Today I'm Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. When was the last time you pondered? what it will be like to stand before the judgment seat of Christ. and be evaluated for your whole life. Today, we'll learn how each one of us can give a good account of our lives.
You don't want to miss it. Stay with me. How you invest your days is not a small thing. The Apostle Paul understood that not as a theological concept, but as a man who was running out of time. From a Roman prison with everything on the line, he wrote some of the most urgent words of his life to the young pastor Timothy.
What he said is direct, specific, and aimed at everyone who wants their life to count. I'm Dave Druy, and here on Living on the Edge, we're nearing the end of a series called You Can Make Disciples: Personal Coaching from the Apostle Paul.
Now let's get started with today's message from Chip Ingram titled, Be Faithful, Don't Shrink Back.
Well, if you have your uh Notes open. The uh The command of Jesus Hasn't changed? Go into all the world and make disciples.
Now we have this sacred document of the Apostle Paul. In his final writings at least that we have record of. And he says to a young pastor, you need to be bold, don't be ashamed. You need to be strong in the grace of God. Don't get distracted.
You need to be prepared. Don't be surprised. And then finally, he's going to say, you need to be faithful. Don't Shrink back. And in the introduction, I said the insidious power of wanting to be accepted by the crowd.
One of the most powerful things that keep you and keep me from doing and fulfilling all God wants us to do is the insidious power. of wanting to be accepted by the crowd. Here's the deal. From the time of Solomon to now, it's been true: the fear of man is a snare. But blessed is he who trusts in the Lord.
Proverbs 29, 25.
So, what's the antidote to peer pressure? The Apostle Paul knows the greatest antidote to peer pressure is God pressure. And so as you open your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter 4, Notice how he opens. I solemnly charge you. In the presence of God.
And of Christ Jesus, who is the judge. of the living and the dead, and by his peering. and his kingdom. Preach. The word.
Second command, be ready in season and out of season. To do what? To correct. to rebuke to exhort.
Well, that's what you're to do.
Well, how do you do it? Do it with great patience. and instruction. Let's do a little work together on this passage.
So he says, I want you to, the word for preach is to be a herald. I want you to proclaim. This is Timothy. I want you to tell people what the truth is. In fact, as he'll go on, he'll talk a little bit later because people will wander from the truth.
He'll say, I want you to give them sound doctrine. And then he's going to tell them, in your declaration of the truth of God. It's more than just Bible stories. It's more than interesting illustrations. It's more than keeping people's attention.
It's more than helping them live better moral lives and being kinder neighbors. I want you to take the great doctrines of the church and I want you to explain them and declare them and apply them. And here's how it works: I want you to preach the word of God, not your opinions. And then I want you to do it in such a way where it convicts. Where it cuts to the heart.
Where it helps people to see who they are before God. Where they see where this is the truth and this is where they don't measure up. And then I want you to go beyond that because after you do that, you're going to see that some people respond very positively and some people don't. And then I want you to rebuke. It literally means to censure.
This is like saying, We're teaching this is what your priorities are. This is what God says about our money and our possessions and our stewardship. This is what He says about our mental life and our sexuality. And you teach that truth because every command, listen carefully, every command of God in Scripture is for your good. This is how God tells me to do relationships.
Humility. Other-centeredness. Concern for others. caring. sacrificial.
This is how you do your finances. It doesn't belong to me. generosity, Stewardship. kindness. Helping this is how you deal with your enemies.
Don't respond with evil to evil, but good for evil. Pray for those who persecute you. I mean, this is like wacky stuff. He's saying that's the truth. The point behind it is when you follow the pattern.
As you read through the Proverbs, look at the path. the pattern, the way. There's a path. And that's how you experience the very best from God. He came that you might have life, you might have it abundantly, but you don't have abundant life unless you're on the path with Jesus.
Remember what he said? Follow me. He didn't say preach What I did He says, I want you to actually do what I did as well as preach and tell people about my life. I have this word picture that It really helped me. I was a very, very slow learner.
As a new believer, I was thoroughly. God radically changed my life, but I. Within three months I went away to school and it was Bible study on Thursday night and hanging out in the bars and stuff with the basketball team on Friday and Saturday. and desperately trying to get up to go to church and making it about once a month, feeling very, very guilty, telling God I'll never do that again, only to do the same things over and over and over and over and over and being just totally frustrated. and living a double life.
