Good to Great in God's Eyes - Pursue Great People, Part 1

I've heard it said, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. You know, relationships are a powerful tool to build character and determine personal direction. And if you long to become great in God's eyes, there are some significant relationships that you'll want to pursue.

And today, we'll talk about how to discover and develop those kind of relationships. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this daily discipleship program, Motivating Christians to Live Like Christians. I'm Dave Drouin and we're in the middle of our popular series, Good to Great in God's Eyes. Now in this program, Chip looks at how relationships shape our thoughts and lives and why great relationships are essential for spiritual maturity. As a quick reminder, if you miss a portion of this program, 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. Well, if you're ready to dig in, turn in your Bibles to Proverbs chapter 13 and let's join Chip for his message, Pursue Great People. There is a phrase that you hear a lot and I think it's true. And the phrase is more is caught than taught.

In other words, you can go to a class and you can hear this or that, but you really catch more than actually is taught. And I'd like to suggest that that's true. It's true when you're young and it's true when you're old. And I got to share a story. My sister was dating like a star basketball player. He was about four years older than me. So he was, I think a junior and I was in eighth grade and his name was Rex. And I got to be careful here because, I mean, Rex had the purest, most beautiful jump shot I've ever seen.

And I played him one-on-one for hours and I could never beat him. And he was 6'2 and a real big kind of guy and he just kind of became my hero. And he was sort of stocky and didn't look like a basketball player except when he got on the floor no one could stop him. But Rex had this unusual sort of posture about like this and when he walked it looked like he was gonna fall over and it was like that. And when he was really trying to be cool with his leather jacket, he would have that and he put a little dance into it like.

It was cool back in the 70s, okay? And so it's not like I said to myself, I think I'd like to walk like Rex Greg. I just hung with him.

I tried to shoot like him. I wanted to be around him and he was at the house and eating meals. And one day, I'll never forget, imagine if you would, this is a stage where there's a basketball court, they're old time, and there's an auditorium and there's seats where you could cut through that door in front of the stage to the auditorium to get to class. And I was coming through that door walking across and it was absolutely empty, you know all those theater type seats they had in the old junior highs. And I didn't know it but apparently I had picked something up. I had caught it. I never asked for walking lessons but being the cool eighth grader, I was. And I didn't think anybody was up there and I hear from the balcony, you know it was dark and you can't see, hey Ingram, you idiot, who taught you how to walk?

And I promptly went and walked off. And I thought to myself, it was only in the moment when I heard, hey Ingram, you idiot, did I realize that I unconsciously had picked up walking like Rex. You know, to just pick up whatever the people around you are. Now you would think that you only do that when you're young and when you're naive and when you're impressionable and when you get older you outgrow that except I went to Dallas Seminary and a professor named Howard Hendricks had a big impact. In fact I heard him preach once and said that's where I want to go to school.

I want to preach like him. And God so used him in my life. So every class he taught I took. Every time he opened his home we went.

Every retreat we went to. For three years it took me time and finally I got to go on a trip with him. And the first couple years as a pastor, I was 28 years old, little country church, and I remember coming home one day and my wife, lovingly sweet woman that she is, says, honey you got to knock it off. I said, what do you mean? You just sound exactly like Howard Hendricks. I said, what do you mean I sound like Howard Hendricks? And she goes, well you real, when you preach it's like you just go into, I mean you're using his phrases and his mannerisms and oh no I don't. Don't know whether I should wind my watch or lose my ball in the weeds. And I mean I had him down.

I didn't even know it. The principle I want you to get is this timeless axiom. We become most like those we admire and those with whom we interact most frequently.

Take it to the bank. You will be like whoever you admire and whoever you hang with. The practice number three, if you want to move from good to great in God's eyes, you long for your heart to be more tender. You want to be more godly. You want to pray the way that we talked about. You want your motives to be what God wants them to be. You long to become in God's eyes the kind of person with the kind of courage and boldness who'd say, Lord I'd like to sit at your right hand.

I want to be a great Christian. Number three, pursue great people. Pursue. I didn't say hang around. Go after them. Find a great Christian and pursue them.

