you think it works, but then, you think about it.
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They don't
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Childproof.
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That, that doesn't go together, does it?
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G- government organization, doesn't fit.
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Uh
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Some women would argue that the term sensitive guy doesn't really work, an oxymoron.
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I don't know.
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But with, with that in mind, I thought, well, I'll do a
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In the, in, in memory of kind of top 10 lists, with official top 10 lists of oxymorons, and, and, um
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So number 10, original copy.
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opposite ideas.
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9, clearly misunderstood.
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8, pretty ugly.
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Oh.
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Ni- 7, soft rock.
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Doesn't work, you know.
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It's
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Tax return.
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Uh, uh, 5, unbiased opinion.
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Yeah.
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S- 4, jumbo shrimp.
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Number 3 in oxymorons, rap music.
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Some people would disagree, but
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2, freezer burn.
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And the number one oxymoron, temporary tax increase.
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And, uh
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You know, we all relate to that one.
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Now, why
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And you say, "Why am I talking about this?"
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Well, uh, g- a very closely con- related concept to an oxymoron is a paradox.
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An oxymoron is 2 words that have opposite meanings.
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A paradox is the combination of 2 seemingly contradictory concepts.
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It's not necessarily words.
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It's ideas, and somehow, they work together.
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Now, in this passage we're looking at this morning, we're gonna see that Paul gives us a paradox.
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He takes 2 seemingly contradictory ideas and then calls us to figure out how they work together.
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And a paradox is de- dealing with the balance between God's work of grace in our salvation and our work of obedience.
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Look at verses 12 and 13, if you have your Bibles.
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Let me
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I'm gonna put it up here as well.
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And, and you see him putting together these 2 ideas, and you see the paradox.
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You know, what is God's grace in our salvation?
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What is our responsibility?
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Starting in verse 12, he starts out, "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."
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Okay, that's your responsibility.
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You
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We need to do the work of working out our salvation.
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But then, we realize that, on the other hand, that we really don't do anything because he says in the next verse, "For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure."
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And so, here you have these 2 contradictory ideas, this apparent paradox.
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Number one, it's God who works in you, so it's a work of God's grace.
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It's not something that we do.
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It's something that God does in us.
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It's something that God accomplishes.
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And, and
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But on the other hand, we look at verse 12, and that seems to say, "No, it's not about God's grace.
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It's no
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It's our responsibility."
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We need to work out our own salvation.
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And so, there's an element of our salvation and our, and our growth is, is at a work of obedience.
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And so, we have these 2 seemingly contradictory, contradictory ideas.
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How do we pull them together?Now before we get into what this passage means, I feel it necessary to take a moment to say what it does not mean.
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Because it's possible to take this verse out of context and to come to some really wrong conclusions, to actually think it says something that disagrees with everything else that's taught in the Bible.
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When he calls us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, what he is not saying is that we should somehow work to try to accomplish our salvation and then worry with fear and trembling whether we've made it or not, whether we're good enough or not.
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No, that's not his point.
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Uh, he's not trying to say that we s- should seek to accomplish something, but that we should work out the salvation that God has given us.
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In fact, we've seen in previous weeks in Philippians that Paul, from the very beginning of the book, stresses again and again that salvation is a gift of God.
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And so he's not saying, "Well, God's given you this gift, but now you need to work it out.
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You need to be a good enough person to earn that gift."
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No.
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He's calling us to
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He's actually teaching this to people who have already received that.
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So in fact if we go back to the beginning of Philippians 1, in the very beginning, he says, you know, "I thank God in all my remembrance of you because of your partnership in the Gospel from the first day un- till now."
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So, he's talking about people who already have a faith in Jesus Christ.
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It's not that they had to somehow work to accomplish that, but it's something that God had done in them.
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In verse 6, we see in the next verse, "I'm sure of this, that he who began a good work in you"
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God did it.
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God began it.
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And it's saying that, "I'm confident that he will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."
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So that's consistent teaching throughout the New Testament, that we can't earn our salvation, but what we need to do is that we need to come and, and acknowledge our need of God and accept the free gift that he offers us.
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So then you say, "Okay.
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What is this teach- verse teaching us when he's calling us to work out our salvation?"
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Now to help understand this, let me take a step back and even use some, a little more theological words here.
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See, when the Bible talks about salvation, it talks about 3 different elements of our salvation.
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It talks about what some have called our justification, s- sanctification and glorification.
