Spiritual Simplicity - What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love, Part 2

Do you ever feel like you just can't connect with that special person in your life?

You know you love them and they love you, but for some reason the relationship isn't going well? Well, today I'll give you some insight about what might be happening and just how to fix it. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry featuring the daily Bible teaching of Chip Ingram, and today he's going to share the second half of his message with a world needs now as love, sweet love, from our series Spiritual Simplicity.

But before he does, let me remind you if you've missed any part of this series, catch up anytime at livingontheedge.org or via the Chip Ingram app. If you have a Bible, turn now to the book of Ephesians for the remainder of Chip's talk. Let me give you the two major ways that God has designed for us to experience His love. God designed love to be birthed and modeled in our families. Ephesians 5, 18, through chapter 6, verse 4. I'd encourage you to follow along, and I don't usually read a long passage, but this one is one you just need to lean back, and here's what I want you to listen to as I read. Notice we said love comes from God's Spirit. Notice He's going to talk about you surrendering or allowing the Spirit to control you, and then I'm going to show you from Scripture that God has a very clear design that where He wants us to learn about love is in our families.

He actually designed the family system to work in such a way that little boys and little girls would grow up feeling loved, affirmed, cared for, not for what they do but for who they are. Pick it up with me in verse 15. The apostle, after telling us all this great stuff we have in Christ, says, be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Therefore, don't be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

And he says, well, what's the will of the Lord? Well, don't be drunk with wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled, and the word means controlled, with the Spirit. Well, if you're filled with the Spirit, well, what happens? Well, speak to one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then, by the way, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. When you're filled with the Spirit, there is a joy in your heart.

There's a melody. There's a perspective where you realize God's in control, and He's good, and you choose to give thanks. And then he says, now I'm going to talk about relationships and how love works when the Spirit's in control. And he says the baseline is no one steps up and says I've got to have my way on my terms. Submit or surrender one to another. In other words, God, you're the great choreographer, and you're going to put relationships together.

You show me my part of the dance. You show me my role so that I can get and receive your love and then give it in the way you want me to. And so then he starts and says, okay, family relationships. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of the church's body, of which He is the Savior. Now, as the church submits to Christ, so wives should submit to their husbands in everything. And just before the women go, are you kidding? He says, husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church. Well, he died.

You're starting to get the point, guys. And gave himself for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing of the water with the word, to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it just as Christ does the church. For we're members of his body. For this reason, a man will leave his mother and father and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.

This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking about Christ and the church, however, religion. Each one of you must love his wife as himself, and the wife must respect her husband. Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother. Respect.

Don't talk back. Listen to them. Obey them.

Why? Well, this is the first commandment with the promise that it may go well with you and that you may live and enjoy a long life on the earth. Fathers, do not exasperate your children instead.

Bring them up in the training and the instruction of the Lord. He's gonna go on and talk about slaves and masters, but here's what he says. The Spirit of God contains the love of God.

The Spirit of God comes into a human heart. He's gonna say, there can either be resistance or you can surrender and say, I want to do life your way. And here's God's plan.

It's really very simple. A tiny little baby gets born, and a mother says, I want to nurture and love this baby. And a father says, fantastic.

And the mother says, I think this baby will learn how to love if I love my husband the way God says, and I really have to trust him. And so I'm going to respect my husband, and I'm going to encourage him. I'm going to affirm him. I'm going to realize he does have a pretty fragile ego. And I'm going to, when I have to challenge him, I'm going to do it in some ways that he understands. I'm going to ask some probing questions, and I'm going to take strong stands on things.

But I'm going to let him know I'm behind him 100%. And as that happens, a man feels loved and empowered. And as he does, he says, he experiences God's love through his wife.

He says, you know something, I'm going to step out, and I'm going to lead this family emotionally, spiritually, financially. And tell you what, I'm going to give my life for this woman. I'm going to figure out what makes her feel loved, and I'm going to do what the scripture says.

