What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. Think about that. Your mental picture of God is the most important thing about you. Did you know that how you think about God will determine every other aspect of your life? That's what we'll explore today.
Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of this daily program is to intentionally disciple Christians through the insightful Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. We're excited you've joined us today as we kick off his series, The Real God, How He Longs For You to See Him. For the next handful of programs, we'll study seven attributes of God's character that'll give us a genuine picture of who He really is. But today, Chip begins by explaining why getting an accurate view of God is vital for our faith.
So if you're ready, grab your Bible and notes as we get this series started with Chip's message, Seeking God. There's a quote by A.W. Tozer that changed the course of my life many, many years ago. What comes? to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.
He'll go on to say, by a secret law of the soul, whatever your mental image is, you will gravitate toward it. How you view yourself, how you pray, how you relate to others, how you perceive the future. Every relationship. Every decision will be rooted in how do you mentally perceive God. And here's what you need to know.
All of us are off. We're fallen people. You have a distorted picture of God. I have a distorted picture of God. The question is: how distorted?
Your mental image of God is a montage. A montage of early experiences, family of origin issues, some religious training, an experiment. that someone said, this is what he's like, or a religious group or you've... difficult times or pain or a parent or someone close to you that has died. All these different things over the years have brought you to today.
And today, when you bow your head or when you think about God, you have a picture. It's so unconscious. The reason I had you start is: I wanted you, for some of you, you thought, I don't know what the picture is, right? I'm guessing some of you bowed your head and go, well, I'm. He's God.
I don't know that I really think about who I'm talking to. That, by the way, is a problem. But it impacts everything. Let me give you some very quick examples from my life that might help connect the dots. I did not grow up as a Christian.
I did not grow up in a church that taught the Bible. But I remember vividly thinking That my view of God by the time I was about 16 or 17 was that there was He was like a cosmic cop. And there was this some big powerful person in the sky somewhere that had a blue suit and his arms are crossed and a toe tapping and he had a badge and a big club. And basically, if it was fun, it was wrong. And the whole goal was to catch me doing something wrong, which was not hard to do.
And it was basically, you've messed up again, Ingram. You've messed up again.
So, my view of God was, you know, longing to pray in the song we sang about delight and beauty. That wasn't my God. My God was you don't measure up and you need to get with the program. And then that got compounded because Despite a father that really loved me, he went through World War II. He lost his dad when he was 13.
He was a 50-caliber machine gunner. He spent time in Guam, Iwo Jima, saw all of his friends killed. I became an alcoholic, very functioning, really cared about me. And in his era, you didn't say, I love you, and no one hugged you. And the way you loved your son was you want him to be successful.
So I was setting goals by the time I was nine years old. I had three jobs by the time I was 12. I lent my money $3,000 to to my parents at 6% interest when I was 13 years old, because I had. And I collected. And by the time I was 12, I knew I wanted to do this in basketball, this in baseball, have a girlfriend that looked like this, get a scholarship, and get A's.
And I work like crazy because what I found is the only way you could please my dad was you had to succeed, and affirmation's not love. But it's the next best thing growing up.
So, no matter what I did, the bar always went up the bar.
So, I got a God in the back of my mind because our parents, and we, as parents, and grandparents. We're impacting our kids and grandchildren with the view of God by who we are. And so I had a God, so I trusted Christ by God's grace. I introduced to the Bible, and a group of athletes loved me and cared for me, and a bricklayer began to cycle me. But deep-seated was this God who was always waiting for you to mess up, and this God who, no matter how much, so, so do you pray 15 minutes?
17? A half hour? What if I'm praying a half hour and God wants 31 minutes? And then pretty soon, the group I was with really was into scripture memory.
So is it a verse a day?
Well, is it 100 verses? Is it 500 verses? What about a chapter? I know some guys that are memorizing books. I don't have many books down.
