Aloha, and welcome back to Amen Podcast.
I'm Lokelani, your host, and I'm joined by my husband, Alex, who
is continuing our Stress Less series In the book of
Philippians. Today, we're looking at chapter
2, verses 12 and 13. Alex, tell us what you're
talking about. Going to be a shorter episode
today and it's going to give you some time to catch up on the
series. But we're talking about
unearning. You can't earn this, this love
from God, this relationship with God, but he also tells us to
work out our salvation. You've heard this verse before.
It's been very abused by Christian culture.
We're going to break down what it means and then we're going to
find out the freedom in not having to earn our salvation and
the stressless life that comes from unearning.
Amen. Let's jump in.
Philippians chapter 212 and 13. Let's do it.
Verse 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, for it is
God who works in you both to will and to work for his good
pleasure. Amen.
Lucky Lonnie's gonna most likely grab the baby here in a moment
as she is waking up from her morning nap.
But in verse 12, I love how it starts off saying, therefore,
every time we read Scripture, we need to ask ourselves what is
the therefore therefore, and this therefore is going to
transition us into what it means to live unearning, to not live a
life earning the approval, the acceptance of God.
The reason or the what behind all this is right there in that
therefore Jesus and the verses before this hymn that Paul talks
about is the one that was most humble, most obedient, most
beautiful in his life and lays down his life humbly taken on
the form of a servant in our place.
And because he perfectly obeyed God, we can rest in the fact
that when we do not perfectly obey God, we're going to be OK
because we're justified not by what we do, but why he has done
not what, not what people think of you, but what God thinks of
you. We can get this weird thing
mixed up in our heads where we think if people think highly of
us, then of course God thinks highly of us.
If Christians think highly of us, then God thinks highly of
us. But then Jesus reminds us that
blessed are you when you are persecuted and people revile you
for my sake. Woe to you if everyone thinks
highly of you, He says. So God doesn't look at the
outward appearance like it says in First Jam 1 chapter 6.
Make sure you're following along.
In our David series on my channel, we talked about that.
He looks at the inward appearance.
He looks at what you look like on the inside.
So he says therefore, if based on whatever thing Jesus has done
earning for us, therefore dearest friends or beloved, he
says you are a part of the beloved of God because God chose
you before the foundations of the earth, because Jesus paid
for those that belong to God on the cross, you are dear to God,
you are dearest friends, you are beloved.
You're not on the outside anymore, you're on the inside.
And he says, when I was there with you, you were always so
careful to follow my instructions.
This is just how what it means. This is what it means to be a
parent. When you're in the same room as
your kids, they obey you perfectly.
But when you're outside of the room, they start to push the
limits a little bit. And Paul says the Philippians
are just like that too. When I was there, you guys are
doing all fine, great and dandy. But when I left, then you start
acting up. Let it not be so with God
because one God is never with us and then not with us.
He's always with us. So knowing that his presence is
near, that he is near just as much as he was with Peter, but
in a different sense, he is with you right now.
It may not be the physical Lord Jesus standing in your in your
room, but the physical Lord Jesus is on the throne and his
real active, powerful spirit is with you right now.
So he's anxious that they would follow him all the time, not
just when he's there. And now that I am away from you,
you must also be more careful to do the good things that result
from being saved. Notice he says now that I'm not
there. You should continue to do the
good stuff that happens as a result of you, of you being
saved, not do the good things that will result in you being
saved, right? There is no good things you can
do that will result in you being saved.
There is good things that come out of a result of you already
being saved. So it says things that are
obeying God with deep reverence, obeying God with deep reverence.
Your translation might say working out your salvation with
fear and trembling. This isn't mean.
This isn't meaning that God is standing over us with a
clipboard and waiting for us to make a mistake.
And then he can like write off the mistake, like, OK, you did
this, you did that. That's not what it means.
It means that because we are right with God, he says we are
made holy and his holy presence is right here with us.
And that means that we should have complete deep reverence for
who it is we're serving and live that out.
And as we do, we shouldn't shrink back from all.
We should shrink back from all that might displease Him.
So working out your salvation with fear and trembling is
saying if you know God is holy and you've been made right with
God, you should let that be a reality in your heart and we'll
talk about how, and you should shrink back from that stuff that
displeases God. So why don't we do that?
It's because we do not have that deep reverence for God.
