Today I'm Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. It has been said that we can live a few weeks without food. A few days without water. but only a few minutes without hope. We all have something or someone that sustains us and gives us hope.
Here's my question. Where's your hope? We're going to talk today about a hope. that can never let you down. Stay with me.
Welcome to Living on the Edge Chip Ingram Green. Today we're continuing our series called Free at Last, How to Break Out of a Destructive Lifestyle by discussing a hope that isn't wishful thinking. but a certainty you can build your life on. Before we dig in, let me remind you: in case you ever miss one of these lessons, to catch up when you can by going online to livingontheedge.org.
Now if you have your Bible with you, open it to Philippians chapter 1.
Now here's Chip Ingram with his message titled, Understanding the Power of Hope. We pick up the story of the Apostle Paul, and it is now his third lesson. The context for those that might be just joining us, he's in Rome. He's chained to a Praetorian guard that changes every six hours. It is not a good situation.
He's on trial, and at the end of the trial, he's either going to be released and found innocent, or he's going to be found guilty and be executed. And when we pick up the story, he's in the situation where I don't know what's going to happen. Imagine more than a little anxiety for most of us.
So what's his perspective in facing death? It's crazy. It's joy. He gives us two reasons in Philippians chapter 1. Verses 19 to 25.
Reason number one is that his deliverance is certain. Follow along as I read, for I know That this shall turn out for my deliverance.
Well, how? Through your prayers and the provision of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. According to my earnest expectation and hope, that I will not be put to shame in anything. But that with all boldness, Christ, even now as always, will be exalted in my body.
Well, how? whether by life or by death. Paul is completely convinced that he's going to be delivered. But notice he doesn't think his deliverance is necessarily out of his circumstances. He doesn't say that I'm going to be delivered and I'll be released, that I'm going to be executed, that God's going to just deliver me out of it.
He says, I'm convinced of my deliverance. That Christ will be exalted in my body, whether I live or whether I die. And then notice he says, according to my earnest expectation. His hope is in the character, the promises, and the reality. of God's goodness and That the worst that can happen is he goes to heaven And so he says, earnest expectation, hope.
His biggest concern is that he would be put to shame. But he says with all boldness that Christ even now will be exalted in my body. whether by life or by death. Notice He prayed. that what he would be delivered from is failure to represent Christ well.
in the midst of crushing circumstances. There's three ways in scripture that God delivers us, and we tend to only think of one.
So get your pencil out. This will be helpful one day in your life. I'm going to give it God's plan A. God's plan B. God's plan C.
Plan A, when God uses the word deliverance, He delivers you out of something, He does a miracle. Number two. is he delivers us through them. Jot down 2 Corinthians chapter 12. Verses 9 and 10, this is what Paul is experiencing.
He tells us that he had this amazing experience, and so that he wouldn't get proud, he was given a thorn in his flesh, and he was in pain all the time. And he asked God in faith, believing, Take it away, take it away, take it away. And God said, no, no, no. My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. And then Paul's attitude changed and realized sometimes God wants to do a deeper thing in us, and He doesn't deliver us out of it, He delivers us through it, and as He delivers us through it, He refines us.
The third way that God delivers us is unto himself. We were talking about this as pastors. We were going over the study earlier, and One of the guys in the group said, you know what's kind of odd? Is it In our day, we think the worst thing that could ever happen to a person is they die. And that doesn't seem to be Paul's perspective.
Christ gets exalted whether I live or whether I die. And a little bit later, we're going to read that he's not sure whether he's going to stick around or die. The dilemma, he thinks it's far better to be with Christ. I've had both my parents die of debilitating painful Long. diseases.
When my parents died, by the time they got to where they died, it was, Lord, thank you. To watch them live through what they were living through at that level was really, really painful. And Psalm 116 says, Precious in the eyes of the Lord are the death of his godly ones. You see, if all there is is now temporal and someone you love dies, I got news, you got nothing. You got nothing.