I want to be a living representation of Christ, and I want to love her in such a way, and then she loves me in such a way. And these little kids look up and see this mom and dad loving each other, and it creates this secure environment that's not performance oriented. And they have their ups and downs, and when they blow it, they forgive one another, and they're committed to one another. And then kids grow up, and they begin to obey and realize, you know what, I don't like these boundaries. I don't like it when my dad says no, and my mom follows through, and when they're both on the same page.

But wow, I guess my life isn't going down the tube like a lot of my friends, and my parents are staying together, and boy, that feels kind of good. And I guess if I can't obey my mom and dad now, who I can see, I'll never obey a God that I can't see. And then they grow up and become adults, and because of those kind of things, they have a good self-image, and they learn to trust God, and they become adults, and they actually kind of come back to your house, and it's full circle, and your kids, adult kids, love you, and you watch them start to raise their kids, and there's this dynamic called the family, where Jesus has clothes on called moms and dads and kids, and it's imperfect, but it's a design that God has put into place, and when families follow this design, kids grow up strong, healthy, clear, great self-esteem, people of integrity, husbands feel supported and empowered, wives feel loved and cherished, and when those kind of families, very far from perfect, but very different from the world, tell you what, people around go, man, what do you all have?

Where did you learn that? Because see, a lot of them are out looking for position or fame or sex or success or appearance or possessions, and they're getting all the pseudo-loves, and every time keeps coming back empty. And when you're really loved, you have the freedom to be you, just you, and the most attractive person on the face of the earth is when you are really you, loved by God, free not to impress anyone, free to be you, free to accept you, and free to love others. And so that's design number one. It's an amazing design. I put a little chart there, you know, the Holy Spirit, then you have this relationship, husband to wife, wife to husband, parents to children, then children to parents, and it's this vicious cycle of love. It's God's design. Now, here's what I know by personal experience, unfortunately.

Most families, non-Christian families or Christian families, at least in the last 40 to 50 years, have not followed this design very well. All right? So my dad was an alcoholic. He's a good guy. He was just an alcoholic. Teresa's dad was an alcoholic. He's a good guy, too.

She's just an alcoholic. I never heard my dad ever say to me verbally, I love you until he was probably late 50s after he'd been a Christian four or five years. I don't think I saw my mom and dad kiss like two times growing up. I didn't see this nurturing. So as I grew up, what was I doing?

I'm looking for love in all the wrong places, just like most of us. Now, here's what's amazing. Catch this. Because, you know, some of your body language, when I went through the family of design, if I could read your thoughts, it would be, I sure wish I could have got that, but I didn't. That was part of you. The other part was, I know I'm supposed to be doing that kind of model, and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm not.

And you're thinking, where am I going to go with this? The wonderful thing about God, he's a God of grace. And that means second, third, and 34th chances. And so what you're going to find is that when we fail to follow God's design, or when others fail to follow God's design, and we reap the negative consequences, he'll actually take our deepest pains, our dysfunctions and our hurts, if we bring him to him, and he'll actually use that as an opportunity to express his love in the midst of our pain. Notice the next point. It says, we often experience love most deeply when we need it most desperately. Romans 5, three through five.

It starts out literally. Verse one says, thanks be to God. We have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ. And we exalt or we rejoice in this brand new salvation that God's given us.

And it's exciting. And he says, it's in this grace in which we stand. And then in verse three, he says, but not only this, but we also rejoice or exalt in our tribulation or our problems or our difficulties.

And then he says, why? Because tribulation or difficulties produce perseverance and perseverance produces character and character produces hope and hope never disappoints because the Holy Spirit pours out the love of God. And what he's saying is when difficult, painful things come and you will turn to God. And sometimes, you know what perseverance means? Just endure. This is a hard marriage. I endure. This is a tough situation. I endure.

You know what? I'm not getting any better physically. I endure.

My parents are going through a rough time. I endure, but I'm turning to God in my endurance. As you endure, what happens is something happens inside your character changes as you trust him. And as your character changes, you begin to see there is hope. God can change me and he can change things.

