Have you grumbled against God lately or questioned why He’s doing something in your life? Dear believer, by God’s grace, let us replace grumbling with gratitude and questioning with a quiet trust in our heavenly Father, who is working in us, “both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13). Then we will “shine as lights in the world (v. 15), “so that they may see [our] good works and give glory to [our] Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16). 

As a mother of four children I’ve heard quite a bit of grumbling and questioning. But as I listen to my children, I’m often convicted at how many times I grumble about a particular circumstance or question why God has allowed something in my life. Scripture reveals that these are serious sins. Oftentimes they lead to anger, bitterness, callousness, and discontentment. But by God’s grace we don’t have to grumble and question. Instead, we can be grateful and trust His plans for us. Such gratitude and trust flow from God’s power at work in us. We see this truth in Philippians 2:12-18, which teaches us about the work of God’s grace in the life of the believer.

In light of Christ’s obedience, in which He “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8), Paul exhorts the believers in Philippi to remain fervently obedient to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (v. 12). This salvation that they are to “work out” is the salvation that God, by His grace, has already worked into them. And they are to work it out with “fear and trembling,” motivated by Christ’s obedience.

The amazing truth about grace is that God doesn’t leave us to ourselves to work out our own salvation. He doesn’t save us and then tell us to accomplish the Christian life on our own. Neither does He cooperate with us, as if He does seventy-five percent of the work and we do the other twenty-five percent. No, His grace is just as active in our sanctification as it is in our justification. Justification is an act of God’s free grace while sanctification is a work of God’s free grace. Justification is “our declared righteousness before God, made possible by Christ’s death and resurrection for us,” while sanctification is “our gradual, growing righteousness, made possible by the Spirit’s work in us” (The New City Catechism, A32).

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