In Philippians 2:12-18, the message centers on work out your faith and shine. Explore Philippians 2:12–18 and discover how God works in us as we obey, grow, reject grumbling, and shine like lights in the world. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.
The message presses toward an active response to the gospel. Faith is presented as something that reshapes priorities, decisions, character, and obedience, not simply something we affirm intellectually. Listeners are challenged to examine whether their lives are increasingly aligned with what they say they believe and to respond to God's grace with courage, humility, and faithful action.
Along the way, the message engages themes including Philippians 2:12-18, work out your faith and shine, philippians 2, reject grumbling. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Philippians 2:12-18 teach about work out your faith and shine? It also considers how should work out your faith and shine shape the way Christians live?
For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.
What does Philippians 2:12-18 teach about work out your faith and shine? | How should work out your faith and shine shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Philippians 2:12-18 in everyday life?
Philippians 2:12-18, work out your faith and shine, philippians 2, reject grumbling, shine like lights in world, work out your faith
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We are in the book of Philippians and if you want to turn there with me to chapter 2 and starting in verse 12. We'll read it here in in a little bit. I kind of want to just dive quickly uh into some things. But uh it's always odd the more and more we read this. It's always odd to see that joy is the theme of this book of the Bible because Paul is writing it from a Roman prison. And I and I and I'm going to keep reminding you every single week that this is where he's writing it from because it it it puts everything into perspective and it really shifts our hearts. He's writing to the churches in Philippi, which is in southern Greece, and he's been severely beaten and persecuted multiple multiple times, but he finds joy and excitement to write this full of passion letter to the church in Philippi. He's choosing to live for Christ even in the midst of all of these difficult circumstances. And he's in awe of God. Everybody say awe. >> Awe. >> Here we go. The word awe is where we get the word awesome. Somebody say awesome. >> Awesome. >> Here's the thing. Like we tend to call a lot of dumb things awesome. >> Yeah. >> Right. Like your shoes are awesome. Your clothes are awesome. That video on social media, it's awesome. Right. We we that I I beat the red light in traffic when it was yellow. I'm awesome. Come on, somebody. This is awesome. Like I found a parking spot, you know, at Walmart and Yeah, that's awesome. Everything is cool. Everything is awesome. Lego Movie. Yeah, everything is awesome. Thank you. Thank you. There we go. I was waiting for it. But not everything is awesome. >> Not everything is awesome like the Lord is awesome. Right. Amen. >> He should inspire awe and wonder and majesty in our eyes and our hearts and our lives when we think of all the things that the Lord has done. When we give our life to him in serving him, when we go allin with Jesus and do it because we we love him fully and there's this there's this deep reverence. We desire to live our life in a manner worthy of the gospel. Axios, Paul is challenging us today as we read to to live allin for Jesus and and do it again out of reverence and awe and wonder and all these different things. And but I want to pose this question to us today. I had a couple different questions that I was going to say. I was going to say, you know, do you remember when you first got saved and what that was like? And and then I when I started realizing I was like, I don't even remember when I first got saved. I was like four or five years old. Like I I I and and then after that I re-uped so many times after that, you know, like I I I just I fell away and every time my dad would preach about hell, I'm like, I need Jesus right now. Um so there was there were so many moments like that in my life. But the question I want to ask is when did God become real to you? When did God become real to you? Because I would say for for for many people when you gave your life to Jesus, if you were in a Sunday school or you were in some passing conversation or somebody led you through all of the words, like you might not have felt anything in that moment. You might not have like seen heaven open up and God come down with his, you know, big white beard like Santa Claus back here, you know, like you may not have had that moment, but I know there are moments in our lives where God becomes real. when you were captivated by God's love. When you were deeply convicted of the truth of this gospel again, maybe you believed in Jesus, but you weren't let yet living for Jesus. When did the Holy Spirit convict your heart for the first time when you were moved to follow Christ? And I I realized this like I I knew I believed in Jesus from a very young age, but I really didn't start living for Jesus until I was about eight or nine years old. And I was at I was at Camp Hope up in southern New England. My dad was running this camp. And it was one of the first years that I was like I wasn't, you know, the pastor's kid. I was the kid on the team. And I remember sitting down with a camp counselor grow again growing up my whole life in church. I don't remember what the counselor said, but I remember that God showed up in that moment. God, when God revealed himself