True Spirituality - How to Give God What He Wants the Most, Part 2

Before I had trusted Christ, I wondered if God existed and if He did, what does He want from me and why? Today, I'm going to answer that question. Stay with me. Thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. Well, in just a minute, Chip continues our series, True Spirituality, with a remainder of his message, How to Give God What He Wants Most.

And as a quick reminder, if you missed any part of this series so far, catch up any time at livingontheedge.org or through the Chip Ingram app. Well, a lot of content to get to, so here's Chip for today's talk from Romans chapter 12, verse 1. How to give God what He wants the most. And I told you it involves a decision. And before our time is over together, we're going to have a very sober and holy moment where I'm not only going to explain exactly how to give God what He wants the most, but it will require a big step of faith, total commitment, and surrender. And what you'll have to start asking is how I hang on to things and my view and what I want versus what He can provide.

Which one of those am I going to trust? Reminds me of a story I heard many years ago. And it was a story of a little girl that went on vacation with her family. And it was by the seashore, and they had one of those cottages, you know, that's right there.

And you walk out the door, and the sand is there. And you could walk on the beach and have a little pier. And at the end of the pier was a fishing boat with a very old man.

He was in a very small town in New England. And the little girl, five or six years old, cute pigtails, the whole bit. You know how they are at that age. And she would walk down to the pier and walk down. And there was an old, old fisherman who was just known in the town as the mean one. He was just mean. He was old. He was bitter. His friends had died. He'd had a hard life. And so he just shut everybody out. But there's something about a little five or six year old girl, you know, hi, hi. Well, after day one, day two, day three, day four, his heart starts to melt.

And no one's ever treated him nice. And every day she would get shells and give him shells. And she'd sit at the end of the pier with her feet dangling. And pretty soon he's giving her a little fishing line. And in their seven day vacation, a bond occurred. And he realized no one in the whole world cares about me and I'm going to die very soon.

He was in his late 80s. And this little girl does. And unbeknownst to others, he had a little pouch of over the years of fishing and he found a number of shells and pearls. And the thing that he noticed about this little girl, she would dangle her feet over, but she would always clutch. She had these little plastic beads that you get like at Walmart or Target or the CVS pharmacy. You know, you're on vacation, kids always want something.

You know, $1.99, you're all set. And so he noticed how much she liked him. So he took his pearls and stayed up most of the night, drilled holes in them, took a piece of fishing line and made a necklace. He thought, I'm going to give it to this little six year old girl. And so the next day she came to say goodbye and the station wagon is all packed and parents are 100 yards away and okay honey, get ready.

Yes, you can go say goodbye. She runs down to say goodbye and he says, come here honey, I have a present for you. And she walks up to him and they've been very close and he says, give me those plastic beads off your neck.

And then he hung out glistening in the sun, real pearls. Now the problem with being five or six years old and you're very immature, you don't know what's worth what. All you know is what you're comfortable with.

All you know is what feels right. And so he took another step and he said, here I have these, these are real pearls. Now take those off so I can put them on. And the little girl stepped back, grabbed her necklace and ran a hundred yards, jumped in the station wagon and said, I want to go. That man tried to take my pearls. And I want to tell you about eight out of every nine Christians that really do sincerely love God, cling to plastic pearls and are not receiving anything close in their life experience, their relationships or their eternal impact, what God has chosen and destined for you to have. Because when he says, give me you, put me first in your time, put me first in your future, put me first in your decisions, put me first in your family, put me first in your work, put me first in your money.

I want you to trust me wholly because I have pearls, not stuff. And if you don't believe he's good, if you don't know the heart of the father and you just stay around him long enough not to feel too guilty and some I hope you go to heaven and you cling on to the plastic temporal non-treasure that when you meet the people that get more pearls you realize it just weighs them down instead it gives them life. Total commitment, surrender is the conduit, it's the channel to which God's best and biggest blessings flow. And so what I want to do in the remainder of our time, I want to define very specifically what total commitment looks like.

We are not leading up to some emotional moment. We're leading up to a wise decision where you're going to weigh the risk and the logic of saying to God in a few minutes, I surrender all to you. I would sign a blank check made out to you. I would say to you from this day forward I'm all in.

I may be a little fearful but I'm all in. But in order to do that you know what's that look like? The answer is in Romans chapter 12 verse 1 and after 11 chapters of treasure of what God has done, of how much he loves you, of his sovereignty, his goodness, his forgiveness, his power, his spirit living within you, his gifts, all the plans that he has for you. In chapter 12 your response to that is therefore I urge you brothers, sisters, fellow family members, the apostle Paul writes, in view of God's mercy offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship.

