Today I'm Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Do you find yourself struggling to walk with God? Amidst all the pressure that you're facing today, do you understand what it means to be strong in the grace of God? Today we'll learn what that looks like and why it's so important. Stay with me.
The culture tells us to hustle harder, stay busier, and keep scrolling. But Paul had a completely different word for Timothy when he wrote 2 Timothy chapter 2, be strong in grace. I'm Dave Druy, and this is Living on the Edge. We're in a series called You Can Make Disciples, Personal Coaching from the Apostle Paul. And today, Chip Ingram clarifies what finding strength in God's grace really means in a message titled, Be Strong, Don't Be Distracted.
And let me remind you that all of these Bible teachings can be found or shared online at livingonthege.org.
Well now here's Chip with today's message. The big question I think as we open chapter two, I put on the top of your notes, how can a person remain true to their calling? to their Lord and to His word. in a hostile anti-Christian culture. while dealing with our own personal inadequacies and problems.
It's a long sentence, but I I think The parallels in our day are very similar, don't you? I mean, in the world that we're living in, all the chaos, all the uncertainty. I mean You can stick your head in the sand and stay glued to Netflix or whatever your favorite thing is and try and find a gated community to separate from all that's happening. But if you come up for air, you're living in one of the most historic times in human history. And we've been here before.
And God has always taken a portion of his church that's in tune. They grasp what's going on that don't get distracted, that don't get pulled into secondary things. And they step up and they do what followers of Jesus has always done. They live the truth, they share the truth. They love people that are like them.
They love people that aren't like them. And they're counterculture, and they're countercultural usually, unfortunately, inside the church as much as outside the church. Notice at the end of chapter one. He gives a couple illustrations. He names two people and he says, You know what?
Don't be like them. They drifted. Under pressure. And then he says, you know that slave? when everyone else was afraid, that converted slave He searched all over Rome.
And he found me. And he wasn't concerned what the implications would be. And so he's giving Timothy, he's given him this truth, and then he says, here's a negative example, here's a positive example, and look at your text. What's the very first word of chapter 2? He's put you in the emphatic position.
You. Timothy, I've talked about these two. You therefore My son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things which you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful people who will be able to teach others also. And then he comes back to his theme.
Suffer hardship with me as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. And then he gives, in your notes, I talk about three metaphors, and just for the sake of all the English teachers, I understand their similes. Right. When you use like or as, it's a simile. There's a lot of us that didn't know what a simile was, so I said metaphors.
No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life so that he may please the one who enlisted him. And if someone likewise competes as an athlete, He's not crowned as a victor unless he competes according to the rules. And the hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops. Consider, ponder, reflect. That's the idea.
What I say, for the Lord will give you understanding. in everything. Remember Christ Jesus, risen from the dead, descendant of David, according to my gospel, for which I suffer hardship. to imprisonment as a criminal. But the Word of God is not imprisoned.
For this reason, I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. and with it eternal glory. And then he goes and talks about this is a trustworthy statement. Here's what I want to do. The first section here is Paul talking to this young pastor about his personal life.
After he gets done with this personal life, the second section he's going to shift and say, now, this is your responsibility in terms of your teaching and what you do in the church. And so when I went through and I studied this, I thought, okay, you therefore. I think we skip over the first line. Be strong. That's in the grace.
Of the Lord Jesus Christ. Anybody remember where that, you know, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might, where that comes up somewhere else? Yeah, Ephesians. It's about spiritual warfare. See, what he's saying is, Timothy, I just gave you a challenge.
I invited you to suffer with me, and the whole world is falling apart around you. It's illegal to be a Christian. I'm going to get killed, and I'm asking you to follow in my footsteps. And so the first thing isn't buck up, get more committed, make it happen. You can do it.
This isn't a pep talk. This is, therefore, you be strong in the grace, the favor of God. That provides supernatural power. That allows you to do what he wants you to do and become who he wants you to become, that is impossible out of your own self-effort. And so I uh I sort of outlined this with if I was uh kind of thinking of receiving this.
Paul's action plan for Timothy and for us to be strong in difficult times. Number one, Make abiding in Christ your number one priority every day. If the if the enemy can't get you. to just willfully sin and rebel. He will distract you and occupy your mind with such trivia.
