Momentum - What is True Spirituality?, Part 1

I don't know about you, but there's been multiple times in my life when I've been stranded with a dead battery. It feels helpless.

You turn the key over and over and nothing happens. You know, our faith can get drained just like that battery. If you want your charge, stay with me. That's today on Living on the Edge. 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, and I'm glad you're with us as Chip launches a new series he calls Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith. As we go through Momentum, we'll be exploring several familiar Bible characters whose stories bring life to the discipleship profile of what we call a Romans 12 Christian. If you don't get to hear all of this message, remember you can hear Chip's teaching anytime on the Chip Ingram app.

Well, now with his opening message from Romans chapter 12, here's Chip. Welcome to the R12 journey. We're going to talk about a series where we're going to dare to experience true spirituality. And as we get started, I'm going to ask you to kind of reach back in the recesses of your mind, and here's what I want you to do. I want you to think back to either the very first or the most memorable spiritual experience you had as a young child. When were you most aware that there was a God, that there's something more than yourself, the sense that God existed and maybe even that He cared for you, whoever or whatever this is going to be like.

Have you got it? Really try and think back. Sort of that first kind of God experience, awareness that there's more than just the material world. For me, I was eight years old.

I still remember it vividly. I'm eight years old and I was the altar boy and I'm carrying this cross and the pastors behind me and a bunch of other people. And I came and our church was a big A frame and I don't know about 40 feet high and it was all stained glass with a cross in the middle and I put the little cross over here and he'd go this way and I'd go this way.

And I sat and that particular day, light was coming through the stained glass and it hit just the base of the cross. You know, I'm just a squirrelly eight year old and I don't have any theological training and I don't know anything. But I had thoughts go through my mind that I never had my whole life. It was like, wow, I wonder what God's like. You know, if He made everything, I wonder what He wants me to do.

I wonder how you know Him. And all I can tell you is I had this warm feeling of love and acceptance that vaguely said it has something to do with that cross. And all I can, you know, you're an eight year old kid so I get done and I don't know what the pastor said. I was just a kid.

But I told my mom and dad, I want to be the altar boy every week from now on at eight o'clock. I mean, there was this drawing, there was this sense of warmth and love and what it was was God's presence. I'd never experienced it before. And I was being, looking back, I was being wooed by the Holy Spirit and I experienced God's presence and so I wanted it again. That's what happens when you really experience God. And the bad part was my spiritual experience only lasted less than seven days because I remember the next week I told my parents I didn't want to get up.

It was kind of early, you know, eight o'clock. It was really cool last week but, you know, and so I continued to go to church and the denomination I came out of had some very good Bible teaching, wonderful people. Mine wasn't one of those. And so as I grew up, that was my experience and then I grew up in a place where people, it was filled with being irrelevant, hypocritical, everyone saying certain things, acting certain ways, but their walk and their talk told a completely different message. And I guess I was naive that when they said stuff, I thought at least someone meant it, but there was zero expectation that anything that anyone said on Sunday would have anything to do with how you lived.

And so I kind of watched this and I'm a fairly logical guy. So by about 16, I kind of came to this conclusion. The church and the whole God stuff is about adults creating religion to keep your kids like in line morally, you know, for a few years so you don't get totally whacked out. And then, you know, when you get to be an adult like the rest of us, you learn there is no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny, and no God.

But it's just sort of this sociological thing to keep them from, you know, doing terrible bad things growing up and control them. And so I just at 16 said, I don't know where life and purpose is coming from, but it certainly isn't God. It's certainly not the church and, you know, maybe somebody created all this. I don't know.

I don't have time for it. You know, you're 16. What do you think about? And so I kind of went through, okay, so where's meaning and purpose in life going to come from? And I grew up in the, you know, the 60s and then early 70s was hitting adulthood. And my dad was a very focused guy. He was a marine. I used to say he was an ex-marine. And after I said that in a talk, a guy came up to me and said, excuse me, young man, there's no such thing as an ex-marine. I said, yes, sir. And honestly, I learned that when my father went home to be with the Lord. The Marines came and they were a part of that service and folded a flag and gave it to me.

He was a Guam, Iwo Jima, purple heart guy. But my dad had this very strong, like if he said it, you just didn't mess with him. And so it was like, look, son, here's how life works. You want to be happy? Yeah. They need to be successful.