But if in fact there is an eternity, if there really is a heaven, if what Jesus told the disciples the very last night that allowed them to hang tough and hang on no matter what, there's an eternity, there's a heaven that it's real. Then it's pretty interesting. Yeah. It sustains you. And it's sad and it's hard and we lose those that we love and that's why sharing Christ is so important.
That's why if you're here or you're watching or you're listening and you've never put your faith in Christ, you need to know that you're going to be in heaven. And that's not a That's not something from trying to be a nice little good person or being a bit moral. Your sins have got to be completely covered. You have to receive the gift of Christ dying on the cross for you in your place and turn from your sin, repent, and ask Christ to forgive you and come into your life. And He will.
And you can know for sure. The first reason Paul has joy in the midst of these horrendous circumstances. His deliverance is certain. And he's certain That by the grace of God, he is going to be faithful. He is certain that he is going to be bold in his faith right into the end.
And he's certain that whether he lives and gets to go on and minister more, or whether he dies and is immediately ushered into the presence of Christ. That he knows That's his hope. But the next reason is equally powerful. The second reason that he has this joy is his source of joy is unshakable. It's unshakable.
Circumstances go up, they go down. Incomes go up, incomes go down. You're healthy and working out and doing a triathlon this year, and next year they got a biopsy report and they got tubes running in you. Circumstances up, circumstances down. You either live your life like a little cork, On the waves of circumstances of the sea of life, or you live your life with that leaning, eagerly expectation and anchor of your soul hope that there's a heaven and there's a God and there are promises and He will sustain me as I trust Him, and that's what Paul does.
His joy, the source of it, is unshakable. He says, For me to live is Christ. Temporal. Eternal. To die is gain.
If I'm to live on in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I don't know. I'm torn between the two. I'm hard-pressed from both directions.
Having the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better, yet to remain on the flesh. is more necessary for your sakes. And then he kind of comes to this moment, and convinced of this, as the Spirit of God is speaking to me, as I'm writing this letter, as I'm processing, he says, I know that this will turn out, that I'll remain and continue with you all. Why? For your progress and.
Is this guy like crazy? Who's he concerned about? Your joy. In the faith.
So that your proud confidence in me can abound in Christ through my coming to you again. For to me to live It's Christ to die. His game. Paul lives There's two platforms in life. You look at life from this platform of time.
or you look at life at this platform from eternity. And he says, in time, It's Christ, and if it's Christ, I'm going to continue to serve. Because, unlike American Christianity, he thinks the goal of life is to love God and to serve Him and to know Him and to enjoy Him and to share that with as many people as you can before you die and to model the kind of life for you and your friends, or if you're married, your children, so that the most important thing is not what school you go to, not how much money you make, not what you look like, what other people think, but the most important thing is that Christ is the center of your heart and life, and you are actually reflecting what He's like. It's called His glory. There's more in just a moment here on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram.
Before we continue, if you've never been to Chip Ingram's YouTube channel, you're missing out on a whole library of teaching you won't see anywhere else. Series like BIO, Three Essential Practices to Becoming Like Jesus, and even messages like the one you're hearing today. Whether you want to dig deeper into a topic or pass something along to a friend, it's all right there. Just look up Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram on YouTube and subscribe.
Now let's get back to our message. Everybody and everything revolves around something. It's interesting, you know, the take a microscope and right, you know, you've got the the center of the nucleus and Those electrons are going around it and now they've got super powerful ones and there's stuff inside of that things going around or you know all the planets go around the sun. They found now that our solar system and our sun actually goes around an axle star. Everything in life goes around something.
The question is, what does your life go around? Paul said, my life goes around the living Christ. He's my anchor. And so if I live, it's for him. And if I die, It's gain.
I'm immediately translated into the presence of Christ. No soul sleep. No purgatory. No waiting. I die instantaneously.
I'm in the presence of Christ. And then he begins to think and ponder about... Wow. What should I do? I'm hard-pressed from both directions.
He desires to part and be with Christ. I don't think many of us would say that. If we're just honest, right? See, I don't think Christianity was a religion for Paul. I don't think it was a moral statement.
