18th June 2025

18th June 2025


Pray (ACts)


Read (Philippians 2:12-13 focus 12b)


Message (Alan Burke)


You might have read this verse and thought ‘wow’, ‘fear and trembling’. Now before we get into that I want to try to illustrate something. A long time ago my grandad got a piece of land and it was rough ground, gorse, rocks, it looked like it would be nothing else. Over time though that piece of ground was transformed from rough ground that was only good for sticking a few goats to a piece of land that was good for grazing cattle. The thing is that that piece of land was my Grandad’s, it belonged to him and through blood sweat and tears it was transformed but the work never stoped in his lifetime, there was fencing that needed done, it needed grazed. If he had just left it would have been taken over by nature again, the gorse would have been back and it would have been back only suitable for goats. 


You might be wondering why on earth do I begin this way and the reason why is I’ve tried to illustrate the work of sanctification, we may not be a bit of rough ground, we might not have a lot of gorse but in sanctification God work in us, bringing us to salvation, and while at that moment when we come to saving faith, when we are declared holy, we are at the same time still sinners and God continues to work, transforming us, changing us from what we once were to what we were made to be as those who were choses from before the foundation of the world (Eph 1:4), to be holy. 


The work of transformation within us doesn’t come all at once, while we are sanctified made holy and we belong to Christ, we are slowly transformed through his work of sanctification within us. Like the piece of rough ground, it already belonged to my Granda but it was transformed by his work to become a field, we are transformed from being sinner to being holy, we already belong to God and are holy when we come to salvation but there is a work to be done within us by the Holy Spirit transforming us into what God wants us to be. Paul has just said as we continue to obey we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling it is not that we are somehow earning our salvation, rather he is expressing the idea of continual obedience in the life of the believer. It is not that we should be filled with terror at loosing our salvation but that within the believer there should be a sense of awe and reverence before their creator. 


The true fear of God knows that we come before the Holy, Holy, Holy God and seeks to please and obey Him rather than to sin against Him. Noah feared God rightly and sought to honour Him in the midst of a wicked generation (Heb 11:7). The church in Philippi were to work out their salvation with fear and trembling and we are to do the same. While our sins have been forgiven, we are the redeemed of God, that salvation will be seen in us in the process of sanctification. It is seen as we die to sin and are conformed more and more into the likeness of Christ our saviour, it is an ongoing process, we seek to obey God and his word and he works in us. While we are saints as Paul has already made clear to those whom he wrote to, we are declared holy but there is an ongoing growth in our holiness in this life. Our salvation is not based on merit, it is all about God’s grace, but in that we respond to God’s grace and we live lives in response to what God has done. And just like that field we are transformed from what we once were into the likeness of our saviour, growing in our holiness.


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q6 How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.
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