Okay. You want to be successful? You set clear goals. You develop a strategy and you work harder than anyone else.

You got that? Yes, sir. And so, I mean, I was like, okay. So I was that kid who was shoveling snow off the driveway in the middle of winter, you know, because I was going to shoot while other people were watching games. So eight or nine hours a day, I'm playing basketball. And then I figure it probably has something to do with money and academics. So I worked hard in school. And if you can become a workaholic at 12 or 13, I figured it out. I had my own lawn business, six or seven regular jobs, one all day job, two paper routes, lent my parents $3,000 at 6% interest.

So they could buy a little piece of land. And so, and then when I got to high school, it was just like, you know, lock and load. Okay. You want to academically be here. You got to date a cute cheerleader, get a scholarship to college, be all this and all that. Now, I didn't get it all done, but basically when I got to be a senior, you know, had all those little check marks and, you know, high school is not a really big fish pond, but when you're in it, you think it's pretty big stuff. And so I got my scholarship and did well and had the cute little cheerleader. And I'll never forget the graduation night. I was, I don't know why, I can never remember why, but we were in this apartment and it was completely empty.

It didn't have any furniture. And there's 30 or 40 of us sitting in a circle. This is the 70s.

Okay. Passing a joint around and reminiscing. And I didn't inhale.

Not only actually, that's a joke for some of you that remember years back. Actually, I did not only didn't inhale. When you're on a basketball scholarship and you're my size and as skinny as I am, you can't put anything in your body that's going to hurt you. You know, I'm thinking, you know, so I just pass it on. And so no religious conviction and I just thought, you know what, everyone's bigger, stronger and can jump higher than me.

I better not mess myself up. And so this gal turns to me that was a good friend. She goes, Chip, you must be really happy tonight.

And I said, why? And she started to peel off this cute little girlfriend and, you know, you did well in school and got the scholarship. And I had this emotion of the most empty feeling at 18 I'd ever experienced in my life.

And I realized someone just shattered my little box. It was, wait a second, happiness is by success. Success is you do this, this, this, this. I followed the plan and I just felt this like, so this is it? And what's bad is I didn't even celebrate.

I mean, I didn't even recognize that I'd sort of hit the goals. I had already, like some of us do, gone to the next one. I'd already decided I'm going to go to college. I'm majoring in political science. I will be a lawyer. I will marry a beautiful wife. We'll have three beautiful kids.

We'll have an Irish setter. We'll have a luxury car. I will wear back then a two or 300 Armani or Brooks Brothers suit. It was pretty cool.

I'll live in the suburbs and I'll be a leader in the community by the age 32 to 34. And it was just like, lock and load. Go do it. And then I had this moment of like, now wait a second. I did this once.

I could go do that and spend the next 15 years. What if I feel even more empty? I'll never forget driving home and then later that night having, I'd say, sort of a God talk. And my prayer was, God, if you exist, reveal yourself to me. I don't know if you do or not, but if you do and you're powerful enough and can reveal yourself to me, I want to know you.

And if there's a purpose in life, I'd like to know what it is. A week later, a coach paid my way to a fellowship of Christian athletes camp and it was actually a scary experience. I walked in. I got a t-shirt, this little easy to read Bible. And I just thought I'd land in Jesus-freak land.

I mean, people would say the word Jesus out loud. They would talk about God and their professional athletes and college athletes and about 700 high school athletes. And Tom Landry came, so I thought, well, it can't be that bad.

You know, he's the coach of the Cowboys. But I mean, it was like, oh, I mean, this is like 1972 and the Jesus movement. And I just thought, get me out of here. I can't take this for a week. And every morning they give you this little Bible and there's like 20 minutes you're supposed to read the Bible before you do calisthenics and then eat breakfast. Now all day was fun. You played sports and got to talk with some guys. And so I just thought they're not going to indoctrinate me.

And so I wouldn't open it up. And after about the third day, there was such an authenticity and a reality and a love of these men that I thought, you know, maybe there's something to this. And the fast forward to the story is I realized that I'd confused religion and Christianity with Jesus and a relationship with God.