to me, and it was in that moment that I started to pray things that I'd never prayed before, I started to pray things like, "God, whatever you want, I'm all in. Whatever whatever whatever I need to, whoever I need to be, whatever I need to do, like God, I want it. I want to be allin. And it was in that moment that I felt the presence of God. And it wasn't just it wasn't like Holy Spirit goosebumps. It was just a knowing that God, you're real. Like wow, there is a grace in this moment. There's a power that that is incomprehensible compared to my own current circumstance. And again, like I said, I've reuped many times over the last 25 years. I've enlisted in the Lord's army again and again and again. I'm in the Lord's army. Thank you. Whether it was a preacher who scared the hell out of me to get me into heaven or maybe it was just those simple prayers of God, I'm all in. I prayed that last night. I couldn't sleep last night and I I went to bed like 11 or so and I was up until 2 in the morning and I was just praying, God, I want to be all in. I want I want to be everything you've called me to be. And I just couldn't I couldn't get away from that moment. Like God would not let me rest. I think I fell asleep praying in tongues. It was awesome. But every time I pray like that, whenever I prayed like this, I'm just full of awe and wonder and gratitude that Jesus would take me. That Jesus would still take me after all the times that I've spit in his face or I've I've turned away from him and pursued something else that I was excited about or that I enjoyed or that I liked. Like it's hard to believe after all the times of wrestling back and forth that he would still take me back. Because if I was God, I wouldn't take me back. If I was God, I'd be like, "Bro, this is one too many times. There's such conviction and reverence and gratitude that fills my life when I recognize God's love for me." And I hope you recognize that, too. when I sit and dwell on the sacrifice that he made for me through Jesus on the cross and it changes me every single time I engage with this whenever I'm reading my word or beginning to pray like I'm just I'm just convicted like God I'm so undeserving and I just grow in awe and wonder of him in these in these moments and it the more I do that. The more I pray this way, it changes me and his love compels me to live worthy, to live faithful. Like there's this driving force within me of his love that just goes like, I want him. I want to live for him. I want to learn about him and grow in him. And this is really my this is my heart for all of us as a church that we would be so in awe and wonder of his love and his grace that it compels us to live worthy of him. And the closer that I get to him, the more I realize these things. And and my second question for you today is, do you live with awe of God or are you afraid of God? Because we can really live two different ways in Christianity. Like you can go to one church down the road and it's like fear the Lord and you can go to the next church and be like love the Lord, you know, and you can live these two different ways. But I really want to talk about what that means. Fear versus being afraid. Because we can live our lives out of fear, being afraid, concerned that God is this holy God in heaven and we're this unholy people. And we're we can live in this fear and being afraid that we're we're never going to please God. We're never going to be enough. And there's judgment looming all the time. Like Sky Daddy's going to come with his lightning bolt and just boom as soon as you screw up. And and don't get me wrong, like I've I've lived that faith. But that's religion, >> right? >> And that's fear. >> Yeah. >> Not a holy fear and reverence of the Lord, but it's I am scared out of my mind of making a mistake. And I can't associate with people that make mistakes. I can't. And then we we we start to come into this bubble, right? And it's and it's religion. It's religious. But on the on the second side, on the flip side, we can live this life of awe and wonder, deep conviction, this attitude of I can't believe that I get to live for God. I can't believe that he's CHOSEN ME AFTER ALL THE TIMES THAT I'VE I'VE SCREWED UP AGAIN AND AGAIN and again. And and my heart is that we would want to live in this way. like the heavy things that I'm carrying, I can lay those things down at the feet of the cross. That I get to walk in holiness. I get to say no to sin. I get to be a son and I get to be a part of God's family. Like, how amazing is this? I can't believe that we get to live for God who's so good and he's so holy and he's invited me not as a slave but as a son. The only fear I have is a holy fear of living without him. Just a reverence and a revelation of my need for Jesus. Again, just like Isaiah, like we're talking about during worship of just like woe is me. I'm so undeserving of this and God, you are so good and you're so great. I get to live for Jesus. Again, we can live with that freak out fear and anxiety or we can live in reverence and love and deep devotion. Like, what's more appealing to you between the two? We can live this life for God with love for God, deep conviction, all these different things because we rever him. And really that's the difference between living for God from religion and living for him out of relationship. >> And it's not it's not unfortunately that statement has become so cliche in the church. Oh, it's relationship you know it's not religion. I was like okay show me your relationship with God. >> And many times that relationship with God is like well I have this whole list of things I'm not supposed to do. That's