Work It Out

The fountain of youth, the lost city of gold, the genie's lamp. Throughout history, people have searched for something to transform their everyday lives into something spectacular. Not many of us today are traveling the world looking for a literal fountain of youth, but we're still all searching. We sense, deep down, that there's got to be more to life than what we're living. We feel, in our bones, that even though it's elusive, the good life is out there. Centuries ago, an old man with scars on his back, sitting alone in a prison cell, claimed to have finally found it, the secret to the good life. And lucky for us, he wrote it down in a letter to his friends and to us. That letter is the Book of Philippians. Well, good morning, Summit family, of all our locations, Philippians chapter 2. If you have your Bible, go ahead and open it up, Philippians chapter 2. I said it two weeks ago, I will say it again, go Canes, all right? Let's go. We are going to, I told Hank earlier, we're going to start this morning with a victory in Jesus. We're going to end this day with a victory in the Stanley Cup final. Can I get an amen? And so, what a way to kick off summer, speaking of summer, let me just check in on my parents. I know for a lot of you, this is your first week with your kids out of school, back at home. Y'all doing all right? Everybody with me? I know how quickly it can divulge into just kind of Lord of the Flies at your house. And so, may the peace of God be with you this summer. Summer always cracks me up. I'm thinking this week, we're doing like our annual family beach trip in a few weeks. And it's about that time when you realize like, oh, this is only like two weeks away.

You usually start thinking about getting summer beach body ready. You know what I'm talking about? You think about it way too late. Right? And so, at least for me, what happens is I'm like, all right, I know what we're going to do. Like, we've got this trip coming up. So, I'm going to try to like, just get, let's try to get in shape. And like, Curtis, you're almost a 40-year-old man. You don't need ice cream every single night. And so, I told my wife, like, man, we get locked in, baby. So all of a sudden, for a couple of weeks, at least that first week, we're in the sleep thing. We got the hydration going. We're like, ground beef, rice, chicken, rice, ground beef, rice, chicken, like rinse, like we're doing that. And then usually, after week one, what happens is I go to the grocery store and, you know, for meal prep, right? And I make the mistake of going down the ice cream aisle, and then there she is in all her beauty, Tillamook. And then I'm able to walk. I'm like, no, it's always on the expensive side. I know they got the new flavor, and I walk away. But then as I'm walking away, I see that sign, buy one, oh, get one. I'm like, well, I mean, it'd be bad stewardship, not like I, like I've been crushing it for like a week. I feel like I kind of deserve it. And I mean, my kids are out, like it's for the kids, like my kids love it. And then all of a sudden, I start rationalizing, right? I'm like, well, ice cream comes from cows, cows have milk, milk has protein, like ice

cream is basically protein. Like it fits my macros. And so then by this time, I've sorted it out in my brain how ice cream is worth fitting into the workout plan. The whole thing just goes way side, right? See, here's the thing, like the problem isn't when it comes to this idea, the problem isn't that I don't know what to do. The problem is that knowing the plan and actually becoming the person are two very different things. And see, I think that's where most of us are spiritually too. Like we come to church and we know what Christian obedience should look like. We want to be more patient. We want to stop snapping at our kids. We want to be less anxious or less controlling or less concerned about what other people think. And we want to follow Jesus. We want to be more devoted to prayer. We want to read our Bibles more. We want our faith to show up somewhere besides just our church attendance once a week. And so what happens is we usually end up just kind of bouncing between two really bad options. If you're anything like me, then you just kind of press the gas and you try harder. You make the plan and you set the alarm and you delete the app and you promise yourself, man, this time is going to be different. But then when you fail or you fall, that shame just gets a little bit louder. Well, for others of you, man, you don't even try. You go the opposite direction. You go this other route and you just kind of quietly give up before the race even gets started. And you say something like, man, well, I'm just really glad God's gracious because, you know, we all have our vices and our sins and our struggles.

