One at a Time - Intersections, Part 1

We have all heard that we need to love people the way Jesus loved them. But what's that look like?

I mean, practically, specifically, what's it look like for you and me in our everyday life to love people the way Jesus did? How do you pull that off? That's today. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Drouy, and we're nearing the end of our newest series, One at a Time, taught by our guest speaker, Kyle Eidelman. He's a bestselling author, speaker, and lead pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky. For these last two programs, Kyle's going to share a critical way we can care for and love people like Jesus did.

And it's a lot simpler than you might think. And be sure to stick around after the teaching as Chip will share some extra insight into what he's learned in this area. Well, with that, turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 13 for Kyle's message, Intersections. If you're struggling a little bit with understanding your purpose in life, if you're struggling a little bit with motivation, like when you get up in the morning, your job isn't motivating and school isn't motivating, and you're just kind of going through the motions and you are making it through the day to go to bed that night. If you're struggling a little bit with some depression and discouragement, and it's pretty easy, I think, for all of us to get focused on ourselves, I just have found that this one at a time way of living affects all of that, that Jesus taught us to love others the way that he has loved us. And if I can start my day by being intentional with my interactions and the people I meet along the way, to love them the way that Jesus has loved me, it gives everything purpose.

It gives everything meaning. And I've talked to you in this series that that has been something God's really had to grow me in, right? Like I've had to be discipled by Jesus to love people the way that he loves people. It wasn't natural for me. I didn't consider myself to be a people person. And that was tough as a pastor because I thought I should be great all the time with people, and I just wasn't.

That was a challenge for me. But over the course of the last 20 years, I've discovered that no matter what your personality type may be, that Jesus wants each of us to love people one at a time. So one of the reasons I wrote the book One at a Time is because it was very personal to me. It was kind of an overflow out of what God's been doing in my life, and I wanted other people to experience the discipleship that I had experienced and learning to love people the way that Jesus loved people.

And we're all growing in that. We're all still on the path. I just think that that mission gives meaning to your life.

No matter what you do, no matter where you're at, no matter what challenges you face, that mission will give you meaning. And so I want to challenge you to be intentional when you find yourself at certain intersections. When you are with someone who's going through something, maybe unexpected, maybe challenging and difficult, that you understand in that moment you have an opportunity that you may have never had before to point that person to Jesus. Those are the moments we need to be especially intentional when someone's at an intersection, and we're going to talk about what those look like.

For a lot of us, we're pretty good at avoiding people at different times. But really what I want to challenge you with is to focus on what are the moments where God wants you to lean in, where he wants you to be intentional. There are these intersections that the people around you are at, and he wants you, I believe, if you're a follower of Jesus, to meet them at that intersection and point that person to him. I was reading a story by Elizabeth Sherrill. She is an author from Chappaqua, New York, and she tells about sitting at her computer, and she was typing away, and she looks out the window and she sees this skunk that is in her backyard and has what looks like a yellow helmet on his head. It's not a yellow helmet. It's a yellow yogurt carton that apparently the skunk had been trying to get yogurt out of the carton and stuck on his head, trying to get it off.

Couldn't do it. And Elizabeth said she's watching this unfold, and she thinks to herself, somebody should do something about that. Goes back to working, looks up.

Skunk is still there, still struggling. She thinks, somebody besides me should do something about that. And then she thinks, at some point that skunk is gonna make its way from my backyard into somebody else's backyard, and then it'll be somebody else's problem, but the skunk just kept struggling with that yellow yogurt carton on its head. She realized she was the only person who was in a position to do something about it, and so she Googled the phone number for the Department of Wildlife.

Got on the helpline, explained the situation. There's a skunk in my backyard that has a yellow yogurt carton stuck on its head. What do I do? Well, ma'am, you need to take the yogurt carton off its head, okay? Well, what if the skunk sprays me? The man on the other line tries to reassure her, and if he can't see you, he can't spray you, ma'am.