Where does that come from? It comes from seeing God as big
and you as small. Jesus in our culture is made fun
of or just belittled. I do not think that the devil's
plan is to make you think that Jesus doesn't exist the devil's
plan is to make you think that Jesus is small.
So here's a couple examples #1 would be Tim Ross, who is
Michael Todd's pastor. He stood up in front of the
entire congregation at Transformation Church and said
we don't make it rain on strippers.
We only make it rain on one stripper and that is Jesus who
stripped off glory and and took off and got butt naked on a
cross. These are his exact words.
You can just search Tim Ross stripper on on Google and it'll
bring up this exact clip from a sermon at Transformation Church.
Is that any way that we should talk about Jesus?
Of course not. Now just show him some grace
'cause I need grace as a communicator.
I see what he's trying to do. He's trying to connect with an
urban audience who has left the world and is now.
He's trying to connect Christ to something that they can
visualize and understand. The problem with that
illustration, though, is you're making Jesus very small.
And that is not good because the smaller Jesus gets for you, the
least reverent you will be towards him.
That's a problem. But when God is big, we have
extreme reverence for him and and awe towards him.
Another thing that I'll end with to just transition out of this
is the way Jesus is depicted in media.
Jesus did not have long straight hair.
He did not. That is something that our
culture because of people like Fabio and people like Thor, we
have over centralized that and made that an attractive thing
for a man. That is not how Christ's hair
looked. Christ didn't look like that and
even like he was very masculine, but we've we've feminized him
and made him like this like movie character that looks like
he's just like this. I don't know, a caricature of
like other men that we see in other movies.
That is not OK. Again, that's making Christ
small. Not to say that he wasn't in
touched with his feminine side, right?
He's very gentle. He's very kind to children as
well, but he's extremely masculine.
I talked about this on one of our shorts that most of the
times when the Bible talks about carpentry, it's also talking
about construction workers, people who would fix a door
frame or add an extra room onto your house.
And So what I'm trying to say is even as a blue collar worker,
Christ was extremely capable. Extremely competent like can do
hard work that would require a man to do even in today's
culture that is that's a side of Christ we just do not see.
And that amazingly somehow that doesn't belittle Christ.
Isn't that insane that talking about our God who sits on the
throne as a blue collar worker doesn't belittle him.
It elevates him somehow. It's just the mystery of the
incarnation. If you want to have reverence
for God, if you want to work out your salvation with deep
reverence, with fear and trembling, if you want to live a
stress less life, God has to be big for you.
If you want to stop waking up every day thinking is, is God
disappointed in me? Is God displeased with me?
If you want to let go of that and walk in the confidence of
knowing I am made right with God everywhere I go and I do not
have to win the approval of anyone, much less God.
You have to have a big view of God because the bigger view of
God you get, the smaller view of yourself you get, which means
you're free from having the self help stuff, the self promotion
stuff, the selfish stuff. You can let go of all that
because God is big and you are small.
Now how does that happen? Verse 13 for God, That's how it
happens because God, that's how we change.
That's how we have a stress less life.
That's how we stop earning because God, everything begins
with God and ends with God and everything is because God and
for the glory of God, the bad things happen in your life.
It's not because God is making those bad things happen.
It's because in those bad things, in the sinful world that
we live, in this broken world we live in, with spiritual warfare,
in those things, God is going to be elevated, God's going to be
glorified. And you will be truly, deeply
satisfied by turning away from the things of the world and
being able to know what life is all about.
For God is at work within you. So he says, work out your
salvation with fear and trembling, but also know that
it's God doing the work within you.
It's not up to you. It's not reliant on you.
You can go to bed at night, stress less.
Why? Because it doesn't ultimately
depend on you. God is the one that is at work
within you, doing two things, helping you to want to obey Him
and then actually to obey Him. Those are the two things that
God does in you. One, to obey Him.
Two, to actually make you want to obey Him.
There's a big difference, right? When I ask my kids to do the
dishes, they obey. They don't want to obey, but
there's a time where they will obey and want obey, and that is
the discipline and the love and the care and the presence that
we are working within them every single day.
So it is with God. God through His Holy Spirit,
through Scripture, through fellowship, through church,
through the singing of hymns, the singing of songs, through
confession, through obedience to His Word, through all that the
Holy Spirit is working within you to make you want to obey Him
and then actually to obey Him. Christ is the only one that ever
do this perfectly. Christ is the only one that
lived a perfect life who worked out every single day of his
moment with fear and trembling with deep reverence for God.
