True Spirituality - How to Come to Grips with the Real You, Part 1

There are three questions everyone, regardless of culture, economic status, or even religious conviction, will ask and answer in your lifetime. Number one, who am I? Number two, where do I belong? And number three, what am I supposed to do? Answering those questions clearly and correctly will set the course for your entire life. Today we're going to learn how to answer them well.

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 continue our series, True Spirituality, by addressing those three fundamental questions. But before we get going, if you've been encouraged by Chip's study in Romans Chapter 12, or been motivated to transform a part of your walk with God, would you share this series with someone in your life?

Now you can do that through the Chip Ingram app, or by downloading the free MP3s at livingontheedge.org. And be sure to tell them how it's impacted you. Well with that, let's join Chip now for his talk, How to Come to Grips with the Real You. I want you to consciously try to ask and answer three questions. Question number one, who am I? Question number two, where do I belong?

And question number three, what am I supposed to do? I mean, these are the issues about identity, about security, and significance. And we're on a journey.

You know, you saw it. It's about becoming a Romans 12 Christian, or true spirituality. And at the end of the day, we can call it all kind of different things, but Jesus made it very clear. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, and love your neighbor like yourself.

And in Romans Chapter 12, it just gives us a snapshot of what an authentic follower of Jesus looks like in everyday life. And so in terms of loving God, he says, how do you love God? What does God want the most?

He wants you and me. All that we are, all that we have, surrendered to him. And then realizing that it's a battle and the world system wants to seduce our heart away from our Savior, he wants us to be separate from the world's values.

Well, now we're going to move from verse one and verse two to verse three through eight. And here, what we're going to learn is, how do you come to grips with the real you? You cannot and I cannot love other people if you don't love you.

I mean that not narcissistically, I mean in a very healthy way. How do you look in the mirror, not just physically, but in the mirror of your soul, come to grips with who you really are, and say, I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. I matter. God has a plan for me. I'm not too short. I'm not too tall. I have the right personality.

I have the right gifts. I don't need to be like anyone else. Here's the fact of the matter. Most of us, most people on all the earth spend the great majority of their time and energy trying to be like someone else or wishing they were someone else. And so we dress like someone else. We act like someone else. We have all these different models and we spend all of our energy and time trying to be a copy of something that's not nearly as attractive as the one unique person out of the almost seven billion people on this planet that have a unique DNA that's yours. And you're made exactly like you were made by the creator of all of life because he's got a plan for you, and he's gifted you, and he wants to do something great in you, and then something significant through you. So we're going to roll up our sleeves and we're going to ask and answer the question, how do you come to grips with the real you?

So open your teaching notes, if you will, and let's jump into those three questions. Question number one, who am I? You know, when you're real small, you say, well, like in my family, I learned early.

It's family. Who am I? I'm an Ingram.

My dad made it very clear that that name was important, so you better not go out and do anything that would embarrass the Ingram name. You get a little older and they say, who are you? And we often give our profession or our work. Well, I'm a scientist, I'm a software engineer, I'm a stay-at-home mom, I'm a construction worker, I'm an electrician. So who I am, my identity is around what I do. As we get a little bit older or as life changes often, then it's about our passion. Well, I'm a mom, I'm a surfer, I'm an artist. But it all goes back to from the time you're small to those late teens to early adulthood, then especially a little shift in midlife, what's our identity? You're always asking this question. And by the way, for those of your parents, so are your kids. The second big question we're always asking are, where do I belong?

This is about security. And so remember in school when there were cliques? Isn't it weird? I mean, every school, you got the athletes, you got the nerds, you got the cool group, you got the in group, you got the really out group. And then there's clubs, so you join different clubs. Then sometimes where I belong, it's my ethnicity, the people that look like me.

Or sometimes it's around where we belong, I'm an IBMer, I'm an HPer, I'm a Googler, right? Other times where I belong is, well, I belong to this country club and people like me go here. Or I belong to this gang because I wear my pants down here and I got some bling. Or I belong because in some gangs you have to kill someone to get in.

