The Prodigal and the Perfectionist - Refusing Grace, Part 2

The most dangerous place in the world is not having a life-threatening disease. The most dangerous place in the world is to have a life-threatening disease and not know it. And the same is true spiritually.

If you don't know that you have a problem, you've got a really big one. We're going to unpack that today. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram.

I'm Dave Drewy. Well, Chip's wrapping up his series today, The Prodigal and the Perfectionist, with a final look at God's amazing grace. He's already studied it from several angles, but in this program he asks the puzzling question, if God's grace is really free, why is it so hard for people, even Christians, to accept it? For the answer to that, let's join Chip for his message, Refusing Grace, from Luke chapter 15. So let me give you a few characteristics of older brothers that I have observed from Scripture and unfortunately from my own life and pastoring for about 30 years. Here's the older brother's relationship to God. And by the way, if you have any older brother tendencies, this is a time not to take notes.

In other words, part of our personality, oh gosh, I need to get this one, I'm going to list these. You know, why don't you just put your pen down and sort of lean back and say, Holy Spirit, if there's any of this in me, I would really like to hear it. You see, what we older brothers do is we substitute intellectual knowledge and having things organized and getting everything straight for the actual relationship with God and heart change. And so here's some characteristics of older brothers with regard to God. They often feel that the relationship with God is about duty and obligation, and especially in the areas of prayer, it's dry.

It's a transaction. Praying is hard. Praying from the heart is hard. They think God owes them a good life.

They live with lots of guilt because they never really measure up. I mean, you pray for a half hour, what if you're supposed to pray for 33 minutes? Then they read a book about someone who says you need to pray for an hour. Then they find that giving 10% is a good start, but you need to.

And it doesn't matter. And praying and reading the Bible and being generous, all those things are good things in and of themselves when they flow out of gratitude and a love relationship. But if it's this is how you measure up to God, the bar just keeps getting higher and higher and higher.

They only feel deeply loved when they're performing well. But when they're performing well, they become more and more arrogant, more critical of other people who, you know, if everyone served like I serve in the church, if everyone gave like I gave, if everyone at work would show up the way I show up at work, and there's just sort of this attitude and convinced that this is the attitude and I'm godly. Right living is the means of getting what you really want from God. That's what the older son said, hey, I've never disobeyed. I did exactly what you said, therefore I get the estate, I should have a party, my life should work out. Or in the evangelical circles, okay, I get it, I'm going to come before God, I'm meeting with God in the morning, I'm reading my Bible. Okay, I finally got one of those small groups that Ingram keeps ranting and raving about, I'm in a small group, I'm even trying to be a little bit more honest. Not only that, I went on a missions trip, I'm giving 10% of my income, and I'm going to add 1% each year until Jesus comes because I heard someone did that. What else am I supposed to do? Oh yeah, integrity at work and by the way, I did this, I did this, I did this, God, you owe me an amazing marriage.

Upward mobility, kids that all turn out right, and the esteem of others. And when those things don't happen, elder brothers get really mad at God. Because they really weren't in a relationship trusting God for God. Jesus had simply become like a cosmic vending machine. Quiet time, B7, prayer, A4, missions trips, Z99, click, click, click, click.

God owes me this. Completely misses the heart of a father and a child in a love relationship. With regard to relationships, they feel superior, critical, prejudiced and judgmental. They're legalistic, they focus on, you didn't do this, you didn't, they focus on the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law and yet the scripture says, where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, there's freedom, there's joy. Elder brothers are joyless people, often miserable people.

They're critical of others, they're critical of themselves, they keep it all bottled up. The word grace is charis in Greek. The root of it is charis, for joy. Charismata is gift. Grace is about producing joy and it's about generosity, it's about giving, it's about loving.

Elder brothers are the kind of people when they're going through a financial class, here's their question. Are you supposed to tithe on the gross or the net? No, you think I'm kidding?

Why would you ask that question? How can I be right with God and give as little as possible? How can I be right with God and have people think I'm as loving as possible?

How can I have a private life where it's really about me and what I want in my agenda but appear in my image management as loving and caring and spiritual and committed as possible? And we all have some of that older brother in us, don't we? And so in our relationships with others, we champion justice and rarely mercy.

We repel irreligious people and often are just doctrine and truth is important but can practice it in very unloving ways. That's how you know if you're an older brother. Any other older brothers in the room? I see those hands, yes, I'll pray for you too. Well, what is Jesus saying to us elder brother types?

