Are you or someone you know going through a really, really hard time right now? Do you feel down? Are you discouraged? Do you simply want to know, oh, God, how do I get out of this?
How do I get perspective? Well, stay with me. That's today. Today, you'll discover how. But first, to help you get the absolute most out of this critical message, download Chip's message notes. They contain his outline, scripture references, and more.
You can get them under the broadcast link below. From the Podcasts tab at livingontheedge.org, app listeners tap Fill In Notes. Well, with that, here's Chip to share part two of his message, Understanding the Power of Focus, from Philippians 1.
How do you develop an upward focus? And I'm going to suggest right from this passage, number one, it's a choice. It's a choice. And the choice is gratitude. And the way you do it is you choose to remember and you thank God for significant relationships. In the mornings, our whole staff comes down here and we have a prayer time.
And different pastors, actually different people on the staff lead it. And we all sit here and he goes, here's what we're going to do for the first 20 minutes. I want you to write on these three by five cards everything that you can possibly thank God for in 20 minutes. Just don't stop writing.
I've filled out five. God, thank you that you forgave me. God, thank you for your Word. Thank you that your Spirit lives within me. Thank you for Teresa. Thank you for Eric. Thank you for Jason. Thank you for Ryan. Thank you.
Right? God, thank you for this church. Thank you for the people I get to work with.
God, thank you that in the midst of a crazy world, this is where we live. I mean, it was easy. I had five of these filled front and back. And I had this weird experience afterwards. I had a great attitude that day. Just a weird experience, you know, just like, you know, hey, you know, why?
Here's why. I spent 20 minutes focusing on what God has provided instead of my humanness like yours is to always focus on what is missing. Second, it's an action prayer. Prayer. By the way, remember he said, I willfully chose, willfully chose to remember the past youthfulness and the partnership.
See, I think we think prayer is always going to be some ooey gooey feelings and these wonderful great connections with God. Part of my rehab on this fusion on my back was walking, walking, walking, walking until I could walk for an hour. That's a lot of walking. And I just have to tell you, there's times when I didn't want to walk.
Two, I bummed out. And just, I mean, honestly, a little pity party. God, you know, why me?
Trying to serve you with all my heart and wimpy, wimpy, chippy, chippy, you know, just like you guys do. And then I remember I walk in and I listen to some worship songs and I pull out those earplugs. Father, I thank you. And I started quoting verses. And then I started praying for people. I just started praying for people. I started praying for a lot of you. I prayed for our staff. I prayed for this city. All of a sudden I realized, you know, this isn't the best time praying I've had in a lot of years.
Why? Because I had to walk. I don't know what you're going through, but it's not an accident. You can develop an upward focus by choosing to give thanks and by the action of prayer. And third, there's an attitude, and the attitude is confidence. You know, I remember like toward the end of my walks, what I realized was, you know, I've been through a lot of hard times.
I'm getting older. And I've had God's promises and God's character. God's promises and God's character. And, you know, I have these little packets where I've memorized verses over the years, and I started reading some of these old verses, and I found one, 1978. God's promises for Chip and Teresa. I mean, that was like a month before we got married.
And God gave me this passage, this Old Testament passage, and I was reading through that and I thought, like, are you kidding me? I mean, my life is like 100 X better than I ever, ever, ever dreamed. But it doesn't matter how good it is, because if I have a really great day today left to myself, I just want it a little bit better.
Right? And so do you. But I want you to know that you choose, you choose joy by being grateful, by being prayerful, and being confident of the future, not because you've got it all together, not because your circumstances are going to change, but there is a God who put his Spirit within you who says, I'm confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you has promises and character that he's going to see you through. And I don't want to be morbid, but the very worst thing that could happen is you die and end up in the presence of Christ with no more pain in the best atmosphere forever and ever and ever. See, our hope isn't in this world. There's three observations that I see out of this passage that have been both helpful and convicting to me, so I want to share the wealth. Observation number one from verses seven and eight are that difficult circumstances reveal our true affections. Fire number one, he was depressed because he lost his stuff. And he was a believer, but he got caught up in stuff and money and prestige and flying to veil and skiing and luxury vacations. And fire number two, he had a different set of affections. Second observation is living above our circumstances occurs when our hearts are so full of people, there's no room for self-pity. That's what happened in fire number two.
