Working Out What God Works in 1985

Reading from Philippians chapter 2, part of the twelfth and the entire thirteenth verse. Therefore, my beloved, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For God is at work in you, both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.

For all the stirring and the sifting that's been going on among us these days, and perhaps not only in spite of it, but really through it and because of it, we have entered into a time, and this is already evident, when we're going to be seeing more fruit from our efforts than we've ever seen. Just in the last month, if you have been looking around, you've seen an awful lot of new faces. We've also noticed that people that we've been involved with and talked with for months and years are beginning to draw near to the kingdom.

Signs of the kingdom of God are beginning to pop up in our ministries all over the place. Very, very encouraging things are going on. And along with this, there will be changes in the way we do things.

And there will be changes in our personal lives. Whatever change has to be made in order that there may be fruit, in order that we may have victory in this battle. Sons and daughters coming into the kingdom, a spirit of strong encouragement and great hope visiting the body of Christ here and everywhere.

And one of the basic changes which the spirit of God is calling for among us, and no doubt among other people in many other places too, and helping us to work through, is that he's calling us to make a shift from what could be called the guilt drive to the zeal drive. From guilt to zeal. Many of us are still in many, many ways and much of the time driven by guilt.

So that now instead of being driven in our ministries by a kind of troubled, uneasy, unsettled conscience, the conscience comes to rest and we find ourselves driven rather by a God-ignited flame burning inside our hearts called zeal. Last week Al just asked if I would announce the need for more help for the Harvest Dinner. And in asking me to do this he said, work on their guilt.

And he said it with a smile. He's being facetious. And yet it's true that many times to get us on the ball we need a little conviction.

Sometimes we become careless, sometimes we become lax, often thoughtless of people. And we can praise God and thank him for those who come around and somehow convict us. God uses them to convict us.

And we realize we have to shape up and we have to do something. And yet, over the long haul, if we're driven by guilt, we will always end up as burnouts. Always.

For the long haul, guilt will never do it. If we allow ourselves to be driven here and there and do what we do by guilt, we either end up in the slough of despair and we just throw up our hands and say, to heck with it all. I can't handle this anymore.

I've had it. Or we end up in the ranks of the hypocrites. We join the church of the burnouts.

Very often the church of the whip becomes a place where we start and then we switch over to the church of the burnouts. Sometimes it's the same church. But, I mean, in the burnout situation, what we do is we make an unspoken agreement that I'll stay off your back if you stay off mine and we'll pat each other on the back and make each other feel good and we won't really do anything at all except go through motions.

Guilt never produces anything but death. It absolutely cannot produce life. For this reason we bring our guilt to the cross.

We take our sin there and we repent of it. We confess it. We lay it down before the Lord.

We ask Him to wash it away. And then in its place, He puts zeal. He ignites in us something new.

Something that, instead of making us all the time feel uneasy, drives us with joy toward God. Our Lord, for instance, was driven by zeal. It was the zeal for His Father's house that caused Him to turn over the tables of the money changers and clean that place out.

It was zeal that did that. And it was zeal for His Father's will that caused Him to get up in the morning and put Himself into the hands of His Father again and joyfully move in the direction that the Father would lead. Zeal to manifest the Kingdom of God caused Him to heal the sick and raise the dead and open the eyes of the blind.

Zeal for people that they might be brought back to the Father's house that caused Him to go out there looking for those lost sheep and listening to them and taking time with them and being concerned about them. But it was zeal that was driving from within. The apostles went forth driven by zeal.

When Jesus said to them, go, they went. And they went with a flame burning inside their hearts. And all they had to do was move as this flame would guide them and let the flame somehow come out.

Work it out. They had it in here, now they had to speak it out. They had to live it out.

They had to work it out. And as they did, fruit began to appear everywhere. On the day of Pentecost, we don't see the believers sitting around saying, well, we've been sitting around here for quite a while, I guess we really better do something.

But rather, the Spirit fell on them and they were ignited and they were driven. They couldn't hold themselves back. They had to go out and speak as the Spirit gave them utterance.

They had this flame burning inside. God put that in there. All they had to do was work it out.

Let it come forth. And they lived as they were guided. It was a holy, awesome, wonderful, overwhelming, joyful, glorious fire that was burning inside them.

And all they had to do was speak it out, live it out, work it out. So we're not talking about being saved by works. Neither is Paul talking about this here.

Therefore, my beloved, work out your own salvation. God put it in, you got it there. With fear and trembling.

For God is at work in you, both to will and to work, for His good pleasure. God is at work in you. Christ in you, the hope of glory.

I am crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me, dwells inside me.

I have this in here. All I have to do is work it out. And this flame, this zeal, which God puts in us, expresses itself in three specific ways.

First, always first, as worship. It's a flame of worship and expresses itself as worship of God. Second, this flame of zeal is a flame of unity.

It causes us to have a desire to draw together with brothers and sisters in a way we never did before. We begin to see we have to do that. No choice about it.

We've got to be joined. God is joining one bone to another. The dry bones are coming together and there won't be a body unless the bones are linked.

And the third way in which this flame expresses itself is the desire to go out there and conquer the enemy and set the captives free and bring them into the Father's house. Now this flame, which God puts in us, we don't earn it, we don't deserve it. That's what salvation is.

That flame is an awesome thing. So we handle it with fear and trembling. We treat it with respect.

We see this as a marvelous gift God put inside. But what we now have to do is allow it to rule. We have to allow this flame some room.

We have to give place to it. Let it move out and accomplish what it wants to, which means really that we have to act with it. We have to act as it guides us to act.

And so God gives us a desire to worship. To worship Him, don't just burn inside and do nothing about it. Let this flame come forth.

Worship. God puts in us a yearning, which is not from ourselves, it has to be from Him, to come together with brothers and sisters. Join ourselves, commit ourselves to each other.

And again, it's not a matter of forever talking about it and thinking about it and reasoning about it. It means that we begin to act. We act on that, we move with that flame, and we begin to move toward each other.

And thirdly, God gives us a new desire to go out into the sea of this world and draw in the poor, the maimed, the laden, the blind, to set the captives free, to conquer them, and set them free from the chains of the enemy. And so now we have the desire, but we have to work it out. It's there, but we have to do something with it.

Sometimes people say, so far so good, very good, I agree with all that, and I really feel I want to do those things, but as soon as the service is over, and I go out that door, and I'm back in the cynical world, I'm out there about my daily life, but I'm all the pressures and all the cynicism and the mockery and all the atmosphere of anti-Christ which pushes in against me, I get scared. And as Marie McDade was saying this morning at Sunday school, no problem that we're scared, it's what we do with our fear. So we're afraid.

Reading from 2 Chronicles 20, verse 1. After this, the Moabites and Ammonites, and with them some of the Menunites, came against Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, for battle. Some men came and told Jehoshaphat, a great multitude is coming against you from Edom, from beyond the sea, and behold, they are at Hazazon Tamar. Then Jehoshaphat feared, and he set himself to seek the Lord, and he proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah, and Judah assembled to seek help from the Lord.

From all the cities of Judah, they came to seek the Lord. And Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah in Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, and said, O Lord God of our fathers, art not thou the God in heaven? Dost not thou rule all the kingdoms of the nations? In thy hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Didst thou not, O our God, drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and give it over to the descendants of Abraham, thy friend? And they have dwelt in it, and have built thee in it a sanctuary for thy name. If evil comes upon us, the sword of judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this thy house, and before thee, for thy name is in this house, and cry to thee in our affliction, and thou wilt hear and save.

Now, behold the men of Ammon, and Moab, and Mount Seir, whom thou wouldst not let Israel invade when they came from the land of Egypt, and whom Israel avoided and did not destroy. Behold, they reward us by coming to drive us out of thy possession, which thou hast given us to inherit. O our God, wilt not thou execute judgment upon them? For we are powerless against this great multitude that is coming against us.

We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon thee. The situation was absolutely hopeless.

All logic told them there was no way out of this one. The Moabites, and the Ammonites, and the dwellers of Mount Seir comprised a vast army, and they were tough, and they were trained, and they were hard. And Jehoshaphat's little army was nothing by comparison.

And they didn't know what to do. We don't know what to do, but our eyes are upon you, O Lord. And so they turn to the Lord, and the Lord responds to them by giving them one thing, and this is really all they need.

The Lord ignites in their hearts the flame of zeal. That's all he gives them. Reading on.

Meanwhile, all the men of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, their wives, and their children, who are all going to be dead if something doesn't happen. And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, in the midst of the assembly. And he prophesied, and he said, Hark at all, Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and King Jehoshaphat.

Thus says the Lord to you, Fear not, and be not dismayed at this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's. Tomorrow go down against them. Behold, they will come up by the ascent of Ziz.

You will find them at the end of a valley east of the wilderness of Jeruel. You will not need to fight in this battle. Take your position.

Stand still. And see the victory of the Lord on your behalf. Oh, Judah and Jerusalem, fear not.

Be not dismayed. Tomorrow go out against them, and the Lord will be with you. Then Jehoshaphat bowed his head with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem fell down before the Lord, worshiping the Lord.

And the Levites of the Kohathites and the Korahites stood up to praise the Lord God of Israel with a very loud voice. And so these people are desperate. They don't know what to do.

They turn to God. A word comes from the Lord through this prophecy, and this word ignites zeal inside their hearts. And the first response that comes from them all, beginning with the king, but everybody, is worship.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Come on, work it out.

Worship. And so they worship. Everything else is pushed aside with the glory of God, and they bow down before Him.

Following the worship, they begin to draw together, as they never came together ever before, these people. They came into unity with each other, around God, under this worship. And then finally they move out toward the enemy.

They still may be frightened. They know how vast that enemy is, but they move. They rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa.

And as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God, and you will be established. Believe His prophets, and you will succeed.

And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise Him in holy array, as they went before the army. Isn't that, just picture this. Here's this motley army, and here are all these people, all praising God, with their instruments, their cymbals, and their trumpets, and their voices, and their robes, and off they go at the head of the army, praising God.

Funniest looking army, as far as the pagans were concerned, they ever saw. And so, when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the Lord and praise Him in holy array, and they went before the Lord and before the army, and they said, Give thanks to the Lord for His steadfast love endures forever. And when they began to sing praise, the Lord set an ambush against the men of Ammon and Moab and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed.

For the men of Ammon and Moab rose against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, destroying them utterly. And when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, they all helped to destroy one another. And when Judah came to the watchtower of the wilderness, they looked toward the multitude, and behold, they were dead bodies lying on the ground.

None had escaped. When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take the spoil from them, they found cattle in great numbers, goods, clothing, precious things, which they took for themselves until they could carry no more. They were three days in taking the spoil.

It was so much. On the fourth day, they assembled in the valley of Bereikah, for there they blessed the Lord. The valley of Bereikah, Bereikah meaning blessing.

Therefore, the name of the place has been called Valley of Bereikah, Valley of Blessing to this day. So, they don't go out there as a mob, disorganized. They go out there as a body, people who have committed themselves to each other, fitting in, finding where they fit and fitting in.

And then they move toward the enemy, praising God. And while they're coming together in this kind of unity, here's this tremendous army out there of highly trained soldiers, and the very opposite is happening with them. Instead of coming together, they're falling apart.

Suddenly, and this often happens with alliances, the Moabites and the Ammonites fight the dwellers of Mount Seir. They clean them out, then they start fighting with each other. And by the time this little army of Jehoshaphat, with all these people praising God, gets to the edge of the wilderness, this huge army which had come to destroy Israel, or Judah, is now nothing but a sea of dead bodies.

God had worked salvation into them. And all they had to do was work it out. God had given them a spirit of worship.

And they let that spirit of worship come forth. They didn't follow it up inside, they worshipped. God had given them a spirit of unity.

And they didn't know how to work that out. I mean, it wasn't like a blueprint, but they had a spirit of unity and they worked toward it. They tried this, this doesn't work, they tried something else, but gradually it begins to fit together.

And they work out this spirit of unity, and they have unity. And then God gave them a spirit of victory. They move toward this enemy with praises of God on their lips, and the enemy is conquered by God.

God has given us the same three gifts. He has given these things to us, and especially He's renewing them to us today as a zeal. And all we have to do is the same three things.

He is putting in us a zeal for worship, generating this as a gift in our own hearts, a flame that He gives us. All we have to do is worship. Today when we're together, we worship.

Tomorrow when we wake up, to worship. When we go about our daily life tomorrow, worshiping God. All the time turning everything we do into praise of His name.

Everything we do, worship. He's giving us a spirit of unity. And that has to be a gift, because we're so diverse.

Now all we have to do is work that out. And it won't happen overnight, it will take time, there will be mistakes. That's alright, God doesn't mind our mistakes as long as we're trying to move in His will.

And as we move in the direction of the spirit of unity, we will begin to fit together. We'll find out where we fit with each other. We'll do it.

And He's given us a spirit of victory. So that we go out there and see that that world out there is in the chains of the enemy and we are to break those chains and free those captives and bring them into the Father's kingdom. Therefore, my beloved, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

For God is at work in you. Both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Don't be afraid of the Ammonites.

Don't be afraid of the Moabites. Don't be afraid of Mount Seir. Don't be afraid of the world.

Let's take this flame He's given us and work with it in fear and trembling. Work it out. Let's worship.

Let's draw together. And let's move toward that enemy. And we will find ourselves in the Valley of Bereavement.

The Valley of Blessing. As we free the captives. And bring them back to the Father's house.

Let's praise God with 499. Let's rise and praise God with 499.