What Now? What Next? - Substance Not Success, Part 2

Let me ask you a personal question. Do you feel overwhelmed right now? I mean, struggling with anxious thoughts about job, family, money, bombarded daily by the need for power and the will and the motivation to do what you know is right, but just finding yourself unable to do it? Well, stay with me. Jesus is going to model for us the path forward. You don't want to miss it. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry featuring the daily Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Grode, and in just a minute we'll continue our series, What Now?

What Next? In this program, Chip wraps up his message on the temptation of success. He'll highlight how Jesus handled being tempted and provide us with a practical guide to experience God's best for our lives. And before we get started, if this is your first time listening to Living on the Edge or you missed any part of the series, let me encourage you to get connected with our ministry via the Chip Ingram app.

Well, here's Chip with a second half of his message, Substance, Not Success. When Jesus was going to launch the greatest revolution that was going to transform the world and did transform the world, did you ever notice what he did? I'm going to ask you, open to Luke chapter 4.

I want you to dig in with me a little bit. Luke chapter 4. As you turn there, you can know that he has just wrapped up being led by the Holy Spirit out into the desert, and for 40 days, he's being tempted by the devil. Verse 2 says he ate nothing during those days, and when they'd ended, he became hungry, I would think.

And the devil said to him, if you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. He's, okay, he's being tempted. He's being tempted, lust of the flesh. We would call it hedonism. It's a temptation to feel, to satisfy a very, whether it's food, whether it's sex, he's tempted.

It is written, man should not live by bread alone. And so he showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain in its glory, for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if you will worship me, it shall all be yours. This is the lust of the eyes.

This is the desire to have, the desire to possess, the desire to say, this is where I live, and this is the kind of ring I have, and this is the kind of watch, and this is the kind of zip code, and this is the kind of car, and this is my portfolio. Now, those things aren't bad in and of themselves, but the desire for that to make you significant, to hold you up, is the idol of materialism. Jesus said, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve only him. And so he led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, if you are the son of God, notice he's always trying to get him to doubt himself. And you say, well, Jesus would never do that. Well, Jesus was fully God, but he was fully man. He was as human as you and as human as me in every way, yet without sin. For it is written, notice the enemy's now actually going to use scripture, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up so that your foot will not strike a stone. And Jesus answered and said, it is written, you shall not put the Lord your God to the test. And by way for remembrance of all of us, when the devil had finished tempting him, he left him until a more opportune time.

One of the greatest students in all the world is Lucifer, that beautiful, glorious, most intelligent, wise angel. And he's got a third of the angels that fell with him, and they have studied you very, very carefully. And they know when you're vulnerable and when you're weak and when you're tempted, and that's when they're going to come and they're going to throw darts. And how did Jesus respond to the darts and the temptations?

In the garden, those three, do you remember Adam and Eve? Lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. First John 2, 15 through 17, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

Those three things will always come after you and always come after me, and there is one great solution, and Jesus modeled it. It is written. I don't mean this harshly.

The average believer, once they would say it is written, other than John 3, 16, they don't know much anything else that is written. As parents, as teachers, we need to help people. This is temptation to sexual sin. This is temptation to pride. This is temptation to these areas.

These are the promises of God. We pair them together. We talk about them around the table.

We memorize them together. The power's in God's word, but if God's word is not in your heart, if it's not available, I don't think Jesus paused and said, excuse me, there's got to be a scroll around here somewhere that I can look up some verses. The average Jewish little boy, not even a rabbi, had the first five books memorized. Many of the Pharisees of the day had the entire Old Testament memorized.

Go to the Middle East and meet some imams and people from other countries and their view of the Koran and how much they have memorized. We treat God's word like, wow. I remember meeting with a group of guys. We were doing a Bible study and I asked them to tell their story.

I was always doing two things. One is we met as elders and we got in God's word together and they'd come to my house and we would eat. My question was, tell me where God's speaking to you in your word.