Forty-eight hours later, all twelve of his master craftsmen had jobs with his competitors. Paul, when you squeeze Paul, Paul's like a sponge, you squeeze Paul with pressure and chains and difficulty. And what oozes out is who he really was, and who he really was was a man who loved God with all of his heart and cared so deeply about people. When pressure and difficulty in circumstances, whether it's work or health or problems in your family, when the vice of pressure and circumstances come into your life, whatever oozes out, that's who you are.
That's who you really are. If you're negative, if you're critical, if you're blaming, if you're down on everyone, I mean it's easy to have a great attitude when things are going great. God uses affliction sometimes to allow adverse circumstances to realign our affections. I mean we all want to change, right? This whole deal I've been with on my back, if you would have asked me before all this, I would have said, you know I'm working on some things, but God revealed some blind spots in my life, and I'm so glad he did.
And actually my wife was very kind the way she did it, and my children as well, and a couple friends. Basically these new revelations I had about these blind spots that I needed to address, they kind of looked at me like, oh really, you just found out? So you just got that you're driven, over the top, productivity centered, nuts, in a loving kind of way? You know sometimes God loves you so much that you're praying, oh God take it away, take it away, take it away, take it away, take it away.
He's going, no. My goal isn't to make your life comfortable, my goal is to make you holy, and the only way you ever really be happy is if you're holy, and the only way you're holy is if you see what needs to be addressed and allow me to forgive and cleanse and empower you. The summary on the first portion of this section was that our feelings always follow our focus, in case you missed that. Our feelings always follow our focus. So how you are emotionally is always going to be determined on what you focus on, and then here our focus always follows our affections. See my focus is my affections, my affections were, and not uniquely, but my blind spot was my affections were around that being productive is what gave me value with God and people.
Not solely, I mean it wasn't like I was just completely in left field, but there was a lot more of that than I ever dreamed. And what I want you to know is that God is not down on you, and the difficulties that we have in our life and the circumstances in a fallen world, in a fallen world there's storms, there's tsunamis, there's earthquakes, the issue will be what do you focus on and how do you respond? As I think about saying, okay, Lord, I want to choose joy, I understand I need to have an upward focus and an outward focus.
And I get to have an upward focus, I need to choose to be grateful, I need to talk to you, and I understand that there's some things that adversity reveals. But here's the last question I want to address, it's this, how do you develop this outward focus? How do you get where under pressure you're praying for other people the way Paul prays for other people?
How do you do it where it becomes a habit, where it becomes who you are, not just a thought under some pressure? And I'm going to suggest that the Apostle Paul is going to address that in verses 9 through 11 specifically. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and he'll be right back to continue our series, but quickly, if you're eager to do a deeper study of Philippians chapter 1, check out Chip's newest book, I Choose Joy. And right now we have a special deal exclusively for you, our faithful listeners, so stick around after the teaching to learn more.
With that, here's Chip to finish this insightful message. Number one, think about those who've loved you the most. When you're really discouraged and really down, just think, who are the people that have loved me the most?
It's what he does in verse 3. I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. They've just sent a financial gift, and you know, when you're in prison back in those days, they didn't like to serve food.
If you didn't have friends to bring you food, you'd just die. And it was just, you think about the people that have loved you the most, instead of the people that rip you off the most. And then here's something interesting, you pray for those you think about the most. And put a big circle around prayer. And by the way, there's a couple different ways to pray.
I had a good friend who really struggled with, if this was this full, he could focus on that much being empty. I'm not a very good counselor, but I gave him a few shots, you know, and tried to help him, and so I just said, well, are you praying? He goes, yeah. And so I said, well, he goes, it doesn't help. I said, well, let's pray right now, together.
I'll never forget this. And if you've heard this story, you need to hear it again, because it was like, are you kidding me? And so it was in my little apartment, and so Bob and I both get on our knees, and I said, Bob, you pray first, and then I'll pray. And so Bob gets down and goes, oh, God, you know the terrible childhood I had, you know how bad my father was, you know how the kids teased me all my life, you know, and he goes on and on and on and on and on. I mean, he didn't pray at all.