Hang out with them. The key text for this one is Proverbs 13 20. He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fool suffers harm. He who walks with a wise man will be wise, but the companion of a fool will suffer harm. Show me your friends and I'll show you your future. It's true, isn't it?

Show me your friends. That's why his parents, why it's critical. You know who your kids hang out with and what their attitudes are and where they're, because they're going to become, they're going to become just like the people they hang with. Now here's what I'd like to ask. Why pursue great people?

I mean, I mean, we've got the basics here, but why? I want to give you a biblical foundation for pursuing great people. The first reason is God's word is emphatic about the company that we keep.

This isn't just about wanting to be good. The key word here, God's word is emphatic about the company we keep. First Corinthians 15 33 says, do not be misled.

Bad company corrupts good character. You put one rotten apple, right? In a basket with good apples and the rotting apple will do what?

It'll rot the others. Notice what it says in Hebrews 13 seven. Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. First remember then consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Literally we get our word mimic, mimic their faith. We, we want to find leaders. We want to remember who they are.

We want to consider, ponder, think about their life. And just as I was unconsciously imitating how Rex would walk and how prof would preach, the Bible says, get your eye on a godly leader and imitate or mimic not their mannerisms, not their externals imitate their faith. Notice what it says in first Corinthians four 15 and 16 the apostle Paul right into the Corinthian church. He says to them, even though you have 10,000 guardians in Christ, a lot of people that'll help you and tell you what to do in your Christian life.

You do not have many fathers for in Christ Jesus I became your father. How? Through the gospel. Therefore I urge you, same word, imitate me. The apostle Paul knew the most powerful means of discipleship is modeling.

Beyond teaching, beyond classes, it's modeling. When you hang around a person, if you pray with them, you will end up praying like they pray. You will learn to give like they give. You'll learn to make decisions the way they make decisions. You'll learn to treat your wife the way they treat their wife. You'll learn to raise your kids the way they raise their kids. You'll learn to care about people the way they care about people.

You'll catch it. And the apostle Paul says, this is strong. Imitate me. Follow me as I follow Christ. Proverbs 27 17 as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. Now I want to make one vital observation before I go on and talk about how do you pursue great people?

Because I've made a point and some of you are thinking, you know, you're pretty quick and you're going to go, let's see, I'm going to be a lot like the people I'm around. All right. That's really true.

There's a lot of verses. That makes sense. Yeah.

Okay. And then you're thinking about, well, wait a second. The people that I've been around the most were my parents. The people that I was around the most were some brothers and sisters. And in a group this size, some of you had some parents that weren't believers. And some of you had some parents that were and didn't act like it. And some of you had some parents that walked out on you.

And some of you had some parents that were abusive in their speech and others abusive physically and others abusive sexually. And before I go on, you're thinking to yourself, wow, I'm going to be a lot like the people I hang around with. But you know, God, I didn't get, I don't know about you. I didn't get a lottery ticket like, okay, I would like a family in Ohio, Columbus, school teachers. That's for me, Lord.

I just got born there. And so I want to make some observations because if you don't think this through, you can really get stuck. The observations I've put on your teaching handout, it's that our baggage and our backgrounds demand that we pursue great people. Our baggage and our backgrounds demand that we pursue great people.

And we all have baggage and we all have backgrounds. No one had a perfect parent. Anybody have a perfect parent? Your parent may have given it their best shot. You know, my dad gave it his best shot. But how do you be a dad when you didn't have one after you were 13?

How do you be a dad when you've killed thousands of people and you have all kinds of hang ups and you don't know how to deal with your own life, let alone communicate it to your son? See, there's some wounds and deficits that came from your dad, your mom, my dad, my mom, because they weren't perfect. But guess what? That's normal.

It's normal. Unfortunately, some of us focus on that the rest of our life. The third observation with this is we must choose to deal with the damage constructively.

And you know, we could spend a lot of time here and I'm not. All I want to tell you is there are some people that have been through some very difficult times and the focus of your heart and your life is always about what was done to you and what you're working through. And there's unresolved shame and unresolved blame and unresolved issues that you know something, at some point in time you have to say, Lord, I want to thank you that in your sovereignty I was in this family and these good things came out of it. And Lord, I want to tell you that there are wounds and deficits and pains and I need you to be my father. I need you to heal me. I need you to restore me.

