Good to Great in God's Eyes - Read Great Books, Part 1

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Looking for a way to tackle tough issues in your family, your relationships, maybe your career? Well, I've got good news for you. There's a way you can develop insight for life's most important issues, and at the same time deepen your faith like never before.

Want to know how? Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drouie, and the mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. Thanks for joining us as we continue our series, Good to Great in God's Eyes, as Chip highlights the next practice great Christians have in common, read great books. He's going to explain that this habit does more than just fill our mind with intriguing ideas. It has the potential to change your life from the inside out. Now, after the teaching, Chip will be with us here in the studio to talk more about how to apply this practice to your life so it will actually make a difference, so be sure to stay with us for that.

If you have your Bible handy, turn now to Romans chapter 12, and let's join Chip for today's message. The year is 1978. I'm a young guy who has ended up on an Australian basketball team. I'm in graduate school, took a little time off, winter break, had about a three-week stint where I was going to join an Australian team, go throughout the Orient, play basketball, and share Christ. I find myself in a high rise, about 22 floors up or so, in a missionary's room, and in this room he has a small library, but they're all paperback books. And I'd ask a few questions when we were the team and sharing some time, and something happened in that room in 1978 that changed the course of my life. He put something in my hand. That something that he put in my hand, God put in my heart. And the very thing that he put in my hand and God put in my heart, I put in my briefcase for about 30 years. And what that is was a book. One, thin, very inexpensive little book by a man who's been dead for awhile. The book is The Knowledge of the Holy. This is my updated copy, and I can say this because it's with warm affection. My wife gave me the updated copy. The original copy I got from Hong Kong was a little bit smaller and was in my briefcase for about 27 years. And I don't know what briefcases do, but it started to peel apart and the pages were falling apart. And so Teresa gave me one a couple years ago.

A.W. Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy is about God himself. It's a book on the attributes of God. He writes in the beginning, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.

Think of that. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion and man's spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Now listen carefully to his application. For this reason the gravest, the most important question before the church is always God himself and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he is at a given time or what he may say or do, but what in his heart, in the depth of his heart, he conceives God to be like. For there is a secret law of the soul that we move toward our mental image of God. I did not grow up as a Christian.

I did not open the Bible until I was 18. And what I had in my mind is what all of you have in your mind. You have this collage jigsaw puzzle of what you've heard, what you've seen, a snippet at church, maybe you read a little of the Bible, I didn't read the Bible growing up. And you have all these different pieces that have built a collage in your mind and when you bow your head or get on your knees and you say dear God or Lord Jesus, you have a picture or a mental concept of who he is. And if it is right and if it is accurate, dynamic things will happen in your life. And if it is wrong, it will impact and influence every decision, every relationship, your identity in every way. Your life will be determined by how clear you are about who God is.

And you say a little overstatement that this is, no, you know why this is? This book, along with this book, has in the last 30 years, as I've gotten up every morning and said Lord, you know what, I'm just a regular guy and this is a big world you created and I believe that you love me but I've got lots of images about what I thought you were like that are pretty erroneous. And so what I'd like to do is I know it's gonna be a long journey but I wanna let you know that every day I'm gonna chip away and I'm asking you, will you create, will you help me as I look into your word and will you help me as I take what you've shown a man of God what you're really like, would you begin to form that in my mind and my heart so that I really pray to who you really are? So that when I read a promise I believe this is the God who gave the promise. So that when you give me a challenge and you say do this and everything in my flesh, I don't wanna do that, that I could remember that you are a good God. That you wouldn't withhold any good or perfect gift. Could I remember that you've died for me, that you love me, that I'm the object of your affection. Would you help me get a right view of you that would lead to a right view of me, that would lead to a life that little by little by little by little over time as the apostle Paul would pray, Christ would be formed in me.

