Sacrifice of Joy - Part 1

Bryan Chapell: It’s another way of thinking, that I’m not working out my salvation with fear and trembling, that if I don’t match up, if I don’t perform enough, I’m out of here, I’m rejected, I’m done. Instead of saying, "No, I’m in reverence and awe that the King of creation would die for me, and then He would come and by His Holy Spirit indwell me with this promise. I am now working in you My pleasure, My will, My purpose for your world and the world of those around you."
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 a lesson from Philippians Chapter 2. Dr. Chapell investigates what life can be like when we trade fear for confidence of God’s work in us. You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. While you’re there, look for one of the many resources from Pastor Bryan Chapell, including a collection of short Bible studies called *Seven Days to a More Joyful Life*. As Dr. Chapell continues this series on joy from Philippians, these guided studies will help you encounter the joy that Jesus offers to you, a joy that leads to thanksgiving for our gracious Heavenly Father who gives us second chances. Let’s hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson "Sacrifice of Joy."
Bryan Chapell: One of the most encouraging and insightful conversations that I can remember in some time occurred in my office this past week when a respected, able, retired businessman was talking about his passion to take so much of what he has learned from a career in business and communicate it to the generation coming next. I asked him why somebody who should just be spending all your time sharpening your golf game would be concerned about investing in the lives of young leaders coming behind you. This is what he said. He said, "I have had to consider what it would be like to step back into my company during my career-building years without fear-based motivation. What would have been the impact on my family, on my marriage, on my health, on my testimony if I would have worked with peace of mind? What difference for others would it have made if I actually had the ability to walk with health in my soul rather than fright in my heart?" "Because of fear-based motivation, almost everyone I knew practiced materialism as though it was the way to keep fear at bay. But there are never enough material things to make you unafraid of losing them. So people at the company hide from fear with more money, with higher positions, or taking positions from peers. Or they distract themselves with affairs, or pornography, or alcohol, or sports. People are willing to do almost anything, jeopardize virtually everything, put at risk what is most dear to them—family, wives, children, character—anything to escape fear." "And I had to ask myself: what would it look like to operate without fear, and can I help anyone else to do that? Not to live the life of fear that I have lived or am living." Is it really possible? Is it really possible to work without being fear-driven, to provide for a family without risking it at the same time? To make a living, meet a deadline, manage people without fear being the fuel in our tank or the tiger on our back? Fear is not just an issue in business, of course. It’s the issue in homes as moms worry about what other people will think if my child does something wrong, or how I will ruin my child if I don’t do everything right. Students fearful of losing opportunities or scholarships or relationships. And ministers fearful that you will not get other people’s approval or hit the numbers that everyone is expecting. We all know what it means to live in fear and be motivated by it. And yet, curiously, the antidote to that fear is found in this passage of scripture where, at the end of verse 12, the Apostle writes these seemingly horrible words: "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." How does that help? And by the way, for those of you well-versed kids who at least memorized your primary verses, doesn’t it sound a wee bit wrong? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling? Did Paul remember that he said, "By grace you are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it’s the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast"? Did Paul forget that? No, he didn’t forget. Just a few verses later in this same book, he writes these words: "If anyone thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, that is what you do, I have more." "But whatever gain I had, I counted all my works as loss for the sake of Christ, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own according to the works of the law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith." Now, how can Paul be saying that? Just right here, he’s saying you need to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work His good pleasure. How do those things fit together? Well, first we simply have to ask: what work has God done? Paul the Apostle has written this letter explaining a lot of the work that God has already done in behalf of anyone who would come to Christ. For this same Jesus, though being in the very form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing. And taking on the form of a servant, He came in human flesh and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. That was God’s work, providing sacrifice in our behalf, but that’s the past action and it’s not done. For the Apostle continues here in