Okay, but what about when I take it off? And there's this silence on the other line, and the guy's like, trying not to make the skunk feel threatened. And that was all the advice he had for her, and so she reluctantly went out, and she walked out in the backyard, and she says the skunk just started coming towards her, running towards her, this black, white, kind of yellow streak. And she just, in this moment of not really thinking of all the implications, she reached down, and she ripped off that carton, and the skunk and her, she said, they held a gaze for like 10 seconds, trying to figure out what the other person was going to do. And then it finally ran off, and I really like her summary of this whole event.

She said, a timeless parable played itself out. I thought the skunk was all those needs I hesitate to get involved in, because involvement takes time, and I have deadlines to make. I probably can't do anything anyway. Somebody else can handle it better. Besides, involvement can be ugly, and the stench may rub off on me. All those things, of course, may be true, she says, but I've got a yellow pencil holder on my desk, a rather scratched and battered one, to remind me that every now and then, God answers a need with me.

Every now and then. Turns out, there's something that's happening in your backyard, and you are the person who's in the best position to do something about it. For us as a church, this is what we mean when we talk about being unleashed. We want to unleash the full force of the church to love people one at a time. That there are certain people in your life that you are in a position to love, that nobody else is really in that position to love.

The way that you are. There's certain people that you come across, right time, right place, where you're going to be in a position to point them to Jesus at just the right moment, to have the most impact for them. I was talking to a lady in between services, her name was Melissa.

And a few months ago, she lost her mom and was sitting, coming to church and just feeling heavy and needing comfort and praying. And someone saw her, kind of noticed that there was a heaviness about her, just wrote a note and said, I want you to know that God sees you and you're not alone. This someone who's paying attention, leans in at that moment, has a really significant impact on her because they saw her at an intersection and did something.

I'm just convinced that all of you have people like that in your life right now. That there are people, maybe you're close to them and know them well. Maybe it's a stranger that you'll come across this afternoon. But if you'll keep your eyes open, you'll find them at an intersection where they're more open to learning about Jesus, to knowing about God's love than maybe they ever have before. And so what are those moments?

What are those intersections? You're driving through the neighborhood and you see a moving truck has pulled up to the house that's been for sale for a while and there's a car there with out-of-state plates. Somebody's moving in. You have a window here.

You have an opportunity. You might not get again, but for that moment, next month or two, that family is at this intersection of change and uncertainty. And a gesture of friendship in that moment goes a really long way.

A gesture of kindness at that intersection says a lot about Jesus, a lot about the church. Or you hear news on social media that an old classmate's been diagnosed with cancer and you haven't talked to this classmate for a while and you feel a little bit bad about that. Like now it doesn't seem appropriate to reach out to them because you haven't reached out to them in the past.

And yet the truth is that person is at this intersection of fear and suffering and they have never been more open to the power and the presence of God in their lives. And maybe you are the one that needs to say something just to check on them, just to build a bridge, ask them how they're doing, how can you pray for them. There's maybe a friend that you haven't seen for a while and you get the news that she and her husband separated and apparently he got involved with someone else and you're a little reluctant to even run into her because you don't want it to be awkward and you're not sure what you would say.

I mean do you even bring something like that up or not? And yet you know she is at this intersection of loneliness and rejection and she really needs somebody to step into that space with her and make sure that she's staying connected to Jesus, make sure that she is seen and she knows she's not alone. A relative loses a job, you're not really sure what to say, you don't want there to be any embarrassment so you just don't bring anything up over the holidays. And yet the truth is they're really struggling, struggling with identity, they just never thought it would happen to them. They're at this intersection of disappointment and despair and it might be a little awkward but you have an opportunity to lean in. They've never been more open to a conversation, they've never been more receptive to a word of encouragement, an act of compassion has never meant more to them. There's something about that intersection that if we are intentional to meet people there, it has significant impact.