And the hope is received when the spirit of God through the word of God in the context of community pours out into your being. And you actually can come out of very dysfunctional families and painful issues and experience God's love and say there's hope. That's the girl that I met. Girl that I met not only had a difficult, painful, really negative childhood. She looked for love in all the wrong places and got married early. And then she had a husband who abandoned her. Sleeping with someone else for a couple years and she didn't know it. And then she gets pregnant with these twin boys and he leaves and never to be heard of again.

I met her two and a half years later. It was in that pain that Teresa out of a dysfunctional family and being abandoned by a man who was selling drugs turned to God and she persevered. And that persevering and she would pray at night and sing at night and cry out to God and she didn't have any money. And in that persevering it built some character. And I got to see the character of this godly woman. And that produced hope. And I met her about two and a half years later where it was like a piece of coal turned into a diamond. And I saw a heart for God and a love for God and someone who understood the amazing forgiveness of God and it attracted me.

And I just came on the other end of it. I hadn't been through difficult, painful times. I just was empty in success.

I was on the performance track. So I didn't understand God's love. Affirmation felt like love. So perform, perform, perform.

You know, get A's, score points, get pretty girlfriends. I'm loved, right? No, you're empty. You just appear plastic and like you have things that everyone told you would fill the hole and it never did. And it was out of that that I persevered.

That built character. That I came to Christ and then said, you know something? Adulation and affirmation and false intimacy and position. They're empty. And it's hard because I can see those things and I can't see God's love.

Where are you at today? Would you like to really experience God's love? I'll tell you, there's very clear steps to experiencing God's love. I put them in your notes. They're very, very clear.

They're very, very clean. Step one is you need to step down. You have to surrender. You know, you can live life on your agenda or God's agenda, but a certain day at a certain time, even as a Christian, you got to say, God, from this day on, I'm going to do it your way. I know I'll mess up. I know it'll be hard, but whatever your word says, I'm doing life your way.

I desperately need you. Some of us get there because the pain is so great. There's no place else to go.

Second is, and you've got to step away. You know, you walk in darkness. You know, for me, it was hanging out in bars and doing stuff I knew was wrong and getting caught up in all my stuff. I had to step away from the world's values. I had to be separate from the world's values.

And I had to say, you know what? This is really different and really hard, but I'm going to do life your way. And I got to start hanging around some people that do life your way. You step away and then you have to step in. You can't be sort of this, you know, Lone Ranger Christian out there. You got to get with a group of people that are on the same page that are moving and you say, you know what?

Little by little, I'm going to let you in on who I am, but I'm going to hang with you all. That's, I mean, the reason that we're so adamant about small groups is life change happens in authentic community. Jesus lives inside of you. If you're a Christian and he lives inside of other people and it is impossible to live and experiences love apart from deep authentic connection and vulnerability with other people. Is it risky? Yes.

The option though, of not being loved is the only alternative. And so at some point you step down, then you step away, then you step in. And then when you're in that community, at some point in time, you get to step up and you've got to step up and quit playing it safe and saying, this is my sober self assessment. I'm good at this. I struggle with this.

I want to be God's man or God's woman. And I want you all to help me. And I'm going to let you see the parts of me that are not very pleasant.

Everyone has them because you never feel loved until you meet some people that see your not so pretty stuff and they look right at you and go, yeah, I've seen that. I still like you. In fact, I love you.

I mean, I've seen that for years. I've got it. You've got it. Do you know how freeing it is? I mean, I mean, help me with this, but is there anybody here who's perfect? Just go ahead and raise that hand.

Do I see those hands? I mean, we intellectually say that. So why would I be threatened at a certain point to say, you know something? I struck a guy last night. I was so proud of him, but you know what he said? He was, I got to step in. I got to step up. Yeah, I'm a part of the church and I'm growing. I'm making progress.

It's great. But he was saying, I need to go to the next level and I need to get real at a level where I really put my past behind me. And then what you do is you step out, you step out and you get your focus off of you and you say, I bet there's someone hurting a little bit more than me. I bet there's someone a little poorer than me. I bet there's someone whose marriage is even more messed up than mine.