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And, and so there's a sense that we have a past, present, future.
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Our past, for those who have a faith in Jesus Christ, we have been justified.
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We have been made right with God, made just with God through our faith in Jesus Christ.
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But then there's also a present tense.
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We are being saved.
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We are being sanctified in the sense that we are being made more like Jesus.
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It's an ongoing process.
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And then there's a future sense.
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In the future, we will be saved.
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On, on the day when Jesus returns, we will be glorified.
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We will be taken into heaven, and we will be made like God.
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Now, look at
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Let's look at these briefly.
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The past tense of justification.
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We've been justified by faith in Jesus Christ.
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And when most of us talk about being saved, this is usually what we're thinking of.
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We're talking about, you know, that we're justified, we're made right before God, so people who are sinners are, are forgiven and we're made guiltless because Jesus Christ forgives us through our faith in him.
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We're justified by faith.
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See, justification answers the question, how can sinners
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You know, um, we as sinners stand before a holy and righteous God and expect anything but hell.
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And the answer is that Jesus Christ came, and he lived a perfect life.
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He lived a life without sin and then paid the penalty for our sin at the cross and rose for our salvation.
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As a result, any who trust in Christ are forgiven, were made just before God.
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That's what Paul talks about later in Philippians, Philippians 3:19, "And be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law."
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See, it's not a righteousness that comes from trying harder, for b- being good.
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But it's a righteousness that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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That's this justification he's talking about us.
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It's only by faith.
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It's a gift of God.
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And, uh, so God changes us, but once he's done that
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Okay?
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We, all we do is we, we admit our need and we accept this gift of grace.
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But then that's not the end.
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See, but then there's an ongoing process where he then sanctifies us, that he conform us, conforms us to the image of Christ.
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It's not, "We're saved.
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It's done."
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No.
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That's the beginning.
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He transforms us increasingly so that our life, uh, increasingly aligns with who Jesus Christ is.
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And, um, so in a sense you could say when He's, we're justified, He gives us, takes off our sin, and He gives us new clothes.
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He puts on righteousness.
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And sanctification is learning to wear those clothes and to live them out and to apply them to all of life.
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And it's this aspect of salvation, this present tense, that we're gonna see that Paul was talking about here in Philippians 2:12 when he calls us to, "Work out our salvation with fear and trembling."
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Now, I'm not gonna spend much time on this, but I'll just mention.
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There is a third f- third idea in the future, and that is that one day will we be glorified.
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One day will we be glorified in eternity.
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And, and, uh, you know, Jesus rose from the grave.
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One day th- we will rise from the grave as well.
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And, and that's what Paul talks about at the end of Philippians 3.
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"But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself."
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when we look at this
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I wanna go back though and say that the passages we're looking at this morning are talking about that middle part.
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Not our justification, not glorification, but for those who have a relationship with Christ, our sanctification.
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We're not called to earn our salvation.
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No, but we've been given that through God.
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Again, Philippians, "He began the good work."
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That's, was God's doing, but yet it says He'll bring it to completion, and that bringing it to completion is something that we have a part in.
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But then, that leads to that big question.
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See, when we talk about growing in a relationship with Christ, what is God's part, God's responsibility, God's grace?
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What is our part, our responsibility?
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And here, what we see in verse 12 is that he's telling us we do have a part.
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We do have a responsibility.
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We're not trying to try t- t- to accomplish our salvation, but we're called to live out the salvation that God has a- accomplished for us.
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Since we've been justified, we're then responsible to live out the change that God has done in us through sancti- being sanctified.
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In fact, the phrase, "Work out your salvation," could, could be translated, "Work at."
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A- a- and the best way that I know to explain this is, is it's a simple statement, but we can say it this way.
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We're called to work out that which God has worked in.
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God works in through justification.
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He changes us, He forgives us, and now we're called to work it out in everyday life.
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See, as believers, it's the everyday life that salvation is worked out.
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It's at our workplace or at our school where we learn to live out our faith in a way that honors God.
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It's at our home where we learn what it means to love and forgive and to serve others.
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In our relationship with our, with our spouse and with our children and with our siblings.
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It's in our entertainment choices, what we look at a- on the computer and what we post on social media.
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It's in all the areas of life that, that should be transformed because of our faith in Jesus Christ.
