Philippians 2:12-15
Working Out Our Salvation

Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed me, not only in my presence, but much more now in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Do all things without murmuring and arguing, so that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine like stars in the world.

New Revised Standard Version

Just before this passage, Paul has quoted from a first-century hymn or creed that Jesus, being fully God, took on the form of humanity and poured himself out as a sacrifice for us. Because of that sacrifice and because of Jesus' obedience to God, we are to shine like stars in the blackness of a sinful world.

What is particularly interesting about this passage is our involvement and God's involvement in this process. Paul specifically addresses the church members in Philippi to work out their "salvation" in humility, which many scholars feel was a practical admonition to work through the differences that various groups within that church were having. In the context of all that Jesus did, and all that God calls us to be, certainly we ought to resolve with haste anything that would deter our faithfulness. Paul reminds us that we have God at work in us to provide us everything we need to bring about this resolution. In that context, the verses that follow doubly encourage the church to serve God and serve others with an attitude fitting the children of God. The passage makes wonderful sense in this context.

Fortunately, it also makes wonderful sense on a more profound level of making real in our lives our salvation from sin into eternal life. On the one hand, salvation is immensely easy for us to do, for all we have to do is to accept what God has already prepared and done for us. On the other hand, we will live our entire earthly existence striving to live fully in that new life that God has given us, and we will never complete that striving down here. Paul could have been referring to the very personal walk each one of us have, and the personal commitment it takes for us to walk in the calling God has given to us. I can't answer God's call for your life, and you can't answer mine. How God reveals Himself to me has much to do with how I, in spite of my imperfections, can relate to the perfect Unchanging One. Given than your imperfections are different than mine, your relationship with God will be different than mine. We each, then, have to work out how we put ourselves aside to have a more complete relationship with God.

Not only is our relationship with God individual and unique, it is deeply personal. Fear and trembling is natural and completely appropriate when we think that the Creator connects with us in such a deep and intimate way. We may sit in the back row at church services, but there are no back rows and no one else to hide behind when we approach our Savior. Those who approach their salvation without humility and gratitude may be in a relationship with a "god" to whom they are an equal, but they have lost sight of the God who created them. Even though Hebrews 4:16 encourages us to approach the Throne of Grace with confidence, that confidence is because of who God is, and not because of anything we are -- except that we are God's.

We might take this admonition to "work out" our salvation too seriously, struggling to figure out for ourselves the mysteries of faith and create for ourselves our own personal dogma. But in the same breath, Paul has reminded is that for all our "work", God has done so much more work. We are to open ourselves to how God speaks to each of us, and God is there to speak. We are to set our desires on God, and God is there to strengthen our resolve. We are to work for God, and God is already working to take our feeble, flawed efforts and make from it pleasing Works.

When my daughter was a preschooler, she made a pencil holder for me that I treasure. To say she "made" it is laughable if I think as a manufacturer, for her mother gave her a used juice concentrate can that some impressive plastics firm had already constructed, and some foods conglomerate had already packed and shipped to our town. Her preschool teacher had already cut out the paper, supplied the glue, ink, and markers, and a preschool aide pressed her little palm into the ink and onto the paper and added the text about a "Happy Father's Day". All my daughter supplied were compliant fingers fanned out to remind me with great joy that this pencil holder was touched by one very precious to me. Somehow, what God does in us to bring about pleasing works must be cosmically more lopsided, but in other ways pretty similar, to that beloved pencil holder.

It is no wonder that Paul goes on in a reminder that we are to be blameless, innocent children of God. A child in my daughter's preschool who insisted on cutting the paper or writing the words without an adult's help would have no Father's Day gift at the end of the class. A child who insisted on manufacturing their own juice concentrate container would have provoked a parent-teacher conference. The children accepting help, trusting in the outcome, and grateful for the preparations done for them received the warm hugs from thrilled daddies who would indeed have a Happy Father's Day.

Yes, we each have our own salvation to work out, because we are each unique, but we all have the One who is the only way to salvation who will guide us, equip us, strengthen us, and bless us in that lifetime effort of becoming who God has made us to be.