I didn't know much, so I just kept reading through the New Testament. I couldn't understand the other part. But I got to the part at the end where it says: His commandments are not grievous unto us. In 1 John, and I thought, I don't know about you, but they're really grievous to me. I just thought, I think this guy's on drugs.
Or he knows a different Jesus than me. Actually, you know, there's four girls to every guy, and I'm to be sexually pure, and I'm committed to doing that, and that's grievous. Everyone else is sleeping around. It says, I'm supposed to. It was so hard to be a Christian.
And I had this picture of I'm on this side, there's all these commands, and I can't keep them, and I'm in this tug of war with God. And I'll never forget. I can't remember how at all. I think there was a, I memorized a passage somewhere about. His obedience.
Obey in order that you might receive God's best out of the Old Testament. And I had this picture of this chalet up in the mountains, this beautiful overlooking, and there was great food and great joy and great relationships. And I was at the bottom of one of those mountains where you go the hairpin turns and you get to the edge and you fall over a thousand feet. And I remember God gave me this picture of... You know what, this chalet, this is the life.
This is where you have an accurate view of yourself, where there's deep and rich relationships, where your deepest desires are fulfilled with people and life and purpose and career. And this is, you're on this journey and it's this winding road. And Chip, if you go off the road, you can drop a thousand feet and it really hurts.
So what I did is I put guardrails all the way around that curvy road. And those guardrails are my commandments. And the whole point of the guardrails are when you bump into them, you're aware, and I convict you, not because I'm mad at you, but to stay on the road, because I love you so much, I want you to get my best. He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not freely give us all things? Romans 8.32.
And I remember the transition that happened when it wasn't like. It was always about rules and stop doing this or start doing that, or you're supposed to read your Bible more, or stop lusting, or stop doing this. And all of a sudden, it was like, oh.
So there's this way better life. And these commandments, that's why they're not grievous. And so, the teaching of God's Word that you need to put yourself under. Is the teaching that is not just making you feel good or not just nice stories? You know what?
There's nothing wrong with a sermon that makes you feel good, and I would hope there's some nice stories. And I've said this, I've studied how churches grow all over the world. It's been a hobby. And I mean, different countries, if they've written a book on it, I've probably read about 90% of them. I'm just fascinated by.
How does God grow churches wide, grow deep, and impact their community? I called it the high-impact church. And I don't mean this arrogantly. You give me a hot band and a motivational speaker, I can grow a church without God to 5,000 or 10,000 people. There's sociological issues, there's certain things that you do, there's ways that you change in terms of your leadership structure.
Now There are churches of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000 that are very godly, very deep, and really teach God's word, but I never evaluate. healthy church or impactful church based on the size, large or small. A high-impact church sees lost people coming to Christ regularly, systematically. It sees found people's lives actually changing, maturing, and investing their lives in others. And it's a church that sees the deepest needs in their community and realizes the gifts in this church were here in this community to help these people like never before.
So, if Jesus jerked your church out of that community, the city council, what are we going to do about the poor? What are we going to do about helping out the schools? What were we going to do with the teenagers that run away? What do we do about the drug problem? Because that church.
That church was engaged and involved. They were one of our right arms. All the social services, by the way, that we have today. all the things mostly the government does. You ought to read a book called Bullies and Saints by John Dixon.
It's really thick. I listen to it on Audible because really thick books put me to sleep. But he does an overview of the church when the church was. Most saintly and made the greatest impact. Hospitals were started by the church.
The dark ages weren't dark at all. We preserved scriptures, we preserved the greatest writings of Philo, Socrates, Plato, the seasons of the Crusades and the Inquisition. He shows the ugliness. and the beauty of the church throughout the centuries. And what I want you to know is that God always finds this remnant of people, and the church is constantly self-correcting.
Goodbye. We'll be right back with more from Chip Ingram here on Living on the Edge. If you want to see Chip teach, not just hear him, the Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram YouTube channel has the full video experience, complete series, on-screen message notes, and content you won't get to see anywhere else. It's a great way to share a message with someone who prefers video.
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Now back to the message. And I think people with the sincerest of motives said, you know, most churches aren't reaching lost people. Why don't we figure out how to maybe change some of our services to make it more attractive to lost people? Great intention. We needed to be more sensitive to the culture.