But what you really mean is I don't think I'm ever actually going to change. See, in Philippians chapter two, what the Apostle Paul is going to do is he writes this letter to the church at Philippi. He's going to give us in some essence, a spiritual workout plan in order to become the type of people that God has called us to be. This workout plan is going to give us a spiritual workout plan. out plan is way better than any plan of just self-improvement or passivity. And so we pick up where our campus pastors left us off last weekend with their incredible messages through the first 11 verses of Philippians. And the first 11 verses in chapter two of Philippians, Paul showed us the obedience of Jesus himself. He holds up this model of Christian obedience. He showed us how Jesus humbled himself by taking on flesh, how Jesus became a servant, how Jesus was obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. And so Paul holds up this example of Jesus, and then he says, look at it with me, Philippians chapter two, verse 12. He says, therefore, my beloved, in light of everything you know about Jesus, in light of everything that you know about what Jesus has done for you, as you've always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, he's saying, hey, church, even if I'm not there, you should act the same way, whether an adult's in the room or not. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. And see from here, for the next few verses, Paul's going to give us some specific practices, showing us what this working out looks like. But actually, before he does that, he's first going to give us two pillars that make obeying these practices possible in the first place. So he's going to give us two pillars, kind of foundations to our spiritual workout plan. And then after that, he's going to give us a handful of practices as we work this thing out. And so we're just going to dive right in here. We're going to look at the pillars first, what make our obedience possible. And the first pillar, believe it or not, is actually our work. It's our work. The way you might say this is we are not passive. We see that in verse 12. And see what Paul here is emphasizing. He's emphasizing the active role that you and I must take in our spiritual lives. That when it comes to our own spiritual growth, we are not passive participants in that. When Paul says, work out your own salvation, the Greek word literally means to accomplish, to produce, or to bring about, which almost sounds antithetical to the very gospel we preach every single week from this pulpit, doesn't it? I mean, it's weird for me to even say it

from this pulpit to say, hey, what Paul's saying is you need to bring about your salvation. You need to produce your salvation. You need to accomplish your salvation by continuous, sustained, ongoing, strenuous effort. And for us to properly understand this, this aspect of salvation, we need to go to the deep end for a little bit, okay? So I'm not going to let you drown, but buckle up. This is where we're going. We're going to look, we're going to take this piece by piece, and we're going to look at what Paul is talking about when it comes to salvation. We're going to take it apart piece by piece. And see the first piece, usually when we are talking about salvation, when we say Jesus has paid it all, there's nothing you can do, what we're talking about is the aspect of salvation called justification. Justification is God declaring the sinner to be righteous through faith alone on the basis of Jesus's righteousness alone. It is a pronouncement whereby we are declared righteous all at once, not because of what we done, but because of what Jesus has done for us. Think about it like this. For instance, if I am accused of a crime and I'm hauled into a courtroom and I'm held before a jury, and that jury finds me innocent, at the end of that, the judge is going to bang the gavel and say, not guilty. And in that moment, in an instant, I am cleared of that accusation. I don't, you know, the judge doesn't hand me like a 10-step program and say, go complete this program, and then you will be innocent. No, when they say not guilty, innocent, he bangs that gavel, I walk out a free man, and in that moment, I am declared innocent. I am justified. In justification, God's righteousness is imputed or credited to us. It is in an instant, God crediting or rescuing us from the penalty of sin and bringing us into new life with Jesus. It's God changing my legal standing. My verdict goes from guilty to paid in full, not because of what I've done, but because what Jesus has done for me. Romans 3, 23, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. In my sin, I am guilty before a holy God, but because of what Jesus has done for me, when I confess with my mouth, believe in my heart, confess him as Savior, my legal standing in that moment, I am justified in an instant, declared righteous, no longer sinner, but saved by his grace. That's why when we do baptism, the shirts literally say, Jesus in my place. Jesus did not just die for you, Jesus died instead of you. He took our punishment so that we could walk free. The way Ephesians 2.8 says it is that by grace you have been saved through faith in Jesus Christ,

and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. In other words, salvation is a gift you receive, not a reward you earn. And when you receive that gift by confessing Jesus as Savior, you are justified, you are declared righteous in an instant. It's not go complete your 10-step spiritual workout plan, come back, and then God will save you. It's no, because God lavished his love on you in Christ, now you can walk for it. I learned early on, justified, think about it, it's God makes it just as if I'd never sinned. That when I stand before God, my justification is just as if I'd never sinned. And see, while salvation is a gift we receive, salvation also becomes a life you live. Paul says we are to work out this salvation. This is the aspect of salvation that we call sanctification. If justification is a one-time declaration over my life, sanctification then becomes this lifelong process whereby God is molding me to look more and more like Jesus every single day. The English word sanctify or sanctification is built on the Latin word sanctus, which literally means holy. So anytime you read in the New Testament, the word sanctify, it's talking about growing in holiness. Or maybe just to kind of wrap this all up, you could say it like this.