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In fact, right before this ver- these verses
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Last week we looked at these great verses in Philippians 2, uh, 5 through 11, and, and Paul calls us to, "Have the same attitude in you which was us in, our- ours in Christ Jesus."
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And what did Jesus do?
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He was e- by nature God, and yet He willingly laid aside the prerogatives of that deity, and He humbled Himself, taking the nature of the servant, taking human form, and ultimately dying on the cross for our sins.
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And he said, "Okay, that s- other-centeredness, now you live that out."
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That's what he's calling us to work out.
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How do we learn to make that kind of other-centered love real in our lives?
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How do we show that love to those whom we find difficult?
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A- a- and in that, I wanna say, if you find this difficult to do, then welcome to the club.
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I mean, it, uh, yeah, in reality, it's natural for all of us.
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It's not like we, you know, we do this and it's like, "Oh, I read this and, and it's natural."
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No.
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We all find it difficult, and that's why Paul is challenging us here to work out your salvation, to do the hard work of learning to, to live this out.
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Let- me, let me put it this way.
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Think of it in terms of marriage.
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Okay.
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For those who are married, okay, when, when you got married, you, you're up there in the wedding vows and you make the promise and, and it's, and I'm sure this was your experience.
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You said, "Okay, that's it.
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We're married.
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It's done.
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I've got it all figured out."
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And, and from there it was easy, right?
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Any- anybody, is that your story?
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If, maybe if you're on your one-week honeymoon, maybe it's your story 'cause you
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But it will change, and the fact is, if any of us are married, we realize that that's not what happens.
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It's not done at the wedding day.
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It started, but it's not done.
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And for the rest of your life, you start this thing, and the rest of your life you work out your marriage with fear and trembling.
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I mean, that's the reality, and that's the whole idea.
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It's, it's, it's how do we learn to live out the vows that we've made so that we understand and practice what it means to be married?
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You see, one of the criticisms of the contemporary church is people will say, "Well, it's full of hypocrites."
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And, m-what's a hypocrite?
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I, I think a great ex- um, definition of a hypocrite.
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A hypocrite is somebody who's not themselves on Sunday.
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You know, they, they put a mask on and pretend a certain way, and, and that can be true even within churches.
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But that's not true Christianity.
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Right?
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Because true Christianity doesn't just make itself evident on Sunday or when, when we're with church friends.
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The result of true faith, when God really changes us, will always be that we, in time, learn to live out that faith in every area of life, not just on Sunday, not just when we're with church friends, but in every aspect.
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That's the result of, that's the process of, of sanctification.Now, does that mean that it's all our effort?
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That, okay, you know, G- God saves you and then He says, "Okay, now here is the rules, go do it, try harder."
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No.
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Why?
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Because it's salvation, and all of salvation, we are saved by faith through grace, all of salvation is a work of God's grace.
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That's true of justification, we, all, we admitted our need.
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It's true of glorification, we don't accomplish that.
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God does that, and it's true of sanctification, of how we grow.
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But didn't Paul just say that we're responsible for our sanctification, that we need to work out our salvation?
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Well, yes, he did.
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So is our sanctification, is our Christian growth the result of God's work of grace or is it the work of, our work of obedience?
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And the answer is yes.
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That's the paradox of this passage.
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Again, look at this.
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In Verse 12, he says, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling."
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And then he continues the same sentence, the same thought, "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you both to will and to work His good pleasure."
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It's calling us here that we are t- have a responsibility, but then we realize that as we seek to do that, God's grace is the source of what we need to accomplish that which God calls us to do.
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See, as we work on our salvation, we don't do it on our own.
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It's through the power of the Holy Spirit that we're enabled to live the life that God has called- calls us to live.
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The key is, again, when we say that work out our salvation, it's all the while knowing that it's only be as God works in you.
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Yes, we're personally responsible, but we cannot do it on our own strength or effort.
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We have to rely on God's power.
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That's the paradox, again, of the passage.
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Do we have what it takes to work out our salvation?
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Do we have what it takes to, um, do I have what it takes to love my wife well, to be a good parent, to be responsible, to be honest?
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I don't.
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I lack it.
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I lack those things.
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But here's where God gives me what I need.
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In fact, let's look at Verse 13, and I wanna show you there's 3 things that are said here about God's provision.
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first of all, in Verse, he starts off, "For it is God who works in you."
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I want you to recognize it's God who works not on you or, you know, upon you, it's God that works in you.
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See, God's work isn't to just change our behavior.
