Holy Ambition - Develop a Dislocated Heart, Part 2

Have you ever wondered why God uses some people more than others? And then you look at their life and you scratch your head and you say, God, why would you use them?

I mean, they're not overly smart or they don't seem even especially holy or religious. Why does God use some people more than others? That's what we're going to talk about today. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. I'm Dave Drew. And if we're honest, we've all had those questions Chip just posed run through our heads because we all want our lives to matter and make a difference.

So how can we change that? Where do we begin? Well, Chip will tell us in this program as he continues his series, Holy Ambition. Now, if you're looking for some 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 what he has to say.

Okay, let's join Chip now for the second half of his message, Develop a Dislocated Heart. He begins by revealing the biblical figure we'll follow for the rest of this series and the wisdom we can learn from his life to turn our God-shaped dreams into a reality. Well, our model is going to be a man that had a holy ambition. What I like about him, he's not a prophet. He's not a priest. He's a business guy.

He's a guy with a nine-to-five job. His job in that day was to be the cupbearer and you would taste the wine, taste the food so that if it's poison, you die before the king does. It was a great job, but the food was good. But he also became a confidant. You became friends with the king.

You were the inside man. It was always chosen someone outside the royal line. So in this case, he wants a Jewish cupbearer because he's the Persian king because a lot of Persians want him job and the way you get to be the king is you kill the present king.

And when you look at history, sometimes it's even your own sons or whoever does it. And so we're going to meet a man named Nehemiah and God has judged his children because they've worshiped idols and because of their worship of idols, they've been dispersed. And after they've been dispersed, he promised he would regather them and there has been a partial return and Zerubbabel was one of God's man of profit and he went back and said, hey people, you know, God promised, let's get with the program.

And it wasn't very successful. And then Ezra headed back and he's a teacher and a scribe and he teaches God's word and still wasn't getting any traction. And so we pick up the story in Nehemiah one and it says the words of Nehemiah, the son of Hacaliah in the month of Kislev, which is our November, December in the 20th year. And the reference is the 20th year of king, or Xerxes, who's the king of Persia, while I was in the citadel of Susahen and I, one of my brothers came from Judah with some other men and I questioned them about the Jewish people, the Jewish remnant that survived the exile and also about Jerusalem. And by the way, it's interesting that people that get a holy ambition that's from God ask questions. Nehemiah gets a report and he asks about the people and he asks about the place.

And now we get the report. They said to me, those who survived the exile are back in the province and they're in great trouble and disgrace. The wall of Jerusalem is broken down and its gates have been burned with fire. So the wall would be protection, it would be a functioning city. The gates are where the elders would meet.

It's how you could close things off. You would have security. It would be a functioning city that was growing and making progress. We know that the temple hasn't been rebuilt, that the walls are crumbled and the gates are burned. Basically, you look at Jerusalem and this is the city that God promised would be the hope of the world. And if you could go back in a time machine and look at that city at this moment, you would just say, God's agenda is dead. It ain't going to happen. All those promises he made and the coming Messiah and it's done. The place is a shambles. And there's people today that when you look at the world situation, you look at the economy, you look at the violence and the murder, when you look at terrorism, when you look at people that have the ability to actually blow up whole cities, people are saying, where's God in all this? The answer is he lives inside his children and they have an agenda today just like there was an agenda then.

And the issue will happen that will really make the big difference is how will you respond to the news that you see today? I mean, Nehemiah could have said, well, you know, that's really tough. I got a full time job. I mean, someone has to eat the King's steak and drink the best wine in the world. And I mean, I mean, it's just my job.

Don't blame me if I have a Rolex sundial and an Armani toga. And that Lexus chariot I have is pretty hot. In fact, I got six horses now instead of four, and they really zip when I go through town, you know? And you know, I'm called by God. I'm doing what God wants me to do.

It's working for me, right? And you know, I didn't create that mess. I'm just a regular guy. I'm not even a prophet.

I mean, I didn't go to Bible school, didn't go to college. Look, I'm a business guy. Okay, yeah, okay, I'm a wealthy business guy. Okay, yes, I have affluence. Yes, I have influence. Yes, I'm positioned in the strategic place in world history. But I mean, God couldn't use someone like me.