And then I've got a tear tattoo right here to prove that I'm in that. You need to understand that the same dynamics when you're small or later in every one of those is every person is made by the God of the universe to need to belong, to need to understand who you really are. And we go about it in some ways sometimes that are very dysfunctional.

In fact, sometimes very dangerous. Third question we're asking is, why am I here? What am I supposed to do? I mean, it's fundamental. It's so fundamental and so overwhelming, sometimes we blow past this one. I mean, when's the last time you actually stopped and said, why am I on this planet? What is the meaning of life for me?

See, we left to me and you left to you. That's sort of like, well, yeah, yeah, I mean, that's, I'm sure, I mean, it's the most important question in life, so I'll get around to that. But I got a lot of voicemails, you know, and a lot of emails and, you know, there's work and there's kids. I got to drop people off. And by the way, I got to get in.

I got to get these good test scores and I need to. And it's amazing how many people blow through life fulfilling all kinds of duties, responding to all kinds of demands that really are about identity and security. And you wake up 30, 40, 50 years later and you realize your whole life has been a grind. Your whole life has been for something that's going to happen someday, some way out there.

And you've never stopped to ask, what am I supposed to do with my life? A big part of the whole midlife crisis. These people looking in the rear view mirror and going, I'm not only not asked that question when I start thinking about it very deeply, I don't like the answer because I not only don't know, but I haven't given much energy or time or track record to what I think probably matters most. Now, before you get too down on yourself, right, because honestly, those are big, aren't they?

Those are so big. Isn't it interesting the biggest issues in life you can sort of shove down because they're so hard to answer. It's like, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, who here would say, who am I really and where do I belong and what am I supposed to do?

Come on, Chip, would you get to something serious? Right. There's no bigger questions than that. And yet the great majority of people have not thought deeply or could give you good, clear answers to that.

But let me tell you why. Let me explain why those are so hard to answer. Turning your notes to page two, something happened. Something happened to our first parents that we've inherited from them that make these three questions very hard to answer. It's why the world has such a pull on us.

It's why we settle for lots of superficial answers to those things, knowing down deep in our soul they don't really satisfy. The passage is Genesis chapter three. The context is the cosmic coup has occurred.

The most loving being, the most generous being, the giver of all life, the creator of the universe, Yahweh God, has created mankind and told them that all that I have and everything's available, there's only one small limitation. Don't eat from that tree. And our parents, first by deception, then by act of the will, it was a coup. It was a rebellion. And sin entered the world. The theologians call it the fall of man. And we pick up the story and we find out what happened.

And as we pick up the story, you'll discover why for you and me, it's really hard to answer those questions well. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord, God among the trees of the garden.

It's the first time this has ever happened. They ran to meet him. They lived in a perfect environment. They were naked emotionally, they were naked spiritually, they were naked physically. Some theologians think there was radiation of light that came out from them before the fall even. There was absolute complete intimacy with God, intimacy and vulnerability with one another, unconditional acceptance.

Life was perfect. And now they hear God coming and for the first time they hide. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? By the way, this is not an informational question.

This is diagnostic. God knew where he was. He's going to ask a series of questions to help Adam discover where he's really at. Adam said, I heard the sound of you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.

If you've got a pen where you pull it out and circle afraid, naked and hid, that will come back later. You're going to find there's a relational pattern in that that you have and I have and every human being has. And God said, who told you that you were naked?

Have you eaten from the tree of which I've commanded you not to eat? And so he's going to answer God. And it's very interesting if you happen to be his wife, this is not a good moment. What you're going to learn is you can't trust this guy for the first time ever. What you're going to learn when the pressure comes, what he's going to do instead of own his stuff and be a man. He's going to be passive and he's going to blame you.

And so Eve is probably standing there knowing the whole story, and she's going to hear her husband say to God, the woman that you gave me to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate it. Translation, it's not my fault. It's her fault. And by the way, you're the one who gave her to me.