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Again, so a lot of times we think religion, here are the rules, try harder, do this, conform, and that's not what it's saying.
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God doesn't seek to do that.
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He works, seeks to work in us.
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He seeks to change our hearts, to change our character, our nature.
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And, and then how does He do that?
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Well, second, uh, look at, "For God who works in you both to will."
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You see what he's saying?
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He's saying that part of what God does in changing our nature is He literally changes our desires.
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So if we let Him, He, He will give us the desire to walk away from sin and, and to serve God and to obey Him and to serve other people.
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this is important for us to understand.
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I think a lot of times people don't get this.
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We struggle with sin, and we try harder and we try self-discipline, just say no, and, and, and, and we continue to fail.
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Why?
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Because my problem isn't just what I do, it's who I am.
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If in self-discipline I'm trying to hold back the real me, I mean, I, I wanna lose my temper, I wanna cuss, and I'm trying to self-discipline, hold it back, but sooner or later the real me bursts out, and, and we need to realize that the strugg- reason we struggle with sin is that, is we're not dealing with the core issue, we're not dealing with our desire, with our heart.
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God says, "I wanna do that."
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And part of that is we need to realize that if He wants to change our will, our problem is that sometimes I may hate the consequence of sin, but I really, deep down I kinda like the sin.
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I kinda like what I do, I like running back to that, and we need to say, "God, I need you to, I need you to, you know, why do I disobey?
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Because deep down I do what I wanna do.
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I, I, I do sin because I f- I kinda like it.
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And the first thing I need to do is I need to admit, God, my heart's wrong, my desires are wrong, and God I, I want you to change not only my behavior, change my desires, change my heart."
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And this can be hard.
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Because again, there's something in us that are, that likes what we do.
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I don't wanna let go of my anger.
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I don't wanna let go of my lust.
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I don't wanna let go of those things that I run into.
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And so God is saying, "Are you willing to let Him
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Are you willing to surrender that?"
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And saying, "God, I, I give you the right to take that.
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I give you the right to change my desires."
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That's hard to do.
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And so He's gonna work in us both the will, so He's gonna change our desires, but then the third aspect, and to work.
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So that He not only changes our desires, but then He also then with the new desire gives us energy, the strength, the ability to do what He calls us to do.
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Let me try to illustrate this a little different.
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We had the show choir camp here today.
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Great, great job.
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So let me use a mu- musical illustration.
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Let's say somebody came up to me and they said, "Okay, Mike, what I want you to do is, is, is, is you gotta play, you gotta play a, a, um, you know, you gotta play a musical in- you know, you gotta do a concert.
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Get a piano, play a concert for everybody."
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It's like, "Great, okay.
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I'm gonna do that, I'm excited."
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But I, the problem, I don't have anything it takes.I, I, um, how do I do that?
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I don't even have a piano.
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"Oh, well, okay, we're gonna give you the piano."
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Okay, so, so here, okay, here I now have a piano to do this and, so now I'm, I'm all ready to go, right?
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Okay, I can play this and, but what did I
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I have a piano but I don't have any music.
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Well, okay, well now, okay, you've given me some music.
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I, I mean I got Bach, I mean this is awesome and this is
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So I've got some great music and so now I am all ready to go.
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You ready to hear some great music?
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I mean, this beautiful piano and, and I'm gonna come out here and I'm gonna
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Um, you could send my 2
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yeah, thank you.
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You could send my 2yearold grandson up here and he will probably make better music than I do.
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Um, I have no ability, no natural ability.
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I can't read music.
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I, I've never played the piano before.
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I, I
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And so, now you're asking me to do this and you've given me a piano and you've given me music, but I still lack everything.
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But what if somehow you h- you said, "Okay, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna supernaturally give you this natural musical ability you've never had before so suddenly you have the ability to do music.
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And I'm not only gonna give you that, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna give you lessons.
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And so we're gonna give you lessons and, and, and here's some music for you to listen to and the more you listen to it, the more you'll fall in love with music.
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So you'll wanna do this because, because you'll love that music."
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Now do I have everything that I need to play the, the concert that I've been asked to play?
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Yes and no.
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But I have everything I need, but only if I use it.
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You see, think about it that way as far as in our faith.
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Here you have God calling us I believe to say, "I'm calling you to live a beautiful life, to, to live a life that's like a concert.
