Philippians 2:12-18
Work Out What God Works In
12Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
13For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.
14Do everything without complaining or arguing,
15so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world
16as you hold forth the word of life, in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor in vain.
17But even if I am being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you.
18So you too should be glad and rejoice with me.
Berean Standard Bible
Paul has just taken them through Christ going all the way down to a cross and being lifted all the way up. Now he tells them what that has to do with a Tuesday. He begins by saying they have done well: they obeyed while he was with them, and they have gone on obeying since he left. The compliment comes before the request rather than after it. Then comes the sentence people trip over.
continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.
Working something out is not the same as working for it. You work out a knot in a rope, or a stiff shoulder in the morning until it moves the way it should. Whatever is being worked on is there already, and the job is getting it into the corners: into how the money gets spent, into what the evening sounds like when everyone is tired and nobody has much left to give.
The next sentence goes straight in after it.
For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.
They work it out and God works it in. He sets those two down one sentence apart, gives no account of how they fit together, and carries on, and a family can hold them the way he held them instead of picking a side. God is at work on what they want, his sentence says, and not only on what they manage to do.
The plainest instruction in the letter comes next. In most houses it is also the hardest.
Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and perverse generation, in which you shine as lights in the world
Everything is a large word and he does not narrow it. Not only the big things, not only the unfair things, all of it, down to the weather and the washing up. Then he attaches a result to it that is out of all proportion to the size of the instruction. A household stops grumbling, and it starts giving off light in a generation that has gone crooked.
He finishes by turning to himself, and the picture he reaches for comes off the altar. Their faith is the sacrifice. He is the drink offering poured out on it, and he writes this as a man who may not walk out of prison. What he says about that is that he is glad, and then he asks them to be glad with him.
How We Know
Verse 14 asks for the opposite of what Israel did in the wilderness, and the wilderness account names it plainly. Exodus 16:2 has the whole congregation of Israel grumbling against Moses and Aaron in the desert, and Numbers 14:2 has all the Israelites grumbling against Moses and Aaron again.
Exodus 16:8 goes further and says their grumblings were not against Moses but against the LORD.
Verse 15 sits in the same world. Israel came out of Egypt and complained its way across a wilderness. Paul asks this church to do the opposite in front of a watching generation.
Questions
1 What is the difference between working for something and working it out?
AnswerYou work for a thing you do not have yet. You work out a knot that is already in the rope, or a stiff joint that is already yours. Paul is talking about getting something they already have into the corners of an ordinary life.
2 Paul says they are the ones working it out. Who else does he say is at work?
AnswerGod, and in them rather than around them. He is at work on their wanting as well as their doing. Paul sets that beside their own effort, one sentence apart, and never explains how the two fit together.
3 What is the last thing anybody here complained about? Paul says do everything without complaining or arguing, so how big is that word everything?
AnswerBigger than we would like. Not only the hard things, not only the unfair things, all of it. And the result he attaches is out of proportion to the instruction: stop grumbling, and you shine like lights in a crooked generation.
4 Paul talks about being poured out. What picture is he using?
AnswerThe drink offering poured out on somebody else's sacrifice. Their faith is the sacrifice and he is the offering emptied onto it, which is a way of saying his own life may run out here. He calls himself glad about it and asks them to be glad with him.
What This Means for Us
For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose. That sentence stands one line away from the plainest instruction in the letter, and it is the reason the instruction is not a test. God is already at work on what this family wants, and not only on what it manages to do.
So do everything without complaining or arguing is not a standard we are being measured against. It is a description of what God is producing in people he has taken on, and the working out is us getting it into the corners. He is not asking anybody to pretend things are fine either. Paul is in prison and says plainly that people mean to add to his distress, so telling the truth about something hard is a different matter.
What is left over is the running commentary. The sigh in the doorway, the muttering on the way to the sink. Try one day without any of it, and try it as somebody God is already working on rather than somebody hoping to earn a verdict, saying the true hard things out loud and letting the rest go unsaid.
Prayer
Father, we complain like people who have been badly treated by a world we do not belong to. Forgive us. Work in us until we want the right things, and then work those things out through us. Make this house quieter in the good way. Amen.