Introduction
This is the word of the Lord,
Philippians 2:12–13 ESV
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Let us pray!
One of the greatest misconceptions among Christians today is a belief that the Christian life is something that happens to them, and not something that they are responsible to actively pursue.
There is a certain logical thinking, and it is often unintentional, a sort of undercurrent to their theology – and I’ve seen it go something like this.
They argue vehemently that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
Now, in some strange way they use this verse as a way to appease their irresponsibility because if salvation is not a result of their works, then Philippians 1:6
Philippians 1:6 ESV
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
Now, whether they’re theologically minded enough to make those connections or not, the feelings about Jesus that are broadly propagated in our day and age is of a God who loves you too much to see any harm come to you.
“The Lord will take care”, they say.
Hebrews 12:2 ESV
2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Romans 8:1 ESV
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
Just as he saved us out of the blue, so will he keep us whatever happens.
Then there are those who affirm that faith without works is dead and agree that we are called to live holy lives; yet, despite acknowledging these truths, they fail to reflect them in the practical realities of their own lives.
I think an accurate way of representing this is that people see their salvation as being this sudden impact that changed the course of their life, like being hit by a godly truck.
So, they spend the rest of their lives trying to stand on spiritual highways hoping for more godly 18-wheelers.
See a prayerful person, they go near them hoping that the prayer pandemic will catch on.
Or they attend a worship night, hoping that the sheer volume of emotion in the room will spill over onto them, like a spiritual contagion.
They gravitate toward “anointed” people or “powerful” moments, longing for another life-changing encounter, but they neglect the daily, intentional pursuit of God through prayer, Scripture, and obedience.
They expect their faith to grow through proximity rather than practice, hoping that standing near the fire will warm them without ever striking a match of their own.
It’s as if they believe the Christian life is fueled by these occasional bursts of supernatural energy, instead of the steady, faithful work of abiding in Christ.
All of these examples share the same root problem: a misunderstanding of what it means to live as a disciple of Christ.
If the Christian life is a kind of grace that happens to you, then you think that listening to sermons will automatically strengthen you, and attending Sunday service will automatically sanctify you, and attending conferences and camps will level you up to higher dimension of the anointing.
My friends, this isn’t an anime or a video game. This is your Christian life we are talking about.
Such an unintentional, passive approach to the Christian life is biblically so absurd that it is like believing that sitting in a gym will make you fit or that walking through a library will make you wise.
Simply being present, while important, is not enough—it must be accompanied by intentional engagement and a willingness to act on what you hear and experience.
There is no reward in any area of life that is lived unintentionally. This truth is echoed throughout Scripture and evident in every sphere of human experience.
Success, growth, and fulfillment are not the byproducts of passive living but the result of deliberate effort, thoughtful planning, and purposeful action.
Proverbs 13:4 ESV
4 The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.
Proverbs 21:5 ESV
5 The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
Just as diligence is required to cultivate a field, so it is with spiritual growth. Reading Scripture, praying, serving others, and repenting of sin do not happen by accident—they are conscious decisions we make every day.
This same principle applies to us. We cannot expect to grow in holiness, deepen our relationship with God, or bear fruit for His kingdom without intentional effort. Proverbs 4:26
Proverbs 4:26 ESV
26 Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure.
To live intentionally means to evaluate where we are going, seek God’s wisdom, and actively pursue His purposes in every area of life.
None would be more disappointed with us modern Gentile believers than the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul.
1 Corinthians 9:24–27 ESV
24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.
25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.
26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.
27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
What does that sound like to you? How many of your Christian lives look like you’re running?
Forget about running aimlessly, so many of us aren’t running at all.
We’re swinging on a hammock alongside the river of Psalm 1 and couldn’t be bothered to lift our heads from the green pasture in Psalm 23.
Forget about the prize, we’re not running the race.
We have our favourite Bible verses for a reason – to caress our comforts. Don’t we?
How many of our favourite Bible verses are about sitting down and being still, and how many of them encourage us to run with endurance and struggle with patience?
But listen to how Paul runs—not aimlessly, not passively, and certainly not by accident.
This run doesn’t just happen to him by chance. He’s not stumbling onto the track and hoping for the best.