And I had rejected one and rejected the other, not knowing that they're very different. And that night for the first time, I understood that God cared about me, that he sent his son Jesus, who was fully God and fully man, to die upon a cross to pay for my sin and that I could turn from my sin and receive a free gift. And literally the Spirit of God would enter my human body and begin a transformation that's called eternal life, that sets you on a new course and brings peace and fills that emptiness in your heart and life. And I prayed a very un-theological, you know, dear God, whatever it means for you to come into my life and I'm sorry for stuff I've done. I mean, it wasn't a pretty prayer, but I really meant it. And I knew that I couldn't play games with God and I didn't want to be a hypocrite.

And so there's a couple things, you know, I remember that night just thinking, boy, if I go down this road, I can't play around. And I remember asking Christ to come into my life and forgive me. And I like to say that then someone followed me up and taught me all these things and everything went great. All I can tell you is I went home and I took that little Bible and I stuck it under my pillow because I thought my parents might think I freaked out, you know.

I mean, they were religious, but we didn't talk about God and we didn't pray and, I mean, they were good moral people. And all I can tell you is my desire started changing and there was joy and I found myself singing and it was like, whoa, and this is great, you know. And just desires changed and so I went away to college and it was really neat, like some of the really big sins were, bam, they're out of here.

And it was like, whoa, this is awesome. But then I kind of found some other sins that were like, whoa, these don't go away so quickly. And then I started reading, I couldn't get enough of the Bible to read at night, read it in the morning.

And as I was reading it, I'm in this college and I'm playing on the basketball team and there's four girls to every guy and there's sort of a way to live that looks like really fun. And I'm reading this New Testament that's saying, this is not God's way. And I didn't mind him forgiving my sins, but this running my life stuff was, I didn't really sign, you know. It's how I was living and how God wanted me to live was like this. And this bricklayer came down who was trained by a group called the Navigators and he helped me actually start to read the Bible so I could understand it and talk to God. And I was having these little God experiences like when I was a little kid, like every day.

And then on Thursday nights, all these kids would get together, remember this is the 70s and sitting on the floor and playing the guitars and singing. And the presence of God, I got it again. It was like, whoa, whoa, this is really cool. But it was like, I grew up thinking, you know, like if you, like 7 out of 10 commands is like 70%, isn't that like passing?

I mean, that's a C, right? And I kept reading, it was like, you know, no, it's sort of like. And so I developed this schizophrenic Christianity. Read the Bible maybe two or three times a week in the morning and meet with God and Thursday nights were fun.

And then I got in the car with four or five basketball players every Friday and Saturday night and we hit every bar in Wheeling. And then I felt really bad. God, I'm really sorry. Oh, gosh, I know I shouldn't have said this, shouldn't have done this. Will you please forgive me? He forgive me and I'm going to get and read my Bible tomorrow. In fact, it's three o'clock in the morning, but I'll even try and get and go to church. I'm really, I'm really sorry, you know, and how thank you so much.

And then, I mean, I was like nuts. You want to, you know something? Maybe not to that degree, but all the research says nine out of every ten Christians in America is living a Christian schizophrenic life. They intellectually adhere to, I love Jesus, I've asked him to come in my life, in my heart. I think these things are really important. Of course, my finances, my future, my relationships, my mouth, my priorities don't show it, but I mean, he grades on the curve, right? And I've never really met anyone who's really actually, and so I think I'm kind of, and so there's this life. And it's usually filled with lots of guilt and lots of duty and you're supposed to do more of this and less of that. And then, so what happens is you try hard and you fail and you really want to be authentic so you try really, really harder and you fail again.

And then you realize, you know, forget it, you start just trying hard or not trying so hard and then you fake it. And you learn a few verses and you smile and, you know, let a praise the Lord come out in some groups and let something else come out of your mouth in a different group. That's Christianity in America. See, what I experienced is I couldn't enjoy God's presence because I had all this guilt.

And then I knew I was really a part of his family because I couldn't enjoy the sin anymore because I had all this shame and conviction. Here's the question, what is true spirituality? How do we move beyond religion, church programs, legalism, performance orientation, or in my case, a compartmentalized life?

