God Working In Us – audio

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It’s clear that God expects a human response in our relationship to him, but do we sometimes emphasize that over what he’s doing?

We need to know that God’s saving us begins, continues, and ends with his initiative, not ours.

Notice how Paul mentions both in this passage:

Therefore, my beloved, as you 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 who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure – Philippians 2:12-13.

It’s a play on words, one scholar says: We are to “work out” because God “works in” (R.R. Melick).

I have done, and you have heard, a lot of preaching on the “working out” part, but maybe not as much on God’s “working in.”

Maybe that’s part of the reason we often struggle to feel truly secure in our salvation. We know, more than anyone else (except God), how far we fall short of being who we ought to be.

If it depends on our efforts, we know we’ll miss out on salvation, even if we don’t like to admit it.

On the other hand, when we recognize that God is working in us “to will and to work for his good pleasure,” it directs our focus Godward, instead of inward.

That’s where we find comfort. I’ll always fall short, but he won’t.

In another place Paul wrote this: “So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy” – Romans 9:16

There’s a reluctance to embrace this, because we fear that emphasizing God’s initiative will cause us to relax . . . to fall into spiritual apathy.

But I think we will find that it will do the opposite.

When we put more trust in God’s power to accomplish in us whatever he chooses, we may find ourselves obeying more faithfully out of gratitude, instead of some kind of misguided attempt to try and earn what we can never earn.

It ought to comfort us, in a way that our attempts to measure up never can, that God, who loves us infinitely and wants to save us, is working within us to accomplish His will.

Do we obey?

Absolutely.

But we do it in response to what he’s already done, and what he continues to do.