I Choose Hope - Finding Hope, Part 1

I want you to think of someone right now that's really, really discouraged that you care about. What's the best thing you could give them? Would it be money?

Would it be a great vacation? Just a little relief? I'm going to tell you there's something far better and more important. 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. And in just a minute, he'll kick off our series, I Choose Hope, based in the book of Philippians chapter three. For the next handful of programs, he'll share how we can confidently face any circumstance in our life and hold tightly to the hope only Christ can offer. Now, before we get started, if this is your first time listening to Living on the Edge or you want to learn more about what we do, go to livingontheedge.org. You'll find tons of resources on a wide range of topics and countless programs to enjoy. Or if you prefer, the Chip Ingram app is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry.

Well, if you have a Bible, go now to Philippians chapter three as we join Chip for his message, Finding Hope. Couple years ago, I had a chance to listen to a speaker and he is a very, very effective speaker. He's a guy that I've admired. I would call him a friend. I don't know him real well, but we've hung out a few times.

And when I get close to someone that I can tell is really real, it's very exciting. And he was giving a message and he said, there's actually something in our day that you can measure that you can actually grow that has a higher ability to predict the future than either your IQ or even your EQ. He said, there's something called an HQ that depending on how full your HQ is, that will tell you a lot more about the future of your marriage, your future in school, your future with people, your future in work, than even how smart you are or your emotional intelligence.

And I was leaning forward like, I'd like to know what that is. He says, HQ is your hope quotient. And then he talked about a research project that had started at the time seven years earlier. And it came out of a conversation with his daughter who was in school at the time and in a class on leadership. In fact, I put the question that she asked him. It was a homework assignment and homework assignment was to find a leader and ask questions so you could learn about leadership. So she thought, my dad's a leader. I'll ask him.

So they began to talk for a couple hours and he said her last question was question number 20 and it was the best one. She said, what's the single most important thing you do as a leader? Now think of that. The single most important, is it strategy? Is it planning? He happens to pastor one of the largest churches in all of America. Is it prayer?

I mean, what is it? And he said, instinctively after all these years, I said, oh, that's easy. I make sure I stay encouraged.

And I remember sitting there listening to him because when she asked that question, I wanted to know what is it? But that's not what I thought he would say. And then I got to think about it and he went on to say, well, when I'm encouraged, I make good decisions. When I'm encouraged and emotionally whole, I relate to people well, but when I'm discouraged, I make bad decisions. When I'm discouraged, I tend to fall into temptation. When I'm discouraged, I lose confidence.

When I'm discouraged and live in a discouraged manner, I start losing credibility with the people around me. And then he went on to say, he said, the greatest gift parents can ever give their kids is hope. The greatest thing you can give your marriage partner is hope. The greatest thing you can give your employees or your friends is hope. And I thought to myself, I have never thought about it like that, but it rings true. I found a quote by my mentor, Howard Hendricks, speaking of the flip side of hope. He says, discouragement, this is a great line, is the anesthetic that the devil uses on a person just before he reaches in and carves out their heart.

That's graphic, isn't it? Well, what is hope? I've done a lot of research and I could give you biblical words and dictionary words, but as I put them all together, I think the heart of hope is this. It's the mental and emotional outlook that life is good. The future is promising. Progress is certain even in the midst of challenging circumstances or difficult relationships. It's an emotional and intellectual outlook.

It's just you get up and there's something about your emotions. There's something about your thinking and it's like life is good. Hey, life is good. Of course there's challenges, but the future, the future is promising. The future of my marriage is promising. The future of my singleness is promising. My future at work is promising and progress is absolutely certain even in the midst of difficulty and challenges.

Why does it matter? It matters because researchers tell us you can go about 40 days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air, but probably not more than two or three seconds without hope. The moment you lose hope, you cave in. You lose hope in your marriage, you give up. You lose hope in one of your kids, you give up. You lose hope at work, you don't show up as the same person. You lose hope, everything begins to cave in.

He went on in his research, he said, why does it matter? Here's 11 things that people whose hope, think of hope as like a little tank inside of you and I want to ask you in just a minute, is your hope kind of low? Is your hope kind of medium or are you just filled with hope? Do you have this buoyant sense that life is good, the future is promising and progress is certain?