He was whining in the presence of God. I mean, at one point, I just opened my eyes, like, for real, you know? And you know that, you know, I haven't been able to hold down a job, and I think everyone doesn't like me, and then finally, hey, Bob, Bob, Bob, Bob, let me, can I cut in here? God help Bob, amen.
Okay. I said, Bob, that's how you pray, right? He said, well, yeah.
I said, I got news for you. You can pray till the cows come in. God's not answering that one. Bob, that's just, that's not prayer, that's you. You're telling God all this, you've told me this, and I've heard it once or twice or three times, and now, have you noticed that people in this fellowship, like when you come around, they start going, yeah, it's terrible, isn't it? I said, there's a reason, Bob. He said, what's the reason?
I said, you're like a recorder. All you do is whine, complain, whine, complain. We try to help you once, but, he said, Bob, okay, let's try a different prayer. Pray something like this, and this I pray. God, would you help Bob's love, his passion, like never before, to understand who you really are, how much you love him, and have discernment about what truth is in life?
Whew, in order that Bob could approve the things that are excellent, he might know what are the best things for him and the people and the things that are worse for him so that his life could be blameless, the word means tested by sunlight, sincere, tested by sunlight, take that back, and blameless means morally pure. In other words, what Paul prays and what we can pray, I pray this for my kids, I pray this for me, I pray this for them, I pray this for them, I pray this for me, I pray this for Teresa, I pray this for our staff. And sometimes I think we have these prayers, God, help so and so, help so and so, help so and so, help so and so, God knows all that, and I'm not saying we shouldn't do it. But when Paul prays, Paul prays, this is what I'm praying. I pray this for my adult kids. Lord God, would you give them an experiential, genuine knowledge of you, where they feel you and experience you like never before, in such a way that in the world and all the pools that are coming at them, they would understand, I don't wanna go that direction, but I wanna go this direction. And God, that each one of my boys, that you would keep them pure in their hearts and their minds, and each one of my daughter and my daughter-in-laws would have such a love for you and understanding that as everyone tells them they ought to be this and ought to be that, that when you look like sun coming through a pain glass window, they would be pure before you and morally pure so that they would be the kind of men and women that would love one another and honor you and create an environment so my grandkids could see Jesus in their life. And if you look at this, he has a request.
Then he gives the reason for the request. And the last phrase, he gives them the resource, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness. It's what's called a passive perfect participle for those of you that are English majors.
Passive means the action is upon you. Perfect is something that happened in the past that continues on into the future. And what he's saying is, Philippians, it's a hard world, but let me tell you something. I'm praying that you'll know God like never before. And I'm praying you'll get it so crystal clear that all the trash and all the temptations that you'll see, that is not the way I want to go. And that instead you will walk with God in such a way because when you received Christ, the old man died. The Spirit of God came into your life and the righteousness that he purchased, the fruit of it, this is how God sees you now.
And it's not about trying hard to be a good person. You actually possess the righteousness of Jesus Christ and by faith you live out what's already operating in you until the day of Christ, which is when he returns. And so it's a deeply theological and personal prayer. You start praying that kind of prayer for people you care about and your self-pity will go whew.
And your woe is me will go whew. And it won't just be, you know, some of our prayers are, oh God, help them sell their house, help their back to get better, help this to get better. We think that sometimes when I listen to myself pray and some of you is that the only goal is that God would make life better or easier. What if the bigger goal is he makes us more like Christ so that we are actually change agents that change everything and everyone around us?
C plus P equals E. Question is where's your focus? I mean, okay, in that box, when you think of that box, is your focus upward, God? What do you want to do in and through this and is it outward, God?
How are you going to use me or what's happening in other people's lives? I got a tough situation but maybe at work or maybe the unwed mother or maybe the lonely person or maybe a relative or maybe there's someone I know in this body whose difficulty and challenges, you get your heart filled with loving other people and I will tell you, joy, joy. Not because things got better, it's because joy is the evidence of Christ's presence operating freely in your heart. It's a gift of the Spirit. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and the message you just heard, Understanding the Power of Focus, is from our series, I Choose Joy. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute. How do people know you're a Christian?