And I became this neurotic, workaholic Christian. trapped in a performance trap because that's my view of God. You know, I probably need to go to like a 12-step Christian recovery program. You know? All that was rooted deeply in some family of origin issues growing up, and I didn't know.
You know, when you grow up in a family, you think it's normal. Right?
So we all, it's just, we're all dysfunctional, it's just how much? And I don't think it's all bad, it's a fallen world. But then I get married and my wife begins to speak to some things. And I realize down behind all of that, if down deep in your heart you don't view a God who, apart from anything you've ever done, looks at you and says, you are precious. I delight in you because of what Jesus has done.
You are my son. You are my daughter. You are precious. I want to be with you. I affirm you.
If that's not your God, then you'll create all kinds of different things to try and stay, quote, on his good side or perform. And so, if you don't think God really likes you just for who you are, and you don't like yourself for who you are. When your wife starts saying some things that she doesn't think is so good about who you are, I was very defensive.
So, you know.
some marriage counseling and some time where little by little by little a guy gave me a tiny book called The Knowledge of the Holy. By A. W. Tozer. And I'll never forget, it's just thin little chapters.
I've read, literally, I read a portion of that book for the last 35 years, the first 10 or 15 years, a chapter a week. And I would read these little chapters on the goodness of God. How much it was like God finds holy pleasure in the happiness of his people? Tozer would write that what would happen if we could all but believe that we live under a friendly sky and that God, though exalted in majesty and power, is eager to be friends with us? He's cordial, kind, benevolent, loving.
Eager to Share hearts. Those were like foreign thoughts. For some, it's on the whole other end. You think God's, you know, like grandma. You know, all he wants to do is give you a dessert all the time.
That's what my wife does.
Sorta. In the sense of God's word. White hot. unapproachable holiness. And so we have we have Christians that don't see that, yes, God is pure and loving.
But he is absolutely above no He's holy. He's a consuming fire that his commands are for our benefit. But you don't mess with the holy God. You don't look at his commandments as options. You bow in reverence.
You meet anyone in Scripture that encounters God, they're face down. There's no casual. This isn't my buddy upstairs. This isn't, you know, pointing everything's okay and, you know, high-fiving Jesus, and Jesus is my homeboy t-shirt. This isn't the God of jewelry.
And stickers on the back of cars. This is the name that's too holy even to utter that the scribes and the Pharisees would just write the four letters of his name of Yahweh, wouldn't even pronounce it out loud and then go ceremonially and wash before they would continue to copy the scriptures.
So all of us are off. But the most important journey you'll ever have on your life that's never too late is to pause at certain seasons and say, God, I want to see you as you are. The real God, not the God that I've made up in my mind, not the God that's being passed around in Christian circles, the real God, the God of the Bible. How he longs for you to see him. That's what we're going to study.
And the first Session here is to ask the question, is your God too small? And if you'll open your notes, we're going to begin by some ground rules because if you don't get these ground rules, I will assure you you will never see God accurately. There are three common mistakes that we make when we think about God. Three things that you have to know that are facts. To know him accurately.
And then there's one really, really big question that I can't answer for you, you have to answer for yourself. But to see God, the real God with 2020 vision, and here's the difference. We are not here to learn more about God. There's a night and day difference between the knowledge about a person and the knowledge of a person. I mean, you can take a movie star or dignitaries or.
Uh You know, the President of the United States, we know a lot about people. You can Wikipedia and know a lot about people like that. We're talking about A knowledge of them, a relationship, a heart knowledge, a connection from the heart, knowing God by way of intimate connection and relationship, not knowing facts about them, not simply ideas that float around in your mind, but a connection with Him.
So three facts you need to know for this to happen is one is that God is not like you. Shocking, isn't it? God is not like you. But our Tennessee It is to take sort of the best that we can think of, the kindest person, the best person, the most holy person, and then somehow we blow it up by 10 or blow it up by 100 or blow it up by a million and think, well, God somehow, someway is a lot like a bigger, better, more pure, perfect vision of this. Here's what I want you to know: it's not true.