You ready for this? What's he communicating to these Pharisees then and now? He is the Father pleading, my son, not just come home, come close.

Open your heart, let's talk, get honest, quit performing. It's not about works righteousness, it's about personal deep relationship. You know, by the way, the activities can look exactly the same. Remember Jesus' story about the two houses, one built on the rock, one built on the sand. The one built on the rock is the person who takes in God's word and applies it and it's in relationship and the one built on the sand is the people who hears it all but then when adversity comes.

I'm gonna be honest with you, there's times in my life I was such an elder brother. Okay, five Psalms, one Proverb, Old Testament, New Testament, got it. Prayer, 32 minutes, here's the list, every name. Man, I'm getting really tired. Bless Jane, bless so and so, bless so and so, help so and so, help so and so.

Got seven minutes left. You think I'm kidding, I did this. I went for years, I never missed a day. I never missed a day. And I was arrogant about never missing a day. I would always ask people how many verses they're memorizing because I knew I had them beat.

I'm serious. I memorize whole books of the Bible, haven't you? And I became a loathing jerk who had received God's love freely, created a bar and standard and it just swallowed up my joy. Literally, this is an interesting application for a Christian.

One of my applications was to stop memorizing scripture for significant season because it was so locked into my performance. But I will tell you that if I'm not in God's word, I'll never grow, my mind won't be renewed. But the difference between I read my chapters, check, versus, Father, I know you love me and I know you love me when I'm good, I know you love me when I'm down, I know you love me every day. I really need to hear from you today.

I don't want to meet with you. And then when you speak to me, it's going to be hard, you know I'm going to struggle, but I want to take whatever steps you show me. And it's a father and a son or a father and a daughter. That's what Jesus was saying. He actually was offering to these Pharisees and if you read the context, they've already decided how to kill him. This is the grace of God. These are the people that, you know, okay, we're going to take him out and this is how.

And he's offering them forgiveness. My sons, come in. Just lest you think this is something that happens and then we all grow out of this. I had an interesting experience yesterday morning. And this message, some messages come together really pretty quickly and some just are like, I don't know anything about giving birth, but if there's a breach, birth, cesarean section, whatever, however you women know about it, giving this message is like, oh God, you know, I can't get it.

And so I went out to a little coffee shop different than I normally go to and found a little corner and I was just poring over how do I do this, how do I do this and I've studied all this stuff. And a guy came in and two cute little girls, like maybe three and four. And, you know, it was pretty obvious within a few minutes that this is a single dad with a couple kids, probably divorced.

I noticed he didn't have a ring. They were sort of daddy hungry, daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, you know, and you could tell they had missed him. And, you know, he kind of had his phone over here and trying to be a good dad and checking on the phone and, you know, girls.

And I sat there, you know, it wasn't like eavesdropping but, I mean, they were like one booth over and I'm studying all this stuff about grace and here's the thoughts that went through my mind, the initial thoughts. Man, how come people can't stay married anymore? I mean, what's the deal? You're a man, step up, work at it, you know, what's the problem? You know what, there's so many people getting, you know, just so, I mean, literally this is what's going on inside of me. And, you know, man, you know, shove that phone and pay attention to your daughters.

That's what I study about grace. I'm dead serious, you know. And then, and literally, literally, I've got like, you know, 30 seconds of my judgmental, critical, Pharisaical, get with the, I don't even know the guy.

I've never seen him in my life. And I'm making up stories about his life and judging the stories that I've made up. Is that sick or what? But the only reason you're laughing is what I'm losing.

You do that too. And I get about 30 seconds into it and the Spirit of God goes, Chip, what if his wife died of cancer and here he is, a single dad, loving these two little girls. And those phone calls are demands on his life of trying to figure out how to make his life work and love his kids. Or how about this, Chip, how about it's not what you think at all, what if his wife had an affair and left him and they have split custody and this is his only time with him. Scenario number one, what's wrong with these people?

Pharisee. Scenario number two, everything in me. Hey man, do you need some help?

Can I buy the donuts for your girls? You know, we got a group that, I mean, I just wanted to help him. Do you see the difference? One of the ways that you know you're an older brother is when your mind and your words and your heart are critical of others and when you have no non-Christian friends. When you see people the way Jesus sees people, you will have people in your life that you love who are far from God and they won't be repelled by you because you won't come off as religious. People really, really matter to God. And it's so easy to form these little clubs and cliques and I come to church and read my Bible and it's us four and no more and I want my life to work.

