The Great Rescue - The Amazing Plan, Part 2

Well, let me say today, Merry Christmas. I hope it's a very, very special day for you. This day we celebrate that we have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and all that God has for us. Today's broadcast will really make your Christmas day.

Stick around. 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. Let me first say Merry Christmas and thanks for joining us as we're in the middle of our series, The Great Rescue, Hope for a World in Need of a Savior. Today Chip continues talking about God's profound agenda that drove the Christmas story and why, if we're not careful, we can overlook Christ's entire purpose in coming to earth. But before we get going, if this is your first time listening to Living on the Edge or you want to learn more about what we do, go to livingontheedge.org. You'll find resources on tons of topics and countless programs to enjoy. Or if you prefer, the Chip Ingram app is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry.

Okay, let's get going. Here now is Chip with the second half of his talk, The Amazing Plan. What have we learned about interventions in our day? Some of you, I've been involved in one with my father many years ago.

It wasn't very professional, but it worked. I've been with people that have been in interventions, done interventions, but whether it's alcohol or drugs or sexual addiction, codependency, what we know is that some people get addicted, begin to live in such a way that it's destroying their lives and the people around them, and then something happens where people realize we can't allow this to continue and they do what we call a intervention. As I was doing my research, think of the spiritual parallels. I went online and found a number of places that if you were thinking, gosh, my son or my husband, my wife, my best friend, someone I really love, they're just killing themselves with alcohol or drugs or something like this.

Where would you go? How would you actually start an intervention? And so I looked at a number of them, but this is five tips for a successful intervention. And as I read it, do kind of the spiritual math to yourself and think, hmm, boy, God sure knew a lot more about this than them. Tip number one, don't wing it. Okay? God had a very long, careful plan, but you don't wing it.

Research and planning is critical. Two, stay positive. It's interesting, interventions are not people beating up on someone.

It's about love and commitment and we care and you're valued. And think of Jesus' ministry and how he didn't come with shame and how he came with love and healing people and raising them from the dead and delivering people that no one cared about. Third, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Lots of interventions don't work. See, just because someone comes to rescue doesn't mean people get rescued. Someone can come to rescue us, but we have to be willing to accept the help.

And I think of how God planned for the best, but allowed for the worst. Those who didn't want help, he's made provision. Four, opt for a professional interventionist.

In other words, don't try this at home. Get outside help. And finally, secure your drug or rehab center before you do this. It's not like you have this event and think, oh boy, now what do we do? And I was thinking of Jesus, the very last thing he said to his disciples, you remember? He said, I go to prepare a place for you. He prepared what was going to happen to all the people that he's going to rescue. Just a fascinating way for me to begin to take the trees and the songs and the sweet baby Jesus and all the ways that we get familiar and realize Christmas is about the greatest rescue that has ever occurred. There is a plan from eternity past. There are unlikely people for a reason.

There's an innovative method that's beyond imagination actually. And then fourth, there's perfect timing. Galatians 4, 4 says, when the fullness of time came, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law.

And the perfect timing had four or five characteristics. Number one, the Roman Empire was in one control and there was roads that went everywhere. So transportation for the gospel to move was free. Two, there was the internet of the day, Koine Greek. Everyone, it was the trade language.

All over the Roman Empire, when you did business, Koine Greek. So the Bible, New Testament written Koine Greek, it exploded. Third, there was a diaspora of the Jewish synagogues. They were persecuted. And so were these synagogues all over the Roman Empire.

So when the gospel went forth, they always started there. And last, there was corruption and absolute bankruptcy. Note, religiously, philosophically, morally, and in terms of a lifestyle. In fact, I have a quote here, a contemporary Roman orator and political theorist, Marcus Tullius Cicero, gives a brutal picture of what city life was like during this period of history. When he described it as miserable, starving rabble. 90% of the population in the Roman Empire lived a hand-to-mouth existence and rarely lived beyond the age of 40.

On top of this dismal living conditions, there were social and political injustices, oppression, abuse, and of course, unreasonable taxes that plagued the people. Relentless daily challenge of most people was simply trying to survive. It was in to this God's perfect timing he sent forth his son. And finally, what God does, he always does with flawless and perfect execution.

