Momentum - Learning to Give God What He Wants the Most, Part 1

Let me ask you a question. What does God want most from you?

Any ideas? I know for me the first several years I was a Christian, I didn't have a clue. I mean, I didn't know what God wanted.

All I knew was I had all these new activities going in my life. If you ever wanted to know what God really wants from you and how to give it to Him, stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher on this international discipleship program, and I'm Dave Drury. In this program, Chip continues his series, Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith, by explaining why the path to God's greatest blessings in your life isn't short, and it's not easy.

He shows us, through the life of Abraham, what it means to walk with God, and that despite our missteps, God never gives up on us and loves to bless our faith. If you have a Bible, open to Genesis chapter 12, and let's join Chip now for his message, Learning to Give God What He Wants the Most. So what I want to do is I want to jump right in, and I want to share with you, this was the first, I would call it my first honest adult prayer. 18 years old, I shared a little bit about my story, and in my little tiny fishbowl, I had kind of been successful and thought that that would bring happiness, and instead I found this huge emptiness. And I found myself at about 2 a.m. in the morning, sitting on my bed, looking out through a window, it was one of those starry filled skies, and feelings empty, and I remember this was my prayer. God, if you exist, what do you want from me? At this point, I didn't know if there was a God or not.

I had a terrible church experience growing up. I didn't meet any Christians that I ever wanted to be like or be around, but I thought there's got to be more than setting goals and, quote, trying to be successful to get happy. God, if you exist, I mean, at some point in time, if there's a God, he must want something, but I didn't know what it was. At Living on the Edge, we instituted a research project with the Barna Group, and we asked Christians in America that question. So what does God really want from you? What's it mean to be a, quote, good Christian? And 80% of the Christians in America, actually 81% said keeping the rules, especially the Ten Commandments, is what God wants most. It's interesting, isn't it? Since we can't keep them. That's kind of a bummer of a life. What God really wants is keep these, but no one can keep them.

Okay, good luck on that one. True spirituality, we learned, is built on the principle of relationship. Second, we learned that others indicated that faithful church attendance, Bible reading, and tithing is what God wants most. Sort of that picture of a cosmic scorekeeper who your performance, when you do those things, you're a good boy or girl, and if you ever miss one of those things, then oh boy, you better watch out. Are those activities wrong or bad?

Absolutely not. But done as a performance to earn God's favor or to make you spiritual, they're a total disaster. Done as an access out of a heart to your Heavenly Father to connect with His grace, a totally different story. Here's my question for you. If I gave you a three by five card, and on one side it was printed very boldly, Dear Your Name, what do you think I, God, really want from you? And you flip over the card, then you pull out a pen, and you tell God, this is what I think. Now, don't tell me, even in your mind right now, don't write on the back of the card what you ought to say, and don't write what you think might be the right answer. If you looked at your own behavior, if you could get inside your mind and looked at how you think and how you behave and how you feel, what does your life say reveals what God wants the most from you?

Because it's probably getting played out some way. What would you put? Got it? I want to spend the rest of our time asking and answering the question how to give God what He wants the most. If you open those notes, we're going to dig in together. Abraham's journey reveals what God wants most from each of us. He's called the father of the faith. We're going to study his life, and as we study his life, it's going to unfold exactly what God wants from you and wants from me. If you have your Bible, open it to Genesis chapter 12.

If you don't have one, there should be one in front of you. It's the very first book in the Bible. And what we're going to do is we're going to go on a journey from Genesis 12 all the way through chapter 22. So I'm going to hit the mountain peaks and just give you an overview because you have to see what Abraham's life is like because we tend to think that these people are in stained glass and they never made a mistake and they're these super holy people and we're these regular, ordinary, cruddy people that have these terrible thoughts and God could never use us. And you're going to learn from Abraham, it's a journey.

