Read Philippians 2:14–15
Questions from the Scripture text: How many things are we to do (Philippians 2:14)? Without what two things? What two things will we be, if we do everything this way (Philippians 2:15)? Who will we be? Without what? In the midst of what kind of generation? What will we do amongst them?
When God has begun a good work in you (Philippians 1:6) and is still doing a good work in you (Philippians 2:13), there’s no room for complaining against God and questioning what He’s doing (Philippians 2:14). You may have read Exodus through Deuteronomy and thought, “how can they possibly grumble against God? Look at what He did for them and is doing for them!”
And now the apostle comes along, holds up the mirror and shows us how great a work the Lord has done for us and is doing in us—something that far outpaces the Exodus. And yet how much we complain and murmur against God! Let us exterminate grumbling from our vocabulary and expunge murmuring from our hearts.
This is necessary both because of to Whom we belong and among whom we live. Will you be a child of God or of your generation? We have to choose. We cannot have one foot in each camp. Our Father is a Father of light in Whom there is no darkness at all. Our generation is a world of darkness, from which there is no light at all.
A Christian can’t aim to be a slightly better worldling, as if our character can be a slightly less concentrated shade of darkness. Rather, the Christian must aim at being what God has already declared him to be: a god-ling, a child of God. He aims at blamelessness, innocence, faultlessness. If the standard you’re aiming at is possible, then it’s the wrong standard altogether. Since God is the One doing the aiming and the working (Philippians 2:13), He establishes the standard (Philippians 2:15). God is doing the work! Therefore, He defines what that work is. And it should stand apart from the world like literal day and night.
When are you most tempted to grumble or complain? What are some ways that you stick out from the world?
Suggested songs: ARP1 “How Blessed the Man” or TPH461 “Blessed Are the Sons of God”
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