Are you down today? Discouraged? Maybe even really, really depressed?
Something happened to your life that you just feel like, I can't go on and I don't know where to go from here? If that's you, stay with me. God has a word of encouragement for you today. 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 work. Thanks for being with us as we begin to wind down our series, The Real God, How He Longs For You to See Him. For these last couple of programs, Chip dives into the seventh foundational characteristic of our great God, His faithfulness. Today we'll learn how we can not only know about this attribute, but genuinely experience it in our everyday lives.
So with that, grab your Bible and notes as we join Ship for his message, The Faithfulness of God. If you would come into my home, we have a four-year. And at the very end, before you go anywhere, there is a picture. that hangs. And as you get a close-up, we happen to take a good one.
It's about a year old. The pastor's family, everyone looks nice and happy. happy and You know, each one of my sons and daughters, they've married well, and they're all walking with God, and they're raising these kids. And you would just kind of think that, you know, that stereotypical. You know.
God must bless pastors and their lives are kind of pretty easy and wonderful and things just turn out right. Uh that's not why it's a The hall, it's not so much for other people, but every day I have to walk past it. And this picture for me is a reminder of the greatest trophy of God's grace is what he did in that group of people. Um my wife and I neither grew up Knowing God, we both came to Christ as adults. Both of us came from alcoholic families with fathers that were deeply wounded from World War II.
and it produced some very unhealthy things. We came to Christ, and by God's faithfulness, some people came into our life and helped us get into the scriptures and gave us good counseling, and we did life in community. And little by little, we changed and we grew, and then we got married, and we thought, wow, this is going to be great. I love God, you love God, first generation. And then after about six months, we realized that we couldn't communicate, we didn't know how to resolve conflict, and we both had boatloads of baggage from alcoholic families.
By God's grace, He brought a professor and a counselor into our life. And we started going to marriage counseling and he began to heal us.
Well, Teresa, um had been married before before she was a Christian. And um When he found out that she was pregnant, he left with another woman that he'd been seeing. And I just couldn't figure out how to love my wife because it was like BVs off of a tank. The way she saw herself from her background and being rejected and abandoned. Is that she saw herself so negatively, and I saw her as beautiful and godly and.
And then I saw God's faithfulness where, again, we got some help and we dug into some books together and I watched God begin to heal her.
Well, then these poor, you know, these were twin boys, you know. I got to adopt them, great privilege. when they were five and a half. And so they had this overachieving, workaholic, over-the-top dad who was way too hard on him. And my one son was, just because of his early background, very fearful.
I had to make him learn to ride a bike. Um The other had a four-year rebellion that was the biggest heartbreak of our life. And the one that was afraid of people is now a physical therapist and has the best people skills in our family of loving people. The one that we thought Will he ever come back to the Lord is now writing music that the world sings? My other son, his senior year, he had a pornography problem.
And uh It happened, quote, by accident. It really did. And it was hidden for a year. And um He took some major steps and still all the passwords. His wife keeps He's a pastor now.
My daughter was a lot younger. She's six years younger than my youngest son, who's six years younger than the older boys. And she kind of grew up with these sort of. You know. psycho dad who's really intense and a very loving mom and And so she got a little bit perfectionistic.
And so my one son didn't like school, and then he lied about it most of the time. And does this ring true? Anybody else has families like this? He's a pastor now. And uh But my daughter somehow got thinking that she probably needed to do really, really well.
So when my one son got a B, I took him out to dinner to celebrate. And when my daughter got a B, I took her out to celebrate for a different reason. It was like the first one in like nine years, all A's. I said, you need to lighten up. In a word, our family and our family picture are nothing more.
or nothing less. than the faithfulness of God. This is what God does. with people who have messed up backgrounds. who make big mistakes.
who struggled with sin. Who had problems in their marriage, who really wanted to do it right, but often found they didn't do it right, but had one passion. In the midst of it all, to say, Lord, we don't know how life works, but we want to break the cycle of our backgrounds and we want to pursue you with all of our heart. And we experience forgiveness and healing and restoration, and often three steps forward and two steps backward. Because God is faithful.
The Lord's mercies, His kindness never ceases. His compassions, His heart, His tenderness never fails. Great is his faithfulness. Three observations that you already know, but because I like to be logical, I wanted to give them to you. Observation number one is: all of us depend on something or someone to hold us up inside.
We all do. For some, it's your mate or a relationship, a job. For some, it's how you look. Or how much money you make, or how successful your kids are. But we all have something or someone.