And he has some really nice marks and boy, he really blows it at times. It begins in Genesis chapter 12 where he's called by God to follow him. Listen. It says, then the Lord told Abraham, leave your country, your relatives, your father's house, and go to a land that I will show you. I will cause you to become the father of a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous. And I will make you a blessing to others. I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.

All the families of the earth will be blessed through you. Now is this like, not only a big call, but a big promise? And you know what he's really saying is, you know what, will you trust me with your future? On a certain day, at a certain time, in one of the greatest cities-er of the time, God speaks to one man and says, Abraham, I want you to leave the security, the geography, and the family, and I want you to follow me. But I'm not going to tell you where right now, just follow.

This is getting scary already. But here's the promise. I want to make you great. I want to bless you. I don't want you to surrender or sacrifice so I can get something from you.

I want you to surrender or sacrifice so I can give you something greater and bigger and better than you could ever think or imagine. The first step is to follow. Now, notice we're going to go through some tests and I'll give you the passage.

So on the left side, test number one is famine. And you can write chapter 12, just write in little notes on the left. And the question here is, will you trust me to protect you? I mean, you know, he says, okay, God, I hear you. And then the very next verse says, and Abraham departed. And by the way, he happens to be 75 years old. For those of you thinking you're too old for this, well, you're not.

And here's what I want you to get. Often when you step out, when you surrender to get God's biggest and best blessings, we unconsciously think, wow, I'm taking a step of faith. Boy, it's going to get better.

Usually it gets worse before it gets better. Because God will test. And so we learn that there's a famine in chapter 12. And so it was a severe famine so Abraham goes down to Egypt. And as he goes down, he says to his wife, who happens to be very, very beautiful, he says, Sarai, we're going to go down to Egypt. And you're a very good looking babe.

This is a very loose translation. And they're going to see you and they're going to take you and they're going to kill me. So here's the plan. Just say you're my sister and then they'll treat you well and they'll treat me well because of you. Well they go down, the Pharaoh sees her, takes her into his harem. Before he gets to sleep with her, God steps in. And I mean, there's some real judgment and Pharaoh goes, what, why didn't you tell me about this? And he says, this isn't your sister, this is your wife.

And so Pharaoh basically says, here's some sheep and here's some camels and here's some gold and here's some silver and get out of my hair. So test number one, Abraham fails. God asks him, will you trust me to protect you? And Abraham instead manipulates, tries to work it out himself. Test number two is greed. Will you trust me to provide for you? This is going to be chapter 13.

Well, you'll notice chapter 13 opens. So they left Egypt and they traveled north into the Negev. And then as you skip down, you'll see that his nephew's with him, it's Lot. And over time, God has blessed them both. So Lot has all kind of camels and all kind of animals and he's wealthy. And Abraham has this and they get to the land, it's like there's not enough room for both of us. And so Abraham is starting to learn about what it looks like to trust God.

And so he's now going to learn and he gets to pass this test, will you trust God that I'll provide for you? And so they get here and Abraham's the older one and so he has the authority. But he says to Lot, you know, we're kind of up on this hill and there's all this land where you can have this and I'll take it down there. Remember Lot, I'll tell you what, you can take down there and I'll stay up here.

And Lot kind of looked and it looked like there was green pastures and there was some water. And so Lot goes, I'll take that. Abraham says, okay, you get to choose. And so he takes it. Now what Lot didn't know, there was Sodom and Gomorrah down there and life doesn't get pretty later. But it's interesting, after instead of saying I've got to have mine, I've got to be in control, he says, God, I'll tell you what, you choose for me. And then notice the text says, after Lot was gone, verse 14 of chapter 13, the Lord said to Abraham, look, as far as you can see in every direction, I'm going to give you all this land to you and to your offspring as a permanent possession.

And I'm going to give you so many descendants that like dust, they cannot be counted. And then he says, Abraham, I want you to take a walk and every place your foot goes, it's all yours. Does this sound like God is trying to take something away from him?

Every time he responds in surrender and faith, you're going to find God appears and sort of ups the ante of a bigger blessing. And so he passes this one. Test number three is prosperity.

