I Choose Love - Love Gives, Part 2

Would you like to become a more loving person?

I don't mean just trying harder to act more loving, but actually become from the inside out a person that just flat out loves people better and more deeply. Well, if so, stick around. That's today. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians.

Well, today Chip picks up where he left off last time in his series, I Choose Love. He'll reveal the three keys to becoming a more loving person, which stems from a core trait found in love itself. But before we begin, let me encourage you to use Chip's message notes while you listen. They'll help you get the most out of what you're about to hear.

Download them under the broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org, app listeners tap fill in notes. Well, if you're ready, let's join Chip for the second half of his talk, Love Gives, from Philippians chapter two. How to become a more loving person. Choose to declare war on, write the word, selfishness. Choose, declare war on selfishness.

And as usual, when I go high tech here, my iPad is not working, so I think I'll go with a little bit less technical one that you all have. Turn to Philippians chapter two, if you're not already there, and let me read for you this command. Philippians chapter two, we've looked at verses one and two. Follow along here in chapter two as we read verse three and four. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but in humility of mind, consider others more important than yourself. Verse four, let each of you look not only on your own interest, but also on the interest of others. You may be looking at this and saying, declare war? Aren't you getting a little radical here?

No, no. We're born with this innate ability to be selfish. In fact, let me define selfish ambition here. Four words, I want my way. That's selfish ambition. I want my way.

You might jot down, it's a me first mentality. I want to be first in line. I want the best spot. I want to get on the plane first, that's one of mine. I want to get to work first. When I go through the buffet, I want the best piece of meat. I want the best promotion.

It's me first. I want my needs met in this marriage. I want my mom and dad to come through for me. I want my professor to give me what I want when I want it. It's a me first mentality.

I want to be number one. I'm selfish. Now, it's very unpopular to admit that. But what is hard to see in ourselves, isn't it easy to see in others? I mean, you get out on the freeway, are people selfish or what?

I mean, this isn't like out there somewhere either. Anybody here tried to get out of the parking lot here? You know, especially 11 o'clock service. Now, there are some people, you know, very Christian, wave you in, and there's some of you that are still working on it. Let me put it that way. But we're selfish.

But you don't slide out of being selfish. Even though the living spirit of Christ lives inside of you, and you're born again, and you're part of the kingdom of God, there's this battle. The Galatians talked about the spirit wages war against the flesh. This predisposition toward my way, my stuff is rooted in your heart, and you'll have it until the day you die. But the spirit of God can give you the ability to in humility.

Look at the second half of that text. In humility, consider others as more important than yourself. Humility can be a very misunderstood word, so I came across a very, very interesting article. I think of humility as not thinking too highly of yourself, not thinking too lowly of yourself, but having an accurate, sober self-assessment. As one person said, humility is not thinking less of yourself. Humility is just thinking less about yourself. Beating yourself up, I'm a terrible person, that's not humility, that's not accurate.

It's just not letting you, it's me not letting me be the thing and the person I think about all the time. They're doing science now on the benefits of virtues, things like forgiveness. They've done lots of research on gratitude.

You may have read some of that. This is an article by a professor at George Fox University. It's called The Science of Humility. It says researchers have developed scales to measure intellectual humility, relational humility, cultural humility, and some are now working on spiritual humility as well. As with forgiveness and gratitude, humility fosters, this is what humility delivers.

You ready for this? Humility fosters physical and mental and relational health. Humble people are more grateful and forgiving so they enjoy the benefits of those virtues. They're also, humble people are more generous and helpful to others.

This is a good one. They have better romantic relationships. For some of you, get humble right away. They have better romantic relationships, have less anxiety about death, and experience less spiritual struggle. Those parents who are concerned about your kids, people that are humble perform better at school, show more compassion to others, and even have better self-esteem than less humble people.

In other words, they're doing scientific research and what God has commanded, what delights our Father, and what Christ modeled amazingly is the genuine humility, not putting yourself first but actually considering the needs of others. It's what we call around here and you'll learn more about in this series. It's the I am second mentality.