He’s not wearing a red dress, jumping into a bullring, and relying on the sheer terror of a charging animal to inspire him to move.
This kind of passive living, where we wait for circumstances to push us into action, is why so many of us stumble through life without direction.
We blame the timetable when we fail to keep the schedule, the alarm clock when we can’t make it to church on time, and the busyness of our week when we neglect our devotional life.
It’s always something else, isn’t it? As if the forces of life conspired to derail us, and we were merely the hapless victims of their schemes.
Think about how often we rely on external pressure to keep us moving.
We wait until the boss sets a deadline before we get serious about a project.
We let guilt drive us to prayer after a crisis rather than cultivating a consistent prayer life.
We wait for our pastor to nudge us toward service instead of stepping up voluntarily.
It’s like we’re standing on the edge of a swimming pool, waiting for someone to push us in rather than jumping in with intention and resolve.
And when things don’t go as planned, we’re quick to find something—or someone—to blame.
Didn’t make it to the gym this week? “Work was crazy.”
Didn’t follow through on a promise to a friend? “I just forgot.”
Didn’t open your Bible all month? “Life has been so hectic.”
But let’s be honest—most of the time, it’s not life’s circumstances holding us back. It’s our own passivity, our failure to run with the kind of purpose and discipline Paul exemplifies here.
1 Corinthians 9:27 ESV
27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
I – discipline – my – body
Exegesis
Philippians 2:12–13 ESV
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
If I could break these verses down to its simplest form, it appears that in these verses, Paul calls us to work out our salvation because God is working in us.
We are to work out our salvation because God is working in our salvation.
We are to stand on the foundation of God’s work, not ours. But from that foundation we are to then work out what God is working in.
Spurgeon said about this verse, “We are not to be passive, for the command is ‘work out,’ the command to us is not to work for salvation, but to work out the salvation which God has already wrought in us.”
Ephesians 2:10 ESV
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
John 15:5 ESV
5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.
Do you see how these verses harmonize? We are being crafted (worked in) for good works (worked out). We are abiding (he in us) for bearing much fruit (worked out).
At the risk of getting a little more technical, theologians often explain how God’s work of salvation can be understood in three distinct yet interconnected parts: justification, sanctification, and glorification.
Justification is God’s act of declaring a sinner righteous through faith in Christ, entirely by grace and apart from works.
Romans 3:24 ESV
24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
Sanctification is the ongoing process where believers are transformed into the image of Christ by the Holy Spirit, actively pursuing holiness while God works in them.
Glorification is the final stage, when believers are fully perfected and united with Christ in eternity, free from sin and its effects.
Together, these reveal the complete scope of God’s saving work.
Romans 8:30 ESV
30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.
So, it’s pretty easy for you to see from these definitions, that when Paul instructs us to work out our salvation, he does not mean justification or glorification, but rather our sanctification.
But to understand more the nature of this working out of our salvation, I want to first tackle the misconception (as I mentioned at the beginning) that God’s working in us is something that merely happens to us.
What does God working in us look like?
So for the rest of this sermon, we will look at God’s work in us in justification and sanctification, and then in light of that how we are to work out our salvation as intentional Christians.
God’s justifying work in us
The Biblical definition of justification is not that you were at the right place at the right time.
We weren’t walking on the broad road toward destruction and suddenly this strong wind carries us off that path and into the narrow road.
Ephesians 2:1–5 ESV
1 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins
2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—
3 among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—
So here’s what we know.
We were dead – and corpses don’t choose to wake up in the morning. There is nothing you can do to be alive.
Romans 8:7–8 LSB
7 because the mind set on the flesh is at enmity toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh are not able to please God.
Our hostility toward God is part of our human nature and we are not able to submit to his righteous law.
In reformed theology, this doctrine of total depravity suggests that there is nothing you can possibly do in order to be saved.
It is only God, rich in mercy, who can make us alive. In other words, God is the only effective participant in our salvation and as Jonathan Edwards would say it, “we contribute nothing to your salvation except the sin that made it necessary.”
Now that completely sounds like salvation (or to be more specific, justification) is something that completely happens to us. However, the picture of death and inability that the Bible draws is meant to show the extent of your depravity – to show you how far gone you were without Christ.
But in reality, you have to understand that though you’re not the effective participant in your salvation, you are a participant.
