Work Out Your Salvation with Fear and Trembling

12So then, my beloved, even as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. 13For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. 14Do all things without murmurings and disputes, 15that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, 16holding up the word of life; that I may have something to boast in the day of Christ, that I didn’t run in vain nor labor in vain. 17Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all. 18In the same way, you also rejoice, and rejoice with me.

I often tell you this: living well as a believer inside the church matters, but living by faith when you are alone, outside the church, matters far more. Worshiping and serving together at church is possible even without a faith of one’s own, because brothers and sisters are there beside us. But living out the word when we are alone is not easy, since it rests on our own effort and nothing else.

The apostle Paul asks the same of the church in Philippi. While Paul was with them they had kept the faith well, but when the time came to keep it on their own, their conduct fell short of what was fitting. That was why Paul urged them to repent without delay. He also wanted them to serve humbly: they must do their own work well, yet helping weaker brothers and sisters live by faith is God’s work too.

That God the Son should leave his throne and take on the likeness of a sinner is more miraculous than any miracle, because it is unthinkable that God, who is worthy of glory in himself, would give up the throne of heaven to save people who are lower than worms. Even though the Philippians had been saved through the sacrifice of Jesus, they were acting proudly, wanting to be waited on by their brothers and sisters. Such an attitude does not belong to holy believers who have received grace; worse, it is a sin that drives saved souls toward death. Paul pleaded with them to obey the word at all times and to have a faith that fears God, so that they would not commit so evil a sin.

What, then, does it mean to obey the word and work out your salvation with fear and trembling? If we believe in Jesus Christ, we are saved as a matter of course. So what is it we are being told to do for our salvation? Let us look at that now.

When the apostle Paul tells us to work out our salvation, he is telling us to guard the grace we have received. The believer who walks with the Holy Spirit and labors in faith is the one who takes the kingdom of heaven by force, and this is how we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. If we stop trusting ourselves and revere God with fear and trembling, our words and actions change, and so does the way we see the world. But if we cannot let go of human righteousness and our own desires, we grow proud and stop giving thanks for our salvation. Once we are in that state, the word proclaimed in worship will sting the heart. Living by faith in the world becomes a burden, until even coming to church is a struggle. And if we go on neglecting worship and failing to live by the word, we will in the end walk out of salvation altogether. Paul therefore told the Philippians to stop the foolish things they were doing, to fear God, and not to treat their salvation lightly.

You too will have times when you forget how precious worship is and coming to church feels like a chore. There will be times when living in the world without restraint seems freer and easier. There are times, too, when the brothers and sisters who intercede for you no longer seem precious, when you are no longer grateful for them, and when your gratitude for the sacrifice of Jesus wears thin. That is the most dangerous moment of all, because you do not see that you are tearing down God’s hedge around you with your own hands. When such a heart comes over you, you must recognize that Satan is closing in. Only then will you keep from walking out of salvation.

Our task as believers is to guard God’s grace as a treasure, so that Satan cannot deceive us. The Philippians needed to take Paul’s warning deeply to heart, for if they would not heed the words of one who was earnestly showing them the way of truth, they could, without even knowing it, divide the kingdom of God and the church. If someone gives you counsel that is hard to hear, that is evidence that God is blessing you. Treasure that person, and work at living by what they tell you. Then, when some time has passed, you will find that you have grown.

Matthew 26:23

23He answered, “He who dipped his hand with me in the dish, the same will betray me.

Matthew 26:31

31Then Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’

Jesus told his disciples that they would betray him. Yet the disciples could not imagine that they would ever forsake their Lord. Though he had warned them beforehand, Judas Iscariot sold Jesus for thirty pieces of silver, and the rest of the disciples all fled to escape the cross.

Perhaps we are like those disciples. We hear God’s warnings every day, yet our hearts may have gone as numb as a conscience seared with a hot iron. We read the Bible and know the word; we hold an office in the church; whatever else, we still have faith — we offer one excuse after another and do not take the warnings to heart. We tell ourselves that since we are always tired and busy, we may miss a service, or that since the world’s business has to come before worship, we may not make it to church. Of course, unavoidable things do come up. I am not speaking of those. I am speaking of the sinful heart that readily pardons itself for having been captured by the world.

We also justify our own thinking, asking how anyone can live by faith alone and keep to a single road when we are not God. Or we are pleased with ourselves, supposing that this much of a walk with God is surely good enough. We judge our faith by our own measure and even praise it. But God has plainly told us to be faithful to death, and we must understand that there is no compromise. Judas Iscariot, who had been so easy on himself, hanged himself, and Peter, after denying the Lord three times, had to weep bitterly and repent. We believers, too, can betray him as the disciples did. Paul therefore urges us to obey the word with a fearful heart and to guard our faith with our whole life.