What are the challenges in your life? Then we would share. Then I always was looking for a group and so I asked our staff and elders, who are some emerging leaders?

I didn't tell them why. I'd say, hey, would you like to get together for maybe three months every week or every other week and just get to know each other and study God's word? This was my first meeting with six or seven people that people told me, these are leaders.

They were. They were doing good stuff in the church. I had them each tell their story and then I asked my great question is, tell me a little bit about your relationship with God's word.

There was a doctor on my left and he said, well, every day I open my You version and I read the verse of the day and I try and think of that verse all day. That's it. That's it. I'm thinking, wow.

It's not a really good spiritual diet. I went around the room. Only one of the seven people had anything that I would characterize as a deep rich and everyone it was, well, you know, I'm so busy. See, I get up early and I go work out before work and then I'm in a high tech company and I usually get home about seven or eight and I try and get in time to tuck my kids in.

See, this disease comes from the top down. At Living on the Edge, we had Barna do some research a few years ago for us and we wanted to find out how often pastors spent personal time in God's word other than sermon preparation. And so it was self-identified evangelicals from about 40 or 50 different denominations all teaching the Bible, all who believe the historic doctrines.

You ready for this? In America, only 21% of the pastors in America, and you know, they do this plus or minus level of error. It's like 3%. 21% of the pastors in America ever cracked the Bible for themselves personally except for sermon preparation. Anemic pastors make for weak and sick sheep. America is filled with Christians that are weak and sick and undernourished and so they don't have the strength to face temptation. They haven't passed on God's truth and God's word to their children and what we see now is the result of you sow and then you reap. And unfortunately, you never reap in the same season that you sow. And I just want to say we need to focus on substance, the truth of God's word, not on success, not on numbers, not on buildings, not on size.

If we would start asking what kind of people are leaving the church, are they godly, are they loving, are they holy, not perfect. Holy people just, they just actually own it when they mess up instead of faking it like they didn't. We all have struggles, but those are the kind of people that change the world. Those are the kind of people you respect at work.

That's the kind of mom that, you know, in your neighborhood you say, wow, what's going on with her and her family? His response was the supernatural power of God's word. A couple passages that if you've not memorized, I would circle Joshua 1.8 and Psalm 1, 1 through 3.

This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on a day and night, not to know it, in order to obey all that is written in. And then he says, for then your ways will be prosperous, and then you'll have success. But you'll have success in the things that matter. You'll have success in your marriage. You'll have success with your children. You'll have success in your work. It doesn't mean you always make the most.

It doesn't mean all your circumstances. But you'll have success from God's perspective. How blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night.

And here's what happens to your life. And he or she will be like a tree firmly planted by the waters, which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf doesn't wither. And whatever he does, whatever she does, will prosper.

Our passion, we're so geared for success, success for our kids, success for this, success for that, as the world defines it. And God is saying, if you would cultivate a passion for my word, from the inside out, attitudes change, the power and the strength to overcome temptation. It'll change what comes out of your mouth. It'll change the thoughts. It'll change your viewing habits.

It'll change your relationships. How can we resist pseudo-success and experience God's best plans and purposes for our lives? Romans 12.2 is probably the singular one passage in Scripture that tells you how to do that. And do not be conformed to this world.

It's a negative command. But be transformed. How? By going to church a lot.

No, that's a good thing. It doesn't say that. By trying really hard to be moral. It doesn't say that.

By working on, no. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Negative command, positive command, purpose clause, so that you may prove, circle the world. Literally, it means tested.

It was used in the ancient world where you would take a piece of metal and you put some acid on it to test the genuineness, to see. You want to see the real gold, the real copper, what's really there. He says, stop. Literally, the grammar is stop because it was happening in Rome and it's happening today.

In that church, in this church, in every church. Stop allowing the world system, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life to squeeze you into its mold. This is success. This is what matters.

Here's your priorities. And instead, have your mind renewed with God's truth so that you could actually test by way of experience what God's will is. Good, well pleasing, and perfect.

