Unstuck - Overcoming a Dysfunctional Family, Part 2

Did you grow up in a dysfunctional family?

Or do you know someone who did and you find yourself trying to help them almost to no avail? God can redeem a dysfunctional situation. He can break the cycle. He can make you new.

Good things can happen out of very bad starts. 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, we appreciate you being with us today as we share part two of Chip's talk, Overcoming a Dysfunctional Family, from our series Unstuck. And real quick before we get going, if you're experiencing some deep brokenness and conflict in your family right now, first listen to this entire message. Then stick around after the teaching to hear a few additional pieces of wisdom from Chip.

You'll be encouraged by it. If you have your Bible ready, go to Ephesians chapter two for the second half of Chip's talk. The scripture says to these Ephesians, everyone's a member of a dysfunctional family, but the good news is point number two, Jesus' intervention broke the cycle of destruction. Every now and then there's a preposition that is in the Bible that gives me great hope, and in verse four it says, but.

There's different ways that this language can say the word but in contrast. This is the strongest way it can say it. But because of his great love, God, and then describing him in parentheses, who's rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in our transgressions. And then Paul, I think he just almost gets overwhelmed and you can put a little bracket around, it is by grace that you've been saved.

Just, he just keeps coming back to you. By the way, don't get thinking it was something in you, it was by grace that you were saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus and then for a purpose. In order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. Since we're trying to make a point, could I ask you where it says in Christ, in Christ, in him, in Christ Jesus, in Christ, could you just underline that so that when you look at these notes you realize that everything he's going to talk about is not about your self-effort, not your self-help program, not you thinking a little bit differently, it's a fundamental shift. He's gonna say, but God did an intervention. The second person of the Godhead who was worshipped by myriad and myriad and myriad of angels stepped out of heaven and was born of a teenage girl in a dirty stall and was given birth around animals on the planet that he spoke into existence and then lived a perfect life to reveal what the Father's light, full of grace and truth, died in our place, rose from the dead to break the cycle. And what you're gonna see, I want you to underline three phrases because we underlined or we circled death, disobedience, and objects of wrath. Look what God's grace does. Number one, made us alive.

Circle that. Literally it's one word, it means he quickened us. He intervened. You were dead spiritually. You were separated from God forever and ever and ever and so was I and all of mankind and we deserved it. But he intervened, he did an intervention, and he quickened us.

The second thing, notice what he did? He raised us up, circled that. This is that picture I gave you of, you know, I literally when I taught this at the church I took the board out again with the cross on it and the bolt and I said, you know, if I drop the bolt what's gonna happen? It's gonna sink.

If I drop the wood it's gonna float. And I put the bolt on the cross and the rubber band. That rubber band is how the Spirit of God, when you by faith put your trust in Christ, and then I dropped it in the tank and I said everything that is true of Jesus is now true of you. It's Romans 6. You died with him, you've been raised with him to walk, to live in newness of life. You were dead, you've been quickened. Now you were disobedient, you're raised up with him.

Notice the third thing, and seated with him. Literally the word, you're enthroned with him. Instead of an object of wrath, the just wrath of God, now this new position in Christ, you are enthroned so that the God who created all that there is sees you exactly how he sees his son. The big word is justification. Some people in Sunday school say it's just as if you didn't sin.

Well that's really true, but that's just half of it. It's a legal declaration where God takes, if you can imagine a computer screen, this is what helps me, and on a computer screen you have Jesus over here and you have you over here, and under you we have a list of, you know, every sin of thought, word, and deed forever and ever and ever, and what you deserve and what I deserve is death. And over here under Jesus we have the perfection and the absolute righteousness of God. And what God the Father does with the computer screen of your life when you by faith trust him, he pushes delete under all your sins and then he drags over the righteousness of Christ and gives it to your account so that when God sees you on the computer screen of heaven, he sees the very righteousness of his son and you are enthroned and that's your position. And I will tell you what, that's awesome and if you ever get that truth the 18 inches from your head to your heart, you'll be born again again.