It's a fallen world. And you know what? The best thing that's happened to me probably in the last decade has been to walk a few miles in my parents moccasins. To kind of think about, you know, when you hit certain ages all of a sudden you think, yeah, see when my dad was about 40 this is how old I was and this is what I went through and wow, I think he did a lot better than I thought 10 years ago. And let's see now, when I was this age my dad was 48 or 50 and here's the issues I'm dealing with and, and you know what? Boy, we had meals together and they cared about me and you know something, you know, the confidence that I have, the drive that I have, the positive self image I have, you know, a lot of things are really, really positive and they all go back to my dad. I mean, my dad and I started a little lawn business when I was eight.

You know, my dad helped me deliver papers and I had 130, 150 paper out, you know, stacked up to the rim in the car when I was about 11 years old. You know, it's so easy to look at the minuses and the hurts and the pains instead of saying, I had an imperfect parent and they gave me these good things. Thank you, Lord. And only the healer, the restore of my soul, God can ever complete my life. But you know how he does it? Now, sometimes he just read, you read the word and the spirit of God does some deep things in your heart, but you know how normally God heals you? He brings the dad in your life that you didn't have. He brings the cheerleader into your life that you didn't have. He brings the sponsor into your life that you really needed. He brings the confident or the counselor. He brings someone in your life that's been through something and he takes the word of God through the spirit of God, through the heart of another person. And this person rubs up next to you and he makes you whole and me whole little by little by little through another person.

And so what I'm going to tell you is you need to pursue great people. First of all, because the Bible is emphatic that the company we keep will determine the kind of people we become. And second, because we all came from dysfunctional backgrounds. We all have baggage. We all have wounds.

It's normal. You can either choose to be a victim or choose to say, I'm going to grow through it. And God, there's people in the body of Christ. You are going to love me in this new family called the church. And I need to pursue the people that you want to use to heal my life.

And I want to be in turn a healer in the life of other people. Have you got it? You know, every time I hit this part, I wish I had a camera and could see the wheels going on inside your heads. It really raises stuff up, doesn't it? You know, that's okay.

It's okay. Because see, if you never bring it up and if you never deal with it, what a lot of us do is push it down. And when it comes up, we go to the refrigerator. And when it comes up, other people open something and they start drinking a little bit of it. And when it comes up, some people take some pills. Or when it comes up, some people just go to work and work more and more and more and more because you just keep pushing down stuff that bothers you that's not dealt with that are wounds.

And you just have to say, you know something? I love Henry Nouwen's book, The Wounded Healer. It's when we begin to get forgiveness and healing from God in our imperfection that He allows us to pass it on to other people.

Well, let's get on the real positive side then. How in the world do we go about developing these kind of relationships? How do you pursue great people?

I mean, I don't know about you, but they just didn't line up on my door, you know, seven deep, ringing the doorbell. Hi, I'm a great person, Chip. I'd like to be a sponsor in your life.

Oh, okay. You already have one. Hi, Chip. I'd like to be a father figure. I knew you went through some rough time.

I mean, that didn't happen to me. You got to pursue them. And I'm going to give you a couple of ways that I think will be very helpful. The first is I think you need to start in the rear view mirror.

You ready for that? I think to pursue great people, start in the rear view mirror and mentally build what I'm going to call your own personal Mount Rushmore of the four or five people who have most positively impacted or influenced your life. See what I want you to do before you think about who do you need to go get to help? Look in the rear view mirror and say to yourself, who are the pivotal people, maybe one, two, three or four people, maybe five who have been the most positive, influential, because you're going to ask them why. And you'll begin to recognize needs you have in your life. The reason they were influential is God used them.

Some of them may be even unbelievers. And so I'm going to challenge you to build kind of your own Mount Rushmore. When you do, you'll recognize the value of people in your life.

You'll see the strategic needs that you have, and then it will help you determine what kind of people you ought to pursue. So are you ready? I'm going to turn this stage into Mount Rushmore. Mount Rushmore has four great faces on it, right? I'm a Christian. I'm adding five.