I don't think it was, I want to do really good in this life and it has a lot of good byproducts and produces good things and it's important. I think Christianity for Paul was a life-transforming moment of a relationship connected to God. And he loved God and he got to know, even though he never met I mean, we have some visions that he has, but... He didn't meet him face to face as far as we know. But the Spirit of God living in him, just like he lives in us who are followers, he cultivated that.
And he cultivated it by, he took that Old Testament and God revealed to him and those early, this is his word. And he cultivated a tenderness to hear the Spirit of God and follow it. And he was always living in community. In other words, it was his relationship and he thought, you know, I have this, I've got this barrier still. I still have this barrier.
I've tasted and I've seen and he's changed me and he's revealed things. But I have this barrier. It would be better. to be face to face. But his heart is one of, I want to do whatever you want me to do.
So, Lord. Plan A, I'll be with you. Awesome. Plan B. I'll stay here as long as you want.
I think God must want me to stay. Notice the secret is his vantage point. I looked this up in the dictionary and I loved it. A vantage is a position or situation more advantageous than opponents. That's one definition, but I think the second one has much more application for us.
a position that allows a clear, broad view. Understanding. A vantage point In other words, what you need to understand, it's not just where's your hope. But it's from where are you looking? for your hope.
Paul had been beaten at least three times, left for dead once. Overnight in the ocean. Um Been in prison. Deeply discouraged. I'm not reading into the text.
If you read Second Corinthians pretty carefully and Look at Axe, he's probably clinically depressed at one point, just is almost at the end of his rope. And his words knock down but not out. And then he says this in 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Because I think this is the greatest thing that we need out of this passage and in our life is not to lose heart. Therefore, we do not lose heart.
But though our outward man is decaying, Yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. for a momentary light affliction. is producing for us any Eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. While we notice perspective words now, look and see. while we look not at the things which are seen, But we look at the things which are not seen.
For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things which are not seen are eternal. But there's a couple questions we need to answer as we close. Where's your hope? See, ask yourself, what really gets you discouraged?
Ask yourself when you're frustrated, when you're angry, and when you're mad. Is your hope in a perfect marriage? Is your hope in upward mobility? Is your hope in what what school your kids get in or how they're doing in their grades? Is your hope in your body?
And how you look. Come on, this is just us in here. Don't look at me like that. Come on now. We all, here's the thing: God loves us so much, He's saying, Don't be stupid.
Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or fixed their hope on the uncertainty of riches, America. The uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. It's not that money's bad. It's not that success is bad, but they make really bad gods. They make great idols.
And what idols do is destroy idol worshipers.
So, the question for every believer in this room is: what's my life really going around, not what I say it's going around, or not what I think it's going around? And if you want to know, just go home and check your finances. Then go check where you go on the internet. And then go check where your time goes and check who are your closest friends and what do you talk about. And you'll know exactly what your life is going around.
You can sing I Love Jesus and come to church and try and be a good person, and your life really goes around. A married person, your kids, your work, your money, your future, and your stuff. And we all do it.
So God brought us here together on this day. to repent of that. For some of you He brought it. you today to give you the biggest gift you'll ever receive in your life, eternal life. You don't have an eternal hope.
Well, you've got temporal stuff, and you might be successful. You might even be moral. But I'll tell you what. Add cancer. And a week to live?
You better have what's on the other side of this wall. Yeah. And so he just brought you here to say, it's really not that complicated. Yes, you lose control to an all-knowing, all-powerful, good God who so demonstrated his love, he died in your place, rose from the dead, and for 2,000 years has been transforming the world. And now he wants to transform you.
Father. Thank you for how good and how kind. Thank you that you love us. God, I thank you that As hard as life has been and as many mistakes as I have made, I've just seen thousands upon thousands upon thousands, and myself included, experience a hope that no difficulty or tragedy or challenge can change. And so I want to pray now for those that would say, you know, I'm not sure whether I have eternal life.
And if that's you, I would like you to bow your heart. and be as honest as you can be and say, Almighty God, I'm the God of my life and I'm running my life. And I repent. I ask you now. to forgive me of all my sins.