But over time, what happened is instead of the church shaping the culture, the culture shaped the church, we fell in. And we started using the same metrics. We weren't measuring disciples. We were measuring how many people showed up. I've been the pastor of a couple very, very big mega, mega churches.
I had a hot band. I teach God's word and I'm inspiring and motivating. And I'll never forget when Columbine happened. And it was a jolt to the country. And I remember thinking, how in the world can something like that happen?
And I asked, Of our most dynamic ministries was fifth and sixth graders, and asked this couple. I mean, it was like, you know, the high school has three or four hundred people, and this group has this, and this, and we felt like we were being very successful. And don't get me wrong, I just wondered: what is the diet like in our church? I mean, I'm the pastor. At least one of them.
And so we did a little survey. And of course, you know, fifth and sixth graders, they're like honest. And you know, they listed the kind of movies and kind of things that are 15. These are Christian families. I mean, some of it was just vile.
And I just thought, oh my, we are measuring some of the wrong stuff. And so sometimes when you really want to Rebuke people, you kind of have to come in the side door because when you come in the front door, they could get really. upset.
So I'll never forget this. I got there the next week, and people were concerned. What are we doing with our kids? What's happening in the culture? I mean, think of how long ago this was.
And so I often had what I called family time. Before I would preach, I'd come out and sit on a stool and just talk about kind of where we're at. Here's our vision, or here's the struggle. And so I said, we need to have a little family time because something's happened. And so I tried to come in the side door.
I said, hey, I just need to talk with you all because. there's something that's occurred that is is i mean crazy and it's kind of scary We've done a recent survey and I just need to tell some of you parents. Your fifth and sixth graders are getting up in the middle of the night. And they're sneaking out of your house. I don't know how they do it, but they're getting in your car.
They're driving old remember they're driving to blockbuster They're actually I mean they are renting movies that I'm sure you would never let them watch. And then they're coming and they're watching him till the middle of the night and then they drive back. And they put him at Blockbuster. and their values and what's happening in their life right under your roof. And I just felt like I should make you aware of that.
And I remember we pushed the pause button. And we said, you know, we're going to measure what kind of Christians are leaving our church, not how many people show up. And it started us on a on a On a journey, and you had to repent. And we still did it very imperfectly. But for the last at least 25 years, My passion has been to help Christians live like Christians and pastors measure.
The quality and the health of the ministry by: Are you preaching the word in a way that convicts? Rebukes and then don't miss this. and exhorts. The word means to encourage. It's para kaleo.
Para alongside kaleo to call.
So he says, Timothy, here's what you need to do, man. It's a crazy world. You got to suffer. It's evil now, you know. It's not going to get any better.
But here's what you do: you, in the midst of this, you teach God's word. This is true. All have fallen and short of the grace of God. Christ came and died in our place as our substitute. He has risen from the grave.
There is a heaven, there is a hell. Jesus is coming back. He has paid the price for all mankind. And whosoever would put their trust in him can have eternal life. And it begins right now.
That's the message, Timothy. And then this is how you walk and are sanctified by the Spirit and the Word of God in the context of community so that we're lights. We hold forth the light of God's word in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. Preach it, son. You know what we pastors are afraid of?
We don't like talking about things that we know we're going to get rejected on. The fear of man is a snare. I can't tell you how many sermons it's been like, oh God. Do you really want me to say this? I remember One guy, the very first church too, he was very demonstrative.
And I remember I look at him and I'd think, Yeah. You know, I'd want to change my sermon right in the middle of it. I'm this young pastor, and I care about what people think. And there was another older guy named Bill. And uh I don't know where I would be.
Bill was a layman, and he spent three or four hours every night after his work in God's Word. He would come to me and ask a question, and literally, I was a young pastor, I was really sure Bill knew the Bible way better than me. And um And Bill and I would go out on Thursday nights, you know, this is the old days, and people would move into the area, and so we would take them a pie. And we would welcome them. And we would let them know kind of what's going on.
look for an opportunity to W w has anyone ever shared with you How much God loves you, and how you can have eternal life. And, you know, this is rural Texas. You know, it's not quite like today. No.
Well, would you like us to?
Well sure, we'll lunch come on in and sit down, we'll cut that pie. And I mean every Thursday night I'm sitting around these tables with Bill and And I'll never forget this huge man talking to this lady. tears streaming down his face. as she's rejected Christ. And he just said, I just want to make sure you understand.
