Work Out Your Salvation

Truth be told, I'm not much of an outdoorsman. I admire people who can hunt and fish and camp. Actually, I had a decent start at it in life. My family liked to camp when I was young, and my dad put me in the Boy Scouts for a number of years. But as my path unfolded in life, I ended up in a booming metropolis of 26 million people, lots of concrete, not a lot of trees. And delivery is so good in our city. Sometimes my wife and I would be sitting there in an evening, we'd realize we have no orange juice for the morning. And so we would get out our trusty smartphone and our app and we would order orange juice and then time it. It takes about 25 minutes to get orange juice in Shanghai, which is wonderful, but it causes your survival skills to take a hit a bit. But periodically, as we've been involved in student ministry in China, I've had the occasion to find myself with some fellow city dwellers in a tent in rural Shanghai. One thing I'll tell you about the comical experiences that can ensue is that city people just don't prepare well for being in the outdoors. There was the weekend that I decided that even though hiking boots were recommended, My running shoes would be fine for a winter camping expedition. Now, you got to understand where we are in Shanghai. Many winters, it doesn't snow at all. And as I reflected on it, I don't think there had been any snow accumulation for at least three years. I was reflecting on that as the blizzard set in. Let me just say there's no misery like the misery of having cold, wet feet in a blizzard. There was the time that we didn't really check our tents before camping in a rainstorm. If you want to know what happens if you buy the cheap tents that don't have a waterproof bottom, and what happens if you don't accurately put up the rainfly over top, My daughter Caroline was seven years old. She awoke in the middle of the night with a stream running through her sleeping bag and through the tent. The funniest story to me was our friend Dominic who we were on a student camping retreat and he was brushing his teeth one morning kind of at the edge of the campsite and a rather infamous Chinese friend that we called Popeye ran into Dominic and asked him if he wanted to go see a waterfall. And Dominic thought that he meant like around the corner. Well, he sets off. We didn't see him the entire day. It turns out that this waterfall was a half day's hike away. When he returned in the evening, cold, thirsty, hungry, but he still had his toothbrush with him. When you're not prepared for what's out in front of you, it can spell disaster, right? That's not just true camping and hiking. It's true in life. It's true spiritually. I mean, in our situation, if we had asked the right questions beforehand, we could have prepared. We could have definitely been mentally prepared, but we could have had what we needed. Our laziness in assessing the situation is actually what led to the trouble. You know, when we think about our spiritual lives, when we place our faith in Christ, we're actually embarking on a journey, the journey of our Christian lives. We know it's a journey with a destination, so in heaven, we will be forever with the Lord. And I think it's safe to say that as Protestants, we actually do pretty well thinking about the beginning of the journey and the end of the journey. So thinking about the beginning of the journey, we want to be really clear in understanding that we are saved by grace through faith alone. We trust in what Christ has done on the cross as a payment for sin, and we believe that because of that substitutionary death, when we trust in Christ, we are washed white as snow, and we are given the gift of eternal life. We call that our justification. We are made just, we are made righteous before God by faith. I think we're generally pretty clear on that. And I'm thankful that we're generally pretty clear on our understanding of what happens at the end, what awaits us. We believe that the truly justified person will persevere to the end. Jesus in John 10 said that those who trust in him will be kept by his power. No one can snatch them out of my hand, Jesus says. Sean DeMars just a couple weeks ago preached to us that God is faithful to bring about the work of making us blameless in Christ. Our whole spirit, soul, and body will be kept blameless on the day of Jesus. We call this glorification. I think we're generally pretty good on justification and glorification, but what about the middle, that process, the Christian life that we call sanctification, the in-between, where you and I live now? I think that this is actually an area where a lot of bad teaching flourishes in the Christian church. I think, honestly, a good deal of laziness is in our theology and creates immense problems for the church. I mean, if we don't know what we're supposed to be about in the here and now, if we don't know what we're supposed to be doing, we're just like those unprepared city folk heading out into the wilderness with tennis shoes, with leaky tents, and with a toothbrush. We're resuming our study this morning in the book of Philippians. It's a simple thank you letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to a supporting church that he's turned into a manual on discipleship. Working our way through the book, we saw at the end of chapter one, he began unpacking what it means to live a life that's worthy of the gospel, what it looks like for Christians to stand firm in one spirit, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel. The beginning of chapter two, he digs into the unity that he sees as essential and calls