We're elder brothers. You know, it's like the quotes that I read. Do we want church to be like what a billboard does for Coca-Cola? It creates thirst but it doesn't quench it? Thirst gets quenched when authentic reality and life and love of the living God flowing through your veins and your heart and mind out to people that are different than you and different than me and they can understand why you would care and the only reason you care is because God cares about you.

Does that make sense? It's the gospel. That's why it was so contagious and that's why religion is so dangerous. And see, it's the grace of God for some of you that are getting a little nervous.

It's the grace of God that teaches us to say no to all ungodliness and to live reverent lives that are generous. Well, the question at the bottom then is how did the elder brother respond to the father's invitation to come home? Anybody have the answer to that one?

How did he respond? The answer is we don't know. This is very purposeful. This is a cliffhanger. This is like one of those great ones so you're watching this, maybe it's one of the serial television programs, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And then you go, ah, to be continued, right?

And you go, yuck. That's what Jesus does because he's given an invitation. We don't know how those Pharisees will respond. We have a pretty good idea what happened to one, Joseph of Arimathea. As you read through the Gospels, he was a Pharisee who didn't side with the council. He was afraid to go public for fear of what other people think. But when it all cleared and the smoke cleared and what's life and what's reality, he went and got Jesus' body and put it in a private tomb.

And I think Nicodemus was yet another. See, appearances and impressing people are like the number one thing with elder brother Pharisees. I wonder what would happen if we just quit trying to be so cool and people just knew you were a follower of Jesus and that you were generous and let them think what they think because they think something now anyway.

And we might ask ourselves, why is it so important what anybody thinks anyway? Jesus would say in the Gospel of John, it's impossible to believe when you seek the favor of God, favor of man instead of the favor of God. When our agenda is to please people, it makes it impossible to trust God. That which is highly esteemed in the eyes of man is detestable in the sight of God. As you turn to the back page, what keeps younger and older brothers from responding to God's grace? What keeps younger and older brothers from responding to God's grace?

In a word, are you ready? It's the root of every sin according to C.S. Lewis and I think he's right, it's pride. The younger brother is lost in his badness and he's, I'm unworthy, I'm unworthy, I can't, I don't deserve it, I, I, I, I, I, focuses on whom? He's lost in his badness, his pride. The Pharisees, I've never disobeyed you, I always do what's right. He's lost in his goodness and they were equally lost. Humility for this one is to go public and admit, I was wrong. Humility for this one is I know I'm wrong, I don't deserve, I will receive. If you had to check a box, older brother or younger brother, what are your tendencies?

What are your tendencies? If you've been a Christian a really long time and you came from like a younger brother past, been a Christian more than 5 or 10 years, often you go from younger brother to really committed Christian to older brother. What do you think God's saying to you? Are you experiencing his joy? Do you feel like you're his child? You know what God's saying to younger and older brothers? I'm not down on you. I love you.

I want to help you. But grace flows downhill. God is opposed to the proud if appearances matter, if what everybody thinks. See I'm always amazed I had a conversation with a leader in our church earlier this week and we got talking about something that sort of popped up and I really appreciated his honesty. He said, you know, I mean he's a leader.

He's been around for a long time. He's been a Christian a long time. And he said, you know, I was baptized when I was a baby but I've never done adult baptism. We got talking about it and he goes, you know, what do you really think about all this? And I said, well, when you were a baby did you fully understand the gospel and agree with all that?

He looked at me, nah. He said, well, just read the New Testament. What do you think it says? He goes, I know what it says.

I said, could I take a stab here? He said, sure. I said, it's just downright embarrassing to be at your spiritual maturity and be as old as you are and go get in a tub of water because you're going to be thinking, wow, I thought that guy really knew the Lord. How come he's just getting baptized now? And big smile.

He goes, you got me. What do you think we would call that? Pride. I have it, you have it. You know how you really experience God's grace? What's the next step for you? For some you're a younger brother, older brother. You need to come to Christ today. You just need to ask God to forgive you of your sins and say, hey, I don't have it together or I may be unworthy but I'll receive it.

And for others it's just, it's saying, you know what? I need to make my sonship, my daughtership the focus of my life. I'm going to let Him be sovereign, Him be Lord, and I'm going to do it out of relationship. Chip's going to be back with his application, but just a quick reminder, this message, Refusing Grace, is from his series, The Prodigal and the Perfectionist. Chip's exploring the elusive concept of grace, helping us discover the depth of God's love, so crucial to understanding that our failures are never final when we bring them to Him. Chip brings Jesus' teaching to life, looking first at the heart of a merciful father, and then his two sons, one a prodigal, the other a perfectionist. As you listen, you'll likely see a little of yourself in each of these guys. The question is, are you positioned to receive the grace your Heavenly Father is willing and able to lavish on you? We hope you'll engage the question and continue the journey by digging into the messages of this series, The Prodigal and the Perfectionist.