Notice the structure, there's a command, there's a motivation and there's a reason. I'd like you if you will put a box around the word offer, put a box around living sacrifice and then put a little box around the word holy and then I want you to put a squiggly line under spiritual act of worship. The command is to offer your body to God and this isn't metaphorical, this is like your physical body, your eyes, your head, your hands, all that you are and the word offer here is in a tense in the Greek language that's punctilier and what that means is on a certain day at a certain time. This passage is not explaining how to have your sins forgiven, this passage is not explaining what it means to be in God's family. Salvation occurs at the end of chapter 3, 4 and right in chapter 5, the work of Christ by grace. You receive the free gift by faith. Chapter 12 is saying how do normal Christians follow Jesus out of gratitude and God says are you ready? This is what I want. I want you on a certain day at a certain time to say to me all I am, all I have is yours.

That's what it means to offer. I will tell you that tens of thousands of people in America and around the world do not understand the channel through which God's best and biggest blessings flow. The average Christian somehow thinks I received Jesus, he's my savior, it's really real, I read the Bible some, I'm really trying hard to be a good Christian but it's not going that well. The power for the Christian life comes in this moment of offering where, remember how your garden hose when you're having the water battle gets cranked?

The way to uncrink it is when you say it's the channel, it's the conduit, Lord. Now it requires faith, it requires believing in an invisible treasure that you can't see but it's a historical living God who's walked upon the earth and died in your place and rose and sits at the right hand of God and says to you, there's an unspeakable treasure who for joy says to you, let me give you the best. My first two and a half years as a Christian I didn't know. I got to where I was pretty undisciplined so I'd never read the Bible. I trusted Christ the summer after my high school senior year.

I went off to college and it took me three, four, five, six months to get where I could read the Bible maybe three or four times a week. But God spoke to me, it was exciting. And then I went to a little Bible study and there was God's presence and loving people and it was just amazing. But then I wanted the basketball team to like me and there were all these girls and so yay for God, chip, God, chip. And Thursday night, oh I've experienced God's presence and Friday and Saturday night wee hours of the morning, God I'm sorry I'll never do that. I was a schizophrenic, had all these hidden things in my life. And the joy of my salvation was creeping, creeping down as I had sort of this salad bar spirituality, you know. God on my terms, I obey 8.5 of the commands.

85% doesn't that pass? No, chip. And I remember going to a conference where what I just shared was taught, it was a life of Abraham. And the man, it was just 30 or 40 people in a little room at a conference and he walked us through God's school of faith and he got to chapter 22 where God says to his son, his only son Abraham, take your son, your only son whom you love and take him on this mountain and sacrifice him to me. And Abraham gets up early, he's been with God over, he's 100 years old now. And we learn later that he's learned that when God says something you can bank on it and although it seems so illogical, so irrational, he did it. And he got the knife up and he was ready to come down and God said stop. Now I know that you are loyal to me because you gave your son, your only son whom you love. And prior to that time God had made some promises to Abraham about his descendants and about the future that were about this big and after that moment of surrender, read in chapter 22, God expands, expands, expands says no Abraham, this is what I'm going to do now. Because Abraham I never wanted your boy.

I would never want to sacrifice. What I wanted was your heart and that boy became an idol. And anytime there's anything in front of God's relationship with you and you have an idol, you will destroy the idol, the idol will destroy you and that will destroy your relationship with God. And those are the beads. Those are the plastic pearls and they can be work and they can be family, they can be a relationship, it can be money, it can be ego, it can be your body. All of us have Isaac's. And unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it remains by itself alone.

But if it dies, it bears forth much fruit. That's Jesus. So I need to take my idols, in my case it was basketball and my girlfriend. And it was like God I'll do whatever you want, don't mess with basketball and don't mess with my girlfriend. And at the back of that little 30 or 40 people I remember I made the most transformational decision of my life apart from receiving Christ as my savior. And with fear and trembling I got on my knees and I said God I am scared to death because I'm afraid that you're going to either make me single the rest of my life or worse I'll marry some ugly person. I'm not just telling you, okay? Like I'm 20 year old, what do I know? And then I said and God you know I've just been playing hoop my whole life and just when I get the ball in the middle on the break I just love this game. But if you, you're God.

I mean please don't take that away but it's an idol. And I want you to know that I'm all in. I don't know what it looks like but I will do life and I'm sure I'll mess up later but I will do life your way moving forward. Whatever your word says, if it says it I'm making a pre-decision. I may mess up but I'm going to come back to this moment. I surrender my heart, my goals, my future, my money, my dreams. I want to do life your way. That's what it means to offer your body. And then notice it's not just one big emotional experience.

