That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.   Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Php 2:10-13 

December 21, 2022

Work Out Your Own Salvation

Shoring up our salvation is a theme that will run throughout this message; but because we are celebrating Christmas, I wanted to reflect on the reason why we can celebrate our redemption.  In the Philippians verse above, Apostle Paul is opening his heart to the Church at Philippi.  The congregation was found to be at odds with one another and Apostle Paul wanted to remind them of the need to be of the same mind in the Savior and standing fast in the same spirit.  That unity of mind and spirit would be the right message for the church at this hour because we are suffering from division and being at odds with one another as well.

Paul’s message goes on to tell them how to accomplish the harmony needed in church fellowship.  It would be through realizing Jesus’ position as high and lifted and our position in humility at his feet working out our salvation.  Paul seems to emphasize that our time would be better spent making sure we have obeyed Christ and our own salvation is sure.  Too often we are busy in other people’s business rather than making sure our own soul is sure.  If we work on the person we should be, our interactions with each other would work out better and we would have the assurance and confidence that he which have done a good work is us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (1:6).   

Christ Works in Us

Paul taught in Gal. 5:15 that if we bite and devour one another, we would be consumed by one another, but the final verse of our topic scripture tells us the way we will be able to get along: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. (Php 2:13). If God is in us directing us toward his good pleasure, how can we go wrong while he is in control?  Of course, it means that we would have to be attentive to his voice and submit to his will.  Paul tells the people to do all things without murmuring and dispute.  James explained in Jas. 3:8, the challenges of taming the tongue and how it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.     

Our Salvation Worked Out in Life

Many people believe that their salvation is accomplished through their initial confession of Christ as Lord, but we note here in Paul’s admonishment to the Philippian saints that they must work out their salvation with fear and trembling and that God is working in them to fulfill that work.  That suggests to us that between our new birth and death, we must be deliberate about completing the work of our salvation and that we must continue pressing toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (Php. 3:13). 

Nelson Mandela was known to have spent 27 years in prison because of his protest of the apartheid system of South Africa where the majority black citizens were suppressed by white leaders.  Before entering the prison, Mandela was a charismatic, boastful lawyer, a keen boxer and a ladies’ man. The warden met incoming prisoners with this greeting: “This is the island.  Here you will die.”  Mandela entered as a brash, head strong young man; but when asked about his experience at the conclusion of 27 years, his response was that he had “matured.” 

Our Three-Part Being

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. 1Th 5:23-24   

It is assuring to know that God will do His part in making a change in us if only we would do our part.  Paul reminded the church: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure (Php 2:13).”  Mandela endured the hardship of prison life, but it worked out for his good, not harm.  

Coming to Jesus means that we acknowledge our sin nature and agree to work with God as He works on us.  Sometimes we still struggle with our part of the sanctification process because our flesh is accustomed to living a certain way and the born-again experience means our spirit man desires to please God.  The soul man must learn to navigate a walk of obedience. We all have had a past experience where the enemy had control of our life and sought to destroy our potential for success.

Our Past Challenges Our Future

This message came about after watching an interview of Will Smith by Trevor Noah on his show after the famous Academy Award night “slap.”  While discussing Will’s latest movie, “Emancipation,” they went on to talk about the slap and his life in general.  Will had apologized several times already for the incident. Trevor offered how Will had lived his entire life in public and how going to the Academy Awards was like our going to a cookout.  It all seemed to fall into place for me as I heard that Will, as a youth, had seen his father hit his mother. 

There are many things that children see in their home that they have no ability to do anything about even though they may experience the same fight or flight trauma as adults.  Those feelings, however, must be suppressed because they are only children and not capable of adult responses.  Those emotions remain in the memory banks, psychic and emotions.  We often do not know why we respond the way we do, but we may operate on past emotions.  The Spirit of God has helped me to revisit some childhood trauma of the past and worked out the emotional distress.  So, I wondered if the child, Will Smith, finally responded to the way he felt as a little boy seeing someone hurt his mother, but now was able to stand up and respond to the aggressor.  The audience responded that it was wrong to behave in such a manner in public, at the Academy Awards, and because of the rules of the Academy.  All of that is sound reasoning, but he was in his natural environment living his authentic emotions in a way some past social setting might have called honorable.  I am not judging whether the slap was right or wrong, just that it happened and reflecting on perhaps what it could mean.

Responding to Our Past

The trauma of our past life does not go anywhere until we confront and reconcile it.  The little child that was abused is waiting for someone to come and heal him because he does not know how to deal with what happened.  That damaged little child stays right there waiting for help.  Some people find a way to go on with what some call a dual personality, where they live as someone else because they cannot deal with the person who had that experience.  The healthier mind might find a way to reconcile with the past and go on with life and yet the damage may not have healed. 

In the African American experience, particularly with older people, normal healthy family lives were hindered because of the oppression of slavery, Jim Crow and discrimination. Blacks have always had to compensate for what was missing in the family and yet make life work as best as possible because oppression of black people was a continuous abuse of the psychic of blacks without a time of healing.  When black people showed signs of progress, the white community would always rise in some racist rant or performance to force them back where they were.  It has always served as a type of economic oppression with spiritual and mental abuse.  It is the same treatment used by abusive husbands on their wives to keep them in a submissive position.  No person should have to live like that.

Breaking the Chain of Bondage

People were living bound in captivity when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. God had looked on the plight of His children and had pity on them.  He sent Jesus to set them free.  Jesus trained up and empowered his disciples to live as free men and to train up others in the same liberty.  The enemy rose up a tyrant named, Saul of Tarsus, who had a religious zeal to go about town hauling believers into prisons for their faith in Christ. We see a similar zeal in the Republican party today who have reenergized a racial hatred against black people to keep them from their God ordained liberties.  The same Jesus that defied Saul’s terror and oppression of the Christian Jews is the same Jesus that stands up against racial prejudice hindering black people from enjoying their Christian inheritance and rights. God is the one who fights those that war against His people.  Saul was confronted and his heart turned towards Christ.  He became known as Apostle Paul, dedicated to converting souls to Christ and defending the name of Jesus against heresy and false teachers.

A Savior for Everyone

Regardless of who you are or where you find yourself today, whether as a good person or guilty of doing wrong like Saul of Tarsus: Jesus came to deliver you from the darkness that hinders your peace, joy and prosperity.  God has great love for you right where you are, like you are; but He loves you too much to leave you in darkness.  Each of us have things in our past or present that stands in the way of our joy in the Lord.  God gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to meet you at the point of your darkness on your Damascus Road journey and to turn your life around toward the light.

While you walk with Jesus, he will bring internal healing by peeling back every layer of bad memories, hurt and pain that plagued your life to bring forth liberty.  Jesus said: “., If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it (Mt. 16: 24-25).”  If you are willing to leave your old life behind, Jesus has a new one for you.  Jesus chose to carry the cross His Father had given Him.  That was His mission in life and the results was accomplishing the goal of redeeming mankind, receiving His Father’s approval, and ascending back to the right hand of the Father. 

Working out our salvation means following through with what God called us to do.  That obedience brings victory over all the devil’s darkness and the joy of a new life in Christ.  All of us working toward and fulfilling our work for God like the first apostles did, will make our individual life and the world better.  Some people do not believe because they cannot see God, but He is the Omnipotent and Omniscient Spirit that moves throughout the universe without the control of man. He motivates and empowers man to do His will.  When we submit to what He says and fulfill the role He gave us, that is what makes the world better for all of us.  So do not compromise, give up to the enemy, or give in; but rather finish your course with joy.

Our Choice Determines Our Destiny

Many people have wondered about the story of Babylon in the Book of Revelations.  Some have said that America is Babylon.  As I have studied it out, I have come to the same conclusion.  America has the same type of patterns as Babylon in scriptures.  She is in the process of destroying herself and those around her like some previous nations.  Germany was a nation with a similar type of cancerous behavior, but Germany was subdued by the nations around her.  America seems too strong for her neighbor’s challenge, so God, Himself, must bring America back to praying knees.  We all play a role in the destiny of this nation.

The nation of America is much like humans who get so caught up in pride that they believe they are invincible until God must remind them who is the Real God.  We have seen it before.  God loved Jerusalem, its people and the beautiful temple; but they were all destroyed by the enemy because of sin. God abhors wickedness and it must be destroyed by His righteousness and justice.  The only hope is repentance, which all men are required to do to be saved.  The heathen nation of Nineveh was shown her sin and the king made a decree that man nor beast could eat or drink while they fasted and cried out to God for mercy.  God did show mercy and they were spared just as God can spare America if she repents.

God has clearly revealed the sins of our nation so that everyone knows them. Even the little children have had to learn about the sins of the adults that put them in jeopardy because parents refuse to change.  God has turned many people over to their own wickedness to destroy themselves. Yet, God still waits for mankind to repent of sin so they can be blessed.

A lot of people are going through difficulties during this pandemic and through the holiday season.  You may have felt like you were in a prison and wanted to get out.  So did Nelson Mandela for 27 years, but he had to wait.  It is not the number of years you serve, but how you serve those years. You can serve them easy, or you can serve them hard.  Mandela’s jailers told him he would die there and die he did.  He died to the old man, and he came out of prison as a different man, a better man. All of us need to thoroughly put off the old man and be made brand new in Christ.

It is time for our nation to change.  Many of us have been doing our prison time the hard way and have suffered. The jailers said:  This is the island and here you will die.  It is time for the old racist America to die.  It is time out for racism and prejudice.  It needs to die. It is time out for greed, selfishness and prosperity preaching.  They need to die.  It is time out for false prophets and lying preachers.  That needs to die.  It is time out for abuse and misogyny.  It is time to love.  It is time out or political posturing and lying to the people.  Those ways need to die.  God is exposing and judging sin and we need to hear Him and change.  Let’s not wait for 27 years to die to these ways.  Let’s not wait one more year in this pandemic.  Let’s get it together right now, grow up and move on. Let’s be a better version of America.  Christ was born, suffered and died to give us the power to overcome our obstacles and be the persons we are supposed to be. That is what the coming of Christ was all about.  Let’s remember the real reason for this season, to give us a hope and a future.  Let’s take that gift and truly have a…

Merry Christmas and many Happy New Years!

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Php 4:13

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