them to actually count others more important than themselves. An absolutely crazy idea in the eyes of the world. But he lays out beautifully that that's exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did in stepping out of heaven. and emptying himself of the benefits of divine glory and taking the form of a servant to accomplish our salvation. So armed with that kind of others-centeredness and humility, Paul is gonna tell us now how we should approach the Christian life. How is it that we're supposed to live and grow and thrive as Christians? It's one of the great passages in the New Testament, I think, that explains the process of sanctification. It's my prayer as we study it this morning that we'll be better prepared to live the life that is set out before us. If you want to take notes this morning, I encourage you to do that. It's a great way to have something to look at later in the day as you have conversations. The main idea of the text is this. You should be tired when you get to heaven. You should be tired when you get to heaven. We'll work our way through that in three points. Number one, the work of sanctification, the work of sanctification. Number two, the way of sanctification, the way of sanctification. And then third and finally, we'll consider the why of sanctification. So the work, the way, and the why of sanctification. Let's begin with the work. Let me read again verse 12 and 13. 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. Now, there are several things that clue us into the fact that we're talking about this progressive work of sanctification growing as a Christian. Here in verses 12 and 13, we have this command to work out our salvation because God is at work in us. If you let your eyes scan down there to verse 14 and 15, A similar command there, do all things without grumbling or disputing. And he says that you may become blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish. That's not saying that in this life that we can become sinlessly perfect, but it's kind of setting the trajectory out there for us. That's where we want to be heading, is towards being blameless. As we say no to sin, as we say yes to righteousness, with God's help, we are gonna grow in holiness. Now before we dive into what this means to work out our salvation, I actually wanna frame the topic by talking about some bad ways to think about sanctification, some really common bad ways. I think there are at least four bad views that we need to reject. Two of them are pretty easy to cross off, the fire insurance view and what I call the silver bullet view. The fire insurance view is that as long as you've believed have eternal life, it doesn't really matter how you live. It doesn't really matter if you grow or not. I mean, I've got my fire insurance, so calm down, chill out. I've prayed a prayer of decision. I've perhaps walked an aisle and met the preacher down in the front, and now I'm saved, so it doesn't matter how I live. Well, this kind of it doesn't matter doesn't jive with the New Testament, does it? It's rejected. because we're told that without holiness, no one will see the Lord. People who think this way just aren't true believers. Jesus says to them, why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say? So we reject the fire insurance view, but there's the silver bullet view. That kind of presents these shortcuts that we can take to vault us to a higher level of spirituality, especially if you come to my conference if you embrace this secret that's out there, if you have this experience that is out there. Ben preached from 1 Corinthians 12 a couple weeks ago, very helpfully pointing out that we don't need a second baptism of the spirit. We've all been baptized by one spirit into one body. We've all been given one spirit to drink. We're told in the New Testament that his divine power has already given us everything that we need for life and godliness. So we're not looking for some silver bullet to vault us to a higher level of sanctification. I think those two are pretty easy to cross off. But there are two others that are a little bit harder. One is what I call white-knuckle Christianity. This is what locates your sanctification entirely in yourself. This is where you're gonna trust in your power to get it done. And this is a harder one to deal with because there are lots of verses that can be used to seem to support it. I mean, how many times are we told to make every effort? Think about 2 Peter 1, make every effort to add to your faith, goodness and goodness, knowledge and knowledge, self-control, et cetera. White-knuckle Christianity is attractive in part because in the short term, it gets us moving, right? Work harder. Pray harder, try harder. Now, if this is all you hear preached, and if this is the sum total of your thinking, there's a number of problems that result, right? I mean, for one, it's going to make you self-righteous. When you run into someone else who's not doing as well in some area, you're going to look down on, oh, you struggle with that. There's hypocrisy that's going to grow in you as you have to have blind spots when you look at your own struggles. You know, we're going to minimize those. We're not going to look at those. It's painful to do because remember you're trusting entirely in yourself. And then ultimately it's just leads to despair. When you face the fact that your sin, your flesh is more powerful than the energy that you can muster, it will lead you to despair. or the other bad view I call the let go and let God view, which seems more spiritual at first, right? In this view, we're throwing everything on