Jesus Unfiltered - Follow - Jesus Offers Satisfaction, Part 2

If I could tell you how to be satisfied, I mean really content in your heart, no matter how much money you make, where you live, who you're married to, or being single, or even how you look. I mean satisfied, contentment.

Would you stick around for the next 20, 25 minutes? Because that's what we're going to learn today. 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 Drouy, and we're in the middle of our series, Jesus Unfiltered Volume Two. Now in this program, Chip will share the second half of his message, Jesus Offers Satisfaction. But before we begin, if you missed any part of this series, let me encourage you to catch up through the Chip Ingram app.

It's a great way to listen to Living on the Edge anytime. With that, here's Chip as we pick up where he left off last time in John chapter seven. And then notice verse 37.

This is the climax of this entire text. And so there's controversy. Jesus goes to the feast.

Jesus teaches in the temple. He's now the center of controversy. And now it's the very last day, and everyone's wondering what's going to happen? Who is he?

What's happening? Some people say he's demon-possessed. Some people say, no, he's the Messiah. Some say, no, he's the prophet. Other people say he's insane.

I mean, it's all over the map. And then that priest pours out that water, and boldly he does, and he goes super public. He's told, if any man thirsts, and he declares.

Now, remember the context. The water came out of the rock. Why didn't the people, why were they in the wilderness for 40 years? They did not believe. The promise was a promised land. Those who believed went into the promised land.

Why? To have the best life. Their thirst quenched for purpose and meaning in the midst of a battle. And Jesus is standing up and says, you all are celebrating a promised land that God did in the past. This is the promised person, and I'm offering myself to whoever will believe, who will trust in me. I'm the Messiah. Now, do you see how the context, now that you know about the feast, how it starts making sense? Then notice the Jewish leaders, what they do. On hearing his words, some of the people said, whoa.

See, there's different responses to different people. He's the prophet. Others said, no, he's the Christ. And someone goes, wait a second, the Christ doesn't come from Galilee. He comes from Bethlehem.

So they're ignorant. He did come from Bethlehem. Then notice the final section, getting the frame, the border of the puzzle, is the Jewish temple guards came back, and the Pharisees go, where is he? We sent you to arrest him.

Where is he? And they go, like, no man has ever spoken like this man. They were mesmerized. And so the Pharisees, you can look at it, they say, are you under his spell?

Are you cursed as well? And then their elite arrogance, none of us Pharisees, none of us have ever believed in him, because he was educated, we're sophisticated, and we're deeply threatened and insecure, and we want control. They didn't say that actually in the text here, but it's what's going on. And so Nicodemus, remember, he's had that sort of visit with Jesus at night, and he said, I know you're from God because of these dramatic miracles. And so Nicodemus kind of puts his hand up and goes, hey, guys, you know, I'm a respected leader here too. Don't we have a law that we all obey about we never condemn a person unless we hear from him and we do this the right way, and he gets rebuffed and with this sarcasm, so are you from Galilee too?

So do you get the framework now? Now you see what's happened, the context, tabernacles, last six months of his life, he goes to the feast, he teaches, he becomes the center of controversy, he's rejected by the leaders. Finally, the climax is this, what seems to be the most important event or action in the passage? So you're reading your Bible, okay, I'm just talking, you're just doing this and you're learning and you say, okay, got it. And this doesn't have to take, you know, an hour every day.

I mean, you're like really smart people. But then you ask yourself, okay, I got the context, I've got the flow, what's the most important event or truth, what is it that really sticks out this chapter's about? And isn't it pretty obvious verse 37 through 44 is when Jesus makes a statement?

