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Philippians 1:3-6, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, 4 always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all, 5 in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.
Verse six is the key verse to the entire epistle of Philippians. It’s a verse of tremendous comfort, especially to those believers who struggle with the assurance of their salvation. According to James Boice it is one of the three greatest passages teaching the perseverance of the saints. The other two passages are:
John 10:27-28, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”
Romans 8:38-39, For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Many of you recognize “perseverance of the saints” as the last point in the theology summarized by the acrostic TULIP. Actually, the word “preservation” of the saints would be a more accurate word. God’s people do persevere in the faith, that is, continue in the faith through trials and temptations, but only because God preserves His people. God assures us in His word that every believer is eternally secure in Christ. If you have it, you can’t lose it and if you lose it, you never had it. As we’ll see, salvation is God’s work, not ours. The doctrine of the assurance of salvation is that heart confidence that we really are in a right relationship with God, that we are genuinely saved. Paul is assuring these Philippians God will finish His work in their lives.
THE STRUGGLE FOR ASSURANCE.
Nothing is as troubling to a professing Christian as the uncertainty of his or her salvation. I know. I’ve experienced it. I wasn’t really concerned about my salvation until someone brought us the gospel back in 1971. I listened, I prayed, but I struggled. Big time. Was I saved or not? I went through a time of feeling like I was about to drop right into hell. My wife was attending a Bible study with Mrs. Moses. I kid you not, that was her name. Mrs. Moses called me and told me to rest on the promises of Scripture. That’s the key. In fact, when I find myself in Doubting Castle, I put my hand into my Bible and pull out a promise like Romans 4:5, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”
This is where Philippians 1:6 comes in. Perhaps you’ve memorized it. Or you’ve probably learned the chorus based on it. Martyn Lloyd-Jones described it like this, “It is one of those magnificent, fundamental, profound statements which leads us to the very depths of Christian doctrine and Christian theology.” “I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”
We’re going to look at this verse asking three questions: Who began your salvation?
Who continues your salvation? Who will finish your salvation?
The answers are obvious, aren’t they? God, God, God. Do we believe any true believer will ever be lost? No, no, no. J. I. Packer wrote, “Sinners do not save themselves in any sense at all, but salvation, first and last, whole and entire, past, present, and future, is of the Lord, to whom be glory forever, amen!” We believe in both the preservation and the perseverance of the saints because salvation is completely of God. Before digging into this verse, note there is a difference between the security of the believer and the assurance of salvation. The Bible clearly teaches the security of the believer. That is a doctrinal fact. But whether you are assured that indeed you are saved, that’s a little different. But my assurance, your assurance, is based on what the Bible promises about our security in Christ Jesus.
WHO BEGAN YOUR SALVATION? Did Paul win them over by his powerful message? Did they begin it? Did you begin the work of salvation in your own soul? Do you have the power or desire in yourself to regenerate yourself? Those denominations that believe you can lose your salvation believe that you, by your own free will, initiated your salvation. That’s called Arminianism. They might even say God does 99% of it but you did the last part; that somehow out of the deadness of your soul you reached out and grabbed hold of Christ. Here’s a lost sinner falling through the air with a parachute pack on his back. God has given him all he needs to save him. All he must do is pull the cord to open the parachute. If he does, he’ll be saved. What’s wrong with my illustration? He can’t pull the cord because he is dead in his sins. He needs God to pull the cord, to give him new life.
Not only are we dead in our sins, but as Ephesians 2:1-5, Romans 3:11 clearly says, “There is no one who seeks for God.” There’s a quaint story about a country preacher who was asked at his ordination how he had become a Christian. He answered, “I did my part and God did His part.” They asked him to explain what part he did. “My part was to run from God as fast as I could. God’s part was to run after me and catch me and bring me into His family.”