Because Paul was then working in the ministry of the gospel together with the disciples, he understood all of this better than anyone. When Judas Iscariot and the Jews handed Jesus over to the Romans, the disciples must have remembered, as they fled, his words that they would betray him. If the word comes back to us in the very place of betrayal and we do not get up and walk out of that place, it is already too late.

Our task in this world is to lift high the lamp given us by Christ, who is the light. But if we do not live by faith from day to day, we will not have even the strength to lift that lamp. Yet salvation is not something people accomplish; it is fulfilled by the work of God. So when we strive to hold the lamp high, God will commend that very effort as service offered to him.

Take one example. It may seem that all we need to do to light up a room is flip a switch. But the power plant has to send electricity to a substation, the substation has to pass it on to a pole transformer, and the voltage has to be lowered before it reaches the house; only then can the light come on. We cannot produce that electricity ourselves. But connecting the electricity that has reached the house to a switch, or screwing in a bulb so that it gives light, is within our own labor. If we refuse even that much effort, we will have no choice but to live in darkness, though the power has come right into the house. In the same way, Jesus has accomplished the whole work of salvation that we could never do, and he has told us only to turn on the light by faith. If we find even that too much trouble and ask him to do it all for us, God will leave us to live in the dark.

Flipping the switch and turning on the light — that is what it means to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

Philippians 2:13

13For it is God who works in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

God works without resting even for a moment to establish you as his children in faith. You are able to live by faith because God has been at work. He blocked the worldly road your greed was taking you down, made you discern the relationships that do nothing for your faith, and helped you correct bad habits and behavior. Through the events of your life he has been carving and shaping you, and all of it he did for the sake of your salvation.

When Jesus told his disciples that they would betray him, he meant that, having been warned ahead of time, they should not betray him. It was like warning Adam in advance not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Had the disciples obeyed that word, God would have opened a way of escape for them. But because people hear first and still do not act, the promise of blessing goes unfulfilled, and God’s word of curse comes to pass instead. When God works for your salvation, you must work together with him, for only then can you live in the world as children who receive God’s blessing.

Paul urged the Philippians, who had received such great blessing, not to fail to give thanks in all things, and not to sin by murmuring at every small thing that happened and so hiding the glory of God.

Philippians 2:15-16

15that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without defect in the middle of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you are seen as lights in the world, 16holding up the word of life; that I may have something to boast in the day of Christ, that I didn’t run in vain nor labor in vain.

Believers who hold up the word of life and grip it firmly in this world are, simply by doing so, shining the light of life. Paul was not asking anything great of the Philippians. What he wanted was for them to shine the light of life fully among one another, and to love and cherish one another.

When Paul founded the church in Philippi he met much persecution and many threats, but he founded it with a sense of mission: even if it cost him his life, he must preach Christ. If the members of the church built on Paul’s sacrifice did not live their faith rightly, his labor would be in vain and the road of evangelism would be closed. That is why Paul longed with all his heart for them to live by faith, and he prayed fervently that their faith would become their reward and that they would be blessed.

What Paul felt then must be the earnest wish of every pastor, since for a pastor who preaches the word there is no greater joy than seeing their people grow in faith. If I prepare the word diligently and bring it to you, and you do not live by it, my labor will bring me no fulfillment. When people have heard the word and yet their spirits dry up, the one who preached it will find it hard to keep up their zeal.

When saved believers will not sacrifice themselves to keep their faith, it is hard for them to turn back, however much they are exhorted. For us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, personal effort is indispensable. Only when we work at living by faith and labor to earn people’s trust will the Holy Spirit help us, and only then can we be sanctified in righteousness. A person who makes no effort to live a good life will always bring discord and division wherever they are. Someone whose heart is hardened can never quench their thirst, because whatever water of life is offered, they will not drink it. We cannot become holy as Christ is holy, but we can strive to be changed by the words of Christ. If we set the word as our standard and pursue the faith God desires, the Holy Spirit will surely make us shine.

When believers, filled with the Holy Spirit, grow into people who quench not only their own thirst but the thirst of others, a pastor knows no greater joy. The believer God desires is exactly this: a person who brings others to life. God loves those who treasure their own life and the lives of others. It is never easy for a pastor to build believers up through the word into what they ought to be, because the pastor must judge wisely, according to each person’s faith, whether to comfort first or to look further ahead and rebuke.