God, and we're saying it's all up to him anyway. And this, as seeming scriptural support, we might quote a verse like 2 Corinthians 3.18, and we are all being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. Well, if it comes from the Lord, it's up to him. Taken to the extreme, this view underestimates the battle that God has set before us. Our enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil step into the boxing ring for a fight. Have you ever seen a boxing match between two people and only one of them knows that they're fighting? It's not pretty. This view also feeds the laziness inherent in our fallen nature. Instead of listening to correction, confessing sin, putting forth effort to grow, we just say, okay, surah, surah, whatever will be, will be. Ultimately, let go and let God as a sanctification view leads to disappointment with God. Things don't go well in our life. Maybe our marriage is not going well. We turn to God and say, well, how did you get me into this? Why did you put me here rather than looking back at our own issues and our own need to grow. Well, I think this is one of the best texts to help us see past white-knuckle Christianity on the one hand, and let go and let God Christianity on the other, and understand how our work and God's work combine in our sanctification. So let's make a few observations looking back at the text here. First, notice how Paul says as clear as day that we have to work. Three things underline sanctification as involving something we must do. First, he frames it as an issue of obedience. He says, as you have always obeyed, so now not only is in my presence, but much more in my absence. He's pointing out that they were obeying while he was with them. So they were new Christians, he was teaching them. the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life. He was teaching them to stop stealing and stop lying. He was teaching them how to live as a Christian, and they were obeying. They were putting the sermons into action as they were walking out of church. Do you do that, by the way? Do you come to church kind of evaluating the rhetorical abilities of the preacher? Or do you come kind of looking for the things that God is gonna tell you that you can walk out of the sermon and apply? I would commend the latter to you because then it doesn't matter how great the preacher is rhetorically. You just come assuming that the Lord is gonna give you application week in and week out. Paul says that they were doing that while he was there. But as any parent knows, the true test is what the kids do when you're not around. Paul's asking them whether they're gonna keep obeying. Remember how you learned that you were supposed to attend diligently to the preaching of the word and to prayer and to setting aside the Lord's day to gather with God's people and how you're supposed to stop lying and stealing? You were obeying those things. Are you still obeying them? Second thing, notice that the verb work out is pointing to conscious activity on our part. The early Christian preacher Chrysostom describes the verb here as with great effort, with great care. We're talking about human effort here, something we are to do. That's a bit anachronistic, out of time, to parallel this with our modern phrase for working out, for physical exercise, but I think the idea kind of works. What goes into working out? Well, you plan your workout, right? You map your run or you plan your CrossFit exercise. I'm speaking hypothetically for those of you who do these sorts of things. You set aside the time. You maybe eat accordingly. There's energy that's put into your workout with great effort, with great care. Well, in our spiritual lives, we're supposed to be characterized by that same intentionality, that same level of effort and energy. But then notice a third thing. We are to do this with, he says, fear and trembling. As we pursue obedience, putting this effort and care into our spiritual life, what kind of attitude should we have? Well, we do it with awe for God, awe of God, fear and trembling as we think about our desire to honor him and not to dishonor him. Paul talked about being with the Corinthians in weakness and fear and much trembling. It's the same idea here. I think that was the great source of Paul's strength, his spiritual strength, is that he never lost sight of who he was doing it for. He stood in awe of God. So those three things here point to us, our obedience, our working out of our own salvation, and our awe of God. But then, let's notice four things that point to sanctification as involving the work of God. First, our work is grounded in God's work. He says, for God is at work in you. That little word for answers the question, why do we work? Because God is at work in us. A prior work of God leads to our working. Secondly, notice the grammar here. Actually, in the Greek, it's quite emphatic. Literally, it reads, the one who works the working is God. Right after telling them that they are to work, he's now saying, make sure that you know, as you work, that the one who works the working is God. Third, not just our activity is in view, but even our will. Did you notice that? He said, God is at work to will and to work. We could break down anything that we do into first the mental creation, and then the physical activity, the will, and then the work. So first you plan your home improvement, and then you go to Lowe's and get what you need and start doing the actual work. Well, Paul says that both come down to God. The willing and the acting. Not only would you not be here this morning trying to hear and understand this sermon right