Would you like to become a more loving person?
I don't mean just trying harder to act more loving, but actually become from the inside out a person that just flat-out loves people better and more deeply. Well, if so, stick around. That's today. Thank you for being with us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip serves as our Bible teacher for this global teaching and discipleship ministry helping Christians develop an authentic faith.
Well, in just a minute, Chip will dive back into our impactful series, I Choose Love. Today, he'll unveil three essential practices to becoming a more loving person rooted in the essence of love itself. But before we begin, let me encourage you to use Chip's message notes while you listen. They'll help you get the most out of what you're about to hear.
Download them under the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap fill in notes. Well, with that, let's join Chip for the remainder of his talk, Love Gives, from Philippians chapter 2. How to become a more loving person. Choose to declare war on, write the word, selfishness. Choose, declare war on selfishness.
And as usual, when I go high tech here, my iPad is not working, so I think I'll go with a little bit less technical one that you all have. Turn to Philippians chapter 2, if you're not already there, and let me read for you this command. Philippians chapter 2, we've looked at verses 1 and 2. Follow along here in chapter 2 as we read verse 3 and 4. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but in humility of mind, consider others more important than yourself. Verse 4, let each of you look not only on your own interest, but also on the interest of others. You may be looking at this and saying, declare war? Aren't you getting a little radical here?
No, no. We're born with this innate ability to be selfish. In fact, let me define selfish ambition here. Four words, I want my way. That's selfish ambition. I want my way.
You might jot down, it's a me first mentality. I want to be first in line. I want the best spot. I want to get on the plane first, that's one of mine. I want to get to work first. When I go through the buffet, I want the best piece of meat. I want the best promotion.
It's me first. I want my needs met in this marriage. I want my mom and dad to come through for me. I want my professor to give me what I want when I want it. It's a me first mentality.
I want to be number one. I'm selfish. Now, it's very unpopular to admit that, but what is hard to see in ourselves, isn't it easy to see in others? I mean, you get out on the freeway, are people selfish or what? I mean, this isn't like out there somewhere either.
Anybody here tried to get out of the parking lot here, you know, especially 11 o'clock service? Now, there are some people, you know, very Christian, wave you in, and there's some of you that are still working on it, let me put it that way. But we're selfish. But you don't slide out of being selfish, even though the living spirit of Christ lives inside of you and you're born again and you're part of the kingdom of God.
There's this battle. The Galatians talks about the spirit wages war against the flesh. This predisposition toward my way, my stuff is rooted in your heart and you'll have it until the day you die. But the spirit of God can give you the ability to, in humility, look at the second half of that text. In humility, consider others as more important than yourself. Humility can be a very misunderstood word.
So I came across a very, very interesting article. I think of humility as not thinking too highly of yourself, not thinking too lowly of yourself, but having an accurate, sober self-assessment. As one person said, humility is not thinking less of yourself. Humility is just thinking less about yourself. Beating yourself up, I'm a terrible person, that's not humility, that's not accurate.
It's just not letting you, it's me not letting me be the thing and the person I think about all the time. They're doing science now on the benefits of virtues, things like forgiveness. They've done lots of research on gratitude.
You may have read some of that. This is an article by a professor at George Fox University. It's called The Science of Humility. It says, researchers have developed scales to measure intellectual humility, relational humility, cultural humility, and some are now working on spiritual humility as well. As with forgiveness and gratitude, humility fosters, this is what humility delivers.
Are you ready for this? Humility fosters physical and mental and relational health. Humble people are more grateful and forgiving, so they enjoy the benefits of those virtues. They're also, humble people are more generous and helpful to others.
Hey, this is a good one. They have better romantic relationships. For some of you, get humble right away. They have better romantic relationships, have less anxiety about death, and experience less spiritual struggle. Those parents who are concerned about your kids, people that are humble perform better at school, show more compassion to others, and even have better self-esteem than less humble people.
In other words, they're doing scientific research, and what God has commanded, what delights our Father, and what Christ modeled, amazingly, is the genuine humility. Not putting yourself first, but actually considering the needs of others. It's what we call around here, and you'll learn more about in this series, it's the I am second mentality.
I mean, it just goes completely against everything. I am second as I go through the line. I am second as I drive on the freeway. I am second when I think about my rights and my marriage. I am second when I think about the needs with my roommate. I am second when we're trying to divide something and see who gets the bigger piece. The article goes on and says that humility, this is very important, does not require self-loathing, or self-belittling, but it calls for us to dial back our normal tendency, are you ready for this, to overestimate our abilities and behaviors. Now, I never do that, and you never do that, but there's some people out there that overestimate their abilities and the behaviors, and you know I'm teasing.
I love it. He goes, there's three characteristics of people that are genuinely humble. Number one, they have a reasonably accurate view of themselves.
Neither too high or neither too low, pretty biblical. Number two, is they care more deeply or have a concern and notice other people. And then number three, is humble people are teachable. So genuine humility is rooted in some characteristics and according to the scientific study, which actually is pretty biblical whether they know it or not, is that they have a pretty accurate view of themselves. In other words, I'm not the center of the world, are you ready, I'm not the smartest person in the room. My opinions aren't always the best. My perspective of what we ought to do or my decision isn't necessarily better than others, but it doesn't mean that I don't have good thoughts and my decisions and my perspective can be very valid. So they don't think too high, they don't think too low. The second one is they really consider the thoughts, the interests and the feelings of others. Humble people are sensitive. Humble people notice the person that when everyone gets out and walks out of here, humble people see the people that no one said hi to. Humble people notice the needs of other people. Genuinely humble people, I'm always amazed that you know maybe I'll have a passing conversation with someone and like a week later, two weeks later, like get a note or get something in the mail. I was meeting with someone a long time ago and they watched me fiddle with trying to recharge, you know, you got all these rechargers and all this different stuff. Out of the blue, a week later, I get a package. There's no name, there's no note, there's no anything, I don't know what it is. I open the package and it's one of these bars that has one, two, three, four, five where you can hook in your phone, everything else with the plug and you plug the thing in.
I use it every day. Humility. Someone didn't say a word, saw I had a need and addressed the need.
And third, and I think this is big, they're teachable. They realize that they're on the journey too. How humble are you? For some of your personalities, I just want to say, please, please don't go to, oh, I came to church today. I'm a terrible person. Everything he's talking about, that's me. I'm an arrogant, terrible person.
You know what? Guess where your focus is at this moment? It's on you. At the heart of not being humble is not thinking lowly of yourself, belittling yourself, condemning yourself. In fact, the second way to become more loving is attack the root of the problem. And then I want you to write in the word, pride. Attack the root of the problem.
You're listening to Living on the Edge. We'll return you to Chip's message in just a minute. But first let me tell you, God is doing incredible work through this ministry all around the world. And if you'd like to join us, consider partnering with us during our mid-year match. Every gift we receive until midnight on June 30th will be doubled dollar for dollar. Join us today by going to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. We appreciate your generosity.
Well, with that, here again is Chip. If you will, right underneath where you see verse 3, circle the world, empty conceit. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit. Selfish ambition, selfishness is what we do.
The root of the problem is why we do it. That's empty conceit. Or I love, write this word down. I love this phrase. It's an old, old, old version of King James, vainglory, empty glory. You say, well, what's vainglory? What's empty conceit?
Well, a good street name is pride, but that's sort of, it's kind of a big word. Let me give you some very specific pictures of empty conceit. Empty conceit is I'm better. I'm more important. I'm superior. I'm more intelligent. My time matters more than yours. My life matters more than you. I have greater value. I have greater worth. Now, you may not say that outside in your head, but our behavior, our behavior just screams vainglory.
Like the way I said that, glory, right? It's this, I'm the center of the world, and I can clothe it with all kind of Bible verses, and I can actually, in a Christian way, do image management to try and project I'm humble, which is the empty conceit. The idea is I want everyone to have this amazing opinion of me that I either want for myself or I actually think I have. I made a list because this got very convicting, and I thought, oh, boy. I made a list of some ways that when this happens in me, okay? This isn't you. This is me. When these things happen in me, what I know is vainglory, empty conceit, pride is raising its ugly head, and then I'm gonna talk to you about how to go into training.
And did you notice the violent words I've used? Declare war, attack. In other words, you gotta get to the root of the problem. This isn't about I think I'm gonna try and be more loving, and I'll tell someone I forgive.
This is heart stuff, root stuff. This is stuff that's so deeply in your psyche and in your soul and mine that you have to declare war. I refuse, in light of what God's done for me, to be a selfish person. I'm going to attack the root problem, and the root problem is in my thinking. I become the center of things even suddenly because in my thinking, I think I'm better or I want to project that I'm better.
