What Now? What Next? - Healing Not Hostility, Part 1

What is it that you fear most right now? And do you understand that fear is normal, but it can also become toxic? If you need to deal with your fear, that's today. Stay with me. And after hearing Chip set up for this program, you may be asking yourself, how can my fears be toxic?

Words usually used to describe poison because of how dangerous it can be to ourselves and others. And that potential threat is exactly the point Chip's going to make today, as he continues his new series, What Now? What Next? And if you're looking for deeper insight into this important topic, keep listening after this message to hear some practical advice from Chip.

You're not going to want to miss it. With that said, here's Chip for his talk, Healing Not Hostility. When you think about you personally, when you think of the future and you have fears, maybe for some of you that are older, it's like, wow, what about my grandkids? What kind of world? Is it just maybe even this whole moral shift of right and wrong and gender confusion? I mean, we are living in a completely different world than we were not very long ago. And it's critical to get really clear on what you're fearful of because fear paralyzes. Even if you don't recognize it, it blames. It causes your mind to go, it's those people or the government or it's that group or it's so-and-so. And some of the concerns might even be about the church. Why don't they do this?

They should stop doing that. What's wrong with everybody? Fear will cause you to lose perspective and not think clearly. The reality is that we're living in a very different world. And I actually wrote on your notes, and I think you've got them there in front of you, here's the objective of this series. It's to help followers of Jesus determine God's will and priorities for their life and ministry in this rapidly changing and challenging world. The reality is the days of clearly defined right and wrong, marriage as a forever commitment, the integrity of one's word, gender defined by one's birth anatomy, and the nuclear families, the bedrock of society are gone, at least in America. We live in a new day with new rules and new values.

A lot of those values are antithetical to the clear teaching of Scripture, and we as believers and followers of Christ are living in a culture that's a lot more like the first century than the last century. For many of us, for the first time in our at least adult lives, we're on the outside looking in to a world that's rapidly changing and that no longer supports your values and your beliefs. And I would suggest that therefore we're at a crossroads, and I'm no blame here because I've done it myself, but we can whine and complain and argue and lament this radical shift.

Or we can be like the men of Esakar who understood the times and realized what they must do. And this series really is about that. Our focus. We've really got to focus and get our focus back on Jesus himself. The world's looking for hope. The world's looking for a Messiah. He has come.

And we have all that we need. You're his hands. You're his feet. You're his eyes.

You're his agents of change. Your salt. Your light. Your love.

The same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead. It dwells in us. Notice on your notes the good and the bad of major disruptions. The good is it causes us to reevaluate.

I mean, when there's a huge shift, you have to pause and say, wait a minute. What am I doing with my life? Where's the world going?

How about you? See, the temptation is to hope it gets better. And all of that has this very subtle, my personal peace, my prosperity, our future. If everything's okay with our little part of the world, then that's not God's agenda. There's the reevaluation that's good. And the bad is the anger in our souls. People are mad, really mad. Mad at injustice, mad at racism, mad at political division, church division. Mad at, we're following the science, but it says this one day and it says something else.

And it's just been a mess. And the problem with being angry is it'll poison your soul. You don't think clearly.

You don't speak wisely. Relationships don't go well. And so I want to do a little thing to help you about these major disruptions, these new eras or epochs, is that major disruptions always bring conflict and change, even positive disruptions. I want you to see, rather than looking at all the negative and getting angry inside, reevaluation is important. But also, every great movement of God has happened when there's been this huge lull, this big problem, when people realize life's not working, relationships aren't working, philosophies are breaking down, economies, political structures. And so I've given you a little Bible study.

I'd like to go through it in depth. Instead, I've given you sort of some passages, but let me give you the overview. The greatest disruption, I mean the greatest shift of epoch in all of world history is Galatians 4.4. It says, when the world literally was pregnant, God sent forth his son. I mean, God the Son entered human history, and you talk about something that's marked time from the moment that he came, he lived, died for our sins, rose from the dead, currently sitting at the right hand of the Father, we have B.C. and A.D. Everything's changed.

It was the most disruptive thing that's ever happened. And then when that happens, the result, conflict within and conflict without. And I gave you some passages there in Luke.