I bet there's someone whose addiction is even deeper than mine. And you just start to give your life away with your time and your energy and your money. And Jesus promised give and it'll be given unto you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over back into your lap. And all I can tell you is you want to experience the infinite, unconditional, powerful, life transforming love of God. You step down, you step away, you step in, you step up and then you step out.

If you want to be loved, here's what it's going to take. Every person in the world is stepping on something. You know, we talked about the ladder of success, the ladder of appearance, and some, some people really work and I'm going to be the super perfect mom and other people is, you know, I'm going to keep pumping those weights. So I look and the girls are like me and you know, some people are trying to afford liposuction and other people, you know, we all got it, right? But every one of us are stepping on certain things.

We think if we can just get this will be loved. And at some point in time, you know something, you step down from that and you surrender to God and you say, you know what, you may give me appearance, you may give me some money here and there, but I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to step down and surrender to you, lock, stock and barrel. Many of you, that's the step you need to take today. Second, then, you know, you're, you're kind of, you need to step away and step into the light.

You got to step away from the people, step away from the environments, step away from the media that keeps giving you the messages that there's some step there that will make you a somebody and you step away and step into the light and you start walking in holiness. And boy, that's a big one. And you know, by the way, it's not always drugs or alcohol. You can be addicted to shopping. You can be addicted to people's approval. You can be addicted to all kinds of stuff. You can be addicted to ESPN. You can be addicted to fantasy football.

You can be addicted to just trivia. Where in the world is your life going? Do you want to be loved? And then third, you got to step in and you got to get with a group of people and you got to say, you know something, you know, I'm going to play it safe at first because I don't know you people. And I know you're Christians, but you know, Christians are flaky people like everyone else.

And so I'm going to figure out who's going to not share what I share with other people and little by little by little, I'm going to, but I'm going to do life with you all. I'm going to make it a priority. I mean, some of you make it a priority to work out.

Some of you figure out how to work 70 hours a week. So, I mean, you make a priority. You do what matters to you.

So you decide what matters to you. You want to experience love. You step down, you step away, then you step in. And then some place in the stepping in, you take a step of vulnerability and you say, you know something, I know I've presented this side and I've showed a little bit of me, but I want you to know, you know, I got some things I'm not proud of. I'll tell you what, you experience the love of God like never before. And then you step out and you get on your little spiritual bicycle and you say, you know what? I got to get going. I got to get focused on helping some other people. Here's my question.

What step do you need to take? God loves you. The Lord, your God is with you. He is mighty to deliver. He takes great delight in you. He will quiet you with his love. He'll rejoice over you with singing. But there's a condition.

And the condition is you need to figure out whether it's a ladder issue, a stepping away and into the light issue, a stepping in issue, stepping up. And then, you know, it's a by faith. You say, God, I'm afraid.

Everything I've ever done. In fact, in scripture, every time I find anybody that's doing anything significant, either an angel or someone comes and says, do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.

Why? Because they're afraid. Well, that would mean people would know this.

Yep, they would. But think of how much energy you use hiding it. How much energy we use pretending. Where do you find love? Source of love is God. It comes through his spirit.

You need to walk in his spirit. How do you get it? The ideal is that it's in this family system. And for those of us with families, let's ask God to help us create those kind of families of Ephesians five and six. And then no matter where you're at in your pain, sometimes we get love most deeply when we realize we're really desperate and we say, OK, I'm willing. Final question. How do you give it away?

How do you give it away? The R 12 application is serving in love. Everybody makes decisions and all those decisions make you make a decision today. Second thing is I thought of something real, real practical and it's really brief, but I thought of the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And the most loving person in the world was Jesus, right?

Most loving person. So what did he do? And I literally I mentally went through Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. I just went through the life of Christ. I thought, what did he do?

Are you ready for this? This is how Jesus loved people. He did it by talking with them. He did it by walking with them. He did it by eating with them. He did it by praying with them. He did this to his family. He did this with his friends. He actually did these things with his enemies. He did it by playing with them. I'll tell you, I think Jesus was a very fun guy to be around, holy for sure. But I mean, a lot of us, we don't get some of those jokes that day. He said, hey, Pete, John, come here.

You know what? I mean, he was real. He was loving. I think they played together. He suffered with them when things got hard. I mean, they went through it together. And then he did two things, both with his family, his friends and his enemies. He taught them and he forgave them. Now, you know what?

I don't know about you, but that that list is not rocket science. If you're leaving here now, what should I do to become a more loving person with my family? Oh, with my friends, with my small group, even at work?

Yeah. Or even with my enemies? Here's a novel idea. Talk with them. Eat with them.

Hey, you want to go for a walk? Pray with them. Play with them. If you're in the role, teach them.

And if they've hurt you, forgive them. Let me just ask you in your family, are you doing that? Or are you too busy? You're too busy to eat together?

Jesus wasn't too busy to do that. Too busy to talk together? Too busy to take a walk? Too busy to have some fun? And so are you ready? Now we're back to the very first page, aren't we?

Why are you too busy? And what I'll tell you, if you're honest, go to that front page and see how many of the things in the right-hand column that I listed are about all the demands you feel that you got to do. And at the heart of it is what you desperately need is to be loved. And you think, and I believe, and we've been brainwashed to believe that we can find it in those things.

But you're smart people. If you could find it in those things, you'd found it by now. My recommendation, take a big step. Chip will be right back with his application for this message, What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love, from his series Spiritual Simplicity, Doing Less, Loving More. Have you ever felt like there's never enough time in the day for yourself, the people you love, even God?

If so, then don't miss this series. Chip's going to challenge the unrealistic standards and norms we all feel pressured by. Join us as we learn how to break free from this demanding cycle and uncover the simpler, more fulfilling life God has for us. To get more plugged in with this series, Spiritual Simplicity, visit livingontheedge.org.

That's livingontheedge.org. Well, I'm joined now by our Bible teacher, Chip Ingram. And Chip, here at Living on the Edge, we believe small groups are absolutely vital.

They have real power. I mean, they don't just change lives. They help all of us grow spiritually, too. And as we get started in this new year, I'm sure there are some who are looking at all of our small group resources and aren't sure which one to choose or where to begin. What advice do you have for them?

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, then 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 is called The Real God. And in that, we study 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 just mentioned or any of our other small groups, go to livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003. And for a limited time, all of our small group resources are discounted. So visit livingontheedge.org or call 888-333-6003 to learn more. App listeners, tap Special Offers.

With that, here again is Chip to share his application. As we finish this message on what the world needs now is love, sweet love, let me ask you a question. In what ways is your life too busy because you're settling for pseudo-love instead of real love?

You know, I talked about that. I mean, in what ways is just the pace of your life, the number of things you're doing, the superficiality of blowing and going the way you are, what has to happen so that you actually love people deeply, authentically? I mean, where do you need to slow up? What do you need to stop?

You got it? And then now what I want to do is I want to give you some very specific ways because for many of you, many of you, the answer to that question is it's my family or my close friends. You know, I don't know how many times I talk to people and they have quote close friends and I mean all you do is text each other. I mean, I got news for you. A text is not a hug. You have to do what Jesus did.

The way you communicate love, I zoomed through these but it was like an epiphany for me. He talked with people. He walked with people unhurriedly. He ate with them.

That was a very big one. He prayed with them. He played with them.

I'm convinced that, you know, they had some time skipping stones and having fun. He suffered with them but that meant he was with them and he was in the trenches with them and he taught them. There were teachable moments and then formal teaching and then in the midst of all their hurts and ups and downs because they're people, he forgave them. You know, maybe you ought to just go to the internet, pull down these teaching notes or get the MP3 and say, you know, with my family or with one or two close friends, this week I'm going to plan in my schedule when I'm going to walk, talk, eat, play and pray with them and see if a connection in your heart doesn't get deeper and better and those people feel really loved. You'll find the message notes Chip just mentioned in a couple of places. Go to livingontheedge.org and click the broadcasts tab. App listeners will find them by tapping fill in notes. You'll get his outline, all of his scripture references and lots of fill ins to help you remember what you're learning. I hope you'll take advantage of this resource the next time you listen. Well for Chip and the entire team here, I'm Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.