Today I'm Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. In these tough economic times, does it ever feel like God has abandoned you? like you're left all along.
Well, if you feel like that today, I'm going to share an amazing spiritual secret that will help you get out of the spiritual doldrums. Stay with me. That's today on Living on the Edge. From Chip Ingram and all of us here at Living on the Edge, Merry Christmas. We're delighted you've joined us.
You know, for most people, the holidays are filled with joy, but for many, it's a season that magnifies our problems. In our loneliness, when we're scrambling to make ends meet, sometimes we assume that God has abandoned us.
Well, if you're feeling overlooked, you're about to hear biblical wisdom that'll challenge your assumptions. Today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram assures you of God's presence and, at the same time, rescues you from the exhausting treadmill of trying to earn his favor. And then after Chip's message, we'll explain how you can participate in the Double Your Impact match. Because of this match, every dollar you give today at livingontheedge.org is automatically doubled in size. But right now let's enjoy the message from Chip called The Principle with Secret Power.
I want to share a little part of my journey. I was very fortunate after I came to know Christ personally to have a bricklayer and an organization that was really helpful at teaching you to meet with God and. not just go through the motions, but really understand that he wanted to talk to you in the morning. And I was a pretty slow learner. It was really hard to get up.
And learning to pray was pretty hard for me. I was a little slow there too. But after a couple years and began to develop some really good habits and begin to grow spiritually, and then later after I graduated from college, I found myself teaching and coaching basketball and then running a discipleship ministry on a college campus. And I lived behind the bricklayer. We both went there together to launch this ministry.
And there was a garage apartment, so I had two roommates that I was discipling. You know, I'm a school teacher, imagine this, making $1,000 a month. It was a while ago, but it was not much money even back then. And I had little Volkswagen Green Beetle. Do you remember those?
It was my very first car. I bought it, used, and you know, it just ran like a little top. And so little by little I was beginning to learn and so I learned to give the first portion of my income and this group was great. They weren't legalistic. They said, you know, a tenth is a good place to start.
But if you want to go a percentage below or above, you know, make sure you keep your heart in the right place. And so as I began to grow my OCD workaholic Tendencies that I grew up in, they sort of shifted into my spiritual life. And I thought to myself, you know, if 10% is good, I don't have many expenses. And they were teaching about proportional giving. And not for all the right reasons that I decided, you know what, I'm going to double it and I'm going to go 20%.
You know, the few, the proud, the Marines, the Ingrams. And you know, and I'm and I'm pretty proud of myself. And, you know, and if it slipped out that I was giving 20% of my income, that sounds like a lot. But if you're only making $1,000, it may not be all that much, but it sounded good. And so I did that for a while and then I thought, you know, I've only my expenses were like $120 or $50 a month.
And so I still had margin and saved a little bit of money kind of learning the basics of give, save. And invest a little, investing real small. And so 20% was good, and God kept blessing.
So I'm going 30%. And so I was giving 30% of my income away, and I'm coaching and teaching. And unfortunately, the Pharisee in me was growing. You know, more and more I thought, you know, if you give 10%, God loves you this much. If you give 20%, I bet He loves you this much.
And man, go 30%, who knows? And I was in this performance orientation where. I was learning to give, but I was not at all generous. And so I'm driving my little Volkswagen. I had a little commute of about 40 minutes where I coached and taught.
And so I'm in my little green Volkswagen and it's early in the morning and I hear this voice literally in my head. And I don't know much. I'm pretty new Christian.
So I don't know when it's God or when it's the Holy Spirit, what's going on or whether I'm having an illusion.
So I hear this little voice in my head say, Chip, whose car is this? And I'm thinking, I don't know where that's coming from. The next morning, driving to work, Chip, whose car is this? Third morning, fourth morning, I realized I think this might be God. And I didn't want to answer because I thought he might have a plan for it other than the plan I had.
Because I'd recently married Teresa, and we were going to pack everything that we had and go to Dallas to go to seminary. And so she had a car, and I had a car, and hers was newer and nicer. And so I'm going to sell this little car, but the gas prices had started to go up, and the value just skyrocketed. It was worth more six years later than when I bought it. And so every I was actually thinking, you know, I bet I can get this for it.
And then the next day I would drive, no, I bet I can get this for it. And then, you know, even before Craigslist, I bet I can get this for it. And so, as my greed inside my mind over here is working, and I give 30%, you know, as a godly, godly man, of course. God, like Morning number five, he says, whose car is this? And I say...
Well, it's yours, Lord. Oh, good, Chip. I'm glad you know that. Because you know Nancy, the girl in the ministry? Yeah.
Well you know how she's going to go with Wycliffe Bible translators and she's going to go to a remote tribe there and Thailand?
Well yeah.