But it's interesting. I mean, Jesus came, we think, he's the Savior, things are going to be great. He goes to Nazareth, and his very first message, remember? They give him the scroll. He opens it up. He talks about the Messiah, and then he says, in your hearing, it's been fulfilled.

Basically, I'm him. And then the text says, and they were all in all of his wonderful words. And then he went on, and he told the story about a leper from Syria and about a widow who was, he began to mess with their culture. He started talking about how God delivered non-Jews at a time when the Jews were hurting. And it says they took him out to the edge of a hill, and they were furious, and they wanted to push him off of it, and it says that he passed through them. And if you keep reading the text, then he heals a leper, and then he heals someone else, then he heals mother-in-laws, and then he teaches the multitudes, and huge crowds are following him.

And then the external again. Hey, what about fasting, and what about the Sabbath? And he begins to give the spirit and the heart behind the law instead of just all the rules. So he messes with their culture, then he starts messing with their traditions. And just before he gives the Sermon on the Mount there, or Luke's version of it, it says that his enemies came together, and they were livid and filled with rage and sought to kill him.

I just want you to know that when there's a major shift, it always brings change, and it brings conflict. Conflict without, and conflict within. But it wasn't just conflict with the external, you know, the disciples. Do you understand that yes, they were the fishermen, but he had a zealot, and then he had a tax collector. Here's a guy, one of his disciples, who was absolutely committed to overthrowing Rome by violent insurrection and assassination.

And here's a guy who's compromised and bought into the system and betrayed everyone, and both of them are one of the twelve. Did you notice all the way through the Gospels that there's this little conversation that happens the night, the same night where he washes their feet? Does anybody remember what they were arguing about before they went in and got their feet washed? They were arguing about who's the greatest.

What's that called? Conflict. Then the church is born. Oh, everything's going to be great.

We have this idealistic view. Then there's conflict. Acts chapter 6, Acts chapter 7, and inside the church you've got the Greek-speaking widows and the Jewish widows. Acts 15, another conflict.

Here's what I want you to get. Conflict and change are always a part of disruption. The issue is how do you respond? Notice Jesus responded by saying, New wine needs new wineskins. When he was being attacked, what he basically said was there's a new paradigm. There's a different kingdom.

It's an upside-down kingdom. And when he gave the Sermon on the Mount, basically what he was saying was there's a new way to do it. It's not tit for tat.

It's not an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. There's a new game plan. God the Son has come. It's following me. And then he began to talk to them about those that are mourned, those who will be comforted, and those in sorrow.

And then we kind of skip over it because it hasn't had much to do in our country until maybe more now. Blessed are you when men persecute you. Blessed are you for my name's sake when they speak evil of you. He was giving them a new paradigm for a disrupted world about how to live in a different way. And then he'll actually go on and talk about treating our enemies in ways that are so radical and so crazy. I've taught those passages around the world in places like China in the Middle East. I mean, I've had unbelievers and Muslims shake their head and go, what?

You do this to your enemy? It's a radical, counterintuitive, supernatural love of God manifested through us. And in that first century, it started very small, like a grain of wheat, buried in the ground. And then little by little by little, it bore much fruit.

Finally, his method. I call it life. The whole history of the Scripture.

Have you ever noticed this? Man in God's presence. Sin and the fall. And then as Scripture rolls out, what it is, it's God continually wanting to bring mankind back into His presence. The tabernacle was what? A place where God would come and meet with His people, where heaven and earth would come together. And then there was the temple, where heaven and earth would come together. And the pinnacle of heaven and earth coming together, where God's presence return is what? It's the Incarnation. It's Jesus Himself.

And then what's the mission? Where's the temple now? 1 Corinthians 3 says the temple is us gathered. And 1 Corinthians 6 says it's us individually. Your human body is the temple. It's where the presence of God is manifested now by the Spirit of God to manifest the power and the personality and the presence of Jesus. So how you talk and how you act and how you respond is the way Jesus would if He lived inside your body. And if you've trusted Christ, He lives inside your body.

And so notice, I gave you my little acronym because I think so often we think it's about going to church or activities. Jesus says in Luke 6.40, when a student is fully trained, he'll be just like his teacher. That was his method. That you would recognize and live out the presence of God. And then he said to the disciples in John 13, 34 and 35, a new commandment I'm giving you all.

That you love each other the way I loved you. Radically, sacrificially, but by this the world will know that God sent forth His Son. And then he told them, I want you to be on mission.

24-7. Not at church, not on a mission trip. When you wake up till you go to bed, you're the salt, you're the light. Let your light so shine before men by your good works that they would glorify your Father who's in heaven. And my little acronym is BIO for bio because what we need to be in the world today, our response is life. And the B is for living before the presence of God, coming before God daily. The I is for doing life in community, not just a group but in community, loving each other. And the O is for on mission 24-7. Now with that in mind, let's get some perspective because the problem is that we have expectations living in America as American Christians.

And it's very subtle and we all have it. The expectation goes like this. I love God. I'm following God. I'm obeying God. I'm doing what I believe you want me to do. And as far as I know, there's not any big sin in my life. So when I do good, Lord, life will go well. And we've experienced that for, I mean, decades and decades and decades. And so we unconsciously think that when something bad happens or difficult or we're criticized or circumstances change, either God, you let me down, or what's wrong? Notice your next outline point is that hostility to the gospel, the church, and Christians is normal.

Would you underline normal? When I go to China, they know that. When I go to Yemen, they know that.

I've been all around the world. They know that. We don't know that. According to Jesus, on His last night, He says, I've told you this, John 16, so that you may have peace in Me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart because I've overcome the world. Paul would say yes, and everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus, this is a promise, by the way, will suffer persecution. The apostle Peter would say, dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you're going through, as if something strange were happening to you.

What we're experiencing now is what Christians for the last couple millennia and mostly around the world have always experienced. And so here's my question for you. How are you responding to hostility? I mean, it's pretty mild in general, but just in your thoughts first. What kind of thoughts are in your mind as you see a lot of stuff happening? Then second, what about your attitudes?

And then third, what about your action? I don't think it would be a big research project to look at your newsfeed or maybe click to fellow people that you know are Christians and look back over the last six months or so and listen to the anger, the bitterness, the resentment, the fear, the anxiety, the blaming, the throwing of grenades to different groups both inside the church and outside the church. Here's what we need to understand. Fear will paralyze us and bitterness will destroy our soul.

It will harden your heart. The lens is, what about me and my way and our thinking? Don't you understand that's exactly what the Pharisees did? That's exactly what the zealots did? That's exactly what the early disciples did. I mean, for all Peter's great qualities and, oh, he's got faith and, Lord, if it's you, tell me and I'll go walk out on the water. When push came to shove and Jesus said, the pathway to changing the course of world history and saving people and revealing the Father and bringing God's presence to its culmination is me dying and I'm going to the cross and three days I'll be raised again. Forbid it, Lord, Peter said.

Remember? You talk about conflict. Can you imagine the Son of God locking eyes with you and saying, get behind me, Satan. Why?

He explained. You don't have the things of God. You don't have God's agenda as number one.

Peter, you've got your agenda. You want a Savior, you want a Messiah on your terms to overturn Rome. You want a better life. You want peace and prosperity. I didn't come to give peace. I came to bring a, do you remember?

A sword. Jesus is the most radical person who's ever walked, fully man, fully God. Think the writer of Proverbs with all his wisdom in Proverbs 4-23, you might jot it down. Watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the issues of life. Your words, your attitudes, your love or your anger, your bitterness or your resentment, it all flows from your heart. And in big disruptions like this, if fear or anxiety or hostility even subtly becomes the lens through which you look at life and circumstances and people, there's not going to be any unity.

We will not respond correctly. In fact, as you look at page two, I like to suggest that as we enter into a life that's far more like the first century than the last that we are called to bring healing, not hostility. Listen to, this is the command of Jesus. The first couple of verses are a context because he's going to deal with some incorrect perceptions of Old Testament law who misses the spirit.

And then he's going to talk about Roman abuse. And if you were living in the first century and you read the first two or three verses, you would just say, like, dude, are you kidding me? You can't really expect this. Don't you understand what they're doing to us? Don't you understand how unjust this is?

Don't you understand how fair? And Jesus would say, I fully understand. And I'm going to ask you to follow me to the cross. I'm going to ask you to die the same way that I died because after I died, I rose from the dead.

And if you will die with me, you will have that same kind of power because my agenda is nothing more or nothing less than absolutely changing the whole course of world history and bringing people to a saving knowledge to restore the presence of God in people's lives. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Healing Not Hostility. He'll be right back with his application for this teaching from his series, What Now?

What Next? Making Disciples in a Disrupted World. If you were to conduct a general survey asking participants to describe what a Christian is, you'd probably be disappointed or frankly embarrassed by the results.

Judgmental, closed-minded, pretentious are just a few of the adjectives you'd likely hear. So where are believers going wrong? And how can we actually become authentic images of Christ? Throughout this new teaching series, Chip answers those tough questions by describing six radical attitudes Jesus calls us to follow. These truths will not only renew your mind but utterly transform the way you engage with people. If you miss any part of this new series, What Now?

What Next?, catch up anytime on the Chip Ingram app. Well, Chip, I know one of your favorite quotes is, You can't impart what you don't already possess. Could you take just a minute and help us understand how that relates to what you taught today?

Absolutely, Dave. You know, it's so easy during this time to feel hostile and to be angry and to respond in ways. And what I've learned sometimes is, yes, it's the external things. But if we have unresolved issues in our own heart, when we feel like you don't really like you, it's just really hard to give love and healing to others. And I remember early in our marriage, my wife really had a hard time communicating her love. And as we went and got some counseling, it became obvious that not only did she have a very low self-image, she didn't really like herself.

She'd made through some very painful experiences. And I remember we started reviewing these cards. They were called affirmation cards.

And then over the years, she added more and more, and I watched her bloom. And what I saw was, as she began to see herself as loved and valued and important and unique in God's eyes, and that she was safe and secure, then what I saw that overflow in her ability to share that with others. And you know, I think one of the great things for our listeners right now is if you find yourself spewing or you know someone that's struggling, we have these affirmation cards, the very ones that my wife and I reviewed every morning for two years, as we were trying to learn how to accept and receive God's love so we could give it to one another. These affirmation cards have been just something God has used in thousands and thousands of people's lives. So Dave, why don't you take a minute and tell people how they can get them and how we can get loved so we can give it.

Well, as Chip just said, the only way we can be agents of healing in this hostile world is to first understand God's love for us. And these affirmation cards will help you do that. They'll expose the lies you believe about yourself and instead fill your mind with powerful truths about who you are in Jesus. Let me encourage you, get a set of these affirmation cards today. And if you'd like to give them as a Christmas gift, you only have a few days left to place your order so your gift will arrive before December 25th. For more great Christmas gift ideas, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003.

App listeners, tap Special Offers. As we wrap up today's teaching, I wish, I mean, I really wish I could sit across the table from you and ask you how have you dealt with the fear and anxiety or maybe just the downright anger. When we get afraid and when we see things that are happening out there, Jesus' words feel so radical. And yet that's exactly how those apostles felt.

His early followers were in this crucible of being attacked and there was injustice on every side and it was his attitude. It was this never backing down from the truth but communicating the truth with life and with healing and actually having the grace at times not to say anything. You know, I've been with a number of pastors recently and the hostility not just out there but inside the church is crushing them. I actually have a young pastor that I've been mentoring for about the last 10 years and he shared something that shocked me. He said, in the last 18 months, four of my fellow church planters have committed suicide.

And I began to ask him, well, what's going on? He said, the anger inside the church over vaccine or not vaccine, over mask or no mask or opening the church or not opening the church, that they came to the point of no return. And that's so tragic. I don't know what your convictions are on those things and you have a right to all those convictions but that's not the moral high ground. Those are not the most important issues of our day. And if we can't disagree agreeably, if we can't say maintaining the unity of the body and the bond of peace, that's Ephesians chapter 4, one through three, is more important than those secondary issues, then may God help us. Could I encourage you to pause and to ask God to help you to be an agent of healing, not an agent of hostility.

And if you need to repent, repent. But let's be agents of light and love and truth. But let's do it with calmness, with kindness and with compassion. As we close, if Living on the Edge is making a difference in your life and you'd like others to receive the same blessing, we'd love to have you partner with us. Thanks to the generosity of a small group of friends of the ministry, every gift we receive between now and December 31st will be matched dollar for dollar. To send a gift, just go to livingontheedge.org, tap donate on the app, or give us a call at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003. And let me thank you in advance for your support. Well, for all of us here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.