In my thinking, my time and my money and what I do is more important. It's lethal. It destroys relationships.
It's unloving. And so when these things happen in my life, what I know is pride, defensiveness. Someone makes a comment to me immediately. It could be my wife. It can be in a meeting. It could be one of my kids.
It can be someone I don't know very much. They say something. We're talking about something, and I hear myself. I'm defensive. Well, why? Because I got to guard. I got to prove. I got to protect. Whatever they said, that sort of hit a button inside. Second, making excuses.
It's my pride. I didn't do it wrong. I didn't mess up. It was them. It was late. It was the traffic.
If they would have done this on time, I would have had it on time. It's you name it. In fact, related to that one is when I hear myself blaming other people, I know that's pride. In other words, don't look at me and think it's my fault. See, humility, you know what humility does? And it actually gains.
It actually gains the credibility of people. When you actually make a mistake, when you're actually late, when you really blow it, when you don't come through, it's amazing what happens when you say, you know, hey, I hope you all will. I just apologize.
That was a deadline. I didn't hit it. I could give you a number of reasons.
None of them really measure up other than I didn't use my time wisely. I went down some bad paths in terms of how to solve this problem. I'd like to ask you guys to forgive me. You know what normally happens? Everyone in the room knows they do that too. But so often, we blame.
We make excuses. In my marriage for many years, I remember my wife saying this. She said it in the presence of a counselor, so it was very unpleasant. Chip, you always have to have the last word.
Does that ring a bell? You always have to have the last word. And I had to go into training to realize why. Because down deep, I've got to be right.
I've got to declare. And it was all about these insecurities and this pride. I remember evaluating things, and especially some of you that are in business or if you have some leadership or strategic views of things, and the challenge is if you're really pretty good at it. I remember a number of years ago, it's probably a decade ago, I would hope it'd be a little bit more, but honestly, probably about a decade ago, when I realized when I evaluated things, I had this subtle view that when I looked at all the pieces and I aligned all the pieces, that my view was the truth. My view. In other words, I've looked at this, I've looked at this, I've prayed about it, I've got it all together. My view of this situation is the truth.
And boy, did I find out either I didn't read the pieces right or I didn't have all the pieces. And I had a couple of experiences where I was so wrong. And now when I have a conversation where I have to confront someone and it's really difficult and it's really tender, I try to always preface it with something like this. Now I want you to know that I need to say a couple of things that will be hard to hear. But here's what you need to hear first. This is my perspective, not to be confused with the truth. I don't know the reality. But what I want you to know and what I'm responsible, this is my perspective.
I'd like you to take this perspective and would you weigh this before God to see what truth is in it. You see the difference? My list is actually longer.
Well, here's one. I was perpetually late for almost everything for years. You know the guy that's dashing onto the plane and in the old years before you know there was all that security or the person who's rushing in and running out of the parking lot and coming in two minutes late or five minutes late. I was late, late, late, late, late. And I tried hard and it really bugged my wife.
And then I had a breakthrough. My problem was not being late. My problem wasn't self-will. My problem wasn't discipline. My problem was grandiosity.
And when I saw that it was so ugly, I changed. Some of you were saying, so what exactly is grandiosity? Grandiosity is thinking whatever you're doing is so important.
And if I can say this kindly, we come here on a weekend to adore and give our very best to the Creator of the universe and the Savior that died upon a cross to pay for our sin and rose from the dead and has given us eternal life. The grandiosity to come in 5, 10, 15, 20 minutes late. The grandiosity of during a song or during this time when I'm teaching the very word of God, you checking your email and having your phone open is arrogance.
It's just arrogance. And you know, please, you know, I always hear pastors say, I don't want you to feel guilty. Actually, I want you to feel guilty. If you're guilty, guilt's a really good thing.
If there's genuine sorrow, you repent and you realize, oh, I never thought of it that way. I'm not saying you thought of it intentionally. I'm just telling you what it is. If this was a U2 concert, this place would be packed two hours and people would rush to get in. When you buy tickets to a movie, you don't go a half hour late. See, we have a consumer mindset. There is a grandiosity and an arrogance.
And it needs to be changed. And so notice point number three is choose to practice humility daily by putting others needs and interests ahead of your own. Don't consider just your own interest. Although the passage is clear, take them into account, but consider the interests of others as more important than your own. Where are we going to go to eat?
Where would you like to go to eat? Maybe this person has to get to work. It's as important or more important than you. What would happen? What would happen if we declared war on selfishness? If we said, I'm going to attack the root of this problem, which is really my own pride, this empty conceit, this vainglory, and then this week I'm going to go into training. And I'm going to choose very specifically in little, little things that will grow into bigger and bigger things. I'm going to choose in my money to be generous. I'm going to choose in my time to be generous.
And we'll talk about exactly how very specifically to put that in practice. Ask yourself, where does my money go? Loving toward God and others or me? Where does my time go toward God and others or me?
Where does my energy go? Father, I pray now as there are many, many, many relationships that are fractured and it will require only one person to admit at the heart of it, regardless of the other person, that pride and selfishness and arrogance is at the core and a repentance before you. And then the next steps of asking forgiveness and restitution and even reconciliation in some cases where it's possible. So Lord, would you bring to mind in this room the people that need to get a call, a lunch, a coffee, a text, a letter, a note of apology, so that we could love others the way you've loved us.
Before we do anything else in this broadcast, I want to pause. I just prayed and now I want to talk to you very honestly and sincerely about your life. You know, the fact of the matter is, is that you need to ask and I need to ask, so where does your money go? And what actions really indicate that you love God and you love other people? I mean, where does your time go?
And this is not about me in any way seeking to poke around or make you feel guilty. This is about you and me as brother and sisters in Christ coming before the throne of God and saying love isn't just a feeling. Love chooses to serve. It chooses to give. It chooses to get out of our comfort zone.
It's the platinum rule. Love says this is what God has done in us and something inside of inside of us, the spirit of the living God compels us to release our time and our money and our energy to meet the needs of other people. And so I'd like you, you know, if you're driving, don't do this, but if you're not driving, would you just open your palms upward and say, Lord, it's your money. It's your time. It's your gifts.
It's your talents. Would you bring to my mind just today? Who could I extend money and time and energy and love to? And Lord, would you help me see first and foremost under the roof where I live, my roommate or my husband, my wife, my kids, would you help me to be an other centered follower of Jesus? And then watch how the Spirit of God will work in you and through you.
Great word, Chip. Well, if you've been inspired to deepen your relationship with God, we'd love to support you. Go to TrueSpiritualityOnline.org and check out our resources. You can order Chip's popular book, True Spirituality, get the small group, or watch countless helpful videos. All these tools were designed to show you the clear path to becoming a genuine follower of Christ.
So check them out today. That website again is TrueSpiritualityOnline.org. Well, before we go, Chip's still with me in studio to pass along a really encouraging testimony.
Thanks so much, Dave. I'd like to share a story of a fellow pastor in India. His name is Pastor Mustafa, and I have to say it is the absolute saddest story I think I've ever heard. He lives in a very rural area.
He has the disability of one leg, so he walks with a limp and a cane. He has a family and a couple kids, and he went through, I mean, a dark, dark, dark time. He came to the point where he was so desperate. The persecution was so bad that he and his wife and his kids literally were planning and making a pact that said, we're going to do a mass suicide. I mean, that sounds terrible, but I can tell you, I've pastored for 40 years some of the most godly people I've ever met. If things get so bad and they lose perspective, you can do things that you think would be unimaginable. In the midst of that time, a fellow pastor said, you need to read this and come to this event. It's called the Art of Survival. He went to that, and God spoke to him.
He said, I'm going to consider it all joy. I'm going to hang on to God's wisdom, and I refuse to give up. And God infused him, and as a result, he shared that with his church, and the ripples go on and on and on. When you support Living on the Edge and when you pray, you're helping us help under-resourced pastors, often in rural areas, all throughout India, Nepal, places in China, Africa, Latin America. We have teams in these places around the world, and pastors like Mustafa, unfortunately, are not the exception. Pastors are hurting. God is allowing us at Living on the Edge to stand in the gap, to meet them where they're at and see God give them life. Here's my question. Would you join us?
Incredible story, Chip. So if God is nudging you to encourage and support pastors with us, now's a great time to become a financial partner. From now until June 30th, every gift we receive will be matched dollar for dollar. So to be part of our mid-year match, call us at 888-333-6003, or go to livingontheedge.org.
That's livingontheedge.org, or call 888-333-6003. App listeners, tap Donate. As we close, you know a great way to get plugged in with our resources here at Living on the Edge is through the Chip Ingram app. You can listen to past series, sign up for daily discipleship, and more. Let us help you experience God in a new personal way starting today with the Chip Ingram app. 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 again next time.