I mean, it just goes completely against everything. I am second as I go through the line. I am second as I drive on the freeway. I am second when I think about my rights and my marriage. I am second when I think about the needs with my roommate. I am second when we're trying to divide something and write to see who gets the bigger piece. The article goes on and says that humility, this is very important, does not require self-loathing or self-belittling but it calls for us to dial back our normal tendency, are you ready for this, to overestimate our abilities and behaviors. Now, I never do that and you never do that but there's some people out there that overestimate their abilities and the behaviors and you know I'm teasing.

I love it. He gives, there's three characteristics of people that are genuinely humble. Number one, they have a reasonably accurate view of themselves, neither too high or neither too low, pretty biblical.

Number two, is they care more deeply or have a concern and notice other people. And then number three, is humble people are teachable. So genuine humility is rooted in some characteristics and according to the scientific study which actually is pretty biblical whether they know it or not, is that they have a pretty accurate view of themselves. In other words, I'm not the center of the world, are you ready, I'm not the smartest person in the room, my opinions aren't always the best, my perspective of what we ought to do or my decision isn't necessarily better than others but it doesn't mean that I don't have good thoughts and my decisions and my perspective can be very valid. So they don't think too high, they don't think too low.

The second one is they really consider the thoughts, the interests and the feelings of others. Humble people are sensitive. Humble people notice the person that when everyone gets out and walks out of here, humble people see the people that no one said hi to. Humble people notice the needs of other people. Genuinely humble people, I'm always amazed that you know maybe I'll have a passing conversation with someone and like a week later, two weeks later like get a note or get something in the mail. I was meeting with someone a long time ago and they watched me fiddle with trying to recharge, you know you got all these rechargers and all this different stuff. Out of the blue a week later, I get a package. There's no name, there's no note, there's no anything. I don't know what it is.

I open the package and it's one of these bars that has one, two, three, four, five where you can hook in your phone, everything else with the plug and you plug the thing in. I use it every day. Humility, someone didn't say a word, saw I had a need and addressed the need and third and I think this is big, they're teachable. They realize that they're on the journey too. How humble are you? For some of your personalities, I just want to say please, please don't go to oh, I came to church today. I'm a terrible person. Everything he's talking about, that's me. I'm an arrogant, terrible person. You know what, guess where your focus is at this moment?

It's on you. At the heart of not being humble is not thinking lowly of yourself, belittling yourself, condemning yourself. In fact, the second way to become more loving is attack the root of the problem and then I want you to write in the word pride.

Attack the root of the problem. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and he'll be back to continue our series I Choose Love in just a minute. But let me quickly tell you we are more than a broadcast ministry. We're passionate about supporting pastors globally, developing helpful resources and sharing the gospel with this next generation. So if you'd like to partner with us in these areas, go to livingontheedge.org.

Well here again is Chip. If you will, right underneath where you see verse three, circle the world, empty conceit. Do nothing from selfish ambition or empty conceit. Selfish ambition, selfishness is what we do.

The root of the problem is why we do it. That's empty conceit. Write this word down. I love this phrase.

It's an old, old, old version of King James. Vain glory, empty glory. You say well what's vain glory? What's empty conceit?

Well a good street name is pride but that's sort of, it's kind of a big word. Let me give you some very specific pictures of empty conceit. Empty conceit is I'm better. I'm more important. I'm superior. I'm more intelligent. My time matters more than yours. My life matters more than you. I have greater value. I have greater worth. Now you may not say that outside in your head but our behavior, our behavior just screams vain glory. I like the way I said that.

Glory, right? It's this I'm the center of the world and I can clothe it with all kind of Bible verses and I can actually in a Christian way do image management to try and project I'm humble which is that the empty conceit. The idea is I want everyone to have this amazing opinion of me that I either want for myself or actually think I have. I made a list because this got very convicting and I thought oh boy. I made a list of some ways that when this happens in me, okay? This isn't you.

This is me. When these things happen in me what I know is vain glory, empty conceit, pride is raising its ugly head and then I'm going to talk to you about how to go into training and did you notice the violent words I've used? Declare war.

Attack. In other words you got to get to the root of the problem. This isn't about I think I'm going to try and be more loving and I'll tell someone I forgive no.

This is heart stuff, root stuff. This is stuff that's so deeply in your psyche and in your soul, in mine that you have to declare war. I refuse in light of what God's done for me to be a selfish person. I'm going to attack the root problem and the root problem is in my thinking. I become the center of things even subtly because in my thinking I think I'm better or I want to project that I'm better.