Because that's truth most Christians aren't living with. Most Christians have got, I'm saved, God forgave me, now I'm really trying hard to be a good person, it sure is hard. And I used to be immoral and I'm trying to be moral, and I used to have an addiction, I'm trying to break the addiction, and I know I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to read the bible, I'm supposed to pray, I'm supposed to go to church, I'm supposed to, supposed to, supposed to, and then they just get tired because they don't understand who they are. They understand who they really are. When you understand who you are there's a gratitude and then notice there's a power and the power isn't your own.

Mercy is when someone doesn't give you what you deserve and grace is an abundance of overflowing of just freely unmerited, unconditional love. And the reason I like to read Tozer so much is I struggle with the goodness of God. I struggle to this day with, you know, when I perform well God loves me, when I don't perform well He doesn't love me. And I have read in that book by the Knowledge of the Holy there's a thin chapter on the goodness of God, I'm not exaggerating, I've read that chapter hundreds of times.

I mean I've read the book, I don't know how many times, but I've read that single chapter hundreds of times. And Tozer says it captures this and it's a view of God that changes how you live the Christian life. And Tozer says it is the goodness of God that causes him to be cordial and kind and frank with every human being. It is the goodness of God that he longs and finds happiness and joy in the blessedness of his people. He says the skies that we live under would be completely different if we could but believe that God though exalted in power and majesty is eager to be friends with us. Have you thought of God like that?

God is good not because you're good, God is good because there's something inside of him, are you ready, that wants to bless you, that wants to do well for you. You know we're parents right? I mean haven't we at least given our kids like a nice gift at Christmas and who's the most excited person under, I mean once you get past six or eight maybe, I mean when you're six or eight it's all about what present that I get. But when you get past that isn't the greatest joy giving someone something that you know is at the center of the target of what they really long for and watching them open it. Where do you think you get that? You're made in the image of your heavenly Father. He wants you to open packages that delight your heart. He wants you to have great relationships. He wants you to be in the right job in the right place. But often in a fallen world the way he gets us where we need to be is by allowing the velvet vise of consequences of some of our own stupidity and our own mistakes and the hurts and the pains of life to get us where at that position where he can do an intervention. With Christ, with Christ, in Christ Jesus, in Christ Jesus. His motive if you jot this in your notes in verse four is his great love. His action you could literally just parallel instead of death he made you alive that's the past in the present instead of disobedience you're raised currently with power and in the future instead of destruction you have eternal hope and honor and his purpose was to reveal his character. I don't understand this God wants angels to know we'll learn later and he wants us to know and despite how we want to cover up our dysfunctional past he wants to take your dysfunctional past intervene make you alive clean you up begin to transform your life and then take you and make you a trophy of redemption and put it on his heavenly mantle and say to all the angels that's what it looks like when I love people like this. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and before we continue today's program let me ask you do you know your purpose do you know why God created you and what you're supposed to do here on earth well let me encourage you to join us after Chip's teaching to learn more about a tool we've created that'll directly answer those questions so be sure to keep listening okay let's get back to our series Unstuck and there's there'll be a season for some of you when you can own some of this and accept God's forgiveness and at just the right times with just the right people in a safe environment you'll start to share some of what God's taken you out of and there will be a healing at the next level that will occur because you do that it's hard because see it's one thing to start to believe it but when you verbalize it to someone else when you tell them this is where I've been and the hero by the way very carefully very carefully the hero isn't your recovery journey the hero is not this is how terrible it was and I'm getting lots of attention by talking about what it's like now the hero is Jesus the hero is the grace of God the hero is who am I to receive this but this is what God did you know what that does for other people it gives them hope you know you know how many guys are hooked on pornography it's off the charts and they're in our churches in fact the last statistic I read 25 percent of them are evangelical pastors you know how unsafe it is to share that you know what it's like to be stuck in something like that you know how many you know how many Christians are alcoholics how many Christians have prescription drug issues you know how many people are just desperately codependent and controlling in ways that I mean everything's about what everybody else thinks and making everyone else happy and working themselves to death and becoming these self-inflicted martyrs God wants to break those cycles and he wants to intervene but to experience God's provision here's the third point our restoration can only begin when we recognize the full extent of our need the recovery people call it hit and bottom the full extent of our need and notice what he says the the four it's a reason he says for by grace you have been saved now you have a responsibility there's an agency there's a means of reception it's not meritorious but for by grace you have been saved through faith and that's not of yourselves it is the gift of God not by works lest any man should boast this is not the multi-billion dollar self-help think and grow rich think your way into out of your difficulties this is a gift from God it's grace that delivers and when you turn from trying to solve the pains and the hurts and the longings with stuff and people and success and fame and addictions and repent change your mind and in the empty hands of faith say I've hit bottom I can't do this I just can't do this will you help me God will come I was pastoring on the coast of California in a very very unchurched area and very very casual very new age drug sort of infested type place and I mean when people came to our church when they trusted Christ in our new members class we literally said there's two real big parts to the Bible there's the big part and the little part and one's called the Old Testament and one called the New Testament and here's why it's called a testament now there's really big numbers on the pages and they're for chapters and there's little numbers and those are called verses so that when you want to find I'm dead serious they never heard of Noah Adam Eve see I remember teaching literally I was teaching through the book of Mark and about the third week some guy said so when's Mark going to show up I've been talking about him for three weeks and that's when I thought hmm but I remember a young man came in and he he was flying drugs from Alaska to Mexico and then he would drop into the central part of California and do sales and he got in with a very very bad group and getting out of those groups apparently are really really hard and he got out of it and kind of went undercover and he knew that he had a bad habit he knew he was going to probably get killed and he knew he had issues and he got clean and so he was sort of undercover and had a job as a janitor in a school came to our church he'd come to Christ I was in a little makeshift library that my wife was putting together for the people in the church in the early days and and Jim walked in and we talked we became friends and as the story goes it's a great story but he he opened up and said you know I'd like to help some fellow alcoholics and we had a little portable and two or three guys would show up and then the next week two or three guys it wouldn't be the same guys and he couldn't get anybody to stick around and he didn't tell anybody about his cocaine or his drug trafficking or all that and then he went down south to a church that had a celebrate recovery ministry and he asked if he