Justification is God saving me from the penalty of sin and declaring me righteous, whereby sanctification is God saving me from the power of sin over my life as I grow into that righteousness. In justification, God places the crown of salvation over my head, but then in sanctification, I grow into that crown. In sanctification, God is progressively changing my life to look more and more like Jesus over time. And that process begins the day, the instant you place your faith in Jesus and goes on until he comes back or until the day you die. You are living out, you are working out what God has already declared over you in Christ. And I know that's kind of a weighty theological truth, but think about it like this. Who here has ever had some type of surgery that required physical therapy afterwards? Anybody? Okay, a bunch of people. Y'all need to be safer at the Summit Church. So let's say you needed some knee surgery that you couldn't fix yourself. And so you got to go to a surgeon, you got to go to a doc, right? And what do you contribute to that surgery? The only thing you contribute is the thing broken that needs to be fixed, right? And so let's say you go and doc performs the surgery

and afterwards you're in the post-op and he comes to say, hey, successful surgery. Everything went well. Here's what I need you to do now to continue to regain your health. I need you to go to physical therapy. Let's say in that moment, you were like, no, no, no, doc. See, I believe in grace. I'm not one of those legalistic physical therapist type. I don't need to earn my recovery. I don't believe in that. Like if you responded like that, you'd be undermining the actual purpose of the surgery. In a lot of ways, you would be dishonoring the surgeon themself. No, you need to work out the surgery by performing physical therapy. PT doesn't perform the surgery. The therapy just works out the healing that the surgery made possible in the first place. That's sanctification. We are not working for salvation. We are working out the salvation that Jesus has already completed in us. And again, I know if you've been coming to this church for a while, it's at this point you're saying, man, I've heard this church say that there's absolutely nothing I can do to save myself. Yes, amen, double stamp that.

And so you're saying, but if I'm working, isn't that me contributing to my salvation? And I would answer by saying to your sanctification, yes. But to your justification, absolutely not. You contribute nothing to your legal standing before God. The only thing you contribute to your legal standing before a holy God is sin. That's it. There's nothing you can do to get your salvation started. There's nothing you can do to keep it going. And there's absolutely nothing you can do to finish it because if it rested on us, if our salvation rested on us, we would fail every time. You know how I know that? Because that's what the Bible says. And actually, this is a verse that a lot of y'all love. You wake up to it. It's on your coffee mug. It's got like a rainbow and you love this verse, right? Here's how I know. Scripture says, his mercies are new every morning. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Aren't they? Man, it's beautiful. The birds are chirping, sun is shining. His mercies are new. Like that's how you read that. Like, thank God. You know how I read that? I need his mercies new every single morning

because every single day I jack the whole thing up. So I wake up and I'm like, thank God. God, your mercies are new because if it rested on me, this whole thing would go out the window. It's not God started it, we finish it. No, we are simply working out what he has already put in. Nobody says it better than Dallas Willard. Dallas Willard said this. He said, grace is not opposed to effort. It's opposed to earning. We don't work for God's acceptance. We work out in sanctification, in Christ, because we've already received salvation. Y'all, as Christians, we play with house money. We've already got it, so now we can work it out. And we work it out, Paul says, with fear and trembling. Now those terms, what they should do is they convey a sense of reverence and awe toward a holy God. Not a paralyzing fear, but a recognition of God's holiness that should underscore the seriousness with which we should approach our spiritual lives. And so here's the question. I'm just gonna kind of pepper you with application questions throughout this thing. When it comes to this, the question is, do you look more like Jesus today than you did a year ago? Have you grown in holiness at all since the day you say you got saved? My pastoral concern is that there's so many of you

that five years ago, you confessed Jesus as Savior, you got baptized, praise God, but you've been a Christian for five years, but you still only look like a one-year-old Christian because you have not been working out your salvation. That's not condemnation. I wanna call you up into that. If you're serious about following Jesus, you have to be serious about holiness and sanctification. And so the first pillar is our work and realizing we are not passive when it comes to this whole spiritual growth thing. But here's the second pillar, and even more important than the first, the second pillar is God's work, God's work. And here's how we might say that one. Not only are we not passive, but because God works, we are not powerless. Even with all that, as we work out our salvation, God, Paul wants to make sure we know, is still the primary agent in our salvation and our sanctification. And so look at verse 13. Paul says, even as you work this thing out, you're not passive, know that it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Now, to will means that God works in our desires, to work means that God works in our obedience, and for his good pleasure means that God even works

