Work Out Your Own Salvation

“…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. (Philippians 2:13-14)

1) “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” Stop and think hard on that statement that the Apostle Paul made. It is very scary. Our salvation is very fragile. It is in our hands. It is our own responsibility and it’s a struggle. A big struggle, for we are fighting for righteousness and salvation in a carnal body.

2) We think of our salvation as an event. Something done when we finally commit our lives to Christ and are baptized into His Kingdom. There, done deal. I’m saved! I don’t have to do anything else because my ticket has been punched for the great ride into heaven. Unfortunately too many people think that way. “Once saved, always saved” is the cry. Hhhmmm….. Maybe not. Our religion is not static or passive.

As the great gospel song Onward Christian Soldier highlights so clearly:

“Onward, Christian soldiers,

marching as to war,

With the cross of Jesus

going on before!

Christ, the royal Master,

leads against the foe;

Forward into battle,

see his banner go!

Marching as to war, forward into battle, against the foe are all terms, metaphors really for us working out our own salvation. It is a daily battle, a daily struggle. It is why Paul told the Ephesians to, “Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11).

It is war. A daily battle, a fight for own salvation. Never let anyone tell you otherwise.

“Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier (2 Timothy 2:3-4).

In lies the key. Working out our salvation is a war. We win the war by not getting caught up or “entangleth” with worldly things.

3) Our salvation isn’t an event, it is a process. It is an ongoing process. It is a battle with temptation, sin and Satan that we must suffer each and every day.

“For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me” (Philippians 1:29-30).

We are affected and afflicted by the same struggle and conflict that Jesus faced. But, “as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation” (2 Corinthians 1:7).

4) Working out our own salvation is a personal battle that Paul describes in great detail.

“For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin” (Romans 7:14-25).

5) If our salvation was dependent upon ourselves fighting against the devil, the devil would win every time. The only person to stand toe to toe with the devil and win was Jesus Christ. But look at what Paul says next. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

Paul makes it clear that A) It is God that is giving us the will and the desire for Him, righteousness and salvation. B) It is God that is also enabling and empowering you to do His good pleasure. That “good pleasure” of God is the ability to work out your salvation. God gives us the desire to be saved and the means in which to do it each and every day.

“I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies” (Psalm 18:1-3).

We work out our own salvation. But it is God that gives the desire, drive and wherewithal to accomplish it. And if you back it up a step you’ll see that it is all based on our faith and trust in Him.

Bill Hitchcock