Unlimited Grace

Bryan Chapell: I need to recognize and you need to recognize God is saying your past is not defining you. I'm the God who is ahead of you. I have plans for you. But I am the God who has cut you off from your past by my great power. It's not the past that controls you. My God is so great, so strong and so mighty. There's nothing my God cannot do as I believe he can even move me beyond my past.

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 Exodus chapter 17. As the Israelites begin to grumble, God once again miraculously provides. A reflection of the grace that he provides even through the gift of his son.

You can find this lesson and many others when you visit unlimitedgrace.com. And while you're there, look for this wonderful resource from Dr. Chapell, Holiness by Grace. In this book, Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Let's hear now from Dr. Bryan Chapell as he shares the lesson, Squeezing Water from a Rock.

Bryan Chapell: I want to take you to the Scriptures and I'll ask you to look in your Bibles at Exodus 17. Exodus 17. As you're turning, let me pray for us. Heavenly Father, I pray that you would equip this people with Holy Ghost power, even by their understanding of your word and its critical nature for the eternities of those that you put in our lives and for our own heart's sake. Grant, Father, your Spirit now to guide us through your word we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Exodus 17 verses 1 through 7. We say it so easily: three strikes and you're out. This is strike four. Three times already, Moses has recorded that the rescued people begin to grumble against God because they are not getting it all the way they want. Last week, we get manna in the morning and meat at night. What's the problem now? Where's the water to wash it down? And they begin to grumble again.

Here is what the Lord says, Exodus 17 verses 1 through 7. "All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim. But there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, 'Give us water to drink.' And Moses said to them, 'Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?'"

"But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, 'Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?' So Moses cried to the Lord, 'What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.' And the Lord said to Moses, 'Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.'"

"And Moses did so in the sight of the elders of Israel, and he called the name of the place Massah and Meribah because of the quarreling of the people of Israel and because they tested the Lord by saying, 'Is the Lord among us or not?'" Now keep your finger right there and turn to the New Testament. First Corinthians 10 verses 1 through 4, where Paul is going to comment on this very event to explain it. First Corinthians 10 verses 1 through 4. If you're using the grace Bibles at your seats, that's page 957.

First Corinthians 10 verses 1 through 4. Paul's explaining the meaning, not just for them, but for us. He writes, "For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ."

Now a lot of you know the old preacher's story. There was a Sunday school teacher that wanted to explain to her children the importance of storing up the Word of God in their hearts. "Thy word have I stored in my heart that I might not sin against thee." And she thought "storing up in your heart," what's an example of that? Oh, squirrels! The way they store up acorns. And so she said to the children, "Children, I'm going to tell you something, I'm going to describe it, and what I want you to do is, when you know what I'm talking about, raise your hand."

"What I'm thinking about gathers acorns in the fall and eats them in the winter." No hands went up. "Well, children, it lives in trees and chatters and chases its friends up and down the limbs." No hand went up. "Children, it has gray fur and a bushy tail." No hand went up. The teacher began to look lost and exasperated, and finally one of the Sunday school kids lifted up his hand. She said, "Mikey, what is it?" He said, "I know the answer's Jesus, but it sure sounds like a squirrel to me."

Now most of you have heard that before. Here's a variation. It's made of mineral. It's craggy and hard, big as a boulder, and found in the desert. What is it? Paul the Apostle says, "I know it sounds like a rock, but it's really Jesus." Isn't that what he said? The rock was Jesus. How do you get from a stone to a Savior? And why is God squeezing Jesus out of a rock? Maybe a better question: why is he sharing Jesus with a people whose hearts are hard as stone?

After all, they are the people who are grumbling again because even though God has released them, rescued them, given them freedom from their chains, all they can perceive in the moment is the immediate crisis. And as a consequence, they forget everything that has passed and put God on trial. "Do you care or not?" What is God teaching us? Even though we know gratitude is supposed to be in our hearts, even though we can look back and say there's been freedom from my sin, provision for my family, rescue for our lives, it's the immediate crisis.