Listen to these Gospel invitations in the book of Acts.
Acts 2:38 ESV
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 3:19 ESV
19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out,
Acts 14:15 ESV
15 “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
If we are justified entirely of God, and nothing of our works, why does the Gospel invitation call for the unbeliever to work or act?
Why doesn’t Peter or Paul ask the people to gather and then preach random topics from Grudem’s systematics hoping that the Spirit of God would smack people awake at his discretion?
Now, if you say, because God has to do his part and I have to do mine, you’ve not understood the meaning of ‘you were once dead in your sins’. You have not understood,
Ephesians 2:8–9 ESV
8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
But, are we not confessing? Aren’t we the ones who are repenting by choice and turning to follow Jesus?
How on earth then do we harmonize this?
There is only one way. If you see your working out in the form of confessing, repenting and trusting in Jesus as the very things that God works in.
A miraculous reality that God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are deeply intertwined beyond our ability to fathom.
Are we responsible for choosing Christ? Yes. But that choosing is a gift of God, not a result of works.
How?
Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV
26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
Beloved, God does not save us by going around us, but by walking right through us.
Our salvation is a struggle where our flesh in hostility toward God, resists him and fights him. But God’s grace is so irresistible to the elect that it overcomes his resistance and we lose that struggle, and Christ wins.
Paul’s conversion is an extreme example of this.
John 6:44 ESV
44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
Acts 16:14 ESV
14 One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.
2 Timothy 2:25 ESV
25 correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth,
So, the picture of our salvation is not of a great wind that carries us off the broad road into the narrow road . It is about the power of God that so works inside of us, that we stop in our tracks and see the devastation of that broad road of destruction. And then we turn, something we could never do before. And our legs walk by our will off that road onto the narrow path of life.
And not of it is of our own doing, but entirely the effectual work of salvation that God works in us.
This language is not strange in the Bible. Paul, in Colossians 1:28-29
Colossians 1:28–29 ESV
28 Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ.
29 For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
God’s sanctifying work in us
Therefore, coming back to Philippians 2:12-13
Philippians 2:12–13 ESV
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
This working out of our salvation because God is at work in us is how we were justified, and here according to Paul, it is how we are sanctified.
2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV
18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
This is why Scripture repeatedly instructs us like this
Colossians 3:5 ESV
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.
Romans 8:13 ESV
13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The Intentional Christian Life
Tying this all back to living an Intentional Christian Life, how do we do that?
The intentional Christian life is a purposeful, grace-driven response to God’s work in us. It begins with recognizing that salvation—both justification and sanctification—is entirely initiated and empowered by God. However, it is not a passive experience; it involves actively working out what God has worked in.
Augustine famously said – “Without God, we cannot! Without us, God will not”
The Puritan Thomas Watson said – “Though we cannot work without God, yet God will not work without us. When God gives grace, he does not intend to destroy nature but to improve it. He works upon us as rational agents”
Fear and Trembling
Philippians 2:13 NASB95
for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
• Prayer – Christians do not pray only when they feel like it, and they do not pray to check that box of things to do in the morning.
• Listening to sermons – hoping to catch the fire like the sparks near a campfire.
• Lord’s Day Service – corporate worship
• Fellowship vs Socialising
• Husband and Wives
• Parents and Children
The Christian life is not something that happens to you, it is something that you intentionally pursue.
The Intentional Church
Consequently, the Christian church is not something that happens to you on a Sunday morning. It is diligently pursued.
Let me end by setting the stage for this series, laying out what you can expect in the weeks ahead, and sharing the burning desire behind these messages—what I pray God will accomplish in our hearts and in His church.
This is a series on the local church – who she is, what she does, and how she goes about doing what she does . That’s a simple summary of what this sermon series is all about.
And I don’t intend to go at this the usual way of giving you textbook academic definitions and expect church life to flourish.
No, instead, I’m going to base the entire series on roles and relationships. I’m going to focus on you.
So, this is how I’ve divided up the series – into 7 sermons, not including this one.
a. Who is a healthy church member?
b. Who are elders and deacons?
c. What do men and women distinctively do in the life of the church?
d. What is a healthy marriage?
e. What do we do with children?
f. What is a healthy church culture?
g. What is a healthy church doctrine?