Job 42 too says, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. So as we begin to think about Christmas this season, what I've given you sort of through my rescue lens is a little bit of an oversimplified synthesis of the Christmas story and of rescue. And the reason I wanted to do that, because we have twofold things we do around this amazing rescue story that destroy its power. This is reality and we destroy it two ways. Number one, we destroy it because we romanticize it. We have this picture of this glowing Mary instead of a teenage girl having a baby in a very difficult situation whose family has rejected her, who people think if you're Joseph that you're marrying a whore because she's already pregnant, who are poor people who can't find a place to have the baby. I mean, this is a reality, this was harsh, this was difficult. I mean some of you have been pregnant and know what it's like to try and go on a little trip.

Well forget a car, can you imagine being that pregnant and taking a trip on a donkey? See we romanticize it. And you know, I like the lights and I like the candles and we have the beautiful songs and there's special songs that make our hearts soar and you know, we're in the west and we're comfortable and we have presents and you know, we have wonderful times and we eat great food and isn't it a wonderful time of the year? Yes it is, but it's about a rescue. It's not about religious ritual. It's not about a wonderful season. It's not about the spirit of Christmas.

It's not let's be a little bit nicer to one another. It's about God doing an intervention because he loves us so much that he would humble himself to take on human flesh and be born of a teenage girl and live a perfect life in one of the most horrendous difficult times in human history because he loves you and because he loves me and he loves your family and my family and your friends and my friends and the people at your work and the people where I go. The second thing that we do that minimizes what Christmas is all about is we so focus on what we're delivered out of, we don't remember what we're delivered into. When you're rescued, you're rescued out of darkness into light, out of a burning building into safety. So in my remaining time, what I want to do is I want to talk about the deliverance, the rescue into and I want to go back to Ephesians because Ephesians is the book that tells us what God has given us.

So you ready? God rescues us out of darkness into light and I just want to give you not all but just three specific clear things that those of you like me who came out of your denial and at some point in time in your life recognize that you are an addict and our addiction was ourselves and being in control and our arrogance and wanting life to be our way and at some point in time we said you know what I'm not in control, I fall short, I do have problems, I have sinned and we said God would you forgive me and you trusted in Christ and when you were trusted in Christ as your savior and invited him into your life, you turned from your old way, you received the Holy Spirit and you were taken from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and a number of things happened but I want to remind you of three things you were delivered out of but you're delivered into. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and today's message is from our series The Great Rescue. If you've enjoyed Chip's teaching so far and are trying to apply it to your life, would you take a minute and share it with someone?

Now you can easily do that through the Chip Ingram app or by downloading the mp3s that you'll find at livingontheedge.org. Thanks for spreading the word about how series like this one impact you. Okay let's get back to today's program. Number one, Jesus will put your past behind you.

Why? Because you're redeemed. In him, notice how in each of these passages it's in him, in him or in Christ. In him we have redemption through his blood. The forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace which he lavished upon us. Notice its present tense, we have. It's a picture, this word is used of a deliverance of a slave, of emancipation of a prisoner.

Notice it's by his blood. It's literally a picture in the New Testament times of someone going into the agora. That's where the marketplace was. And they would take slaves and put the slave up on a box.

And then people would bid or ransom or buy them. And Paul takes that picture in the first world century and says you were a slave and you were chained in the addiction of your own sin and your own self-interest like you and me that violated a holy God and you were destroying your own life. And Jesus said I want that one, I want that one, I want that one, whosoever. And he bought us from slavery to freedom. He broke the chains of what we were a prisoner to, to make us new.

We've been redeemed. And here's the new hope, you're free. You're free. You don't have to live that old way. You don't have to be self-focused.

You don't have to be, we're addicted to a lot of quote acceptable things along with drugs and alcohol and all the rest that we struggle with. You are free. You are free to be what a child of God dearly loved, blameless and holy.