Can be money, can be fame. that hold us up inside. Then what we know is when that something or someone is coming through for us. We have a sense of satisfaction and optimism and things are going well. When that something or someone doesn't come through for us.
We have anxiety. We have no peace. We have fear. and often despair. And all I want you to know is that There is no one.
And there is nothing that can come through for you 100% of the time, except. The Lord Jesus Christ.
So, if you put your hope in a job or in a mate or in kids or in money or how you look or whatever it is. I mean, you're a blink away from that completely changing. And so your life goes up and down with circumstances and relationships. And so the key or the secret to life is to find someone who'll come through for you 100% of the time in any and every circumstance. And I just want to tell you, the real God.
His faithfulness is, that's what he'll do. His mercies are new. His loyal love for you. In the midst of your hurt, your pain, your weakness, your sin, your failure, if you would out of this study say, I'm going to pursue, I want to make knowing God the most important thing. I want to get close to Christ.
I want my life to revolve around what His Word says. I want to be wise and do life His way. I will tell you there is a friend with supernatural power. who is fully God and fully man, who rose from the dead, who'll never, ever let you down. As you open your notes, let's define faithfulness so we're all on the same page.
Dictionary says it's steadfast and affection. I like that. steadfast in affection. He's in love with you. Allegiance, loyalty.
When we say God is faithful, we mean he's dependable, trustworthy, staunch, resolute, constant, reliable, true to one's word. Keeps his promises. always comes through. And then you ask yourself, well, how can God be faithful all the time? And it kind of allows us to do something that's really important.
Because if you're not careful, you can think of, okay, we talked about his holiness, and we've talked about his love, and we've talked about his justice, but... Those things operate all together in unity, simultaneously, in harmony with one another. God can come through for you and me. 100% of the time because he's all-powerful. He never encounters anything that can thwart his plan or his purpose.
He can come through because he's holy. He's pure. He's full of integrity. He's unable to lie. He's absolutely unapproachable light.
He always does the right thing. He can come through because he's eternal. He's not affected by space or time. He sees the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end. He can come through because he's omnipresent.
Nothing can ever happen outside the sphere of his influence. And finally, he can come through for you because he's immutable. He never changes. He's consistent. God never has a bad day.
You never go to him and pray, and he goes, you know, maybe later. I'm having a really rough day. His love, his justice, his kindness, his compassion, 100% of the time. A.W. Tozer writes in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy: all of God's acts are consistent with all of His attributes.
And then I put in bold because this is one of those sentences that it's so profound it hurts my head. No attribute. contradicts any other, but all harmonize and blend into each other in the infinite abyss. of the Godhead. I mean, the infinite abyss, His love, His Majesty, His power, His goodness, His holiness.
In the infinite abyss, this God who spoke, and galaxies, billions of them, come into existence. and yet says to you and me, I want to be your friend. And I will never ever leave you and I'll never let you down. And anything that I have ever said, any promise I've ever made, I will guarantee based on my character and my track record. that I'll be with you.
It's absolutely amazing. You're listening to Living on the Edge. Return you to today's message in just a second, but let me quickly ask you: do you often find it difficult to read and understand God's Word? If so, join us after today's program as Chip talks about our useful resource, Daily Discipleship, with Chip. This tool has helped tens of thousands of people study the Bible and develop a deeper connection to God.
Stick around to learn how to sign up. Over that, let's rejoin Chip for the remainder of his message.
So what I want to do in our time is talk a little bit about intellectually and biblically, well, how has God revealed that? But I want to spend the great majority of our time But How That faithfulness impacts the deepest struggles and challenges of our life.
So let's talk about how has he revealed his faithfulness first by creation. Psalm 119, 89. And 90 says, forever, O Lord, your word is settled in the heavens. Your faithfulness continues throughout all generations. You establish the earth and it stands.
My dad was a science teacher and I Had many majors in college and science was one of them. And I like the physical sciences and you learn about the planets and you realize this. This planet of ours is going around the sun. I mean, I think it's like 24,000, 25,000 miles an hour. It's crazy.
And we're spinning around very fast, and yet, Year after year, thousands of years after thousands of years, we go around the sun within a fraction of a few seconds, exactly the same. Exactly the same. When our atomic submarines, because of the magnetic pools of the Earth, want to come up and they've got those really powerful rockets inside of them and they can't be off. They have to surface every 90 days, and they put up an antenna, and what do they do? Lock onto the North Star.
Because the North Star is more accurate. We call it science because what we have learned is these things are predictable. They're the same. And so we say, oh, that's mother nature. That's the first or second law of thermodynamics.