People that think like that the majority of the time have more satisfying relationships, they're more productive, they're affected less by stress, they're more successful, more satisfied, they're more compassionate, they're more willing to help people in need, their physical life, they're healthier, they hold a higher moral and ethical standard, they're more likely to assume leadership positions and it's interesting, they're more likely to see God as loving, caring and forgiving. So let me ask you just before we get going here, if you know, just think, you know, your hope meter, let's make it just a one up to a 10. If you had to give yourself a number of hope right now, what do you got? What's going on inside? Discouraged?

Encouraged? What's the source of your hope? Now I know the Sunday school answer, right? Jesus, right? Jesus is the source. Okay, we got that.

That's the right answer. Now let's get to the honest one. If you honestly would say, what is, what's your hope? What are you hoping for? What do you intuitively or unconsciously believe if this would happen or if that would happen? My life would be good. The future would be positive. I know I'd make progress. Maybe a different way to come at it is look at the negative.

What is it that when it happens, discourages you and gets you down quickly? So that'll probably tell you where a lot of your hope rests. You know, the really big question, I'm asking you to think about it. I've done a lot of thinking about it and, and just, we're not going to have all the right hope all the time.

But here's the big question that we want to ask and answer in the season, but in the series is how do you find and keep hope alive? Because you know, I don't have a lot of, I don't have a lot of control over my IQ. I can study.

I don't have much control over my EQ. You kind of can learn some things, but I'm going to tell you, you have 100% control of your HQ. You can raise your hope. You can build your hope.

You can fill your hope. The apostle Paul is writing to a church that he loves, the Philippians. We need to get a little context because we've taken a break. He's in difficult circumstances. In chapter one, he thinks he may die at any moment and so he chooses joy. His C plus P equals E. His circumstances plus his perspective equals experience and he has an upward focus and an outward focus and he says, God, I know you're in control. In chapter two, there's disunity in relationships and we learned that you can choose love. You develop a I am second mentality. It's about humility.

Pride kills relationships. Humility always causes grace to flow. And so you follow the example of Jesus and you, you consider others as more important.

You choose to love others in ways that are meaningful. In chapter three, he's concerned about them because culturally there's chaos and confusion. Some false teachers kept following Paul. Paul would plant a church, Galatia, Ephesus, here in Philippi and there'd be a group called Judaizers.

They were new Christians but they were Jewish Christians and they said, Jesus is great and grace is important plus you need to be circumcised. You need to keep the law. Here's 17 rules you need to do. And so they would follow Paul and then they would teach their false doctrine and take loads of guilt and put it on people. Now you've got to keep all the Jewish laws.

Well, no one's ever been able to do that. It's been fulfilled. It's not Jesus plus anything. And so he writes chapter three because the hope is getting shifted from a grace loving relationship that God says, you're his son, you're his daughter. I'm for you because of what I have done and the hope is getting shifted to this is what you got to do.

In order to measure up, you need to do this and this and this and this. Open your Bibles, if you will. Philippians chapter three, he gives him a command. Verse one, he says, finally, my brethren rejoice in the Lord to write the same things again.

There's no trouble to me and it's a safeguard for you. He says, find your joy in your relationship. He says, it's not a big deal for me to remind you of this, but then remember the end of chapter one, he said, you're experiencing the same difficulty, which you saw to be in me. And he's just bringing their focus back.

Yeah, you gotta, you gotta love other people, but you gotta find your joy in your relationship with God because everything and everyone else sometime sooner or later is going to let you down. And then he gives him a warning in verse two. He says, beware of the dogs. Beware of the evil workers.

Beware of the false circumcision. These are these Judaizers. He gives them three labels. He calls them dogs because don't think of ranger. That's my dog. Ranger is a golden retriever.

The biggest problem we have with ranger is he walks up to you and he just licks you to death. He's the most loving dog in the world. These are scavenger dogs. These are dogs that are running the city.

These are dogs that snarl. These are the kind of dogs that people were afraid of and carry disease and he's talking to them in this negative language and it was a slang term also that Jewish people would use for Gentiles. And he says, they're, they're, they'll gobble you. They're diseased.

They'll mess you up. And then he says, not only that, but they're evil workers. They have a works mentality and there's a play on this where he's saying their works are going to take you down a bad path and there are false circumcision. If you were a good Jewish little boy, the sign of the covenant at eight days is the foreskin was to be cut and you're going to be circumcised. And even after people came to Christ, regardless of their age, the Judaizer said, you need to do that.