This is chapter 14 and this is, will you trust me with your possessions? You know, it's one thing to learn not to be greedy. You know, greed has nothing to do with what you have. You can have a lot and you always got to have more or a lot of the greediest people in the world are people that don't have very much of them. Well, I got to have this, I got to have that. But it's different once you get. Once you get a lot, now this is statistical, this isn't personal. Most people that get a lot of stuff get less and less of God. Jesus said it's very, very hard for rich people to trust him because all their needs are met. And so that's going to be test number three.

Will you trust me with your possessions? And so chapter 14 opens up and these five kings get together and they say, we're going to attack these other kings down in Sodom and Gomorrah. They come and they wipe them out and Lot and the family and all of his resources and everything goes. And so Abraham is like, he gathers his men.

They go at night. There's these big five kings and they rush in, terrorists break down group. They take them out and then he rescues everybody.

It's an exciting Bible, isn't it? And so he didn't have any like machine guns or anything like that but he did his stuff. And so he's coming back and he defeats these kings and so he's got his men. But then he has not only all the bounty of the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah and a few others. But he also has, since he defeated those kings, I mean he's got like more camels and more gold and more silver.

I mean he's like, he's got it. And as he comes back, he has a meeting. And the meeting is with the pre-incarnate Christ. Jesus shows up in the Old Testament. Most commentators see Melchizedek as the king of Salem. He's a priest of God most high. And Abraham has all this stuff and he's the hero and he's rescued and Melchizedek blesses Abraham. And he says, blessed be Abram by God most high, creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be the God most high who has helped you conquer your enemies. Then Abram gave Melchizedek a tenth of all the goods that he recovered. Now there's no law.

There's no rules. All he knew was look at all this stuff I've got. And he comes face to face with the pre-incarnate Christ. And he goes, you know, I need to remember all this stuff and the victory. It comes from you. And so he gives the first portion of everything to this pre-incarnate Christ. And then a little bit later, he sees the king of Sodom and he's very grateful.

He says, Abram tell you what, that was an awesome job. I thought I'd lost all those people. All the bounty. You can keep the camels and the goats and the sheep, the money, everything.

Just give me the people back. And you know, I think there was a little temptation there. But Abram understood that stuff can really get in your way. And he says, I wouldn't take one thread of one sandal from you.

It's all yours because never ever ever do I want anyone to say that the king of Sodom made me rich. And basically said, my priorities, this test, I'm trusting the most high God with my possessions and for my possessions. Test number four is the test of courage. Now we're in chapter 15. This is an interesting one because as you find chapter 15, notice the word after. As chapter 15 opens in your Bibles, each time he takes a step of faith and then God appears to him. And it says, afterward the Lord spoke to Abram in a vision and said, because he knows this is his Achilles heel, do not be afraid for I will protect you and reward you and you will be great. I mean each time he takes a step toward God, like draw near to God, God draws near to him. And then Abraham has this moment of courage I think is really cool. And he begins to talk to God in a little bit different way. And he has the courage to kind of step up and instead of praying these sort of milk toast, oh God will you really help me and I'm really afraid of this and will you work this out and life isn't really hard and please, please, please, please. He hears this big promise for like the third or fourth time. And he says, God, how can I know this is going to be true?

He said, what is the good of all these promises and all this blessing and all this wealth? Right now my servant's going to get it. I don't even have a sign.

And I mean he goes toe to toe. And he says, I need a sign. I need you to show me. And then God says to him, Abraham look, are you ready?

This is how clear this is. We talked about sand, look at the stars. Remember there's no city lights.

Imagine being out in the desert in maybe Montana or somewhere in the summer. He says, now look at the sky. You see all those stars? I'm telling you Abraham, out of you, your descendant, they'll be like that many stars. And it says, and Abraham believed God and it was reckoned or accounted to him as righteousness.