So let's do the math. Not me. It's her. It's your fault. Really, God? And so God moves on with the progression of diagnostic questions. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? And the woman, being a very quick study, says the serpent deceived me and I ate.

In other words, it's not my fault either. It's the serpent's fault. And who made this garden and who made serpents?

And you know what? All the problems in life are God's. Isn't it interesting a lot hasn't changed? When there's a tragedy, when there's a difficulty, when something happens in the world, isn't it interesting as human beings, what I always hear is, how could God let this happen? How come every single day, listen, how could God let me breathe? How could God give me this?

I mean, we don't list every good thing that he's ever done, but anything goes wrong. Well, good point. I'll tell you what.

Right? Three obstacles you'll see in this passage about why it's so hard to come to grips with the real you. First is fear rooted in shame. Notice he says, I was afraid. Well, why?

I was afraid. Because now for the first time ever, Adam realizes he's naked. And don't, of course it's physical, but well, well beyond what he realizes is he's exposed. What he realizes when he meets the eyes of someone who sees absolutely perfect through everything, he doesn't measure up. There's a self-consciousness that has occurred. And can I tell you that this is how we relate to God often. And this is how we relate to one another. Is that the primary means of relating to other human beings and God is fear.

And it's rooted in shame. See, I mean, if we get all the superficial sophistication and all the pop psychology out of the way. If I could remove every ounce of veneer from your life and mine and all the image management and all the ways you kind of frame things and all the levels of denial that you have down deep in your heart and your soul. If someone knew all of you, I mean, all of you, the thoughts, the envy, the motives, the things that you've thought, let alone the things you've done.

Down deep in your heart, you're pretty convinced you'd be rejected. And so we relate to one another in fear and spend an ordinate amount of energy posing and image managing. And since we're not sure who we really are, we want to be liked by other people. And so I call them personality holograms because of your background and your gifts and the part of the country you grew up in and all these factors somewhere along the world, you learn people in certain groups like this. And so you learn to act like that and dress like that and need to drive that.

And your kids need to go to this school. And you have all these things that somehow, some way, if all that is lined up because you get affirmation from that, you get approval from that, you're admired by people. Here's the problem. What you know is this hologram that you're projecting of this person that has it kind of together and is loving and is kind and is a good whatever. You know, down deep in your soul, that really doesn't represent all of you, let alone some a lot of the real you. And even when people love the hologram, you don't get love because you know that's not you.

And that's why we find some of the people that are most beautiful, the most successful, and we find them doing things that we scratch our head and say, how could someone that has all the things we all long for kill themselves or destroy their life with an addiction? It's that discrepancy in their soul. It's fear rooted in shame. Notice the second thing that happens in this, not only did they say I was afraid, he says hiding rooted in insecurity.

See, when you're naked, you feel insecure, you feel inadequate, and so you hide. Not only were you afraid, but I hide the real me from you and you hide the real you from others and from God. Isn't it amazing when you don't feel like praying, especially if you've down deep feel, you know, sort of that low grade guilt in your soul? Maybe it's not like really big sins, but sort of the little ones start adding up and you just don't feel very motivated to pray. I don't know about you, but what I realize is I don't want to go talk to God right now because I know how this is going to go.

Right? He's going to cause me to be honest, expose me for who I am, and I don't like that. And so I play this game like, well, if I don't really talk to him very deeply right now, he doesn't really know. But don't you do that with your mates, those of you that are married, don't you do it with your roommates? Don't you do that with your best friends?

Don't we play that game? We have fear that's rooted in shame and then we hide in our insecurity. And can I tell you something? Here's a great little message to learn. This is a freedom message for me. Everyone on the earth is desperately insecure. Desperately insecure.

And if you're saying, oh, no, I don't know if I really buy that one. Well, let me tell you a little story that was a liberating one for me. The first place that I had the privilege of pastoring, I was 28 years old. Instead of a mega church, it was a mini church. It's out in the country about 30 miles outside of Dallas. That whole town was about 3,000 people, and then outside the town was this little white building, and we had 35 people. And so it was my very first pastorate, and I didn't know what I was doing, but this was, you know, the place God called me to. And I thought it was like a rural church because people had pickup trucks and guns in the back, and they all had their ranches and horses.

