This week I had the privilege of giving a message on clinging to Christ at the Oyumino Alive! Worship service. What a blessing! Yoji Horino translated the sermon into Japanese.
I spoke from Philippians 2:12-18. There Paul speaks to the Philippian church about obeying even when he is not there. (don’t cling to the approval of others) He contrasts obeying when he is present with obeying because it is God who is at work in us. What is our heart motivation for obedience? Is it a fear of man? Is it a fear of punishment? Are we motivated by guilt; trying to atone for our past sins and failures?
Paul’s specific command in this passage is to do all things without grumbling or questioning. When we think about how easy it is to grumble and question, we realize our lack of pure delight in God and His law. We noted the similarity of the Pharisees’ external righteousness and our own tendency toward mere external obedience when other Christians are watching. We recognized that we must have internal
righteousness. But, we then see that by ourselves we cannot produce this type of righteousness. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:16 & 24) But, thanks be to God, He sent Jesus not only to atone for our sins, but He also fulfilled all righteousness as our representative (the second Adam, cf. I Cor. 15:45). And we concluded by seeing that though Christ obeyed perfectly in our stead, we are not released from our duty to obey; rather we are now motivated and empowered to obey by His great love for us . We must cling to Christ and His perfect work as the source of our salvation and as the source of power to live the Christian life.
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