in the direction that our hearts are aimed. Because see, if it's only me, if it's only I that work, I'm either gonna become really proud and boastful in my works or I'm gonna get exhausted and just burnt out. But if I only let go and let God, I'm just gonna become passive and lazy and apathetic in my spiritual life. But see, if it's God that works in me, now I can work this thing out in hope. Because in other words, we are not passive. As we work out, we are also not powerless. God does not just tell us what to do. He enters into our hearts in the form of the Holy Spirit. And now he changes what I want to do and then empowers me to do it. The early church father, Augustine, wrote about his conversion in his famous book, The Confessions. And reflecting on his own salvation, he wrote this little humble prayer that says this. It said, Lord, command what you will and give what you command. What he's saying is that whatever God commands us to do comes with the power and the motivation to do it. Whatever God requires, God provides. Y'all, God is not a cheerleader who just stands off to the side of your life, yelling loudly for you to try harder and run faster and jump higher. On the other hand, he's not just simply a coach

who kind of gives you instructions and tells you what play to run. But yes, God cheers you on. Yes, God gives you an instruction manual, but he does so much more. When you confess Jesus as Savior, the Holy Spirit comes and enters into your heart. He takes over your mind and your soul and your strength, and he empowers you to live out the very things that he commands, willing and working in you for his good pleasure. I know that because Galatians 20 speaks of Christ living in me. Romans 8, verse 11 assures us that the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead lives in you. Philippians 1, verse 6 says that he who began a good work in you is gonna bring that good work to completion in the day of Christ Jesus. This is the pattern of our salvation. God gives the salvation. God gives the desire. God gives the power. We work it all out in God-enabled obedience. And as we do that, all the glory goes back to him. Y'all, the Christian life is not a rowboat where everything depends on how hard you pull. On the flip side, it's not a lazy river. We just float along with no effort and a cold drink and say, by grace, I've been saved. I ain't got to do anything.

No, it's more like sailing where we raise our sails, we open our Bibles, we obey, we repent, we gather, we serve, we confess sin, we grow in holiness, but we know that God is the one who sends the wind and supplies the power and makes us go. We cannot create the wind, but what we can do is raise the sail of obedience. That's our work to the wind of God's grace. That's his work. And so those are the two pillars that our salvation kind of rests on, those two aspects. And so now the obvious question at this point is, okay, Paul, how do I work out this salvation? Like, what does that look like practically in my day-to-day life? And so the next few verses, they're not a comprehensive list, but in verses 14 through 18, Paul shows us how Christian growth becomes visible in five practices. Think about this, in our spirit, these are the foundations for our workout plan. Now, these are kind of the sets and the reps and the exercises we're gonna do as we work this thing out, all right? That's why I titled this message, Work It Out, which all week, every time I've read it, I've been like, work it out, work it out, which I'm not, it's walk it out, but it's a whole thing. But anyways, welcome to my brain, ladies and gentlemen.

And so now, Paul gives us practices to show us what this obedience looks like working this thing out. Here's our first practice as we work it out. It's the practice of gratitude, gratitude. And this one isn't new, is it? So here's how we might say this. We kill the complaining, we kill it. And I know some at church, we're good Christians, right? We don't complain, do we? No, we just vent. We share prayer requests. I'm calling you, because I just need to get this off my chest. I don't want a root of bitterness to take heart, so let me just, like, that's what we do, right? We over-spiritualize it. And then we over-spiritualize it, and then we go read verse 14, where Paul says, hey, do some things without grumbling or disputing. Oh, y'all, all, don't like that word. Greek word for all things means all things. So do all things means do everything. Some of y'all, do er-thing, okay? Do everything without grumbling, without complaining, without arguing, or without disputing. And now, let me just caveat this whole thing that I'm about to say, because I know some of you right now are gonna hit me with, well,