Perfect, nah. But significantly different, transformed, changing as a light in the world, as salt. That's my prayer. And what I want you to know is is that when we think about going from good to great, I think there is a practice, something very tangible you can do. Every great Christian that I have ever met, every great Christian that I have ever read about are people who read great books.

That's practice number one. If you wanna be a great Christian and you say well is this pie in the sky, no. If you want to be a great Christian in God's eyes, practice number one is read great books. The scripture, Romans, one key text for every one of these principles, I'm gonna give you one key text. Romans 12 two. Do not be conformed. Literally, it's stop being conformed. The grammar is in such a way that the Roman church was being conformed by this world.

It was being molded. Even though they knew Christ, even though they had a brand new life, their thinking, their speech, their lifestyle, what they did with their money, their marriages, it was being corroded and formed and molded by the world system that they lived in. And so the apostle Paul after verse one saying is off of your body is a living sacrifice, then he would say now stop being conformed to this world but be literally meta-morphicized, meta-change-morphicized with change. Let your mind be transformed how by the renewing of your mind with what result that your life, literally your lifestyle could prove or demonstrate what the will of God is. That which is good, acceptable, and perfect. That word approved or test was used for, they would put acid on a metal and find out the quality of the metal. It's the idea of living the kind of life so that as people would scratch beneath the surface of singing the song or reading the Bible or going to church that your life would prove, it would test out that God's will is good, it's acceptable, it's well pleasing.

And how do you get there? You got to renew your mind and I believe the number one way to renew our mind is to read great books. And so if you'll open your notes, what I want to do in our time together is I want to give you maybe a few categories and a few suggestions. I'll share some great books that have changed my life.

Now these were ones that were great for me. I think these are great books but other books in these categories will be just as helpful or more helpful for you. But first I'd like to suggest you need to read great books that broaden your world.

Write in the word broaden. You need, see your world and my world, we think just like this. And you read a book and you find out what happened in China. And you read a book and you find out what happened 3,000 years ago. See, great books broaden your world. And as a believer, I think biographies are so important. I not only did not open the Bible growing up, but I mean I didn't have any Christian heroes. And early in my Christian life, within the first probably five years, three books came across my hands. The first one was a book called Dawes. And you might think, well, what's Dawes? It's the story of Dawson Trotman.

He was the founder of the Navigators. And it's a great book. I mean, I'm not saying it's great literature. I'm just saying something happened when I read that book because what I realized was, wow, this guy's a regular guy. Dawes was a guy that went to high school and never went to college. Dawes was a guy that was an unbeliever. He, you know, I could sort of identify with him. He found a real cute little girl and he was interested in her and she went to some kind of church meeting.

And so to get to know the girl, we went to the church meeting. Went to the youth group and they challenged the youth group, if you memorize these tens verses, come back and recite them word perfect next week, here's the prize. He's sort of the competitive ego guy and he's going to show this girl how smart he is. So he memorizes all 10 verses. And he goes back to the little youth group and like many youth groups here, he's an unbeliever.

He's the only one who did it. But all 10 verses were in his mind. And whoever was the head of that youth group was pretty sharp because the verses were like for all of sin and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3 23. And the next verse was for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, Romans 6 23. But God demonstrates his own love toward us that we were yet sinners. Christ died for us, Romans 5 8. And then call upon the Lord. Those who call upon the Lord will be saved. And then Ephesians 2 8 9, 10 basic verses on the gospel.

And Dawes tells the story of just going through life and you know, he was sort of a little bit of a rebel, had a motorcycle, black leather jacket, and you know, sort of the had a little rebellious streak in him. And he says he was walking by a hardware store and these verses were popping into his mind and the gospel clicked and he realized it wasn't about being religious. It wasn't about activities.

It wasn't about going to church. It was about a personal relationship with Christ that comes when you understand Christ died for you personally. And that you need to personally turn away and repent of your sin and that the Spirit of God would come into your life and you could be a new creature and have a brand new life. And all your sin can be forgiven forever and ever and ever. And the Spirit of God would take up residence.

