Sermon for Sunday, March 21, 2004  

WORK TO COMPLETE YOUR SALVATION

6th in a Series on "Jesus, Paul and the Way of the Cross

By
Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

 

Scripture:      

Reading from the Good News Translation          Philippians 2:12-13

¹² So then, dear friends, as you always obeyed me when I was with you, it is even more important that you obey me now while I am away from you. Keep on working with fear and trembling to complete your salvation, ¹³ because God is always at work in you to make you willing and able to obey his own purpose. 

Reading from the New Revised Standard Version          II Corinthians 5:17-19 

¹⁷ So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸ All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹ that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

 

I have taken the opportunity to drive by our construction site several times the past week and follow the progress of our new building. It is a really exciting time to see the walls being formed and built and the outline of the building finally taking shape.

Being there reminded me of a similar time in one of the building phases in our congregation in Colorado Springs and we had taken some pictures of the walls being formed and we used one of those photos in a newspaper ad. The words at the top of the ad said, "Christians Under Construction", and the words in the ad talked about the fact that not only is our new building under construction but our people are also, and we are sure that God is still working on us and that we are not finished yet. We have not arrived at perfection but we are moving that direction, we hope. We are in the words of Paul in this unusual verse from Philippians, "still working to complete or continue our salvation-our wholeness in Christ."

Christians under construction. I like that image. It is different from a picture of the spiritual life that says, I have been saved, I have got my ticket punched, I am one of the in crowd and I can just relax and feel smug about that not - no more maturing or developing to do, I am just perfect just the way I am. I have arrived.

No, Paul says, you and I need to WORK TO CONTINUE OUR SALVATION IN FEAR AND TREMBLING! We can't feel smug and self-righteous. We all still have some growing and changing and growing up to do. Our "salvation" is something that needs continual nurture and stretching and growing to be complete. 

The same concept that we are still under construction, that we are still "being saved", shows up in the story of the birth of the Christian movement, the birthday of the church. Where do we find that story in the Bible? In the book of Acts where Peter preaches the first sermon and offers the first altar call on a Jewish holiday fifty days after Easter. The name of that holiday was Pentecost.

Peter says to the thousands of people gathered in Jerusalem that Jesus was a man affirmed by God and that God's people refused to hear him and even killed him, but God raised him from death and this is how we know that he is the messiah. Peter invited people to follow Christ and to join the Jesus movement and 3000 people were baptized. They spent their time doing the four things that Christians have been doing together ever since then: learning from the apostles, praying together, enjoying fellowship with each other, and eating together.

Then the author of the book of Acts says, "And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved". He did not say, "those who had been saved". He said those who had begun the walk with Christ but had not arrived yet; those who were in process, those who were still under construction with the master builder. He was referring to those who had still to complete their salvation "in fear and trembling".

That is our first insight from Paul in Philippians. Your relationship with Christ is still under construction and Christ is calling you to continue to WORK it out and not get stagnant or forgetful about it.

And, when we have identified ourselves as disciples and followers of Christ, there are some different behaviors, some more mature ethics expected of us than of others. We expect that of ourselves and each other because that is why we have signed on. Perhaps we have seen the joy, the hope, the confidence, the compassion we want in other Christians and we want to become like that. Perhaps we have known that something has been missing in our hearts and souls and just couldn't put our finger on it until we began to learn about Christ and about the abundant life he wants to give all people.

This is where the other words from Paul can help us. He tells us in his second letter to the Corinthians that if we belong to Christ, there is something new and different at work in our lives. "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new being, a new creation. The old has passed away and the new has arrived. 

A new person. A new creation.  And this new creation always starts inside the heart with one's relationship with God. I read a story three months ago in one of the weekly news magazines about the people who won contests for "extreme makeovers", the kind where the prize is that you go away for six weeks and get dental work done and plastic surgery done and get a whole new wardrobe. And then you are sent back to your family and there is a whole new you - except that the story I read said that even when people got all that outward work done and looked so different on the outside, that they still carried some pain and guilt and hurt on the inside and that many of them found that their new teeth and new hair and new body didn't make them as happy as they expected.

Paul says this has to start from the inside and not the outside, that when anyone is "in Christ" that God makes us into a new creation, we are becoming different people, deeper and fuller and more mature people. And there are some new behaviors that begin to come forth in us.

One of my favorite examples of this is in the film "Tender Mercies" starring Robert Duvall. Duvall's character is a broken down country western singer whose life is in the pits. He has a drinking problem. He is very unhappy. He meets a woman who is a good influence on him.

He begins to go to church with her. Her faith is a good example for him. Then, he decides that he wants to become a Christian and one Sunday morning at the church there are two baptisms - the Duvall character and the young son of the woman he has become friends with. On the way home from church the Duvall character and the boy are riding back home in his truck and Duvall asks the boy if he feels any different now that he has been baptized. The boy says he doesn't feel any different and Duvall says he doesn't either. But Duvall's character is different. He begins to handle his anger differently instead of just going out to drink when he is angry. He becomes a different person, a more mature person, a more responsible person, a new person.