Okay. See, I can do anything I want with my own personal Mount Rushmore. So I'm going to have five faces. And I want you to know I'm going to have face number one, face number two, and I'll tell you about them. And then I've got face number three and face number four. And in my Mount Rushmore, they're all tilted inward and they're going to look toward the middle of face number five. Because face number five is the one that's had the most impact in my life.

And I just want to go through the exercise personally for a few minutes. And as I do, I want you to ask yourself, who would be my Mount Rushmore? Who are the people that most positively impacted my life? My first one over here on the left, etched in stone in my heart and soul is a guy named Neil Lance, my junior high coach, PE teacher. I'll never forget the first time I met Neil Lance. I was a cocky, insecure, mouthy kid who desperately wanted attention because he couldn't figure out what was going on inside. And I walked into his PE class and I was mouthing around, Ingram, shut up now, give me 20.

That was my first experience with Neil Lance. And as I was just like this, and then I started to bend out, Ingram, button it up. And like 10 minutes later, I'm still doing this. He never said another word to me, get a shower. And then he saw some desire and over time he took me in the gym and he closed the curtain and this guy could play ball and he knew that's where my heart was. And I grew kind of late. So when I was in seventh grade, I was 4'11 and then I shot up to 5'1 in eighth grade. And I wanted to play basketball.

This is not looking good. By ninth grade, I was 5'4 and a half and ready to take on the world. And Coach Lance would come in the gym and he'd throw me the ball.

We'd play one-on-one. He taught me how to play defense, taught me how to play offense. But more than anything else, you know what he taught me? He taught me what a man looked like. I'll never forget as I was going through my insecurity, cocky stage, mouthy part of life. And some of you are looking at me like, you know, I can really imagine you like that.

Not very hard, is it, right? And I had shot off my mouth one too many times. And remember, some of the guys will appreciate this. Remember the old locker rooms where you'd go in and have the big public shower and then on the wall there would be all the lockers and then the coach would have, it would be a window, you know, and then he'd have a little office that really smelled like gym shoes. And he'd get his head out, Ingram, in here, now. I walked into his office, sit down. And then he got his nose right next to my face and I mean he began to ream into me. And then he said, okay, stand up. And I was so angry because I shot off my mouth one more time.

And then I was just getting ready to leave and he just was, he loved me so much that he cared. And he took me by the shirt, this was long before you got sued as school teachers. And he grabbed me by the shirt and then he lifted me up and put me up against it and I slid down on a chair and he said, I'm gonna tell you something, you got great potential and your mouth is gonna get you in trouble.

You could go over to that high school and be a good player but they're gonna freeze you out because you got a mouth and you're arrogant. You could be somebody. But you know something?

Your mouth is gonna be the ruin of you. You're an arrogant jerk. You understand? And you know, we built a bond and I painted houses all the way through college with Neil Lance. And Neil Lance taught me what it meant to be a man because he confronted me on man issues and he was strong and he invested in my life. And he's in my Mount Rushmore.

And I think early on, God brought this man into my life so that I would learn. Real men stand up to the truth. Real men speak the truth. Real men are strong.

Real men face tough issues and real men don't let stuff go under the rug. The second person on my Mount Rushmore is a girl named Punky. It's her almost real name. Her real name's Harriet but I shouldn't say that publicly. And she was my sister.

And she's only about a year and three months older than me. And I'd never heard of Campus Crusade for Christ. And we were a religious family and I went to a church that did not teach the Bible and no one, as far as I knew, were Christians.

But we were religious, went through motions, very hypocritical and I got turned off by the church. But my sister went to this little meeting, Campus Crusade something something. And she became a Christian and she was never preachy. But my sister taught me what it looked like to be a Christian.

I can't tell you that she ever preached a message that I ever remember but my sister loved me. I would come in with friends and she would say, guys, do you want some sandwiches? Can I get you a Coke? Chip, how did the game go? And she's real gullible and I'd say, oh, I hit five home runs. Oh, Chip, that's so good.

Well, how'd it go? I scored 42 points. Oh, Chip, I'm so proud of you.