could go and we said you know dream a dream form a team we don't have any budget for it we believe God's going to supply we wanted people to own the ministry and and so we paid for the gas for the van they went down there they formed a team dreamed a dream and about three years later they had the second largest celebrate recovery ministry in northern California and this janitor kind of kept moving up and then he went back to school and got a degree in drug counseling and an amazing amazing story and so now we're just helping all these sex addicts and drug addicts and and you know if you come from a suburban background you go to seminary and you end up in a place like this and you teach God's word and you know you end up doing a lot of counseling but there's stuff that's really over your head i mean a guy walks up and goes man oh i uh it was a rough night to me a rough night is you can't sleep or maybe you know got drunk he goes yeah man i i just like this is santa cruz you got to like uh i think God told me to come here i said why i said because because i was tripping last night i've been doing heroin for about 11 years and man i just came home i almost died last night and i i opened the yellow pages and yours said christ-centered church i thought man that's what i need and i'm sitting here thinking you know yeah as a pastor at times you learn not to act shocked you know oh you know tell me you know i'm totally intimidated i have no idea what to do what's going on here but you act confident yeah so tell me about this how can i be of some help you know and i'm thinking where's jim you know by now he's you know developed this ministry and this guy's talking and and so i said excuse me one second say hey jim can you come here for a minute and jim comes over and he meets with this guy and you know there's a line of people so i'm talking but i can still hear them and they get in this conversation and it's like different so you know most of us christians we think being nice helps people we need to be really nice oh i feel so sorry for you you've been on heroin for all these years and bet you really had a bad mom and dad and you know how can we really help you and here's a couple bucks put you up in the hotel god bless you you know and i'm listening to jim going you want to get real or not hey we don't mess around around here you haven't hit bottom i'll tell you what you when you want to get real you want to hit bottom and not con anybody i'm here been there done that i've shot that i've shot that i've shot that we got great people were honest here okay now you can let down the con or not and my first you know i'm jim we're a church you know you know what are you doing you know and you know and so that kind of went and that guy you know he said oh he's playing the game we've all been there i spot him like that he said chip you don't get it don't enable don't be nice i checked him out i asked the questions he didn't come here to get help he come here to get fixed he said now i'm going to be available and i see a dozen guys like that every week until you hit bottom until you hit bottom until you hit bottom until you get desperate and recognize you can't do it and you quit conning people conning god and conning you you never change until you come to i am powerless not i need a little help not god fix my life not god i'll follow you if you make my marriage come back together not god i'll do this if you do this and that there's no bargains with god you hit bottom and you say you deal i'll do whatever i've messed up and that's how you come to christ you he you intervene but you come on his terms and then that's where grace and it's not of yourselves finally you move beyond recovery because it's not a one step pray a prayer oh thank you god it's a journey and you renew your mind and you need the community of god's people but to move beyond recovery our restoration is never complete until we impart what we now possess this is one of my most favorite verses in all the bible and it's so often not misquoted it's not quoted most of us you know we've learned ephesians 2 8 9 salvation by grace it's on a little card right verse 10 starts with a for this reason for you are his workmanship created in christ jesus unto good works which god the ideas the ideas before ordained from the foundations of the earth has a good work for you to walk in underlying the word workmanship we get our word poem in the in the ancient world it would be tapestry it would be a fine work of art you are a unique piece of art that's been redeemed you are his creation his masterpiece his workmanship and he saved you forgave you quickened you seated you in the heavenly places made you rise with him giving you power to live a new life because he's got a job for you he's got a job for you it's not so you can say i used to be this now i'm that hi my name is chip i'm a recovering workaholic that's not the goal the goal is now in the sovereignty of god you grew up in a certain home god wants to use all things for good to them that love him that are called according to his purpose the goal is make you like jesus and as he makes you like jesus the vertical relationship the horizontal thing he has a good work for you to walk in there's a job for you that only you can do are you ready for this that your background prepared you for your family of origin prepared you for you understand certain people you know certain hurts you have certain gifts you have a certain personality and there's a good work to walk in and until you start to impart that you never get home and god's kingdom doesn't grow even your salvation it's not just about you you've been delivered to walk in a good work you know this janitor turned recovery ministry turned amazing guy friend he realized that the mistakes of his past and he had a horrendous oh my lands he had them one of the most horrendous childhood you could imagine but he understood and could help people because of that what's your good work where's your focus you know one of the dangers of all this is your folks can be how do i get better how do i get better am i getting better am i getting more better am i falling back behind what about me what you know this analysis paralysis but tell you what you focus a lot on god and who he says you are you focus on the needs of people as god shows you move forward and you deal with what he shows you you become a trophy of his grace you do the good work you become like my friend jim or my friend andy who after 30 plus years and a pornography addiction and being a elder and a deacon in two or three different churches got help got in a recovery group an hour and a half every wednesday night told his wife he was on a business meeting got with other men who were going through sexual addictions said you know i'd like to talk to you about something he was leading a ministry and um he said i've never shared this with anyone