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That as people look at your life that you're gonna have, you know, something that's gonna be beautiful, that's gonna be God-honoring, that's gonna, that's gonna bring beauty and life and inspiration to those around you."
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And, and we're, we're sitting there saying, "But I don't have what it takes.
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I c- I can't live that kinda life.
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I don't have it."
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And God says, "Okay, here's what I'm gonna do.
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I'm gonna give you the desire.
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So if you let me, I'm gonna change your desires, I'm gonna give you the desire to live that kinda symphony of a Christian life.
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And, and I'm gonna give you the piano.
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I'm gonna give you salvation itself.
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I'm gonna give you the core instrument and, and the, and dwelling power of the Holy Spirit in your life.
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And, and, and I'm gonna give you the music.
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I'm gonna give you the Bible so that you get to know it and you get to know the music and it's a beautiful instrument.
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And I'm gonna give you lessons and so that you can go to church and you can hang out with other believers and they'll show you how this looks like.
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And, and I'm gonna give you prayers so that empower you.
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So you've got all these things that you need."
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We have all these things, but we still have to do our part.
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So you can give me everything that I need to play the piano, but if I don't show up and actually spend time on the piano, I can have a natural ability but if I don't ever practice, I'm not playing any great concert.
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But if I, if I say, "Okay, I'm gonna l- I'm gonna listen to the music, I'm gonna fall in love, I'm gonna practice," suddenly I have the ability to do something I never would otherwise before.
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It's all given to me, but I have to access it.
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And that's what, what w- He's calling us to here.
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Is that God is the one that He calls us in our responsibility to work on our salvation, but then to realize it's only through God's grace, but we have then a responsibility in accessing that grace.
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Of taking these things that God has given us and then said, "Okay, I'm gonna take them and I'm gonna use 'em."
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See, to realize that, that what we're called to do as I said, here's God's grace and where is He pouring out that grace?
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What are the, you know, what's the equivalent of the instrument and the m- and, and the lessons and all these things?
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Well, well you know what?
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He's called us to do things like going to church and, and, and going to a Bible study and, and reading the Bible.
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Man, reading it on our own throughout the week and, and, and, and fellowshipping.
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Finding a c- community, a small group where we're talking with people and praying and, and see what we need to realize is that we need to start by saying, "God, I need you to change me."
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It's not just performance, it's not just how I do this and I work harder and I
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Why?
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Because I need you to work in me, I need you change who I am.
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And so it's not trying harder, it's not doing any of those things.
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It's submitting to your grace, and where does that start?
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Because if it's, if it's on the outside of its behavior, I can try to change that on my own.
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If it's in the inside, how will I change me?
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I can't do that.
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What I need to do is come to God's grace, and it starts by admitting our weakness and our need.
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That, "God, I admit that I have a heart problem.
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That my heart is, has a problem of sinfulness.
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I just don't only do bad things, I'm, there's something that desires that in me.
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And not only do I admit my problem, but because it's a problem not only of what I do but who I am, I can't change that.
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I need you to change me.
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And God, I ask you to change my heart."
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My friends, that's the beginning of what it means to have a Christian life with God, to have His forgiveness.And some people might come in and think, "Well, the church is all about rules and behavior and try harder and"
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No, that's not the true message of Christianity.
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The true message of Christianity is that God offers us grace not through our own effort, through our own righteousness, not by trying harder, but by admitting our weakness, and then, then accepting the gift of grace that God gives us through Jesus Christ.
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But then when we come to him and we accept him and say, "Okay, now, I do that with all areas of my life."
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Okay, so how am I doing this with my struggle with, with, with, with, with money, with my struggle with lust, with my struggle with anger, with whatever it would be?
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God, I have to admit that I've got a problem, it's a heart problem, and, and, and, and I can't change myself, I need you to change me, and, and God, I give you the right to change me, to take away the wrong desires and, and to do whatever's necessary to change me.
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And that means I have to be willing to change.
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And then, as I do that, I not only admit my weakness, but then I put myself in a place where God will pour out his provision.
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So I go to the lessons, you know, I take the time at the piano, I listen to the music, you know, I do the things that we need to do.
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And so what does he
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He calls us to go to church and be involved in some kind of small group where we're, we're sharing each other's lives and reading the Bible on our own and listening to worship music and, and spend time praying.
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And, and the more that we do that, you see, then God begins to change us from the inside out so that he starts to plant not only different desires, but different abilities, so it becomes natural for us to do the things that we couldn't do on our own.