And the God of the universe would be your friend and he would lead you and he would guide you and he would care for you. And because he didn't have a lot of religious upbringing, he didn't know any better. So he just believed it and he began to grow very rapidly. And as I read through the book, you know, I'm a brand new Christian, maybe a year or two by this time. And you know, I'm just, I've never read it.

I'm at first year. I read through the New Testament and read through it again and read through it again. And I didn't understand a lot of it, but the thirst and the change. And then Dawson took his motorcycle and he drove up into the California hills and he would pray for everything that he could see. And then he'd build a little fire up there and he kept going up there every morning, 5 a.m. And then he began to get out a map of California. He prayed for every county. And then he kind of expanded and he prayed for every major city in the United States. Then he prayed eventually for every single country in the world. And he said, God, I'm asking you to please give me a spiritual descendant. A spiritual descendant. Someone who's come to Christ, who's come to Christ, who's come to Christ through my lineage in every single country in the world.

And that was more than a few decades ago. And everywhere I go in the world, you know who I meet? Navigators. And the two things you know about navigators, Dawson had two guns that he shot. A dechillis became a good friend and he was discipled in the early days with Dawes. And I said, you know, Dick, what was it like? And Dick said, Dawes had two guns. One was scripture memory, the other was personal discipleship one on one.

And when you met Dawson Trotman, he didn't even say hi. He would walk up and say, hi, what's your verse? Fore and aft. Fore and aft meant you had to say the title first, recite the verse, then give the scripture. And then who's your man?

Who's your woman? And Dick said, you know what? He was just one focused guy. And from that book, I thought, wow, I'm like real ordinary. I've never been to Bible school. I didn't grow up as a Christian. I've only been through the New Testament a couple of times, but kind of seems like Dawson's a lot like some of these other blue collar workers here, you know, and it seems like God uses regular people.

And then someone put Uncle Cam. It's the story of the founder of Wycliffe. And here's a guy that, you know, you read and they're pretty honest in the biographies. He doesn't bring a lot by outward standards to the table.

He's not necessarily overly attractive person physically. He's not necessarily someone with a lot of great social skills and he ends up in a missionary. And as you open the book, you find he's on a street corner in Mexico. And he says to this guy trying to share his faith, do you know Jesus? And the guy looks at him, Jesus, see, he lives down here, take two blocks, lives over there. And Cameron realized, oh man, no, no, no, Jesus, Jesus Christo. And the guy just looked at him like, buddy, I know what you're talking about.

I don't have a clue. One man, one man. And it's the story of a man who had a lot of adversity. It's a story of a man that didn't have a lot of the outward stuff that a lot of people think is real important. It's a story of a man who had a dream and a focus to translate the Bible in every single language for every people group in the world. And the SIL Institute now, Christian or non-Christian, is probably the best linguistic school in the world. And it's been translated in tens of thousands of languages because of another ordinary guy. The third book for me was one you're probably familiar, Hudson Taylor's Spiritual Secrets.

Anybody remember it? Remember Hudson Taylor, kind of the father of missionary movement? I mean, I say that now. When I was a young Christian, missionary movement, I didn't know there was a missionary movement. But he's another radical, he's another rebel, he's another outcast. He's a guy who says, I think God wants to reach people in India. And everyone said if God wants to reach people in India, God will reach them.

He's sovereign, he'll do it all himself. And Hudson said, well, you know what, I got a lot of verses that say he wants us to be a part of this thing. And he couldn't get anybody to support him.

Handful of businessmen said, Hudson, you know, we'll get behind you. And he went and did radical things like dress like the Chinese. He was one of the very first people to contextualize the gospel.