I believe that when Jesus died on the cross, He died for my sins and rose from the dead. I accept that gift and ask you to come into my life right now. And then give me the courage to tell someone this very day. Lord, help me to understand your word as you start to speak to me. And God, would you please provide a community of friends to help me grow?
And if you're a follower and you realize some of those idols have crept in, would you just tell God? No more. I need a hope that won't change. I need a future that's secure. And then would you Covenant with God to tell at least one person before the sun goes down on this day: this is a baby step I'm taking.
to make Jesus the center of what my whole life goes around. and you probably need some help to get there. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. in a lesson titled Understanding the Power of Hope. Paul's confidence didn't come from controlling how his story would turn out.
It came from knowing exactly what his life revolved around. That's the same shift Chip's book, Yes You Really Can Change, walks you through: trading a life anchored to your circumstances or personal effort for one anchored to Christ. It's a guide on what spiritual transformation requires and where the power to change really comes from. And every order this week includes a second copy so you and someone you know can work through it side by side. Go to livingon the edge dot org slash offers and look for the book Yes, You Really Can Change.
A message like today's doesn't just happen. It takes a community of listeners who believe it's worth getting into people's hands. If this teaching gave you something solid to stand on, would you help extend that same hope to someone else? Give at livingonthege.org. Call us directly at 888333-6003 or mail your gift to LivingOnTheEdge, P.O.
Box 3007, Suwannee, Georgia, 30024. And if our broadcast time doesn't always fit your schedule, we invite you to listen whenever it's convenient by subscribing to the Living on the Edge podcast. And for Chip's complete unedited messages, subscribe to the Chip Ingram Sermon Podcast wherever you listen.
Well now here is Chip. Before we go any further today, I want to pause and give you the opportunity that I gave the people in our church when I taught this. Maybe the Spirit of God is speaking to you, and there's a real battle going on in your heart right now. And you're saying, Oh God what would this look like in my life to day if I put all my hope in you. You know, I travel a lot and I get to meet people, and I am both surprised, amazed, and so deeply encouraged.
by how many people will tell me You know I was driving in my car and just pushing some buttons. And you came on, and as I listened God spoke to me. And it was in my car or while I was on the treadmill that I actually paused and recognized for the first time that I needed Jesus. that I needed forgiveness, that I needed a hope that would never go away. and I actually in that moment paused I stopped, and and I confessed my sin, and in the name of the Lord Jesus I ask him to forgive me.
If you have never done that today, is the day of salvation. God is speaking to you. He knows all about your life. all about your struggles, all about your fears. all about the things that you're ashamed of that are in your past.
And he saying to you, Come unto me I want to forgive you. I came for you, I lived a perfect life, I died in your place upon the cross. to take all of the sins that you've committed and place them on me. But you need to receive this as a free gift by faith. And so, if you want to do that in your heart of hearts, you can speak to God, oh God.
Today I believe Jesus died in my place. to pay for my sin. and I'm asking you to come into my life and forgive me, to make me your son, to make me your daughter. I believe that you paid for my sin on the cross and that you rose from the dead to prove that it's true. I want to follow you with all my heart.
and with all my strength. Please give me your power. And I want you to know that the God who created all that there is cares for you. And at this moment, the biggest and most important thing you can do is to share that with the best Christian you know. The Scripture says that believing in our heart and professing with our mouth, we are saved.
He wants to love you and help you and encourage you. You need to find a great Bible teaching church this weekend, and then come to us at livingontheedge.org. That's livingontheedge.org. And we have some free resources to help you begin to grow in your brand new relationship with the God who loves you. If today's message stirred up something you've never settled before, take Chip up on his invitation.
Head to livingontheedge.org slash salvation and let us help you take that next step.
Well, that's all for today.
Next time, Chip Ingram says the gap between what you expect and what actually happens as a name. And it's costing more Christians their joy than almost anything else. Discover what you can actually count on from God.
Next time, here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge. Uh
