Leaving a Legacy that Lasts Forever - Teach Them to Live Grace Filled Lives, Part 1

Have you ever messed up big time?

I mean, the kind of sin that years later you still cringe when you think about it? Or perhaps worse, your dreams, your hopes, and your motivation died after that big mistake? If that's where you are today, I want you to know you can begin again. You can be restored. The joy that you once knew can be yours. God wants to give it to you. Stay with me and find out how. 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. We all fail from time to time, right? No one is perfect. But sometimes when we blow it, we are really harsh with ourselves. Well, today Chip explains how to break out of that perfectionist mindset as he winds down our series, leaving a legacy that lasts forever. Hear why our past mistakes don't define who we are, and whose we are.

So with that, let's join Chip for his talk, Teach Them to Live Grace-Filled Lives. He was the most powerful man in the world. He had very, very humble beginnings. He was of a tribe that was sort of of the lower class, and he was the youngest, and he went from being a shepherd boy to being the most powerful king in the world. He had everything any man's heart could ever desire. He had wealth, he had fame, he was an artist, he was a warrior, he had beautiful women, everything that God could ever give a person in terms of hearts desire.

Probably more than one beautiful woman is part of his downfall that we'll talk about later. It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab, the servant, and all of Israel, and they destroyed the people of Ammon, and they besieged Rabab, but David remained in Jerusalem. Every other year he went out to battle. A lot of success. Things are going great.

I probably don't need to go this year. And then it happened. Notice it's not planned. And then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed, walked out on the roof of the king's house, and from the roof he saw a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful to behold. And so David sent and he inquired about the woman. And someone said, is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliim, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? And then David sent messengers and he took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity and she returned to her house.

And the woman conceived, so she sent and told David and said, I am with child, God's man, in a weak moment. Then David sent to Joab saying, send me Uriah the Hittite, and Joab sent Uriah to David from the battlefield, and when Uriah had come to him, David asked him how it was going, and how were the people doing, and how's the war prospered, and David said to Uriah, well go down to your house and wash your feet. And so Uriah departed from the king's house, and he got a gift of food from the king that followed him, but Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and he did not go down to his house. So when they told David saying, Uriah didn't go down to his house, David said to Uriah, did you not come home from a journey, and why didn't you go down to your house? And he confronts a man with great integrity and loyalty, and Uriah said to David, the ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields, shall I go down to my house and eat and drink and lie with my wife?

As you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing, the contrast, commitment, loyalty, integrity, what's fair, what's right. As I read this passage I notice the phrases, then it happened, he saw, he inquired, he sent, he lay, she conceived, and then begins the cover up. And Uriah said to David, can't do it. So David tries plan B, in verse 12 he gets him drunk, sends him down, even in a drunken stupor, his loyalties intact, and then cover up plan B emerges in verse 14. And one morning it happened that David wrote a letter to Joab that was the head of his army, and he sent it by the hand of Uriah, what irony. And he wrote in the letter saying Uriah, put him in the forefront of the hottest battle and retreat from him that he may be struck down and die. And so it was that Joab besieged the city and he assigned Uriah to a place where he knew valiant men were, and the men of the city came out and they fought, and some of the servants of David fell, and Uriah the Hittite died also.

Cover up complete. Skip down to the very bottom, verse 26. When the wife of Uriah heard that Uriah her husband was dead, she mourned for her husband. And when her mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife and bore him a son.

Commentary. But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord. A great portion of this book that I hold in my hands is called the Psalms of the Psalter.

It was the hymnal of the Jewish people. And the great majority of these words from God to believers then and now were written by this man. He's a man that's passionate for God, loved God, humble. God exalted him.

He was the deliverer of the people from the Philistines and later and greater and greater and greater battles. And the trajectory of his entire life changes because one night he can't sleep. He's not where he's supposed to be, but it's not planned.

It's not malicious. He just can't sleep. And he's made to do something, but he's not doing what he's called to do in this window. And as he can't sleep and he walks out and he looks over, and he's a man like any man on a business trip or away from home in a different environment. And something catches his eye and there's something very normal and natural about the magnetic attraction to a very, very beautiful woman. And then he takes the next step. He probably didn't plan on doing anything. He inquired, I wonder who that is.

I mean, not that I'd do anything, but I just wonder who it is. And then he gets the feedback and during that time the seeds begin to grow. And then he calls for her. And still, maybe, you know, and then he lies with her. And then there's consequences. And then instead of owning his stuff and realizing this is a grievous sin. I mean, by the way, you know, we read this in our 21st century eyes.