I had basketball, girls and academics over here and God and a few other things over here. How do we move beyond that to grace-filled, authentic relationship with God? That's what this whole series is about. What is true spirituality? There's three things you're going to have to understand if you are going to experience it. And here's what I want to tell you, that moment as an eight-year-old or that moment that came to your mind when you had a God awareness, when there was a sense of warmth and acceptance and love and there was something outside yourself that maybe there's meaning to life, God wants you to experience that 24-7.

But it starts, are you ready? True spirituality begins with an accurate picture of God. You have to have an accurate picture of God. If you have a warped picture of God, it will send you down bad pathways. If you think God is an angry deity that you're afraid of, that He's always looking to punish you, it will send you into ritual. So you do so many things a day and you have to do this and you have to do that and you have to do that.

And you hope some day, some way that you can appease His anger. Or for others, you think God is a cosmic scorekeeper. And He's got this great board, you know, chalkboard in the sky and there's a chalk line in the middle, good deeds and bad deeds. And your whole life is about good deed, good deed, good deed. I'm a good boy, don't you love me today, bad deed, good deed, good deed.

And it's a performance orientation. And you never pray long enough or hard enough or good enough. You never give enough, you never measure up. And so how then you start grading on the curve and you just hope somehow, some way that the cosmic scorekeeper, that maybe your good deeds will outweigh your bad deeds.

Realizing that you totally miss relationship. For others, you think or have been taught or at least the world views out there is that He's not an angry deity. He's not even a cosmic scorekeeper. He's an impersonal force. God is an invisible impersonal force.

He is in and all things and even inside of you in some ways. And you need to become one with the universe. And so there's a formula, I'm serious. So the formula is an altered state of consciousness.

The formula is techniques and ways to develop oneness with the cosmos. I'm going to tell you, God is not an angry deity. He is not a cosmic scorekeeper. And He's far from an impersonal force. He's your heavenly Father. He loves you. But He's a Father.

You matter. He wants a relationship. He wants to, in ways that are very visceral and real, He wants to hug you and hold you and love you. And direct you and guide you.

And like any parent, give you the very best. The apostle John would write, 1 John 3, 1. How great is the love of the Father. He's lavished on us that we should be called children of God and that is what we are.

The reason the world does not know us is that it does not know Him. Jesus' life was a complete contradiction to all the religion of His day. His harshest words came to people that kept all the rules.

That were squeaky clean. That did all the religious activities. And He in their minds broke through all those rules because He was about a relationship with the Father. And they watched Him. The thing that showed the intimacy more than anything else is His disciples. They'd listen to Him pray and they'd watch Him pray.

And it wasn't duty and it wasn't going through lists and it wasn't to impress people like they saw growing up. And so they said, Lord, teach us to pray. What does He say? Your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. This then is how you should pray, our Father. Foreign concept. Judaism of the day had the sense of God's majesty and His glory and His transcendence.

But they had missed the truth of scripture, of His Fatherhood, of His intimacy, of His approachability. And since God is your Father, He has a dream. He's got a plan for your life. How many people, by the way, just are parents in here? You've got a kid.

Wow, awful lot of us. If you don't know this yet, it's only because they're real small. But your kids have a powerful, powerful role to play in your life. They will be the source of greatest joy you will ever experience on this planet. And they will be the source of the greatest heartache you will ever have.

Far more than any conflict with your mate, this person that's a part of each of you can break your heart, can break down communication, can say things and do things and live in ways that will bring you the deepest, deepest sorrow you'll ever experience. And by contrast, when your kids want to be around you, I mean when they're little and they're like, Daddy, can I crawl up in your lap? Yeah. Daddy, what? I love you. Oh, God.

I mean, right? And I will tell you that even as they grow up and get older and have kids of their own, there's few things sweeter in all of life. And you have a dream for your kids, and I have a dream for my kids. And when you're young, they're like one or two years old and your young parents are like, I want them to be an astronaut, a nuclear physicist. I want my son to cure cancer.

You know, I want him to be the CEO of, and you have all these lofty what they do. And then they get to be like little kids and 8, 9, 10 years old and you're thinking, you know, I'd like him to be a nice boy, nice girl. Then they get to be teenagers. I don't care what they do.

I mean, they can deliver trash. But if they loved God, if they were a person of integrity, if they had character, if we had a great relationship, I could care less where they work. Oh God, give them a good vocation, help them to put food on the table, put them in their gifts, but oh God, what I really want. See, what you're really concerned about, the older you get, is not what they do, but who they become. God's dream for you is about who you become.

