June's Passage: Philippians 2:12-18
Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but 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 work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the Word of Life, so that in the Day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me. (ESV)
If you are new to this reading plan, follow the instructions on the right side of this page or click here to read the "Why Just One Letter" introduction article.
Throughout each month, we will post short articles to give some depth of understanding regarding our text (see the archive links on the lower right of this page for review). Today we will discuss...
Obey By Holding Fast to the Word
There is a truth as old as humanity. To drift from the Word of God, is to fly into destruction.
In Genesis 2:16-17, the Word of God - spoken to Adam said “you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
And when The Serpent attacked Adam and Eve, he didn’t do so with force - he didn’t force Eve to eat the fruit. He simply began confusing and finally flat our lying about God’s Word until Eve drifted from the Word of God and flew into destruction.
In the time leading to the exile God had given His people chance after chance to turn from our sins and to turn back to Him in faith and repentance. He had given warning after warning that their current course in life would lead to calamity. And when Satan pushed on them - he didn’t need to force them to sin, he merely led false prophets to twist and block the Word of God so that God’s people would lose their healthy fear of Him.
For example, Jeremiah calls out the false prophets, “They have spoken falsely of the LORD and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us, nor shall we see sword or famine.’”
And as the people of God bought the lies of the false prophets and lost a holy reverence for God, they drifted from the Word of God and flew into destruction.
This month we have been looking at godly obedience from different vantage points. We’ve seen the importance of obeying God with fear and trembling, obeying God without grumbling or disputing and obeying God as a way of being a good witness to a watching world.
Today we stress the importance of obeying God by, “holding fast to the Word of Life.”
Our walk with God is just as dangerous as Adam and Eve’s against the serpent and the people of Israel’s in the midst of false prophets. We live in a world that tempts us into discontentment and discouragement and then tries to sell us false remedies for those problems. We live in a culture where so called men and women of God either ignore or twist the Word of God to fill their bank accounts on the backs of the spiritually duped.
But God has not left us alone here to be fed to the wolves. He has given us a great number of sound Biblical teachers to help us stay on course and in the last 500 years He has made it increasingly easy for us to have His Word in our hands in printed form. Recently His Word has also been given in audio formats for people to listen to for free if they are not readers.
But, holding fast to the Word of Life is not simply a matter of downloading information into our brains. Holding fast to the Word of Life requires us to share that Word with one another and help one another from buying into the lies against the Word that the world, the Devil and the flesh broadcast to us.
It is not so much to KNOW truth, our Knowledge has to move us toward belief and that belief is what gives birth to the obedience that we’ve been talking about all this month.
Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Abide in the Word. Hold Fast to the Word. Saturate your heart in the Word like you marinate a steak, let is soak through every part of who you are. Then, obey. That’s the only way to know what obedience is. That’s the only way to save yourself from destruction.
Obey FIRST by believing that Jesus is your Savior and Lord and that God raised Him from the dead. Believe in the life death burial and resurrection. And then Obey by placing your life into the perfect design for your life that God has given you.
To Hold fast to the Word of Life is to Fly FROM destruction.
A short pastoral side note: Paul writes that if we Hold fast to the Word of Life then, “in the Day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.”
Paul is saying that an extra benefit of your obedience is that Paul (this is also true for all of us who serve as pastors, elders and deacons {and godly parents}) an extra benefit of your obedience is that we will be able to look at you in the end of this age, when we stand before Jesus and think, YES! Praise Jesus! They made it! My work was fruitful!
That’s not even close to the main reason we serve (we serve to glorify God) but, OH! It is a pleasure to see our children and our flock walking in the truth - holding fast to the Word of Life.
Guard your heart against the drift. You are loved. God is ALWAYS right. Trust Him.