The penalty for adultery was to be stoned. This is serious. And so he, you know, kind of like the many cover-ups we've seen in the last 20 years. So I'll cover it up. I'll just get the husband to come home and he'll sleep with his wife. He'll think the baby's his. But he chose the wrong guy.

The guy's got too much integrity. And then in the way sin creeps in is that seed of sin. It was just seeing, then inquiring, then taking a step. Then there's an action. There's a consequence.

Then there's a cover-up. And all I want to do is get this under the, you know, I just want to put this under the rug and it's a mistake. God, I'm really, really sorry.

I'll never do anything like that again. And he'll think it's his baby and it'll be over and it doesn't work. And so he's, this is how sin works.

It's like a cancer that multiplies rapidly and the cells multiply, multiply, multiply. And he starts thinking things that he would never do and then pretty soon he comes up with a plan to kill her husband. And he actually allows other people to go to the front where it's too dangerous and this man dies and they play the game and she mourns. He marries her and thinks, wow. And then that famous, famous passage in the New Testament, do not be deceived. Your sin will find you out.

And I want to make a couple observations. I don't know how you've heard this taught before, but my first observation is he is a good man, a very good man. Sometimes we hear about people who make a big mistake and they commit adultery or embezzlement or they do something really horrendous that is so counter to everything we know about them.

And we're so quick to say, well, everything they ever taught was wrong and, you know, must have had this super dark heart. You know, the fact of the matter, David was a very, very good man in a weak moment. And according to scripture, there's not a person in this room given the right circumstances at a window of time when you are vulnerable that you couldn't do the same or worse.

And by the way, until you come to that conviction that that could actually happen, you're even more vulnerable. Second, he's described as a mighty warrior, a righteous king, and a man after God's own heart. And by the way, that is after this event. That's a New Testament quotation, Book of Acts.

The Spirit of God describing King David, king, righteous warrior, man after God's own heart, we get that after this event. Third, the words murderer and adulterer are added to the biography of this amazing, godly man who is used by God in ways beyond anything probably we can imagine. And here's the point I'd like to make. We all make big mistakes sometime in our life.

Some of them get found out, some of them don't, but we know them. The question is, how do we recover? We've talked about a number of things and some of you, when we talked about teaching them to suffer well or working to the Lord, some of you when it's teaching them to make wise decisions, some of you have extremely deep regrets of that picture of kind of water that's gone over the falls and this feeling that there's certain things I didn't do or there's certain things I did do that I so deeply regret when confronted with that truth. And the temptation and the enemy's desire is to cover you with condemnation. It's too late. You blew it. You've ruined their life.

There is no hope. And the transferable concept you want to teach those you disciple, the transferable concept we must pass on to our kids and to our grandkids and to people that are in our local bodies of fellowship is this. Teach them to live grace-filled lives. I want to go over a theology of grace and it's from the beginning to the end of Scripture, so I want to give you the high marks very briefly and quickly and then explain maybe grace that we really get our arms around. What's it mean to receive grace? What is grace? Grace is the unmerited and unconditional love of God toward us. Underline the word unmerited, unconditional.

We don't understand either and you'll never get it anywhere else from anyone else at all like this. Unmerited means you can't earn it. Unconditional means you have it when you're bad, you have it when you're good, you have it when you're up, you have it when you're down. Grace is the disposition in the eternal God of wanting to give you what you do not deserve on the basis of his character alone, not on your performance or your activity. Second, grace is free to us but it's costly to God. It's absolutely free, completely removed from our performance, but it's very costly to God. Third, the cross is God's greatest act of grace.

We'll develop that. But the greatest act of grace is the cross where he allowed his son, fully God, fully man, to die in your place and my place to pay for, to atone, to be the substitute for all the things that you have ever done or ever thought or ever said that violated a holy God. You are responsible for every one of those. I'm responsible for every one of mine and God said since you could never live up to that, I will allow my son who is absolutely perfect to hang between heaven and earth on a wooden cross. And I will take my just wrath and my judgment for sin and I will pour it on my son who is an absolutely perfect sacrifice because he is God and he is able to die because he is man and in this moment of time, I will cover or atone for the sins of all men of all times. And whoever would choose to, with the empty hands of faith, ask for this gift of substitution and grace, I will give it to them on the basis of them believing. God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe might receive eternal life. Four, salvation is a free gift from God.