Now don't forget that. Writer of Hebrews in chapter 10 will bring this back. An Old Testament prophet later will say the same thing. The way, the only way any man, any woman at any time is ever made righteous before a pure and holy God is by faith. Does anybody think that this might be God's agenda for Abraham?

Anybody starting to think as you sit in your seat right now, I bet this is God's agenda for me. So he's courageous. He steps into it. He trusts him.

And now we get to step, test number 5, this is chapter 16. And this has to do with timing. And so you know, God promises things and you really want to do life God's way. And then some people come and they say, you know what, I think God is a little slow.

Let me help you out with this. So his wife comes to him and she's thinking that biological clock is really running on me. And if we're going to fulfill God's promise, he just needs a little help.

So I've got this maidservant and I think it'd be a good idea. Abraham, you have sex with her and she'll have a baby. And since she's our servant, then we'll make him our son. And we'll get this thing rolling because you know, we've been waiting on God a long time. And the test here is are you willing to patiently endure? When God has shown you this is what I want to do in your life.

This is where I want you to go. But you know, hold it, wait a second, it's not happening? During that time, this is when God does this in your life. This is when God builds character. This is when you're lonely. This is when you cry out to him.

This is when instead of leaning on people, leaning on money, leaning on job, God, what about, where are you, where are you? And you dig in and you get in the Bible like you've never been in it before. And you cry some tears and you get desperate.

And something happens in you that doesn't happen any other way. And he fails this test. And so he has sex with a handmaid, she has a baby. Ishmael is born and we've had problems ever since. It's true.

I mean there's conflict in the family. Now God honors and makes a nation of him. But he fails miserably. You need to understand it is a journey.

And you're going to pass a test, pass a test and you're going to fail. And you know what I like about this reality of scripture is God doesn't say, gosh, this is the second, hey Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabe, Gabe, yo, Gabe. Abraham's not really doing very well. You know he didn't do good with the security one and he's not doing good with this one.

Let's throw him out and start with someone new. Does the text say that? Or is God understanding when you blow it and when he blows it and out of his mercy and his grace when you come back and say, Lord, you know, I should have waited on you but I didn't.

I'm sorry. You meet a God who's most high and merciful. And so he flunks test number four or number five and then we go to test number six. And this is the test of obedience and you might jot chapter 17. Chapter 17 is pretty interesting and those of you that have been around church for a while, you've heard this word a lot and you just sort of skim right over it. And some of you like me that never opened the Bible until like you're 18 or 25 or whatever, God asked him, again, he makes this covenant and God again reaffirms, Abraham, I'm with you and I'm going to do this. And so then God says, let's seal the deal in a very special way. And the test here is are you willing to trust him when he asks you to do something that doesn't make any sense. And so let's get all the sort of the biblical thinking out of the room just for like a minute and imagine being Abraham and you're following and you're learning. It says, okay, Abraham, here's what we're going to do.

I want you to circumcise yourself, all your servants, all the men and your boy. What? Yeah.

Could you give a little instructions on this one? Yeah. That'd hurt.

Yep. I mean, you know, we kind of, well, I don't want to get too graphic here. But I mean, think how weird that that would, like are you kidding me? I mean, what's this got to do with worship? I'm telling you, God on your journey of faith will ask you to do some things that don't make sense. And he'll make it clear that may not be his will for anyone else, but for you it is.

Will you trust him? Chapter 20, he goes back and revisits test number one on security and he fails that one. And here's, are you getting to see it? It's a journey, it's a human, it's a God who loves. And then finally we get to the final exam. And the question is, will you trust me with everything and everyone in your life?