religion babe. Like >> my heart, my desire again for us as a church is that we would live worthy of the gospel because we love him, not because we're afraid of him. Like like it needs to be like that love and dating relationship when you first start dating somebody for the first time or you have that love at first sight that hits you. My wife is up here on the front row. I'm going to try really hard not to look at her while I say all these things. But when I met Britney, I was playing tag on the playground in fourth grade for real. And then later we got engaged on the same playground when we first met. Oh, so cute. You know, right? Yeah, I know. I know. But it's wild how much I love this girl. And it's wild like how much I loved her even then. Don't look at me, babe. Look down. Look down. And it's and it's honestly kind of creepy because I definitely stalked her. Like when I look back on it now, like I I was definitely stalking her. Yeah, it's okay now because we're married and she can't get away from me. Um but it's creepy like the effect that she has on me. And those of you that are that are married will will understand this, but like her presence was intoxicating. like just breathing the same air as her in high school and in college like made me primal is what I wrote down here. Like that's the best way I could say it. Like nothing else mattered but her and I remember like making changes in my character >> right >> because I knew I was going to be around her >> you got to be better. I had I had to change. Not because she was like, "Nick, you need to change. Like, you've got some problems." That was later once we got married, but like Yeah. Love it. But I I wanted to change. I wanted to grow. I wanted to shift because of my love for her. >> And this is what the Lord's calling us to now. Because we love God, because we're in such awe and wonder and love with him. I want to change. I want to grow. I want to become who he saved me to be. >> I couldn't wait to be around her. And my affection for her made me different. And she survived almost 12 years of marriage and 25 plus years of of me stalking her. Um, we need to live in a way that shows that we're devoted to God. Just like I was I live my life in a way that shows I'm devoted to her. And it's more than just like putting a ring on my finger. >> Yeah. >> But it's through my action. It's through my words. It's through how I'm living. Again, how much more should we live from a posture of salvation? Not not from a a a desperate place of I have to earn God's affection or I have to, you know, keep God from leaving me. We need to remember that we are radically saved >> and so we live radically for him. >> So, I'm finally getting into the text. Are you all ready? Here we go. Remember last week, do nothing out of selfish ambition. And then Paul said, "God has exalted Christ to have the name that's above every other name so that every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth." And then we get into our text in Philippians 2:12. says, "Therefore," listen to this. This is so good. "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, I love that. So now, not only as in my presence, but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Many of us have misheard this text or we've seen this text used and abused within the church. We've heard it this way. We've heard it. You need to work for your salvation and be very afraid. Again, it's that turn or burn sort of message, fire and brimstone kind of preaching that I grew up with in in the 90s and early 2000s. Turn your life to Jesus or you're going to be in hell. >> Be all in or be all out. But that's not our motivation. I'm not serving God to escape hell. >> We should want to serve God because we love Jesus. >> Listen, this is this is not work for your salvation. He's saying work it out. >> He's saying live it out. work from a place of salvation. And again, Paul is such a good pastor. He starts this whole thing off by by basically affirming Philippi, >> affirming this church. Like, he's so so encouraging that he's saying, "You've always obeyed. You guys are awesome. You guys are doing great. You're amazing." This is what he's saying here in this text. When you really dive into the text, he's not heavy-handed. He's affirming. And again, I know that as a pastor, like this actually kind of convicts me because I I know that I'm not very encouraging when I'm up here. Pin drop. All right, cool. All right. Thank you. Like I can get very intense when I'm preaching. I get very impassionate about the word of God. And sometimes I know you can leave the church feeling like I took a baseball bat to your kidneys. And that's okay. I love you. And I know I need to smile more. My dad's telling me that I need to smile more. Um, but I I honestly feel called to be a coach and my dad was a really great coach in in sports and he never smiled at me. So, you know, I love you, Dad. You're awesome. Paul's a good pastor. He's a good coach. And he's just again, he's starting this section out by bragging. And so, I'm going to I'm going to take a moment and brag on you today. Can I do that? >> Is that all right? Just just say I want to receive. Yes. Yes. All the affirmation. I'm going to try to be like Paul. So, this is like no smoke, no law, no lie encouragement. I'm really proud of this church. I'm really proud of you all. For those of you that I've been able to walk with and even those that that are that are new here and connecting here, like I'm really proud of what God is doing here. This is a great church and I and I know I feel like I'm always pushing you all really hard towards Jesus, but what I continually