To listen again or to check out the resource options, go to livingontheedge.org, call 888-333-6003, or tap Special Offers on the Chip Ingram app. Chip, before we wrap up this program, Father's Day is one of the hardest times to buy a gift for Dad. We all struggle with that one.

Got any ideas? Absolutely, Dave. I do have a great idea. I think it's helping a dad be a dad. My confession, I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I got very little help being a dad, being the father that my children need. And so I've written a little book called The Portrait of a Father, How to Be the Dad Your Child Needs. In fact, the essence of it is this, the father's role in the family is critical. But I think men get overwhelmed. We don't know exactly how to do it. In this little booklet, I'll give you the four roles that God expects for a man to be a leader, a lover, a teacher, and a priest, and then very specifically how to do that.

You can read this in a little over an hour. It's really small, so it's one that you could get for three or four or five or six people. And I think the team has discounted it because we want to get this in the hands of as many people as possible for Father's Day.

Not just so they get a good gift, but what we know is when a man begins to lead his family, when he finally gets the confidence to know who he is to be and what he's to do, it changes everything. Dave, why don't you tell them how they can get this little book? Sure thing. To order your copy of Chip's new book, Portrait of a Father, How to Be the Dad Your Child Needs, go to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. And as Chip just said, we've discounted this resource so you can get as many as you need, whether it's a couple or for your whole church. We hope this book will encourage every dad to be the leader God has called them to be. Again, to get your hands on Chip's new book, Portrait of a Father, before Father's Day, go to livingonttheedge.org or call 888-333-6003.

Thanks, Dave. Before we close this program, in the last couple broadcasts, we've talked about this, perhaps the most famous story Jesus ever told about the prodigal son who wasted his life in immorality, and he comes back, hat in his hand, and we get a picture where Jesus describing is what God the Father is like. And he's accepted and loved and forgiven, and we learn about grace. And I think for many, many years, even as a pastor, I thought that's what this whole story was about. And then as I studied it a bit more carefully, I learned that the older brother was as lost as the younger brother.

And I think that I really get the older brother, and maybe the reason in my own personal life I didn't see the older brother having a problem is I'm the older brother in this picture. I grew up around a group that was really good at Scripture memory, studying the Bible one-on-one time with people, leading a Bible study, doing good work, sharing your faith. And in my sort of workaholic, warped view of God, I started slow, and then I realized, wow, if this is what pleases people, pleases God, watch out. And I became unknowingly a legalistic jerk. And what I would say is one of the most dangerous places to be is being a mature, or at least appearing mature, Christian who does the disciplines but unconsciously thinks that God loves you because you have a quiet time, you tithe, or even more than tithe, you've actually been on a missions trip, you're doing personal ministry, and you are actually doing the things that good Christians are supposed to do. And I think the question that literally turned my life around was how does God measure maturity? And I never forget a guy that I really respected say, Chip, can I just ask you a question?

Well, sure. Do you love God more now than you did as an early Christian? And do you love other people? Because when God looks at you, He's not looking at all the stuff you do. All of that means nothing if you don't love Him and love others. And I realized I literally was performing and trying to earn God's favor, even though intellectually I believed it was all by grace. For some of you, you need to listen to this message again, you need to download the message notes, you need to go over them, and you need to say, Lord, would you please help me accept your love? God has so much more for you you're not enjoying. And you're actually resentful that you're not getting more of the, quote, experiences of God's love and favor.

And here's the deal. You need to ask for it. He doesn't love you more when you have your quiet time. He doesn't love you less. He doesn't love you more than other people. He wants you to experience His grace.

He wants you to experience freedom. Could I encourage you, fellow older brothers and older sisters, to let go of your performance, to be honest with the Lord, and ask for a fresh wind of His Spirit that you could experience His love? You can find the message notes Chip just mentioned in a couple of places. Go to LivingOnTheEdge.org and click the Broadcasts tab. Or if you're listening on the app, find him by tapping Fill In Notes. Chip's message notes include his outline, all of his scripture references, and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning. They really help you get the most out of every program. So I hope you'll take advantage of this resource the next time you listen. Well, for Chip and the entire team, I'm Dave Druey, saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.