Jesus Unfiltered - Follow - Jesus Offers Satisfaction, Part 1

Wouldn't it be great if you could just flip a switch somewhere and be instantly and completely satisfied? I mean satisfied with your life, your relationships, your job, your circumstances.

I mean, you flip the switch and wow, you've got it. Now that's not possible, but what is possible is to hear directly from Jesus exactly how He can satisfy the deepest needs in your life. That's today. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. We're in the middle of volume two of our series, Jesus Unfiltered, titled Follow. Chip has a lot to share on this topic of satisfaction today, so let's dive right in.

Go in your Bible to John chapter seven as we join Chip for his talk. What are you most thirsty for today? Not your whole life, but just today. What are you most thirsty for? What do you wish? What are you hankering for?

What do you long for? Second, there are days where it seems that events, circumstances, answers to prayer, relationships, it really does feel like. It's a wonderful world and you feel satisfied.

You ever think about what the word means? To be satisfied is the feeling experience when one's wishes are met, when you're content, when you're delighted, when you're happy, when there's enjoyment, gladness, gratification. It's just a moment and you relish the moment. See, we all have times where we thirst for certain things, it's human, and there's times where we experience deep, deep satisfaction. So let me ask you, what's really been satisfying for you lately?

What event, what person, what moment in the last 24 or 48 hours or week you'd say, but it was good. It is a beautiful world. And then finally, life isn't always what we'd like it to be. It's not even what God would always want it to be. And the word dissatisfied means not to be content, not happy, not pleased with something, not pleased with someone. To be dissatisfied is to be miserable, aggravated, gloomy, melancholy, despondent, restless, annoyed. If you had to come up with the one thing right now that you're dissatisfied in, you're really dissatisfied about, what would it be? It could be a person, it could be a relationship, it could be a job, it could be a circumstance, it could be something about your health, but where are you dissatisfied? You see, the fact of the matter, if you don't process and begin to ask yourself, what do I desire, what do I wish, where are my passions, what am I thirsty for, where am I really satisfied, but where am I dissatisfied?

Then what happens, you just go through life juggling. Jesus made an outrageous, outrageous promise to quench our thirst to satisfy us at a very deep, deep level that would be completely independent of external things. We'll look at this a little bit later, but follow along as I read John chapter 7.

If anyone is thirsty, come and drink of me. And then in case you don't know what that means, he's going to say, for everyone who believes to come to him and to drink is to everyone who believes, who relies on, who depends on, who trusts in me, out of his innermost being will flow rivers continuously of living water, speaking of the Holy Spirit that would come and the intimate relationship of actually knowing God, not knowing about God, but knowing and being connected deeply to him. Solomon was the wisest man in the world. He took over for his father, David, and he was pretty uptight about a big job that he couldn't handle, and God came to him and said, what would you request of me? And he had a great moment.

He had a few bad ones later, but he had a great moment. And he just said, this job's way bigger than me. Give me wisdom. And God answered his prayer. He said, I'm going to give you more wisdom than any person before you who's ever lived, and I'm going to give you more wisdom than any person that will ever live after you. And the Hebrew word for wisdom, it's not just intellectual or cognitive.

The word literally means skill. It's understanding how all of life and how relationships with people and priorities and money and decisions, it's how has God designed life and the skill or the wisdom to do life according to God's path in order that he might bless you and prosper you and give you that joy and peace and love and that things would work in a way that your life works in a way that points up to him. And this is what he said, Proverbs chapter 2. This desire for satisfaction, this thirst that you have, there's a way to quench it, and we're going to talk about how you can experience that. Solomon would write, my son, if you'll receive my words and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom and incline your heart to understanding.

Now, just stop for a moment. He's the wisest man in the world. He's speaking to his son and to us. He says, receive my words, treasure.

I mean, like in a safety deposit box, like super precious, my commandments, where, within you. And then there's this attitude, make your ear attentive or literally incline your heart to understanding. Then notice verses 3 and 4, he talks about a passion, a commitment, a desire, a thirst. If you cry out for discernment, lift your voice for understanding, literally pray. I mean, ask, come after it.