I found this is true for irreligious people. Like one of the things that I will sometimes do is I'll go to a hospital to meet people, to pray with people who are going through something difficult, but sometimes you get in the waiting room while you're waiting for the moment to get the all-clear and go back and see someone. And I've had a number of times where I've been in the waiting room and there's another family that I don't know but they're clearly going through something. Either there's an unexpected accident, someone's illness has taken a turn for the worse, but it's clearly a heavy moment and I don't want to intrude, I don't want to be in the way, but I also don't want to miss an opportunity if they're at an intersection and they just need some hope and they need to know that they're cared for. And so I'll go over and say, hey I don't know you, I'm a pastor in town, I'm here to see somebody else. Is it okay if I just pray for you real quickly? No one ever says no.

No one ever acts annoyed. Like I don't know what their religious background may or may not be, but I know that in that moment they're more open to that than they were 24 hours before. There's something about those intersections that are sacred places and Jesus invites you into them.

Right now there's someone in your life who's at an intersection that needs you to show up. And Jesus just did this masterfully. So let's look at this in the Gospels by just a quick examination of some intersection moments Jesus had. John chapter 3.

There's a man named Nicodemus. He's a religious leader. He had some doubts.

He didn't believe what all of his colleagues believed about Jesus. He had some questions. He's at the intersection of what I would call seeking and searching. He's spiritually asking questions. The moment you hear someone asking some kind of a spiritual question, that is an invitation for you to step into that space. And you may not know all the answers.

That's okay. But that you meet them there. And so Jesus in John 3 meets Nicodemus at night, has this very personal spiritual conversation with him. You go to John 4 and there's the story of the woman at the well when Jesus goes through Samaria and he meets this woman who's at the intersection of shame and dissatisfaction. She's been married a number of times.

She's living with somebody who's not her husband. Nothing is satisfying her thirst. She's thirsty for something deeper, something more. And Jesus meets her there and offers himself the living water. You wait for someone to reach that moment in life where they recognize what I've been doing isn't working.

I'm thirsty for more. You meet him in that space. If you go to John chapter 5, Jesus is in Jerusalem. He meets a lame man who's at the intersection of hopelessness and helplessness and Jesus reaches out, offers some help, new hope. John 8, a woman who's caught in the act of adultery. She finds herself at this intersection of guilt and shame and Jesus meets her there with grace and truth.

And it just keeps going. He meets a widow at the funeral of her only son. It's a really significant intersection. He meets a father whose daughter is on her death bed. He meets two sisters who are grieving the loss of their brother Lazarus.

They're at the intersection of grief and despair. And Jesus meets them there, introduces himself. I'm the resurrection.

I'm the life. I was visiting with somebody else between services and I said, have you been coming to church here for a while? And she said, no, but I heard you speak before coming here at a wedding and then at a funeral. And when I was at the funeral, you told me that we needed to stop meeting this way, that you need to come to church. And she said that she started coming to church, but there's something about a funeral.

There's something about that moment. It's one of the reasons I would always rather as a pastor, when you speak at a funeral, there are just a lot of intersections taking place. In that moment, people are more open to God in a way maybe that they aren't at other times. And Jesus had a way of seeing that and leaning in and meeting people in those places. So there's a parable that I want us to look at in Matthew 13.

If you have your Bibles, you can turn there. Matthew 13. I say a parable. Really it's two parables, but they're each like two sentences long. They're very brief parables. It's in a passage here where Jesus is telling a lot of parables.

There are a lot of stories that kind of pack a punch and unlock some deeper spiritual truth. And in this particular section, he is giving us some different pictures of what the kingdom of heaven is like. And so he says the kingdom of heaven is like this, like this, like this. So each parable begins with the kingdom of heaven is like. The kingdom of heaven, of course, is a physical place, but it's not just a physical place.

It's any place. One way to say this, it's any place where God rules. God rules everywhere, but it's any place where God has been identified, recognized, submitted to, and surrendered to as ruler. That's where you'll find the kingdom of heaven, whether that's in heaven, the physical place, or whether that's in your heart. That's what the kingdom of heaven is like.