hear from y'all is yes. That's the response. It's very rarely do I have y'all coming to me complaining that you're too harsh. It's man, I really needed that and I and I and I'm grateful for the feedback, but I know I can be more encouraging and more loving and I and I'm going to work on that and I love you all through all that. >> Thank you. But here, hey, hey, no, no, that I wasn't doing this for claps, okay? What's the most encouraging thing is like I get to walk so closely with with so many of you and I and I I see it over and over again that you are becoming more like Jesus. You're generous, you're loving, you're selflessly serving others. Like I brag on this church constantly. Like I I have the privilege of hanging out with lots of pastors and for whatever reason pastors love to complain to me about all of the problems in their church and I go, I don't have problems. I have amazing people. Hey, >> come on. And so the church I see today is is amazing and I love you. That's it. All right. All right, I'm done encouraging you. All right, cool. >> Back to the baseball bat. All right. Again, he Paul's saying, "You guys have done this right, and you're doing it right, even when I'm not here." Remember, Paul's in prison, and and I feel like Paul is when I when I read this, I feel like I get this sense that he knows he's going to die there. He knows that the end is coming. He's never coming back to Philippi. So, this is like his last sort of letter and moment being sent to them. And he's saying, "Hey, you don't need me for this next thing that I'm going to tell you. Work out your salvation. Live this out. Work this out." And again, he's not saying keep your faith private. He's saying live this out. Live it out loud. live out the fruit of the spirit that God has given you and that he saved you and do it with fear and trembling. And he's not saying he's not saying be afraid of of going to hell. That's not what this is. Don't fear that God's going to be mad at you. Don't be afraid of God. The phrase again working this out in the original is walk it out with awe and reverence and deep admiration. To walk it out to make every single effort that you have to work hard. The New Living Translation says, "Work hard to show the results of your salvation. Show the world that you're saved. Show the world that you're a child of God. Show everyone that you live for Jesus." When people ask you, "Why do you make those decisions?" It's because I follow Jesus. Why do you act this way? It's because I follow Jesus. We work hard to show the results of our salvation, obeying God with deep reverence and awe because God is awesome. We live out loud for Jesus. And we need to we need to the church needs to start walking not with arrogance, but can we be proud to be believers? I'm I'm not saying you need to like, you know, have a moment and beat your chest, but can we like start sharing because we're excited and proud to be a son and a daughter >> because it's in that attitude that people go like, I want to be proud to be alive. I want to be proud to be a son. And it and it attracts so many people with into the family of God. Again, you work hard to show that you are saved, not prove that you're saved. not to earn your salvation, but you work hard to live out your salvation. You love it, live it, breathe it, and you gain life from it. Don't just carry the title Christian and then not live to the standard that God is calling you to. And I and I and I see it like this. I was at Chick-fil-A a few weeks ago and I walk up to make my order. And have y'all been to Chick-fil-A? It's God's chicken, guys. All right, come on. I walk up and and you know they got their uniforms on. Sometimes they got the hat on. It says their name tag. Chick-fil-A. And and if y'all don't know this about Chick-fil-A, like they're all about some hospitality, >> right? Like I say, "Thank you." And they say, "My pleasure. >> My pleasure." Right? We all know this. We all We all We all got this. But for whatever reason on this day, I get up to order my food. Getting some nugies. It's going to be great. Give me the sauce. All the things. And this dude did not look at me. His head was down. He acknowledged that I was there, but he didn't say, "How's it going today?" or "Can I take your order? May I take your order? How can I help you today?" There was like nothing there. He's wearing he's wearing the hat. He's wearing the logo, but he is not living to the standard of a Chick-fil-A employee, >> right? And and Lord help like God God help us, you know? like I I I'm sure he was just having a bad day, but it it it I didn't get entitled. I didn't yell at the kid. I'm like, "Hey, you better talk to like I didn't do anything. I was just like, is he okay?" Because again, I know the standard of of a Chick-fil-A employee and this isn't it. So, something is wrong. You all get that? Like when you when you're hanging out with a Christian and a believer and something's just off, you start to question, "Do you really love Jesus?" >> Yeah, >> I've done that. And it's just like you you you're you're you have this facade on that you're one thing, but I'm not I'm not seeing it in your actions and your words and your character. And the manager had to come up and like bump him and be like, "Hey, you have there's someone here. We had a guest." And then it was like, "Hey, may I may I take your order?" You know, and it was just like I don't know if it was his first day. I don't know what was going on. Again, I didn't get entitled. I didn't I didn't do anything weird, but I ordered and I genuinely had fear in my heart. I'm like, "This kid's going to get fired today because he's not