399
00:27:39,979 --> 00:27:43,792
Let me just close with just one practical example of this, of what it looks like.
400
00:27:44,899 --> 00:27:58,059
We could apply this to all areas of our life, but let's say that God convinces me that, okay, God's calling me to f- forgive my enemies, and I read the Lord's Prayer and, and it tells us to forgive our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors, and man, God, you're
401
00:27:58,059 --> 00:28:06,878
Man, if I'm praying that, that means you're calling me to forgive those who have wronged me, and, and, um, and I know I'm supposed to forgive, but some of you may have had this experience.
402
00:28:07,159 --> 00:28:08,720
It's like, that's hard to do.
403
00:28:10,179 --> 00:28:14,159
And from, from a works mentality to say, "Well, God tells you to forgive, well just do it."
404
00:28:14,159 --> 00:28:15,568
You know, that doesn't work.
405
00:28:16,279 --> 00:28:18,019
Um, how do I let go of, of
406
00:28:18,019 --> 00:28:24,859
And, and you know, in, in many cases, what may be years of resentment and false beliefs and, and, and anger that I've had toward this person.
407
00:28:24,859 --> 00:28:27,024
I can't just let it go, I can't change myself.
408
00:28:27,759 --> 00:28:29,119.00000000023283
So what God, does God call us to do?
409
00:28:29,119.00000000023283 --> 00:28:37,379
He calls us to confess, to admit to God that, that I've got a problem, to pray, "God, I agree with you that I have an anger and unforgiveness problem.
410
00:28:37,379 --> 00:28:38,224
I know it's wrong.
411
00:28:39,019 --> 00:28:41,424
God, I don't, I don't have the ability to overcome it."
412
00:28:42,99.00000000023283 --> 00:28:48,176
And, and agree that it's not only a, a behavior, it's a sin attitude, and God, I can't change my own heart.
413
00:28:49,99.00000000023283 --> 00:28:50,992
And then pray, "God, I ask you to change me.
414
00:28:51,839 --> 00:28:54,000
I give you the right to take my anger.
415
00:28:54,719 --> 00:28:57,299
I give you the right to, to give me forgiveness.
416
00:28:57,299 --> 00:29:00,359
I, I give you the right to take my resentment toward the other person."
417
00:29:00,359 --> 00:29:06,619.0000000002328
And again, that's difficult to do, because if it's anger, I kind of have gotten comfortable with the anger.
418
00:29:06,619.0000000002328 --> 00:29:09,479
I like being able to look down at that, that 0 other person.
419
00:29:09,479 --> 00:29:13,559
I like being able to judge them, and really surrender that before God?
420
00:29:13,559 --> 00:29:22,032
That's hard to do, but that's what God calls us to do, not to perform, but to surrender and ask him to give us what we do not have.
421
00:29:22,938.9999999997672 --> 00:29:32,016
But then as we've done that, then there's also learning to work out that salvation, to take the means of grace and to basically to go to the piano and practice.
422
00:29:32,819 --> 00:29:34,938.9999999997672
And so let me give you an example of things.
423
00:29:34,938.9999999997672 --> 00:29:39,824
Okay, it's not only praying, "God, give me forgiveness," but, "God help me to forgive that person.
424
00:29:41,059 --> 00:29:43,280
God give me love for that person.
425
00:29:44,918.9999999997672 --> 00:29:49,328
God help me to r- help me to forgive specific places where they wronged me."
426
00:29:50,458.99999999976717 --> 00:29:59,219
In Romans 12, it calls us to not only pray for enemies, but to bless our enemies, and this was, this is one that I've really struggled with over the years, because you know what it's calling us to?
427
00:29:59,219 --> 00:30:01,232
To pray for God's blessing on them.
428
00:30:02,179 --> 00:30:03,299
Man, I struggle with that.
429
00:30:03,299 --> 00:30:04,339
God, you know, bless them.
430
00:30:04,339 --> 00:30:04,879
I, I don't want to
431
00:30:04,879 --> 00:30:18,918.9999999997672
I want to pray for God to convict them, for God to break them, and, and God wants me to bless them, to pray for his blessing, and that's hard to do, but it's, it's like picking up and practicing, and if I learn to pray that way, God begins to change me.
432
00:30:18,918.9999999997672 --> 00:30:22,119.00000000023283
In Romans 12:20 it says, "If your enemy's hungry, feed him.