That you are choosing a Christless eternity forever and ever and ever. You're rejecting the love of the Son of God and. And And I remember other times where he was discipling me. I just didn't know it. And there was a real bad situation of, we had a sexual predator who.
did something at a gas station and And then he came and visited our church and volunteered to usher. And you're like 29 years old, and like, you need to go confront that guy. And I'm thinking, and say what? And so Bill and I meet him at the pizza hut. And Bill's this very godly older guy, and he really challenged me to speak into areas.
And so we were sitting across the booth, and Bill kind of lays out everything, and he gets to the end, he goes, Chip has some important things he wants to say to you. And it was like Yeah. That's what Paul's saying to Timothy. You know why I told you about Bill? Because you all are sitting here at some level thinking, you know what, Chip?
You're right. This is what these pastors ought to do. In fact, I'm going to give this message to my pastor. I think it should really help him. Bill, preach God's word verbally and by life.
Bill was ready in season and out of season. Bill, uh with those same tears. An issue came up in the church. Chip. He said, I think this church is either going to go this way or this way.
And you're the pastor. And if you do what God wants you to do, you're going to become very unpopular. He said, Now I don't know what God's plan is for your life. He goes, Bill, Always had this. You know, very word-centered.
He had a little bit of this mystical. He goes. You know, I've been conversing with the Lord. And I got I've got a sense. Chip I I got a sense that he might have his hand on your life in a special way.
He said, um These will be your tests. You either have the courage to say what it says. knowing what's going to happen. or you'll compromise. And you got some good gifts, so if you compromise, you'll probably still, you know.
Have a nice little church. They'll do some good things. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and the start of a message titled, Be Faithful, Don't Shrink Back. We're in the final lesson of our series called You Can Make Disciples Personal Coaching from the Apostle Paul, and stay with us because there's more from Chip in just a minute. The kind of faithfulness Paul described, steady, courageous, not driven by what people think, isn't produced by trying harder.
It comes from understanding where real change actually originates. That's what Chip's book, Yes, You Really Can Change, is built around. The difference between living for God's approval and living from it. When you understand that key distinction, it changes how you handle pressure, how you respond to failure, and how you treat the people around you. And because this series has been all about making disciples, every purchase right now includes a second copy, so you can share the journey and be equipped for more disciple making.
Look for the book, Yes, You Really Can Change at livingonthege.org slash offers. And if Living on the Edge has helped you in your own walk with God, we invite you to join our team by giving a donation today. Your support is what keeps this gospel work going. Give online at livingonthege.org or call us at 888-333-6003. You can also mail your gift to LivingOnTheEdge, P.O.
Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia, 30024.
Well, now here is Chip. As we close today's program, I have to tell you that God wants to use you. But the prerequisite, what matters first and foremost, is have you ever personally received Jesus as your own Savior and Lord? Do you know for certain if you would die right now? That you would be ushered into the very presence of God because you by faith have received God's grace.
If you've never done that right now, even as we think about that moment that all of us will stand before a holy God who loves us and cares for us and made provision. But he's provided the gift, but the gift must be received. If you've never received Jesus, I would encourage you right now Pray with me. Pray. Heavenly Father.
I confess to you to day that I'm not the person I need to be. But I've done wrong, I've thought wrong, I've said things that I know that are wrong. and you call that sin, and it separates me from you. But today I believe that Jesus died in my place on the cross. to pay for my sin.
And your promise was that you're knocking on the door of my heart, and if I would open up my mind and my heart to you, and receive you, and accept your forgiveness in my place. that you would give me eternal life. And so right now I ask you, forgive me, Lord. come into my life. and help me to walk with you all the days of my life.
In Jesus' name. And if you prayed that with me, could I encourage you to text the best Christian that you know or give him a call? Find a Bible teaching church and then go to livingontheedge.org. That's livingontheedge.org. and we have some information right there to help you in your new walk with Christ.
If you prayed with Chip just now, we'd love to help you take your next step. Again, visit livingontheedge.org/slash salvation for resources to help you begin your new walk with Christ. I'm Dave Druy.
Next time we conclude our series, You Can Make Disciples, by unpacking what a life fully spent for God actually looks like. Don't miss our series finale here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge. Uh