Well, you have two cars, right? Yeah.
How many does she have? And I thought, this is not good. This is going in a totally bad direction. And I said, none. And she says, well, she's going to be traveling all over America to raise support and translate the Bible for those people.
I want you to give your car to her because you have two and she doesn't have any. You know like one of those verses you memorize that 1 John, where it says that if you know someone in need and you have more than you need and you don't give it, how can the love of God be in you? And I'm thinking, I wish I wouldn't have memorized that one. And I'll be honest with you, it was just one of those times where I mean, reluctant, reluctant.
So, of course, I tell Teresa, and she goes, oh, that's great. Thanks, dear, you know?
So eventually, I mean, this is not I want you to hear you can give without being generous at all. I begrudgingly, out of obedience, decide, okay, I'm gonna give my car. It's yours, God. I understand it. I'll do it.
And so I'm uh I'm out in the garage and This was the day, this will date some of you, but in the old days they didn't have nice stereos in cars, and you could buy these stereos, and I'd saved up, and you put them in your car, and then you can unlock them and pull them out. And so I'm out and the doors of the little Volkswagen are out and I've got my knee down and I finally, you know, I've got it all out of there and I pull it out like this and Teresa walks out and she goes, what are you doing? I said, what do you mean, what am I doing? She goes, what are you doing? I said, I'm getting the stereo out of my car.
God said the car. He didn't say the stereo. And many of you men who are married, do you remember this pose? You know, and you're just shamed into it. Oh, you think the stereo goes with the car?
You know, I stuck it back in there.
Now, if you open your teaching notes, there's some real truth from these stories that I want you to get. And I'm really a little embarrassed to share those. But I want you to know that you can give but not be generous. When I told you early on, this is not about money. Money is always probably the.
The most pressing symptom But I was giving 30% of my income and I wasn't generous. I gave it begrudgingly. In fact, I sat down earlier this week and I wrote down my motivations and what was going on in my heart. Giving is an action. Generosity is a matter of the heart.
See, you can give and not be generous, but you can't be generous without giving. When I was giving, I was self-righteous. I was proud. I had a works orientation. I thought God was going to, you know, do better for me if I could.
Give more. I was negotiating with God. I felt superior when I heard of other people and what they gave, I thought I was better than they were. I was rigorously religious but relationally challenged.
So what I want you to know is that you can actually give and totally miss the boat. See, stewardship is not an obligation to fulfill. but an opportunity to seize.
Now, from a strict theological standpoint, it certainly is an obligation, and we're going to learn why, because of who actually owns what's been entrusted to us. But what I find is that. When I hear the word generosity, I think of adventure, I think of joy, I think of something winsome. When I see generous people, I want to hang out with them. They're the kind of people that, you know, life's exciting.
When I hear the word stewardship, Are you a good steward? That word has a lot of emotional baggage with it. I've heard a lot of sumerans that as soon as people start talking about stewardship, It feels heavy. Like, you're spending too much. You're not giving enough.
You could be doing more. You don't measure up. And that sounds like getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick. And what I think is, we've got a lot of misperceptions about stewardship and what the meaning of it is, because it's a beautiful word, too. I learned about stewardship from John Saville.
He was that mid-70s man, and I was a 28-year-old young pastor. And he brought me down to his office, and he owned this company, CPA. Firm down in downtown Dallas, and if you remember, he gave me this checkbook and it said Pastor's Discretionary Fund, and he put $5,000 in it. And for five years, I put that in my back pocket every morning, and I walked around, and my only goal was to figure out who had a need that John Saville. Wanted to meet, and I was his steward.
It was his money, and all I just played Santa Claus for five years. I mean, way better than Santa Claus. It was God. loving and caring and you know writing a check to get a bus ticket back for some young runaway teen or writing a check that someone gets their electric bill paid or an elderly couple that had their house inf infested with all these rodents and Time after time after time. And then I would go down and have a lunch, and then we would laugh, and John would lean back and go, Praise the Lord, and I would be embarrassed.
And I was a steward, and it was a blast. It was an adventure. And what I want you to understand is when We start talking about the smartness or the genius of generosity. It's having the same attitude with what God's given you that I had with John Saville. It wasn't my money.
I wasn't uptight about where it went. I mean, I had to give an account for it. And I wanted to make him happy. And we did become best friends. But I mean when I gave it away, I wasn't worried like I'm not going to eat today or not.
It's his money. And every time after we would meet, it was an amazing thing, I'd get a bank statement and he would just fill it back up.
So what you need to see, here's the bright idea. The bright idea is stewardship is the path. That's a path. We are stewards and we'll talk about it and why. But generosity is the adventure.