Keep the law, keep the Sabbath, keep the dietary laws. And Paul says, these people are going to take you down a path that will rob your hope and your relationship with Christ. And here's the reason he says, for we are the true circumcision. We, how we serve God by his spirit. We boast in Christ Jesus and we put no confidence in the flesh. He gives three characteristics of the false teachers and he said, no, no, no, no, no. Hey, Philippians, we're the true circumcision.

Okay. It's, it's of the heart. Romans, you might jot down right above that.

Romans chapter two versus 28 and 29. He says people that are physically born of Abraham, just because you're a physical Jew doesn't make you right with God. He's going to say it's a circumcision of the heart. It's a relationship that we have with God through Christ.

We're the true circumcision. And here's the three characteristics. We worship God by the spirit. It's the spirit of God dwells in us and we have relationship. Second, he says we boast in Christ.

It's about a person. Anytime religion takes you into the church, the leader, you have to do these five things to be right. If you ever do these two things, all that stuff, he says, we boast in Christ and what he's done. And third, notice what he says. We put no confidence in the flesh.

It's Sarx is the word. It means in what we do outside of what Christ has provided. It's this idea that on bad days, all of us, right? We've got this battle. We want to do what God wants us to do, but we live in this flesh and it's a battle.

It's those desires and habits time form that it's doing things out of our own energy, out of our own effort, out of our own motives. Now notice then Paul is going to shift gears here and he's basically going to say, let me prove this to you all. And then I think there's three huge takeaways for us about finding hope. Basically he's going to going to say to him, let me give you the sense of it. He's going to say, these, these, these guys are saying you need to keep all this stuff.

Basically he's going to say, so, so if anyone wanted to go toe to toe on really keeping the law, I'm, my argument is not going to be that these guys do it and none of us can. He goes, I'm going to tell you from my life, I used to be in that group. In fact, I used to be an all star.

I was the budding star. In fact, Gamaliel was my teacher and he was the most famous teacher and I was the rising star and he's going to sort of throw out his pedagraces, you know, kind of arguing like, I mean, if anyone was going to get right with God in that system, I was scoring a hundred as far as you could in that system. And then he's going to contrast that and say, but all of that, he says, I look at that and he's going to use, in fact, a little bit later, I'll have you circle the word gain, loss, gain, loss, and the word consider because the word consider is an accounting term and he's going to actually look at his life in Christ and his life before Christ and his life with all of his good works and he's going to say in an accounting term, gain, gain, gain, loss, loss, loss. Ready to follow along?

Though I myself have reasons for such confidence, if someone thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I far more. Then he gives us seven specific statements circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews with regard to law, a Pharisee that was the strictest sect as for zeal. I mean, someone was fired up, persecutor of the church as for righteousness based on the law, blameless or faultless. Paul's basically saying I was in the system. I was OCD spiritual like you have never seen. I have all the pedigree. I was born in the right place, born of the right parents, born of a special tribe.

My name even, the first tribe came from Benjamin. He said, I was circumcised on exactly the right day. In terms of religious or righteousness, I mean, I fasted the two days a week like Pharisees.

I memorized probably all of the Torah in major parts of the Old Testament. In terms of being a religious person who fulfilled what you can in your own effort and energy, I was the star of Judaism. And as far as this whole, this sect, this following, this Jesus stuff, I tried to kill him.

And then notice the shift. His basic saying is, his point is true spirituality, authentic relationship, is going to be rooted in the person of Christ, in the person of Jesus, not religion, not in a system, not in a group, not in a church, not in a leader, not in what you do, not what you can accomplish. And then after this, notice what he says, but you might put a big underline because this is the contrast. Whatever was to my gain, circle that, or profit, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. Put a box around the word consider. What's more, I consider, put a box around consider, everything to be a loss because it's surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I've lost all things and consider them as garbage, that I might gain Christ and be found in him.

Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Now you're a very, very smart group, so what I want you to do is if you see the word gain or loss, circle it in your notes. I just want you to visually see this. Circle it, circle it, gain, loss, gain, loss, gain, loss. When you see the word consider, put a box around it.

It's going to open up the whole text. What he's going to say is like an accountant doing a forensic audit, I've looked at all of the religion and I look at my relationship with Christ and now here's what it is. Here's the gains, the surpassing value of knowing Christ.