And by the way, you don't get to the final exam like this until you realize all these things have been leading up to it. And so God makes an outrageous, absolutely outrageous request. And from the culture of the day and the way that other deities were worshiped, this was not too bizarre because many of the Canaanites and others were practicing these kind of things. And so the outrageous request is, okay Abraham, I want you to take your son, your only son, and I want you to sacrifice him. I'll show you on a mountain that I'll show you. And then it's very interesting, he's really grown. The boy's about 13 now. He's seen that God keeps his promises. We'll learn from the book of Hebrews a little bit later that he believed that if God promised it's going to come through Isaac, that if he does this, God would actually raise him from the dead. And then he takes, after his obedient response, he takes a long walk. It's a three-day journey. He's got a lot of time to think about, do I really want to follow this God or not?

This is way too hard. I mean, this is the pinnacle. See, what God knew is that that boy that he longed for, little by little by little, was usurping the place and the role that only God can have for us to be healthy. And that boy, just like can happen in our marriages or with our kids or with our jobs or with our money, it becomes an idol. And God knows that anytime you have an idol, anything or anyone that takes his rightful place as the king and master and lord and CEO in your life, what he knows is it'll destroy the idol, it'll destroy you, and it'll destroy your relationship with him.

So he brings a test and says, hey, I want the boy. And then they built an altar. In the moment of truth, he takes the knife and he brings it up. That's where God comes through when we surrender everything and everyone.

And then listen to the reason. When the Lord said, because you have obeyed me and have not withheld even your beloved son, I swear by my own self that I will bless you richly. I will multiply your descendants into countless millions like the stars of the sky and the sand on the seashore. They will conquer their enemies, and through your descendants, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

All because you have obeyed me. As you listen to today's message, what went through your mind? I mean, the great reward your heavenly father, the goodness he has for you. You know, Abraham is our example.

In fact, the apostle Paul would look back on Abraham and he would call him the father of the faith. This is the picture of what God really wants you to give him, and you know what keeps you from the relationship with God, from the reward, from the blessing, from the peace, from what he wants to do in you and through you, is that taking your Isaac and offering it back to God. And for some of us, it's a relationship. For some of us, it's money. For others, it's ego. For some of us, it's a hobby or sports or music. For some of us, it's one of our kids or even our mates. And they just get too big and too important.

And if we looked at our time and our energy and our money and we said, what does it revolve around and where does our mind go when we don't have to think about anything? That person or that thing or that hobby that if you get possessed about, often it's work. That's the Isaac in your life today. God wants to give you better. And in Abraham received because he obeyed, Father, I pray right now that you would cause every person listening to my voice, whether they're driving in their car, whether they're working out, I pray that you would move in their heart where you would identify in their mind and heart exactly the Isaac, any idol, anything that's keeping them from getting the very best from you.

And Lord, I pray right now that they might offer up, even if they're driving in their car and say, Oh God, I want to give that to you. I want to obey you fully. God, I surrender today and I trust you. I may be afraid, but I trust you.

And Lord, then I ask for great and awesome reward in Jesus name. 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. Now here's Chip with a quick update. Well, for those who listen regularly, Dave, they've heard a lot about the mid-year match and they've heard about our vision. They've heard about our mission. And I just want to pause today to say thank you. It'll be a little while before we pull all the numbers together, but I have to tell you it's very encouraging. And what fills my heart today is thank you. Your partnership is so encouraging. And I believe that every financial decision is a spiritual decision because Jesus said that wherever our money goes, that's where our heart goes. So God directed you to partner with us. And I want to say thank you for your commitment, for your love for partnering with Living on the Edge as we help Christians live like Christians.

You know, one of the ways we help Christians live like Christians is by providing free resources. So either on the Chip Ingram app or on our website, you can get these messages absolutely free. Now if you found a particular message helpful, maybe tap share on the app or get the MP3 from our website, livingontheedge.org, and share it with a friend. And maybe include a note about how it made a difference in your life. Just before we close, I want to remind you that a great way to get the most out of each message is to use Chip's message notes while you listen. You'll get his outline, all of his scripture references, and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning. Use them personally or even with your small group. Chip's message notes are a quick download at livingonttheedge.org under the broadcasts tab. App listeners, tap fill in notes and you're set. Well be sure to join us next time. Until then, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.