Jesus Offers Hope - When Being Good Isn't Good Enough, Part 2

Do you ever get that sense down deep inside of you that there's more to this Christian life than you're experiencing? I mean, you're doing the right stuff. You pray, you go to church, you read your Bible. I mean, you even give generously, but something's missing.

And you always feel just a little bit guilty. Today, we've got the answer to that. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drouy, and could you relate to that sense of longing Chip just described?

Does it feel like you can never be good enough despite your best efforts? Well, in just a minute Chip will point us to our true fulfilling purpose as he continues his series, Jesus Offers Hope. And be sure to stick around after the teaching as Chip shares more practical steps to hold on to the hope God has for us.

So be sure to stay with us for that. Well, here's Chip with part two of his message, When Being Good Isn't Good Enough, from Luke chapter 15. The last observation here is that elder brothers' lives are as miserable as prodigals. You know why?

Because they're joyless slavery. There's envy. There's bitterness. When you're on the performance track, when God doesn't come through the way you want him to, you're angry with him. When you don't measure up, and guess what? When you try and live out of performance, you won't measure up, then you loathe yourself. I remember, oh God, I sinned again.

I said I'd never do that. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and you know, on and on and on. And then pretty soon it gets so unbearable that you become a hypocrite because you know you're projecting this, but boy, the lust in your heart over this and the envy in your heart over here.

And I was miserable. And so I know about elder sons. And this message is a serious, serious message because there's about three groups of people that really need to hear it. The first group is people that are absolutely convinced that you're a part of God's family and you are a lost elder brother. You are moral. You may be religious. You may have been in church all your life, but you're trusting in your goodness.

And I'm going to give you some traits that I want you to do a self-evaluation. The second group of people is people like me. I genuinely became a Christian, and maybe it's your personality or your compulsive disorder or your performance orientation, but as you locked into the Christian life, you turned it into a performing for God, and you're missing the relationship. And the third group is some of you wayward sons, you know, the younger brothers. Some of you don't want to come to the Father because you think what it means to be a real follower of Christ is people like I was. And the religious people you've met, you're thinking, I don't want to be like them ever. And you need to understand that Jesus is saying the progressives are wrong and the conservatives are wrong. I'm right. I want you to come to me.

I want to have a relationship. And so you'll notice on the next page, I did something. I'm going to ask you to pull out a pen, and I'm going to go through them briefly. I want to help you understand what are the traits of an elder brother. And by the way, I'm not judging anyone. I don't know if you're a part of God's family. I don't know if you're a genuine believer who kind of has elder son tendencies and mindsets. All I know is there's a lot of Christians that are in chains and bondage and doubt and condemnation. And I also know that the great majority of Christians, they don't read the Bible. The great majority of Christians don't give their money. The great majority of Christians don't serve other people. And I'm thinking maybe a lot of people, if you feel dry and every time someone says about reading the Bible, oh, I ought to, I should, but I don't want to.

When people talk about loving other people and any time money's mentioned, you feel, oh brother, I can't believe, you know, I should do something, but you don't want to. You know what? I just interviewed a guy over 60 years old who became a Christian. No one's telling him to read the Bible. He wants to. You know why?

His heart's connected to the Father's heart. I just interviewed two guys last week that are in their 20s. No one's telling them to read the Bible. No one's telling them to start sharing with their friends and giving their money away. No one's telling them to change their life goals.

You know why? Something's happening. If you feel like those are ots and shoulds and down deep in your heart, you ought to, you ought to, but you either are out of duty or you're just not, God may have the most liberating message for you you've ever heard. The longer you've been in the faith often, the longer you've been in the church, the more religious we become.

So are you ready? Let's look at the traits of elder brothers and their relationship with God. Duty and obligation. That's what you feel and it's characterized by a dry prayer life. You go through lists, numbing lists and feel guilty when you don't. We think that God owes us a good life. It's a formula. Like that elder son, I did this, God, you have to do that and when he doesn't, you get ticked.

Guilt becomes how you feel because you never feel like you measure up. I still remember, I mean, I was out this like two, two and a half years and it was like, how long are you supposed to pray? The fact that that's what you're asking, how much do you have to read? How much do you have to give? How long do you have to pray?

I mean, how good, how much is enough? Well, you're supposed to pray for 20 minutes. Well, I heard some other people got to pray for 30.

Oh gosh. I heard some people, it's gotta be an hour. Oh man, I can't even do 20. I can't even do 30. Well, you're supposed to give X percent. Well, no, it's X percent.

You can never land. It's performance based. Feeling pressure. In your relationship with God, you feel pressure. It's about rules. It's about laws.

There's a legalism. It's not like I'm loved by God. It's not like, oh Lord, it's so good to come into your presence. Oh God, you love me. You're a safe place.