Bible says on his days on earth in the book of Hebrews it says
he would groan with these groanings and deep reverence
unto God because he loved God and he feared God.
Even Christ who is one with God and has been for eternity had
great reverence and fear for God.
You see how messed up we are that we just don't even of all
people we should have that right because we are created by Him
and yet Christ had that and lived that perfect life for us.
So if that is true and that means when we trust in Him, His
Spirit indwells us and starts to work out this salvation in US.
Do you believe that? Do you believe that he died
instead of you, took your place, rose from the grave, has
ascended on high, and because he's on the throne, the Spirit
of God has fallen down at Pentecost and now has indwelled
all believers from 2000 years ago on to now.
Do you believe that? If you do, then you have
definitely seen the work of God working within you?
So that would be my question. Where have you seen God's work
within you? Where have you seen God's work
within you? Father, we thank you for the
salvation story, how we are wrapped up and you are drawing
us into the middle of it. And we're so grateful for that.
And we pray God that we would rest in the fact that it is you
that is working it out within us.
It is you that has earned it for us, Christ, and we can rest in
that. And thank you so much, Lord, for
your grace and mercy towards us. And your name we pray.
Amen. Amen.
This is the part of the episode called After the Amen where we
ask you a question to help apply this message to your life.
A question for you today, as Alex said, is where do you see
God at work within you? Where do you see God at work
within you? And I'll answer 1st and then
it'll be your turn to respond. Let's see.
I think I just love this passage because I think about all of the
times that I want to make a change in my life or I have
wanted to make a change even before Christ and how I would
just try to create new habits. And I think, you know that that
still works in small ways, but it really is like, I just love
how this these verses like summed it up.
It really is like when I have a deep awe and reverence and fear
of the Lord that he he produces those things within us instead
of just trying harder or behavior modification.
I just think about like the people in my life that have like
really great character traits or maybe they're very generous or
maybe they're great listeners. There's just something that I
admire and how I'd love to emulate that.
But I might be able to do it one or two times, you know, like by
just copying their behavior or being inspired by that and
trying to be a better listener, trying to whatever The thing is.
But when I actually, like, reflect upon the work of Christ
and who he is, spend time in my word and spend time seeking him,
he produces that change within me instead of me trying to force
the change, you know? And so I think that, yeah, I
think it's obedience. You know, I think that believers
who live the life of obedience have a really deep fear and
reverence for the Lord. And it's through that obedience
that he produces these different changes in your life that you're
able to like, think about who you were even as a Christian 234
years ago and think, wow, why don't I not struggle with those
things? Why do I not have the same fears
or whatever it is? And it's because through your
obedience, like he produces that change, like you just continuing
to abide in him, He starts to make that produce that change.
And it's just like when you, if you have a child, you don't
really notice how much they're growing.
But say a friend who hasn't seen them in a couple years comes to
visit and they're like, oh, wow, your child's so big.
Like you don't always notice the change if you're walking with
him every day. But there will be those moments
or even those people in your life who a year or two down the
line, you're like, oh, wow, I cannot believe like that this is
still not a struggle for me or that this comes so naturally
now. And I think in those moments,
like if it really isn't just behavior modification, you
really do like give glory to God 'cause even in the Christian
life, you know, like I couldn't just do that on my own.
Like that was the Lord's work within me.
And I think he uses it like just back to like what I described
about seeing those good qualities and other people
around me. I think he uses others to in our
lives, not so that we can just make behavioral changes, but
like that gives him glory as well.
And so seeing that work in others should just draw us to
him more, not draw us to jealousy or draw us to like
comparison or trying to figure out on our own.
But like, oh wow, this person is so, so to speak, like that is a
character of Christ. Like that's how he was.
He had a listening ear. Like I see Christ in that like,
and so that's to draw us near to him and in communion with him
and he starts to produce those changes as well.
And so, yeah, I've definitely seen that work in my life a lot
Like yeah, obviously, as all of y'all know, if you've been
listening, like motherhood has been the and marriage too, but
motherhood has been like the engine to drive those changes in
my life for sure. And it's so fun to walk
alongside like new mothers and just the questions that they
have and be able to encourage them.