He wants a good, well pleasing, perfect marriage, singleness, student, life, work. And the way we do that is to say no to the world squeezing it into its mold, and yes to renewing our mind. I found with a lot of Christians, this is a bit new. Notice in your notes it says, you are what you eat. Like we all know that, right?

Physically. I mean, we've all, I don't know if you've seen the YouTube deal where the guy decides he's going to eat every meal in McDonald's for 30 days, and I think he makes it to like day 22 and ends up in the hospital. Well, you are, you know you, or at least you have a sense of who you are. Most of us have significant levels of denial, so we don't know each other, ourselves as well as we think. But here's what I'm going to tell you. Whoever you are today is the product of what you've been putting in your mind for the last months and the last years. You are what you eat.

Whatever the diet, whatever you watch, whatever you listen to, whatever you think, you're the product. As a man or woman thinks in his heart, so you become. Romans 8, the mindset on the flesh, death. The mindset on the spirit is life and peace. Everywhere the apostle Paul talks about how life change happens from the inside out, this grace that's relational, that produces joy and peace and love.

It's always about this renewing of the mind. Set your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on earth. For you've died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. And to begin to, rather than earn God's favor, you are chosen, you are holy, you are dearly loved, he would say. Therefore, put on a heart of kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with one another, forgiving one another just as the Lord forgave you. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Let the word of God richly dwell within you. You see that when you start to saturate your mind with God's truth, you have a yes-no proposition.

And I don't know, I'm not saying that people are logging on to triple X things. I mean, the research says about 50% of Christian men are but I pray that's not true. I'm just talking about what you put in your mind. When you're in the car, what do you listen to?

What do you read? If you look at magazines all day of people that have nicer and bigger houses than yours, can I tell you something? You cultivate greed.

If you watch movies that every time someone's getting blown up or here or there, all your kids with their thumbs are blowing people up, why are you shocked when they're desensitized to the needs of people? I didn't grow up as a Christian and so like most young men, I thought about women the way most young men did and I went to college in the early 70s and it was co-ed dorms and make love not war and I had just trusted Christ and I made a commitment to be sexually pure which felt like the dumbest thing I ever did in my entire life. I mean, there was four girls to every guy in my college.

You could be ugly and get just about whatever you wanted. And I, by God's grace, on the external activities and my mind was so filled and inundated with lust, I literally came to the point where I was going to quit the Christian life. I just, because I grew up in a hypocritical church and I thought, I want to be a lot of things but I just can't be that. And I had a buddy who was going to a parachurch Christian summer program and he had to memorize 60 verses in order to get there. It was called the Topical Memory System. And out of sheer ego and pride, he was a heavyweight wrestler and he was my roommate and I was a basketball player and we were constantly comparing. So I found his cards and I wrote them on these little things that I cut up from three-by-five cards and he was going to memorize a couple verses a week for, I don't know, 30 weeks before he could go. I wasn't going to go but I decided in typical overachiever, over-the-top, ego maniac, Ingram, I would memorize a verse a day. And so I got him and I memorized a verse a day. I didn't know anything about renewing your mind. I didn't know anything about life change. All I knew was I'm going to get 60 words perfect and I'm going to just act casually and then I'm going to walk into my big heavyweight wrestler and quote him, 60 in a row. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

So what do you think about that big heavyweight dude, you know? Except something happened at verse 21. I was coming around the corner and there was a very beautiful co-ed who was in the, she led Bible studies and Christian men would understand this. When you lust for a non-Christian you feel guilty. When you lust for a very godly person it's like, oh my gosh, I'm so dirty, I'm so terrible. And my eyes wouldn't just go everywhere and I came around this corner and she was there and we had a conversation right in front of the library.