what about, insert my situation, right? I wanna, there's absolutely a time to lament. There's absolutely a time to weep. There's absolutely a time to give tough critiques or hard feedback. Like, for instance, if you're being harassed at work, you need to tell HR, that's not complaining. If your spouse or your friend has hurt you, you need to tell them that. That's not complaining, that's confronting in truth. So just know, frame everything with that caveat that I'm about to say. What Paul is talking about is a type of grumbling that serves as an ingratitude toward God. It takes us back to the very first message in this entire series that Pastor JD preached, where he showed us that ingratitude was actually at the heart of the very first original sin. And he showed us that complaining is ultimately questioning God's goodness and wisdom in our lives. Complaining is literally murmuring against God. And British pastor, Charles Spurgeon, used to say that a murmuring spirit is the devil's music. Yo, he loves to worship to our complaining. And here's the thing, man, this seems so basic, but you realize doing things without complaining is so incredibly counter-cultural. I mean, not, like grumbling. Grumbling is literally our native language today, isn't it? Just, y'all, like, just the Andresco family,

just, y'all can polish your halos, pray for the Andresco family, because this is what happens in our household. I kid you not, Thursday, we have Thursday night service here at Capitol Hills. Thursday, I'm getting ready to come up and to service and preach. And my wife said, hey, I'm really proud of you. I said, for what? And she said, I haven't heard you complain about your sermon one time. And what she means is usually, if you guys have ever created anything or built anything, you know that in kind of the process, there's usually like, you have this vision of what you want it to be, and you're like, this is gonna be awesome. And then you actually start, and you get about halfway, and you're like, this is the worst thing I've ever created in my entire life. And it's usually at that point that I'm like, this is gonna be the worst sermon I've ever preached. And then I come out the other end, and I'm like, okay, just preach God's word. It doesn't return void. Let God use me. And I didn't do that this week. My wife said, I just haven't heard you say that. I'm really proud of you. And I was like, she goes, why haven't you said it?

And I was like, because I'm preaching on not complaining. And so I'm trying not to complain. And the way I said it, she goes, are you complaining about not complaining? And then I went, I know. And she goes, was that like a audible grumble? And I was like, I'm literally doing the thing that I'm preaching against. Like what Paul is doing here is drawing a parallel between how we, you and I act today and how the Israelites, God's people, acted back in the wilderness. As he's writing this letter to the church at Philippi, they would have drawn upon that, that they would have been thinking, complaining, don't grumble. don't argue, like don't do that stuff. They would have been thinking Exodus 16, when God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, and then in Exodus 16, the whole congregation is grumbling, that's the word Exodus uses, against Moses. When they say, look, Exodus 16, three, they say, like, think about this, 430 years in slavery in Egypt, God frees them from that. Look what they say. Moses, would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots, I don't even know what a meat pot is, but I want one, and ate bread to the full. For you, Moses, have brought us out into this wilderness

to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Wrap your mind around this. 430 years in slavery in Egypt, God rescues them from slavery, splits the sea, crushes Pharaoh, feeds them with bread that's literally falling from heaven, and now they've been in the wilderness barely a month, and they're like, pfft. Honestly, Egypt's food was a whole lot better than this, Moses. Like, what are we doing? Because see, this is what grumbling does. Grumbling and complaining edits our memory until slavery begins to look better than salvation. How many things do we complain about today that are the very things we were praying about a year ago? And what Paul says is, as children of God, we can't let that complaining, grumbling spirit get into the church. That if God is working in us, man, it should show up not just in our obedience, but also in an attitude of gratitude that our spirit, that our motives, that we should want to do the things that God has called us to. And so here's the question. Where has complaining become so normal in your life that you know it's not going to be the way you want it to be? That you no longer recognize it as disrespect toward God? Can't say amen, better say ouch. This is an ouch for me.

But see, the opposite of grumbling is gratitude. And when you actually refuse to complain, the awesome part is, is there's a promise attached to it. Look at verse 15. Paul says, do all things without grumbling that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. And so here's our second practice. Our second practice is integrity. Integrity. The way we might say that is we got to mind the gap. Told you guys before, integrity comes from the root word integr, meaning whole, not two separate things, but whole. So we mind the gap. If you've ever ridden the subway in London, you've seen this written, you've heard it come over, that when the subway doors open, this voice comes over and says, mind the gap, right? And it's because essentially what they're saying is, hey, don't fall into that gap between the platform and when you actually get on the train, mind the gap. And what Paul here is he's saying the same thing. He says, as followers of Jesus, we have to take notice of the distance between what we confess and how we live. In other words, we got to mind the gap because when that gap between our words and our lives gets too wide, what happens is that people trip over it.