In my thinking my time and my money and what I do is more important. It's lethal. It destroys relationships.

It's unloving and so when these things happen in my life what I know is pride, defensiveness. Someone makes a comment to me immediately. It could be my wife. It could be in a meeting. It could be one of my kids.

It could be someone I don't know very much. They say something. We're talking about something and I hear myself. I'm defensive. Well why? Because I've got to guard. I've got to prove. I've got to protect. Whatever they said that sort of hit a button inside. Second, making excuses.

It's my pride. I didn't do it wrong. I didn't mess up. It was them. It was late. It was the traffic.

If they would have done this on time I would have had it on time. It's you name it. In fact, related to that one is when I hear myself blaming other people I know that's pride. In other words, don't look at me and think it's my fault. See humility, you know what humility does? And it actually gains.

It actually gains the credibility of people. When you actually make a mistake, when you're actually late, when you really blow it, when you don't come through, it's amazing what happens when you say, you know, hey I hope you all will. I just apologize.

That was a deadline. I didn't hit it. I could give you a number of reasons.

None of them really measure up other than I didn't use my time wisely. I went down some bad paths in terms of how to solve this problem. Like to ask you guys to forgive me. You know what normally happens? Everyone in the room knows they do that too. But so often we blame, we make excuses. In my marriage for many years I remember my wife saying this. She said it in the presence of a counselor so it was very unpleasant. Chip you always have to have the last word.

Does that ring a bell? You always have to have the last word. And I had to go into training to realize why. Because down deep I've got to be right.

I've got to declare. And it was all about these insecurities and this pride. I remember evaluating things and especially some of you that are in business or if you have some leadership or strategic views of things and the challenge is if you're really pretty good at it. I remember a number of years ago, it was probably a decade ago, I would hope it would be a little bit more but honestly probably about a decade ago, when I realized when I evaluated things I had this subtle view that when I looked at all the pieces and I aligned all the pieces that my view was the truth. My view, in other words I've looked at this, I've looked at this, I prayed about it, I've got it all together. My view of this situation is the truth. And boy did I find out either I didn't read the pieces right or I didn't have all the pieces and I had a couple of experiences where I was so wrong. And now when I have a conversation that where I have to confront someone and it's really difficult and it's really tender, I try to always preface it with something like this. Now I want you to know that I need to say a couple of things that will be hard to hear. But here's what you need to hear first. This is my perspective not to be confused with the truth. I don't know the reality. But what I want you to know and what I'm responsible, this is my perspective and I'd like you to take this perspective and would you weigh this before God to see what truth is in it.

Do you see the difference? My list is actually longer. Well here's one. I was perpetually late for almost everything for years. You know the guy that's dashing onto the plane in the old years before you know there was all that security or the person who's rushing in and running out of the parking lot and coming in two minutes late or five minutes late. I was late, late, late, late, late. And I tried hard and it really bugged my wife.

And then I had a breakthrough. My problem was not being late. My problem wasn't self will. My problem wasn't discipline. My problem was grandiosity.

And when I saw that it was so ugly, I changed. Some of you were saying so what exactly is grandiosity? Grandiosity is thinking whatever you're doing is so important.

And if I can say this kindly, we come here on a weekend to adore and give our very best to the creator of the universe and the savior that died upon a cross to pay for our sin and rose from the dead and has given us eternal life. The grandiosity to come in five, 10, 15, 20 minutes late. The grandiosity of during a song or during this time when I'm teaching the very word of God, you checking your email and having your phone open is arrogance.

It's just arrogance. And please, I always hear pastors say, I don't want you to feel guilty. Actually, I want you to feel guilty. If you're guilty, guilt's a really good thing.

If there's genuine sorrow, you repent and you realize, oh, I never thought of it that way. I'm not saying you thought of it intentionally. I'm just telling you what it is. If this was a U2 concert, this place would be packed two hours and people would rush to get in. When you buy tickets to a movie, you don't go a half hour late. See, we have a consumer mindset. There is a grandiosity and an arrogance.

And it needs to be changed. And so notice point number three is choose to practice humility daily by putting others' needs and interests ahead of your own. Don't consider just your own interest, although the passage is clear, take them into account, but consider the interests of others as more important than your own. Where are we going to go to eat?