I mean, unbelievable. And then I would yank her chain. Oh, okay, Chip, why do you do that? And we ended up going through high school where the classes, we got to take some classes together. And, you know, I was in that era in the early 70s where everyone was doing soapers and smoking dope and all the athletes in the high estate area. And I had opportunity to do all that.

And isn't it interesting? I wasn't a Christian, didn't have any big moral reason not to. And I still remember, you know, a guy giving me a joint and saying, do you want this and saying no. And I remember in my mind I thought, no, what would Punky think?

What would Punky think? She was the most loving person. She showed me Jesus. She showed me, she lived it. She's the kindest person that I'd ever met. And she's my sister and my friend. And I later became a Christian because of her testimony. I want to skip from number one, number two.

I want to go right over here to number three in my Mount Rushmore. And this is the third person in my rearview mirror, a guy named Dave Marshall. And I prayed to receive Christ at a Fellowship of Christian Athletes camp.

And I was 18 years old, had never opened the Bible and landed on a campus. And there was a bricklayer trained by the navigators. He was what I would call not cool. Everyone's wearing white socks now, but he wore them back then and it wasn't cool.

And blue collar, strong worker. And he had a little Bible study in his house. He'd been there for three years.

This was the fourth year. If the ministry didn't grow, I learned later he was going to quit and go do something else. But he would lay bricks all day and open his home at night and do Bible study with a few students. And after three years, he had four students in the living room. Football player on the football team was the fullback and found out I was a Christian, said, you're coming with me.

He was very big. So I went and I found myself in a living room with about five or six other people that were not very cool. And this bricklayer said, I heard you just became a Christian.

I said, yeah, it was a summer. And he said, would you like to learn to study the Bible? And I looked at him and I thought, not with you.

Sorry. But then I thought, I'm a Christian. I don't know the Bible. I ought to want to study the Bible.

He's offering. So I said, yes. And every Tuesday morning, Dave would come knock on my dorm room and to my shame, sometimes I pretended I couldn't hear him put the pillow over my head, but over time he got this lazy, arrogant, insecure young believer. And we went into the little kitchenette and he taught me how to read the Bible. Then he taught me how to memorize a few key passages.

And before long I got involved in a little ministry and those four or five people ended up 250 students in personal Bible study. And then Thursday nights I would go up to Dave's house and eat dinner and I'd watch, he had four, three boys and a girl and I'd watch his kids and he went out every Thursday on a date with his wife. And you know what, if Neil Lance taught me what it looked like to be a man and my sister taught me what it looked like to be a Christian, Dave Marshall taught me what it meant to be a man of God. I learned to treat my wife the way he treated his wife. I learned to stop for people who were broken down on the road the way Dave always stopped. I learned to discipline my kids and love my kids the way Dave did. I learned to get up in the morning and spend time with God the way Dave did.

I learned to deal with crisis when his wife went in the hospital the way I saw Dave did. I remember getting to work with him for a few months and I watched him build a whole hadite block, a foundation, and it was off, I mean just barely out of square. And I mean you know, the inspectors are never going to see this. We spent two days on it and I watched him rip it down. I said, Dave, what are you doing?

I said, I mean that's not off enough to make any big difference. He said, I'm not doing my work for inspectors and I'm not doing my work for these people. I'm doing my work for the Lord and I don't think that represents my best work. I learned to work the way Dave worked. See, more really is caught than taught.

Who are the people near Mount Rushmore? Chip will be back in just a minute with his application. You've been listening to the first part of his message, Pursue Great People, from his series, Good to Great in God's Eyes. Are you tired of living the status quo Christian life? Are you looking to get a fresh infusion of faith and spiritual passion? Well, join Chip in this 10-part series as he shares 10 specific practices every great Christian has in common and how you can put these attitudes and routines into action. If you're ready for a genuine spiritual breakthrough, then don't miss a single message.

For more information about this series or our resources, go to livingontheedge.org, the Chip Ingram app, or call us at 888-333-6003. Chip's with me in studio now and Chip, in this message, you talked about the people who invested in you and helped you mature as a Christian. Today, those types of relationships happen in a small group, which is why we believe they're absolutely vital. Now, we have a growing library of small group resources, so for those who are planning on launching or joining a small group this fall, what studies do you recommend?