living up to the standard." And that's really what Paul is telling us right here in this moment of like, don't just don't just put on the the cross. Don't wear all the the Jesus gear. Don't tell people that you're a follower of Jesus and then not live up to the standard that he's calling us to. You need to work it out. Work it out. walk it out, live it out, that it comes out of you in your life. That's what he's saying when he says, "Work out your salvation." It's really saying like, "Prove it. Show us that you're a follower of Christ. Show us. Show the world who Jesus is through your life." Again, being a Christ follower, it's not a it's not a title. It's total surrender. Many times, again, we talked about this on our podcast. Many times we get our preferences in front of God and we we'll pray for everyone else and everything else in our lives, but then we won't actually say, "God, where do I need to change?" And we end up using God as our genie in a bottle to fix all of our issues when I'm the problem. when I'm the one that needs to change, when I'm the one that needs to to grow, when I'm the one that needs to become more and more like Christ. And again, I'm not saying don't pray for all the situations, but I really feel like based on what Jonathan was was sharing last week, we put a cap on what God can do in our lives when we refuse to allow him to touch us and fix us and change us. Again, I'm not afraid of God, but we are not equals, >> right? >> Like, he's not my peer. Like, I love the Jesus is my homeboy stickers, but he ain't my homeboy. >> I can't be casual about my relationship with God. >> God is not a vibe. He's not an aura. He's not my big dog. >> He's my father in heaven. He's the creator of the universe. >> He spoke the world into existence. And he can end my life with the snap of his fingers. >> I'm not afraid of God, but I'm very afraid of doing anything >> that would violate him or dishonor him >> or live outside of his way >> because I LOVE HIM SO MUCH THAT I don't want to disappoint him. >> And again, we can we can teeter on this line of like I'm just a constant disappointment to God, you know, like I'm never enough. That's religion. >> But when we can have that holy fear of like we get that check in our spirit when we do something that's wrong. >> And we can ignore it >> and be like, "Oh, it's all good, God." Or we can say like, "Lord, I know I shouldn't have done that. I shouldn't have said that." And we come to him and we repent. We surrender. We We continue to put him in his place and not put ourselves at the same level as him. God, this isn't a big deal. Who are you? Are you God? >> Because that's that's how I I I find myself when I go, God, this isn't a big deal. I hear the Holy Spirit say, "Oh, I didn't know that you were the Lord." >> I didn't know. Thanks for telling me. >> Because here's the thing. I'm going to let him down. We're flawed as humans. We make mistakes. I stay I say really stupid things sometimes from this pulpit. And here's the thing. I'm quick to repent. I'm quick to go to the Lord and say, "I blew it. I was in my flesh. I was being stupid. I was wrong. I'm sorry." And again, it's not to try to appease people. It's to get right before him. It's to say, "God, you're here. I'm here. I'm in awe and I'm in wonder of who you are, and this is where I'm at." It's again, it's like Isaiah again. Here am I surrendered. But it's in the moments that we don't surrender is when we elevate ourselves to a position that is equal with him. >> Again, I'm not living in constant fear that he's going to send me to hell because I'm a son. >> Because I know him, because I'm in relationship with him. And and and what I love about about God is he's correcting me because I let him again and again and again. And I'm confident in my relationship with him. And I'm confident that I've been gloriously saved. Not because of anything I did. God chose me. God chose you. The only reason you're here is because of God. You You can tell the testimony or the story wherever you want. At the end of the day, God said, "Come, join my family." Again, it's not by my works, but it's by his. And that's how we live out loud where we lay down preferences, we lay down feelings, we lay down ambitions, we lay down all of the challenges because we want to please God. And that's the desire of our heart, not what we want or what we prefer. And that's what Paul is saying here. here. He's saying, "Work out your own salvation with this reverence and radical love for God, thankful for what God has done." And here's the thing, like, we can get really religious really fast. And I and and I I just I need to fight it with you today because no one else can live out our salvation for us >> but us. No one else can read our Bibles for us. No one else can spend time in prayer for us. and and and no one can force us to be devoted. We have to make a decision. And again, we can hear all that stuff and go, "Oh, snap. My life is not where it needs to be." Like, I got I I got to get my act together. I got to change some things. I got to tighten all this stuff up. But here's what's so cool. Here's the verse that comes right after verse 12. It says, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." This is it. Verse 13. For it is God. >> For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Right? Seriously, write this down. God's doing the work. >> I surrender my life to you, Lord. I surrender this situation to you. I surrender all the the the stuff that I'm carrying before you. And God goes, I can work with that. >> Yeah. >> Let me do the work. Let let me let me step in in this moment. Like I if you want to live for