But it gets better. Not only has he put our past behind us, but Jesus has a purpose for your life today. He goes on in this passage who says in all wisdom and insight has made known to us the mystery of his will. Right above the word mystery, just put secret. It's not mysterious. This word means, in other words, it wasn't known before, but now in him in Christ, he's let us know the secret of his will according to his kind intention, which he purpose noticed in him with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is the summing up of all things in Christ, things in heaven, and things upon the earth.

A couple key words here. It says in all wisdom, that word has the idea of knowledge which sees into the heart of a thing. God sees into the heart in all wisdom what's best for you. It says that it's insight, it's insight that leads to proper action. And before, people didn't know, but in Christ, God reveals this plan of deliverance, this rescue for whosoever would turn to him, and that's what Christmas is all about. I love this little phrase.

As an administration suitable, I don't know about you, but that doesn't really ring with me. The idea of a stewardship, this word here, is like a household economy. In other words, there was one economy where God dealt with people that he loved in the Old Testament pointing toward the cross, and there was animals and there were sacrifices, but now we're in this new economy. And this new economy is Christ and a purpose and the mystery of his will. He's revealed to you what life is all about. And you know what that means?

That means that you are needed. This new purpose, this new household, it's his agent of blessing was Israel. Now there's not Jew and Gentile, they're going to come together in this brand new thing called the church.

That's what he's talking about. And this church is going to be this supernatural agent to do exactly what Jesus did, explain God to everyone by how we live and what we say. To bring the kingdom, and we talked about that earlier, to bring the kingdom where what's up there, love and kindness and humility and generosity, we take it down here. So we dig wells where people don't have water, and we deliver people out of the sex trade, and we provide counseling for people, and we share the good news, and we develop and help build churches and care for people that care for people.

That's what this is about. And so God says that every single one of us, because of this rescue by Jesus we call Christmas, he says that you are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto a work. That from the foundations of the earth, you're now part of a family, part of a team, to take this rescue message by what you say and by how you live to every single person on the earth. You know a lot of people, if you talk with them when they're in addictions or when they're very very depressed or when they're struggling, what's one thing you hear is, I don't want to live anymore.

There's no purpose in my life. See Jesus set us free, but then he said, this is what I want you to do. And until the job is done, every day I get up, if you want to rearrange your life as you get older, quote retire, do it.

But retirement's not even a possibility for a Christian. You might do something different for your vacation, but until you take your last breath and I take my last breath, we bring the kingdom. We explain the love of God. And you know what, that means you're needed. The third thing that happens is that Jesus promises you and me a positive future. He says in him, Christ, we have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to his purpose who works all things after the counsel of his will to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ should be the praise of his glory. You have an inheritance.

I don't know a lot about inherences. My parents were school teachers and my expectations of getting any kind of inheritance was sort of slim and none. But my dad lived to be about 84, 85 and he remarried and he was wise with his money.

And then he remarried and then Evelyn lived a few years afterwards and they did the things that wise good people do. They didn't hope or think they had a will and they knew what they were going to do. And so my sisters and Evelyn's kids, they provided, it wasn't big, but I got money from my father and I didn't do anything for it. I didn't do anything for it. I didn't earn it.

You know why I got it? It's because of my last name. If your name was Ingram, you were in. My name is Ingram.

My dad's name is Ralph Ingram. And when Ralph Ingram died, years and years and years earlier, he had set aside that this goes to Punky, this goes to Jeannie, this goes to Chip. And they took the house and liquidated that and some other things. And each one of us along with Evelyn's kids, we got an inheritance.

Well, it was awesome just to be a part of it, but here's the deal. You have an inheritance and it's lavish. You have a heaven coming. You have a new life. You have spiritual gifts. God has given you an inheritance. There is a heaven waiting that is real.

And here's the truth. Here's the new hope. You're worthy. You know, when people lose hope down deep, a lot of it is, I don't measure up. I don't bring anything to the table.

I'm getting old. No one cares about me. I'm not as gifted.

I had these dreams and I feel like I failed. You know, that marriage didn't work. One of my kids didn't turn out very well. You know, my parents, they really messed stuff up. I'm down on me. I flunked out of school. Yeah, I'm big time on the dollar signs but I'm in the minus category when it comes to relationships and family.