Generosity is a whole new way of living, and it's way beyond money, and it's even way beyond your time, and way beyond your talents. It's like this winsome, amazing adventure where you start walking around with this breakthrough concept. Everything I have. is a gift to me from God and I'm his money manager. It's like my life is like a checkbook and God fills it.
And He's given me time and talent and brains and opportunity and people and friends and every single thing I have is a gift from Him. And what he wants me to do is spend it or invest it or use it in a way that pleases him. And as we do, we become best friends. And as we do, I get the joy of watching his resources flow through me and loving people. That's the breakthrough concept, the genius behind the in-depth relationship I enjoyed with John Saville.
It's what God wants for you and me and every single follower of Christ on the face of the earth. We'll hear more from Chip Ingram's message in just a moment. First, we invite you to multiply your year in support of Living on the Edge through an exciting match that's active through December 31st. Every gift is matched. Every dollar multiplied by two.
Every investment maximized for kingdom impact. Double the impact of your gift at livingontheedge.org. From his series called The Genius of Generosity, again our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram.
Now what I learned Even when I was giving 30% of my lavish income that I was getting. is that I didn't believe God owned it all. That's when life really changes. See, I was giving thinking it's mine, and I'm better than people because look how much I'm giving.
Well, wait a second. If 100% of it is God's and God says, I'd like 30% of it, or 22% of it, or 9% of it, or 100%. Percent of it, it's his, right?
So you don't get any brownie points for just giving it where he says to give it. But when you begin to understand 100%, not just of your money, but all that you are and all that you have is his. It completely changes. Instead of him having to pry it out of your hands, And you feeling all this anxiety and being uptight about this and about that and how you're going to do it. The guilt.
All of a sudden you realize, wait a second, this is yours. Where do you want your time to go today, Lord? Where do you want the money entrusted to me? Where do you want these relationships to go? How do you...
In fact, notice what the scripture says. I actually put them right in your notes. It says: the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. Do you live in the world?
So You're the Lord. It says the world and all who live in it. Later in Haggai he goes, Silver is mine and gold is mine, declares the Lord Almighty. Deuteronomy 8: Remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth. I mean, it's almost like God was thinking that some of us would be saying, well, yeah, you might say it's all yours, but I worked really hard for it.
And he goes, yeah, well, who gave you the brains, the talent, and the opportunity? Oh yeah, that's right. Thanks. Even your body, it says, you are not your own, you were bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:19 and 20.
The summary here is what I call: this is the principle that has secret power. I call it the oi kanamiya. principle. Oikao is a Greek word for house. You can almost hear the word, we get our word for economy.
Literally, the word has to do with being a steward. It's translated to being a guardian. It's translated of being a manager. It's the picture, if you remember in the Old Testament, Joseph. We're in Potiphar's house.
He put him over everything. He put him over his household workers. He put him over his money. He put him over his crops. The only thing Potiphar said would say, you know, I'm married, you take care of everything else, I entrust it to you.
That's this word. And the Oikonomia principle simply stated is: all that we are and all that we have belongs to God. And he is temporarily entrusted to us. to manage according to his wishes. That's a big thing to swallow.
I mean, think about if you actually, if that went from an intellectual, I don't even know if I agree with it, to an intellectual, I agree with it, to a. I really believe this is true.
Now can you imagine what that would do? Everything I have and everything I am belongs to God. And he's temporarily entrusted it to you. to spend, invest according to his wishes. With the promise that he loves you and he's good and he's kind.
And what he really wants is to Work in you and through you as he directs those things so you accomplish his purposes. This phrase or this word or this concept of the oikonomia principle is way, way beyond. Money. Notice in Psalm 90 our time. is a gift from God.
If you're married, our spouse... is a gift from the Lord. your property in Luke 16. is a gift from God. Your spiritual gifts say they're given by grace.
They've been entrusted to you, they're a gift from God. God's truth. It says the gospel itself is a mystery entrusted to us. people in your life. Acts chapter 20.
God gives people in your life that they're entrusted to you, they're a gift.
Some of them, they're a gift that you watch over them and you're responsible for, and others, they're people that. They're just a gift that he wants to enrich your life. But you steward friendships and you steward people. Every good and perfect gift, everything you have, just in case we missed something, James 1.17, every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of lights, with whom there's no variation or shifting shadow. Every good thing that ever comes into my life, the hand of God is behind it to express His love and concern for you, and even your physical body.
I mean, one of the strongest motivations for whether it's right eating or exercise or what you put in your mind is that you're not your own, you've been bought with a price.
So, this isn't your body that you're deciding what to do with. This is God's body who says, now, will you take good care of it? Because I have a great plan for you. And so at the heart of it, notice the passage there at the bottom, 1 Corinthians 4, 1 and 2, here's the responsibility of a manager or of a steward. Let a man regard us, the Apostle Paul says in this manner, as servants of Christ and, here's our word, stewards of the mysteries of God.
And then in the next verse, he gives the number one. Priority with God of a steward. In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found. Say it out loud with me. trustworthy.
Circle it in your notes, will you? This is the issue. This is the issue in your life. God has given you time and talent and people and money and opportunity and leadership. You live in a time of history that is, I mean, pregnant with possibilities.
And he decided from eternity past to place you and me at this time, in this place, with this group of people, with what you have. And he's got a plan for you. And what he wants you to do is say, Lord, I want to fulfill that plan entrusted to me. I want to be found trustworthy. I want to spend my time, my money.
In a way that I realize it's really not mine. It's your time. It's your money. It's your opportunity. And I want to honor you in it.
And here's the thing: as we do that, God's promise is He's a heavenly Father. He wants the very best for you. And so the real issue when it comes to this. The real issue is not stuff. The real issue is not what percentage.
Dereau issues trust. I mean at the end of the day I mean, if I would have gone into my friend John Saville and pulled out the checkbook and said, hey, John, I had a great time spending your money.
Well, how much is left? I don't know. Where did you spend it? You know, I really didn't keep track of it this time. I don't know.
I got a real strong feeling that when I left that lunch, my checkbook was not getting filled up again, right? Why? The wisest venture capitalist in all the universe. is the God of all eternity. The reason some of us don't have opportunities, the reason some of us have relationships that break down, the reason some of us are not experiencing even financially all the things God wants for us is: you know what?
We're not faithful. with what he's given us. And you're a parent, right? You have one of your kids, they wreck the car three times, do you give them the keys to the next car or not? No.
Why? Because they've already demonstrated. Until they demonstrate they can be faithful with what you gave them here, you're not going to entrust them with. And so here's the question for believers, for followers of Christ. Can God trust you?
That's a convicting question, isn't it? Can God trust you? Can God trust me? This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip is presenting a practical teaching series called The Genius of Generosity.
We're glad that you've set aside time to join us for today's teaching, even on Christmas Day. It's a good sign that you're committed to understanding the Bible and applying its wisdom to your daily life. In fact, after 30 years of sharing Living on the Edge, we've discovered that our listeners are learners. When today's culture seems divided, there's a growing hunger for knowing the truth about God and His Word. Chip?
Thanks so much, Dave. You know, I'm so excited because we're seeing something happen all across the country. More and more Christians are hungry for something deeper. They're tired of skimming the surface and they want to really understand God's Word. They've tasted enough faith to know there's something more substantial and available and they're really ready to go deeper.
And Living on the Edge comes alongside believers like this in those critical moments when they're ready to, I mean, move from like being that casual Christian to really get serious with the Lord. And I just have to tell you, it is so exciting. I get emails and letters. I mean, thousands of people who say, you know, I kind of heard a lot about God and I caught your program. I was driving across the country or someone sent me a podcast.
and I heard the message about surrender. And you know what? I've been a Christian for 20 years. And I realized what God really wanted was me. And they talk about this moment of saying to God, I'm all in.
And then they begin to experience power. and a life change. And then just say thank you so much. And I just have to tell you, I think it's a message that, I mean, when Jesus said follow me, the indication was we would walk with him and do what he does and follow him. And where did he go?
To the cross. And you know something? Until we die, you don't experience resurrection. You don't become that person that has answers to prayers and God really moves. And what I want you to know is that Living on the Edge is about helping people come to the point and learn that surrender is the channel through which God's biggest blessings flow.
That we take up our cross, we follow Him, and it's worth it. And thousands upon ten thousands of lives over the last 30 years have experienced that message, met their Lord, seen their lives transformed. And that need is greater today than ever before. When you give to this match, you're propelling the message of discipleship to God's people at a time when they desperately need it, especially all those young people coming to Christ.
So as you pray and think about this match, Would you join? Would you get on board? When you give, your gift is doubled. But Far more important, your impact is doubled. Let's make a difference together.
Thank you, Chip. Several friends of Living on the Edge have banded together with this incredible match opportunity in order to inspire people like you to give as well. And when you do, your contribution will be doubled in size, and it'll have twice the impact because of the match. Because of the match, your gift of $100 becomes $200. A generous gift of $250 becomes $500.
But the deadline for receiving your support is midnight, December 31st. To give right now, go to livingonthege.org. To send a check in the mail, write to LivingOnthege, PO Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia, 30024. One more time, that's P.O. Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia, 30024.
Here's our phone number again, 888-333-6003, or give online at livingontheedge.org. How do we avoid a post-holiday funk that sometimes follows Christmas Day?
Well, I'm Dave Druy. Chip Ingram provides a time-tested solution from the Bible, tomorrow on Living on the Edge. Wow. Oh.