If you seek for her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasure, then here's the result. Then you'll discern the fear of the Lord, who he really is, and you'll discover the knowledge of God. Look at this, you'll discover this isn't knowing about God. This isn't like you'd have a textbook and say, this is what God is like. This is like you would actually meet and experience Jesus at the last night that he lived. He said, this is eternal life, that you might know him experientially.

And his son, whom he has sent, speaking of himself. For God gives wisdom, he gives the skill, this ability to know how to live in such a way to quench the deepest thirst of your life. And just before we turn the page and learn how, where does Jesus say?

Look at the notes. Where does Jesus say this thirst gets quenched? Streams of water within you. See, what I'm going to suggest is when I ask questions about what are you satisfied about and what are you dissatisfied about, for most of us, we're thinking there's something out there, if that happened or if that wouldn't have happened, if this person or that person or this job or this health, so much of us look to satisfy our thirst out there. And Jesus is going to teach us that, you know what, you can get this, you can gain this, you can do this, you can have that, but pretty soon the new car gets old, the new job gets old, the relationship you thought would never ever have a problem. He's going to say, let me quench your thirst from within with me first.

And when that happens, all the rest will get in order. Make sense? Now, turn the page, if you will, and I'm going to talk about how do you get that wisdom, literally how to unearth spiritual wisdom from God's Word. And here's what I want you to get. Solomon said you've got to dig, you've got to search, you've got to seek, you've got to treasure, you've got to cry out. There's a wisdom that leads to quenching the deepest thirsts of our lives and it comes out of God's Word, but it's not just on top of the ground.

You've got to dig, there has to be a passionate pursuit. God wants to know, do you really want to know me? And here's my experience, I believe most Christians really don't know how to open the written Word in order to experience the living Word where you have a relationship where when you have a decision to make or you don't know what to do or when you're really down, my experience is most Christians don't know how to get into this written Word, so the Spirit of the living God begins to speak very personally and passionately and clearly to give you the wisdom to not just address big problems but to be on a path that you were made to be on, to do what He made you to do to bring the greatest joy and the greatest peace in your life. And so what I'm going to suggest is there is a truth here and the truth is that the Spirit gives life, the flesh counts for nothing, and then underline this, the words I have spoken to you and then circle the word are Spirit and they are life.

Jesus said the actual words, they're written down now, but His actual words, the words of the New Testament, they're Spirit and they're life. I want to give you tools and teach you how to actually open and study the Bible where you can learn it as well or better than me. Early on when I read it, I couldn't understand much of it.

I want you to know you can and it's the key to quenching your deepest thirst. Three tools, tool number one is context. As you read through the Bible, the context, in other words, what informs this passage? We're going to read in just a minute that Jesus goes during this time He's been out.

The context is He's been out in a rural area because they're seeking to take His life. The timing is it is six months before the crucifixion. His popularity was blown out of the doors that He set the bar and said, if you're really going to follow Me, you need to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me.

A great many of His disciples said, we're not going to follow anymore. So there's this big feast. It's called the Feast of Tabernacles. The context of this, I want to give it to you just before we read it. The context is there's three great feasts in the Old Testament, the Jewish law.

This was the happy one. It was called the Feast of Tabernacles because what it was is, remember, they were delivered from Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, then they're in the wilderness. It's really desert. And God, there was a cloud by day and a fire by night, so He guided them. He provided the manna or the food. They ran out of water.

There was water out of the rock. He did all these miracles, and yet when He gave them the chance to go into the Promised Land, remember, they wouldn't believe. This is really important because of what's going to happen. And then when they finally would believe, actually the whole generation took 40 years, they die, and then those that were under 20 and above, they go into the Promised Land, the Jordan parts. There's Jericho. It's a formidable city. They walk around it seven times, each for seven days, and then they shout according to what God says because He wanted them to know He's going to be the victor, not them. The walls crumble, and you have this amazing land of milk and honey and promise and vineyards that you didn't plant and houses.

So God, the Promised Land becomes a reality. After that happened, the Feast of Tabernacles was you would go and get some sticks and some leaves, and you would make a little lean-to, and you'd put it on the roofs were flat back then. You would do it on your roof. They did it in the streets. They did it in the courtyards of the temple. And if you were 20 years old and older as a male and you lived within 15 miles, you had to.