See, when Paul says, be blameless, innocent, without blemish, he's not calling for sinless perfection, but he is calling for a visible consistency between what we say and how we live. Because if we don't, man, people are gonna trip over that gap. Probably the greatest cause of atheism today is Christians who say that Jesus is Lord with their lips, but then deny him by their lifestyle. You know, it's not Christians who struggle, it's Christians who pretend. Go ask anybody that's a non-believer of Jesus, say, what's one of your top three complaints about Christians? The word hypocrite is gonna pop up in that. And so here's the question. Where is the gap between what you confess and how you live? Where's the gap between what you confess and how you live? And for what it's worth, this is a question that is probably best answered, not by you, but by those around you. They'll tell you real fast. There's a reason it's called a blind spot. You can't see it, everybody else can. And see, when you mine the gap, look what Paul says. He says, when you mine this gap, what happens is you become blameless children of God, among whom you shine as lights in the world, this world that is a crooked and twisted generation. Again, as Paul is using this language,

the church at Philippi would have hearkened their minds back to the book of Deuteronomy because shining like stars, as Paul flipping some of the language used back in Deuteronomy 32, five, where Israel, God's people, as they are grumbling against Moses is described themselves as a crooked and twisted generation. generation, now here in Philippians 2, Paul's saying, you have been bought by the blood of Christ. And so church, you are to shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. He's saying just as stars stand out in the dark sky, the church of Jesus Christ is called to be a distinct witness to a dark and broken culture. And so that's our third practice. It's the practice of being a witness, of being a witness. And I had kind of the subtitle for this one labeled a lot kinder than I was like, you know what? Darn it. I've been preaching here 10 years. I can say it. This is the practice of shining by shutting up. All right, and that's biblical. If you don't like this one's actually hilarious to me because the Apostle Paul is like, all right at this point you want to work out your salvation. You want to shine as lights in a dark world. You want your friends to know Jesus. He says you want your family, your friends, your workplace,

your school, your spouse to know Jesus. According to the Apostle Paul, one of the things that you can do to be different and shine in a crooked twisted watching generation is to simply shut up and not complain when everybody else is complaining. It's not to, you know, tell people honk if you love Jesus. It's not to leave a little gospel tract in place of a tip. It's not wearing overly aggressive Christian t-shirts that say like this blood's for you. Like it's none of that. Okay, some of you are confusing witness with weirdness. You just need to stop like cut this out. No, no, it all goes back to verse 14. He says you want to shine as lights in a dark world. Then he says when everybody else is complaining because the service is slow or because the food came out wrong or because your flight got delayed or because your kid just spilled something when you said watch your elbow move your cup or you're going to spill that and then they do it anyways or kids when your parents ask you to do another chore or forget like not even another chore when they ask you to do the first chore just do it like please like when they do that or when the sermon goes really long. Paul says one of the most evangelistic things you can do is to keep our mouths shut because in a constant grumbling and complaining world gratitude glows. He says not complaining is so countercultural. It will literally make you shine. You will stick out like a sore thumb. I mean, can y'all just imagine what Paul was like in prison?

He was probably insufferable to the people with him because they're like Paul. This is terrible. Like the food is terrible. The AC doesn't work. These chains hurt my wrist. Everybody stinks and Paul's over there. He's like and I will rejoice. You're like Paul, what is wrong with you? Why are you the way that you are? And he's like so glad you asked. Let me tell you about Jesus. This is what he does. But yeah, you need to share your faith. You need to learn to share your faith. You need to learn how to walk somebody into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Like that is all to be a witness. You need to open your mouth and tell people about Jesus. But also you need to realize that sometimes your greatest witness is actually what you don't say. I mean, I experienced this. I've told you guys early on when we moved here. I worked at Verizon for a long time. There's this girl named Jen that I worked with for years. I mean, I was always inviting Jen to church, always trying to share Jesus with her and which is great. Praise God. Jen became a Christian because about two and a half years after working with her, she's not given her life to Christ.