Well then that's where you camp. You say, wow, that's the most important thing in this whole passage, Lord, I want you to speak to me. Now follow this very carefully. Jesus promises, now we're gonna go to our day, to quench your thirst and whoever's thirst that would believe and trust in him, if he would be the center of your life. As important as your wife, your husband, your job, your money, your future, your company, all those things can be distractions. He says all those things have their place. I want you to believe and trust and follow me and I'll put those things in place because the Spirit of God will give you what they can't. When the Spirit of God produces the life of Christ, the love and the peace and the joy that you're looking for, I will give. The generosity, the patience, the kindness that you need in relationships, I'll produce that as well.

The self-control and the discipline to stay on track, the Spirit will produce that from within you. He's saying I want to provide that for you as you follow me. He said it to them and he's saying it to us.

Now here's the big question. How do you move from simply knowing a passage, knowing about wisdom and knowing about God, to hearing his voice personally? You, the Bible, the Holy Spirit working in you, how do you hear God's voice? We looked at a truth. Truth was very clear.

Jesus said my words, their spirit and their life. Now look at this promise. The promise is if any man, if any man, and it's generic or woman, is willing to do my will, he will know of the teaching whether I'm speaking from myself or whether I'm speaking from God. So here's an axiomatic principle of hearing God's voice.

You have to be willing to do what it says. I will tell you, you can read the Bible until you're blue in the face, you can go to Bible studies, you can hear passages, you can do all kind of things, but unless you're willing to do, to obey, then here's what God does. Why would God give you or me new truth if we won't respond to the truth that he's already given me? Jesus in his teaching in Mark 4 says if you respond to the light that I give you, you'll get more light. If you refuse perpetually or habitually to not respond to the truth of the light that I give you, even the light that you have will be taken away. Now by the way, this isn't just about quote becoming a Christian. I got a call and actually had an event with Walk Through the Bible and they asked me to come and lead that organization.

And I was, you know, sort of a compliment I suppose, but I was just like, okay, I gotta really, I mean, we love where we're at, I thought I'd be in Santa Cruz until I died. All of you, right? Haven't you been where you got a really big decision and you feel tension and what do I need? I don't need to just study the Bible, I need to hear God's voice. And so I prayed for a month, two months, three months, I'm into the fourth month, I'm hearing nothing.

Does this happen to anybody else? I mean, nothing. God, show me.

I mean, this is really big. I mean, what, here's it goes in my mind. What if I'm supposed to do it and I don't do it and I miss what you're supposed to, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. What if I'm not supposed to do it and then I go and then I mess up, you've given this great church and these great people and my family loves it and so, you know, one day, another day, another day, right? I was like, you know, the passage where it talks about, you know, tossed by the waves back and forth and, you know, just, and, you know, so I fasted, that didn't work. I didn't know what God wanted me to do.

Here's what I did know. My wife did not want to go. And I didn't want to go. And so, you know, they said, look, we have to have a decision by this date. You know, we've given you one month, two months, three months, four months and, you know, I did my due diligence, my research, I visited, figured out, you know, strengths, weaknesses, all the rest.

And I was doing something, I can't, some sort of event because I remember I was at John Wayne Airport and I had like three, two or three more days I had to give a decision and sort of as my practice, I always get a cup of coffee before I get on the planes. Went over to Starbucks, got a cup of coffee and my back was hurting that day and so I went and sat on the floor in the corner and I said, God, please speak to me. And I, as, you know, no audible voice but it was, well, Chip, are you willing to do whatever I say? And my honest response was maybe.

Right? Maybe. I just really want to know what your will is so I can decide whether I'll obey you or not. Anybody else ever do that? And it was like, it was just like, nonstarter. Oh. And I said, okay, Lord, this is, this is an emotional, this is just flat out decision. If you will show me, no matter what, because I didn't want to go, I will do whatever you say. But I don't want some emotional experience, I don't, I got to know whether it's really you, not me.

Because I've been yes, no, yes, no, yes, right, about nine times. And so I just, I'm going to read where I'm, where my normal reading is and I was in the book of Acts and I read and it was like literally a passage went, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Arise, go. Oh no. This is not going to go well with Teresa and it didn't. But God, it was a pivotal point in our life.