One thing is clear: the wounds and sins of the world must be healed by the word of God. Yet exhortation is hard, because while some hear it and grow like the cedars, others turn away and resist it with murmuring and discontent. Some hearts receive the word, bitter as medicine, as though it were sweet as the honeycomb; others are like rocky ground, crowded with the cares and worries of the world, and that is what makes rebuke and exhortation so difficult. Paul said that when believers grow tall like cedars and give glory to God, that is his boast and his fruit. Here we see why a pastor’s calling is a heavy one: it is not only to preach the word but to raise up God’s people.

Moreover, a pastor who does not first live out the word cannot rebuke or exhort anyone. Some parents tell their children that they must live well, even though the parents themselves did not. Such advice is not right. To exhort their children and be an example to them, parents must show a life lived by the word. I hope, then, that you will live out the word.

Philippians 2:17

17Yes, and if I am poured out on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice, and rejoice with you all.

Paul makes an astonishing confession: if only the Philippians could be born again as children of God and be saved, he would gladly die. His life existed for the gospel alone, so if only they could be sanctified into believers worthy of commendation, he was not afraid even of death. Awaiting execution, he could write a letter saying it did not matter if he died, so long as they lived their faith well. Anyone whose hope was not set on the eternal kingdom would find that very hard.

If God asked whether you could die as a martyr for souls who are yet to be saved, could you give thanks and rejoice as Paul did? The question is whether you would gladly die if God promised that, should you die for the gospel, he would save souls you do not even know. Perhaps we would say that we would die for our own children, but never for anyone else. Yet even as Paul rebuked the Philippians for the rivalry and conceit with which they tried to rise above others, he made the great confession that if only they would turn back, he would be glad to die that very day.

As you look at Paul and the Philippians, what do you feel? Those who were saved yet could not let go of human righteousness, and Paul, who longed for them to grow well in spite of it — what might God have thought as he watched them?

I hope you will hold on to what I am about to tell you. If Paul kept praying, longing earnestly for them to repent, God might send them suffering in order to answer Paul’s prayer. That the apostle Paul, who had God’s complete trust, was praying for the church in Philippi was a very great blessing to them. But there was another side to it: that a man of Paul’s spiritual power was praying for them could also become the occasion for their being put through the fire.

The Philippians had to repent quickly while Paul was interceding for them at the risk of his life. Because they had given themselves to helping Paul, God caused Paul to pray for them and gave them an opportunity to repent. That is why there was no time to lose. Paul knew that God might send suffering on them to answer his prayer, and so he pleaded with them earnestly to turn back without delay.

Philippians 2:29

29Receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such in honor,

Paul was a man with a precious heart for his brothers and sisters. When he sent Timothy and Epaphroditus to Philippi, he urged the Philippians to receive them in the Lord and to hold them in honor. Because he had suffered alongside these two, he called them his brothers, soldiers of God, and your messenger, and he urged the church to serve them well as pastors. He himself was suffering in prison, yet he asked the Philippians to welcome the two men who would bring them the word, and his faith in doing so deserves praise. Paul hardly seems to know who ought to be worrying about whom.

Who else would make so humble a request to lift up others? Paul asked the Philippians to serve these two because, if they served them well, they would hear the word of truth and learn what it means to live as believers should. Setting his own suffering aside as death approaches, Paul is doing everything he can so that the two men can preach the word of truth and carry the authority to set the church on a right footing. Because Timothy was young, the church would not listen to him, even when he spoke the truth, unless he was recognized as a pastor. Paul labors for the faith of both the one who speaks and those who hear.

We believers, too, certainly have our strengths and our weaknesses. But because God knows the heart in you that loves him, he makes you realize your faults through the Holy Spirit and gives you the chance to turn back. Through sermons he makes you see your wrongs, and through prayer he leads you toward restoration. Believers who know the state of their faith and strive to turn back will always receive the grace of God, who leads them to a place of blessing.

Friends, if you love your brothers and sisters, commend them even in small things, cover one another’s shortcomings, and help one another, God will see your good deeds and grant you special grace. Like Paul, may you set your hope on the kingdom of God and have a faith that takes the kingdom of heaven by force. And as you walk the blessed road before you, I hope you will walk it together with your brothers and sisters.

If you strive to keep your faith with fear and trembling, God will bless every place you go and every person you meet. My earnest hope is that you will always be believers who take up the work of God.