I can tell you right where I was standing, where the sun was coming and the big tree that was over here. We had a conversation and I walked away and as I was walking away I went bang, I did not lust. And I started to head over, we had two cafeterias, one where I sat with the basketball team and it was at the bottom floor of the girls' dorm, five or six levels and they would all walk by and as a basketball team we would sit there, hmm, 8.9, 5.3, 2. It was gross, it was dehumanizing, it was sin. And I remember starting to go there and oh, there's another area. First I didn't lust and now I didn't go and I didn't feed what was fueling my lust. And all I can tell you is, that started me on a journey. If you're struggling, have you noticed that we keep landing in Romans 12?

Has anybody like going, hey, wonder where in Romans 12 we're going to land this time? Memorize Romans 12. Memorize Romans 12. Write it out.

Put it on your phone. Just focus on it, focus on it, focus on it, focus on it, focus on it. God will start speaking to you. He'll start renewing your mind. You'll find yourself ready to switch your channel and watch that Netflix and you'll go, ooh, you know what, I didn't notice before but man, this is raw.

I don't think I need to watch this. All I can tell you is this, if we will make Christ not causes, if we will focus on being a healing agent instead of getting mad and angry and hostile, if we'll say, you know what, relationships is what's going to matter, if we're going to say instead of being indignant about how, quote, Christians are being treated and we get innovative about how we love and care for people, and if we go back and say, substance, substance, God's word. Here's an interesting thought for especially you business people. I mean, you always want to read cutting edge things. When's the last time you read a theology book? I mean, the great doctrines of the church.

I mean, like what's the hypostatic union? Why does it matter that he's both Jesus and divine? Who is the Holy Spirit? What are his activities?

What does he actually do? What's the overarching thesis of all the Bible? What would happen if you said, you know, I'm going to take some time off of my phone, TV, tablet, and I'm going to learn to think theologically and biblically and have a passion for God and his word. I will tell you this, a year from now, most of us would not recognize you. You will be more loving. You'll be more kind.

You'll probably go through, as you do that warning, you'll end up a little self-righteous in about six or eight months because what will happen is you'll see things you didn't see before. See, we're all so dumbed down. We accept sin and attitudes and we give each other a pass because everyone does it. Well, what the heck? Oh, I mean, they struggle with cussing too and they're pretty materialistic too and they don't do this here and they only come to church a couple times and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so the bar of holiness and the bar of loving people gets so low, we give one another a pass and we miss the life that's truly life.

At the very bottom, I put an application for me and you. Don't miss the promise. Remember, he's compassionate and gracious. I don't know what you're feeling. I don't know what you're thinking, but he is slow to anger. God is not down on you today. His arms are not crossed. His toe is not tapping. There's not a bony finger looking at you going, why don't you get with the program?

His arms are, hey, I gave you a little wake-up call. Come. Come to me.

We can solve this. Believe me, I've raised people from the dead. I can raise this life, this struggle, this addiction, this marriage, this situation with one of your kids. I want you to experience my good, my acceptable, my perfect will in every area of your life. Personally, it is impossible to know, experience, or do God's will apart from a regular in-depth consumption, meditation, and application of God's Word in your life. You're a bunch of really, really smart people.

I don't have to tell you. And there's enough tools for you to get into God's Word in a meaningful way. The church must systematically teach the whole counsel of God, not just what feels good, not what's relational, not what will get a crowd. We need to provide relational environments of mutual support and accountability to apply God's Word to everyday life. In other words, you can't just hear it. We've got to find ourselves in small groups and around kitchen tables where we are opening this together, and the goal is not, well, what did you get for question three? And we pull our ignorance.

But this is what it says. How are you applying this to your life? How can I help you?

What can I pray for you? What verse are you memorizing this week? So we teach the whole counsel of God. We provide relational environments for mutual support and accountability, and then we help every believer learn how to feed themselves.

The day's got to come when we stop spoon-feeding people and say, you know something? You need to learn to study the Bible, so God will speak to you. Hearing God's Word from other people can inspire. Convictions to do what is right and what God calls you to do is when the Spirit of God takes the Word of God and it's birthed in your heart and you have a conviction and you do it whether anyone's looking or not because you and your God are on the same page and He's spoken to you.