But after about two months there, when I started visiting the people in their homes, not only did their homes have the Southern Living magazine, you know, like on the coffee table, their homes were Southern Living magazine. And, you know, there's only 35 people, but this guy owned the Honda dealership, the Yamaha dealership, apartments in downtown Austin, and oil and gas. And this guy owned, not worked at, he owned an insurance company.

I don't know how you do that, but someone has to own them, I guess. And this guy over here had one of the major CPA firms downtown. And all of a sudden I realized from my very middle class, my dad through the Depression roots, kind of, you know, both parents, school teachers, all of a sudden I realized I'm pastoring 35 people, but they're mega wealthy, at least they're mega wealthy from where I came from. And I'm intimidated to death. Have you ever been around someone that makes you feel really insecure?

And I would say things, and I would feel small, and I would think I'm dumb, and I don't know about that, and I know they're smarter than me, and they've got all this stuff. And, well, Chip, we're not going to be in church because we're going to go out of town, you know, it's skiing season, so we're going to Vail. Oh, wow, that's in Colorado, to our cottage. And then we're going to go to our condo in Corpus Christi, and it was like. And I mean, for the first year and a half, I was, I literally, I remember being awake.

I mean, not sleeping at all, the first full six or seven nights before the first message, once I found out who these people were, because I was so uptight about what they thought of me. And then God put a book in my hands by a Swiss psychologist, a Christian psychologist named Paul Tournier. You don't even have to read the book. It's probably out of print. It was translated from French into English. Paul Tournier, the title of the book is The Strong and the Weak.

And he had counseled people for 30 or 40 years, and the thesis of the book is real simple. Everyone on the face of the earth is desperately insecure. Some people express their insecurity with strong reactions. They power up. They tell you who they are, where they've been. They dress flashy.

They tell you how many people report to them, how many letters behind their name, what their kids' SAT scores are. You start to cross them, and they get angry, and they power up, and all of a sudden, you feel small, and you back away. And people that are desperately insecure that power up, guess what they do? They power up with strong reactions to create distance, because down inside, they're a scared little boy or a scared little girl, just like everybody else. And they hide behind it.

They just have different fig leaves than other people. And over here, you have people who have weak reactions. And they have weak reactions, and they stare at their feet a lot, and, you know, I can't do anything, and I'm unworthy.

I had a very terrible experience. I've been through a lot, and you probably can understand it. And when you first meet them, you try to help them.

Then you try to help them, and then you meet them, and then they have this recorder. I'm a victim. I'm a victim. I'm a victim. Life's terrible. I'm unworthy. I'm a terrible person.

No one would ever love me. And after like five meetings, you go, you know what? You might be right. Right?

I mean, you know what I mean? And so what they've done is they don't really want help. They want sympathy and attention. But when they act like that, it creates distance. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. They figure a way to act in ways where people say, I won't get close to you. It works.

But there's not a nickel's worth of difference between the two, the strong reaction or the weak reaction. Well, I was around mostly people that were powering up, and I was scared to death. And I read that book, and it was literally like, you know, in those cartoons where a light bulb goes off, a light bulb went off. And I still remember the first time I'm eating this guy for breakfast, and he starts telling me about this, and I'm investing in that, and I'm going to do that. And I just kind of leaned back, and I thought, man, this guy's desperately insecure. And then I got to know his marriage and his problems and started counseling some of his kids. And I still remember thinking, man, these people are as messed up as me. In fact, I think money can make you even more messed up than me. And I just decided, you know what, I'm going to stop pretending, and I took my mask off at a new level and befriended them, and I watched God do a miracle.

He did a miracle in them, but he did a bigger miracle in me. And it was like that early journey, you know what, just sort of my new radar became for years and years and years, everyone's desperately insecure. And you cover it one way, I cover it one way. Some people cover it with what they've done and their performance and their success and other people with their story that they tell. But you know what, it's called the fall. And you relate and I relate by hiding.