It was an obligation to come to this feast in downtown Jerusalem. So here's the picture. There's all these sticks and all these people. The kids are going, we camp out for seven days. This is great.

Okay? Thousands of people come, and it's also, it's often called the Feast of Ingathering. So the grapes are coming in. The wheat just come in.

The fruit trees, everything's blooming. So there's music. There's food.

It's seven days. It's a party. They're celebrating. Remember, you know, 40 years in the desert, we're remembering God did this, and he brought us.

We have the promised land. And remember, there was water that came out of the rock. And I mean, it's just the seven days of this. And then on the seventh day, this will be really important. The chief priest, or at least one of the head priests, would take a golden vessel, and there would be a parade, and he would go down to the Pool of Siloam right in Jerusalem, and he would fill it with water, and they would follow him, and then he would come back, and he would walk around the altar seven times, and then he would take the water, and he would pour it out, reminding them that God gave water out of the rock to end the big celebration. Now, in your mind, remember this.

Here's what happened. On the last day of the feast, right after that happened, okay? They're remembering promised land, all that God did, okay? Jesus steps up. The water's been poured on the altar. Everyone's remembering a memorial of what God has done. And when it says a loud voice, the literal word is, he cries out, If any man thirst, let him come and drink of me, for whoever believes in me relies on me, trusts me, follows me.

Out of his innermost being will continually flow living water. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll get you back to the second volume of Chip's Jesus Unfiltered series titled Follow in just a minute. But first, if this teaching has ministered to you, consider becoming a monthly partner. Your regular financial support goes a long way to help us encourage pastors, create resources, and share Jesus with today's youth.

Visit livingontheedge.org today to learn how to support us. Well, with that, here again is Chip. You got the context? Okay, let's read it. And what I want to do is I just want to give you, let's read just the first 13 verses, because I want you to now, with that in your mind, think about what was happening. Chapter 7, verse 1.

After this, after what? After he fed 5,000, and many of his disciples aren't following him, but Peter and his disciples said, Lord, where would we go? You got the words of eternal life. We're in.

We're all in. After this, Jesus went around in Galilee purposely staying away from Judea because the Jews were waiting to take his life. But when the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles that I just described was near, Jesus' brother said to him, you ought to leave and go to Judea so that your disciples may see the miracles that you do. No one who wants to become a public figure acts in secret.

Since you are doing these things, show yourself to the world. For even his own brothers did not believe in him. Now, I don't know about you, but could we pause for just a minute? If you had a brother, you know, in your family that you really cared about, and you knew that they were trying to kill him in Jerusalem, I'm not sure the most loving, kind thing you've ever done is, hey, you know, you're doing these miracles. If you really think you got it all together, why don't you go do a few miracles? So the first group that doesn't believe are the people that have grown up with him, his own brothers. Therefore, Jesus told them the right time, literally the word for time here is opportunity, the right time for me has not yet come, for any time is right for you.

The world cannot hate you, but the world hates me because I testify that what the world does is evil. You go to the feast. I'm not yet going up to the feast, because for me, the right time has not yet come. Having said this, he stayed in Galilee, so his brothers go. However, after his brothers had left for the feast, he went also, not publicly, but in secret. Now, the feast of the Jews were watching for him and asking, where's that man? Among the crowds, there was widespread murmuring. It's actually the exact same word used in the Old Testament when they were getting ticked off with God and things weren't going their way, so the people murmured. Some said, he's a good man. Others said, no, he deceives the people. But no one would say anything publicly about him for fear of the Jews.

If you said Jesus was a good man or the Messiah, you get kicked out of the synagogue, and you're gone, and you're alienated. Now, do you kind of have the context? You've got the kind of idea of what's happening here? Let me tell you why this is so important. If, and again, please hear all I'm saying is I love you. I want to help you. If your sort of routine is, you know, I read a little devotional, and, you know, I read a couple verses, and I read the daily bread, or, you know, I go on YouVersion, and I read a little something here and something there, and I do it maybe once a week, maybe twice a week, and I don't really know what's going on, but I sort of want to get a little nugget for the day.