When you understand that he's father, God's dream for his children is to make you like his son. He's not a force. See, we got this idea that there's like these invisible rules or principles or duties, and when I violate those, oh sorry, I messed up.

No, no, no, no. You broke your father's heart. You stepped away from relationship. You pulled away from his hug. He loves you.

He cares for you. For reasons I don't understand, the one that created all that there is has given you the opportunity to either bring him joy or bring him sorrow. You can grieve the Holy Spirit. That's a personal word. When I live in ways that are not good for me, it hurts God's heart because he's my father.

You miss that. You fall into religious activity, external rules. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, What is True Spirituality? from his series, Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith. Based on Romans 12, Momentum fleshes out the structure of Chip's series, True Spirituality, by exploring the lives of some of the most famous men of the Bible. From Abraham and Moses to Joseph and Daniel, Chip helps us appreciate how these guys lived out the practicalities of true spirituality. In the process, Chip will ignite the momentum of your faith journey. Momentum is one of those series you're going to want to keep handy and listen to from time to time.

So let me remind you that accessing momentum is easy with the Chip Ingram app. Well, Chip, before you come back and share your application for today's message, talk to us for a minute about this series, Momentum, that really paints a detailed picture of what it means to be a committed Romans 12 Christian, doesn't it? Well, it really does, Dave, and those who know Living on the Edge know that we talk about helping Christians live like Christians.

And for years, I wanted to profile, what's that actually look like? And of course, Romans 12 totally based on grace that's so relational, and it gives us those five relationships of what it looks like to be a faithful follower, to be mature. And as we were thinking and praying, and I've taught that in the past, it just came to me that we wanted to put clothes on.

In other words, if those principles are core to all of the New Testament, to all of what God wants, certainly that was true in the Old Testament. And so when we look at a surrendered life, we're going to look at Abraham. And when we look like someone who really gets a sober self-assessment, we'll look at Moses. And then we'll go on and talk about someone with courage, we'll look at Daniel, we'll look at Joseph.

We're going to look at key, I mean, foundational Bible characters that will help us know how to literally become Romans 12 Christians, the kind that in a world that we live in, turn the world upside down with their love, their commitment, their surrender, and the winsome lives they live. To get the most of this series, let me encourage you to be with us over the course of this series to learn how a regular person like you can learn to become a great person of faith. Besides listening, Chip's message notes are another great way to get the most out of his teaching.

To listen or share these messages and take advantage of Chip's fill-in notes, you'll find everything you're looking for on the Chip Ingram app. Okay, let's get to that application we promised. As we close today's program, I just have a couple thoughts. That if we could have a cup of coffee, I would sort of lean back and look at you and I would say, you know, just be careful that you don't get bogged down in all the rituals in your faith.

You know, it's so easy to turn the Christian life into something that's performance-based. And boy, I certainly have erred on that side of life in my world. I was, you know, how long did I pray and how many chapters and I'm reading through the Bible in a year and I didn't get through the right chapters today.

Or, you know, I said I would pray for X minutes, but I didn't do it. And, you know, I'm supposed to memorize these passages. And, you know, all those things are means.

All those things are important. But we need to remember that our relationship with God is about a relationship. You know, Abraham took big steps of faith because in his heart of hearts, God became his Father. He knew God would provide. He knew God would protect.

It was a love and loyalty. And so I just want to encourage you as you as you read your Bible, as you do good things, just be careful that I don't want to overuse the cliche, but it can be checking a box. I had my quiet time. I prayed.

I did this. I want to remind you that God is wild about you. That he loves you. That he loved to meet with you.

And you cannot just quote do it in the morning or before bedtime. But he'd love to just hear you kind of talk in your mind or in the car, turn off the radio, and just share your life, share your heart, share your hurt, share your praise, and cultivate that relationship. You'll be really glad you did. You know, a great way to stay engaged and connected to CHIP and Living on the Edge is with the CHIP Ingram app. You'll be getting all of these Momentum messages, CHIP's free message notes, and much more. And not only that, but it couldn't be easier to order resources or give us a call right from the app. Well, I hope you'll join us again next time when CHIP continues our current series, Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.