What's the next box? It's living sacrifice, right? Many of you in this room will make that step today.

Many in this room have already taken that step. But it's you off your body as a living sacrifice. So the living sacrifice you know is a lot like marriage. You know in 1978 I said to Teresa, I surrender to you.

Nobody else but you. And she said I surrender to you. And we said let's do this together forever no matter what. But I've had to renew that commitment almost every day.

And there's times we needed marriage counseling, we've had hard times with some of our kids, we've had health issues, we've had cancer, we've had all kind of problems. But no matter what, because we said boom, we commit to one another no matter what. It was that commitment that's kept us together.

And it's been the channel of God's biggest and best blessings. I've got a great wife. I've got a loyal wife. I've got the best friend I've ever had.

I've got a relationship I never saw in my family growing up. I never dreamed. Has it been easy?

No. It's been great. And then God, what's he do? He's got such a sense of humor.

I give away basketball. And you know it took me a while. So you know I pulled my quad completely out. Missed most of that year. Then I got injured again. And then they changed coaches.

And finally it was okay. I'm going, by my senior year I'll do it your way. Surrender. And God turns around after I graduated and I played in every country in South America and I was just a little NAIA.

That's like division three little school. And then once I surrendered God said, you know, he got me on this team and I'm playing against Olympic teams all over South America and later with an Australian team throughout all the orient. See the issue is not he wants to take something good away. The issue is any good thing that stands between you and him that's an idol will destroy your relationship with him. And by the way, it'll destroy your relationship with the idol. So it's a living sacrifice. You make the commitment, but then it's daily renewing and living. And it's holy.

That's the last word. It's holy. You can't come and not deal with your stuff. There's some of you, you're sitting here at this moment you're thinking if I surrender this relationship with this rotten guy or this girl that I know isn't God's will, but I sure love her. God would say, you know it's not right. For some of you you're realizing we probably living together is not an option if I surrender. For others of you, you're going, Oh my gosh, you know, my priorities are so out of whack.

I'm a workaholic or my finances are a mess. See it's holy. No blemish sheep. He's just saying you come as you are, but there's this commitment to say, God, I'm not playing games. I'm going to do life your way. And then I'm going to bring all of me. And that's not only the good stuff, but you're going to come and say, I'm bringing my fears of rejection. I'm bringing my fears of the future.

I'm bringing my fears of what you might do. I trust that you're a good God. In fact, notice the motivation.

The motivation is not get with the program. It's the mercy of God. The mercy of God. He's looking back on the last 11 chapters, but he's saying, God's asking for all of you, but what's he done? He's loved you. He's forgiving you. He's paid for your sin. He's caused the spirit to come into your body. He's taken you from the kingdom of darkness and put you in the kingdom of light. He's adopted you as a daughter or as a son. He has a purpose for your life. He's creating a place at this very moment in heaven for you.

He's laid down his life. He says, can't you trust me? This is like someone who you've given a million dollars. They come to you and they say, hey, you think I could borrow 20 bucks?

He goes, I don't know. I don't know if you'd pay it back. You go, what do you mean, I don't know how to pay it back?

I gave you a million dollars. Yeah, well, I don't know. See, you start to get the kingdom logic. How could you not, to a God who has demonstrated why you were his enemy and I was his enemy, lay down his life?

How can we not believe that he's good, that he's compassionate, that he's kind? See, this is not a get with the program, be a superstar or a Christian marine. This is a let your father love you.

Let's remove the barriers. And the final reason is your spiritual act of worship. In other words, what God really wants. I mean, we started out with a question that leads to a decision. The question is how do you give God what he wants the most?

Are you ready for this? It gets real simple. God wants you, all of you, every aspect of you. See, you can read the Bible, you can pray, you can come to church, you can give some money, you can go on a missions trip, you can try and be a good moral person.

You can do all kind of things. There was a group in the New Testament that did all that and more. And Jesus said the harshest things that ever came out of his mouth about those religious people because their hearts weren't his.

They were in control and they used their religion and they thought they were better than other people. They weren't tender, they weren't broken, they weren't loving. Left to ourselves, we are a people who will create some little grid or model about how we're okay with God because we're doing this, this, this, this and this as we gain and keep control. And your control always is shown by where your money goes, where your time goes, where your energy goes and what you dream about. And when he has your heart in those areas, I'll tell you what, those things get transformed.

And then are you ready? You discover why you're here. You discover what your purpose is. You discover there really is more to life than setting goals and accomplishing them. You experience the treasure both now and the promise forever.

He wants you. As you turn to the back page, I wanted to just give you two pictures that have been very helpful to me. One is a blank check and I want to tell you this, please do not hear everything will be easy and wonderful and great. In fact, many of you will be tested.