And we hide because we're insecure. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And you've been listening to part one of his message, How to Come to Grips with the Real You, from our series, True Spirituality.

Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. Did you know that the word Christian means little Christ? So when we decide to follow Jesus, we're to act as he did, with love, grace, and mercy.

Unfortunately, that's not how people would describe it. Unfortunately, that's not how people would describe Christians today. So how can we live more authentically and better represent Jesus to others? Well, through this study in Romans chapter 12, Chip's going to highlight a clear blueprint for what it means to be a genuine follower of Christ. Learn about our value as men and women, our need for authentic community, and how we can biblically respond to the evil and injustice we encounter.

Now, if you've missed any part of this series, catch up anytime on the Chip Ingram app or at livingontheedge.org. Well, I'm joined in studio now by Chip, and Chip, you know, I read a statistic recently that revealed nearly 40% of pastors all over the world have considered quitting the ministry in the last few years. I mean, that's a shocking number to me, that even church leaders are struggling with hopelessness right now.

Well, Dave, that's right. Pastors are weary, they're discouraged, and they're facing unprecedented challenges. So in the wake of the pandemic, we created a resource called The Art of Survival. It's a teaching out of James chapter 1 about persevering, about considering it all joy, even when times are tough. So during the pandemic, we were able to train over 10,000 pastors in 60 countries over Zoom.

Then we saw the need to go on the ground. So we began training pastors first in India, then Africa, Mexico, and now we've gone to the Philippines and the Dominican Republic. We've now trained over 60,000 pastors in The Art of Survival in their country in one-day seminars. I have to tell you, these pastors who love the church, they've come together.

We've watched them pray and cry and support one another, and their testimony is this. Now we're not going to quit the ministry. And this year, we're launching another training program called the High Impact Church. We're on target as of today to train 170,000 pastors this year.

So here's my request. Would you partner with us to help under-resourced pastors in very challenging situations to have hope and to get help? And right now, every gift that you give before July 7th will be matched dollar for dollar. Your gift will allow us to help pastors here and all around the world. Thank you so much for praying about this and then doing whatever God leads you to do. Thanks, Chip.

Well, if you feel like God is moving you to partner with us, now's a great time. 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 go to livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap donate. And thank you in advance for your generosity.

Well, with that, here again is Chip to share his application. As we wrap up today's program, I'd like you to maybe take just a minute and ponder what you've heard. When I talked about the strong and the weak, the book, and how I learned I was desperately insecure, and I think I probably had a little too much fun teaching this because I was really intimidated by really powerful, wealthy people. And then I got to where when I saw them posing and powering up, I kind of had this little funny thing going inside like, wow, that dude is really insecure just like me.

But it freed me up. And there's some of you that are in workplaces or even family relationships or dealing with life in such a way, and you have this picture that you're the only one that has these fears. You're the only one that's insecure. Or you think weakness or insecurity is something that is just unique to you, and there's something wrong with you instead of there's something wrong with the human race. And because of the fall, we have been hiding. Because of the fall, we do have shame. And I want you to know, number one, Christ is the answer.

But I've had the opportunity to take, I cannot tell you how many groups of people through this small group study. And one of the things that just blows my mind, especially with the 20- and 30-year-olds, is when we get to a sober self-assessment. And people have this aha moment that I don't have to pose, I don't have to pretend that the most attractive person in all the world is the person God made me. It is a freedom. It is so liberating. So can I encourage you, maybe listen to this message again. This needs to sink from your head to your heart. Because you know what?

You can get freed up and have a lot more fun in life and just might be a lot more useful to God. Thanks, Chip. And to get plugged in with any of our helpful resources for this series, go to TrueSpiritualityOnline.org. All one word, TrueSpiritualityOnline.org. Get Chip's book, the small group study, or peruse our library of free videos. We want to help you become a Romans 12 Christian. So check out TrueSpiritualityOnline.org today. Well, until next time, I'm Dave Drouy, saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge. .