And so he's describing the kingdom of heaven by telling us two little short stories. The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy he went and sold all he had, and he bought the field. It's like this treasure that's hidden in a field. Who hides a treasure in a field?

That's not something we do. We take it to the bank, or we put it on deposit somewhere. He buries it in the field, and back in the day, like that's what they did. If there was a war, they would bury their wealth in the ground. They would be the only ones who knew where to find it. But what happens if they die at war, which they often did, it just stays buried in the ground.

And so that's presumably what happened here. Like a hired hand is working in the field, but he stumbles across it. Didn't plan on it.

Wasn't looking for it. Just happened. Just an ordinary day.

Just an ordinary field. And he finds this extraordinary treasure that changes his life. Kind of accidental, but changes everything for him. And he goes and sells everything he has. And people are talking.

Ah, midlife crisis. What's he doing? Selling his house, selling his oxen, selling everything he owns so he can buy this field. They don't understand it, but he knows what he's doing.

He knows it's a good exchange. Some of you who have become followers of Jesus, you've changed your life. You've surrendered some things over to Jesus, and the people around you see what you've given up, and they're like, I'm not sure.

I'm not sure they're doing okay. They're not sure what to make of it, but you know what to make of it because you've discovered a treasure. You've discovered this joy that's in Jesus. It's a treasure that's hidden in the field. It's worth everything.

That's the intersection moment in your life where you recognize it's available to you. The Bible calls it the riches of Christ. And then Jesus sells a second parable. So here's what I want you to do as you're listening to this, is to try to identify how these two little parables are different.

The first one that we read, a man is working in a field, presumably. He finds it, he hides it again, sells everything he has and buys it. Verse 44, or 45 and 46, again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant on the lookout for choice pearls. When he discovered a pearl of great price, he sold everything he owned and bought it. So two stories, very similar, kind of give the same metaphor.

I know that there's probably half a dozen grammar teachers in here. Simile. It's a simile. I get it. The word like is in there, makes it a simile.

But can we just say metaphor because it's like a word picture of a pearl and a treasure and this represents the kingdom of heaven. So what's different about those two? They both find a treasure, they both sell everything they have.

What's different about them? The first one, he stumbles on to it. It's accidental, just happens. Second one, he's looking for it. He's searching, he's seeking, and as he looks for it, he finds it. You've been listening to the first part of our guest teacher Kyle Eidelman's message, Intersections, from his series One at a Time.

Chip will join us here in studio with some additional thoughts about today's program in just a minute. Have you ever considered the remarkable impact Jesus has had on history? Well think about it, he lived over 2,000 years ago and only had a small group of followers.

Yet fast forward to today, Christianity is the leading world religion. So what was Jesus' secret? In this series, Kyle Eidelman reveals the unexpected simple practice Jesus used to change our world. Don't miss how you and I can continue the work he started. One interaction, one conversation, one life at a time.

To learn more about the series or Kyle's best-selling book, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org, the Chip Ingram app, or call us at 888-333-6003. Well I'm joined by our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram, and Chip, Kyle ended his message today unpacking two parables Jesus taught that reveal what we truly value. And for some, wealth and prosperity are what they treasure most. Now I've heard you say before that how we handle our money is a really great indicator of our faith.

What do you mean by that? Well Dave, you know, I think we all long to believe that what we say and what we think really is who we are. And Jesus in his day talked so much and taught so much about money, not because he ever became rich, he was trying to get people's money, but our money is the mirror of our heart.

Or maybe think about it this way, it's the MRI of your heart to know what's really in there. What do I really worship? What are my values?

What are my true motives? And what I would say is Jesus' teaching says your lips declare what you think matters, what your values are, and what you worship. That's what your lips declare. Your money reveals where they really are. And so that's why he talks so much about that because really it's love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength. And the competition for our heart is money. It's the things that we think that can fill us up that money can buy.

