Work for Salvation

“So then… work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12)

Here’s an interesting scripture… we’re supposed to work out our own salvation. Wait a minute, I thought the work was God’s and salvation was given as a free gift (grace) with no strings attached?

First of all the free gift of grace is Jesus Christ (Titus 2:11). We have the spiritual responsibility of becoming Jesus Christ (Eph. 4:13). That responsibility requires some work on our part.

So specifically what work is described in Phil. 2? We are to imitate the servitude of Jesus. Jesus served the world and we must be like him. We must serve each other. It starts by developing the attitude that everyone else is better than we are. It’s easy to do things for people that we respect and admire. When we have the attitude that we’re better than everyone else and our things are more important than the things of others, then we tend to just serve ourselves. We’ve got to work out of that kind of selfish living.

“… not looking each of you to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others” (Phil.2:4)

So then we accept the free gift of Jesus Christ who pays the price for our sins and we work to become like him. We work to become servants. We work for our salvation because Heaven will only be populated with servants.

Motivations of False teachers from Galatians

The letter to the churches in Galatia was written to correct a particular false teaching. Namely, that non-Jewish Christians would have to be circumcised to be acceptable to Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul identifies their motivations for teaching this soul- damning doctrine.

Galatians 6: 12-13. “Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. 13 Not even those who are circumcised obey the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh”

Here it is… first they wanted to escape persecution. The persecutors were Jews who rejected the teachings of Jesus Christ. These false teachers were trying to escape persecution by circumcising Greek Christians so they could make the claim that Christianity was just a type of Judaism. After all, Jews were intensely interested in converting the Greeks to Judaism. Jesus said to the Jews…

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” (Mt. 23:15)

If these false teachers could convince the Jews that these new Christians were *just* hybrid Jews then they would not only escape persecution but also achieve their second motivation… making a “good impression outwardly” with the Jews and “Boasting about their flesh” to the Jews.

False teachers are no different today. They want to be accepted… not rejected or persecuted and they love the lime-light. A false teaching can be dressed up and made to look good. Examine the teaching to see if there is consistency with the scriptures and look at the teacher’s motivation… otherwise it could cost you your soul.

Galatians 5 describes something called “the work of the flesh”. Really it should probably be called “the work of those who are led by Satan”. Work implies that a wage will be received and those who are led by Satan will indeed be paid a wage.

Those who are working for Satan do things like having sex with whoever might be available... homosexuality, drunkenness, wild partying, animosity, bickering and fighting are all activities associated with Satan. Those engaged in such activities have wages that are paid on earth and in life after earth.

On earth you can expect your life to be characterized by; Isolation, unhappiness, turmoil, impatience, arrogance, etc. (6:22-23). In the afterlife you can expect eternal suffering (5:21).

Choose to “work” for God and experience blessings on earth and in Heaven (5:22-23 & 6:8).

The Holy Spirit in Galatians

- We receive the Holy Spirit by the “hearing of faith” (3:2)

- We grow to spiritual maturity “in the Spirit” (3:3)

- We are “born after the Spirit” just like Isaac was. (4:29)

- We walk by the Spirit (5:16)

- We are led by the Spirit (5:18)

- We “plant” unto the Spirit (6:8)

We “walk”, are “led” and “plant” by the Spirit when we serve each other. “… through love be servants to each other” (5:13) and by “… loving our neighbors like we love ourselves” (5:14)

If we have these attributes of service we will harvest the “fruit of the Spirit” (5:22)…. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control (6:23)

If we don’t have these attributes in our lives then perhaps we’re planting something other than spiritual things.

Precious Memories

Every once in a while something happens that opens a door to my past. This morning it happened when I was teaching Bible class and I saw Kyle Willis walk into the auditorium. You see Kyle and Linda (now deceased) Willis were very close friends to my parents. Kyle was a Deacon at Spring Woods Church of Christ when Dad was an Elder there. When Dad got sick and his health began to deteriorate Kyle did a lot of things to help Mom and Dad… and even after Dad died Kyle helped my Mother. I don’t know all of it but Mom and Dad loved gardening so Kyle would come over and till the garden for them. Kyle also helped Mom with accounting and other kinds of paper work. Little things I guess, but huge to us.

We always had hope and faith that God would intervene and help Dad but it wasn’t looking too good. We were up there one weekend and they asked me to lead the closing prayer. I don’t remember what I said but I prayed my heart out and Kyle came up afterwards with tears in his eyes and hugged me and said, “that was a powerful prayer”. Kyle loved Dad.

So this morning as I was sitting there trying to sing… all those memories came flooding back. I’m convinced that Dad is alive and maybe knows what’s going on with us down here. Sometimes when I pray I ask God to tell Dad that I love him and miss him… and I thank God for men like Kyle Willis.

Jesus Lives

My office manager told me she was impressed when she was stuck in traffic the other day. She saw a homeless guy sitting in a parking lot and a car drove up to him and the driver got out and gave the homeless guy a Whataburger meal. It touched her heart.

Julie told me she was stuck in traffic for a while and she witnessed a man arguing with a woman and getting physical with her. The woman kept pulling away but the man kept grabbing her. Finally when Julie’s car moved up she rolled down the window and said “Honey… do you need a ride?” The woman gratefully got in the car and explained to Julie that the guy was an ex boy-friend who was stalking her. Julie drove her to where she could meet up with her mother. I asked Julie if she was afraid and she said no because she didn’t think the guy would do anything with all the onlookers.

I wish I was the guy who had stopped and gave the guy the hamburger but I’m proud that my wife was the one who helped the woman. Jesus Lives!

Galations Intro

http://youtu.be/qaBDI76gasU?list=UUbSZZJ7GzXrsNuzEXt0Ffyg