Look at his response. When I heard these words, I sat down and wept. And for some days I mourned and I fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Would you put a circle around the word sat? Would you put a circle around the word wept? Would you put a circle around the word mourned? And would you put a circle around the phrase fasted and prayed?

When you see God's agenda going down the tubes, when you see what's happening in America, when you see that only one out of ten or one out of twelve people who are self-identified as followers of Jesus living like Jesus, you think of Gandhi's words, who said, I think very highly of your Jesus, but I can't recommend him to my people because his followers are so unlike him. His response, he stopped. He stopped.

He sat down. I mean, when you sit down, you stop. He didn't say, it's not like watching TV and there's a World Vision commercial or a Compassion and you see the little kid with the belly and you go, oh boy, flip back to sports or news or something. I mean, that makes me uncomfortable. It's not like going to the mall and looking to the eyes or talking to someone that's got a pregnancy and she doesn't know what to do with it or someone who's got an addiction and is just absolutely strung out and asked for help and it's like, you know, you just want to kind of push the remote button.

Well, someone else will take care of that. It makes us uncomfortable. He stopped. And then he let it get under his skin. He deeply emoted. He wept. He cried. And here's the deal. His life is working great.

He lives in a gated community. And God's agenda is just slipping downhill and his heart response to God's agenda is he stop, he deeply emotes and then to mourn has to do with grief. You ever lost a child? You ever lost a best friend?

You ever lost a job? I mean, I mean, grief. What grief is, is it shouldn't be this way.

And by the way, this isn't a gut level knee jerk response. You're going to find as we later read through the first part of this chapter is that it's interesting. The author tells us it's November, December and in the beginning of chapter two, he'll give us another structural marker and we're going to learn there's three months of this guy dealing with this issue of my life works.

I'm comfortable. God's agenda is going down the tubes. God, what do I do? God, what do I do? First you stop. And then by God's grace, you let it sink in and you get uncomfortable. And I think you actually weep and then you mourn and then you act because you realize you've got to hear God's voice and you can't do something stupid and you don't really know what God wants you to do.

And you're only one person, right? And so you fast. And all that means is you stop eating for a period of time to take that time to give spiritual attention, to hear the voice of God about what he wants you to do with your life right now. And you pray. I was talking to this fellow on the plane and we were talking about these church planting movements and you know, I had all these questions and what about this and what about that? And I said, what have you learned? He said, well, we did some research. We took our top 100 church planters and it's a multiplying, reproducing model and so their lowest guy planted 50 churches in that year and their highest guy planted 500. Long story, but amazing and accurate and true. And so we brought in an outside consultant and we had him interview and examine all of our top 100 church planters because we thought, I mean, obviously these are our best guys.

You know, I guess if you had a sales force and 100 of them were producing 80% of the results, you'd do the study and find out, you know, what are they saying over the phone or how do they greet people or how do they close and learn from them? He said, so we looked at, he said, we can only find one thing they have in common, different personalities, different countries, India, South Asia, and you know, all over. They only have one thing in common.

You ready for this? On average, they pray two to three hours a day. They each fast one day a week and they fast one weekend a month. Maybe you didn't get that.

I'll go over that again for you. The only common denominator of the supernatural movements of God is they pray two to three hours a day. They fast one day a week.

They fast one weekend a month. Now please don't hear there's a formula and that if you start doing just this, that, that God will automatically, but you know what hit me? I get up and meet with God. I pray. I don't pray like that.

You know what I realize? It's because they care a lot more than I do. I want God to do something really great and I'm willing to make a mild to significant sacrifice for him to do something great. But I don't care enough to pray for people two hours a day.

But I bet most of us, me included, I bet most of us figure out how to slip in an hour and a half to two hours of TV. I mean, because we need it, right? Got to wind down. It's a big day. A lot of pressure. Got to catch the news. Not saying it's wrong.

I'm just saying your behavior and my behavior tell me and tell you what matters. And I just got this thought as I've been flying and thinking, what would happen if I prayed the way they prayed and fasted the way they fasted so that I could hear like never before what God wants me to do? And then what if something kind of wild as a lot of you decided, yeah, let's get in on it. Wonder what God would do. What I call this is a dislocated heart. See, he's living in the lap of luxury.

He's affluent and influential. But his heart is dislocated. It's in Jerusalem. A dislocated heart is a God given concern for others that propels us out of our comfort zone. It's a passionate concern for God's agenda that supersedes our own desires for personal peace and prosperity. You want a little exercise that will move you little by little is I would write that definition on a card and then under it, I would write out second chronicle 16 nine and read it over in the morning and read it over at night and see if God doesn't do something inside your heart. A God given, by the way, you don't work this up.

This isn't artificial. This isn't, I want to be holy. I want to be spiritual.

It is a God given concern for others that propel you. I don't think Nehemiah was going, oh, I want to go. I want to go. I want to go. I think he's like us. I don't want to go anywhere. I like this job. I like my Sunday roll locks.

You know, I like and it's God did something that propelled him out of his comfort zone. Passionate concern. What's it look like?

Let me give you a couple pictures. I don't want you to think I make up this stuff like dislocated heart. I've heard of the dislocated shoulder. In fact, my rotator cuff. No, no, no, no.

Okay. Jesus had a dislocated heart and he says that this attitude that was in him should be in us. Who being in very nature, God didn't consider equality with God, Philippians 2, something to be grasped that made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient. That's the key word to death, even death on the cross.

The rest of the passage says how God did in Jesus modeling the same thing that's happening with these church plants. Therefore he was highly exalted. He was lifted up. He was supported. He was exalted. Jesus was living in comfort, receiving the adoration of angels. Jesus saw the need of mankind. He left his comfort zone to be a missionary and he says we're to have that attitude of crossing a culture.

It means you cross some barriers to connect with people that don't know that God loves them. See, we've got this whole thing backwards like we got to be perfect and I don't know what to say. Don't say anything. Tell you what, you just start loving people like crazy and being generous with your time and your money and your energy and invite people over, ask them questions, listen to them, love them and then you come back and tell me what happens in a couple months. You'll be the most popular person in your company. You'll be the most popular person in your neighborhood and I will tell you what, pretty soon you're going to get jammed up because they're going to say, why in the world are you doing this?

No one treats me like this and you're going to have to come up with something like, well actually it's not me. It's this Jesus who lives in me and he gave me a dislocated heart that compels me out of my comfort zone to build a bridge with people that aren't always like me to tell them that he loves you and he's already forgiven you and he wants you to receive it and he can work this thing out in your marriage. He can work this thing out with your kid. He can work this thing out with his addiction. He loves you. He's God. He's for you. The second example is the apostle Paul. He says, I speak the truth.

I'm not lying. My conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart, for I wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my rice. Do you get what he's saying here? Do you understand what he just said?

I wish I could lose my salvation and be separated from God forever if all of my Jewish brothers could understand Jesus is the Messiah, forgiveness is available and they could all spend it. Now, it's not a possibility, but see, you know what a dislocated heart is? You know what it answers the question is? Do you care? Do I care?

Okay, it's a little more than that. It's do you really care? Do you care enough to get out of your comfort zone? Do you care enough to rearrange your life? Do you care enough to deal with whatever you need to deal with inside so that you say, well, you know, I can't really help anybody else because basically I got some of this double life stuff going on. Okay, God understands that.

Well, go to him, ask him to forgive you, get some help, get rid of the double life and start living the life. Do you care enough to make a radical sacrifice of your time and your energy? I would just ask who's the last person you led to Christ? Personally, I mean, you prayed with someone, they received, who's the last person? Who's the last person you invited over to your house that doesn't know Christ from your neighborhood or work? Who's the last person?

Just give me a name in your head. Who's the last person you took the lunch at work just for the purpose of encouraging them? Who do you pray for at work?

Who do you pray for in your neighborhood? I mean, I'm not trying to induce guilt. I'm just saying if we don't really care, we don't have a dislocated heart. If we don't have a dislocated heart, God will not strongly support us.

And he wants to. He longs to support you. The last dislocated heart, as you see there, is you.

Do you have a dislocated heart? Just an honest evaluation. And rather than, you know, well maybe I do, you know what, just be honest with God.

Do you really care, not by your thoughts, but does your behavior indicate it? Second, just genuine repentance. And repentance just means a change of mind that leads to a change of action. It's just like being on the freeway and realizing, oh, I am going the wrong direction.

You get on the exit ramp and you start going back this direction. And repentance is, God, will you forgive me? I don't really care about people.

I'm pretty consumed with me and my world and my stuff and my comfort. And you know what, he'll just lift that off because guess what, he loves you. Third is a careful consideration.

This message is not designed for knee-jerk reactions of people coming up afterwards. I'm selling my business tomorrow and I'm going to the mission fields. Time out. If God leads you there, great, but you know what, this is a think through, pray through, get wise counsel. And then finally, this may sound really crazy, but I had a really significant time with the Lord just because of the travel and I had a little window and did this for me. I just asked God for one. And I'm going to ask God every day for a while.

I'm not sure how long. I'm just going to ask God, God, would you give me a dislocated heart? When I get in lines on planes, when I'm in lines here, when I see my neighbor, when I pull in, will you give me a dislocated heart?

Would you supernaturally, I don't want to muster it up, I don't want to fake it, I don't want to be a phony, but I want to care. Show me what it looks like in my world, in my network, at my job, in my home, to love others the way you love me. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, Develop a Dislocated Heart, from his series Holy Ambition, Turning God-Shaped Dreams into Reality. Now you may be asking yourself, what does it mean to have a holy ambition?

Those two words seem to be contradictory. As we'll understand through Chip's teaching, God's called us to be both holy and ambitious. Through the biblical story of Nehemiah, Chip unpacks how God develops unique passions and desires in us so that He can then work through us.

Discover how you can be used by God to accomplish the extraordinary. Now, if you missed any part of our series Holy Ambition, the Chip Ingram app is a great way to catch up any time. Well, I'm joined in studio now by our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram. And Chip, before we go any further, you had something you wanted to share with our listeners. Thanks, Dave. I know a lot of people pray and support the ministry because you hear of exciting new things that we're doing, whether it's in China or the Middle East or working with pastors.

But I'd like you to consider something else. The Bible is very clear that where you are spiritually ministered to, there's a moral responsibility to financially support. That's not me. That's the apostle Paul. And you know, there's about a million people every week that are hearing God's Word. And God is using the teaching ministry of Living on the Edge to help Christians grow in Christ-likeness. And that changes families and communities. If you're one of those people, would you pray about giving back if indeed Living on the Edge is ministering to you and helping you grow spiritually? It's just a principle that I think is very important.

Would you pray about it and do whatever God chose you to do? Thanks, Chip. Well, as you've heard, God has called this ministry to help Christians really live like Christians both here in the U.S. and all over the world. So if you'd like to help us fulfill that mission, we'd love to have you join the team by becoming a monthly partner. Now, to set up a recurring donation, call us at 888-333-6003 or go to livingontheedge.org.

That's 888-333-6003 or livingontheedge.org. Tap listeners, tap donate. Thanks in advance for doing whatever God leads you to do.

Well, Chip, let's get to that application we promised. Today we learned that the first prerequisite for making a difference for God is a dislocated heart. As you heard Nehemiah's story and then saw the example of Jesus and Paul, let me ask you, do you have a dislocated heart? Do you have a God-given concern that has propelled you out of your comfort zone? Do you find that you are willing to give up personal peace and prosperity to really care about people and make a difference? Or do you have to admit like I do and many of us very often that somehow the everyday stuff of life has crowded out really caring for other people?

So I went through the end of today's broadcast. I talked about how to develop a dislocated heart. Would you like one? Would you like to care for others deeply, passionately? Well, it begins with honest evaluation.

I can't do that for you. Even as you heard my voice, I know the Spirit of God is at work. Ask yourself, do you really care about people or have you unconsciously been squeezed into the mold of really living a Christian life with the premise, God, what can you do for me? God, how can you work my life out?

After an honest evaluation, where you see that you don't have a dislocated heart, I invite you right now, honestly, repent. I mean, honestly, repent. Get before God.

Tell him you're sorry. Honestly, look in your own life and heart and repent. And then carefully consider the price tag of following him. And just today, I mean, right now, as you hear my voice, ask him for one. There's few prayers that God is willing to answer as immediately and as powerfully as hearing your voice honestly say, Oh, God, will you give me a dislocated heart? Will you help me look at people and care about people the way that you do? Pray it today and you're going to see God work. Great word, Chip.

Thanks. Well, as we close, you know, a great way to get plugged in with our resources here at Living on the Edge is through the Chip Ingram app. There you can listen to past series, sign up for daily discipleship and much more. Let us help you experience God in a new personal way, starting today with the Chip Ingram app. We'll join us next time as Chip continues his series, Holy Ambition. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.