Security, significance, impact, impressing others. And so you know it really has an impact here at Living on the Edge. When I think of the people who give to Living on the Edge, it's not just that they're giving us their money. We are so grateful. We are good stewards. We are using it in ways that really honor God and lives are being changed.

But to help people understand who God really is and create resources around that and and reach the next generation and to say that we really want to make a difference to help Christians live like Christians in a crazy world that we're living in, when people give to the ministry, what they're really saying is that's on my heart too. I'm with you. We're partners. We're in it together. And so I just want to pause and I want to thank each and every one of you who are partners, who are on mission with us.

Not because you say you are, but because your money is the mirror. It's the MRI that reveals that we are in this together. And you know what? You're not only a part of making a difference, you will be a part of the reward as well. And so we want to pause today and say thank you. Well if Living on the Edge is ministering to you and you've not yet partnered with us financially, would you prayerfully consider doing that today? It takes a team to do what God's called us to do and we're inviting you to help us help Christians live like Christians. To send a gift or to become a monthly partner, go to livingontheedge.org or text the word donate to 74141. Text donate to 74141 or visit livingontheedge.org.

App listeners tap donate. Well Chip, as we wrap up this message from Kyle Eidelman, talk to the person out there who feels a little unprepared or maybe anxious about giving spiritual direction to someone. What encouragement do you have for them? Well just set expectations. You don't have to know everything. People aren't expecting you to be Jesus or the Apostle Paul.

You don't necessarily need to go looking for someone. You are intersecting all the time with people that are hitting very predictable challenges in their life now more than ever. I had a little break. I studied and I wanted to spend some time with my family and as I was reflecting on my life I realized it's been a while since I've really shared Christ in a very meaningful way. I've not been around many non-Christians and listening to this series and kind of pondering, Lord, I really, you know, I want to share my faith. I want to love people and my track record the last month or so has not been really good. And I found myself in a conversation with someone that was really in pain and from this message let me tell you what I did and I think it'll model something that you can do.

Number one is when you see someone in pain it's like a flashing red light that the Holy Spirit is saying this is an opportunity for me to love this person through you. Pay attention to that. Lean in. Don't solve it, just lean in.

Then second, ask questions. This person had a son who was acting out, was about 16 or so. This person wasn't a believer. Their mate had left them and was currently living with another person. Their mate had left them and this couple was, you know, pretty happy and living together and kind of a sort of blended family but not really a family because they didn't get married. And the 16 year old son was really really acting out so the grades are going down, running with the wrong crowd, you know, some alcohol use and some weed and and you know they care. I mean these are very sincere really good people and I found myself listening and and then I just kept asking questions and I was able to talk about some pain I'd been through, talk about how that world might be in their son's perspective and feeling like okay you know you all move together there's been other men and women in both your lives I feel like I'm bounced around I feel afraid I feel anxious and I gave them their son's perspective and then talked about what would bring stability from God's perspective and how he could bring favor in their life and it moved from the issue with their son to what they could do as a couple that would stabilize and get their life in obedience to Christ and their relationship in obedience to Christ that would provide what their son needed and with tears in their eyes and tears in my eyes we had this amazing connection they heard the truth about marriage they heard the gospel and they heard how to respond to their son but they didn't hear it through the lens of this is what you need to do and I'm the authority and here's the aughts and shoulds I think they heard the heart of God and so can I encourage you to enter their pain ask questions listen deeply and then respond as God leads you you may just find that people are far more open you ever dreamed as we close if you're looking for a way to get more out of our teaching let me encourage you to download the message notes this helpful tool is available for every program they include a clear outline all of the scripture references and lots of fill ins to help you remember what you're learning you can get them at Living on the Edge org under the broadcasts tab app listeners just tap fill in notes join us next time as our guest teacher Kyle Idelman wraps up his series one at a time until then this is Dave Drewy saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge