What Now? What Next? - Substance Not Success, Part 1

Someone has rightly said, in every dark cloud there's a silver lining, meaning that there's something good that comes out of the worst of times.

I'm going to give you four specific things that God is doing in our world that it's really good in the midst of some very hard times. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this daily discipleship program, Motivating Christians to Live Like Christians. I'm Dave Drouie, and we're in the middle of our brand new series, What Now?

What Next? Making Disciples in a Disrupted World. Before we get started, after the teaching, Chip will share some deeper application to what we're about to learn, so be sure to stick around for that. Also, a quick listener note, Chip originally taught this series at an outdoor venue, so you may hear some echoes and other ambient sounds in this program. Okay, let's join Chip now for his message, Substance, Not Success. Let me give you a handful of things of how God brings about good in disruptions and challenge and tribulation.

You'll notice on your notes, if you have a pen, go ahead and pull it out because I've left you a blank so you can do a little bit of work. But let me give you four very specific things that God does, especially during challenging times, that often they don't feel so good, but they're really, really wonderful. The first thing He does is He exposes idols. Jeremiah 9, 23 and 24 says, Thus says the Lord, Let not a wise man boast in his wisdom, let not a rich man boast in his riches, and let not a mighty man boast in his might. But let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord God who exercises justice and loving kindness and righteousness in all the earth, for I delight in these things. The second positive thing that happens in very challenging times is He tests our faith. 1 Peter 4, 12 and 13, He says, Why are you surprised? Peter is writing during a time of Nero.

I mean, it is just, they are being marched into coliseums and being burned. And He would write and say, Why are you surprised at the fiery trial that you're going through as though something strange were happening? And then He says to them, God is testing your faith. He's refining your faith. He's helping you discover who He is in the midst of your need like never before so that you suffer now, but there is great, great glory and reward that follows.

The third very positive thing that happens is He develops our character. I'd love to say, and you would love to say that, you know, we just, we dig into God's Word. We pray at a fresh level.

We're super disciplined. We are really on pace, but the easier life is, the lazier most of us get. In Romans 5, He talks about we have been justified and we have peace with God, and so we exalt and rejoice in this grace. We also exalt in our tribulation, knowing our tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance proving character and proving character hope, and hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. This last year, a lot of rough edges in all of us, a new level of dependence, an awareness of what matters and what doesn't matter, of temporal stuff that used to overwhelm us and now an eternal perspective.

A lot of us have looked at our priorities and what are we doing with our life and have really stepped back and said, my, I've got to do what matters most. And in the midst of the hurt and the prayers and the struggles, you've drawn near to God and He's drawn near to you and He's made you more like Jesus. And that's God's big agenda.

The fourth good thing that happens is in the midst of these really, really challenging times, God searches for difference makers. I'm going to ask you to open your Bible. It's a little bit obscure passage. It's Ezekiel 22. Anybody reading in Ezekiel lately? I didn't think so.

By the way, me neither. Ezekiel chapter 22. Once you get to Isaiah, keep going right. The historical parallels are quite similar. God's people have not been very obedient.

They've been exiled. And God, again, I want you to hear His mercy, His love, His compassion. He's always longing to restore. He delights to show mercy. He wants to forgive.

He wants to help people no matter what we've done. And what I would tell you is that in these times God searches for difference makers. Look at verse 30. In the midst of all of this, the Lord speaks, I search for a man and mankind, a person, a woman, a student. I search for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land so that I would not destroy it. That was His hope.

That was His desire. And the next three or four words to me are, if not the saddest among the most sad in all of Scripture. Look down at your actual Bible or in your phone, whatever you're reading.

What's it say? I search for a man among them to build up the wall and stand in the gap before me for the land, but I found no one. The result, verse 31, thus I've poured out my indignation on them. I've consumed them with the fire of my wrath.

Notice their way. I have brought upon their heads, declares the Lord God. There comes a point when no one stands in the gap, when there's not a Moses to say, Lord, no, no, no.

When there's not someone to stand up and say, you know, I know it's unpopular, but this is really wrong and this is really right. And right now, God is looking for people in America and around the world to build up the wall of righteousness and truth and love and holiness and to literally stand in the gap. And God says, you know, if you don't, this is sort of the Old Testament version of Romans chapter one.

See, God has a passive wrath. He's holy and He's just. And there's times where people say, I'll do my thing. I'll do my thing. I'll do my thing. I'll do my thing. And He'll say, okay, you want to just decide that life's not very important and you want to sort of glamorize violence? Go ahead. Feed your minds on it.

Have your games play it. And don't be surprised when people randomly kill one another and shoot one another and have anarchy. You don't think the family's really important? Only 20, 23 percent of all the families in America have a mother and a father and children of the same biology. Nuclear family.

You don't believe in the family? Okay. Do it your way. You don't believe what I've told you about being wise, of being generous with the first portion to honor me, of saving and you got 30 trillion dollars of debt? Okay.

I've made a design biologically for a man and a woman to come together and you want to do your own view of gender and sexuality? The heartache, the pain. And in the midst of that, there's you and there's me. And the eyes of the Lord are going, literally, all over the world right now and He's looking for a man or a woman or a student who would build up the wall and stand in the gap. And the way it works, there's not some big hero coming, okay? It's us.

He always chooses. I mean, you go through all, through Scripture, it's just some little ordinary regular not all that intelligent person who has faith and courage and says, Lord, here am I, Gideon. Here am I, Esther. Here am I, Moses. You know, I can't speak very well.

I mean, almost everyone God uses are, I'm just a fisherman. I'm a corrupt tax collector. I'm a revolutionary.

And all through history, it's the same. God is calling us to be difference makers who stand in the gap and we do it by making our focus notice on Christ, not causes, making our response healing, not hostility, making our priority relationships, not real estate or programs, making our attitude innovation, not indignation, making our passion substance and not success. Let me tell you what I mean by that. The challenge as you see in your notes is that Christianity has suffered deeply by adopting the world's passion and perspective of success. I don't have time to go there but I put the passage, it's Luke chapter 16 verses 10 to 15 and Jesus is being attacked and as he's being attacked, he tells them a parable and he tells them the parable, it's called the unrighteous steward and it's basically the story of a guy who is corrupt so he gets fired and he thinks, you know what?

I'm too proud to beg and I'm too weak to dig. I know what I'm going to do and he calls in all the debts and he changes all the invoices so that he gets favor so that when he gets fired he's got a lot of friends. Now Jesus doesn't say what he did was right but he says his perspective was shrewd. No, that's what he knew was I'm going to do something right now that is going to set me up for the future and when Jesus finishes that in verse 9 he says, now you in your temporal life do what's important to set yourself up so you'll be welcome into eternal dwellings and then he talks about money and greed and success and he says if you're faithful in a little thing, speaking about money, materialism, you'll be faithful in much. If you're unrighteous in little things, you'll be unrighteous in much and it says that the Pharisees sneered at him because they loved money and he said you can't love two masters.

Money, fame, success and Jesus. And then verse 15, it's a verse I memorized as I was struggling as I think we all do on occasion. I really struggled with pleasing people and outward performance and I memorized this verse in verse 15. And Jesus said to those religious leaders, you know kind of people like us, he says that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable on the side of God. The thing that everybody clamors for, the thing that people position for, that what do people think, how many likes, how many followers, how many this, how many that, where's my zip code, what do I drive, how am I dressed, all the rest, all those things when done to impress people out there, he says the things that we want to impress everybody out there, if our priorities aren't first and foremost on him, he says it's detestable on the side of God.

And I want to suggest that unfortunately we have focused on success instead of substance. The gospel has been perverted. I gave you the passage, it's not new. Paul would write to Timothy, he says there's actually people that think the gospel is a way to get rich.

Now, none of us have ever seen any of that, have we? The fact of the matter is the gospel has been perverted to a self-help means to financial prosperity, personal success, self-actualization and its goal is happiness. Except that's not the gospel. In like manner because of that I think shepherds have betrayed their calling. I gave you a passage in Ezekiel 34, it's not new. Where shepherds fleece people and tell them things and the people who get rich and the people whose lives are, it's the shepherds or the pastors.

It happened in Israel, it's happening today. And third and foremost there's a famine in the land because of it. God's people today don't know his word, they don't know the historical doctrines, they don't know his promises, they don't know his purposes.

And in general with wonderful and excellent exceptions, I'm not down on everyone, don't hear that. But in general, if 8.5 to 9 out of every 10 Christians lives don't reflect Jesus, there's a problem in the pulpits around America and around the world. Never have so many, wrote one observer of Christianity today, never have so many professed to know Jesus as there is today in the world whose lives so little reflect him. Scandals among evangelical celebrities, both during their lifetime and after, it is so sad. Catholic priests and sex scandals and cover-ups, financial corruption here especially in Asia as well.

There's mega everything, mega everything except mega holiness and mega love. And the state of the church, I think it breaks Jesus' heart. He died for his church. But we've championed on success. Pastors have drunk the wine of bigger, better buildings, money, fame. And so we've told people the same thing. So pretty soon it seeps into the minds and the hearts of believers. And so you're successful. And ask yourself, as you've raised your children, has been the goal that they become successful?

Has your focus been on how well, what school they get into and how well educated or how much they know the teachers? Has it been, did they make the traveling team and are they great at sports? And gosh, if you have to choose between that and church, well, we'll catch that later. I've had so many conversations, not just in recent days but in probably the last five or ten years.

But I had one over here in Pete's just probably two, three weeks ago. A super, super successful person in the medical field. Worked with all the professional teams. Has a reputation.

Absolutely impeccable. Came to the conclusion about two and a half, three years ago that he was on the success ladder. And yes, he came to church.

Yes, he had dropped his kids off in the youth group. And I remember as we talked and we became friends, I introduced him to the Bible. You understand that, I mean, the percentage of Christians in America that read the Bible is super slim.

The American Bible Society has done, has researched, if a person's not in the Scriptures regularly, it lists four days a week, it makes no difference in their life. We live in a world where people don't know the Bible. They don't know what's right. They don't know what's wrong. They haven't taught their children. Some of those old school ways of people actually eating a meal together, opening the Scriptures, having a deep conversation, talking about news events and what does the Scripture say and what's a worldview and teaching your kids a theology.

Those things aren't happening. Instead, it's been, you know what, we've got to spend extra money and we'll get you two tutors so your SAT and ACT scores so you get in this school and this school and this school. He's as successful as he could be and I'll never forget, he said something over at Pete's. He said, you know, there's an absolute world of difference between a church-going Christian and a word-centered Christian. He was quite the athlete in college and so when I told him, basically, this is our playbook, dude.

We both played college sports and I said, if you want to get to know God you can't get all pre-digested food and listen to me or anybody else once or so a week you've got to renew your mind. I'm not sure he's missed a day in the last two or three years and then pretty soon he's reading. And then now he just, you know, that 10, 15, 18, 19 years of the success and providing money and finances for the success of his kids. Now he's shocked or disillusioned to find his kids don't believe what he believes.

Their morality has abandoned Christian morality and I got news, his story is one that I've heard over and over and over and over. You have to stand in the gap. Notice the repetition of this has happened. The famine in our land is not a famine of food, although that is a significant one in many parts of the world. Hosea chapter 4 verses 6 and 7, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. The context is the lack of knowledge of who is God. Since you've rejected knowledge, he says, I will also reject you from being my priest since you have forgotten what?

The law of God. I will also forget your children. The more they multiply the more they sin against me.

I will change their glory into shame. And isn't it interesting to see what's happened? Now just before, you know, I do believe that the good news can't be fully embraced or understood until you get the bad news and some of you are thinking, buddy, you better get to the good news pretty soon because, you know, if I could walk out I would right now. But I'm just telling you, if you don't face reality, we can put our head in the sand. We can get behind our gated communities. We are among the wealthiest in all the world. We can figure out a way that, you know, maybe things will work out a little bit better for us than most people. If you're going to make a difference, don't you think the Spirit of God would be coming and tapping people on the shoulder that have unprecedented wisdom and opportunity and influence and affluence, not to make us more comfortable but to make us difference makers who stand in the gap, who build up the wall, who say not on my watch or say, you know what, Lord, I'm sorry.

I'm one of them. It happened so subtly. We were like the proverbial frogs in, you know, the pot that you heat up gradually.

It happened so subtly. Here's what I want to tell you. There's a revolution that's always available, but the revolution always begins. Every great movement of God always involves a return, a discovery, and a passion for God's Word. When there's a man, when there's a woman, when there's a student, when it's in a Bible study, when it's in a church, and it's a church, I mean a passion for God's Word.

I don't mean I ought, I should, a chapter a day keeps the devil away. I mean a passion that says this is truth. Man doesn't live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

It's powerful. It's sharper than a two-edged sword piercing the division of soul and spirit and joint and mare, able to judge the thoughts and intentions of our heart. It's the kind of passion that Solomon would talk about in Proverbs 2. It says if you search for it, wisdom and knowledge, as for silver and like for hidden treasure, then you'll discover the knowledge of God. Then you'll know what he's like and when you know what he's like and you encounter him, he changes you and there's a change reaction.

Christianity fundamentally is not about our morality. It's about being in the presence of God. The entire narrative from the garden into the city in Revelation is the presence of God.

Here is his presence. Because of sin, we're removed from his presence. He wants to bring his presence so there's a tabernacle and what? He gives his word and then there's a temple so there's a place where God can come down on earth in his presence and finally his presence manifested inside of fully God, fully man, bridging the gap between heaven and earth and in the end, what's the story? His presence comes down a new heaven and a new earth. The most important thing that can ever happen in our life is not some little legalism that I read three chapters or I had my devotions or I read daily bread or Jesus Calling. It's knowing him.

It's not the word for the word. It's the Apostle Paul saying, more than that, speaking about all his accolades and all his wealth and all his wisdom. He said, more than that, I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing value of personally, experientially, knowing Christ, for whom I suffered the loss of all things and I count them dung or rubbish that I might gain Christ and be found in him. That's the man.

That's the woman. That's the student who will make a difference and it doesn't have to be big. It's just you in your world, me in my world, but it starts by coming back to his word. I mean, sometimes, I mean, I don't know, I got to talk to my dad shortly before he died and it was a not good illness, but he had one of those, you've heard about it a lot, like he got like super awake and super and we had probably our best talk and people say the most significant things when they know they're going to die. Jesus had a conversation with his father before he was going to die and he knew what was coming and it's in John 17 and he prayed for us and he prayed that we would love one another and we'd be one with one another and we'd put away petty stuff, Republican, Democrat, mask, no mask, meet, not meet, inside, outside.

Stop it. Jesus. Jesus. We want to be one with you the way you are with the father that you might be in us and we might be in you and us one to another to show the world what it looks like and then how? What did he pray? He said, Father, set them apart, make them holy by your truth, your...anybody?

Your word is truth. I've been pastor in a long time and there's different traditions. So some traditions when you get done speaking, you kind of go at the back of the room and people walk by and you shake their hand and one of my professors called it the glorification of the worm and since he said that, I decided that wouldn't be how I would do it and so I just got in the practice of when I got done, I would just sort of hang and just say, hey, you know, I'd usually have a team of people to do counseling and hey, if you want to talk for 10, 20, 30, 40 minutes, I mean I've closed church a lot of times in my day and people come down and I mean it's life. My wife left me, my husband left me, I've got an addiction, I've got an eating disorder, I've got a porn issue, I'm shopping too much, got money too much, you can't believe what I did on this business trip, you know, it goes on and on and on. You know, my kids, it's life, I've heard it all and as I've talked with people and prayed with them and things that have been done to them and I mean life is so messy and it's so hard and our job is to love people and to also bring them the truth so there's deliverance and change and hope and one of the things, I try and listen because I'm not really a very good counselor, I'm a great one-time counselor. I'm pretty good at listening and then evaluating and giving you a sense of, I think this is where you're at and this is where you need to go but if you need someone to cry with you and go on the journey for the next 6 or 9 months, you better call my wife. She is loving and kind and merciful and I'm a lot more, okay, you know, let's go. But I always ask people a question as they share, especially when it's things that have been convoluted over time.