You're never going to have streams of living water coming out of your heart and life. You've got to know what it says. When you were learning to write code, you didn't go to class every seventh day. When you were learning an instrument, which you're great at right now, you didn't say, you know, I'd like to learn to play the clarinet or the guitar or the piano, or, you know, I took two voice lessons.

I think I've got it. When you were deciding that you would be an artist or an athlete or one of your kids that are doing that, you didn't say, you know, why don't you go to the first practice, and then, you know, we'll go to the game later. You know, you don't really need all that stuff. When some of you who said, you know, I want to do a startup, you didn't say, you know, I think I'll read a couple books, you know, let's see, Essentialism, that sounds like a good one, and maybe the Lean Startup, but, you know, who needs an MBA, right? Who needs to study physics, who needs to study technology? I'll just wing it, right?

Does anyone do life like that? But here's the thing, unconsciously, that's how we approach the Bible, and yet we expect that God's going to speak and give us wisdom and direction because you don't know the context. Now, let me tell you something, because some of you are saying, well, Chip, where do you get all that stuff about the tabernacle?

And I don't, you know, I mean, well, where do you get stuff about your technical area? Books, right? The first one I started with is, this is called the Daily Walk Bible. It has an overview of every book, it has the background of every book. You don't have to stay right on track, but you read through the Bible.

Every year I did it, for the first 15 years I was a Christian, and it gave a background and a context so that a thinking person who didn't grow up in a Hebrew culture or the New Testament times, you can actually do it. Anybody sends you a one-line email that's just filled with, I am absolutely ticked off with you. Email, by the way, is not a really good way to communicate emotions. And it was like, and this is a really good friend, and it was about a very important situation, and he really was very ticked off with me. And it was like, woo, you know, like I need to pray before I talk to this guy. So it was about a situation that we needed to do it Living on the Edge and some action we took, and he was pretty close to it from another vantage point. And so, you know, I got myself prayed up, made a call, got on the phone. And he's a godly guy, so I said, hey, let's just start with this.

Why don't you really tell me, that was a very short email, but I'm not the smartest guy, but you're really mad. So why don't you tell me what's really on your heart, and he did, and he did this, and what about this, and what about that, I can't believe, you know. And I said, okay, can I just, can you step back a minute? He says sure.

Okay, here's the last three months. You may not be aware, but with this particular situation, we'd work with this person, we did this, this, this, and this. On top of that, even when we had to make a very, you know, hard situation with this person out there, what we did is we provided this, this, this, and this.

We told them no matter what, we would keep continuing. And, you know, I gave him the whole context. And it was really silent on the end of the phone. And then he said, oh, you know what, sorry. I just assumed you probably didn't do, you know, like A, B, and C before we got to D. Actually now, I apologize.

Knowing what I know now, I think you guys handled it just exactly the way you should have. Do you understand how many times that you can jump on a verse or think God's saying this or make a decision that's really important, but you don't know the context of what the Bible's really saying, and you can miss? The second thing is context is important. The next is content. And by content, this is what I mean, is what's the basic flow of information, okay? I mean, just the basic flow. I mean, if you're studying physics and there's a whole chapter on quantum physics, you don't read the first two pages and say, I've got it. You read the whole chapter.

What are we talking about in this chapter? And then you go back after you get the flow, and then you get it. We have a thing that we do every two years. Patrice and I save up. I have four grown kids, and between them, they have ten grandkids. And so every two years, we find a place on a lake or a place near the beach, and we bring all of our kids and all of our grandkids for seven days of, let's make memories. Let's remember we're all one family, love one another. And I have these two daughter-in-laws. I mean, some of us play hoop or tennis or ski or wakeboard or, you know, everyone takes a turn making a meal.

It's a blast. But I have these two daughter-in-laws. They find either a big table, and they bring these puzzles with 5,000 pieces. So, you know, I like to take one or two pieces, you know, and I'm just, like, frustrated. I just can't do that. I don't get it, you know? And why would anyone want to do it?

I mean, that's just my personality, you know? You can't do it fast. I don't get it. Well, when you want to do this, because, you know, I want to also hang out with them, so I was like, I got to have a little puzzle time. And so what do you do if you want to get 5,000 pieces?

