Garry spoke this morning from Phil 2:12-13, commenting on how obedience is a key ingredient to working out our salvation. God gives us many commandments (rules) to guide and guard us. So often, we perceive obedience negatively, viewing it as restrictions, but actually obedience is the pathway to freedom.
A phrase such as ‘biGe.hthO,useredexPen,sive’ is hard for us to understand because it does not follow the usual rules of spelling, punctuation and syntax in English. When we re-write this as ‘the big, red, expensive house’, it is much easier to understand. All languages have rules to follow if we want to communicate well (German uses capital letters for nouns, for example; in French, most adjectives follow the noun, unlike English.) Obeying rules is actually the key to freedom. In DIY, using the correct tool for the job makes life much easier; trying to make a screwdriver do the job of a chisel usually leads to problems!
Freedom comes when we follow God’s rules, when we allow whole-hearted obedience to be our modus operandi (see Rom 6:17, Eph 6:5-6, Rom 12:1-2). This kind of obedience has to become our way of living, not just something we do when we think someone is watching. Salvation is God’s free gift to us, but He expects us to work with Him with the basic tools He gives us (just as in a woodwork class, the raw materials are given to students, but they must, following the pattern and with the teacher’s help, make a tray by themselves.)
We have to ‘unlearn’ the wrong patterns of thinking and behaving acquired before salvation and work out our salvation with fear and trembling (having a reverence for God, listening attentively as one under His authority, distrusting our own sinful tendencies and developing a sensitivity towards God’s ways.) We need to set good examples (see Eph 5:1, 1 Cor 11:1, 2 Thess 3:9), understanding that these examples of diligence are contagious! Responsive obedience is the best way to live.