What is it that sets you apart and causes others to say, I want to be like them? Well, through Chip's study in Philippians chapter one, he reveals the supernatural work of joy in a Christian's life that intrigues those around us. Discover how joy can affirm your purpose, energize your expectations and renew hope in your life.
If you've missed any part of this series or want to share one of these messages with a friend, check out the Chip Ingram app. Chip's back with me in studio and Chip, you know most people when they think about joy, they associate it with happiness. I'm finally getting married or we finally bought the house or I got the dream job. But you've got a little different definition of joy.
Could you break it down for us? Absolutely, Dave. We often associate joy with happiness and that's normal. But happiness is built on the word happenings and it's temporary and it's more of our emotional response. And by the way, I want to be happy. I like being happy, so don't get me wrong. Happiness is a good thing. But joy is an overarching, deep, soulful abiding.
This is the byproduct of our relationship with God, regardless of the circumstance. I recently have written a book, I Choose Joy, and this book was birthed out of one of the most difficult times in my life when I didn't feel like being joyful, when I'd been through two back surgeries, a number of very, very difficult things, and yet I was called to teach a passage of the Bible where the Apostle Paul, having way more difficult situation than mine, kept saying, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. And out of that was birthed a book that in the world that we're living in I think will really help people because people are hurting. And you know what, if they're waiting to be happy, they may wait a long time. But this book will help them know they can actually have joy regardless of their circumstance.
That's right, Chip. We're really excited about this new book, which is why we're doing something special for our listeners this week. Absolutely, Dave, because we believe so strongly in the life-changing power of choosing joy, we want you, the Living on Edge family, to get this new book before anyone else does at a discounted price. Dave, could you take a minute and tell our listeners a bit more of what we're doing for them and why this is so important? Be glad to. Well, like Chip said, we want you to truly experience the joy the Apostle Paul talked about in Philippians chapter 1. And to help you do that, we're giving you our faithful Living on the Edge listeners early access to this new book at a special price. So visit livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003 to take advantage of this exclusive offer.
You'll be glad you did. Well, here again is Chip. As we wrap up today's program, I wish we could sit down literally and have a cup of coffee, and you could tell me, hey Chip, you know, here's what I'm going through and here's a couple relationships that are really difficult, or my work, or a health issue, and I could really, really listen and ask a few questions, and then I could turn around and tell you, hey, you know, here's some things I'm going through right now. And then at the end of our time, I think we would go back to what we heard taught today, that difficult circumstances really do reveal our affections. You know, the Apostle Paul, you see the core of his attitude, he's going through horrendous circumstances, but his focus is so upward. His confidence is, you know, God's going to use this for good, and they're outward. Now, he thinks to himself, you know, this is really hard on me right now, but think of the impact it's going to have for other people. One of the things that hit me about this was the truth, that our feelings always follow our focus.
You know, when I'm looking at things half empty and that's my focus, my emotions go downward. But then the next thing we learned was that our focus is always determined by our affections. Paul's affection was God's heart, God's agenda, God's will. And what I want to confess to you is when I really struggle with perspective and when I get down, what I realize very subtly is my affections are around my happiness, my agenda, my plans, and what I want to happen for me. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but I would just ask you, as we study Philippians chapter one together, could your affections have drifted? Could some of your challenges, your emotions, your negativity really be centered around that your affections have gotten a bit off of following and honoring Christ and a bit more on you and your happiness and what you want to happen? And if so, could we pause today together and say, Lord, will you help us? You know everything about us.
We want our affections to be on you. Would you help us to look upward and outward? And would you give us your perspective today for your glory? In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen. Thanks, Chip. As we wrap up today's program, if you've been blessed by Chip's teaching and you'd like to bless others in the same way, let me encourage you to partner with us financially. And right now is a great time because every dollar we receive between now and midnight on June 30th will be matched dollar for dollar. To join the team, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. App listeners, tap donate. For Chip and the entire team here, this is Dave Druey thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge and I hope you'll join us next time. .