Performance. Feeling loved only when you're doing all the stuff that you think you ought to do. I still remember that, oh, I misread my Bible. That's why I got a flat tire.

I should have given more money and maybe this girl would date me. I didn't get that promotion because there's this cause and effect wacko. You know where that comes from? That comes from thinking that your goodness merits God's blessing. It's a lie.

It's an elder brother mentality. And then ultimately it's that right living is the means to getting what you really want from God. Can I ask you, you're in Luke, can I get you to turn just to a couple of books, Romans chapter four, just a couple of books over.

I just want you to look at it with me. Romans chapter four, I'm going to read verses 20 to 22. Speaking of Abraham, it says, yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had the power to do what he promised. This is why it is credited to him as righteousness. The words that was credited to him were written not for him alone, but for also for us to whom God will credit righteousness for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. And his point in this whole passage is that no one will be justified by the law.

No one will ever come into right relationship with God by keeping the rules or the law in this book or any set of rules that any group comes up with anywhere. In your relationship with others, it's characterized by feelings of superiority. When you're working this hard, then you become critical and you have prejudice and you're judgmental. And ultimately it's rooted in insecurity. If people look different, if they're not in our little group, if they believe doctrinally about something that's a little bit different, and then pretty soon we got to know who's in and who's out. So they need to look like us and look like us can be different for different groups. But there's this air of superiority.

There's this air. It's rooted insecurity that we're better than when you're an elder son and people can feel it. The legalistic letter of the law is focused on not the spirit. You get in a conversation and well, what's it say right here? It says right here that on exactly the certain day of certain thing you need to do exactly this instead of that. Well, why is it said that?

And what's the heart behind it? Elder sons in their relationship with others champion God's justice, not mercy. This is right.

This is true. They're righteousness champions. They want justice for everyone. But you know, my observation is when we mess up when I mess up when you mess up, Oh God, be merciful to me. But instead, these kind of groups come and pick it and tell everyone that they're out to lunch and they're terrible and they have signs that are condemning and the champion God's justice.

Miss God's mercy. These people repel your religious people. I did. I mean, that was what you know what that girl was telling me. Could you be more criticized for your faith then? I don't know what a really committed Christian looks like, but if it looks like you, I would never want to be one.

I mean, that's like in the ultra non compliment arena. And can I ask you something? Name your four or five top non Christian friends. Just, you know, go ahead in your mind, your religious people, people that drink too much, people that are workaholics, people that have an affair, but you know, your friends and they understand they can share that with you. People that log onto the Internet and you're a friend at work and they know you're a Christian and you're non condemning, they feel safe around.

Who are your non Christian friends? My guess is for some of you, you can't come up with one or two fingers and instead you listen to talk radio and we're this little huddle and you know what? What's wrong with the world is all those immoral people and what would change the world is if us moral people get things right. And so you walked, watch only certain stations that agree with your view. I thought we were here to be salt and light and integrated, never compromising on the truth, never budging in the absolutes of our morality, but loving lost people where they're at the way Jesus did. They were attracted to him.

These groups espouse correct doctrine, but act in unloving ways. By the way, this happens in families all the time. This is that dad or that's mom. I'll tell you what, you know, you're going to be in church and this is really matter.

And you know what that not this movie, not that can't do, can't do. Instead of asking him, what do you think God would want? Teaching him to make decisions, giving them responsibility. It's always a boatload of rules and I'll tell you where they go. The moment they can get out of your house, they run from you and they run from God because the spirit gives life, but the letter kills. Finally, there's struggles often with depression and there's often secret sins. In groups, whether they're fundamental groups that are hyper or whether they're in places where there's a doctrine of works orientation, the scandal in the Catholic Church, how could that many priests be involved in sexual immorality? How could these televangelists that have such broad sweeping over the years have such immorality? How do these pastors that preach about justice and pound away and tell them everybody else is wrong, then we find their secret sins of alcoholism and pornography and sexual affairs.

I will tell you why. No one can live under the burden of being good. And so what happens is the pressure of being good as it starts to explode, they find a release valve. And for some of us, it's alcohol or prescription drugs or eating or workaholism or pleasing people. And what you have is just a varied view of different ways to try and cope with the fact of the matter that your righteousness and your goodness and this image of projecting that you're this really good person.

Could it be that you're trusting in an absolute commitment to never breaking any of the rules and the pride and superiority rooted in that is actually keeping you from God? And can you hear something? I've been on a 30-year journey here. The Father says, come in.