it started when i was nine years old it was a sears catalog the lingerie section and then i found my dad's playboys under the bed and he said i've lived a double life and i've lived in pain and torment my soul ever since and i've been free now for about six months and i told my wife and i told my wife a week ago and i got an awesome wife and we're on a journey year later he got in front of our church and shared that story with his wife on the front row and we launched about 15 sexual addiction groups out of it and now every place i am around the country when they ask me here's andy here's his name the pain's tough but you know what there was a good work for andy and there's a good work for you you're listening to Living on the Edge with chip ingram and the message you just heard overcoming a dysfunctional family is from our series unstuck chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute through this study in the book of ephesians chip highlights the most painful experiences we'll encounter in life it explains how god's word delivers healing and power to overcome them learn how to not just move past broken relationships rejection and shattered dreams but have true joy and contentment that only comes from a relationship with jesus if you've missed any part of this series catch up any time through the chip ingram app well i'm joined in studio now by chip and chip you know there's a lot of people out there who listen to messages like we heard today and say okay i know what my issue is and i'm gonna work on it so they try hard for a while but you know end up falling right back into the same behaviors and what's the trick to move our good intentions to actual life change well dave as a matter of fact until we renew our mind not just intellectually believe that god loves us but believe deep in our heart and our convictions that we're valued we're wanted wanted we're chosen we're secure we're beautiful we're called with the purpose by the god of the universe then you can listen to these things and i mean personally i have had those seasons i remember reading through the book of ephesians and studying these great doctrines and going wow this is really great this is amazing and you know two months later falling back into my performance orientation and so i began to write these truths on cards and then pretty soon i began to write in my journal and out of all that what i realized was for me and for others i needed to write this in such a way that i could review it and really get it from my head into my heart and out of that came a book and the book is called discover your true self and what i find with a book that's different than hearing is i can underline a book i've put study questions inside the book this is a book that you can do with other people what i've learned over the years is i have to ponder soak in meditate and renew my mind and the bible promises that if we're not conformed to this world but if we are transformed by the renewing of our mind then we'll discover the will of god the good acceptable and perfect will of god and i just long for people to actually experience the joy and acceptance of being wanted and loved and valued not because of how they look or what they do or how much money they have or what they've accomplished but simply for who they are when that ever gets from your head to your heart it just changes everything to order chips book discover your true self go to special offers at livingontheedge.org or the chip and grammap this tool will help you combat the deceptive lies we believe about ourselves by revealing who god uniquely created us to be so if you feel stuck insecure or guilty over your past this book will encourage you again to get your copy of discover your true self visit special offers on the chip and grammap or at livingonttheedge.org well here again is chip as we close today's program my last point in the teaching was moving beyond recovery and i said our restoration will never be complete until we impart what we now possess and that verse is that we are god's workmanship created in christ jesus to do good works which he prepared for us and this may come as a shock but like my story about andy and and how i mean years and years of of a sexual addiction literally god used that to help scores and scores literally by now hundreds and hundreds of men have broken the power of sexual addiction because andy just didn't realize the extent of his need andy didn't just receive forgiveness andy realized that the very struggle he had was the platform of ministry in the future it took a lot of humility took a lot of boldness and it took a lot of courage but there are men who are free there are marriages that are restored there are kids that have a different dad because andy realized that yes it was a sin it was a stronghold it came out of a real dysfunction but when you begin to give away the answer the victory the process what it does it cements it in your own heart and god wants to use i mean he wants to take the worst that's happened in our lives he wants to redeem it and then he wants to use it to help others in fact he actually says in second corinthians chapter one that he comforts us in in the most difficult times of our lives so that we in turn then comfort and help others and so here's what i want you to do i want you to think about how do you move beyond recovery who do you know that needs help where you've struggled i've got a friend named rick who goes to our church and he has a long history of addiction with alcoholism and and drugs and and you know every thursday night he goes down to city team and he's helping alcoholics and drug addicts get off the drugs and he's done that for like 20 years and he says actually it helps him more than it helps them and then he got this dream about how he could scale that and leverage that to to aa meetings all over the nation and he he literally has a game plan now to help people in the area where he struggled the most you know what what an instrument of grace you could be if you would now impart what god has given you victory over you ready go do it that's a great story chip thanks for sharing well as we wrap up let me take a second and thank the generous people who make monthly donations to support the ministry of Living on the Edge your faithful gifts help us inspire christians to live like christians now if you haven't partnered with us yet would you prayerfully consider joining the Living on the Edge team you can set up a recurring donation by going to Living on the Edge dot org or by calling triple 8-333-6003 that's triple 8-333-6003 or visit Living on the Edge dot org have listeners tap donate well next time chip invites a special guest to the program to talk about tangible practical hope for families in dysfunction you won't want to miss that coming up on the next edition of Living on the Edge i'm dave druey hope you'll join us then