now if it weren't for God, it would not even have entered your mind if it were not for him. And then fourth and finally, he says all of this is done for his good pleasure. For his good pleasure. So is it our work or is it God's work? Clearly it's both, but I don't think that we should think about this as just a 50-50 kind of setup here. It's not meeting God halfway, as if he's gonna do some and then we have to supply the rest. It's we put in 100% effort to will and to act for our growth and holiness and sanctification, while we understand that it's all 100% based on what God has done for us. Listen to John Murray and what he writes here. God's working in us is not suspended because we work, nor are working suspended because God works. Neither is the relation strictly one of cooperation, as if God did his part and we did ours so that the conjunction or coordination of both produce the required result. God works and we also work. But the relation is that because God works, we work. All working out of salvation on our part is the effect of God's working in us. We have here not only the explanation of all acceptable activity on our part, but we also get incentive for our willing and working. The more persistently active we are in working, the more persuaded we may be that all the energizing grace and power is of God. Okay, what's the lesson here from this first point for us? I simply want to ask us, are we approaching our Christian life with faith-filled, God-empowered effort. Would you say that you're approaching your relationship with God with faith-filled, God-empowered effort? I was flying back from a conference this week. I was just on the plane trying to make a list of all the different ways I feel like I need to grow in Christ, the things that God has put out before me and said, yeah, Mark, you need to grow in patience. You need to be slower to anger. You need to replace anxiety with prayer. And then I was just asking myself one by one, how am I working on those things? Am I first of all identifying the sin when the Holy Spirit is trying to illuminate that to me? Am I confessing it and repenting of it? Am I asking other people to tell me when they see it in my life? What kind of effort am I putting forth? That's the question we should ask ourselves first here. The work of sanctification is laid out for us. But let's consider secondly the way of sanctification and pick it up in verse 14. Paul writes, do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life. Paul doesn't want to leave us without specifics. How do we do this? We can underline a negative and a positive instruction here, something we're not to do, something we are to do. So first the negative, do all things without grumbling or disputing. The NIV here is do everything without complaining or arguing. Now, parents, you all know this verse. We love this verse with our kids. We actually wrote a song of this verse. I'm not gonna sing it for you. You can come up to anybody in the Collins family later. We could sing to you, do everything without complaining or arguing. We're actually teaching our two-year-old the precursor to this with a phrase. Somebody gave us this idea to use with toddlers. You want one phrase to sum up all whining. So we just say, uh-uh, no fussing. Uh-uh, no fussing. Well, Paul is making an Old Testament reference here that isn't about kids. It's actually about adults. Where do we see grumbling and disputing most clearly exhibited in the Old Testament? David read to us earlier from Exodus 16. It's really painful to read that section of Exodus. It's not just there. It's chapter after chapter. As soon as God delivers the Israelites, they run into a problem and they're immediately grumbling and complaining again. Deuteronomy 32 actually describes the generation this way. They are no longer God's children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation. See, all those same words, that's clearly what Paul is meaning for us to think about here. Well, why were the Israelites that way? Why were they so quick to grumble? David read that phrase, oh, is it because there were no graves in Egypt? that you led us here. What was it about the Israelites that made them grumble? You know, most of the time they probably thought about themselves as just grumbling against their leaders, against Moses and Aaron. It's clear that God didn't see it that way. He saw them as grumbling against him. Do you realize, friends, that when you complain about your life situation, you're actually grumbling to God? I think because of the the subtlety of sin, we actually often don't realize that. I don't mean that when you call a hard thing a hard thing, you lose your job and you say, I'm really struggling, I lost my job. It's hard. That's not necessarily grumbling. That's not necessarily complaining. To say, I need God's help, I need the help of brothers and sisters. But we tend to go further, don't we? We tend to say, what has happened to me? Why would this happen right now? Can you believe it right now? Of all times. Our hearts move into complaining. We're actually calling into question God's goodness. We're saying that God has not ordered our days well. And I do think this is a heart level, but oftentimes, brothers and sisters, I think we need to work hard to control our mouth. Sometimes just by venting, so-called, we can actually move into grumbling. Psalm 141, three says, set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. Do you complain? Do you grumble? Do you realize that this is a God word issue? I think that this is actually one of the dangers that's out there in the world of counseling. I have a