You know what? Now in my life, I don't feel like I have to read the Bible. There's mornings that I think, God, what does our relationship need? Do I need to write and process? Do I need to sit and listen to worship music and rest and sit and get nothing done? Do I need to read three or four or five or six chapters and just let your truth renew my mind? Do you want me to read the gospels before I go to bed so you can draw me near to you? Do you want me to go out for a run? Do you want me for a while so I can focus on you not to eat this or not watch that but know that your love has nothing to do with any of those things? Lord, it's been crazy. I've been in hospital rooms here, here, there.

I don't think I've read the Bible in two days. Thank you that you love me. Thank you that everything about how you relate to me has absolutely nothing to do with what I could ever earn. The righteous will live by faith. You know, I want to get where we celebrate the humility that it takes because it takes way more humility for a religious moral person to admit, yeah, I'm squeaky clean and I don't really love people.

And you know what? I try and pray but I'm praying through this. And if your spiritual experience is a lot of guilt and a lot of condemnation and a lot of not feeling close to God and a lot of got tos and ought tos and shoulds, I want you to know your father says, why don't you come in? Why don't you let me put my arm around you and let's not focus on all those rules. Let's focus on our relationship. And from the inside out, I'll change your desires. What if you could believe and we could have testimonies of people. I was a Pharisee and the father loves Pharisees as much as prostitutes.

And what he wants is our hearts as much as their hearts. On the back page, I've given you some specific steps that I've been working through in my own life and I want you to listen. I don't know where you're at but I pray that as I've described what the text says that you'll self-identify as maybe I don't have any desire for the Bible or any desire for God or I thought just being a good person and intellectually believing in Jesus, that's not maybe the ticket.

Maybe I'm lost. For some of us that are born again and have the Pharisee mindset, I read a book called Tired of Trying to Measure Up by Jeffrey Van Vonderen. I read Brennan Manning's The Ragmuffin Gospel. I read Henry Nowan's The Prodigal. And I understand some of them have a little doctrine here and there.

You know what though? Those people came out of systems where they understood their righteousness or their attempts was keeping them from God and they talk about grace and I needed to hear that and filter the rest. How do elder brothers experience God's love and forgiveness? Repent of their good works as the basis of their relationship with God. Repent. We need to change our mind about our good works and our performance. Repent of our self-seeking motives. At the end of the day, it's using God.

God, you got to do this because I did that. Third, it's repent of our desire for men's approval. At the heart of the Pharisees, it says they couldn't believe in Jesus because they wanted the approval of men more than the approval of God.

It becomes an image management issue. Some of you today will not come to the Father because you would have to admit that what is really going on in your heart isn't near as close to what you've been projecting and that would be a very humbling experience and you're not willing to go there. You want to keep pretending.

I pray it's not true. But having done that and been there for many, probably will be. We have to repent of our pride and humble ourselves, admit our need. I'm not proud that I was a Pharisee. I'm not proud that I still have those tendencies.

But I'm going to go public and say, I need the Father. I don't measure up. I blow it. I have all the struggles that you have. Along with that, refuse to compare ourselves with others.

The way we keep ourselves when you're a Pharisee, the way you keep your equilibrium is you keep finding someone who's not doing as good as you and you keep comparing yourself with them. See? See? See, I'm doing this. I read the Bible more. I gave more than that.

I'm doing this. You need to compare yourself with anyone. Refuse to judge others.

It's one of the greatest wow you talk about. If you saw what happened in my heart over the years and how I look and have looked at people not knowing anything about what's going on inside, the level of repentance that I've had to go through and ask God to give me His eyes to only view others the way He views them, to not make any assumption ever about another person's motives. And then we have to draw near to the Father just to please Him.

No deals. Are you ready? God the Son came to the planet and lived a perfect life and died on a cross because He did nothing wrong and rose from the dead because He just wanted to connect with you. He wanted to love you. He wanted to have relationship with you.

He wants to help you. Not so you could turn into some religious robot who would perform. And finally, submit to God's authority in our lives.

You see, this is really, really hard to admit, but this is the core. When I'm a rebellious, wayward, sinful, do my own thing, I'm not going to do what He says. If I want to sleep around, I'm going to sleep around. I'm going to put in my body what I put in my body. I want the rules and the traditions and I'm going to do my own thing.

Guess what? I'm in control. By contrast. I keep the rules. I'm good. I set the standards. I'm going to control God and I control God and I'm not going to really do what He says. I will decide how the rules work and I will be superior than others and at the end of the day, I use my religion to do exactly the same thing that wayward, younger son does.

And you know the scary part is leaving all that junk and kind of coming spiritually naked and saying, Father, I'll do whatever you want me to do. I'll humble myself. I want a relationship. I want to feel and know and experience your love and I want your purpose for my life and I want to love you and I want you to create those desires in me and I want to align my life around the things that will allow me to experience your life and I desperately need you.