And Hudson Taylor, one ordinary man, became a part of transforming the world. Why read great books? It broadens your world. I got one message in those first three to five years as an early Christian. Here's the message I got. God uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

You know how you get that? By reading great books. These aren't made up stories, these aren't fairy tales. And ask yourself how much of the media is going into your heart and into your mind over and over and over, whether it's in your car or talk radio or whether it's this program or that program or the DVDs or the rented movies and all the junk that's constantly bombarding you and you're trying to be a spiritual fish swimming upstream to be holy and godly and then ask yourself how much of great books are going into your mind. So you would change your lifestyle. And not only biographies but if you're gonna broaden your world, you know, I put a list just of a few things and I like to read about history. I like to read about geography. I came back from China and I met a guy and got talking on the plane and it wasn't a Christian book but I got a book about how the Chinese culture works and it broadened my world and I like to read books about philosophy and they don't have to all be heavy or this or that or world religions.

You know, just get a little thin one so that you can say to yourself, now let's see, Muslims, Hinduisms, the Sikhs, just kind of what's going on out there? So much of our world, so much of our thinking is so narrow. Read great books. First, books that broaden, that broaden your world. Second, read great books that sharpen your mind. There's another book on the attributes of God that became Knowledge of the Holy and then I went to J.I.

Packer. It's a classic book, Knowing God. Those two books just shaped my view of who God was. Then I met a fellow, I was on another basketball team. You can tell I kind of like basketball.

If you like basketball stories, it's gonna be a great morning. If you don't, I have other stories for later. But I was on a basketball team with a pre-med student from Minnesota and we were traveling throughout South America and I came to Christ but I didn't have any background and so I was going into grad school and grad school at a secular place is not like a warm, loving, non-hostile environment for believers.

And as people were challenging my thinking, I knew what God had done in me but I did not have good intellectual answers for the very strong intellectual questions. And so I'll never forget this pre-med student. He introduced me to Francis Schaeffer. Anybody here familiar with Francis Schaeffer and his work?

Yeah. And so he said, read his trilogy first. His work, he has three books.

I put them there. You know, you have the, He is There and He's Not Silent, Escape from Reason and The God Who Was There. And they are fairly philosophical and he has his own kind of lingo and he makes up a few words.

And the very first book I read, He is There and He's Not Silent. You know, the epistemological issues and the metaphysical issues behind the faith. And I'm going to be going, I literally read the book with a dictionary, epistemology. I looked it up. How to know that you know that you really know that you know and basically metaphysics. Okay, this is, I literally, and I wrote down the definition and every time I'd read the word and I educated myself. And what I found out, there was a very smart theological intellectual thinker that had dealt with the basic issues of reality and the issues of why am I here and is there a God and what's the intellectual basis for our reasoning and our thinking. And I took those three books and I made that the foundation for writing my thesis at West Virginia University when I did grad work there. And I found a Christian professor that let me take that and some empirical research in sociology and psychology and smash those things together and get myself in a situation where I had to defend my thesis with four doctors and I'm sitting at this table with this little glass of water and basically my thesis was on is truth relative or absolute and if it's absolute, is it intellectually feasible that the absolute truth could be Jesus Christ and what the Bible has to say. And I got one Christian guy who let me write it because I had to get permission and three people who thought I was an absolute idiot and for three hours we had fun. I just, you know, everyone has a different personality, I love that time.

I mean it was so fun going back and forth with them and I remember one doctor was a guy that, you know, was really pushing me hard and what Schaeffer would teach you is you bring people back to their presuppositions and so he would make comments about there's not relative truth and I would just keep pushing him back to what he said versus how he lived, what he said versus how he lived, what he said versus how he lived and we got to the end and I remember the other doctor, she was a female, turned to him, Andy, would you be quiet? You're digging a bigger and bigger and bigger hole. Let's just give it up. We may not believe in his God but there's got to be absolute truth.