My job, my family, my hurt, that totally eclipses our thoughts. And so we complain against God, even though we know gratitude's supposed to be in there. What is God teaching us and how? Most of the time when we work in the Scriptures, particularly the Old Testament, we are moving toward that "aha" moment when we see that the meaning of a text is ultimately revealing some aspect of the gospel that will culminate in the New Testament. But for now, let's cut to the chase. How does a rock become Jesus in the mind of the Apostle Paul?

Think of the situation. You already know most of it. God has freed the Israelites from their chains, which have been of their own cause. It was the betrayal of Jacob's son that got them into Egypt in the first first place. It was the response of their own idolatry that has kept them enslaved before Pharaoh. But now they have been rescued and they have riches that have come from Egyptian households as they are saying, "Just get out of here."

Guest (Male): God instructs us in His Word to be holy as He is holy. How can God expect us to be as holy as He is? Such a standard seems either to ignore our frailty or to impose certain failure. That is, until we understand how God views us. In this challenging yet heartwarming book, Holiness by Grace, Dr. Bryan Chapell illustrates the principles of grace, the practices of faith, and the motives of love in living a life of holiness.

Pastor Bryan will guide you through reassuring scripture passages to discover how works and obedience are not a means of establishing or maintaining salvation, but a grateful response to God's mercy. Holiness by Grace draws straight from the heart of God as Pastor Bryan's encouraging words will help you understand that your holiness is not so much a matter of what you achieve as it is the grace that God provides, a grace so rich as to make the pursuit of His holiness your soul's deepest delight. You can request your copy of Holiness by Grace when you go online to unlimitedgrace.com or by calling 844-41-GRACE. That's 844-414-7223. And now, more from Bryan Chapell on today's Unlimited Grace.

Bryan Chapell: How will God now respond? Verse 5. The Lord said to Moses, "Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel." Go to the head of things. Pass by all the other people. Take the elders with you, so they can observe and the people can observe you all. "Then take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile and go. Remember when you touched the Nile and it turned to blood, so the plague came upon Israel that they could no longer sustain life by the means that they chose? Take that same staff."

Verse 6. "And behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink." We have to picture it as we now know the events are unfolding. When God is appearing to his people at this time while they are in the wilderness, they are being led by a pillar of fire at night. But what in the daytime? Pillar of cloud. They are being led by a cloud.

Now God, who's appearing to his people in the cloud says, "I am going to stand on the rock." Which means for God to stand on the rock, he must surround the rock. And the word that he uses to describe his posture, "I will stand upon the rock," we don't hear it in the English. It's the actual word for the posture of a servant. I will stand in humility before my people upon the rock, and then you take the staff of my authority, knowing I have ordered this, and you strike the rock.

For Moses to strike the rock, what does he have to hit first? He's got to hit his God, who is in a posture of a servant before his people in order to provide for their salvation. I know it's a rock, it sure sounds like Jesus to me. Here is God bowing before his people. At the authority of God, allowing himself to be struck in order to provide life for his people. What God is teaching them as well as us is the magnitude of his grace, so that when we are facing the difficulties that threaten to overwhelm us, that eclipse all other goodness of God, that we will still understand the rock.

When the Psalmist looks back at this event in Psalm 78, he actually says it specifically: the people of God remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High, their redeemer. What are the takeaways? If I say, here are the people grumbling and God who could just turn and walk away, instead provides salvation for his people through his own humility, what am I learning? First takeaway: the power of our God is great.

He can bring water out of the desert. He can divide the Red Sea. He can overcome the gods of Pharaoh. He can overcome the chariots of Pharaoh. My God is so great! He is so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do. Those of you who have kids, you may remember how your kids sang that song, right? My kids sang it looking like Hulk Hogan. My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do.

But it's not a child's song we are to remember. It is the actual power of our God. Moses, take that staff with which you touched the Nile in such a way that an entire river could no longer sustain life. And instead touch a rock in the desert so that the desert can no longer deny life to my people. I don't just have great power. I have the power of life and death. I have the power to accomplish my will in all the earth. The rocks and the rivers are mine, and I control them. My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there is nothing my God cannot do.