It's not of works. Five, grace must be received by faith. You might jot Ephesians 2, 8 and 9. For by grace we are saved through faith and that's not of yourselves. The idea is not of your religious or moral attempts of good works.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And I would like if you would just to stop for a second because something that I think has at least I grew up this way and I've rarely talked without people going oh and it's so deeply embedded in your psyche, we kind of theologically get to the point where we understand it. We invite Christ to come into our life.

His spirit enters us. We begin this new life but what's so deeply embedded in our minds is a concept that goes something like this. God has a big chalkboard in the sky and there's a line down the middle and on one side it says good deeds and there's a line and on the other side it says bad deeds. And for many of us, all of our lives implied or actually taught to us, if your good deeds, every good deed you get a little mark and every bad deed you get a little mark. And the way I grew up thinking was when you get to the end of the game called life, if your bad deeds are more than your good deeds, you go to the bad place. And if your good deeds are better than your bad deeds, you go to the good place.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. If you had 999,099 good deeds and one bad deed, you would violate the holy perfect perfection of God who can live with absolutely no sin. If you put it in a scorecard, it would be something like this. In order to have a relationship with God the Father, you need your test score in every aspect of life to be a perfect hundred. You either have a hundred or you fail. Now maybe the Billy Grahams of the world, although I'm sure he wouldn't say this, or the Mother of the Teresa's or some famous missionaries, maybe 92 or 94 and maybe ax murderers get like 3s and 4s and serial killers are a minus 5.

And most of us see ourselves as like maybe 75 or 80s. But unless you're a hundred, you can't have a relationship with God. So being a good guy, being moral, intellectually believing in God is not what it means to be quote saved or have a relationship or be prepared or allowed to go into heaven. It's by grace you're saved through faith. Grace number 6 produces gratitude toward God and love toward others. When you experience grace, it activates something.

Philippians chapter 2 says, for it's the grace of God, it's God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Grace does something where when you turn in the empty hands of faith and ask Christ to come into your life, the Spirit of God enters your physical body. You're literally taken out of the kingdom of Garthus and into the kingdom of light. You're placed into this supernatural community called the body of Christ or the church. You're deposited a spiritual gift to fulfill your Ephesians 2 10 purpose. Your mind begins to be renewed. You are sealed with the Spirit so that no one can take you out of his hands.

You have a now power. The penalty of sin has been broken. The power of sin has been broken. The Spirit of God lives in you to manifest the presence and the power of the very life of Christ. And the Christian life, far from trying to be a good person, is about abiding in Christ so that this new life can be lived out through your personality as you depend and walk by faith in him. And he transforms you from grace to grace. It is Titus, you might jot this down, Titus chapter 2 11 and 12. When people think of grace, one of the fallacies is they think the opposite of grace is effort.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Ephesians 4 2 says we are to make every effort to become the kind of followers Christ wants us to become. It takes effort.

It takes energy. Paul says I beat my body. I focus. I discipline myself. It takes great effort to be a follower of Christ to allow the grace of God to manifest itself in every area of your thought, your speech and your relationships. The opposite of grace is not effort. The opposite of grace is merit.

Merit has to do with earning something. Put it this way, a better way, the opposite of grace is a performance mentality. The opposite of grace is when I read my Bible and pray, God loves me. When I don't read my Bible and pray, he doesn't love me. The opposite of grace is when I give financially off the top and when I'm doing good and I don't have any moral slips, God really loves me and boy, I blew it.

I watched something last night or I had a bad thought or I lusted after that or my money's a mess or now I'm in debt. God doesn't love me anymore. And when you think that way, then I can't really talk to God right now. I can't be close to God right now, but I'm going to get my finances in order and I'm going to kind of try and work my way back to being a good boy or a good girl and then God will accept me again. And that's bad, bad theology, but many of you and me think that way and don't live by faith through grace even though we're saved that way and we live this performance orientation where we live with condemnation and guilt and are not tapping into the power of God.

The theme of the book of Colossians is very simple. However you get in relationship with God or saved is exactly the same way you grow or are sanctified. Does that make sense? You're saved by faith through grace. The way you grow is by faith through grace. So grace produces this gratitude toward God.

It produces a love and a lifestyle and a set of good works. Verse 10, right? You're saved not by works, but you are His workmanship.