And the word for knowing here is an intimate, deep, rich, personal relationship. It's the opposite of knowing about God. We have, I believe, millions of people in the church, even an evangelical church, that know a lot about God and have a very unconscious mindset of what makes them right with God. I come to church very regularly. I read my Bible some. I pray when I can.

I pray to prayer at one time. And what they're really trusting in is what they're doing. But if you ask them, do you have a rich, deep, intimate relationship? Do you have a passion in your heart to get to know? Do you enjoy Jesus? Is there a sense of growth and intimacy?

Some of them don't even know what you're talking about. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Finding Hope, which is from our series I Choose Hope. Chip will be back with us in studio shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. In uncertain times, what do you put your hope in?

And how confident are you that that person or thing will actually deliver the peace and stability you're desperate for? As Chip teaches through Philippians chapter three, he'll share what God has to say about our fears about the future and how it's possible to be confident in these anxious times. Stay with us as we learn to face tomorrow and each day that follows with complete certainty in a never-failing hope. To get more plugged in with this series, I Choose Hope, or any of our helpful resources, visit livingontheedge.org.

That's livingontheedge.org. Chip's with me in studio now. Chip, I want to loop back to that quote you shared from your mentor, Howard Hendricks. Discouragement is the anesthetic Satan uses on a person right before he reaches in and carves out their heart. That's a pretty vivid image, but that's really what you're trying to warn people about in this series.

Oh man, Dave. Doesn't that really get to the truth of it? I mean, what a visual picture Proth Hendricks gave us. When we get discouraged, we're vulnerable. All of us have made poor decisions. All of us have given in to temptation. All of us have had deep struggles that when we look back, we realize we made terrible, terrible decisions with devastating consequences because we were discouraged.

The problem was our hope quotient was very, very low. This entire series is from the Apostle Paul out of Philippians 3, and he's going to teach us regardless of your circumstance, regardless of what you're in, what you've been through, what's happened to you, or what you face in the future, you can have hope, and we're going to learn how to actually experience it. That's the series, and I can't wait to teach it. Thanks, Chip. And to help you get the most out of this series, download Chip's message notes. They're a great tool available for every broadcast. They include his outline, the scripture he references, and some key fill-ins to help you remember and apply what you hear.

Get them by going to the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org, app listeners tap fill in notes. Well, with that, here again is Chip with a final thought. As we wrap up today's program, what I know for sure is many, many of you, or some of your closest friends or family members, need hope. I mean, they really need hope. I mean, whether it's economic issues, marriage issues, divorce, separation, drug addictions, loss of a job. I mean, there's times in our life that is so devastating, and we can get discouraged, and we lose perspective. And the Lord Jesus wants you to know, and the people that you love, He wants to give you hope. In fact, our hope quotient might be the most important thing, because if you're discouraged, we don't trust.

If you're discouraged, you're not motivated. I love what my friend Ray Johnson says in his book, The Hope Quotient. He says, people, this is research, people that have a high hope quotient, people that have a sense that the future is bright, that God is in control, that regardless of what I go through, He's going to help me.

They have more satisfying relationships, they're more productive, they're less affected by stress, they're more successful, they're more satisfied, they're more compassionate, they're more willing to help people, they have higher ethical standards, and they're more likely to see God as a loving, caring, and forgiving God. And so what I want you to know as we launch into this series and as we begin to learn about hope, God wants to give it to you. In fact, are you ready for this? He's already given it to you. And so it's a matter of perspective, it's a matter of beginning to lean into, and it grows out of not circumstances being wonderful and right and everything going your way. As we learn from the Apostle Paul, it happens when we're rooted deeply and intimately with the anchor of our hope, the Lord Jesus himself. That's my prayer for you today. Lean into the Lord Jesus. Draw near to Him in the midst of your pain, your suffering, and your discouragement. And here's the promise, and He will draw near to you. Great word, Chip. And as we close, would you pray for those feeling challenged to respond to Chip's encouragement right now? There's always a spiritual battle when we feel prompted to draw near to God.

Thanks for taking a minute to do that. And if there's a way we can pray for you, let us know. Call 888-333-6003 or email chip at livingontheedge.org. We'd love to hear from you. We'll listen to next time as Chip continues his series, I Choose Hope. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.