The Christian Work Ethic: No Grumbling Allowed Text: Philippians 2:12-18
Introduction: The Great Engine Room
We live in an age that is allergic to paradox, which is another way of saying we are allergic to the truth. Our modern sensibilities want everything flattened out, simplified, and reduced to a bumper sticker. We want either/or. We want God's sovereignty or man's responsibility. We want grace or we want works. We want faith or we want obedience. But the Bible consistently refuses to play this childish game. The Scriptures present us with a reality that is far more robust, more textured, and more glorious than our neat little categories can contain.
And here in Philippians, the Apostle Paul brings us into the great engine room of the Christian life. He shows us the massive pistons of divine sovereignty working in tandem with the intricate gears of human responsibility. And he does not see any contradiction at all. He never tries to "reconcile friends," as Spurgeon once put it. For Paul, the absolute, meticulous sovereignty of God is not the enemy of our effort; it is the very foundation of it. God's working in you is the fuel for your working out.
This is a truth that our generation desperately needs to recover. On the one hand, we have a flaccid evangelicalism that speaks of salvation as a one-time decision, a fire insurance policy that has little to no bearing on how one lives Monday through Saturday. On the other hand, we have a grim, legalistic piety that is all about human effort, grit, and pulling oneself up by one's own spiritual bootstraps. Both are profound distortions. Paul shows us the true way. The Christian life is a supernatural work from start to finish. It is God who initiates, God who empowers, and God who brings it to completion. And because this is true, we are therefore called to strive, to obey, to work, to run, and to fight with everything we have. His sovereign grace does not produce passivity; it produces consecrated energy.
And what does this consecrated energy look like in practice? Paul is intensely practical. It looks like a life stripped of a particular, corrosive sin, a sin that is as common as the common cold and a thousand times more deadly. It is the sin of grumbling. In a world that is defined by its grievances, its perpetual outrage, and its whining discontent, the Christian is to be a blazing light of cheerful, quiet, and faithful obedience. This is how we adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.
The Text
So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, so that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to boast because I did not run in vain nor labor in vain. But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. And you also, rejoice in the same way and share my joy with me.
(Philippians 2:12-18 LSB)
The Divine/Human Synergy (vv. 12-13)
We begin with the central command, grounded in a glorious reality.
"So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Philippians 2:12-13)
Paul begins by commending their obedience. They have a track record of it. But he wants to press them further. True obedience is not dependent on the physical presence of an apostle. It is not about pleasing men. It must continue, and even increase, "much more in my absence." This is a call to spiritual maturity.
Then comes the command: "work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Let us be clear about what this does not mean. It does not mean "work for your salvation." Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. We are not saved by our good works, but we are most certainly saved unto good works (Eph. 2:8-10). The picture here is not of a man trying to build a ladder to heaven. The picture is of a man who has been given a great treasure, and he is now to "work it out," to bring it to its full expression in every area of his life. It's like a farmer working out the potential that is already in the seed. God has planted salvation within you; now you are to cultivate it, to let it grow and bear fruit.
And this is to be done with "fear and trembling." This is not the cowering fear of a slave before a tyrant. This is the reverential awe of a child before a holy and loving Father. It is a recognition of the sheer magnitude of what we are dealing with. We are handling holy things. Salvation is a glorious, weighty, and serious business. It is a profound recognition that we could mess this up badly if left to ourselves, and so we tremble at our own weakness and cling to His strength.
And why can we do this? What is the basis for this strenuous effort? Verse 13 gives us the foundation: "for it is God who is at work in you." This is the glorious paradox. You work out because He works in. Notice the comprehensive nature of God's work. He is at work in you "both to will and to work." He shapes your desires, your "want to," and He empowers your actions, your "get to." He is the source of the volition and the source of the execution. It is not 50% God and 50% man. It is 100% God enabling 100% of your responsible action. Think of it like a playwright and his character. Shakespeare is 100% responsible for Hamlet's speeches, and Hamlet is 100% responsible for delivering them. There is no competition because they are operating on two entirely different planes of reality. God is the Creator; we are the creatures. His sovereign working does not cancel out our working; it makes it possible.
The Practical Outworking: No Complaining (vv. 14-16)
So, what does it look like to "work out" this salvation that God is "working in"? Paul gets startlingly specific.