Where do you start? The edges. The edges. You know what? The one thing I, it was like, hey, I can do this, you know?

And then put the blue pieces over here and the red pieces over here. Here's what I want you to know. If you want God to speak to you, when you're looking through a chapter or a section, just get the border. Just get the quick overview. Like, this chapter seven, I just read it probably five, six, seven times, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, quickly, because I just wanted to get the big picture before I started trying to ask, okay, that's what it says, but what does it mean? You got to know what it actually says. I took three or four pages on a yellow sheet of paper. Just, what's it say? And so I gave you my notes. So what you find is Jesus goes to the feast, verses one through 13, right?

We just read that. Second, Jesus teaches in the temple, verses 14 to 21. And I'm going to walk through it in just a second, but just an overview. He goes to the temple and he teaches. And when he teaches, there's two responses. The Jewish leaders go, wow, in fact, go ahead and look in your Bible.

Look at like 14, 15. The Jewish leaders go, where did this guy learn this? Like, he's an expert in the law.

He's an amazing communicator. He has all this authority, but he didn't go to any of our seminaries. And so what Jesus says, since the issue is his identity, Jesus says to them, if any man is willing to do my will, he'll know the teaching, whether I speak for myself or from God. And so then what he says to them is that you can't hear me, you can't hear God's voice, because you don't obey the law.

You're not obedient. And then he says, you don't even obey Moses. He's speaking to religious leaders who think Moses is like the greatest person in the whole world. But Moses said what? Thou shall not murder. And their heart had already determined that they were going to murder him.

No trial, no justification. And so what he's saying to them is that I come from above, my authority is from God who sent me. And so what you need to know is he goes to the feast, he speaks, they're amazed, and when he says this, you're trying to kill me, well, some of the crowd isn't in on it. So actually look down at about verse 20. They said, you're demon-possessed.

Where are you getting this idea that they're trying to kill you? You're wacko, man. And so he becomes out of this real controversy during this feast. Then Jesus defends himself. Look at verse 21.

He said, I did one miracle, and yet you're all astonished. Yet because Moses gave you circumcision, though it actually wasn't Moses, it was the patriarchs, you know, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He said, you know, if you have a kid that on the eighth day is when the law demands that you circumcise your son, if that happens on the Sabbath, you circumcise him.

And yet here's a guy, remember, in the pool of Siloam, 38 years he's an invalid. I don't just obey the law. I heal him, and you guys are uptight and angry because he's walking with a little mat instead of rejoicing that God, that actually the whole point of the Sabbath was a gift to you.

It wasn't some rigid legalistic thing. And so he corrects, and then notice what he says to them. Look at verse 24. Stop judging by mere appearance and make a right judgment. Basically he says, you guys don't get it.

You know, you are so off. You just take your little view and your lens of the Scripture and the truth, and you've missed the heart of God. And then notice after that, then he's this big point of controversy. So look at verse 25. At this point, some of the people in Jerusalem begin to ask, wait a second, isn't this the man they're trying to kill and yet he's speaking publicly and no one's trying to get him? So they're going, so maybe the Pharisees really think he is the Messiah. But then they can say, well, we're not sure because when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he's from. That was a rabbinic tradition. The rabbis would say there's three mysterious things, in other words, that come out of the blue. Messiah is one thing.

This is in the oral tradition. A godsend, in other words, you get some money or something happens, it just comes out of the blue, and the third is a scorpion. And their point was, I remember camping one time and had a sleeping bag and I opened it up and there was a scorpion. It was like, ooh, didn't expect that.

It came out of nowhere. Their point was that no one would ever know where the Messiah comes from. Oh, the Bible didn't teach that. And so they're rejecting him based on tradition instead of the truth. And so the people were getting a little uptight because some of them were saying, well, maybe he really is. So look at verse 30. At this they tried to seize him.

Literally the word is to arrest him. But no one lays a hand on him. But he's the center of controversy now. They said when Christ comes, will he do more miracles than this one did?