That you will not abide in Christ. And so I think that the application, if there's one verse for me, it's Proverbs 4, 23. It's the core of your being. Watch over your heart with all diligence. for from it flow the issues of life.
and your heart is always determined by your diet. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of the evil treasure. For that which The mouth speaks is that which comes out of the heart. The mind set on the flesh is death. The mind set on the spirit is life and peace.
Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth, where your life is hidden with Christ in God. And so, all I want to say is, I think for Timothy, the first thing is, Timothy. You need God's grace.
So seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all those things that you're tempted to worry about, he's going to take care of. Second, is make personally investing in fat people Your Number two priority. And that was not, you know, about size or weight. F was for faithful, A was for available, and T was for teachable.
You don't spend your time Equally, you spend your time, you help everyone. Train a few.
Now, the ones that are inside your house, if they're not fat, you help them become fat. Yeah. Um And what I would encourage you here is Is rather than sometimes we hear about discipleship and we get this idea that I'm going to start doing all these things out there, as opposed to ask, what are the rhythms of your life? Who can you take a walk with and share what's happening in your life? Who becomes a workout partner?
Who are some people you grab coffee with? There's always people near your world that are spiritually hungry. There's some spiritually hungry people that aren't even believers. But they're looking, they're asking.
So, who are the spiritually hungry people, and how do you invite them into your life? And here's the deal. It's a huge commitment. Because when I said the danger and deception of distractions, we all have a rhythm.
Some of your rhythm, and please don't take this stop doing this or start doing that. You just have a rhythm like you watch the news every night. Or you know what, on Saturdays you watch this football game and that football game, or you're a lady and you always go and do these things. And at some point you have to stop and say, are those rhythms producing the outcome of my life that I want? I was 28 years old.
And my entire life changed. When I had three kids, I was in school, in seminary, and I met with Prof. Hendrix. And he rearranged my focus. And I remember writing down the kind of person I wanted to be, the kind of pastor, the kind of dad, the kind of husband.
And I literally wrote it down. And he said, if it's not in your schedule, it'll never be in your life.
So I put it in my schedule. And when I looked at it, I didn't have time to do anything else. And I thought, that's impossible. And I remember asking God for help. And we did an experiment in our house.
My kids were, you know. Younger. And we just decided for a couple of weeks what would it be like to not turn on the T V during the week.
Well, it was great for my kids, but it was killing me. I mean You can't go to bed until you've watched the news. and heard the monologue, right? When I grew up, my parents, you watch the news, Johnny Carson, and then you go to bed.
So that means you go to bed at 11 or 11:30, and then, you know, you get up at 6:30, 7, whatever.
Well, I mean after like four or five six Nice. You know, my kids are young. Hey, we've sung, we've read, we've prayed, we've shot basketball. It's 8.30. You know, my wife's an early to bedder, I mean, like, really early to bedders, like it's 9 o'clock, and I'm going.
I mean, you can only read so much, right? You know, so. Oh, what the heck? I guess I'll go to bed.
So I go to bed at 9 or 9.30. I'll wake up at 5 or 5 30. I just bought two hours. It was like, oh.
So I I I started to do all the things that only I could do early, and then I applied that to Kind of my work and said, you know, before I have meetings, like even now, I have a green zone, 5 a.m. to 10 a.m. I don't open my email, I don't talk to people. If there's an emergency and someone texts me, great. But from five to ten, what I know is That's when I'm going to accomplish the most.
I can have meetings and relationships other times. Here's all I'm saying. If you're going to invest in people and you're going to abide in Christ, we feel like we don't have the time. Just all I'm saying is Don't, you know, some of you will go, oh, does that mean I can't watch football games? No, no, no, no.
What it means is, what if you looked at where your time is going and where your relationships were and said, My first priority is abiding in Christ, and number two is I'm going to personally invest. I'm going to make my life one where I reproduce my life. Face on face, person on person, life on life. People's lives change when you're with people. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.
Chip will be right back. But first, if you've been wanting to dig deeper into these Bible teachings, our YouTube channel is a great place to start. You'll find video teaching series on important matters like trusting Jesus no matter what, and content that goes beyond what you hear on the radio. Just search Living on the Edge on YouTube. And when you find us, hit subscribe so you never miss a new upload.
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Now back to our message. Notice then he he goes on. He says, develop a never-give-up attitude by actively meditating on three specific metaphors, and we read them. The first one I believe is the singular focus of a soldier. Why would he use that term?
