Whenever we see this phrase, what Paul said, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” will probably come to mind.

We shall take a look at this verse Phil 2 later on as well. But the phrase isn’t just limited to Phil 2. In fact, Paul uses this phrase 3 other times in his epistles.

Christianity does not just involve fearlessness and confidence (in God). Paul expects real Christians to have true fear as well, and trembling! Trembling is a natural response to real fear.

This sermon will take a look at passages in the Bible, in both the and new, that contains this phrase.

Three aspects:

1. Who should we fear and tremble?
2. Why should we fear and tremble?
3. How is fear and trembling manifested in our daily lives?
4. Who should we fear and tremble?
   Jer 5:22
   God tells the Israelites that the appropriate attitude towards God is to fear Him. “Do you not fear Me?” The appropriate response before God is to tremble. “Will you not tremble at My presence?”

In fact God cites an example here of why this is only appropriate. Who places sand as the bound of the sea?

If we think about it, the sea is such a vast body of water. We know from science that roughly 70% of the earth is covered by oceans. The waves of the sea are really a force to be reckoned with. And here God uses something so insignificant as sand to put a bound on the sea. Just as God told Job that He told the waves, “This far you shall go.”

The waves can never cross the boundary. The waves can toss to and fro, they can roar, but they never pass over.

He’s really a mighty and awesome God. But yet the next verse says the Israelites don’t fear and tremble before Him.

v23
God is trying to contrast the sea to the Israelites. The sea is so strong and yet it fears God. He just gives one word and the sea forever listens to God. But here says the Israelites are really stubborn and rebellious. When God tells them to do something, they refuse to listen. The root cause is because they don’t fear and tremble before God.

Who are we like? Are we like the Israelites or are we like the sea? Do we fear and tremble before God?

If we spend a bit of time to think about our own lives, what do we really fear and tremble at life?

Some may say, “Cockroach.” lol
Why do we fear the cockroach? Because it looks frightening. You don’t know where it’s running or flying to. But what can it really do to you? If you squash it, it’ll probably die.

Sometimes our fears are irrational. But why else do we fear and tremble?

Some people are very afraid of ghosts. “I would tremble if I see a ghost!”

Bro Vincent spent many sermons talking about spirits. There’s no such thing as the spirit of a dead person coming back again. We know there is only the spirit of God, the spirit of angels, and the spirit of demons. When we die, our spirits don’t come back. So any ghosts people claim to have seen is really the devil in disguise.

Of course, many people would fear and tremble if they see the devil. The speaker wouldn’t call this an irrational fear because the devil has its power and dominion. In the book of Job, there’s a person called Eliphaz. Take a look at his reaction when he saw a spirit.

Job 4:14-15
The speaker doesn’t know if this was an exaggeration of Eliphaz or if this was a real encounter. But when he encountered a spirit, he said all his bones shook!

We’d probably have this reaction as well. Even the disciples had this reaction when twice they thought Jesus was a ghost. Sometimes when you’re alone, thinking about meeting the devil makes you fear and tremble.

The speaker remembers a story his father told him many times. There was a teenager (his father) whose grandmother (the speaker’s great grandmother) passed away. His grandfather asked all the children. “Anyone of you going to take care of the house?” Because the funeral was at another place, someone needed to guard the house. His father bravely volunteered. When he was alone in the house, his mind started playing tricks on him. He became very afraid. He took the Bible, thought it could drive the devil away. That of course was when he was young. When he became a preacher he often stayed alone in a large church. In the church in Taowao(?) there’s always strange creaking sounds. There’s some scientific reasons lah in the day the sun shines on the wood and it expands then at night it contracts when it cools causing the creaking sound. “But I don’t know lah” the speaker says HAHA

But if we think about it, in reality, there’s really nothing to fear about the devil. We’d be shocked if he appears in a hideous form before us. But what can he do? If we didn’t belong to Christ, he could harm us because we’re under his dominion. If we leave God just like Saul, the devil can torment us. But if we preserve ourselves in the Lord, we’d be under the Lord and not under the devil’s dominion. We have nothing to fear.

The speaker wants to go through a list of what we fear in life. Some of our fears are irrational, some are unfounded. To tremble and fear before God is not irrational or unfounded.

Dan 6:26-27
Even the gentile King here Darius says that the people must fear and tremble before the God of Daniel. We all know this story: Daniel prayed despite the king’s decree. If we were in Daniel’s shoes, who would we be afraid of? We would probably be afraid of the king, because he hasn’t given us the decree, he can put us to death. We would probably be afraid of the lions. We read that the lions were so fierce they crushed the accusers even before they touched the ground. If we were in Daniel’s shoes, would we still have opened the windows to pray?

The speaker wonders, “Why did Daniel open the windows? Couldn’t he have kept them closed?”
He believes Daniel did not fear anything. He wasn’t afraid of the king or lions. Precisely because he feared and trembled before God. When one fears and trembles before God, there’s no need to fear any other thing. God can deliver us from all things. Question is: what do we fear and tremble before?

1. Why should we fear and tremble before God?
   Sometimes we have an inaccurate perception of God. We know God is almighty. We know God can do all things. But in our minds we think: God is good and merciful. He’ll overlook all the bad things I do! But in contrast, there’re many other things I fear in life. They’re not like God.

The cockroach won’t listen to your instructions to get away from you.
The devil is pure evil.
The king (in Daniel) simply acts on his own whims and fancies.
The lion has its own animal instincts. It’ll eat you up if it’s hungry. You can’t reason with it not to eat you.

So in our mind only God is good and merciful. So we don’t have this real fear of God. In fact, God is the only one that cannot be trifled with.

Psa 2
This is a Messianic psalm. Here tells us it’s not just the Israelites who don’t want to listen to God. The nations and kings of the earth don’t want God to rule over them either. These people want to break away the bonds. They don’t want God to restrict them. Here says God laughs at them. He holds them in derision. How can they run away from God?

Over here says that the wise do something very different. What do the wise do?
v11-12
When God is angry, it is fearful. It is true that God is slow to anger, but it doesn’t mean that God will not be angry. Just like a father. The child thinks he can climb over the head of the father. “Maybe my father/mother has no temper.” Until the parent says, “Enough is enough.” Then the child realises the parent is not to be trifled with.

A colleague of the speaker told him how his brother-in-law disciplined his son. The son did something displeasing. The father said not to do it. The son probably thought: there’re guests. You probably won’t hit me.
A second time the father said not to do it. The son probably thought the father was giving empty threats.
There was a last warning. And then finally the father took out a belt and whacked; gave him a good beating in front of everyone. The colleague said wah it was very scary no one dared to say anything.

This is just like God. His anger is very slow. But when His wrath is kindled a little, “You perish in your way”.

In Acts, this is exactly what happened when Ananias and Sapphira were stricken by God. Believers then probably didn’t think God would kill anyone in the church. Because the gospel was about mercy, many people believed it. Certainly Ananias and Sapphira didn’t expect to be killed by God. When God actually struck them down, Acts says great fear came upon the church. God is willing to be feared. God is not to be taken lightly.

Therefore Psa 2 tells us what the appropriate response to God should be.
v11-12 Serve the Lord with fear. Rejoice with trembling.
“Rejoice with trembling”
These two emotions don’t seem to come together. But this isn’t a contradiction. We rejoice because we rejoice in His salvation. But even in salvation, there is this fear that we may make Him angry.

Phil 2:12
“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling”
The speaker has read many commentaries that try to explain this away. Because many Christians today believe that once you’re saved, you’re always saved. To them, fear is something that’s in contradiction to salvation, the gospel. “Why should there be fear?” But just reading this verse tells us that isn’t the case. Salvation isn’t definite. Salvation needs to be worked out, with the right attitude, with fear and trembling.

People often quote 1 John 4. They say that in Christianity there is no fear.
1 John 4:17-18
“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment.”
John seems to be contradicting Paul. Note that here says PERFECT love casts out fear. Is John contradicting Paul? Of course not.
Often we conflate two different kinds of fears. Over here the fear involves torment. Why? There’s a torment because he has not been perfected in love. Therefore he has no boldness in the day of judgement. The analogy here is the student who didn’t study for exam. He’s very afraid, because he’s probably going to fail. This is the fear that Hebrews says, the fearful expectation of judgement. You’re not ready, therefore you have boldness, therefore you fear.

On the other hand, Paul isn’t talking about this kind of fear. Paul is talking about godly fear. Godly fear drives us to work out our salvation; drives us to perfect love. It is godly fear that enables us to have no fear in the day of judgement. The best students study very hard. Yet they constantly ask themselves if there’re some things they haven’t studied. There’re some students who say, “Oh no I didn’t study this or that.” Then come out all A+ lol. Because these students know there’re lots of things to cover and don’t want to miss anything out so they work very hard. This is the godly fear that should drive all of us. Because this judgement of God is something that none of us can stand against. There’s nothing as fearful as God’s judgement. Whatever in life we may fear, it is nothing compared to the judgement of God.

We turn to read about the reaction of the Israelites towards judgement.
Jer 30:5-7
Here talks about the judgement of God to the Israelites regarding the Babylonians. The people trembled and feared in anticipation of the Babylonians. God is very humorous here. “Ask now and see whether a man is ever in labour with child”. Of course no man has ever been in labour. Men know it’s theoretically very painful (the Bible says so too), but not by experience. But very interestingly, here says “every man has his hands on his loins like a woman in labour”. It’s as if they expect labour pains, which are very very painful.

“All faces turn pale”
“That day is great”
“None is like that day”

This is not just limited to the Babylonians attacking Judah. This is also what will happen on the last day during God’s judgement. It is a great and awesome day. In fact, who can stand before it?

In fact in life there’re many things we can lose out on. We can fail an exam. Ultimately, it’s not a big deal. We can lose a job. We can lose our money. But there’s only one thing in life we can’t afford to lose: not being able to stand before God on the day of judgement.

Do we fear and tremble as we work out our salvation?

1. How is fear and trembling manifested in our daily lives?
   Besides working out our salvation with fear and trembling, Paul mentions this phrase in 3 different parts of his epistle. It’s in fact manifested in all parts of our lives.

With regards to evangelism:
1 Cor 2:1-5
v3 says that when Paul was preaching to the Corinthians, he did so with fear and trembling. We always think preaching the gospel is about confidence and power. But here Paul emphasises his own weakness. He emphasises that when he was preaching to them, he was in fear and trembling. Why was he in fear and trembling when preaching the gospel?
v4 So that the Corinthians won’t misplace their faith in Him. If you’re very eloquent, people may look up to you but not to God. “Oo you’re so wise in your arguments!” But Paul put this aside, he gave the glory to God. He feared people putting their trust in him rather than God. Do we also fear and tremble as we preach the gospel?

With regards to reception:
2 Cor 7:15
Here the Corinthians received Titus again with fear and trembling. Again, we don’t usually associate reception with fear and trembling. Usually we associate it with joy.

Why? Because they knew they weren’t just receiving a friend or other people. Jesus says, “He who received you, receives Me who sent you.” They were receiving a minister of Christ, a minister of the gospel. To them they were receiving Christ Himself. Therefore they received him in fear and trembling.

Regarding bondservants:
Eph 6:5
Some masters may be good. Some bad. Here Paul instructs all servants, whatever the case, serve and obey them with fear and trembling. “Why should I obey him with fear and trembling? He’s a bad person!” But over here says we understand it wrongly. Who we serve isn’t him, but Christ. Therefore we need to do it in sincerity of heart, fear and trembling.

Today we don’t have masters. But we have our employers/bosses. The same principle applies. Do we also serve with fear and trembling? Do we do it as if it is to Christ?

“Fear and trembling” in preaching, receiving, even when we work! As if Christianity is such a fearsome religion!

We have to understand the mind of Paul. Everything in life revolves around God. From our personal salvation, to preaching, to reception of a preacher. Even your everyday life in your workplace. Everything in Paul’s mind revolves around God. Therefore, everything is done in the fear of God. Therefore, everything is done in fear and trembling.

What about us? In our everyday life, do we fear God? Is everything in our life done in the fear of God? Is everything in our life done in fear and trembling?

Let us learn from the example of Paul. His example is really something all of us should emulate. May God help us.