We're in this together. God's looking for difference-makers. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, Substance Not Success, from his series, What Now?

What Next? Making Disciples in a Disrupted World. Have recent events in our world opened your eyes to some major flaws in the 21st century church?

Are you wrestling with the status quo and the old adage, that's just how things have always been done? Well in this new series, Chip encourages us to revisit the foundational truths Jesus taught and reconsider how we are to lovingly engage with people. By using the word Christ as an acronym Chip highlights six life-changing ways we can continue making disciples especially in these disruptive times. You don't want to miss a single part of this timely series. For more information about What Now?

What Next? go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or LivingOnTheEdge.org. Before we go any further, here's an important word from Chip. We are living in a crazy time but now it's the Christmas season and by God's grace you know we get to celebrate the birth of Christ and remember that there's hope and as the holidays get rolling here's what I know happens. People intend, they've listened to a program and they said to themselves, you know what I'm going to support Living on the Edge. Oh I want to help those pastors or well I heard they're going to double their audience or they're reaching the next generation and you kind of get excited and you're in your car and you intend to do it but the truth is you haven't done it yet. So this is just me pausing today to say turn your good intention into an action.

I do the same thing all the time. I was just doing an interview for a program and during the interview they showed a video about getting water to the neediest people in a part of Africa where the kids were dying and drinking this bad water and the spirit said I want you to give to it. Well I got home and I got busy busy busy busy and this morning I woke up and it's like oh oh I remember I was gonna I was gonna give to that project and so it was like man I almost forgot and so I wrote a check this morning and gave but I want you to know is that the intention is great but the action is what makes a difference. If God has been prompting you to give to Living on the Edge for all the kind of things we've talked about now's the time to do it and Dave why don't you tell him why it's such a good time to give.

Thanks Chip. Well if God has been ministering to you through Living on the Edge and you want to get in on supporting the ministry now would be the perfect time to join the team. Every gift will be doubled through December 31st thanks to the generosity of a group of ministry partners.

To send a gift you can either call us at 888-333-6003 or go to LivingOnTheEdge.org. Tap listeners tap donate and thanks in advance for asking God what he would have you do and then partnering with us however he leads. Well Chip near the end of your message you said it's impossible to know experience or do God's will apart from a regular in-depth consumption meditation and application of God's Word in your life. Now could you talk to that person who may be struggling to get into God's Word what can Living on the Edge do to help? I sure can Dave and this whole message has been about substance not success and we are what we eat right I mean we know it physically it's true mentally is true spiritually. The only way to experience God's best to make a difference in our world to have the power to make the kind of decisions and respond in the kind of ways that we all want to is to be in God's Word on a regular basis. The picture that helps me Dave is this is I think of God's Word as the raw material it's sort of like the gas that you put in your car and as we meet with God the Holy Spirit takes the raw material of his written Word and he makes it the living Word and he speaks it into our life in a way that it empowers us I mean it literally empowers us to have the will the motivation to overcome temptation to be the kind of people that we were designed to be. It reminds me of what Jeremiah said when he said thy words were found and I ate them and thy words became for me the joy and the delight of my heart and I love the line in there he says they became for me. So Dave what I realize is most people never had someone sit down with them personally and teach them how to actually get into the Bible in a way that they could understand where they would really hear God's voice and you know I hear people say that the Bible is a love letter I've got news for you the average Christian doesn't really think the Bible is a love letter they think it's a very big book that's hard to understand and out of all of this time in this pandemic one of my greatest joys was creating what we now call daily discipleship with Chip and it is me meeting individually with people online it's available at livingonthedge.org it's available on the Chip Ingram app and it's been such a joy to literally take people through two or three chapters of the Bible and teach them not just what it says but how they can get it for themselves I can't think of anything that will give them more delight or more joy in the days ahead thanks 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 livingonthedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003 app listeners just tap discipleship from all of us here this is Dave Drewy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.