Continue to work out your salvation

Becoming a Christian doesn't automatically mean you 'get it'.

Sometimes you might have an instant revelation of the gospel. But, even with an initial revelation, most of us will be working on 'getting it' for years.

**Actually ALL of us will be working on understanding what it's all truly about for our whole lives because what we are trying to understand is the nature of God and the reality of his kingdom, and we won't know that fully until Jesus returns.**

But when I'm talking about just the basic message of Jesus and what it means to be a Christian, I think a large proportion of Christians aren't totally sure what this actually means. We're certainly not living like we do.

How many of us have evidence of a life transformed?

Even those of us - or especially those of us - who have been Christians our whole lives have been so bogged down in the details that we've missed the point. And we wonder why no matter how hard we work at it, our lives don't actually seem that different to people who aren't Christians.

Some of us are like Simon (Acts 8) - we become a Christian, we see the power that comes with it, and we want it. So then we proceed to go about any means we can of acquiring it. We'll try to buy our way into it, we'll try to do good things to earn it, we'll try to find the formula for being the best Christian. We'll try and work for it.

Simon didn't really get it. He believed in Jesus, he was baptised, but he continued to go about his Christian life with the same mindset he had before. His heart was not right.

When I was younger and I read "continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (Philippians 2:12), I didn't get it. I read that small snippet out of context and I thought that maybe it meant my salvation was a personal thing. That it was some deal I brokered with God, that I could pick and choose my salvation, come up with something that worked for me. 

"I'll donate money to the poor once a year, read my Bible on Sundays, and then I can still go out drinking on Friday nights? How does that sound? Ok, ok, I'll even throw in a nightly prayer...."

It sounds ridiculous to put it that way, but who can say they haven't thought this way in some form.

"If I do this, it will make up for not doing that...."

But we're not getting it.

Read the rest of that verse - "for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose."

It is God in us who works. 

This means several things:

- We can't pick and choose - God is doing the work, and he is not going to pick and choose parts of himself. He comes as a complete deal.

- It's not about our 'works'. Again, it's God who works in us. 

- It's not about our personal 'bargain' with God. It's about transformation, aligning us to God's purpose. And it's about community, not what's in it for us.

The Voice Bible notes say about the whole of Philippians 2:
"Paul describes a community where every person considers the needs of others first and does nothing from selfishness; it pulls together rather than pulls apart, and it is a body that knows its purpose and lets nothing interfere with it. It is an extended spiritual family where others line up to become part of this sacred assembly and to make it their home because they feel encouragement and know they are truly loved. So Paul urges the Philippians to strive for this radical unity and fulfill his joy by having the mind of Jesus who humbled Himself, became a servant, and suffered the death of the cross. Jesus becomes the example of humility and service, leading to the kind of unity Paul imagines."

If you're not seeing this 'radical unity' in your life, if you don't feel like your serving anyone but yourself, if you aren't seeing transformation in your life - then maybe you haven't 'got it' yet.

Don't worry, you're far from alone.

But if you want change in your life - even if you just want to want change but you're afraid of it right now - get on your knees before God. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, and God will work in you for his good purpose!

Can't live with you, can't live without you

It occurs to me that life would be much easier if we lived in community like we are meant to. Just from a house wife's point of view, and a less than brilliant one at that, imagine one person not having to be responsible for all the cooking, cleaning and childcare all at once. Heaven. Pun intended.

You would have constant entertainment, conversation and support. The financial, physical and emotional burdens would not lie too heavily on anyone person. You would never be lonely.

That's all in ideal community. Community the way I'm sure God intended it.

But we would hate it at the same time. By we, I'm mean western society. Why? Because we don't really like to share.

In theory we are taught to share as children, but it seems to be a case of do what I say, not what I do. Because if a child sees the adults accumulating mine, mine, mine, will they do any differently? Because at heart we are selfish creatures. I include myself completely in that assessment.

For example, I love it when we have all our friends around to our house for a meal. Everyone plays a part in cooking, setting the table, baby sitting and cleaning up afterwards. Because our friends are thoughtful and generous, it all runs like a well oiled machine and everyone gets to have a good time, with no-one feeling like they shouldered all the work.

Or when family comes to visit, and helps out with the washing and dishes while they are there. It feels great.

But if my friends or extended family then said they were moving in to my house permanently, that we were going to do this every day, that now my kitchen was ours, my computer was ours, my house was ours...well, I'd probably have a problem with that. And by probably, I mean definitely.

But why?

I think in western society, we are conditioned to think this is normal. Self-centredness is the status quo. No-one questions it because that's what everyone does. Whether that is the product of a capitalist society or the other way around, I don't know.

But it would come as a shock to us if we found ourselves in a different time or culture, to discover, actually not everyone is like this.

There have been in history and there are in the world now, cultures where there isn't so much importance placed on ownership. There isn't so much of a division between mine and yours. Where free, welcoming hospitality is the highest honour, rather than a select, guarded privilege. Where is more about what you give than what you can get for yourself.

For a society theoretically based on Christian values, we are shockingly bad at caring for other people above, or even equal to ourselves.

Acts 2:44
All the believers were together and had everything in common. (NIV)
There was an intense sense of togetherness among all who believed; they shared all their material possessions in trust. (The Voice)
And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources... (The Message)
And all those who believed were together and everything they had was communal... (Aramaic Bible in Plain English)

I don't know about you, but that sounds wonderful and terrifying at the same time.

We love the idea, yet most of us hate the reality.

We'd rather those verses read something like,

"They were together a lot having BBQs, and shared their time, money and stuff sometimes, but on their terms; then they went back to their own houses for some time out."

But no. They were together and shared everything. EVERYTHING.



We as the Church have a long way to go before our lives look anything like this. I have a long way to go. I long for it and I run from it in equal measure.

But the good news?

The people of the early New Testament church weren't just extraordinarily good people. They had something that we need more of.

Something - someone - who came like the sound of a rushing wind, and like tongues of flame, and turned their lives upside down.

We aren't just called to live a certain way and then left to our own devices. Jesus actually gave us the power to put it into action. And once we learn to do that, that's when we will start to see the kingdom of God...heaven on earth.