You are created and there's this new power in life, this grace that gives you a want to and a will to have good works of love and kindness and concern for other people. The Old Testament roots are all the way in the early part of the Bible. Genesis 3 verse 21, after the sin of Adam and Eve we have who takes care, who covers and he introduces the concept of the shedding of blood for the remission of sins. And it says, also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and he clothed them. It's a picture of what's going to come. Something had to die, blood had to be spilled and two people got covered.

That's a good picture of what happens in salvation. The other passage there is Genesis 6, 8 and we have this horrendous violence in the world. Violence to the point, I mean it was like back in Noah's day they had CSI. Do you realize how obsessed we are with violence?

You walk into, and I don't recommend you do it alone, walk into one of those video stores and look at the top 15 games. And our kids practice killing things and blowing up people. The way we train our troops because it is so viscerally difficult to ever get to the point to take a human life. And there are times in war where that happens. We train our troops with video games to desensitize them to human life so in the crisis of the moment they will be able to shoot and protect those that they're with.

I would challenge you to get a little thing and put it next to your TV and every program that has to do with killing or violence or why did they kill it. It got so bad that God said he was sorry that he made mankind. But in the midst of that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Our biblical profiles are David the adulterer and the murderer and Peter the betrayer. Some of us really put David in that boy.

Man those are really really terrible. I don't know that you can do anything worse than what Peter did. Anybody here been betrayed before? Anybody here have a mate walk out on you and sleep with someone else? Run off with someone else? Anyone have a business partner that you were doing life together and $300,000 you found out later that doesn't exist anymore and he left town?

Anybody start a business do a startup and get a little slow on getting all the IP and the patent agreements and have someone steal all your stuff that you thought was your friend? And anyone ever have a close friend that you're in a Bible study with a lady or a guy in a men's group only to find out that the most intimate things you've ever shared they've gone and spread around other people? I don't know that I've ever been as angry or as hurt as when I've been betrayed.

Now let's put the shoe on the other foot. Anybody here in a moment of weakness ever betrayed anybody? Anybody ever talked about people and you realize ooh and then it actually came back around and you got caught? And I know my first reaction has always been oh I didn't say that so I just added a lie to my other sin right?

I'm trying to help you get emotionally to where you understand if you don't go with me to where you have done these things and some it's pretty quick and some it's hard. You'll never grasp grace because David was probably used by God as much or more than anyone in the Old Testament even after his sin. And Peter became the core foundation person for this thing called the church after he betrayed Christ. And what the big theme about grace is failure is never ever final. He's the God of the second chance, the seventh chance, the seven times 70th chance. He out of his grace extends mercy that means he withholds the just judgment penalty that we deserve. And he is willing and open wherever you're at whatever you've done to forgive and to cleanse, to restore, to renew.

The New Testament command is in John chapter 3 and we so often quote or put you know at the end of the end zone verse 16. You know for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him shouldn't perish but have everlasting life but I love verse 17. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through him. Who believes in him is not condemned but he who doesn't believe is condemned already because he doesn't believe in the name of the only begotten son of God. People who reject God will be apart from him forever not because they have not been forgiven but because they will refuse the gift of the forgiveness that's been purchased for them.

It's stiff arming God. Jesus message was not everyone's all messed up get with the program his message was I didn't come to condemn you. I came to help you own and come to grips with the failure and the sin and the using of people and the abuse and the lying and the deceit to let you know I will forgive you and cover you and I want you to know you can have a relationship with my father.

He loves you. You've been listening to part one of Chip's message teach them to live grace filled lives which is from our series leaving a legacy that lasts forever. Chip will be back with us in studio shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. We all want to leave an imprint on our families that will last long after we're gone but what exactly do you want them to remember? Well in this series Chip share some godly principles that will provide more for your kids than what money can buy. Hear what the Bible teaches about enduring hardships making wise choices and discovering your purpose. So whether you're a parent grandparent or mentor Chip will help you share these lessons with the young people you love in a personal way.

To learn more about leaving a legacy that lasts forever or our resources visit livingontheedge.org that's livingontheedge.org Well Chip's back with me in studio and Chip today we begin our mid-year match. Now in the coming weeks you'll talk about the opportunity our listeners have to partner with us financially to help us develop new resources, encourage pastors globally and share the gospel with the next generation. But before we get to all that I thought it'd be good for our listeners to hear about your heart for the ministry. I mean what keeps you going? Why do you do what you do? You know Dave that's an interesting question and of course first and foremost you know I believe God's called me to do this and he's gifted me to do this and I'm gonna be obedient. But from the emotional standpoint I just have to tell you it's it's the impact in people's lives.