number of friends that their spiritual crisis began by visiting a counselor that just encouraged them to talk more and more and more about their problems. They became more and more introspective. They were encouraged in their grumbling. It's one of the reasons why if you're going to see a counselor, make sure that it's someone who's going to speak God's word to you. See a biblical counselor, see an elder at the church. I think of a number of couples in my church over in China that they came to me and asked me if I knew any professional counselors. And I said, why not meet with me? And they said, well, because you're you. We were friends, but I was able to just say to them, it's really, really important. You might need a spiritual friend more than you need a counselor, because you need someone who's going to say to you, you know what? It sounds like you're grumbling against God. It seems like in this particular issue, you've got some spiritual work to do. It isn't just a matter of getting some things off your chest. You need someone who might say to you, ah ah, no fussing. If I could put it that way. So Paul wants us to remember the powerful negative example of the Israelites here. But then he adds this second word, disputing. This word that means arguing or quarreling. Apparently this is something that was going on in the Philippians church. When he gets to chapter four, he's going to address some women that are in conflict with each other. I think we tend to underestimate the danger of disputing, of conflict. Many of our conflicts start small and then mushroom big. I was reflecting on this. I was at a soccer game last Saturday, and it was with some parents. It was an intense game. The game ended. One of the other parents had some choice words that I won't repeat about the other coach on the other team that were overheard by some other parents. Those parents came over, and here we are, a bunch of people in our 40s and 50s, and it's like they want to start a fight. And so I thought this would be a good place for the pastor to step in, probably unwisely. But I just said, guys, I think we're OK here. I think we're OK here. So they turned to me and they said, well, you think we're OK here. Why do you think? I'm like, no, no, no. I think we're fine. We're fine. Well, they kept kind of getting mad at me. And I was thinking, this is going to be terrible. A pastor gets in a fight at a soccer game. But I was just reflecting on it was like they just wanted to fight. It didn't matter if I just stood there and said, you are kind, wonderful people. I love you. They still wanted to fight. That's us as human beings too often. The book of James tells us that a large forest fire begins how? Just a small spark. Do everything without grumbling, without disputing. That's a high bar. You know, we should ever be de-escalators of conflict. What did Jesus say? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. It's amazing, just in one phrase here, we cover the horizontal and the vertical. No disputing, no quarreling with others, no grumbling towards God. Do everything without these two. It doesn't get more practical than that. How much good would we find flowing into our Christian lives if we would just heed them and say to ourselves, uh-uh, no fussing. But we also have a positive here. Look there in verse 15. that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life. With a backdrop of others who are grumbling and disputing and showing themselves to be this crooked and twisted generation, believers have the opportunity to shine. How? What are they supposed to do? Hold fast to the word of life. Your translation may say, holding out the word of life. Either is possible here, holding fast, holding out the word of life. Holding fast to God's word of eternal life, which is the gospel, is no small thing. It is no easy thing. I mean, think about all the things that try to pull at us, that try to loosen our grip on the word of life. I was thinking about being a new believer. in college and going to what I thought was going to be a wonderfully edifying thing called a class on the New Testament and meeting this atheist professor who explained to me that actually the doctrine of the virgin birth came about because the apostles mistranslated the book of Isaiah 714. I just remember sitting there. I had no idea. I'd never heard any of this. And everybody around me was nodding their heads. And I just felt this, I don't want to be weird. Am I going to hold on to my faith in this truth? I was thinking about the fact just this past week, I was in an Uber coming back from the airport. My driver was listening to an NPR interview with a former evangelical pastor. who is now transgender. As I'm listening to this interview talking about as this person left the evangelical church and is actually now still a pastor of a church, how all their evangelical friends left them and the different things that were said to them, I realize, I'm listening to this interview, I realize I'm the bad guy of this interview. I'm feeling it build as we go along. The driver didn't want to talk to me about it. He just wanted to drive. But I'm listening to this thing thinking, man, it is going to get more and more difficult for you and I if we're going to cling to biblical orthodoxy. We're going to feel it. Question is, are we going to hold on to it? Are we going to hold fast to the truth? The challenges increase. And then there's just the weariness that you and I can face in this world. The struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil. It's one of the reasons why church matters so much. Why it doesn't just matter that