Abraham didn't take a rubber knife up there. It may get worse before it gets better. The Holy Spirit would say, well, how's it working for you your way? And today pay to the order of Jesus Christ and there's a date and you're right today's date and then you'll sign your name and there'll be a sense of fear in your heart but it'll be a step of faith and you'll say I'm all in God. You can cash this. You can cash this with my future. You cash this with my relationships. You cash this with my finances. You cash with my career.

You cash it with my geography. I will do whatever you want me to do. I believe you're that good and that kind and I actually believe that you could pick out what's better for me than I could pick out for me. Do you see how arrogant is when we say to God, oh, I want your forgiveness and your salvation but I'll run my life because I'm way smarter than you. I mean, you created the universe but look at me.

So I really want you to think risk, reason, the decision making process. What it means to fill out the check, I came across a small excerpt of a prayer by a lady named Ruth Meyers and just lean back. You can even shut your eyes. When you think about what it means for you to sign this check in just a moment, think of a prayer that might go something like this. Lord, I'm yours. Whatever the cost may be, your will be done in my life. I realize that I'm not on earth to do my own thing or to seek my own fulfillment or my own glory. I'm not here to indulge my desires or increase my possessions or to impress people, to be popular or to prove I'm somebody important or to promote myself.

I'm not even here to be relevant and successful by human standards. I am here on this earth to please you. And so now I offer myself to you for you are worthy. All that I am or hope to be, I owe to you.

I am yours by creation and I'm yours by the purchase price of your son on the cross that paid for my sin. And so right now I give you my body and each of its members, my entire inner being. I give you my mind, my emotional life, my will, my loved ones, my marriage, my hope for marriage. I give you right now my abilities and my gifts, my strengths and my weaknesses, my health and my status, whether it be high or low. I give you my possessions, my past, my present and my future. And I even give you when you want to bring me home to be with you. I'm here to love you and to obey you and to glorify you. You ready to take that step?

It'll be the greatest decision you ever, ever make. And for some of you that are a little bored, if you play lots of video games, watch a lot of TV, have to go to a lot of movies, find yourself shopping or eating a lot. You know what those are? That's symptoms of a life of boredom. That's a symptom of nothing of genuine purpose and focus. That's a symptom of medicating yourself with plastic pearl beads.

And I had a little struggle growing up long before I was a Christian. I like adventure. I like excitement.

I like risk. And so someone early introduced me to cards. I played cards Friday night, gambled. And then I was fascinated with horse racing. So by my senior year, Tuesday and Friday nights, I played the horses. And I just can't tell you the thrill that it is to put down $2 your very first bet and win a $103 Quinella.

I thought, what an easy way to make money. And so that sent me on a journey where I found myself about a year and a half later literally in the boys' bathroom. I put my feet up on the commode so they couldn't see me. And when the three linemen on the football team that I owed a few hundred dollars to were coming to collect in a very inappropriate way to my body, I decided to quit gambling. I wasn't a Christian.

It wasn't anything spiritual to it. It was like, this is nuts. And I got a problem. But I have to tell you, when I turn on the old TV and the world poker Texas Hold'em is on, I just have to check it out.

And here's what I love, because there's a great principle. It's the final table. They got all these stacks, millions of dollars, the pot's worth, you know, $14.7 million. Two LoHo cards, those.

Risk, these are good cards. Reason, evaluating everything I've seen this guy do in response. Action, faith. You could probably finish it with me, right?

I'm all in. And then what happens? Electricity happens. The game completely changes. Then he steps up.

He starts walking around. Why? Here's why. Because something's going to happen. There's no reward until you get to the point where you say, I'm all in.

He's either going to get a bracelet and multiple millions of dollars or he's going to lose. And I want to tell you that the God of the universe brought you in this room on this day for you to say to him, I'm all in. And when you do, you will begin to experience power and excitement and challenge and purpose like you've never known.

Because just like in Texas Hold'em, the game never really gets interesting until you're all in. And my sad observation is the great majority of Christians that I know are just trying to be nice people, trying to get a little bit better mobility for their family, trying to figure out how to balance all the demands, be a little bit more polite than most people, read their Bible now and then and come to church and put a little salve on the guilt of your soul. And your heavenly Father, I think with tears in his eyes, say, why won't you taste the treasure? Without faith it's impossible to please God. But those that come must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Father, as we bow our heads and you are working deeply and powerfully inside the hearts and minds of the people in this room, I pray that you would grant faith and courage to sign the check, not just the perfunctory action of doing it in just a moment, but the signing of the check from their heart, even with the fear and concern and say, God, I'm yours.