And I got an A. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Read Great Books. He'll be right back with his application for this teaching from his series, Good to Great in God's Eyes. Now you may be thinking, isn't wanting to be great a bad thing? In this 10-part series, Chip assures us that our ambition to be the best Christian we can be isn't a prideful thing at all. In fact, it comes from God himself. Stay with us as we better understand the specific practices that will help mature our faith and delight the heart of God.

Now if you missed any part of this series, the Chip Ingram app is a great way to catch up any time. Well, I'm joined now by our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram. And Chip, in this series you're talking about moving our faith from good to great. Now is there really such a thing as a great Christian?

I mean, what does that even look like? Well, I think there is a difference between a good Christian and a great Christian. And, you know, I say that because sometimes people feel like, wow, that's arrogant to be a great Christian. But I ask him, so would you want to be a good dad or a great dad? You know, a good mom or a great mom?

Would you like to be a good employee or a great employee? I think sometimes we don't realize that we need to have positive ambition. You know, Paul said he did everything he wanted to be pleasing to the Lord. You know, he passionately says I beat my body, I put it into submission in order that I might present to you, Lord, my life and my work.

And so I think there's this passion that we should have to want to be great, not in the world's eyes, but in God's eyes. And as I was in a very significant season of my life, I began to think about what are the practices, not the theology, but what are the practices that great Christians have in common? And as I went through Old New Testament and church history and, I mean, people that really impacted my life, there were about 10 things that came together that they do. I mean, great Christians, there's 10 things they do.

They actually practice them. And so I jotted those down and then I went from the what to the how to. And so actually this is one of my favorite books. As one man told me, he said, Chip, if anyone is ever willing to hang around you very long, they ought to read this book because it is your DNA. It's the very things that God taught you over the years that imperfectly, but you're practicing these things. So I want to encourage people to get the book, walk through it slowly, and put the practices in your life. And this is one of those books that you get a person or two to do it with you. And I think God will really speak to you.

Thanks, Chip. Well, to order your copy of Good to Great in God's Eyes, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. This is the perfect tool to jumpstart your faith and help you live a more authentic, purpose-filled life. Now, during this series, Chip's book, Good to Great in God's Eyes, is discounted. So let me encourage you to order yours today. Simply go to livingontheedge.org or give us a call at 888-333-6003.

App listeners, tap special offers. Well, Chip, that story you told at the end of your message was so impressive. And most of us don't feel equipped to talk with our own families and friends, let alone a panel of professionals.

So help us out, would you? How do we begin to prepare ourselves for these important conversations? Well, first and foremost, let me go back to that moment when I was before those professors and just tell people that I read those books by Francis Schaeffer because another person recommended them. And when I read those books, I didn't know what half of them meant. Okay, can I just tell you, some books that you read are hard. The most profound book I've ever read was A.W. Tozer's book, The Knowledge of the Holy. My head hurt when I read three or four pages of that. I didn't understand probably half of it. But, you know, I kept reading it and thinking and reading and thinking, and God did something.

You know, we grow. The most important book by far is the Bible. And let me just give you a game plan.

Find a place and have a plan. In other words, it's, you know, it's this chair right after you get up or it's this little corner right every lunchtime or before you go to bed. There's morning people and night people. But, I mean, you have got to say, I'm going to read the Bible. You know, whether it's read through the Bible in a year, read through the New Testament, go to the You version, and there's all kind of plans. In our next broadcast I'm going to talk about very specific books and where you can begin. You don't want to miss it.

If you don't read the Bible, you will not have the energy or the strength or the power to become the person that God wants you to be or that you want to be. Just before we close, I want to thank each of you who's making this program possible through your generous giving. 100% of your gifts are going directly to the ministry to help Christians really live like Christians. Now, if you found this teaching helpful, but you're not yet on the team, would you consider doing that today? To send a gift, go to livingontheedge.org or text the word donate to 74141. It's that easy. Text donate to 74141 or visit livingontheedge.org. App listeners just tap donate. And let me thank you in advance for doing whatever the Lord leads you to do. Well, until next time, for everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.