I say, could you just, let me ask you a question. What's your relationship with God's Word? I get the look that I'm getting from some of you like, no, no, what's your relationship with God's Word?

Not God, not God. I'm going to tell you, really, really, really big problems, really, really low or no relationship with God's Word. The higher the relationship with God's Word, in most cases the smaller the problems.

Chip will join us here in studio with his application in just a minute. You've been listening to the first part of his message, Substance, Not Success, from his series, What Now, What Next. 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, close-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, as you've been teaching this series, you know, I can't help but think that there are people out there who feel maybe a bit helpless. They don't lead major companies or pastor large churches. And maybe you're thinking, I'm not in a prominent position to make a major change.

So what can they do? Well, Dave, that's really true. But I will tell you, there was a lady named Anna about this time of year who went into the temple and fasted and prayed. And it seemed that God valued her so greatly that she actually got to be one of the first people to see the baby Jesus. For reasons I don't understand, there's something about God finding people that are dependent, whose focus is on trusting Him evidenced by prayer, intercessory prayer, prayers from the heart, pleading with God, writing down specific prayers and addressing specific issues and not just saying, Lord, make things better. And right now, as people are challenged with that, I want to challenge fellow believers.

Let's really pray. One of the resources that has helped me is our prayer journal. And I don't mean that you have to write down three or four or five pages. I personally just take the biggest, heaviest burdens or concerns and I put a little box in a corner and then I turn it into a request. Lord, I'm so concerned about, but now I'm asking you, will you please, and I'm really specific and then I write that down. And when I get discouraged and we all get discouraged from time to time, I open my prayer journal and I see a lot of check marks with dates.

Now some of them, there's no check mark. God hasn't answered yet. But I will tell you, the practice of writing my prayers and reviewing them has made it more clear and I've seen God's hand and I would invite our listeners to let's make a difference. And God says the effective prayer of a righteous man or a righteous woman accomplishes much.

Let's do it. Thanks, Chip. We have a great resource designed to help you spend more intentional time with God. It's a beautiful, compact notebook.

This tool is full of meaningful verses, popular quotes and song lyrics with plenty of space for journaling. These notebooks also make perfect gifts, especially with Christmas just around the corner. For more great Christmas gift ideas, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003.

Express shipping is available so don't wait. Again, that's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap special offers. Chip, you've shared before that when you're counseling someone, you ask them a very important question. Tell me about your relationship with God's Word. Now, why do you ask that? What does it reveal to you?

I've been doing this for a very, very long time. And as I shared in the teaching time, if you're not in God's Word, your mind's not being renewed. And if your mind isn't being renewed, then you live your life in the opposite way that God wants us to. And so when people are not in God's Word, which according to the American Bible Society, very few Christians are in God's Word regularly. And they've done some research to say that unless a follower of Jesus is in the Word of God, you know, 15, 20 minutes, at least four days a week, there's rarely, if any, life change that happens in their life. What I've learned over the years is a lot of people don't know how to get into the Bible for themselves in a way they can understand and really experience. I mean, hear God's voice.

And so here's what I want you to know. I will help you. I will meet with you personally and help you learn how to study the Bible. It's called Daily Discipleship. And Dave, at the end of the program here, will give you very explicit instructions how you can meet with me to begin to understand God's Word.

And it's absolutely free. Here's my heart. We'll all be deceived.

We will all find ourselves chasing success rather than experiencing the substance and the truth of God's Word if we don't know how to get into the Bible for ourselves and hear Jesus' voice saying to us, I love you. I'm for you. This is the way.

Walk in it. That's what we want for you. Dave, could you give him some help? I sure can, Chip. Let me tell you how to sign up for our new Daily Discipleship with Chip, True Spirituality, based in Romans chapter 12. For 17 days, you and Chip will walk through what a genuine relationship with Jesus looks like and how you can put these truths into practice. When you register for this study, we'll send you our friend Lance Witt's devotional based on Romans 12 called Leave Ordinary Behind at No Cost. Sign up now by going to LivingOnTheEdge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. App listeners, just tap Discipleship. Until next time, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.