Here's all I want you to hear. See, what I described the process of learning to study the Bible, you've all done it, right? But not usually in the Bible. When I was talking about those of you that write code, those of you that have started companies, those of you that have gone and got graduate degrees, those of you that, I mean, you are so committed to helping your kids either in ballet or music or violin or something. I mean, the discipline, you are seeking it as silver, you're pursuing it as hidden treasure. It's like I want to be happy, I want to be fulfilled, I want my kids to be successful, I want to find the right person. And it's like, you know, you are people that go for it.

And yet, that same intensity and discipline and work and focus and willingness to do whatever God says is almost non-existent with most Christians. And we think we can read a little verse and pray a little prayer and that we're going to have streams of living water and it doesn't work. So what kind of questions do you ask once you're willing?

Let me give these to you. Questions that I ask when I read the Bible then are, is there a command to obey? In this case, it's come to me and drink. So have you done that?

This isn't a suggestion. This is the God of the universe, fully man, fully God on the earth saying, you, come and drink. If anyone believes and believe as an intellectual, trusting your life, following him, anyone believes in me out of your innermost being. Second question is, is there a promise to claim? Well, there's a big promise here in verse 38, streams of living water will flow from where?

From within you. It's a huge promise. So you ask yourself, am I experiencing that? He promised it, so well, it's not just some experiences. If I'll search for him as for silver and I'll make Christ the priority like a hidden treasure, if I would pursue God the way I'm pursuing my business, if I would pursue God the way I'm trying to raise my kids, if I would pursue God, guess what would happen?

Inside of you, streams of living water. And it's not just his word, he lives inside of other Christians. There's some Christians that you never sit down, have heart to heart, absolutely vulnerable, authentic conversations and do life with other Christians and so you miss the Jesus that lives in them and they miss the Jesus that lives in you. I mean, some of the direction God wants to give you is through them, so I ask myself, there's a command, there's a promise. The third thing I do is I ask, is there an example to follow? In verse 31, there was all these people with all this stuff, many of them put their faith in him.

Maybe that's you. Have you put your faith in him? Certainly for salvation, for your sins to be forgiven, have you as you sit here on a certain day at a certain time, I remember or I have said, I'm in need and you're God, I'm gonna turn from my self-focused control or sort of passive, I'll do my life, God you stay over there, to I need you, please forgive me, Christ come into my life. Have you done that? And for those of us that have done that, are you still, are you believing? Are you trusting him to meet your needs or have you come to him by grace and now, you got it, I got it God, you run the universe, I got this one taken care of.

Right, anyone else do that? Now here's the thing, please listen carefully. I am astounded and amazed at the level of denial that I can have in my own life. If you would have said to me, okay, are there commands to obey and promises, yes, well one of the commands is that we honor the Sabbath principle that one day out of seven you realize the world can live without you and you get refreshed and you don't work. 24 hours out of 168 the world can go on without you, it's a gift from God and it's a statement of faith but it's a weird statement of faith, it's like you know, like running an internet company and your company says, we're only gonna be online six out of every seven days but we need to make as much money as everyone else. See that's what the Sabbath is about, it's not about don't do this, don't do that, it's about trust, it's about faith and so God as I was whining said, so Chip, how are you doing? Oh, if you would have asked me, oh man, I believe in Sabbath, you know, on Fridays it's my day off and you know, I don't look at my email hardly and I don't look at many calls barely and I try to really, I mean you know, really take a day off and I'm pretty religious about it, I mean in a good way. I went back five Fridays, I actually, you know, God's speaking to me and I look at my calendar and it's like, you're a liar, you're absolutely convinced that you obey the Sabbath and for five weeks and a half, so for six weeks you've not had a day off and you're asking me why you're sick? Ha, ha, you know what it is, it's God, I mean I think I heard a gentle voice like Chip, you are stupid.

Why do you think you're sick? You haven't obeyed me, well why haven't you obeyed me? I mean I'm gonna exaggerate just mildly but not much, well I haven't obeyed you because you don't understand how important I am, you don't understand that I mean without me how could have those events ever happened and I had to do this and I had to do that and they were just exceptions because I'm so important and I matter so much, when I violate the Sabbath or any other command at the heart of it is almost always my own pride and my own arrogance and I just repented, I repented, I said okay God my denial is over, I want to obey you, I'm willing, I'll do whatever you say, five different speaking things came the very next week, no, no, no, no, no, I want to have a healthy soul, I want to be a good husband, I want to love my grown kids, I want to love my grandkids, I want to be a good pastor, I want to have margin in my life, I want to come refresh to give God's word, I want to be a good teammate on our staff, I can't do that and disobey God.

Does that make sense? Notice there's an example to follow, Nicodemus, he went public didn't he? I mean I think there's a way to do that but there's an example there I realize I need, literally at times, this session is really helping me, you know this counseling session, I'm just thinking God I didn't plan to share quite this much, but I just want to admit to you that there's times where I'm not bold in my faith because I care more what people think than God thinks, does anyone else struggle with that?

And then I'll go through a season and so I'll have to discipline myself and say okay Lord for the next seven days or next ten days I'm going to let someone know in a winsome kind loving way and maybe I'm going to buy him coffee or I'm going to do something for someone that I'm a follower of Jesus because little by little if I'm not, pretty soon you get inside this little cul-de-sac with all your Christian friends, how will people that are longing and are thirsty hear about the living Christ if we don't tell them? And we tell them with our life, we tell them with our relationships, but we also tell them with our mouth. Last page because here's some barriers to receiving God's promise.

Barrier number one is familiarity. His brothers don't believe, why? You grew up with him. There's times I'll be in the Bible and I'll have this, you know I'll be reading and oh I got that memorized. So God doesn't speak to me, it's so familiar. Some of you have been around church all your life and church basically has become yeah go to church, I understand it, be a good person, you know I'm better than most people morally, I know I got a few issues, but there's no power, there's no satisfaction, there's no excitement, there's no adventure because you're just so familiar.

It's just become kind of like a moral code, a formula instead of a supernatural adventure with the living God, his spirit living in you. The second reason is fear of what other people think. You know verse 13, a great many people, no one would say anything publicly because so many of us are more concerned about what other people think than what God thinks. I actually, I will often, and by the way I still struggle with this so if you're thinking oh gosh that's me, yeah it's me too. And sometimes I'll just say okay every day for the next ten days I'm going to do something somewhere where I go public with my faith in a winsome way I mean it's not like hey did you see my praise the Lord sticker on the back of my car or hey here's a big Bible, what do you think, you know. But I mean in very winsome ways I had a moment yesterday, you know I was behind a guy and I didn't know it but I kind of inadvertently, the bagel shop and I think I dished him and I kind of, you know how you feel like I didn't mean to, they were looking at something and so I got my coffee and this and that and I just had this little prompting and he had, they were with his two kids and he started to pull out a bill and I put it back and I just hey I want to take care of all of us and he looked at me like wow I think I kind of dished you.

He goes no no no you didn't we were just still deciding this and that and he looked at me like what drug are you on? And I just told him I said you know I think God just really wants to bless you today and he said and you know what it was like click, when we're public and loving and winsome with our faith it doesn't turn people off, we've got a whole generation of Christians that think that if you really go public you'll turn people off, people are literally dying to hear. The third is unwillingness to obey, I mean I couldn't hear God's voice I remember I was doing a Bible study on a college campus when I used to be a basketball coach and I would play basketball, pick up basketball in the gym and then we'd go to a guy's dorm room and we'd pass out Gospel of John and we'd just read a chapter out loud and talk about it. I didn't preach, I didn't teach, I'd just ask questions what do you guys think it says? And we did you know John 1, John 2, John 3, John 4 something like that and this guy comes to me and goes I'll be playing basketball I'm not coming to the, I'm not going to come to the Bible study tonight.

I said okay that's good, none of them were Christians by the way. I said well why? He said because I can't keep reading this stuff. So what do you mean you can't keep reading this stuff? He said look I'm starting to get it, I keep reading this I can't keep living the way I am. I said well so what do you mean? He goes look man can I just give it to you straight, I'm living with my girlfriend and if I keep reading this I'm going to come to a point where either it's Jesus or my girlfriend where it's Jesus and sex and I just want you to know I'm going to go on record it's girlfriend and sex not Jesus but if I keep reading this stuff it's messing with me. And I just said you know something thanks for being so honest and I just took a moment I said now kind of from what we've learned if you ever wanted to believe in Jesus because you know this is a potential someday some way this may not really work out with this girlfriend and you might find there's something even more important sex in your life I know it's hard to believe at 19 but and then I had him share the gospel with me so I wanted to know for sure and then I said hey you can play ball with this aren't you? See you don't need to be the Holy Spirit you just need to love people love people and get them in God's word let him speak to them but see he was unwilling to obey but what I liked is he was honest enough to say it the fourth reason people don't believe is just ignorance you know that idea you know the false presupposition in verses 25 to 31 where they said the Messiah when he comes will just poof out of nowhere well that was a tradition by the rabbis in the oral tradition so they believed that the Messiah was just going to come out of thin air so they rejected Jesus the Bible never said that the Bible never said that at all but so some people reject Christ because they have ideas about him that aren't true number five there is or actually I did five I'll do four superficial assessment or evaluation you know the one group who talked about wait a second you know you had this guy walk on the Sabbath so you can't be from God and he said stop judging superficially this happened as a new Christian I've been a Christian about eight months and it was on the basketball team and a guy who was anti anti God and especially Christians said you believe in God yes you believe in the Bible yes you believe the Bible is true yes you eat meat yes you hypocrite maybe six eight so it was like you know I said what are you talking about doesn't the Bible say thou shalt not kill you kill animals eat meat see you're all hypocrites and I went back like oh my gosh maybe he's right yeah you know you know I did a little research and the Bible doesn't say thou shalt not kill I mean it says thou shalt not kill but there's a word for kill in Hebrew and there's a word for murder the Bible says thou shalt not murder but he had a superficial assessment of what he thought the Bible taught and as a result rejected God rejected the Bible and kind of put me in a tailspin see here's here's my concern and the reason I'm going through John and trying to help all of us really learn what it says my fear is a lot of you have a very superficial understanding and you think you know what this says and you're listening to all kind of things and all kind of people and you have legitimate thirsts and some of you are so daggone smart and so daggone gifted that you actually figure out how to quench your thirst and you're successful and you're smart and you become wealthy and you have great positions and you end up with what everyone else wants in life and then you look in the mirror and you look down on your soul and it's empty and you can't figure it out because you say I believe in God I go to church 1.6 times a month but the fact the matter is is you you're not searching you you're not studying the Bible like you learn to read code and develop code you're not studying the Bible the way you did a musical instrument you're not studying the Bible the way you have your kids you know doing ballet or athletics you're not studying the Bible the way that you started out with physics you're not you're not you're not taking the Bible the way you did when you were in that startup and everybody knew that you need to give your life to a startup or they don't work and God is saying in the words of Jesus come and drink of me come and drink Chip will be right back with his application for this message Jesus offers satisfaction which is from the second volume of his Jesus unfiltered series titled follow whether we realize it or not we all want to be in control control of our finances our relationships our work but that desire conflicts with our relationship with God so how do we change that well in volume two of Chip's series Jesus unfiltered he tackles the practice of following which begins with humbly allowing someone else to lead Chip explains that when we decide to follow Jesus we agree to believe trust and obey him no matter what and in turn he's responsible for leading providing protecting and loving us discover how you can experience the freedom that comes with following Jesus wholeheartedly now if you miss any part of this series Jesus unfiltered volume two or want to learn more about our resources the Chip Ingram app is a great way to get plugged in now before we go any further here's Chip to share a special email we received recently I want to pause just for a minute and if you're a financial partner with Living on the Edge I just want you to hear a message that we received from a lady named Kelly who listens every single day she said thanks so much for your ministry and daily podcast I listen every day I'm a recovering addict of many things I grew up in a Christian family was saved at the age of 17 shortly after that because of peer pressure in school started doing drugs I now have a few years of sobriety and God saved my life and he has totally removed the physical urge to use drugs and alcohol and cigarettes I've now joined an awesome church that has small groups and Christ has blessed me in recovery meetings anyway thanks so much for sharing your life with others you've made a positive difference in my life you know Kelly is one of hundreds actually thousands of emails that we get at Living on the Edge and I just call them life change Spirit of God took the Word of God and it might have been on a podcast could have been on the radio could have been in a small group could have even been a CD or a book but God intervenes with their life and something happens that changes the course of their life and I just want to pause and thank you you know some of you write a check every month some of you have it taken out of your account every month some of you like once a quarter twice a year you give to Living on the Edge I want to remind you what it actually does it's not about giving money it's about extending ministry and changing lives so thank you thank you thank you and if by chance you're listening and you're thinking you know I've never given to Living on the Edge but I'd like to get in on that we'll give you a very simple way of how you can join the team and really make a difference thanks Chip well if Kelly's story inspired you and you'd like to become a part of our team we'd love to have you join us your support helps us reach more and more people with biblical teaching and encourages Christians to really live like Christians to give a gift call us at triple eight three three three six zero zero three or go to Living on the Edge dot org that's Living on the Edge dot o-r-g or call triple eight three three three six zero zero three app listeners tap donate and let me thank you in advance for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do well now here's Chip with some final thoughts in today's teaching we said that if you put God's Word into practice I mean that's what it means to abide in him that you will know the truth and the truth will set you free isn't that an amazing promise it's not just reading the Bible not just hearing the Bible it's taking in God's Word putting it into practice you will experientially know the truth and the truth will have the power to set you free but then we talked about the barriers that keep us from knowing and applying the truth so those are pretty important let me take just a minute as we wrap up today's program and and just highlight and you think as I as I go through these ask yourself which one of these barriers might be a barrier in my life the first is familiarity you know we think we've got it and we're a little bit prideful and you know hey I know that passage I know that verse and you kind of just traffic in the truth the other is fear we're so concerned about what other people think we don't act on what we know and the third was was disobedience I mean we all face this it's just this is what it says I know I need to apologize to that person or I need to confess that sin or get help with that addiction and we just say you know by our behavior we just say I'm not going to do it the fourth is ignorance I mean so many believers don't know the promises of God they don't know what God has to offer and then finally I just call it a superficial assessment we jump to wrong conclusions and we're very very easily swayed of those which one of those today might be a barrier to you experiencing God's truth and freedom have you got it can I encourage you to own it out loud confess it to God and the big word in the Bible is repent turn from that and say Lord I need help with that I've been ignorant or I'm disobedient and meet God ask for his help in fact tell one person today what the barrier is and what your next step is and see if God doesn't show up in a fresh way that's an encouraging word Chip thanks in case you missed some of the points Chip just reviewed they're pulled straight from his message notes which is a tool available for every program so let me encourage you to get this resource before you listen to us again Chip's notes include his outline all of the scripture references and lots of fill-ins to help you remember what you're learning they'll really help you get the most out of every program Chip's message notes are a quick download at livingontheedge.org under the broadcasts tab app listeners just tap fill in notes well until next time this is Dave Drouy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.