Where would you like to go to eat? Maybe this person has to get to work. It's as important or more important than you. What would happen? What would happen if we declared war on selfishness? If we said, I'm going to attack the root of this problem, which is really my own pride, this empty conceit, this vainglory, and then this week I'm going to go into training. And I'm going to choose very specifically in little, little things that will grow into bigger and bigger things. I'm going to choose in my money to be generous. I'm going to choose in my time to be generous.

And we'll talk about exactly how very specifically to put that in practice. Ask yourself, where does my money go? Loving toward God and others or me? Where does my time go toward God and others or me?

Where does my energy go? Father, I pray now, as there are many, many, many relationships that are fractured, and it will require only one person to admit at the heart of it, regardless of the other person, that pride and selfishness and arrogance is at the core and a repentance before you, and then the next steps of asking forgiveness and restitution and even reconciliation in some cases where it's possible. So Lord, would you bring to mind in this room the people that need to get a call, a lunch, a coffee, a text, a letter, a note of apology, so that we could love others the way you've loved us?

Before we do anything else in this broadcast, I want to pause. I just prayed. And now I want to talk to you very honestly and sincerely about your life. You know, the fact of the matter is, is that you need to ask and I need to ask, so where does your money go? And what actions really indicate that you love God and you love other people? I mean, where does your time go?

And this is not about me in any way seeking to poke around or make you feel guilty. This is about you and me as brother and sisters in Christ coming before the throne of God and saying, love isn't just a feeling. Love chooses to serve. It chooses to give. It chooses to get out of our comfort zone.

It's the platinum rule. Love says, this is what God has done in us. And something inside of us, the spirit of the living God compels us to release our time and our money and our energy to meet the needs of other people. And so I'd like you, you know, if you're driving, don't do this, but if you're not driving, would you just open your palms upward and say, Lord, it's your money, it's your time, it's your gifts, it's your talents. Would you bring to my mind just today, who could I extend money and time and energy and love to? And Lord, would you help me see first and foremost, under the roof where I live, my roommate or my husband, my wife, my kids, would you help me to be an other centered follower of Jesus and then watch how the spirit of God will work in you and through you.

Great word Chip. Well, if you've been inspired to deepen your relationship with God, we'd love to support you. Go to TrueSpiritualityOnline.org and check out our resources. You can order Chip's popular book, True Spirituality.

Get the small group or watch countless helpful videos. All these tools were designed to show you the clear path to becoming a genuine follower of Christ. So check him out today. That website again is TrueSpiritualityOnline.org. Well, before we go, Chip's still with me in studio to share one last thing with all of you.

Thanks Dave. You know, people have asked me recently, you're a discipleship ministry, teaching ministry, why such an emphasis on the next generation and resources and projects like this. And what I tell them is the Bible is absolutely clear about passing on our faith to the next generation. I mean, Deuteronomy chapter 6, 2 Timothy 2, 2 make it clear it is God's heart for our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren to know God personally. Yet in today's culture, they're bombarded and whether it's in academia or social media or honestly the lack of instruction inside their homes, I think some of us moms and dads have to own the fact that we didn't pass it on or we didn't know how and now what we need is a tool.

We need a game plan because the culture has so become anti-Christian to the people that we love the most, our kids and grandkids. We have to have a resource that helps us communicate, connect, share and live out the gospel. And that's why I'm so excited about this brand new book that Aaron Pierce and I have worked on together, Not Beyond Reach.

You need to get it. It'll give you a game plan. It'll show you how to connect with your kids, your grandkids and even better, how to prepare in advance to keep them connected to you and the Lord Jesus Christ. To order this new book by Aaron Pierce, Not Beyond Reach, go to livingontheedge.org or the Chipping Room app.

Learn what you can do to skillfully and intentionally share the truth of the gospel in this post-Christian culture. Again, to get your copy of Not Beyond Reach, visit livingonttheedge.org or the Chipping Room app. As we wrap up, I want to thank those of you who make this program possible through your generous financial support. Your gifts help us create programs, purchase airtime and develop additional resources to help Christians live like Christians. Now, if you've been blessed by the Ministry of Living on the Edge, would you consider sending a gift today? You can do that when you visit livingonttheedge.org or the Chipping Room app. And now you can text donate to 74141. That's the word donate to 74141. We want you to know how much we appreciate your support. Until next time, this is Dave Druey saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.