verse 13, saying, "And it’s now God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." It wasn’t just something in the past that God did, but even now. The King of the cosmos, the Creator of all things, is now indwelling us to perform His good pleasure. Knowing our weakness, our sin, our frailty, our stumbling, He nonetheless is saying, "I’m going to work in you to accomplish My good pleasure." And what’s that supposed to be doing? It’s supposed to be saying you’re not to be working with fear in everyday life, but to be working with confidence that God is at work in you. As though God is saying, "Regardless of what you’re facing, I got this." And when you recognize that God is the one working, He’s the one working through you, it’s no longer just performative religion that we are following. We are walking in faith. And as we walk in faith, we work out, as the Apostle is saying here, our salvation with fear and trembling, yes, because of the work that God has already done in us. That word "work out" in the Greek actually is a very important word because it’s not about manufacturing something. It’s not about creating something. That "work out" is our English translation of a word that means to fashion or to form something that already exists. So that it’s saying: here’s the clay of your salvation, this is what’s already been provided. Now, live out the implications; fashion, shape it according to God’s work that is in you. The path has already been laid; walk the path. The book has already been written; read the chapters. You are living out the implications of what God has already done. Lots of you already know, we explain it often saying: you work out what God has already worked in. We are already having the foundation of our salvation; now we are living out the implications of it. Now, what it means to work out our salvation can be variously described. If you’re saying it’s working it out, it might be compared to Tim Gunn on *Project Runway*. Okay, I’ve talked about something other than baseball and fishing, come on. Work with me, I’m going for another demographic here. You know that when those designers come to *Project Runway*, the materials have been supplied, the machines have been supplied, the models have been supplied. And they still are in the throes of how do they design something that represents them well. And so Tim Gunn says, "Work it out." It’s all been supplied, you now work it out. Now, here’s where the analogy falls apart. Those designers live in absolute fear and trembling that if they don’t work it out well, they’re out of here. And the Apostle is saying something exactly the opposite. Work out your salvation, yes, that which God has provided, live out the implications of it with fear and trembling. And here’s the trouble that we face. It is very clear that in the Bible, sometimes that phrase "fear and trembling" is a reference to terror and fright, as though you are facing an enemy or a crisis with fear and trembling. But the very same phrase is used in the context of worship to refer to reverence and awe. What is the context here? Remember, the Apostle has just said that because God in the form of Christ came and became obedient to death. Paul concludes, "Therefore God has highly exalted Him, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Are we talking about an enemy, or are we talking about the context of worship? We are talking about the context of worship. And here is that notion that when you come, you come not just with a sense of God’s going to get me. No, He’s the one who provided for me. And in the reality of God providing that salvation, I am living in reverence and awe in every phase of life, in everything that I do because I’m recognizing, despite my flaws, despite my weakness, the fact that I don’t know what’s going to happen from this circumstance, God is at work in me and through me to bring about His good and perfect plan. And when I begin to recognize that, it’s just an awesome concept that’s meant to knock me to my knees. Not just cause my knees to knock, but actually cause my knees to give way in honor and worship and to say, "I’m just falling down in worship before the Lord." This reverence and awe is what we recognize when we sing so often, right? If I recognize all that God is and all that He’s done, we fall down, we lay our crowns at the feet of Jesus. I’m just blown away in reverence and awe. And so now I’m laying my crown and all of my doing before Jesus. I’m working out with reverence and awe the wonder of what God has done in me. I’m living out the response to the salvation that He has accomplished in me. And the source of that reverence is all that God is and all that He’s accomplished. And what it is basically doing, it’s replacing my fear of the world, my fear of circumstances, with the awe of the Creator who indwells me and saves me. I’m replacing fear with a better fear. I’m replacing trembling with awe. I’m replacing fright with reverence. And the profound effect upon our lives of replacing fear with awe, I experienced in a profound way when I met recently one of the Christian leaders, a young man of the house church movement in China. I’m going to spend some time talking about him for a little bit because I so much identify with where he’s been and so much want to understand where he’s going as he has replaced fear with awe. Here is what he said to me. "In my family, the gospel was something that you did. You learn the Bible and you behaved like a Christian. That’s what it meant to be a Christian. My father was imprisoned by the communists because he was a surgeon who believed in Christ. The soldiers asked, 'Do you believe in Jesus?' He said, 'I do.' They said, 'Do you want others to believe in Jesus?' He said, 'Yes, I do.'" "Then they said, 'If others believe, they will not be loyal to Chairman Mao.' And so they put him in prison, not just him, but his four siblings as well." Said my friend that I was talking to, now, he did what a good Christian should do. His suffering was his identity. It’s what made him a Christian. And not him only, but his siblings who were also suffering for the Lord. "I admire them," he said. "I respect what they did." "But as I look at their children, my seven cousins, only one of them is a believer today." Now wait, the parents had suffered so much, they’d lived so well, they’d sacrificed so much for the sake of Christ, and yet as you look at the next generation beyond them, only one of the seven cousins is a Christian. What happened? Said my friend, "I struggled too to be a Christian, being raised in a home where the gospel was something that you did." "To satisfy my parents' expectations and my ambitions, I became a computer engineer. But that wasn’t enough for those whose Christianity is proven by their suffering. So I gave up a computer engineer career and I went to seminary in America to prepare to suffer as a pastor of a house church in China. But the gospel was still something that you do. So I studied hard and made good grades and hated church and fought with my wife." "As a computer engineer, I perceived the gospel as being about getting all the right documents on my hard drive and getting the right performance out of my operating system. I was getting all the right information. I even believed in God, but I was empty, miserable, and terrified that I could not live up to the expectations of those who were expecting me to return." "One morning, I headed off to seminary class after a fight with my wife that got physical. And at the base of the stairs going away from our apartment, I collapsed. I cried out to God, 'Please, God, change my heart.' The only way I knew to explain what I was asking for was as a computer engineer. I was trying to be a Christian by getting the right documents and performance out of me. And finally, I said, 'God, I need You to change my operating system.'" "I asked Jesus into my heart and asked for Him to give me the peace that He would love me despite my performance." It’s another way of thinking, that I’m not working out my salvation with fear and trembling, that if I don’t match up, if I don’t perform enough, I’m out of here, I’m rejected, I’m done. Instead of saying, "No, I’m in reverence and awe that the King of creation would die for me." "And then He would come and by His Holy Spirit indwell me with this promise. I am now working in you My pleasure, My will, My purpose for your world and the world of those around you. I have taken what is weak and frail and miserable and sinful, and I say, 'I’m going to use you for My own joy and glory,' says God." And when we see that, God knows the worst about me and He’s not waiting for me to perform enough to love me, but He just sent Jesus for me. Sends His Spirit into me and is using me for glorious purposes. I fall down, I lay my crowns at the feet of Jesus and say, "God, it’s not fear driving me now; it’s reverence, it’s awe, it’s wonder at the goodness and the greatness that’s in You. I’m not living the gospel of performance; I’m living the gospel of trust in the awareness of how great and wondrous You are." And it begins to change the way that we see the world, the way we motivate other people, the way we motivate ourselves. The reality for all of us in the church is that not only we, but our children, so often perceive what Christianity is about is getting good behavior. If I can just get good behavior out of you, I’ll be happy and God will be happy with you. And yet the gospel is something far different. It’s this understanding that our behavior is only a response to the grace of God that is in us. That we are working out what has been worked in us by God’s grace alone, that we are claiming Him by faith in His work, not by confidence that our performance will ever be enough, that our knowledge will ever be enough. By faith, we live in awe and wonder. By faith, we live in the confidence that gives us patience with ourselves as well as with others, because we hear God always saying to us, "I’m working in you to bring about My good will." Your brokenness, your difficulty, yes, that’s all real, needs to be faced, work it out. But with reverence and awe of how much I love you, what I’ve done for you, all My work in your behalf. And when that begins to take over, the awe replacing the fear, we’re kind of stoked with confidence, filled with patience, able to face people who are frustrating us and failing us and our own failures and begin to say, "I hate what that was, but I’m just filled with wonder that God could still use me and work beyond me." So God is calling us by the reverence and awe of who He is and what He has done to first work in the confidence of His work, but then actually to have our lives confident of the brilliance that shines through us if we are actually living in the confidence that’s Him.
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.