Kind of goes back to surrender, doesn't it? Before we go on in today's program, I want to talk to two groups of people. Group number one, you heard today's message and there's a big part of you that's actually trying to push it away.

It is so much like how you are that it's hard to hear and hard to face and you're trying to push it away. And you, yeah, you know, wait a second, what's this guy talking about? I read the Bible and I pray and I really love God and who does he think he is? Wait a second, this is what Jesus said.

This has nothing to do with what Chip is saying. But here's the question I want to ask you to cut through it all. Would those closest to you say you are a winsomely loving person? I mean, are you the kind of person that people want to be around? Do they sense that you're not judgmental, you're not condemning, you're loving, you're kind? You see, if the answer to that is kind of no, then there's a good chance you're an elder brother and you need to repent.

I've been there, I've done that, I shared that in this message. And I want you to know that not only are you missing out, but there's a lot of damage going on around you that God wants to stop. That when everyone around you feels guilty and less than and like they don't measure up and when you are sort of that prophetic voice in everybody's world saying, you know, they're not doing this and if they were more like me and if everyone served like me and everyone gave like me and everyone got with the program like me and everyone read their Bible like me then, and if you're critical of other Christians and critical of other groups, let me just tell you, love is the measure.

Everything minus love is a big fat zero in God's economy. And so I encourage you just to be honest and repent until God you're sorry. At the heart of it is some bad teaching and some desire on your part to be in control and to make yourself feel like you're really okay. And I got news for you, you're going to explode.

I mean, you just can't keep it up forever. And you're carrying a load that God doesn't want you to carry. He wants to take that off. He wants to invite you to come in. He wants you to treat you like a son, treat you like a daughter. He wants to love you and hug you and hold you and bless you totally apart from all your performing, performing, performing.

The other group I want to talk to is those that maybe you identified as an elder brother. And this is a scary thing because when you're really religious, it's hard to imagine that you possibly may not even be in the family of God, that your work's righteousness, that I go to church ever since you can remember, you've been doing all this stuff for so long that the thought that you don't feel drawn to God, you do it out of duty, you always feel guilty, you never feel like you measure up, the fruit of the Spirit, the joy, you know what? The truth be known, you are faking a lot of it. And God wants you to know, as embarrassing as it might be, you need to come to Christ. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty, there's joy, and there's peace.

And if you're not sure, then you know what? You know the right doctrine. So right now, bow your head, surrender your life, ask Him to forgive you, base it on the work of Christ, and make your goal to know Him and enjoy Him instead of performing for Him. And I pray this will be the greatest day of your new spiritual life. Now if you just prayed with Chip, we'd love to put a free resource in your hands.

It's called Starting Out Right, and it's absolutely free. This resource will help you gain a clear biblical understanding of what it means to put your faith in Jesus. And that's our whole mission here at Living on the Edge—helping Christians really live like Christians. So let us help you get started in your faith journey. You can request this resource by calling 888-333-6003 or visiting livingontheedge.org, then clicking on the New Believers button.

That's livingontheedge.org, or call 888-333-6003. I want to take just a moment to talk about something today that's very important. You might engage with Living on the Edge, and obviously you are.

You may be listening to me on an app or radio, oneplace.com, or maybe you were in a small group study, or you took a course online, or maybe even read a book that I had the privilege of writing. God, to my amazement, and it humbles me, is using Living on the Edge in incredible ways. And I just have to tell you, we get testimonies from people about restoration and healing and God using them to help other people. And then I want to tell you very, very candidly that we are very serious about using the money and the resources that God gives very carefully and very wisely. But I also want to bring to your attention that it actually takes money for airtime and these teams that create these resources and all the things that happen behind Living on the Edge. There's a group of people with costs involved that allow you to hear me or be in a small group or get teaching. And here's who I'm talking to.

If you have been helped, encouraged, I mean literally blessed by Living on the Edge, and you happen to be one of those people that has never given financially to the ministry, I just want to just pause and say, would you consider partnering with us to help us help other people? And maybe it's a one-time gift. Maybe it's a small amount that you want to do monthly. I don't know. Here's the deal. Would you just be willing to say, Lord, do you want me to do this? And for some of you, you can't. That's fine.

But just ask that honest question. And if God leads you to give, I will tell you we'll use it wisely. We'll invest it in ministry. And we're going to help a lot of people. So thanks for prayerfully considering to do whatever God chose you to do. Thanks, Chip. If partnering with Living on the Edge is an idea that makes sense to you, we'd love to have you join us.

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Not only that, but it couldn't be easier to call or email directly from the app. We'll be with us again next time when Chip continues his series, Jesus Offers Hope. Until then, this is Dave Drewy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.