Culture Building Project: Get Off the Hammock
Let’s talk about one of the biggest misconceptions in the Christian life today – the idea that it just happens to you. You pray a prayer, God saves you, and then you sit back, relax, and wait for heaven. It’s as though sanctification is something you stumble into, like accidentally joining a marathon because you were standing too close to the starting line.
The Apostle Paul would take this kind of thinking out back and spank it out of us if he could. And in Philippians 2:12–13, he does just that.
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, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
Philippians 2:12–13
Notice what Paul is doing here. He is commanding you to work, to strive, to labor. But he’s not telling you to bootstrap your way to heaven. He’s telling you to work out what God has already worked in. God gives the energy, but you’re the one who has to lace up your shoes and hit the track – and even that is what he is working in you.
Saved by Grace, Not by Hammocks
Here’s where the confusion begins. Christians rightly proclaim that salvation is by grace through faith, not by works (Ephesians 2:8–9). This is glorious, foundational, and absolutely true. But many stop there. They take this truth and twist it into an excuse for spiritual laziness.
The logic goes something like this: “If salvation isn’t my doing, then it’s not my responsibility. I can’t do anything to save myself, so I’ll just wait for God to zap me with sanctification whenever He’s ready.” It’s the theological equivalent of swinging in a hammock beside the river of Psalm 1, too comfortable to bother lifting your head.
People start treating salvation like a divine collision. They think of it as a “godly truck” that hit them on the broad road and flung them onto the narrow one. Now they spend their lives loitering on spiritual highways, hoping for another supernatural 18-wheeler to hit them and carry them to a higher plane of faith.
The Proximity Problem
This mentality shows up in all sorts of ways. People hover near “anointed” Christians, hoping their holiness will rub off on them. They attend worship nights expecting the emotional atmosphere to sanctify them. They stand close to the fire but never bother to strike their own match.
It’s like thinking that hanging out in a gym will make you fit or walking through a library will make you smart. And let’s not even get started on the people who think their faith will grow by binge-watching sermons on YouTube.
Proverbs 13:4 puts it plainly: “The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied.” In other words, you don’t grow in grace by proximity. You grow by practice.
Blaming the Alarm Clock
Passive Christianity also comes with a built-in excuse factory. Didn’t read your Bible this week? “Life was hectic.” Missed church? “The alarm clock didn’t go off.” Skipped prayer? “Work was crazy.”
It’s always someone else’s fault. The timetable is to blame. The alarm clock conspired against you. Life’s circumstances teamed up to derail your spiritual growth. But let’s be honest—most of the time, it’s not external factors holding you back. It’s you.
This kind of blame-shifting doesn’t just show up in our excuses, it shapes how we live. We wait for external pressures to push us into action. We procrastinate on serving until the pastor asks for volunteers. We pray only when there’s a crisis. We let guilt drive us to God, rather than cultivating a consistent relationship with Him.
It’s like standing at the edge of a swimming pool, waiting for someone to push you in, instead of jumping in with purpose.
Run Like Paul
Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 9:24–27 dismantle this passive approach to Christianity
Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.
1 Corinthians 9:24–27
What does that sound like to you? Aimless wandering? Passive waiting? Of course not. Paul is describing a life of discipline, purpose, and intentionality.
How many of us are actually running the race? Forget running aimlessly—most of us aren’t even on the track. We’re lounging in green pastures, quoting Psalm 23 about God’s comfort, while ignoring the part about walking through the valley of the shadow of death.
Work Out What God Works In
Now, let’s go back to Philippians 2:12–13. Paul commands us to “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling.” But he immediately reminds us that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”
Here’s the balance. God works in, we work out. But let’s be very clear—this is not a 50-50 arrangement where God does His part and we do ours as though we’re equal partners in the process. Even our efforts, our toiling and striving, are entirely powered and guided by Him. The Christian life is not a collaboration in which God sets things in motion, and then we take it from there. No, our working out is the very thing that God works in us.
God supplies the energy, and we toil and struggle.
For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.
Colossians 1:29
Notice the dynamic here. Paul is toiling. Paul is struggling. But the energy he is using isn’t his own—it’s God’s. Even the ability to toil is a gift of grace.
This means that our effort in the Christian life is never separate from God’s power. It’s not as though God gives us a spiritual boost and then leaves us to figure it out on our own. Instead, He is continually at work in us, giving us the desire to obey Him and the strength to do so, as Philippians 2:13 reminds us – “For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
This is why Paul was able to say, “I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Corinthians 15:10). Notice the tension here. Paul fully acknowledges his own effort—he doesn’t shy away from the fact that he worked harder than anyone else.
This is not salvation by works; it’s salvation that works. As Charles Spurgeon said,
We are not to be passive, for the command is ‘work out.’ The command to us is not to work for salvation, but to work out the salvation which God has already wrought in us.
Charles Spurgeon
This is how sanctification works. God empowers us to grow, but we are called to act. We don’t sit back and hope for holiness to happen. We read Scripture. We pray. We serve. We repent. We obey. Yet not I, but Christ who works in me.
Think of it like this – God is the fountainhead, and we are the streams. The water flows through us, but its source is entirely from Him. Without the fountain, the stream is dry. Yet the stream is active—it moves, it shapes the land, it nourishes—but it does so only because of the water supplied by the fountain.
The Intentional Christian Life
The Christian life is not a passive experience. It is a purposeful, grace-driven response to God’s work in us. Augustine famously said, “Without God, we cannot. Without us, God will not.” And Thomas Watson added, “Though we cannot work without God, yet God will not work without us.”
So, what does this look like in practice?
1. Prayer: Don’t wait until you feel like it. Pray even when you don’t. Some days, it’s soaring on wings of faith. Other days, it’s dragging your soul before God. Both are necessary.
2. Scripture: Don’t treat Bible reading like a spiritual vending machine. Read with purpose. Study. Meditate. Apply.
3. Worship: Show up to corporate worship ready to engage. Sing loudly, listen intently, and take what you’ve learned into the week ahead.
4. Discipline: Discipline isn’t legalism. It’s the structure that keeps you running the race. Build routines that keep you grounded in God’s Word and active in His work.
Jump In
The Christian life is not a life of hammocks and green pastures alone. Yes, there is rest, but it’s the rest that comes after a hard day’s work, not before. Stop waiting for someone to push you into action. Jump in. Run the race. Work out what God has worked in.
And do it all in the strength that God provides, knowing that “it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”