Paul says in another one of his letters that we should be able to see some new behaviors in people who identify themselves with Christ. There are some fruits, some results of belonging to Christ. They are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, faithfulness, and self-control. Those are some of the characteristics we hope to see in each other when our lives are under construction by the master builder. Do other people see any of those things in us yet?

It is discouraging when we have said that we want Christ to keep working in us to complete our salvation but we get in his way.

Phil and Wanda Wilson e-mailed me a story about this.

A woman is being tailgated by a stressed-out minister on a busy boulevard.  Suddenly, the light turns yellow, just in front of her.   She does the honest thing, and stops at the crosswalk, even though she could have beaten the red light by accelerating through the intersection.  The minister tailgating her hits the roof, and the horn, reaming in frustration as he misses his chance to get through the intersection with her.  As he is still in mid-rant, he hears a tap on his window and looks up into the face of a very serious police officer.  The officer orders him to exit his car with his hands up.  He takes him to the police station where he is searched, fingerprinted, photographed, and placed in a cell.  After a couple of hours, a policeman approaches the cell and opens the door.  He is escorted back to the booking desk where the arresting officer is waiting with his personal effects.  He ways, "I'm very sorry for this mistake."  "You see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn, flipping the lady off in front of you, and cussing a blue streak at her.  "I noticed the "Choose Life" license plate holder, the "What Would Jesus Do" bumper sticker, the "Follow Me To Sunday School" bumper sticker, and the chrome plated Christian fish emblem on the trunk."  "Naturally I assumed you had stolen the car."

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation. There are some different behaviors. Christians are people who are working to continue and complete their wholeness and salvation. I think Paul says this on purpose: We are to WORK TO CONTINUE AND COMPLETE OUR SALVATION. This will require some new things from us. Placing ourselves in a small group like some of the Lenten studies that are meeting right now. Volunteering in a new service ministry such as the LIFEhouse ministry that is beginning. Your new spiritual venture might start with attending some of the better Jesus films that we will be presenting here the next three weeks so you can get a more complete picture of the story of Jesus than you will get from the Mel Gibson movie. The thing to ask yourself is whether you are doing what Paul encourages us to do, to work to continue your journey toward the maturity of Christ, to take yourself out of your comfort zone and try some new things that keep you on the path of being saved instead of getting off the path and stagnating in your pilgrimage of faith.

God does accept us right where we are and God loves us too much to leave us right where we are. God will, in Christ, keep nudging us and moving us and cause us to change. That's how it happened with the first people who knew Christ. It is certainly what happened with Paul himself who got changed from being a self-righteous Pharisee into becoming a salesman for the exact same venture that he had been trying to stamp out.

It happened before Paul in people like Zaccheus who, before he met Jesus, was despised and rejected as a shill for the occupying Roman army. What did Zaccheus do? He was a tax collector and so he had a lot of money but no friends - until Jesus befriended him and told Zaccheus up in that tree that he, Jesus, wanted to come and eat with Zaccheus and because Jesus befriended him, Zaccheus became a new person, a new creation. He became a generous person who knew that money is only important if it becomes a tool to make a difference.

And Jesus' friendship transformed Mary Magdalene who was cured and healed by Christ of her illness. And then she became one of his larger group of followers and was the first person to come to the tomb on Easter Sunday and became after that, one of the leading apostles - "Apostle to the apostles" she is called by one church leader.

And that change happened to Peter. His friendship with Christ turned him from a boasting braggart who failed to say that he even knew Jesus when his own skin was at risk. Then when he realized what he had done, he was grief stricken and inwardly shattered. Do you know what that feels like to have let someone down like that, someone you really care for and they were counting on you? He was crushed - until at the resurrection on that Sunday the angel told him that he was forgiven and that Christ would be meeting him as well as the others back in Galilee. And then of course it was Peter who became the spokesperson for the early Jesus movement and his influence on the Jesus movement was very important.

When Jesus befriended each of those persons, they were transformed. They became different people and they continued to grow and change and step out of what was comfortable for themselves and take some risks and let Christ do ongoing construction projects in their hearts and lives.

That's how it is for us after we have taken the first step of saying yes to Christ, after saying I want Jesus to be Lord of my life, master builder in the construction project of my soul and let myself continue to be under his construction supervision.

I want to formalize this journey Paul lifts up for us in urging us to work to complete our salvation in fear and trembling. Close your eyes with me if you will and think about the time you said yes to Christ or let this be that time if you have not done that yet. Think about some of the people who have been important for you in your journey of faith. Then I want you to imagine Christ is with you now, standing in front of you with a warm accepting look and, he is saying again that he loves and accepts you and celebrates you just the way you are now AND he also loves you so much he is not willing to leave you where you are. He wants you to continue to work to complete your salvation and he has an assignment for you. He has the next step for you in your journey of faith, in your walk with him. He is telling you now what that next step is. What does he have in mind for you as the master builder in your life? How will you respond?

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