Deep in the heart of every human being is a desire to be great. We're made in the image of God. We want to be and do something significant. Here's the question. What's the path?
How do you get there? Today we'll learn from the Apostle Paul how to become great in God's eyes. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Our mission is to inspire Christians to be genuine followers of Jesus and to empower them to be active disciple makers in our world. Today we're continuing our series, I Choose Love, with Chip's message, Love Serves. And you may be wondering, what does service have to do with the idea of being great? Well, stay with us as Chip explores that meaningful connection as he picks up where he left off in Philippians chapter 2.
Well, there's so much to discover together, so grab your notes and Bible and settle in for Chip's insightful talk. We tend to think about love as, you know, a romantic feeling or an emotion, and I'm all for those. But the kind of love we're talking about requires a choice.
And there's some things that work against us being loving people, and they're not necessarily bad, but they can distract us. And I'd like you to think just right now, when was the first time just as back far as you can go when you really thought to yourself, I want to be great at something? I mean, something clicked, and you just said, you know, I want to be a great musician, or I want to be great in ballet, or I want to be a great student, or I remember I was, I think, 11 or 12 years old, sixth grade going into seventh grade, and I went to a sports banquet, and this coach was speaking, and he kept talking about this one five-foot-nine guard in a small school that led the nation in scoring, and he talked about his work ethic. And all I can tell you is something got birthed inside, and I thought, I want to be a great basketball player. And I was so motivated because this guy's only five-foot-nine, and as I went into seventh grade, I was 4'11". And I went out for the team, and the coach said, why don't you go out for wrestling?
We need someone in the 85-pound class weight. And basically, you're too short, you'll never be a basketball player anyway. Well, to my personality, that's like, you know, pouring gasoline on the fire. And I remember just going absolute kind of nutso, and starting, you know, I started doing a bunch of drills, and I started this ladder in my mind of first I'm going to make the team, then I'll get some playing time, and then after I'll be a starter, and then I'll get prepared, and then I'll be a starter in the high school at the Hannah Lincoln Lion, and the whole town comes out, and then I'll get a scholarship to college. And I mean, I had this just blazing in my mind. I started playing seven, eight, nine hours a day.
No exaggeration. It just dominated my life. See, here's what I want you to know.
Open your notes. The quest for greatness is universal. Everybody wants to be great. Everyone wants to be successful, esteemed, valued, admired, significant, known, appreciated, accomplished, right? We want to look our best, do our best. We want to achieve.
And by the way, I don't think that's wrong. I think we want to be great because we're made in the image of God. When you look at the galaxies, they're great. When you look at the earth, it's great. When you look at beauty, it's great. We're the pinnacle of God's creation. But desiring to be great is one thing, but then sort of in our humanness, we start deciding, well, how are we going to measure greatness? How do you know if you're really great?
And whether it's, you know, like basketball climbing the ladder of success, business, music, relationships, historically about five ways I've put them on your notes, we tend to say, this is what makes you great. First is power. Who and how many people do you control?
And of course, I mean control in the best sense of the word. But it's that idea that you have the final say, that you have either formal or influence, that just you're a somebody. The second way is possessions. Possessions provide freedom.
Buy what you want, go where you want to, do what you want. And we just kind of tend to think the people with the most possessions are really great. In fact, sometimes we buy things we don't even need so that other people understand how great we are. Third is position. Our rank kind of in the pecking order, you know, your rights and your privileges.
And, you know, they say, okay, well, all the business class passengers, well, the VIPs, you know, there's just this, there's this pecking order and then you know, you start out as an intern and then you get a job and then here and then here. And we all have this little pattern of, you know, power, possessions, position and then prestige. How many people look up to you? You know, that inner security that these people admire me. I'm a somebody. I have this many followers on Instagram. I have this many likes on Facebook. I'm a star. I have 3 million followers.
I have a bazillion followers, right? You're great because of what other people think of you. And then finally productivity. What do you produce?
How good is it and how much of it? And no matter how much, it can be better and it can be more and new and innovative. See, what productivity provides is a visible proof of your greatness. It's games won, buildings built, children raised, deals done, work accomplished, companies developed, accolades and awards. Now just before you start feeling like I'm going to give you the left hand hook and smash you and say, how terrible of you to measure your greatness that way.
I don't think any of those things, any of those are bad. They're often perverted but if God would choose as you walk with him to give you power, position, prestige and you saw it as a stewardship in order to honor him and use your position and your power and your possessions and the people that look up to you to fulfill the will of God, here's what I want. I want you to get more position, more possessions, more power and more prestige than anybody in the world and love God with it. But the problem is there's a way that we become great in God's eyes and there's a way that we become great in the world's eyes. And what we're talking about is genuine love and so notice how do you obtain greatness? I'm going to suggest there's two pathways and they're very distinct.
Pathway number one is ascending, right? You climb the ladder of success and no matter where you are, there's one more rung. That's the world's mode and you can love God with all your heart and he can bless and you can go up that ladder. You just have to remember who got you there. I love the little picture of the post.
Have you seen this? There's a fence post and there's a turtle on top of it and the byline is I didn't get here on my own. And you know, being great and having some of all these things that if you can really recognize you're that turtle on the fence post, more power to you. But we live in a world where there's a lot of pressure to ascend in the world's mode. The second way we become great is by descending. This is what we're going to see is that the apostle Paul's going to be speaking to a group of people and when you want to be great you tend to compare and when you compare you try and get better than other people. And when you compare and want to get better with other people, you kind of put them down and put yourself up. And what we learned last week is the me set mindset, the only way to really be great in God's eyes and to have unity in relationships, you have to declare war on selfishness and you have to attack image management. Because a lot of all this greatness, you know what, at the end of the day it wasn't about a scholarship, it wasn't about how many points per game, it wasn't being a great basketball player, it was about Chip's ego wanting to be a somebody.
It was about I'm going to prove I'm okay, probably mostly to me and maybe more to my dad. And Jesus is going to say true greatness comes with humility. And the way is you descend into greatness. We're going to find that Jesus will be the supreme ruler of all creation and the creator and then he's going to take on human flesh and then he's going to become a servant and then he's going to sacrifice his life and then he's actually going to die and then he's going to have the death like on a cross of absolute humiliation and shame. And because he descends into greatness then God will highly exalt him.
Mark it down. God blesses and rewards humility and humility is the pathway to deep abiding relationships. True greatness is defined by do not think only on your own things but also on the things of others.
Does that sound familiar? Do nothing from selfishness or pride or vainglory but with humility of mind consider others more important than yourself. Here's the acid test of greatness.
Are you ready? It's how well do you love? The greatest people in the world are the people who love others the best. I have a unique part of my job. I bury a lot of people.
Someone has to do it. And I've never sat around a graveside or gone to a house afterwards and had any group of people talk about wow man did that guy have a great house or man her jewelry was off the charts or did you ever hear what do they talk about? They talk about relationship and they talk about you know what whether she had a lot or had a little she was the kindest woman I ever knew. You know he was the man that stayed after work even though he was busy when I was going through a big marital problem and every Tuesday night he met with me and talked with me and kind of privately shared this new thing about faith I didn't know about and he was a vice president in the company. He was someone that when my husband walked out on me he and his family had me over for Thanksgiving they met me at church they made me feel loved at the end of the day the greatest people on earth the greatest people you'll ever know will not have anything to do with how famous they are how much money they have how much power they have how many likes they have on Facebook it will be love. Now open your notes because I want to walk with you through how God is going to teach us to achieve true greatness.
How do you get there? How do you experience true greatness? One word you got it don't you can you write it down humility by the way humility is not thinking too high of yourself it's not thinking too low of yourself it's kind of self-forgetfulness it's not thinking of yourself at all there's a focus on God and there's a focus on others the most humble people in the world actually don't think they're humble because they're not focused on themselves. Humility is the channel underline the word channel through which the supernatural power of God's love flows to heal our deepest hurts and restore our most important relationships. Can you think of anything more important than your hurts or the hurts of someone else I mean we all have dysfunctions we all have struggles we've all been betrayed we've all hurt right but someone humility is someone who cared enough to get off of thinking about themselves to invest in us and love us and as they did that the spirit of God his love came through them and wholeness occurred so that what we could do the same. Humility is the channel by which grace flows downhill into our hearts and it restores us and it restores relationships have you ever seen what happens in a group or in a marriage or in a family when people forgive one another I mean it's pride that keeps relationships apart and it's the other person they should apologize first do you know what happens in a marriage or in a family in a small group or a business when there's someone that has genuine humility and lets go of their rights and their positions their prestige and said this relationship matters more than that's what Jesus did and he changed your world and my world and the whole world you're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and he'll be right back to finish today's message but first is all the uncertainty in our world causing you to feel discouraged and anxious then listen in after the teaching to hear about Chip's newest book I Choose Joy this tool will help you experience deep lasting joy no matter what stick around to learn more well for now here's Chip with the remainder of his talk so I want to take you on a journey following Jesus into greatness and as we do I have to tell you that all of scripture is God inspired all of scripture is very important but there are some passages that I think rise up to the pinnacle of the truth the majesty we're gonna we're gonna go to a holy holy place where what we will see about the second person of the Trinity is so mind-boggling so counterintuitive and for those of you that have been Christians for a long time my prayer is that you would see this with fresh eyes we're going to talk about one who is in the pinnacle of glory and myriads of angels are worshiping him and he sits on the throne God the Father God the Holy Spirit he owns everything he controls everything he has the utmost position clausians one he spoke in the galaxies came into existence by the word of his power he holds everything and he will take on human flesh and then become a servant and then he'll sacrifice his life and then he'll die and then he'll actually die on a cross which was the most shameful humiliating way a Roman citizen could never be crucified because it was so lowly and it will be out of that humility that you and I and whosoever would believe could have life and what he's going to say is here's the path Paul's going to say there's bickering between you all and there's persecution and pressure without you have to are you ready you have to become humble so there's healing and there's life I'll walk through the model rather briefly because then I want to get to the end and apply it for all of us notice humility flows from a specific mindset here the command have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus circle the word attitude if you will literally it's let this mind be among you you know I talk about reading the scriptures I talk about meditating I talk about putting good things in your mind we are the product of our thought life this passage literally is your mindset how you think how you view yourself how you view money and position and power and prestige how you think have this mindset in you all that was in Jesus and now he's going to tell us what the mindset is we achieve true greatness when we embrace not just agree with when we embrace Christ mindset toward power and possessions how did Jesus view power I mean he had all the power he was the ruler how did he view possessions he owned everything notice what the text says who although he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped put a box around the word form and then put a line under did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped literally that phrase is as something that must not slip out of his hands the word form here is morphe we get our English word morphed the meaning of the word is the inner essential quality of a thing or a person in other words when it says that although in the form of God we think a form of something exterior he's going to use a different word for exterior in a minute form of God is the essential inner nature in other words although he and the father and the Holy Spirit all have the same morphe God he didn't regard his equality with God something that he had to hang on to in other words he was going to take his power he's going to take his rulership over positions and he's going to let them go and start descending downwardly out of his love for you and his love for me notice next we must become truly great when we embrace Christ mindset toward positions and prestige but he emptied himself so instead of holding on to this position he emptied himself taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of a man underline the word emptied put a box around formed it's the same word and then underline bond servant and a circle around likeness of men and if you're here thinking my gosh I didn't bring a pen we'll bring one next time well what I want you to see I want you these words the theology is so rich it's so mind-boggling in other words he was equal with God when it says he emptied himself for Bible students the word is kenosis literally it means he made himself nothing well what that means is about two or three things number one he had pre-incarnate glory if you would have met the pre-incarnate Christ the light emanating from him you'd be gone and so he veils his glory by putting on human flesh then he limits the independent use of his attributes see sometimes we think of Jesus like like Superman he had this toga on but when it got really hard he just ripped off the token there's a big instead of an S there's a G I am God I'll overcome this he didn't do it that way he limited the independent use of his attributes and he took on a body are you ready permanently have you thought about that Jesus at the right hand of the father he has a resurrected body when you see Jesus you can see a bit later those of you that are followers of Christ you want to see the holes in his hands you want I mean it's a sacrifice that's unbelievable and and what he's doing is he's saying I was in the form the very essence of God I make myself nothing never ceasing in any way relieving himself of any deity he's fully God fully man and then notice what it says taking the form not just the acting the form the essential nature not just of a servant but of a bond servant a bond servant in Jewish and in Roman culture had no rights you might have a number of servants in the house the bond servant is the guy that picks up the doo-doo he's the guy that empties the trash he's the guy that has zero rights know anything anywhere at any time could you just pause for a moment could you imagine I mean when you think of how we cling to our rights how come they didn't do that for me don't they know who I am can you imagine the creator of the universe taking the form of a bond servant and it says he's made in the likeness of a man the word likeness is our word schema it this is the word that means just the outward fashion of the appearance of and he was fully human except he wasn't like all other men there's no sin nature Jesus everything he did he said follow me model this I can do nothing apart from him his entire life was I'm dependent on the father and in the power of the Holy Spirit to live this life so you can follow behind me and you be dependent on the father and the power of the Holy Spirit and he did that because he loves you he did that to rescue mankind he descended into greatness This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and you've been listening to part one of his message Love Serves from our series I Choose Love.
Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. One of the greatest delights of God's heart is to witness his children, those of us who call him Lord, loving one another. Yet we all know this isn't always easy and often doesn't come naturally to us. In this short study Chip walks through the four characteristics of love laid out for us in Philippians chapter 2. Discover how to apply these truths to your relationships with others and God so you can love more and love better. To listen to this entire series visit livingonttheedge.org or the Chip Ingram app. Well our Bible teacher Chip Ingram is with me in studio now to share a quick word with all of you.
Thanks Dave. You know we're living in very uncertain and at times volatile times. The stock market goes up crazy and then down. We got social issues, political issues, a lot of division and then you have an enemy who has darts of fear and uncertainty that he brings to people's mind and there's an antidote to that. Regardless of where you are and what you've been through or what the people you love have been through you can choose joy. You don't have to wait for it to happen. We're not a victim of our circumstances but we need to understand how do you really experience joy even when all the external things are challenging.
How do you combat anxiety and depression and you don't measure up and life's not worth living. Let me encourage you I just wrote a brand new book called I Choose Joy. It's based on Philippians chapter 1 and if you know someone that's hurting let me encourage you to get it.
Good word Chip. To get your copy of the new I Choose Joy book visit livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. I'm excited for all of you to experience the life changing power of this work. Again go to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003 for complete details about the new book I Choose Joy. App listeners tap special offers.
Well here again is Chip to share some application for us to think about. As we finish up today's broadcast I was reminded of a verse that I reviewed this morning. I write down little verses on cards and I memorize them and then I review them as often as possible and candidly I need to do it a bit more but Psalm 113 5 and 6 I reviewed today and it just it struck me so powerfully. It says who is like the Lord our God who humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and on earth. Now think of that the God that we serve is so great so powerful so pure so holy he humbles himself to even look into heaven which is an absolutely perfect environment let alone the things on earth and then imagine that this God God the Son came and humbled himself to the point of death he allowed himself to be separated from the Father that he paid the ultimate price so that you and I could have relationship with him. Jesus is the greatest the first the foremost everything in heaven and earth has been created by him and for him and through him and yet he descended into greatness he humbled himself he was willing to give up his rights he thought of us instead of himself instead of convenience or comfort he left the pleasures of heaven of being worshipped by myriads of angels and was treated like a common thief was stripped embarrassed humiliated and then died upon the cross to say to you and to say to me I love you and that is our model he says have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus you know you talk about humility you talk about what love really is about I will tell you this love serves you know for years and years I recognized that I was arrogant and proud and I tried really hard I don't want to be proud I don't want to be arrogant and and you know as soon as I got pride to go out the window it came in the door and I put it out the door and came through a crack in the floor and finally I had a dear older brother say chip quit thinking about trying to be humble you want to be humble you just serve people just choose choose to go to the back of the line choose to let other people go first choose to not hurry to get on the plane choose to look at the two pieces of meat at dinner and let someone else have the best one you just start choosing to serve and over time God will make you humble Jesus came to serve here's my question what are you gonna do you want to really see the world change in fact you want to see your relationships change you want to see yourself change today say to the Lord help me become a servant like Jesus the power of the Holy Spirit living in you will give you all that you need if you make that choice and take that step let's be servants of a living God that's a great challenge chip hey before we close I want to thank those who support us financially your generosity helps us create programs like this one but if you haven't partnered with us there's never been a better time between now and June 30th every gift we receive will be matched dollar for dollar and making a donation is easy just go to Living on the Edge org or call 888-333-6003 that's 888-333-6003 or visit Living on the Edge dot org app listeners tap donate for chip and everyone here thank you in advance for your generosity we'll listen in next time as chip picks up in his series I choose love until then this is Dave Drewy saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.
