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Paul was teaching the
people at Philippi...and God wants to teach us,
that it takes more than an example on the
outside; it takes power inside to live a
consistent Christian life. Our world is falling,
because they have fallen from the message, that
taught power on the inside, to just an example
on the outside. Christ is our
example in all things, but true Christianity is
not you and me taking Christ for an example and
then straining in our own strength to be
conformed to that example.
Paul set Christ forth as
the great example, in the exercise of a
submissive mind. What submission
Christ had, in leaving the form of God!
He was God, one of the Godhead in the form
of God, but He had a submissive
mind. He didn't grasp at being God
to the place that He couldn't lay it aside to
become a man, a servant, and a crucified
sacrifice for a lost and dying world.
Paul tells us that we must have the same
submissive mind, if we're going to be
Christians. The reason the Church is
not going forward (like it ought) today, is
because too many people who claim to be the
Church, do not have a submissive mind.
Many people agree that the
life of Christ is a wonderful picture, but the
question is: How do we go about practicing
it? How can mortal man achieve what
Christ achieved in living? The
religious world quickly answers, "No mortal man
can live like Christ. No mortal man
can achieve what Christ achieved."
Therefore, they live 'way below' the level
of true Christianity.
Well, Jesus Christ not
only lived the life, but He left a pathway for
you and me to walk in. God, through His great
plan, furnishes the grace, power, wisdom, and
all that we need. In other words, we have no
excuse for not being Christlike.
To many, it is presumptious
to even think about living holy, so they just
give up. Yet, if you've been
redeemed, you're redeemed from among men; you
are living a life that men cannot live.
The devil is out today to deify man and
humanize God. He's out to take the
power out of true Christianity. When
he takes that out, we have nothing left but an
empty shell; we're left in a powerless
condition.
There's a secret, which
Paul is setting forth, here. He's
showing us a divine pattern for the submissive
mind and for the divine power to accomplish what
God has commanded. Read verse 13,
where he begins to let the secret out.
Here was a people who always
obeyed. Paul told them to "...work
out your own salvation with fear and
trembling. For it is God which
worketh in you..." I say this
kindly, with love and respect for anyone who
might feel different, but the day of Christ
"with you," passed when the day of Pentecost
came. Ever since then, salvation has
been an inside work, not 'with you' but 'in
you.' There's no place in the
Christian experience where Christ merely dwells
'with you.'
He
certainly travels with the sinner.
He talks with the sinner and works to
convict him of sin. However, when
you come to the place of real Bible repentance
and submit your life out of your hands into
God's, your heart is cleansed through the Blood
of Jesus and God moves in. It is
"God in you" working in you. Verse
13 tells us, "For it is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of his good
pleasure." In Galatians 2:20 Paul
said, "...Christ liveth in
me..."
