1. How do you feel about group projects? Have you had positive or negative experiences with them?
2. Which of your group projects has been your favorite? Least favorite?
3. What makes group projects such a challenge?
When I was in my first year of Bible college, I took a class on teaching the Bible. Do you want to know the really creative name they came up with for the class? “Teaching the Bible.” That is it! At the beginning of the semester, they told us that we would be teaching a lesson after Thanksgiving and that lesson, you guessed it, was a group project! My first Bible lesson ever was a group lesson. The passage was Philippians 2:12-18.
Grab your Bible and read Philippians 2:12-18 as a group.
4. What are some of the themes discussed in this section? Key words? Key phrases?
5. What commands are given to Christians in this passage?
Paul is writing to the church in Philippi and calling them to live out their faith in Jesus. In verse 12, the command is to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.” I want to focus on the beginning of that phrase, “work out your own salvation.”
6. What types of things do we usually work out?
7. Is working out a practice you make a habit of?
8. What is usually the result of working out correctly and consistently?
Whether you spend a lot of time in the gym or not, taking care of your physical body is important for your health. The same is true for your salvation. If placing your faith in Jesus is a decision you made once, and you never “work [it] out,” it will grow stagnant and weak.
9. What are some ways that a Christian can “work out” their salvation? (Hint: Paul gives one very clear example of this in verse 14, but there are many more as well.) How often do you carry out these practices?
Note that Paul does not say Christians are to work for or on their salvation but “work out” their salvation. For something to be worked out, it has to be there. This is not something that you can get by working hard enough. It only comes by repenting of your sin, confessing Christ as your Lord, and believing in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. Can you receive salvation from God (Romans 10:9)?
Continuing in the passage, Paul uses the phrase “shine as lights in the world” (verse 15) which is the metaphor for the whole passage. When Christians “work out” their salvation, they stand out. Like a bodybuilder in a room with a bunch of regular people, they stand out. The person who works out their salvation will stand out.
Remember that group project I told you about earlier – the one where I taught this passage as a group in college? We focused on the phrase “shine as lights in the world,” for our lesson. We decided that to teach this lesson well, we were going to close the blinds in the classroom and cover the walls with those glow-in-the-dark stars that kids put on their ceiling. (I know you had them on your ceiling at some point! I certainly did.) The only problem was that was about all we had for our entire lesson. It came to the day we were scheduled to teach this lesson to the class and the glow in the dark stars were all we had prepared, literally. One of my group members got up in front of the class, read the passage, while another member talked for a couple of minutes (with very little preparation), and I closed the lesson by pointing out the glow-in-the-dark stars and saying that they represent how Christians are supposed to look. That was it. There, after what was supposed to be weeks of preparation, we had nothing to show but a bunch of glow-in-the-dark stars.
As silly as this story is (and I hope that I have become a better teacher since then), I think there is a lesson to be learned: preparation pays off. What was my group missing? Preparation. We had the stars but nothing else. Like a muscle, your salvation has to be used or it gets weak. It takes time, effort, and habits. Like preparation, it pays off. Leading to shining as a star, because you put the time in to be with God and in His Word.
To wrap up this story, we met with the professor after our lesson to find out our grades. How do you think we did? Not very well, to say the least. He began with a long drawn-out, “Well…” and then continued to tell us that it was the worst lesson he had ever seen in his time teaching the class. Ouch. Yet, somehow, he only gave us a B- on the lesson. He was apparently an easy grader.
Going a bit backward here, read Philippians 2:1-11 now.
10. Who is the example that Christians are to follow? What did He do to set that example?
11. What is the connection between the example of Christ and working out your own salvation?
The goal that Paul is setting for believers is laid out in verses 2 and 3, “Complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” To “work out” your salvation requires one key thing: following the example of Christ in counting others as more important than yourself. This is a true community, the purpose of the church coming together. Working out your salvation does not happen when you are alone. You might need that time alone with the Lord, but the real test of your “exercises” takes place when you are around other people.
To conclude, I want to share some short thoughts on what it looks like to work out your salvation in community:
- Humility: putting others above yourself.
- Love and Compassion: supporting and encouraging others, in the good and bad.
- Unity: praying together, seeking God as a group.
- Accountability: holding one another to the standards you have chosen as a group.
- Forgiveness: admitting when you are wrong and forgiving others when they sin against you.
All of these take place in a group. God did not intend for you to go through the Christian life alone and we do not want that for you either!