My wife decides to take her out to coffee one time, one time and Jen gets saved. And I'm like, what the heck? Like I've been sharing with you for two and a half years, which I mean, praise God, Jen's a believer. But anyways, before she was a follower of Jesus, I'll never forget. I just got done with a customer and I don't remember what happened. Customer walks out and I'm like just complaining to Jen about the customer and I will never forget these words. Jen said, man, you sure do complain a lot for somebody who's trying to tell me where to find joy. Y'all, I don't care how eloquent my gospel presentation is. I don't care how good of a sermon I preach. If I constantly complain, that is the loudest sermon anybody's ever going to hear from me. Where is your complaining actually dimming your witness for Jesus Christ? Come find joy and life and peace and relief from your anxiety. But loud, let me complain about all the things in my life. Where's your complaining dimming your witness? That's number three. Here's number four. Plain stated, it's the practice of Bible. You know, work out your salvation, man. We are people that hold fast to the word of God. As we shine, Paul says, verse 16, holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ, I may be proud that

I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Paul says you want to shine in this crooked and twisted generation. We do it by holding fast to the words of life. That phrase can mean we both hold tightly to the word ourselves and we hold it out to others. We cling to the Bible with everything we have, and then we hold it out for others. Because here's the thing, you cannot shine as light if you are not clinging to the word that gives light. Psalm 119, 105, you all know it. The word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. What that means is that the Bible doesn't just simply give me information. No, when it comes to my life, the Bible provides illumination. I mean, it tells me about me. It tells me who I am. It shows me where God is leading me. It tells me what's true when my feelings are louder than my faith. It brings light to those parts of my life. It's what Psalm 19 is all about. The psalmist writes about the words of God. He says, you wanna know how to revive your soul? You do it through the word. You wanna know how God makes you wise in this world that's so confusing? He does it through his word. You feel like your quiet times have been cold

and you're just not feeling God lately? How does God put joy back in your heart? Psalm 19 says he does it through his word. So Paul says, as we're working this thing out, you gotta hold fast to the word. Because listen, think about it in the form of working out. Neglecting the word while claiming you want to grow spiritually is like paying for a gym membership to get in shape, but then you never actually step foot in the gym. This whole idea of working out, you can put the perfect plan together, but nobody gets in shape off cotton candy and Coca-Cola, do they? Nobody's like, hey, summer's around the corner, summer body, hand me the Skittles, give me my phone, I wanna watch a bunch of fitness reels. Yet that's exactly how most of us treat our spiritual growth. Y'all, we feed our souls with clips and quotes and podcasts and reels and Christian-ish inspiration. And then we wonder why we have no strength or endurance when temptation hits or suffering comes or obedience gets costly. On the other hand, what Jesus says is that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. You wanna know where we find the words that come from the mouth of God? We find them in this book.

Here's the translation, the Curtis translation. Your soul needs actual food to grow. A verse on Instagram is great, but that's just a snack. A sermon clip is just a snack. A podcast is helpful, but that is just a snack. And the reality is you and I cannot snack our way into spiritual maturity. We live, we hold fast, and we feast on the words of God. And let me tell you what I have seen consistently for over two decades is that I can usually tell how closely somebody is walking with Jesus by how seriously they take his word. You cannot, you will not be deeply shaped by Jesus if you are neglecting the words of Jesus. And so here's the question. What does your time in the word reveal about how seriously you take Jesus and his words? I feel like I say this every single time I'm up here. If you don't know where to start, go to the App Store, Summit Church, download it, create a login. When it pops up, first thing that pops up is something called Daily Revival, literally a daily reading plan we've put together for you. Old Testament, New Testament, gives you even verses to pray through. We're trying to like just put this right in front of you. Go download it. And with those four, there's one last practice that Paul gives us for this workout plan. He says, yeah, you work out your own salvation,

but know that you can't work out alone. And so the fifth practice is the practice of community. It's community. The way we could say this one is we gotta learn to finish together. Verse 17, 18, Paul says, even if I'm to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I'm glad and rejoice with you all, Philippians. He's saying, even if this whole jail thing ends in me dying, I'm fine with that because it showed, man, I poured myself out for your faith. And likewise, he says, you also should be glad and rejoice with me. Again, Paul's drawing on Old Testament imagery that they would have known a drink offering in the Old Testament was wine poured out onto the altar, which would complete a sacrifice with this aroma that would rise to God. And Paul says, that's what my life has been. Philippians, my life, my time, my comfort, my strength, my reputation, my freedom has all been poured out so that you might know Christ and keep growing in Christ. And he says, and it was all worth it. Just think about that. Paul's in chains and he's not talking about what the Philippians can do for him. He's talking about what he's willing to sacrifice and be poured out for them.