"Do all things without grumbling or disputing, so that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life..." (Philippians 2:14-16a)
Of all the things Paul could have mentioned, he goes straight for the jugular of our fallen nature: "Do all things without grumbling or disputing." Not some things. Not most things. All things. This is a radical command. Grumbling, murmuring, complaining, whining, bellyaching, disputing, arguing, kvetching, call it what you will, we have a thousand words for it because it is the native language of the fallen heart. It is the background radiation of a world at odds with its Creator.
To grumble is to find fault with God's providence. It is to say, implicitly, "God, you are not running the universe correctly. My spouse, my job, my children, the weather, the traffic, the government, it's all wrong, and I could do a better job." Every complaint, no matter how trivial it seems, is ultimately a theological statement. It is an indictment of the goodness and wisdom of God. This is why it is so serious. It was the sin of Israel in the wilderness, and it kept an entire generation out of the promised land.
The goal of this grumble-free living is a powerful testimony. It is "so that you will be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish." This is about our public witness. How is the world to know that we serve a good and gracious God if His people are constantly complaining about the management? They won't. But when they see a people who are cheerful in trial, content in their circumstances, and obedient without argument, they see something otherworldly.
This creates a stark contrast with the world, which Paul describes as a "crooked and perverse generation." In the midst of this moral darkness, we are to "shine as lights in the world." A complaining Christian is like a lamp with a dirty chimney; the light is there, but it is obscured by soot and smoke. A cheerful, obedient Christian is a blazing star in a black sky. Our contentment is a powerful apologetic. We shine by "holding fast the word of life." Our steadfast grip on the gospel is what fuels this otherworldly light.
Paul's motive here is also personal. He wants to be able to boast on the day of Christ, not in his own efforts, but in their faithfulness as the fruit of his labor. He does not want to find that he has run his apostolic race in vain.
The Joy of Self-Sacrifice (vv. 17-18)
Paul concludes this section by modeling the very attitude he is commanding. He practices what he preaches, showing a joy that transcends circumstances.
"But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I rejoice and share my joy with you all. And you also, rejoice in the same way and share my joy with me." (Philippians 2:17-18)
Paul envisions his own potential martyrdom. He sees his life as a "drink offering," a libation poured out over the main sacrifice. In the Old Testament, after the animal was on the altar, the priest would pour out an offering of wine. The "sacrifice and service" here is the faith of the Philippian believers. Paul is saying that their faithful, obedient lives are the main event, the real sacrifice offered to God. And if his own lifeblood must be poured out on top of that to complete the offering, he considers it a cause for joy.
This is the absolute antithesis of a grumbling spirit. He is not complaining about his chains, his trials, or the prospect of death. He is rejoicing. His joy is not dependent on his comfort or his safety. His joy is tethered to their faith and God's glory. This is the mind of Christ, which he described just verses earlier, the mind of self-giving, sacrificial love.
And this joy is to be mutual. He shares his joy with them, and he commands them to rejoice in the same way and share their joy with him. This is a corporate, shared joy. We are in this together. The joy of one becomes the joy of all. This is the kind of robust, muscular, blood-bought joy that the world knows nothing about. It is a joy that can look death in the face and smile, because it knows that to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
Conclusion: The Crucified Complaint
So where do we get the power to live this way? How do we, who are professional complainers by nature, become these shining lights of contentment? The answer is found by looking back to the beginning of the chapter, to the ultimate example of non-complaining obedience.
Jesus Christ, "who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant... He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:6-8). Did He have anything to complain about? He was betrayed, denied, beaten, mocked, and crucified. Yet like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth in complaint. Anguish, yes. Complaint, no.
When Christ went to the cross, He carried all our grumbling with Him. Every bitter word, every resentful thought, every faithless complaint was nailed to that tree. Your complaining was crucified there. And His perfect, silent, trusting obedience is credited to you. It is yours by faith.
Therefore, we do not fight against grumbling in order to be saved. We fight against grumbling because we are saved. God is at work in you, giving you the perfect righteousness of Christ. And because He is working that in, you have all the resources you need to work it out. You can do all things, even the impossible thing of shutting your mouth when you want to complain, because it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.
So when the temptation to grumble comes this week, and it will, you must see it for what it is. It is an assault on the goodness of God and a denial of the sufficiency of Christ. You must repent of it, confess it as sin, and then by faith, lay hold of the cheerful obedience of Jesus. This is how you shine. This is how you hold forth the word of life. This is how you work out what God has so graciously worked in.