And we observe all this consistency. And God would say, well, you can observe it. But it's there and it's consistent. Because I hold it together by the word of my power. I am the creator and the sustainer of all life.
Second, it's through people. God shows his faithfulness through he made promises to Abraham and the patriarchs. Abraham, he said, I'm going to make you a great nation.
Now can you imagine this one little nomad guy running around in a tent? 4,000 plus years later, The nation of Israel It's endured. Jesus said, I'll build my church, and the gates of hell can't prevent against it.
So you got 12 little followers and one betrays you, and you start this big movement with 120 people and you're going to change the world? You'd never travel 40, 50 miles beyond where you were born. And you're living in a world where there's 2 billion followers of Christ. And law and culture and all of history is defined By the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. I could tell you of a time when I prayed for one of my sons in the ICU just before he went into surgery and God healed him.
I could tell you about times in my marriage when I thought, there's no way this isn't going to work, and crying out to God, and the light's coming on. God's faithful to his people. Third, he's faithful by virtue of his character. I mean, if you want to know what the Father's like, the Son is like, the Scripture is absolutely clear. The Old Testament picture of God the Father.
Classic verse. Numbers 23, 19, God is not a man that he should lie. or the son of man that he should repent or change his mind. Has he spoken and will he not do it? Or has he said it and will he not bring it to pass?
In other words, God is always consistent and faithful if he speaks, if he promises, 100% he does it. The Spirit. We talk about the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness. Faithfulness.
Self-control. The character, the Holy Spirit develops faithfulness because it's the very character, it's the fruit. of God the Spirit. Or Jesus. You could read the entire New Testament and you get to the end.
And he came as the Savior, but the whole book of Revelation, the theme is he's going to come back and judge righteously. He's going to make things right. And at the very end of history, we have the conqueror, the righteous judge, on a white horse, and he has a robe, and on his robe has two words, and on his thigh. You ready for the words? faithful and True, he could have chosen any words.
He wants you to know, you can depend on me. And finally, I don't know about you, but I did not grow up ever reading the Bible. I didn't understand it. But his word is true. You can depend on the promises in Scripture.
On the last night, Jesus prayed in John 17, Father. Sanctify them or set them apart or make them holy. These followers now and followers in the future, make them holy by your truth, your word. is truth. In Deuteronomy it says God keeps or is faithful to the covenants that he makes with us to a thousand generations.
In Hebrews it says, let us not sway or swerve or fall away, for he who promised is faithful to us. And then we have In Christ's first coming, hundreds of very specific predictions. I mean, 700 years before Christ was born, he'll be born Bethlehem. Of a virgin. This is what will happen.
I mean, hundreds of specific prophecies, all for you to say and to learn. God's faithful true His word.
So that's the intellectual biblical basis. for trusting God's faithfulness. What I want to do now is talk about when it really matters. I mean, I've got to have that. Because I'm not going to throw my brains in the trash.
But the fact of the matter, the final one I think is most important to digest and to apply. God shows us His faithfulness in the way that He shapes our life. The way he intervenes in our life when we're weak. when we're tempted, when we sin, and when we utterly, utterly fail. It's when you feel like you don't deserve it.
When I feel like I could go back to this picture and I could go through seasons. Where my wife and I just sat up in bed and cried over one of our kids and thought this was never gonna work. I've had seasons where I've been so mad at her and thought this marriage will never work and all I'm gonna hang on to your promise because I don't have any other option and God worked in our life. The Apostle Paul. was having a conversation with God in a moment of weakness.
He had some physical issue that God allowed him to have, a thorn in his flesh, he called it.
Some people think malaria, some people think an eye disease. Personally, I think it was a bad back. Uh Constant pain. And God speaks to Paul. After Paul asks, God says no.
Paul asks, God says no. Third time. God says, my grace is sufficient for you. For power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly, therefore, I'll rather boast about my weakness.
so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. And then look at this crazy application. Therefore, I am well content. Literally, the word is, I will delight in. It's a choice.
With weaknesses, plural, with insults, plural, with distresses, plural, with persecutions and difficulties. Why? For Christ's sake. For when I'm weak, then I'm strong. What you need to know, and the reason I showed you that picture is this is a testimony not of a family or of a marriage or of a man.
This is a testimony of struggling people that didn't know anything. God was faithful in our weakness. In my weakness, I wanted to bail out of my marriage. In my weakness, I wanted to like knock one of my kids' heads off because he made me so crazy. In my weakness, as I struggled with lust, there wasn't even the internet back then.