Paul’s confidence in the Philippians’ salvation was completely in God. He didn’t say, “I’m confident that you who, by your own will, started your salvation will finish it.” No. We saw this with Lydia. It was God who opened her heart to receive Christ! Paul himself is the perfect example of this. Of all people, he wasn’t seeking Christ; he never decided to become a Christian. God chased him down on the Damascus Road and gave him a new heart to believe in Jesus Christ! That is always the case. Let’s look at the theology behind this teaching of the sovereign grace of the triune God in your salvation:
The Father Chose You In Eternity Past.
First, God chose you to be in Christ in eternity past. This is where your salvation began. We find it in Ephesians 1:4, “God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world.” Before God created this whole universe, the Father loved the Son and determined to give Him a whole host of sinners He would save to display His glorious grace. If you are a believer in Christ, you are one of those God chose to give to Jesus!
John 6:37, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
The Son Redeemed You Through the Cross.
Then God sent Jesus to save all those He had chosen. We were all sinners, born sinners, sinners by nature and deed, under the wrath of God, but Jesus came to rescue us, to redeem us or purchase us from our sin. He paid the ransom price to bring about our forgiveness. He paid for your sins in full if you are a believer. Matthew 1:21 says He was named Jesus because He will save His people from their sins. He cried out on that cross, “It is finished!” He purchased people from every nation, tongue, tribe – millions, perhaps billions! All to His glory and praise.
The Spirit Regenerated You Through the Gospel.
And then God sent the Spirit to empower the church to preach the gospel. This is the “in you” of our verse. “He who began a good work in you.” The Spirit of God shadows and empowers the preaching of the gospel. The Spirit gave you a new heart that enables you to repent and believe in Christ.
Ezekiel 36:26-27, “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”
That’s what happened with Lydia! Paul preached the gospel. The Spirit took the gospel into her heart and gave her a new heart. She understood her sin, her need for Christ and she repented and believed in Christ. God began a good work in her! Just like He has in you and me if we are believers. Before you can believe in Christ, the Spirit will regenerate your heart, and He does this through the preaching of the gospel.
Now these are all doctrinal facts and realities which are true of every believer, but this can all be true of you, and you may still struggle with assurance. You may have times of spiritual darkness. This doesn’t mean you aren’t saved. I love what Spurgeon said in his little booklet All of Grace. He says you may have dark and dreary spiritual nights. “Listen to me,” says Spurgeon, “cast all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.” That is, believe God’s promises. Pray God’s promises. Sink your heart into God’s promises. Meditate on God’s promises.
One of the greatest truths to build the joy of our assurance is the doctrine of justification by faith alone, based on the work of Christ in His life and death imputed to my account. It’s the truth that changed the world through the Reformation and brings joy to the heart. Romans 5:1, “Therefore, having been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Faith is resting, trusting, putting all your weight on Him. He justifies or declares the believing sinner righteous. And whom does He justify? According to Romans 4:5, He justifies the ungodly. Not the good, the righteous, the godly – He justifies the ungodly. If you ever feel unworthy of salvation, count on it, you are unworthy.
There are some verses that sound like you could lose your salvation. Galatians 5:3 talks about falling from grace. John 15:6 says a branch that doesn’t bear fruit will be cut off and thrown in the fire. And Hebrews 6:4-6 says there are people who were enlightened, shared in the Holy Spirit, tasted the good word of God and powers of the age to come, and then fall away. The question is, were these people saved and then lost? In all these cases, there are people who have heard the gospel, they have mentally agreed with it, but either they turned back to the Mosaic law as in Galatians and Hebrews, or the trials of life have shown that they never were truly joined to Christ. Jesus talked about four kinds of soils: the hard soil, rocky soil, thorny soil, and the good soil. The good soils are genuinely regenerated and bring forth fruit. John talks about some who appeared to be saved but weren’t. They turned away in a final sense.
1 John 2:19, They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.
What about a man like Steve Lawson, who grievously sinned after a long life of ministry. You might wonder, did God begin His good work in him? We don’t know. God’s people may sin grievously, like David. David committed adultery, lied, murdered. But David repented of his horrible sins. If Steve Lawson is genuinely saved, God will discipline him, possibly severely, until he comes to repentance like David. Or God may remove him through death, like God did to some of the believers in 1 Corinthians 11:30, “A number sleep.” First John 5:16 says, “There is a sin leading to death.” Or Lawson will prove to be an example of how an unregenerate man can fake Christianity for a long, long time. We simply don’t know. Many of us are praying for his repentance.