First of all, the focus of a soldier, it's a battleground. Guarding what goes into your mind. not getting distracted. Not getting distracted by, we'll develop it a bit later. Secondary things.
Important, but they're secondary. Second, the continual discipline of a victorious athlete. He uses the word for a crown. There's a couple words in the New Testament for a crown. One is for like for a king, and the other was a wreath if you were a victorious athlete.
And he uses that. It's running a race, it's discipline. When you competed in the Olympic Games at that time, you would often have to go for a year or two years and you would go into a closed training. And if you didn't show up for that training, you couldn't compete. And so what he's saying is We have to go into training.
Outline that God wants for us in terms of our life, where we have to discipline ourselves. to combat what we're all struggling with, right? I'm lazy. Left to myself. When I when I feel a little bit blue, You know what?
Some crackers. NFL game? Not Coke.
Some cheddar cheese. Put my feet up. And then at halftime, some popcorn. Third quarter piece of pizza. And then I find myself, you know, like, well, you know, during the commercials I get bored, so I flip to something else, and then during that, I flip to something else, and then I flip to something else, and you know, why?
Because well, I got tired, and when I'm tired, I'm vulnerable, and so I just want some relief. I'm the only one, right, who does any of this.
Now just stop looking at me that way. And then I find myself watching something that I'm kind of numb. Then I stay up later than I wanted to. Then I have a hard time getting up. And then instead of feeling refreshed and invigorated and focused, I feel lethargic.
And it's not just football. Right, what's yours? He says no. You need to be like that athlete. We're all we're all tempted But you have to be disciplined.
what you do, what you think, who you're with. And then I love the last metaphor, simile. is the patient perspective of the farmer to combat discouragement. What a farmer knows is you never reap in the same season that you sow, right? See, some of us are going to get really fired up and we're going to say, I'm going to start.
really growing and discipling at a new level, and you do it for about two weeks and you're not going to see a lot of change, then you'll think, oh, what the heck. That's like a farmer going and saying, boy, we need corn this year. And he puts some corn seed and sticks it in there. Comes back in two weeks, I guess it doesn't work. Or comes back in a month and there's one little tiny sprig.
Or it comes back, you know, like in Two and a half months, and it's up to here, and it looks good, but there's just these little things on it. See, the hard-working farmer understands. Perseverance. Patience. Endurance.
Christian life isn't for wimps. It's a hostile culture. We're not on a cruise ship. Jesus is, you know, it's a fallen world. The idea is not how's everything going to work out for your life or my life.
The thing is, there's this incredible joy and purpose and focus as you walk with God. See, I think the pendulum is way over here. I'm pushing over here. And my wife would say, Chip, you know, I think you need to lighten up a little bit, and we need to enjoy ourselves, and there's refreshing things, and there's wonderful gifts from God, and it's important to take vacation. And I'm, yeah.
I believe all that. And I do that. But I'm in front of a group of people in a culture that basically has so far overhear. that I feel like we need to go back and say in the world that we're living in, We need the kind of Christians that say, I'm in a battle and I'm going to be a soldier who's focused and I'm not going to get distracted with secondary things. I'm in a race and I'm in a race that, you know, I've got all eternity to enjoy a lot of stuff.
But in this little thing called time, I'm going to discipline myself, my body, my emotions, my relationships in a way that. As we'll learn a little bit later, I'm a vessel of honor. I'm someone that God used. And here's the thing: the byproduct of all of that will be the kind of peace and the kind of joy and the rich relationships and the satisfaction. that we thought pleasure.
or having more. or going to this place or that place would deliver. And so he says, Timothy. I want you to ponder these. It takes practice, it takes persistence, it takes a partner.
I don't think anyone can do this alone. You need people in your life that say, I will do life like that with you. And so the application is this question, where do you struggle? And how does verse 1 and 2 apply to you? How's it apply to you?
And all I want you to know is we all struggle. We never arrive, but we make great progress. And then he shifts, and it's almost like a battle cry. It's remember, remember, remember who Jesus really is and what he's really done. We read it.
What's it say? Remember Christ risen from the dead. Divinity Son of David. Humanity. according to my gospel.
I was thinking about this, and you know, sometimes I unconsciously think of Jesus as, oh, like the author of this book. Or the Jesus that lived back then and did all these things. You know what he's saying is? Stop it! He's alive right now.
At this moment. Remember, Jesus resurrected from the dead, sitting at the right hand of the Father. He's praying for you, He's praying for me right now. He's sovereignly orchestrating His plan in all of history, and He loves you, and He's available, and He's for you, and His Spirit lives in you, manifesting the personality and the presence of Jesus with all the power that raised Him from the dead dwelling in you. Remember that.
Remember that. That's what he's saying. This isn't like all the Jesus that used to live, and I know he's done these things and these doctrines and these truths. Remember, he's alive. And I'll read it.
And remember, he was human. He was tempted in all ways like you. He understands when you blow it, when you're not disciplined, when you're impatient, when you struggle, when you log on to a site, when you eat too much, when you have lustful thoughts. He understands. And he's forgiven us and he loves us.
And we're apprentices. That's what a follower is. We follow an apprenticeship to Jesus. And every apprentice, when you're learning something, what? You stumble.
I love Psalm 37. It says uh If the Lord delights in a man, the Lord delights in a woman. when he stumbles. Or when she stumbles, you will not fall. For the Lord will hold you by his hand.
And to remember it. That you're not performing for a God whose arms are crossed, whose toes tapping, and saying, Why don't you get with the program? It's a risen Savior. Who says, I've given you all that you need. My arms around you.
Hey. Together. Let's walk together. Let me show you what I've created you to do. Don't compare yourself with anyone else.
I've gifted you. I put you in this family, in this season of life, in this season of human history. And I'm going to use, open this book. I just use ordinary people. There are no superstars.
There really aren't. But what I want you to do is I want you to remember. That I'm alive. and I'm powerful. and that I love you and that I'm for you.
Remember the person of Jesus, verse 8. Remember the power of God's word. Verse 9, for which I suffer Hardship and imprisonment as a criminal. He's picturing being chained, but the Word of God is not imprisoned. The same power, the power is not in the messengers, the power is in the message.
When the weakest person takes the message, there's power. For the gospel is the power of God and salvation.
So you remember that, you remember the eternal implications. of those who taught you. He says, For this reason, I endure things for the sake of those who are chosen.
so that they may obtain salvation. In other words, there's significance on the line. I don't understand how it all works. I know that we need to believe and trust God, and I know God chooses, and I know He's sovereign. I know we're responsible.
And how those things fit together. This was written long before Calvin wrote his Institutes or Jacob Arminius tried to say, hey, I think you got a little off. You've been listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and a message called Be Strong, Don't Be Distracted from his series, You Can Make Disciples, Personal Coaching from the Apostle Paul. These daily messages are available anytime on the Living on the Edge podcast, a great way to go deeper or share a lesson with someone you're investing in. And for the complete uncut sermon, the Chip Ingram Sermon Podcast is free and available anywhere you listen.
Paul's call to Timothy was simple and demanding all at once. Be strong, not in yourself, but in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And then pour that into others. That inside-out, life-on-life process of growth is what Chip's book, Yes, You Really Can Change, is all about. Understanding how the Spirit of God works in us to produce the kind of lasting change that effort alone never could.
And right now, to help implement what this study is all about, we're including a second copy of Chip's book with every purchase, so you can get one for yourself and then one to share with someone you know to work through it together. Order right now by going to livingontheedge.org slash offers. For over 30 years, this ministry has stayed on the air because faithful listeners decided the teaching was worth supporting. If you'd like to join them, give online today at livingonthege.org or call 888-333-6003. And you can send your gift by mail, addressed to LivingOnTheEdge, P.O.
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Well, now here's Chip with a final challenge. As we close today's program, I know this issue of distraction is a big one for you and me. and I could give you 150 practical things about your phone and less T V and less movies and all the rest. but I think a big Yes is more important than all those no's. Do you want to hear from God?
Do you want direction for your life Do you want to hear the promptings of the Holy Spirit that when you don't know what to do in a relationship, in a situation, or something at work? God is closer than you think. But you have to make room for him. Consider carefully what could you do to limit your phone time. your TV time.
But more importantly, how could you enlarge your God time? to take a walk, to think, to pray. and then to listen. The Lord wants to speak to you. Make room for him to speak.
Thank you, Chip. I'm Dave Drewy. And when we come back next time, Chip Ingram continues in 2 Timothy 2 and unpacks what it means to be a vessel of honor. That's coming up next time on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.
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