There is all created things. Even the angels, and that is a category. And then there's another category, and that's God. Completely different category, completely other. That's the concept of the word holy.
It means he's separate, he's a cut above. He's not like us, but Every religion, and even we Bible followers, we want to make God like us because we want to manage Him. We want to control him. Listen to What Isaiah? Would write when it comes to God because this is not a new problem.
Isaiah 40, verse 25. To whom then will you compare me? That I should be like him, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these, who brings out their hosts by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might and because of his. He is strong in power, not one is missing.
Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my cause is hidden from the Lord? It's disregarded by my God. Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He doesn't grow faint or weary. His understanding. is unsearchable or beyond what we can fathom. He's just completely different. But that that's helpful.
That's why when the Ten Commandments, you know, no other gods. No images, no pictures, nothing that can reduce him, nothing that can get him in a smaller box. See, we've got a box. And we want a God that we can know and feel comfortable with. It's The Great Lines by C.S.
Lewis. You know, and the conversations were Aslan. And he says, you know, the little girl says, Aslam, are you tame? He says, no, I'm not tame. I'm loving.
And I'm compassionate, but I'm not tame. God's not tame. He's not on call. He's the creator. We're the creatures.
You're listening to Living on the Edge. Be back to continue our series, The Real God, in just a minute. But let me quickly tell you that we are more than a broadcast ministry. We're supporting pastors globally, developing helpful resources, and sharing the gospel with this next generation.
So, if you'd like to join us in these efforts, become a monthly partner by going to livingontheedge.org. And thanks for your support.
Well here again is Chip. I put in your notes a great passage for me is Romans chapter 11. When the Apostle Paul was talking about the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man and the crescendo of that great book of Romans, he ends up with a doxology. Oh, the depth of both the wisdom and the knowledge of God. How he talks about over the depth and the power and the richness of his wisdom and his knowledge.
It's beyond finding out. He says, who has known the mind of the Lord? that they should be his counselor. No one. Who has ever first given to God that God would owe him?
No one. And then he says this amazing thing. from him And through him And To him are all things. To him be the glory. Have you ever thought about that?
Everything in all the world is from him and through him and to him, and to him be the glory or the weight. And so what I want you to know is that God is not like you. And he's not like me. And so there's this category, this awesomeness, this purity that we want to grasp. The second is related to it.
Left to ourselves, we tend to reduce God to manageable terms. I want a God that I can see. I want a God that I can control. I want a God that I can tame and manipulate. And that's not the God of the Bible.
Every world religion, you know, the old totems, right? Or the moon or the stars, or the image of a god is, you know, a lion or some animal, and it was the strength of the bear. And if you go to anthropology all over the world and you see what people worship, we get some concept, whether it's a strength or some power and the moon or the stars. And we take something and we get it where we can see it. And we actually, as human beings, will bow down to things that our own hands create.
And Isaiah would later reprove his people and say, you worship gods that you have made yourselves. They have ears and they can't hear. They have hands but they can't feel. They have feet and they can't walk. And he was contrasting them to the real God.
But we all do that. We just reduce him. Exodus 32. One to six is the first and most graphic story. Remember the story of when.
The people were delivered out of Egypt. And just try, you know, to not make it a Bible story and try and imagine what it would have been like. You know, for 10 generations, you've heard about this invisible God who made some promises to some people that lived a long time ago, and Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and some guy named Joseph. And you've heard the stories passed on carefully, but you're a slave, and life is hard. And I mean, it's been.
400 years. And then this Moses guy shows up. And then there's these wild things happening that happened to the Egyptians that don't happen to you. And since you've lived there, you know that every one of these plagues. is an attack on one of the Egyptian gods.
And so one by one, that got psh, this got pssh, this got psh, the hail got psh. And the last god was the Egyptians believed that Pharaoh was God, and so his son would be the next god. And so the last plot plague was the first born children. And you didn't get it. You know, what's this blood over the doorpost?
All that was a bunch of weird stuff. Then, pretty soon it's the middle of the night, and everyone's saying, get out of here, and get out of here now. And here's gold, and here's silver, and take your kids, and you know, you and a couple million people. And then there's this fire hoving over you, and then there's this wall of water. And you remember that night, and the wall of water's up like 40, 50, 60 feet, this dry land.
And it's like, you know, your kids thinking you're going camping out, and this is a weird experience, and then the water comes back. And I mean, you know, this is like you've seen power, power, power, power, right? And then you're 60 days in. You're just 60 days in, and you know, it doesn't feel quite like a camping trip anymore. And you're in the middle of nowhere in wilderness.
Wilderness is like desert type. And where are we going to get water? Where are we going to get food? Where are we going to live? And it's 60 days.
And pretty soon Moses said, Because God said, We're coming to this mountain, it's Mount Sinai. And you get there, and he disappears for a while. You know, then it's like, okay, you know, you guys are supposed to come out and you come out to the mountain and purify yourself and just a bunch of weird stuff. What do you mean? You wash your clothes, don't have any sex for a couple days, and then they mark off this boundary, and if anyone crosses the boundary, you're fly.
And then you come out that morning, Exodus 19, by the way, is where we're at. And you come out that morning and everyone's standing, and then pretty soon you hear this ram's horn. Mm. I think it's louder. And it's really, really sweet.
And part of you wants to listen. Part of it's like, oh, and then you hear a voice, and it's God's voice, and you tremble, and the earth starts to shake, and you're face down, and you look up, and smoke is billowing out, and there's fire, and you're going, oh my gosh. And you're just petrified. And then Moses speaks, and you hear his voice again. And then you're, Moses, Moses, no more.
You just talk to him. He can't take it. And that's God. Mm-hmm. Right?
This is a you are there moment. And then after all and I'll get this. And then Moses says, that God?
Okay. I'm going to go up. He wants me to come. and he's going to give me commands. You know what he wants?
He wants to do a cutting. It's a covenant. And because of your background, you understand a covenant has to do with blood. A covenant has to do that we'll make a commitment to God that we're saying that we would die before we break the covenant. And He's saying the same thing, and He's going to give us the.
the agreement of the covenant, what it is we're going to agree to. I'm going to go up and get that. Moses goes up. And then we're people, right? Have you seen him?
I don't know. When's he coming back? I don't know. It's been gone a long time. Kids are getting restless.
This isn't a camping trip. Is he coming back at all? Aaron. We need a God. I mean, you know, people are getting restless.
It's getting a little uptight here. We need a solution. Oh, peer pressure is very powerful. Why don't you all take off an earring, bring it to me? And he fashions a calf, and they put a golden calf, and from their Egyptian background, the bull, the calf, power, fertility, we'll call him Yahweh, because we don't want to get in trouble.
Right?
Syncretism, it always works.
So we'll call it Yahweh. And then tomorrow we'll bring your sacrifices. And it said they brought their sacrifices and then they. begin to express their worship in the King James's revelry. It's like a really hot weekend in Vegas.
I mean, and you need to understand all the worship, the ancient world. built into all the fertility gods. It was it was sexuality all kind of immoral ways. And then, and God looks down, sees what's happening, says, Moses, we got a problem.
Now here's the question I want to ask you. How in the world Could you have that kind of experience with God, see those kind of miracles, that kind of power, actually hear his voice, see the earth shake? And then demand that you had to have something you could see. I want to tell you It's human nature. And before we get like, I don't know, as an early Christian, I remember reading through the Bible and stuff like this.
I'm thinking, man, these people are nuts. Or the disciples, you know, like. You know, Jesus would heal someone and then they're uptight about not having bread. You know, I was young and never read the Bible and I thought, man, man, I wish I was there. Man, I wouldn't have those kind of problems.
I do have a confession I need to make that so far it's sort of a Sign of spiritual growth. I've never come home after a long day of work and say, honey, just stay right here. I know I put a little statue in the back room. I'm going to go pray to it.
So I've never done that. Just want you to know I've never worshipped. But I've worshipped a lot of idols that I've created in my head. Idols like success. Family.
Kids Education. Prosperity Money Comfort. Self-fulfillment. See, we don't worship idols. They actually used God.
made a picture worshipped it in a way that they could actually get, quote, what they wanted in a way they thought that would satisfy them. with total disregard for the real God. And I'd like to suggest that we do the same thing. Oh. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Seeking God, from our series, The Real God.
Jip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. You know, we've all unintentionally projected some of humanity's worst qualities into our Creator. Many view God as moody, weak, unfair, impatient, and merciless, but those ideas couldn't be further from the truth. Through this series, Chip explores key Bible passages to reveal seven fundamental characteristics of our Heavenly Father, attributes that reflect the very essence of His divine nature. Join Chip on this journey to reshape your perspective toward God, which will deepen your relationship with Him like never before.
You won't want to miss a single part of this study.
Well, Chip's back in studio with me, and Chip, I'm really excited for our listeners to walk through this series with you. Take a minute and explain why learning more about our Heavenly Father is so important. Be glad to, Dave. I touched a bit on this in today's teaching. We all have a warped view of God.
Every denomination, every Christian comes out of some sort of lens that distorts who God really is. And I've been a Christian now for over 50 years, and I'm still pursuing. Oh God, would you take away the false views that I have and help me to see you clearly? Clearly, for who you are, your goodness, your love, your faithfulness.
So much of our struggles, as A.W. Tozer said, is a false view of God or a warped view of God.
So I just welcome our listeners to really dig in. Don't miss a day. Or if you miss a day, make sure you go back on the app and listen to it. I just can't tell our listeners how important it is that you. On your own, say.
I want to know God. But I don't want to know him as I think he is. I want to know him as he really is. He's a living, loving, holy, just, faithful King of kings, lord of lords, who sees you as his precious child. If you get that clear in your mind and your heart, It changes everything.
That's absolutely right, Chip.
Well, I hope you'll join us for this entire series. And because every believer can learn something from this topic, let me encourage you to invite a few friends to listen with you, either through livingonthege.org or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Well, with that, here again is Chip to share some application. I don't know about you, but as I listened to the very end of today's program, I was convicted. Even though I was preaching, I was convicted. And you know what I realized? I realize that unconsciously the culture has so shaped my mind that when my life isn't working out right, when I'm not happy, when I've got a struggle in my marriage, when my car breaks down, or when I have an unexpected emergency, there's a part of me that immediately just says, what's the deal, God?
Hey, what's wrong? You know, I'm kind of upset. How come you're not coming through for me? You know, I don't like your timing. And all those kind of thoughts are built around a false view of God.
So much of this world's culture has crept into my thinking. Like I'm God. And he's the one who's supposed to make my life work out instead of remembering he's God. And my privilege is to get to be rightly related to Him through Christ, and then my goal is to walk in a way that pleases Him. How about you?
How do you view God? How do you see him? Have you unconsciously I don't mean in some terrible, selfish way, but have you unconsciously begun to view God as a self-help genie? Is he the one who's going to make everything work out your way? Or do you see him as the high, holy?
holy sovereign of the universe. to whom apart from Christ, you absolutely have no hope. Yet in Christ You are the center of his attention and he loves you. Think about it, will you? Good word, Chip.
Hey, just before we close, I quickly want to thank those of you who regularly give to Living on the Edge. You're making a big difference in helping Christians live like Christians. But if you're benefiting from our ministry and haven't started giving yet, let me encourage you to join the Living on the Edge team.
Now, you can do that by setting up a recurring donation at livingonthege.org or by calling us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit livingonthege.org. At listeners, tap donate. And thanks for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do.
Well, join us next time as Chip continues his series, The Real God. Until then, I'm Dave Druy, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.
