Work Out Your Salvation – Fourth Commandment

Work Out Your Salvation

Exodus 20.8-10; Deuteronomy 5.12-14

“Remember the Sabbath day, observe it, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God.”

Philippians 2.12

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

Sanctification is a full-time calling.

Foundational to all the work God has given us to do is the work of sanctification. While sanctification – increasing in righteousness – is a work that God does in us (Jn. 17.17; Phil. 2.13), it is clear that we have a role to play. Paul says that we have to work at our sanctification, and that work includes certain specific elements. The practice of spiritual disciplines, for one: we will make no progress in the Lord unless we work hard at such things as prayer, reading and meditation in God’s Word, fasting, and waiting on the Lord. But sanctification also requires that we have others in our lives who can encourage, correct, teach, and admonish us so that we keep growing and keep laying aside the old person in order to put on the new. We don’t expect to get paid for working out our salvation – at least, not in a material sense. However, if we fail to take up this work with regularity, discipline, and faithfulness, we will not be able to fulfill the larger calling for all our work, which is to glorify God and further His Kingdom on earth. The curious thing about the work of sanctification is that, as we diligently pursue it, we discover more of what it means to rest in the Lord; and on the day that God has set aside for us to rest in Him, the chief means for doing so are the disciplines that conduce to sanctification. Working out our salvation, therefore, is not a work we rest from, but one we rest in, every day of the week.

If you had to prepare a “job description” that encompassed the work you do in becoming sanctified, what would it include?

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“In the Gates” is a devotional series on the Law of God by Rev. T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is editor of the Worldview Church. He serves as dean of the Centurions Program of the Wilberforce Forum and principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He is the author or editor of twenty books, and has contributed chapters to four others. His essays, reviews, articles, papers, and poetry have appeared in dozens of national and international journals, and on a wide range of websites. His most recent books are The Ailbe Psalter and The Ground for Christian Ethics (Waxed Tablet).

Scripture quotations in this article are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, (c) copyright 2001,2007 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Editor’s note: The use of a translation other than the Authorised Version in an article does not constitute an endorsement in whole or in part by The Christian Observer.