Praise God. Praise God, but there were four girls to every guy. And I struggled and struggled and struggled. In my weakness. God met me.
See, when we're weak, we tend to run and we want a silver bullet, or we'll find that person, or we go eat. Or we open the refrigerator and put something into us that we know is not good for us. In our weakness, we try and fill the holes. And here's the deal: God is faithful if in your weakness rather than running to shopping. or to work.
or to prescription drugs. or to focusing on your kids. or focusing on your work defining who you're going to be. In your weakness. Say, God, here's his promise: I'll sustain you.
My power is perfected in weakness. And your prayers are: I can't do this. I remember a little rhyme that my wife learned from some lady It goes something like... When you say, I can't do this. God says, I never said you could.
And then he says, but by my strength. I promise you always can. And God wants to meet you in your weakness. He wants to shape you. He wants to change you.
Your character gets changed in weakness. This is Living on the Edge with Chib Ingram. And you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, The Faithfulness of God, from our series, The Real God. Chip'll 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, our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, joins me in studio now, and Chip James 1 tells us to consider it pure joy when we endure trials. For many of us, we believe that in theory, but it can feel impossible to live it out. We'll take a minute, if you would, and talk about a resource we have that's helping Christians put this difficult lesson into practice. Super excited to do that, Dave, because it's one of the daily discipleship series that I think has had the most impact of anything that we've done. We live in a world that is more broken and more hostile and more difficult to live in as a Christian than ever before.
And so the issue is, how do you endure? Because as we endure, that's how God changes us. And so let me invite those that are listening right now to join me for the daily discipleship series, The Art of Survival, based on James chapter 1. We'll spend 20 minutes together unpacking this vital chapter for about 10 days. As we walk through this passage, we'll better understand the Bible's perspective on adversity and how to actually be victorious rather than see ourselves as victims.
If you're ready to learn not just how to survive, but to thrive in a culture that's very, very challenging, join me for daily discipleship, the art of survival. Great word, Chip.
Well, to sign up for this study in James 1, visit livingonthege. org. As you walk through this passage with Chip, you'll learn about the attitude God wants us to embrace, a resource we can ask for, and an encouraging theology to believe in. Again, for complete details about our daily discipleship series, The Art of Survival. Go to livingontheedge.org.
Atlas Nurse Tap Discipleship.
Well here again is Chip to share some insightful application as we wrap up. We began today's program by making three observations about the human species. You know, regular people like you and me. We said, number one, that we all depend on something or someone to hold us up inside.
Now think about that, and then ask yourself what is that for you? Second, we said that when that something or someone is coming through for us, we experience a sense of peace, satisfaction. and optimism about the future. Third, we said that when that something or someone fails to come through for us, we experience a sense of anxiety. dissatisfaction and ultimately despair.
And I walk through this rather quickly, but I want you to process it now in light of what you've just heard. And my conclusion in the introduction was that it seems And I think this is accurate: that the secret to a life of unending joy and genuine peace. is to find something or someone who will come through for you 100% of the time. in every situation. And what we learn today is that's who God is.
Often we think that God is a lot like us, that He has mood swings, and He has good days and bad days, and we get this feeling that when we're good God'll be there and come through, and when we're bad, well, you know, we're on our own. Did you listen to the teaching today? Did you hear the definition that God in and of Himself, His innate essence, His character, He is faithful? He's faithful to his people. He's faithful to his word.
He's loving 100% of the time. He's just 100% of the time. He's holy 100% of the time. He's compassionate. 100% of the time.
And God has revealed this faithfulness through creation. And through his people, And I'd like to suggest that he's also revealed it to you in your life. And so what I would like you to do is to literally out loud before God. Recall in the last week or two or even the last month, Two or three or four specific things where you can say, God came through for me. He loves me he's for me.
And then as you do that, here's what I want you to do this day, this hour. then I want you to think of the most difficult thing you're facing And then say to the Lord, Lord, If you came through in those areas, Because you're faithful, I'm going to choose to trust you. in what seemed so hard and so difficult to face to day, He is faithful. He is for you. He loves you.
and he will see you through. Powerful reminder, Chip, thanks. As we wrap up this program, Living on the Edge depends on listeners like you to help us continue encouraging Christians to live like Christians.
So would you consider becoming a monthly partner to help others benefit from this ministry? You can set up a recurring donation at livingonthege.org or by calling 888-333-6003. That's triple eight three three three six zero zero three or visit LivingontheEdge.org. App Listeners tap Donate. and thanks for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do.
We'll listen to next time as Chip wraps up his series, The Real God. Until then, this is Dave Druy saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.