That is the picture of biblical community. Biblical community ain't just the people you sit with once a week at church. It's not the people you gather with once a month at your small group. Those are all good and great. It's not the person you keep saying, let's grab coffee or lunch to it and you never actually do it. It's not Christian community. We talk about this all the time around here because it's so important. But man, you realize people don't normally drift away from Jesus and stop in the spiritual workout plan because they don't know enough Bible verses or because they have malicious or bad motives. Usually you want to grow, but you end up drifting because you're isolated or unchallenged or unknown or unprotected. And what you fail to remember is that you have an enemy who wants to steal and kill and destroy. And you know the truth that the enemy always picks off the one that strayed away from the pack. And so I talked about this at the men's conference, but if you want to build community, you got to build what Matt Chandler calls your King's table. Man, you got to build this table. And what he means is he kind of gets this idea from King David. And there was at least three dudes in David's life

that we all need in our lives. The first dude was Joab, that was David's general. This was the dude that would fight for David. Like you realize in this thing called the Christian life, you need somebody that's going to fight for you. You need somebody that's going to go to war. Like you need some brothers that are like half saved. You know what I'm saying? Like you need somebody you can call up at like 2 a.m. and they don't even ask questions. They just show up. They're like, I'm there. Just tell me where to be. Like you need somebody like that in your life. And not only do you need a Joab, man, you need a Jonathan. Jonathan was David's best friend. Jonathan was the lover of David's soul. He knew him completely and yet loved him deeply. All of his sins, his scars, his secrets, and Jonathan still loved him. Jonathan was the dude who knew David well enough to know when he was off. You need somebody that has access to the real you, not just the highlight real version of you. You need a Joab, you need a Jonathan. And lastly, you need a Nathan. Nathan was the prophet. Nathan was the dude willing to rebuke King David. You need somebody in your life that is going to hold your feet to the fire,

help you mine the gap. Somebody who is so utterly unimpressed with you that they're willing to grab you by the scruff of the neck and say, hey bro, you're being an idiot. Like the way you spoke to your wife at dinner last night was not okay. And so not only do you need to apologize and ask for her forgiveness, you need to call everybody that was at that dinner and apologize to them and ask for their forgiveness. You need somebody in your life that says, hey sister, we're not gonna gossip about her like that. That ain't a prayer request, that's gossip. We're not gonna do that. And see, listen, wherever you tend to resist accountability the most is likely where you need it the most. Because you cannot be the best version of yourself by yourself. Proverbs 13, 20 says, whoever walks with the wise is gonna become wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. In other words, the people you walk with will shape the person you become. You cannot become a great man or woman of God unless you are in community with other men and women of God. Yes, we work out our own salvation, but you do not work it out alone. Where are you trying to grow spiritually while living in isolation?

Like who is in your workout group? Who's at your King's table? Whose faith are you being poured out for? Because that's the Christian life. I mean, God saves us, we work it out together, we pour ourselves out together, we rejoice together, and by God's grace, we finish together. And so let's take it back to all the way where we started. Again, the problem isn't that we don't know the plan. I've heard the five things I gave you, you're like, I've heard those a thousand times. The problem is that knowing the plan and becoming the person are two very different things. But that's also why Philippians chapter two is such good news. Because what Paul does, he doesn't just hand us the spiritual workout plan and say, hey, good luck, try harder, higher weight, more reps, like he doesn't say any of that. On the other hand, he also doesn't hand us a plan and say, hey, you're never gonna be able to come this, never gonna be able to do this, you're never gonna be able to come this, never gonna be able to do this, you might as well just give up. No, before Paul ever tells us how to work out our salvation, he reminds us that salvation is something Jesus has already worked and accomplished for us.

He reminds us that Jesus already humbled himself, that Jesus already obeyed perfectly on our behalf, and that if you are in Christ, God has already changed your verdict from guilty to innocent and paid in full, and now the Holy Spirit lives inside of you, and so you and I are to work out what God has put in. We raise our sails, we kill the complaining, we mine the gap, y'all, we shut up and shine, we hold fast to the word, we build a king's table, and we pour ourselves out for somebody else's faith because we are not passive, nor are we powerless, and your life is not pointless. You do not just have to settle for knowing the plan, but by the power at work within you, you can become the person as you work out your salvation, knowing that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ Jesus. And so, Summit family, let's work it out, amen? Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Hey, at all of our locations, let's stand. Let's work this thing out by worshiping together.