God, God wants you God wants to help you live for him. If you want to live for God, God wants to help you live for God because you're not doing this in your own strength. >> In your own strength is religion. But from a surrendered place, allowing his grace to come, we begin to move in power that is supernatural. And this is the power of the God that we serve. And that's what's so awesome. If you say, "Lord, I want to live for you." God goes, "I'm going to help you." It's God the Father who loves you. It's God the Son who saves you, but it's God the Holy Spirit living inside of you and working in you to help you live in a way that pleasures the God that you love and serve. And it's very easy to go, I don't live good enough for God, or I'm not good enough. I got to fix me. I got to do all this stuff. No, you need to surrender. We need to surrender ourselves to Jesus. Again, when we say, "God, I want to live for you. Help me." He says, "I got this. I'm going to help you." God says, "I love when you're a sinner. I'll save you when you can't save yourself. And then I'll fill you in a way that you can live for me. The only part that I have to play in this relationship is surrender and devotion. Whatever you say, God, whoever you want me to be, whatever you want me to do, this is the goodness of God. And again, I I what what what breaks my heart is when we make this religious. Like, how dare we make Christianity about following rules? I'm going to follow the rules out of my love for him. Not from a place of like I got to do all these things. Because after a while, when you start living that way, you're going to hate God. You're gonna you're gonna hate God. You're going to hate his church. You're going to hate his people. And pretty soon, you start deconstructing your entire faith, and you're no longer serving him. You're serving your ideas of who you think God should be. And I've seen it. I've walked in that place myself. But when I can surrender, the Holy Spirit begins to speak to that area where I recognize like, oh, this was a preference that I had and not actual truth. And we're seeing this happen so much in the church right now. Why we have so much division is because our ideas of how we think the world should be start to align and and and come up to the same level of the truth that we know in Christ. This is why we've got so many people that are like waving rainbow flags, talking about pride, leaning into all these ideologies that when you actually read scripture, and I mean, I'll go Greek, I'll go Hebrew, I'll go all the truth is the truth. And we want to go God is love, God is this way, God is that way. And I was like, do you not know the God of this Bible? I don't know what translation some people are reading, but it it breaks my heart again and again when I see things twisted to mean something that it's not in order for us to feel good about the fact that we live in a dark world. Church, we live in a dark world. God, we want to be allin. and he's saying, "Let's do it. Here's more of my spirit. Here's more of my power to help you. When I'm weak, he is strong. When I'm out of power, when I'm depleted, when I'm far and I'm feeling a drift from his presence, and I feel like I'm just trying to work my way back to God, God's like, "You're doing it the wrong way. You don't work your way to him." He's saying, "I work my way to you. It's God who works in you. It's God who does the deep things. It's all about him. And it's when we refuse again to when we refuse to believe scripture and we tell God, "This is what I feel." And we don't allow God to change our feelings that we end up going into some really dark places. Are your feelings submitted to God? Because it's wild. The longer that I am walking with Jesus again, the more that he changes me. Because I've been rebellious. I've been angry. I've battled demons. I've had the trauma drama. Daddy, mama, all the things. I've been suicidal. I've wanted to just run away from all of my problems. And time and time again, God delivers me. He sets me free. And he makes me new again and again and again. Again, I've battled patterns even in my own marriage for years. And overnight, in a moment of surrender, God will take all of those things that had accumulated over years. And I'm set free from it. And there's unity and there's growth and there's amazing things that take place. I become brand new. And this is why I say like, man, I get to live like this. I get to live with Jesus. I don't have to fake it. I get to walk with the power of the Holy Spirit. Let God change you. Let God work. Let God cook. Somebody let him cook. And then Paul hits us with this verse here, verse 14. Do all things without grumbling and disputing. >> I don't like that verse. It's hard out here. I need to vent to somebody, right? Come on. Again, Paul said this last week. He said, "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vanity." I mean, that was a smack in the face, right? And now he's coming at me with this. Now, now he's like, "Everything do everything without grumbling." Another translation says, "Do everything without complaining." >> That's hard because here's what he's saying. as you work out your walk with Jesus. Do it all without being negative. Do it without gossiping. Do it without reposting what you're angry about passive aggressively. Do it without causing drama and disputes. Do it without being a complainer dis being disputing and grumbling. But here's the thing, like I love a good grumble. Anybody else? >> I'm admitting it. You can admit it, too. Okay? Like I love a good grumble. It's got to be with the right person that can match my energy about the subject. O