WHO CONTINUES YOUR SALVATION? “Being confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it.” Who keeps you saved? God started it, but now you’ve got to finish it, right? Like a dad teaching a five-year-old to ride a bicycle, running beside it, holding the seat, keeping her from tipping over, then finally letting her go. “You’re on your own!”
No, God never says, “You’re on your own.” God started your new life in Christ and God’s going to keep it going. We call this sanctification, and it continues from the time when God began His good work in you to the time when He completes it. However, we’re not passive in this phase of salvation. God calls you to run the race, fight the fight, discipline yourself for godliness, put off sin and put on righteousness, get rid of the things that tempt you, but God will bring it to its end goal of perfection when we see Him in heaven. He will finish what He started. His grace is at work in you. Philippians 2:13 says, “for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure!”
Romans 8:28-29 says God’s good work in us has purpose. He doesn’t save people just to fill empty places in heaven. He is working out this good work right now in every believer in this place. His good work in us is to progressively transform His people from being self-centered, proud, spiritually ignorant, self-loving sinners into God-loving, God-delighting, God-honoring, God-obeying saints like Christ. This is progressive sanctification. This is what every day of our lives is all about. Every circumstance, every trial, every blessing, every person in your life, every physical sickness, disease, every promotion, demotion, every raise, every firing, every turn of events in your life is by God’s good providence to make you more and more like Jesus Christ! God causes all things to work together for your good and His purpose.
But here’s the amazing thing. While God continues this work of progressive sanctification, we aren’t discovering how perfect we are. No, just the opposite. As God exposes our sin, we realize every day our need to turn to Jesus for forgiveness, cleansing, and grace. Donald Barnhouse said, “No Christian listening to my voice will think as well of himself five years from now as he does this morning.” The whole idea of Christians strutting around the church like that dude in the temple, “I’m glad I’m not like these other people. Look how far I’ve come, look at all I do, look how spiritual I am” is enough to make you want to rush outside and puke. What did Paul say? The further he went with Christ, the more he saw his own sin and how much he depended on Christ! He confessed toward the end, “Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief!” God uses even our doubts and our discoveries of our sin, our unworthiness, and our guilt to drive us to rely on Him alone.
WHO WILL FINISH YOUR SALVATION? “Being confident of this very thing that He who began a good work in you will perfect it UNTIL THE DAY OF CHRIST JESUS.” How are you going to get up there and stand before Jesus Christ? Not by your own merit and power. But if you belong to God through faith in Christ, you will not drop through the cracks. If God began this work in you, He will finish it. God finishes what He starts. God will continue working in you all the way through life, no matter what happens, until Christ returns. Then we will get our new bodies and stand before Him blameless because we have Christ’s righteousness! What a day that will be! Jude put it like this, “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy” (v. 24). For Lydia it began on that riverbank. For the Philippian jailor it began in the aftershock of that earthquake. For Paul it began on the Damascus Road. When did it begin for you? You weren’t born saved. You weren’t baptized into this spiritual life. It is all of Christ. If you have never called upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to save you, now is the time, today is the day!
SO WHAT?
Okay, but how do I know I’m a part of this divine work? You may say, “I believe every born-again believer is secure in God, but how can I be assured it’s true for me?” Here are two truths to help you.
First, do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, that He died for you? If you do, your faith is the evidence that God has begun this work, that God has opened your heart to receive the Gospel.
Second, have you seen a change in your life? Are you a different person than you used to be? Are you convinced that the Bible is truly God’s Word? Are you relying on Christ alone and the promises of God’s Word about Christ? Do you have a heart that loves to obey and please God?
One caution, though. Be careful about being too introspective. Robert Murray M’Cheyne is known for these wise words, “For every look at yourself, take ten looks at Jesus Christ!” And then you can sing, “Thank you Lord for saving my soul.”