And I need that when I have a week like this past one. You're enough of my church family I will just tell you that for some of us in the room, this was one of the most disappointing ministry weeks of my time here at Grace Church. We had a true ministry setback that deeply, profoundly disappointed us. And when that happens, I must tell you my own mind rushes to: where did God go? What is he doing? Is he here?

And I need in my own heart to hear the words again. My God is so strong, so great, there's nothing my God cannot do. My blessing was going to the mayor's prayer breakfast and listening to Karl Cannon, who works with the Elite program for children's development in the inner city of this town. And to listen to Karl talk about his own story where so much could have gone wrong, where God rescued him out of the abyss of his own experience and his own pride, so that now not only does he have ministry of God, he has this ministry touching the lives of young people, and they, more people, for the rescue of not just their lives, but maybe much of our own town.

Why does he work for their sake? Karl was so clear. He said, "What I hope the kids that I work with walk away with, whether they see my life or recognize where they are down the road, is they will look back and say: we are here because somebody helped us." Not my power, not my doing. We are here because somebody helped us. And I've got to remember that too. If we are in this ministry, if I have family, if I have salvation, if I have eternity secure, then it's not the day that's supposed to overwhelm me.

It is the reality of the greatness of my God that's to capture my thought, capture my thinking, capture my songs, and ultimately capture my heart again. Who after all is that somebody who is here to help us? Paul said it so clearly when looking back on this event: that rock was Christ that followed after them. The language is hard on us. The rock that followed after them was Christ. How does a rock follow after you? Is it kind of rolling through the sand of the desert? You know, is this some sort of R2-D2, BB-8 who's kind of following after them? What's happening?

Know what Paul just described. He said: remember when you went through the Red Sea, there was God who was ahead of you, who then parted the waters on both sides of you, and then went behind you as a rear guard to protect you from what was behind you, the Egyptians. Here is God surrounding his people wherever they go. It's kind of like if you can picture this—this may not be a real holy example—but I think of my kids when they started playing soccer. You know whenever kids start playing soccer, it's magnet ball, right? There's the ball and all the kids gather around it. And no matter where the ball goes, you get those kids grouped all around it.

And here is God following after the children of Israel, no matter where they go, as if to say: I'm not just ahead of you, I'm not just to your right and to your left, but I am your rear guard, protecting you from what is behind you as well. That is how great I am. And I think why we need to hear that of the moms who at the end of a day with children they love, nonetheless in frustration and fatigue and exasperation, snap and say or do things they cannot even imagine was true of themselves and now cannot sleep at night because of remembering what I did.

Don't you want to know that my God is not just ahead of me, but behind me? Protecting me from what was back there. How much I need to recognize and you need to recognize God is saying: your past is not defining you. I'm the God who is ahead of you. I have plans for you. But I am the God who has cut you off from your past by my great power. It's not the past that controls you. My God is so great, so strong and so mighty, there's nothing my God cannot do as I believe he can even move me beyond my past.

I think of one of the most compelling sermons I ever heard from John Piper was he was just honestly unveiled before young men and he was saying: how many of you who are blessed by God, able, know the Scriptures, desire to be used in ministry and mission for the glory of God, but you have checked yourself out because of the pornography that characterizes your life day after day? You must believe your past does not define you. My God has cut off the past so that we can move forward in the grace and plan that he intends for us. Our past does not define us.

I think of my own children at times when they have faced the huge disappointments of not getting into the grad school that they might have wanted, and believe because they are that failure in the past that there's no future. And I need to be able to say—we need to be able to say—to child, to grandchild, to potential minister, missionary, moms, dads: your past does not define you. The God who is ahead of you and on both sides of you has said, "I am your rear guard too."

Guest (Male): That's Pastor Bryan Chapell, and you've been listening to Unlimited Grace. If you would like to hear more from Dr. Chapell, you can find a collection of valuable resources at unlimitedgrace.com. 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.