See, no one has it together. And God came to rescue you and me out of all that stuff. And He wants you to know you're free.

Take off the chains. Accept that. You're needed. Get off your posterior and get off your pity party and align with other believers because as you give your life away you will find it.

And finally, you're more than just needed. You are worthy and you are valuable solely because of your last name. And your last name is Christ One. And then they started slurring it together and calling you Christians.

You're in the family of God. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And the message you just heard, The Amazing Plan, is from our series, The Great Rescue. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute. In this series, Chip studies the most successful rescue mission ever attempted that should forever change how you celebrate Christmas this year. Learn about the incredible plan God put into motion at the beginning of time, the unlikely team He used to accomplish it, and the perfect child that came to save us. Discover the reason why we can have unexplainable joy and hope this holiday season. For more info about The Great Rescue, visit livingontheedge.org.

That's livingontheedge.org. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now, and Chip, today is Christmas, and we hope everyone is enjoying this special day with their loved ones. But before we go any further in the series, Chip, I was hoping you'd take a minute and tie what you've been teaching to this sacred day. Share a couple of things you want our listeners to get out of this series.

I'd be glad to, Dave. There's something so wonderful, so amazing, so warm about Christmas time that people are happier, people are more generous. I mean, I love the lights, I love the trees, I love the songs, on and on and on. But you can lose Christmas. We can actually completely forget what it's all about. This whole series is going to help you look at the whole Christmas story with a completely new set of glasses. It'll be a set of glasses that for some of you, like me, when I was about 18, a light came on, and I thought, oh, it's not just about a baby, it's not just about long ago, it's not about giving people presents, it's about a rescue.

It's about the most amazing rescue. God left heaven for me personally. And I don't know where you're at. I don't know if you've been a Christian for many, many years. I don't know if you go to church, maybe like I did growing up, like Christmas and Easter. I don't know if you're a faithful follower, that you're just overwhelmed with ministry and Christmas activities, but I want you to lean back and say, I'm going to follow along on this journey with Chip. I want to see Christmas through the lens of a rescue, and I want it to be personal. I want to remember he came to rescue me.

The baby, all the festivities, all that is just sort of context. This is really about God's pursuit and love of you. Let me encourage you, stay with me and maybe read Luke chapter 2 this year with new eyes. Well, I hope you'll be with us for the next couple of days, because this series serves as a necessary reminder, Jesus is our Savior, not just for salvation, but for whatever challenge we'll face.

God knows what we need and is ready to help us endure the many storms of life. Maybe you know someone who could use that encouragement today. Well, tell them about this series and invite them to listen with you through the Chip Ingram app or LivingOnTheEdge.org. You won't regret it.

Okay, with all that said, let's get to Chip's application. As we wrap up today's program, I want to encourage you to do something. Yes, keep preparing, get those presents done, enjoy the holidays, sing the songs out loud, you, me, and Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and all those crooners and those old songs, and all the new ones too, but here's the deal. I want you to really think this Christmas about what God rescued you from. Christmas isn't a ritual.

It's not a time of the year. It's not of just something to go through. It is the memorial and the reminder of the greatest rescue that ever occurred. It's the breaking you and me out of the chains. It's that God has given us a hope that you're free. He's taken you and me out of the kingdom of darkness, placed us in the kingdom of light, and what He said is you're needed.

You have a purpose. And finally, He said that I don't care what the world says about your looks, your background, your education, what you've done or haven't done, you are worthy. This Christmas, will you allow God to rescue not just from something but into the hope that He has planned for you from all eternity?

This Christmas, it's more than just a baby. It's He loves you. He has a purpose for you. You are special. And I want you to know that you have been rescued not just out of darkness but into the light. Would you ponder and ask yourself, what will it look like this December to live in the light? And then are you ready? Share it with others.

Good word, Chip. Just before we close, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now. And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has provided encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever. So thank you to those who support us in prayer. God is doing amazing things. For Chip and the entire team, this is Dave Druey thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge, and we hope you'll continue having a very merry Christmas.