Like I had those fears. I had those questions too when I
was your at your stage. And like, it's not me just be
gaining more knowledge or just being so great at it that like
I'm don't I don't worry about those things now or whatever it
is. But it's like the Lord producing
that through just continuing to mother year after year, day
after day, hour after hour. And so it's just it's beautiful
to see his work within us. And yeah, it's true freedom to
not try to have to earn it. Yeah.
And I think knowing that we can't earn it also just is the
cure to comparison. Because then, like I said, we
can. When we see great qualities in
others, we don't have to compare ourselves to them, but we can
give God glory for what He's doing in their lives too.
Yep. Yeah, and it's about motherhood
totally, because when you're in the middle of it, you really
can't compare yourself to anybody you like, Just like, I
have to change this diaper, I have to nurse, I have to, like,
feed this kid. And there's no time to be like,
well, what would this mother do? What would that mother do?
Or am I doing this right? Or am IA good mother?
There's some downtown in between when you do that and you compare
and it's just OK. I have to earn a level of
motherhood that the culture approves of.
Or even someone else in your life who's putting pressure on
you or something. Totally.
Yeah, but Christians have the ability to just abide and not
earn or not grind. You know, like grind culture is
like really big when everyone's trying to like, earn a certain
paycheck or earn a certain amount of followers and grind,
grind, grind, grind, grind so that I can earn my social
currency. But Christians have the ability
to not have to live for social currency at all.
We have more social currency than we know what to do with.
We have more. Social cred then we know what to
do with because God has declared us right with himself.
And so these short 80 years that we have on earth and all the
different people who maybe love us in that time is great, but
none of it is to to be compared with the glory that we have in
Christ. And so ultimately what matters
is what does God think about me? And if that is the highest
amount of currency there is and that means we are free from
having to look for it anywhere else, you know?
And so that's really good. I love what you had to say.
Thank you I. Love what you had to say too.
Well, it's been a very good episode and a little bit
shorter, but we pray have time to catch up on the other
episodes and catch up also on all the stuff we're doing on
other platforms as well. So I started an Instagram called
Alexander Dion Wilson, which is just a lot of like short videos
that I used to do. Most likely the videos that you
fell in love with that brought you to Aemon podcast.
Just videos like I talk about my life, I talk about something
that God is teaching me. It's like directly looking at
the camera and just short little sound bites that a lot of you
guys fell in love with. And so Alexander Dionne Wilson,
which is my full birth government name for anybody
asking like who's Alexander? That's me.
What's Dionne? Yeah, what's Dionne?
Alexander Dion Wilson So follow that on Instagram.
That'll help us a lot. The goal with that Channel is
again, to give these like short little videos just to you that
like don't belong anywhere else, that they're just personal
little sound bites behind our behind the scenes of our life.
But also I really want to write a book one day for you guys.
And what content creators and publishers are looking for is an
author who has a following, especially on Instagram.
So please help us out if you'd like to have a book out there
one day within the next year or two years, that could be a
really big engine for that. So that's my goal for that.
And then yeah, if you love Eamonn podcast, you can follow
us on Instagram too and see a lot of the clips and just some
fun little like screenshots of parts of the episode that we
liked, which is a really good way for you to share our episode
of people. So if you love something, you
love to share it. And if you love Amen podcasts,
we want to give you an opportunity to share Amen
podcasts with others. It's also a really good resource
for like your college group or your youth group or your church
group or your small group to like get around the TV and turn
on YouTube and watch this together and have used after the
Amen for a discussion time that's already happening all
over the world. And we want to continue to do
that. And we're trying to get more
organized with our playlist and our and our series.
So like everything's neatly discoverable on our YouTube
channel and a playlist. And so the Philippians series is
all on a playlist right now. And so you can go through that
with your church and it's free. Everything is free.
The study guides are free, which you got to remember to help me
to remember to put a study guide on every episode.
I think I missed the last episode.
Our battery just died because I was filming right before this.
And so you can't see us anymore, but we're pretty much done.
And yeah, we love you guys. Thank you for being here.
aimandpodcast.com/donate, if you'd like to support
financially, that keeps everything free and everything
available across all platforms. So we cannot do that without
you. And you guys have been amazing
since day one, so thank you so much.
Thank you guys. Well, we love you guys.
It's always a joy to bring you an episode every week.
And until the next one, go out and be the church.
And don't forget to. Change or charge your battery.
There you go. Hey, Matt.