I mean every day people I was at the airport just last week and a lady looked at me kind of funny and she walked up and said hi my name's Wanda. And for the last 20 some years my husband and I every single morning have listened to Living on the Edge and it's shaped us and it's how we raised our kids and our kids have grown. And she just began to you know talk about it and you know I got a letter recently from a young man that trusted Christ at 25 and had had a pretty rough life. And you know he writes to me and says I've listened to every sermon you've made available over the last 16 years. Some of them I've listened to four and five and six times and then he goes on to share how his dad died when he was 14. And I didn't know how to be a man, I didn't know how to be a husband, I didn't know how to be a father and just recently God had led him to become a pastor of a small little country church. And he just writes pouring out his heart I got all this just from listening to Living on the Edge.

And Dave I got a longer email two weeks ago and just a couple hanging on by dear life. I mean cancer and struggles and lost jobs and pain and things that you just think are they ever going to make it through all this. And you know just saying every day we get up and we listen to God's Word through Living on the Edge.

So the reason I do what I do is God's Word doesn't return void. And by the grace of God we teach God's Word to millions and millions and millions of people every year. And it's going across the nation and across the world bringing some to Christ, strengthening others and they in turn make a difference in the life of others. And when I have my down days I take stacks of these emails and letters and I just read them and I remind myself it's not about you. And I love what I get to do and we're going to keep on doing this and that's why we're asking people to help us. Why we're asking them to pray and to give so that regular people who are really hurting and need hope and help can get it and we can give it to them together. Thanks for sharing those stories Chip.

It's so humbling to hear how God is working. Well if you'd like to join us in impacting people's lives now is a great time to become a financial partner. Thanks to a handful of donors every dollar we receive between now and July 7th will be doubled dollar for dollar. To send a gift call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or if you prefer go to livingontheedge.org. App listeners tap donate and let me thank you in advance for doing whatever God leads you to do.

Well here again is Chip with a few final thoughts for us to think about. As we close today's program I'm reminded that the gospel is good news. You know sometimes, I don't know why, but we as Christians we get so bent out of shape about stuff that all we do is think about how people need to measure up and get with the program and they're not doing this and they're not doing that. And the gospel itself is God coming and saying, I understand that you've messed up. I understand that you've done something you're sorry for that is blatantly wrong, often very evil.

And when you really mess up at that level there is such reproach. I mean there's this picture of Peter who's bitterly weeping. I mean he understands, he knew better, he's betrayed his closest friend, the person who's never let him down and loved him perfectly.

He denied that he even knew him. And David, I mean talk about a guy who knew better, and the message for you today is God is a God of grace. He's a God of second and third and seventh and seventy times seven chances, but that grace only becomes operational when you get honest. When you're willing to admit what David admitted, I've sinned Lord against you and you only. When you get to where like Peter comes to the Lord and he realizes, Lord you know I love you but I blew it. And you come to him and you confess your sin. That means to agree with God about it, not rationalize, not blame someone else, not give all the circumstances why you know this kind of happened to you. But you own your stuff 100%, you come before God spiritually naked and say, Lord I'm sorry, I blew it, I deserve to be judged. But I believe that Christ took this judgment on the cross for me and I'm with empty hands coming and asking you to forgive me.

I'm drawing a line in the sand right now and saying I want you to put the past behind me. I want you to cleanse me based on what Jesus did on the cross. And you know what, you get honest and you do that and you come before him today, he will cleanse you. And that process of restoration will demand that you share this with a trusted confidant.

It may be a pastor, it may be in some circumstances your mate or a close friend. The secret has to get out if people don't know about it to the right people at the right time. You'll need accountability. You'll have to get in the Bible because the enemy is going to come and bombard you. You're going to need to know the truth and then you're going to live the kind of life that demonstrates that your repentance is real. Come clean, get real, get connected, let God forgive you.

He wants to today. And by the way, when you do that, email me and let me know how God's worked in your life. I love to hear the stories of God's miraculous forgiveness and then what he does in people's lives. Thanks Chip. And if you do have a story or testimony you'd like to share with us, email Chip at LivingOnTheEdge.org. That's Chip at LivingOnTheEdge.org. We look forward to hearing from you and the remarkable ways you're experiencing God today. Well join us next time as Chip wraps up his series, Leaving a Legacy That Lasts Forever. Until then, I'm Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.