Philippians 2:12-13
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
12 So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;
13 for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
Imagine a man pulling his car down the highway, sweating and straining to complete his journey to wherever it is he's going, laboring mightily to move along the roadway, burdened by the heavy machine he's hauling behind him. You see the man's plight and pull over your own car, hopping out to offer assistance to your fellow traveler.
"Your car's conked out, eh?" you ask.
Straightening, an annoyed look on his face, the man replies, "Great. Now I've lost all my momentum. Do you know how hard it is to get this car moving once it's stopped?"
"Never mind trying to haul your car," you reply. "Hop into mine and I'll take you to the nearest garage. You can get someone there to tow your car in for repairs."
A baffled expression settles on the face of the car-hauling man. "Repairs? My car doesn't need repairs. It works fine."
Now its your turn to adopt a baffled expression. "I don't understand," you say, your brows furrowed in confusion. "Why are you pulling your car down the road, then?"
"How else am I going to finish my journey?"
Is this guy a nut? you wonder. "Why don't you try driving your car?" you say, a little sarcastically.
"Yes, yes. I know," your odd companion replies, "The car can take me where I want to go. Depend on the car. Trust the car. Yes, I've heard it all before."
Now you really wonder if the guy is crazy. A little peeved at the stupidity of the man, you say, "Well, why in the world are you pulling your car, then? Are you insane? How long have you been doing this with your car?"
A bemused smile on his face, the car-puller responds, "I've been doing this since I got the car, of course. You can't just sit around in your car, letting it do all the work, contributing nothing to wherever it is you're going. That's just laziness. You've got to be a man; you've got to make the journey happen. You aren't just a puppet of the car, y'know."
You close your mouth which had fallen open at the man's incredible words. You think for a moment and then ask, "So have you actually ever driven your car anywhere?"
Doubt and embarrassment flit across the car-puller's face. "I've sat in it many times with the engine running. I've even put it in neutral and let it roll to the end of my driveway. I'm certain it works perfectly well."
"But you've never actually ridden in it down a road?"
Anger clouds the face of the man and he snaps at you: "I just told you that's not how things work. Yes, the car can carry me around. I'm sure it can. But I've got to do my part, too. It's wrong to expect the car to do all the work, getting me to where I want to go."
Without another word, you return to your car, continuing your own journey, wondering mightily at the ridiculousness of the situation you've just encountered.
While no analogy is perfect, there are, nonetheless, very distinct parallels, I think, in this story to the way in which many believers "work out their own salvation." I encounter such believers constantly. These believers give lip-service to the supremacy and necessity of submission and dependence upon the Holy Spirit in Christian living, they acknowledge that "it is God who works in them both to will and to do of His good pleasure," but in the actual living of the Christian life, they are "pulling the car" down the highway of their journey with God.
What's worse, they take pride in doing so, criticizing fellow believers who aren't following their example. These "car-pullers" disdain those who are confident that God really does what He says He will do, supplying to the born-again person all they need - both the desire and the ability - to do what He has commanded them to do. Instead, the "car-puller" uses words like "discipline," and "try," and "re-dedicate," and "commit," when they speak of the character of their walk with God. They have located the power source of their spiritual journey with God in themselves, in their capacity for faith, in their endurance, determination and sincerity, justifying doing so by declaring, "The Christian isn't a puppet!" and, "God tells us to do, not sit around, waiting for Him to do it for us!"
We can see how crazy this idea is when it comes to using one's car in the manner of the fellow pulling his car down the road, but, somehow, when God says to His children, "I am the One who works in you both to desire to do and to do my will," we translate this into, "It's all on me to produce for God what He wants from me."
Is this how we began with God? Did we produce our own salvation? Did we save ourselves? No. (Ephesians 2:8-9; 2 Timothy 1:9; Titus 3:5) We came into relationship with God only by dint of His work in us, drawing us to Christ, giving us the ability to change our minds about the Gospel and our need of a Savior, and convicting us of our sin. (John 6:44; 2 Timothy 2:25; John 16:8) And we continue to be wholly-dependent upon God after the moment of our conversion, equipped to know and serve Him by the presence of the Holy Spirit within. Without the Spirit, apart from His power, we are utterly unable to please God and to bear "fruit" of which He approves (John 15:5; Romans 8:13-14; 1 Corinthians 2:4-5, Galatians 5:22-23, etc.).
Why, then, do so many believers act practically in contradiction to what they acknowledge in word: God does it all? I have come to suspect that a big part of the reason for this incongruity is that Christians don't actually believe God will change them by His own power.
It's one thing to trust oneself to Christ as Savior, and to an eternity with him one day, but quite another to trust oneself to God in one's immediate circumstances. What can we do to secure our eternal destiny, to contribute to its reality and shape, but believe? But in the here-and-now we can act, we can make things happen, we don't have to trust God entirely in the way we must for our eternal destiny. And so, many believers don't. This is, at bottom, merely Self, our "old man," at work supplanting God. But it is more natural, more human, to act for ourselves, to trust to our own capacities in accomplishing our goals.
It is immediately obvious, though, that a believer is "car-pulling" by the terrible strain under which they come in doing so. God has an infinite reservoir of power on which to draw in changing us, and perfect wisdom to apply to the process of our transformation, and unalloyed holiness and love shaping His work in us. We don't. Our own human resources are sin-cursed, fleshly, characterized by our natural short-sightedness and ignorance, and extremely finite. The difference between God's power and ours is enormous, which soon shows up in the exhausting, frustrating and failure-ridden labor that results when we start "car-pulling" spiritually.
As children of God, we are receivers and responders, not achievers and producers. Our "work," if you like, is to, by faith, receive, remain in and reflect God's work in us by His Spirit, not achieve our own salvation, maintain its existence, and produce for God a godly life. (2 Corinthians 3:18; Philippians 1:6; Philippians 2:13; Philippians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24; Romans 8:13-14; Ephesians 3:16; Jude 1:24-25, etc.)
The other primary cause of spiritual "car-pulling," in my experience, anyway, is not living in constant submission to God. The condition under which God fills us with Himself, transforming us and using us powerfully to His eternal ends, is one in which we are humbly yielded to Him as a living sacrifice, a bond-servant of righteous. (Romans 6:13-22; Romans 12:1; James 4:7, etc.) Outside of a walk of constant submission to God, there is no fully-transformative fellowship with God, only self-will which is always fundamentally in rebellion toward God. (Romans 7:18; Romans 8:5-8; Galatians 5:17).
So, are you a spiritual "car-puller"? You don't have to be. By faith in, and submission to, God, to the will and way of His Spirit, you can be filled with the infinite divine resources waiting to transform you and transport you into the wonder and joy of constant communion with your Maker.
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