you come here on Sunday morning. Why it matters that you fully invest in the life of a local church. We're gonna need each other if we're gonna run the race of this Christian life with perseverance. if we're gonna hold fast together. So holding fast is hard, but notice here that it's also powerful. Do you notice that it's pictured as something that actually accomplishes the work of evangelism in some sense? As we hold on to the word of life, the light of the gospel is being shined. It's not to say that we don't have to take active steps to share the good news we do, but realize that right here, what we're doing this Sunday morning is a powerfully evangelistic thing. A healthy church itself shines the light of the gospel. So how do we work out our salvation? By saying no to grumbling towards God and disputing with man, and by holding fast to the word of life. That's our second point. Let's consider third and finally the why of sanctification, the why of sanctification. And I want to end just with that final phrase, so that in the day of Christ, I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. You know, in Paul's letters, we really pay attention to the so that's. See the so that here, put your finger on that. It points us to the purpose, the why. For Paul, he wants the Philippian church to work out their salvation with fear and trembling and not fall into the trap of the Israelites who grumbled and quarreled, so that on the day of Christ, at the return of Jesus Christ, he could be proud that he didn't run in vain or labor in vain. Now, a couple of things are interesting here. One is that we might be surprised that Paul is saying that he wants to be proud. I mean, human pride so consistently is a bad thing in the Bible, right? I mean, James 4, 6 says God opposes the proud. So why does he say this here? Well, human pride is a boasting in self. It's a taking credit to ourselves where it should be the Lord's. But that isn't what Paul is doing here. He's doing what he talks about in 1 Corinthians 1.31, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord. What he means is that he hopes his ministry will show off the goodness and the glory and the power of God. He wants to point at the Philippians and say, look what God did through my human weakness, through my human frailty, through my trembling efforts. Isn't God great? That's his desire here. A second thing that strikes us is that Paul doesn't want to have labored in vain. He wants to have a fruitful ministry. The disciples he makes and the churches he plants, he wants them to endure. You know, there's nothing wrong with your desire to be fruitful in the Lord. There's nothing wrong with your desire to actually see your evangelism result in people coming to faith. There's nothing wrong with you starting a Bible study and wanting it to grow. There's nothing wrong with you wanting to pour your life into younger believers and see them grow and stand firm. But the most significant thing for us to see here is how Paul runs everything through the grid of how he will feel on the last day. That's everything to Paul. The day of Christ, the day when he returns, Judgment Day is here, the race is run, the workday is over. Sometimes Paul can't decide on which metaphor he likes, so he just uses both. You see them both here? I mean, when he says run in vain, he's thinking about running a race. The Christian life is like running a race. This is how he thinks about it. When you're running a race, you don't want to get to the tape and feel like, yeah, I feel pretty good. Feel like I could do that again. You didn't run right. That's how you feel, right? I mean, you want to put it all out there so that you hit the tape and collapse. Whatever you had to give to the race, you want to give to it. When he says labor in vain, he's thinking about work, about a work day. You know that feeling when you've worked a hard day at work and you get to the end of the day and you feel exhausted, but you have a sense that you did what you were supposed to do that day. That's a good feeling. That should be a good feeling. I think Paul is putting himself forward here as an example to us. After he explains sanctification, He illustrates it with himself, running hard, working hard, trusting the Lord. So let's think about this. Do you and I view sanctification as a labor, a good labor to be worked at? Do we view sanctification as a good race to be run? Are we spending whatever time and strength and energy we have on it If not, beloved, it's probably because we've lost sight of that day. We've forgotten about what really matters. On that day, your career accomplishments, they just don't matter. It doesn't matter how much you've accumulated in terms of wealth on that day. It doesn't matter how popular you were with people around you. When you look back over your life, you don't want to look back and say that your Christian life was something you engaged in half-heartedly. That's the whole thing. That's what will matter to you on that day. Believing that God is at work in you to will and to work according to his good pleasure. You want to say, no, I didn't give myself to grumbling. I didn't give myself to disputing. I held fast to the word of life. And I ran the race of this Christian life with perseverance. Beloved, you want to be tired when you go to enter the eternal rest. Let's pray together. Our father, you've been so good to us in Christ. I pray now that you would fill us with faith so that we can obey all that you have commanded. And we thank you that Jesus has fulfilled all righteousness for us. Help us to trust in him, for we pray in his name, amen.