Well, Dave, we all have special times in our life where there's either crisis or we know we need to improve our parenting, our marriage, or there's some emotional issues, and as people go through, there's plenty of small group resources like that. But what I think is missing is what historically has been called a catechism. A catechism is a well-ordered process of truth by which you go through it systematically and intentionally in order to become more and more like Jesus and to fulfill more and more what Jesus has called us to do. And so if you follow Jesus' life, his actual chronological life, the first thing is he defined what a disciple is. And so the very first study I encourage people to do is true spirituality, becoming a Romans 12 Christian.

It'll let them know this is what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The second thing Jesus did is he took them through various experiences to reveal who God was like. What is God really like? And so our second study, it's called The Real God. And in that, we studied the attributes of God and how to get them from your head into your heart. The third thing that Jesus did is he helped them understand how does life change really occur? How do you put it into practice?

We have a study from Ephesians chapter 4 called Transformed, the Miracle of Life Change. And then the fourth one I'll give you, because I don't want to lay it all out, is that when you take these kind of steps, all hell breaks loose. I don't mean that as a cuss word. What I mean is it's challenging. It's difficult. There's spiritual warfare. And that's our study from Ephesians chapter 6.

It's called The Invisible War, what every believer needs to know about Satan, demons, and spiritual warfare. So let me encourage you, unless there's a critical need, a high-felt need, consider studying in order the catechism the way Jesus taught his disciples. Thanks, Chip. Well, to learn more about the studies Chip mentioned or any of our other small group resources, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. And let me tell you, these materials are so easy to use. Chip provides the teaching, then you'll have time to discuss what you've heard with our helpful study guides. So if you're not in a small group yet or you aren't sure what to study next, let me encourage you to check us out. And for a limited time, all of our small group resources are discounted. Again, visit livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003.

App listeners, tap special offers. Well, Chip, today you talked about creating a Mount Rushmore of people we can look up to and learn from. Well, unpack for us why this is a helpful exercise and maybe a place to start is sharing who those Mount Rushmore people are in your life.

I mean, how did you figure that out? Well, Dave, one day it just, it dawned on me who are the people that really impacted my life. And I thought of Neil Lance, who was a coach in junior high and spent time with me and showed me what it meant to be a man. And at a difficult time in my family, he was that strong man who believed in me. And then there was my sister, Punky, who was her lifestyle of Christ-likeness that so influenced, I mean, a ton of times I could have gotten in real trouble.

I didn't want to disappoint my older sister. She had that kind of life. The third person was a bricklayer that I've talked often about, Dave Marshall. And he taught me how to be a man of God and how to date your wife and how to be a dad. I spent about seven years around him. He just so influenced my life. And then I went to seminary and there was Howard Hendricks, who basically taught me how to communicate and then became a mentor for about 30 years before he went home to be with the Lord. And then in the center of my Mount Rushmore, the person who's influenced me the most has been my wife, Theresa.

And she just is like the most prayerful, high-integrity person. And so here's the experience I want people to get is who are the top three or four, even five people that have so influenced your life? And then just ponder what was it about their life that influenced you the most? And then you can do some thinking about what are some gaps in your life? Who could I see that's farther down the road that would help me in my marriage or my parenting or my leadership? And that helped me to know who to pursue.

And if you want to have an exciting time, you get in a small group and you let people share their Mount Rushmores, and then you come up with a game plan. And God changes us through people. Let me encourage you. Pursue great people. Thanks, Chip. Well, before we go, let me take just a second and thank the generous people who make monthly donations to support the Ministry of Living on the Edge. Your faithful gifts help us inspire Christians to live like Christians. Every dollar makes a huge difference. If you haven't partnered with us yet, would you prayerfully consider joining the Living on the Edge team? Make a one-time gift or set up a recurring donation by going to LivingOnTheEdge.org or texting the word donate to 74141. It's that easy. Text the word donate to 74141 or visit LivingOnTheEdge.org. App listeners tap donate. Well, join us next time as Chip picks up in his series, Good to Great in God's Eyes. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.