So some people, look at this, verse 31, many put their faith in him. Well, now the Pharisees respond. And so he's in the controversy. He says, wait, wait, wait, we've got a problem here. I mean, he's done these miracles.

He's had this popularity. Now he's here right in the middle, the feast, and man, we've got to get rid of this guy, and some people are believing him, so they send the temple guards, verse 32, to arrest him. Jesus said, I'm only here for a short time. And now in the next few verses, he's going to give a veiled expression of the resurrection that's going to come.

And go ahead, you can kind of scan the next three or four verses there, verses 33 through about 36. And he goes, I'm going to go to a place, and where I go, you can't come. And of course, they don't get it.

They just listen literally. They go, so are you going to go preach to the Greeks? Are you going to go to the Gentiles? And he keeps repeating, where I'm going, you can't come. You can't come because I'm going to the Father, and you don't believe because you've rejected me. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Jesus Offers Satisfaction, which is from the second volume of his Jesus Unfiltered series, Follow.

Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. When Jesus called his disciples, he used two simple words, follow me. So what does it look like to follow Jesus today? Well, join us as we uncover the answer as Chip opens his Bible to a section in the Gospel of John. Learn what chapters 6 through 10 tell us about being content, humble, bold, and in awe of Christ's power, and how all of those ideas tie into our decision to follow Jesus.

You're not going to want to miss a single program. Chip's back in studio with me, and Chip, during the program, I was thinking about the countless people listening right now who have serious spiritual needs. And as we create new programs and develop resources to meet those needs, the expenses of the ministry are a monthly issue. So take a moment, if you would, and talk to those who've considered partnering with us before but just haven't made that commitment. You know, Dave, really only about 2% of all the people that listen partner with us financially in any way. And I think sometimes it's because they just don't think what I could do would make a difference. But I just want to encourage some of you that feel like, you know, hey, you know, boy, God's really using this in my life, but I'm just not in a position. Maybe you could do something really small, but God could take your small gift and do something really big with it. So, you know, thanks so much, and appreciate anything God leads you to do. Well, as you prayerfully consider your role with this ministry, I want to remind you that every gift is significant, no matter the amount. When you partner with Living on the Edge, you support and multiply the ministry work we're doing all over the globe. Set up your monthly gift today by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003, or visit livingontheedge.org.

App listeners, tap donate. Well, here again is Chip to share a few final words for us to think about. As we close today's program, you kind of heard the coach in me come out when I started talking about the priority of God's Word in your life. And we simply can't read a little devotional or spend five or six minutes here or there and ever really learn God's Word. And more importantly, the whole purpose of God's Word is a relationship. And it's the priority.

I mean, Jesus makes this outlandish claim that our relationship to the Lord will be revealed in our relationship to His Word. And I think we long for satisfaction. We want purpose. We want peace. We want our lives to work.

And we look in so many different places. But the fact of the matter is that He wants to speak to you. He wants you to hear His voice.

He wants to give you direction. And the promises around God's Word is that He'll teach us, He'll lead us, He'll encourage us, He'll correct us, He'll love us, He'll feed us. In other words, it's when you get into God's Word, and I understand it's hard. I understand you won't understand at all. But what I want you to know is that you become like the people that you hang out with.

There are so many ways if you really want to begin to hear God's voice through the Scriptures, then let me encourage you. Here's your application. Develop a plan. Decide what you're going to read, when you're going to do it, and where you're going to do it.

All right? And I will guarantee this. God will meet you, and He'll speak to you. Make it a point.

Decide today. I will be a man, a woman, or a student of the Word of God. Thanks, Chip. And if you're looking for a practical way to get into God's Word more regularly, let me encourage you to sign up for Daily Discipleship with Chip. This free video resource was created so you can learn the basics of personal Bible study. For the entire course, you'll spend no more than 10 minutes with Chip in a particular passage of Scripture, then he'll challenge you to spend 10 more minutes by yourself.

It's so easy. You'll be blown away by how much you'll learn about God and His Word. Sign up for any of our Daily Discipleship sessions today. Just go to LivingOnTheEdge.org, app listeners tap Discipleship. We'll listen to next time as Chip picks up in the second volume of his Jesus Unfiltered series, Follow. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge. .