All I am, all I have, all I hope to be, you deal. Lord I pray for those that know that there's real hard decisions that need to be made, that you give them the courage to mentally make that, to tell you in their heart right now what they're going to do and find a trusted friend that they can share that with. Lord, for those that this is the first time, God, I pray for supernatural grace. For those that have made this commitment before as they sign it, could you help them reaffirm and be reminded? This is what the Christian life's all about. And then finally, Lord, for those that in their heart of hearts just say, in integrity, I couldn't sign that. I've got to deal with something. I've got to resolve a couple things.

Lord, would you help them to be honest with themselves and honest with you and get help? We love you. Help us to want more of you. Help us to turn in our plastic pearls for the real thing. Amen. Before we say another word today, I want to ask you a very important and life-changing question. Are you ready to take that step? Are you ready to say in your heart of hearts, Lord, yes, I am afraid, but I want you to know that by faith, I'm all in. I'm signing the bottom of the check.

I'm taking all the chips of my life and I'm pushing them to the center of the table. And I want to say today, all that I am, all that I have, all that I'll ever be, they're yours. Now lead me. Guide me.

I'll address whatever you show me, but I can't do it on my own. Lord, I'm telling you today, I want you to be the Lord of my life. I want you to have the same place at this very moment in my heart and my will that you have in the universe. And God, I pray that you'll be gentle. I pray that you'll give me grace. And Lord, I choose today to say I'm all in.

If you do that, would you email me right here at Living on the Edge and then tell the greatest Christian you know what you've done because your life is about to experience a radical change. And it's probably going to get really good and really hard, maybe all at the same time. Some of you have some really big decisions you need to make, some hard conversations, some steps to take. And what I want you to know, you are going to experience God's power. He loves you. He's for you. But brace yourself because you have now entered a world where power and life occur and where the enemy doesn't want you to go. You're all in. You're a child of God.

Thanks, Chip. If you're ready to deepen your relationship with God, we want to support you. Go to True Spirituality Online dot org and check out our resources. You can order Chip's popular book True Spirituality, get the small group study or watch countless helpful videos. These tools were designed to show you the clear path to becoming a genuine follower of Christ. So check them out today. That website again is True Spirituality Online dot org.

True Spirituality Online dot org. Well, Chip's still with me in studio. And Chip, sticking with that theme of making Jesus Lord of our lives, you know, it's vital that we don't keep our faith to ourselves, but pass it on to others and invest in them. So take a minute, if you would, and talk about the key people in your life who demonstrated what it meant to follow Jesus and how their examples shaped your faith.

I'd be glad to, Dave. When I look back on the moments and the investments of people throughout my life, my sister, Punky, who modeled Jesus to me as a young teenager, you know, Dave, the bricklayer who sat with me in his kitchen table and invested his life in me as a young adult, or Dick, a man who came to me and said, Hey, Chip, we need to put this teaching of yours on the air. And he started Living on the Edge. Wherever we are in our journey, we're never beyond the need for discipleship. It might come through a listening ear or an encouraging word over a cup of coffee, or it might be one of those side by side doing Bible study together.

But it's always born in relationship, and it's deliberate. It's an investment into the life of another person. At Living on the Edge, we're committed to making that investment in helping people grow deeper in their relationship with Christ. And so whether it's teaching on the radio or podcasts or app or tools such as daily discipleship, our resources are geared to help people in every season of life.

And here's my question. If God has used the ministry of Living on the Edge to guide or deepen your life or the life of someone that you love, would you be willing to pray about investing in a few ways? Number one, would you pass on what you know to someone else? Second, would you share ministry resources with others? I mean, we have all kind of free ministry resources on the web and on the Chip Ingram app. And third, would you pray about giving financially to the ministry so that we can continue to make disciples at a time when it's more needed than ever before? And right now, through July 7th, every gift that you would give will be doubled dollar for dollar. So thank you for pausing, thinking, and praying about what God would want you to do. And if you will do whatever He shows you, we will have all we need to do all God's called us to do.

Keep pressing ahead. If you've been blessed by Chip's teaching or any of the Living on the Edge resources, would you consider supporting us financially today? Thanks to a small group of ministry friends, every gift we receive until July 7th will be doubled dollar for dollar. So to send a donation, call us at 888-333-6003.

That's 888-333-6003. Or visit livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap donate. Hey, before we go, let me remind you of an easy way to listen to our extended teaching podcast. Hear Chip anytime on Amazon's Alexa Echo and Echo Dot. Just say, Alexa, open Living on the Edge, and you'll be able to enjoy that day's full length teaching. Try it today. For everyone here, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge.