Between a Rock and a Hard Joy - Part 2

Bryan Chapell: Do you realize that heaven best defined is just earth made perfect? So that now, by the work of Jesus Christ, bodies are made whole, relationships are made whole? No more tears, no more suffering. God is working in such a way that we have that perfect relationship with Christ in such a way that His power is flowing in and through and around us. We have a foretaste of it now, but it is the reality that God is promising, so that we are embracing the beauty of it. It actually is equipping us for the life that we have now. Our light and momentary afflictions are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed in us.
Guest (Male): So glad you joined us for today's Unlimited Grace, the audio broadcast ministry of pastor and author Bryan Chapell. In today's episode, Pastor Bryan shares the second half of a lesson from Philippians chapter one. Dr. Chapell investigates the letter from Paul to the Philippians. As Paul faces great pain and persecution, he comes to realize that it is better for him to face this trial to encourage and strengthen the faith of others. You can find this lesson and many others when you visit UnlimitedGrace.com. And while you're there, look for the children's book *Anyway and Always*, written by Pastor Bryan and his wife, Kathy. Through this book, the Chapells present the promise of the Covenant's fulfillment by Christ in a personal and meaningful way for young children to understand. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the second half of the lesson, "Between a Rock and a Hard Joy."
Bryan Chapell: I want to take you to scripture this morning. If you would look in your Bibles at Philippians chapter one, as we will be looking at verses 19 through 26 and see an awful, wonderful dilemma before the Apostle Paul. Let's stand as we honor God's word. We back just into verse 18 as the Apostle is giving a cause for rejoicing, that the gospel is going forward even through hardship, and he writes these words: "Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance. As it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage, now as always, Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which shall I choose? I cannot tell. I'm hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith. So that in me, you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again." Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for the beauty of Your word that reminds us that our entire existence on the face of this earth and with Christ is all of Your doing. And even when we have a hard reality to face, the reality of Jesus Christ is still ours, giving hope and strength and joy. Teach us of Him this day, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated.
Guest (Male): Roll call was at 4:30 AM in Ravensbruck, the concentration camp in North Germany. Corrie ten Boom would write about it later, saying that in the chill air at 4:30 AM, even mid-winter, the roll call would take sometimes up to three hours in which the women would have to stand in ranks waiting for whatever arbitrary decision of the guards would finally let them go. One day, the woman standing in front of Corrie ten Boom—the Dutch girl whose father, the watchmaker, had made a decision to hide Jews in their house—watched as the woman in front of her fainting from standing out in the cold was then beaten mercilessly by the one they would call the Beast of Ravensbruck, the Hyena, the woman who took her rage unbridled out on those who fell. Corrie would later write, "I saw thousands die, but I saw many, many, Jew and Gentile, that went to be with God with Jesus on their lips." God still had a purpose. He was still working. He was still doing what He intended.
Bryan Chapell: Paul said, "I'm in a prison." Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. You feel imprisoned in a marriage of cruelty. Perhaps there is difficulty in your work situation. There are issues that you are facing, and you say, "I don't know why God would allow this." But if you actually believed—if it was possible to believe—that for me to live is Christ, that somehow you believe the reality of Christ was here in the midst of it all, not only forgiving you and covering your sin, but the hand of God present so that there was a purpose to witness before spouse, there was a purpose to witness before coworker and boss. Neighbors were watching you, and this was all part of the plan and the purpose of God for the salvation of many. That God would have a purpose in your life that's far beyond your seeing, far beyond your knowing, and God was actually working that way. What you would begin to plead is, "God, if You have this purpose for me, then give Your power." And Paul is saying if Christ is your life, then that power is available as well. Verse 26: "In me," he says, "you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus because of my coming to you again." Now, Paul has already said he may die. What does it mean to come to them again? It may mean that he'll be released from prison, come in the flesh. Or it may mean that he will come with the angels. But whichever way he comes, he says people will say God is at work. For that reason, as they see Paul's life—that candle of God with not only Christ within but Christ all around and now filling him with purpose—he begins to say, "You're going to see me and give glory to Christ Jesus." His power is going to be at work so that ultimately you will point to Him and say, "Look what God has done." You take the life of Corrie ten Boom, little bitty Dutch girl who became a little bitty Dutch older woman and was sent all over the world with the message of Ravensbruck. Of God's power and presence in an awful place like a Nazi concentration camp. How she gave hope to tens of thousands, maybe millions, I don't know. And how God used her in so many places and so many ways. Perhaps, she said, even saving 800 Jews by her family's work prior to the concentration camp. How did God use such a little girl? Later in her life, Corrie ten Boom would say, "If you ever see a glove performing some task, you don't say the glove did it. You say it was the hand that filled the glove." She said, "I am only the glove of Christ Jesus. His power has filled me." "If I've done anything, it's because of His power within me." And what we have through the scriptures is the ability to glimpse that power. Not just knowing we have the identity of Christ because Christ is my life. No, I recognize also I have the perception of Christ, His hand at work all around me. In ways that the world says are only tragedy, I still believe God is at work and there is a purpose for my life now that is empowered by the work of Jesus Christ. I couldn't help but think of it this week. The reason I'm mentioning Corrie ten Boom so much to you is that I was listening to a radio program, maybe some of you did, in which I listened to a speech of hers 40 years old, recorded, that was being on the radio this week, being rebroadcast. And as I listened to Corrie ten Boom speaking in a church 40 years ago, she just in the course of her talk said to those who were gathered in front of her, "I urge you to pray for your president, that he would be successful in opening relations with China, so that believers from your country could go and help believers who are suffering in China." That was 40 years ago, under the presidency of Richard Nixon. Four weeks ago, with your permission and support, I was in China ministering to Christians of the underground church. And I think, was that because Corrie ten Boom and the people of God were praying 40 years ago, and the power of God was yet working until it comes into our lives today? Is that impossible to believe? Apart from faith, it's impossible to believe. But in Christ Jesus, who do you give glory to? You give glory to God. Look at Jesus' work. I think of our frailty, our faithlessness, our fainting before the challenges that are in our lives. To believe that God could cover that and give us new identity, eclipse us with who He is, and not only eclipse us but to let us begin to see His hand at work to give purpose to our lives. In our marriages, in our families, in our jobs, in our neighborhoods, among our schoolmates. That God has purpose for us and He's actually beginning to fill us with His power so that we are the glove of God with Christ filling us, accomplishing His purposes. So that we sing with the saints of the ages: He is behind and before me, above and below me, Christ all around me. He is at work. He's doing His purpose and I'm part of that purpose. When I believe that, it fills me with joy. It fills me with hope. It fills me with power and gives me the ability, honestly, to deal with the other half of the verse. You kind of say all this is about Christ being our life now, to live is Christ. But we're also told to die is gain. What kind of gain? Please, please do not think of the heavenly reality as being you'll get wings and be on a cloud somewhere playing harp. If you could actually believe just so simply what the apostle has said here in verse 23: What is the gain? He said, "I'm hard-pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better." As though in that heavenly reality, there's nothing between us and Christ. In this reality, my sin gets in the way. Our suffering gets in the way. Our distractions get in the way. The criticism, the hurts, the difficulties of life get in the way. But in that heavenly reality, all these things—our identity, the perception of the presence of Christ, purpose of Christ for us, and Christ's power flowing through us—there is nothing hindering it anymore. Do you realize that heaven best defined is just earth made perfect? So that now, by the work of Jesus Christ, bodies are made whole, relationships are made whole? No more tears, no more suffering. God is working in such a way that we have that perfect relationship with Christ in such a way that His power is flowing in and through and around us. We have a foretaste of it now, but it is the reality that God is promising, so that we are embracing the beauty of it. It actually is equipping us for the life that we have now. Our light and momentary afflictions are not worth comparing with the glory that shall be revealed in us. And when I know that, I actually have strength for now. It gives me hope now, even in the suffering and the difficulty. I think of that, the awful old preacher's tale of the guy who's on a ship hanging over the rail, all seasick and green and just feeling like he's just gonna die. And a friend comes up to him trying to comfort him and says, "Listen, I know you feel terrible, but I just need you to know nobody dies from seasickness." And the other guy says, "Oh, please don't tell me that. It's hoping to die that's keeping me alive." It's the hope of glory that keeps God's people alive to Him, to His purposes, to believe actually this life is never the final chapter. This suffering never has the final word. This difficulty is not the end. That God is saying, "I will pour my power and purposes through you, even though you look at yourself as one not worthy because I've covered you with My identity." My hand is at work all around you, and so we take hope and comfort and reality to lift for God now because for me to die is gain. I sacrifice nothing to put it all on the field, to live it all out now because to die is gain. And so I, knowing what awaits me, knowing the goodness and the greatness of that, I fully live now in the reality of what it means for this life to be honoring and good for Christ and the people He's put into my life. To believe that reality is mine, to grasp it, to rejoice in it. Knowing whatever challenges life brings, they are not the final word. I think of how it changed Corrie ten Boom. The little girl so afraid at some point. The one whose marriage had not worked out with the one that she intended to marry, with the difficulties of losing brother and father and sister. All the struggles. Surely she must have said, "Is God's hand upon me?" But after she had experienced so much, maintained her joy, knowing that Christ was still all around her, she became a spokesman for the gospel around the world. She said never was there a harder place to go than a prison in Rwanda. It was an outdoor prison mostly. Too many prisoners even to live within the small shacks that were put around the prison gate. It was a tropic environment, so the prison basically was just denuded of all grass. It was just all mud. And out of the stinking mud would come the insects to sting and hurt the men. She was asked to go speak in the prison camp as they stood under the sweltering tropical sun. She said to her interpreter, "Can't we just go in one of the buildings to talk?" The interpreter said, "Impossible. We cannot protect you if we go into the buildings." And so she spoke under the sweltering sun, praying to God, "Give me words. What should I say here to these men?" And the words that came to her are those that seem so inappropriate: The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. She spoke to the men of love and joy and peace, and as she did so, she said they looked at her with hatred. "Oh sure, you talk of love, joy, and peace. Have you seen where we are?" The men who were caked in mud, some of them caking themselves in mud just to get away from the stinging and biting insects. And so she said, "Lord, what else shall I say? Christ is your life." She said, "Do you want to know what it means for Christ to be your life? That there is a God for whom you can be a candle, even in this place of darkness, shining for Him? That He can eclipse your sin with His work? That He can take your sin and cast them into the midst of the sea? That He can give purpose for your life? That He can take your hatred and turn it into forgiveness? That He can take your fear and turn it into peace?" She spoke of that God and she said she saw a few of the faces start to soften a little bit. And still, there was such hardness in most. "How dare you speak to us as though you know what we are experiencing?" And then she told them of Ravensbruck. "I know the despair. I know the cruelty. But I know of a skylark who in the worst of our moments came and reminded us as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for us." "So much so that His love is stronger than the cruelty of humanity. His reality more real than the cruelty of this camp." And in seeing that and in knowing that, they began to soften so much that she was so brave as to say, "If some of you want to know this Jesus—this Jesus who can be your reality, this one who can change your life, the one who can give you a hope of glory—would you raise your hand?" And all the men raised their hands, and all the guards too. For me to live is Christ, and to die only gain. When we have understood it and grasped it, it truly lets us fully live now. I know Him, and He is my identity. And I see His hand all around me. And I recognize He has purpose for my life or I would have already been with Him. And if I have purpose, then His power is promised to me. I will live for Him, and His power will flow through me. And because it will, I know to live is Christ and to die only gain. When God calls you, He does not call you to fruitlessness. He does not call you to despair. He calls you to Christ so that Christ is your life, and to die only gain because you left it all on the field here, living for him, His power within you. Friends, even as I present these words to you, I recognize that relationships in our lives can be a source of great blessing but also a source of great pain. If you're in a difficult season in an important relationship in your life, I would love to pray for you right now. Lord, help us not to give up on sharing the gospel with those whose hearts seem hard. Knowing that Your spirit can make a heart of stone soften and beat for Jesus. That's what You did in our hearts. So may the privileges of grace grant us the power of love to live for You for the sake of others. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you've missed anything that you'd like to hear once again, just visit UnlimitedGrace.com. And when you do so, you can sign up for Pastor Bryan's daily devotional sent right to your inbox. While you're there, also be sure to request a copy of the book from Dr. Bryan Chapell and his wife, Kathy, called *Anyway and Always*. We'll send you a copy right away as our way of saying thank you for your most generous financial support. Once again, go to UnlimitedGrace.com or you can give by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. Please be sure to join us next time as once again we endeavor to put Christ at the center of our efforts so that lives might be transformed by His unlimited grace. This ministry is brought to you by Unlimited Grace Media and continues to be made possible with your generous financial support.