433
00:30:22,119.00000000023283 --> 00:30:24,119
If he's thirsty, give him something to drink."
434
00:30:24,119 --> 00:30:28,479
And then it's saying basically, not only pray for them but do acts of kindness toward them.
435
00:30:28,479 --> 00:30:30,599
Look for opportunities to serve them.
436
00:30:30,599 --> 00:30:31,824
And here's what's amazing.
437
00:30:33,059 --> 00:30:56,880
If you do this, if you go through this process, in the not too distant future, whether it's a few weeks or a few months, in the not too distant future, you will find that that person that you couldn't ever forgive, that you just had, held things, held on to, and if you just say, "God, I will, willing to let you change me and I'm gonna start praying for them, I'm gonna be kind to 'em," next thing you know, you're gonna find that you have a sincere love and compassion for them and you're like, "Where did that come from?"
438
00:30:58,359 --> 00:30:59,419
See, you didn't do it.
439
00:30:59,419 --> 00:31:01,259
You don't have the ability to do that.
440
00:31:01,259 --> 00:31:15,664
All we have the ability to do is to come and say, "God, I need your grace and, and I'm gonna work out my salvation, not by performing, but by taking your means of grace and asking you to give me the will and the ability to do the things that God has called me to do."
441
00:31:16,279 --> 00:31:18,919
So that in a time, we become radically different people.
442
00:31:18,919 --> 00:31:20,336
God works in us.
443
00:31:21,922 --> 00:31:24,048
My friends, this is practical.
444
00:31:25,239 --> 00:31:28,679
You see, because all of us, we look at this and we say, "Okay, where are you at in life?"
445
00:31:28,679 --> 00:31:29,479
We're struggling.
446
00:31:29,479 --> 00:31:31,659
There isn't any one of us that's here that's like, "Oh, man.
447
00:31:31,659 --> 00:31:32,919
I have no sin problems.
448
00:31:32,919 --> 00:31:33,799
I have no issues.
449
00:31:33,799 --> 00:31:34,299
No anger.
450
00:31:34,299 --> 00:31:34,576
No"
451
00:31:35,239 --> 00:31:35,459
No.
452
00:31:35,459 --> 00:31:36,304
We all struggle.
453
00:31:37,079 --> 00:31:38,768
And yet the question is, what do we do?
454
00:31:39,599 --> 00:31:41,179
Do we sit back and, "God, why don't you"
455
00:31:41,179 --> 00:31:41,999
No.
456
00:31:41,999 --> 00:31:44,016
There's a God part of it and there's an our part of
457
00:31:44,799 --> 00:31:46,359
It starts by accepting Christ.
458
00:31:46,359 --> 00:31:49,019
If you've never done that and saying, "God, I ask you to forgive my sins.
459
00:31:49,019 --> 00:31:50,499
I need to get right with you."
460
00:31:50,499 --> 00:31:51,399
Start there.
461
00:31:51,399 --> 00:31:53,459
If you've never done that, I invite you to do that today.
462
00:31:53,459 --> 00:31:54,768
I'd love to talk with you afterwards.
463
00:31:55,639 --> 00:32:07,824
But for those who have that, God then calls us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it's only by God's grace as He will give us the grace that we need, gives us the ability to, to will and to act.
464
00:32:09,319 --> 00:32:11,619
But that means surrendering and saying, "Here's all these things.
465
00:32:11,619 --> 00:32:12,699
God change my heart.
466
00:32:12,699 --> 00:32:18,192
God, I'm willing to do the things that you, little things that you call me to do because I need you to change me from the inside out."
467
00:32:19,439 --> 00:32:19,839
And you know what?
468
00:32:19,839 --> 00:32:29,339
If we're willing, if we're willing to do that, it may be anger, it may be a struggle with, with an addiction, may be a struggle, um, you know, with, with, with finances.
469
00:32:29,339 --> 00:32:30,699
It might be a struggle with our thought life.
470
00:32:30,699 --> 00:32:32,499
It may be a whole bunch of things.
471
00:32:32,499 --> 00:32:33,424
All of us are struggling.
472
00:32:34,879 --> 00:32:37,359
But are we willing to let God change us?
473
00:32:37,359 --> 00:32:38,539
Not by our performance.
474
00:32:38,539 --> 00:32:45,679
Working out our salvation through relying upon Him in the small ways so that He changes us from the inside out.