Do you ever feel like you don't measure up?
Or maybe you've really blown it and you think, you know, I don't think God could ever use my life again. Today I'm going to share four specific insights that will help you get an accurate view of you and discover how to get back on track. Stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. On just a minute, Chip continues examining the life of Moses through our series Momentum, How to Ignite Your Faith. He'll explain how Moses, despite his tremendous failures and insecurities, was used by God to do amazing things. And since none of us are perfect, Moses' story is really encouraging to us all.
So I hope you'll go back and listen to part one or any other message in this series through the Chip Ingram app. Okay, go to the book of Exodus in your Bible as we join Chip for the remainder of his talk, Learning to Come to Grips with the Real You. I'm going to try and walk through very, very quickly Moses' too low view of himself. And he basically has four excuses. Now you can read this later on your own.
But I want you to pick it up, if you will. And in chapter 3, Moses was one day, he's tending his flocks. He's been out with these sheep. He's got a new world. He's got a new wife.
He thinks his life is over. He's hiding. And as he's out on this rocky terrain, he sees this bush. And the bush is on fire, but it's not burning. And the angel of the Lord is in the bush. And he comes near the bush. And the angel of the Lord speaks to Moses. And he says, you're on holy ground. He takes off the sandals. And he hides his face in his hands. And he's in the very presence of God. And he's overwhelmed. And what he's going to hear is, I've heard the cry of my people.
And guess what? Those instincts to rescue them were right. And I'm going to use you to rescue them.
I want you to go be my deliverer. Now that's a real short overview of most of chapter 3. And then a conversation picks up. And we pick it up and oh, let's see, about verse 10. He says, now go. This is God speaking to Moses. For I'm sending you to Pharaoh. You will lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.
Now before, he was thinking, it's a snap, man. I got that covered. Now listen to him. But Moses says, but who am I?
Interesting question, isn't it? Before they asked him, who do you think you are? And now it's like, well, who am I?
Excuse? I'm a nobody. No one could ever use me. I'm a failure.
I blew it. I mean, I don't, I'm nothing. How can you expect me to lead the Israelites out of Egypt? How many times a too low view of you has kept you from doing, you know, it might be a real small voice and God says, I want you to do this. I want you to introduce your neighbors to Christ.
Just have them over for dinner. Well, who am I? You know what? I want you to take this step. Oh no, who am I? Then God told him, I will be with you. Here's the solution to who am I. I'll be with you.
And this will serve as proof that I sent you. When you brought the Israelites out of Egypt, you'll be right here on this mountain in your worship. Basically, God says, hey, who you are is not important.
What's really important is who am I and that I'm going to be with you. Well, then we get excuse number two. Moses is not convinced, but he protested. If I go to the people of Israel and tell them the God of your ancestors has sent me, they won't believe me. They will ask, which God are you talking about?
What's his name? Then what should I tell them? You know, excuse number one was, you know, I'm a nobody. Excuse number two is that I'm not smart enough. I mean, they're going to ask me questions. I don't know.
I'll have these people over for dinner. If I talk to someone about the Lord here or, you know, if I take this step of faith. I mean, I'm just not smart enough. I mean, I didn't go to the Bible college and stuff or, you know, as one guy told me, I've never been to college at all. I said, you run in this huge company.
I'm not sure college was a really big deal for you, was it? Well, I know, but I'm sort of uncomfortable in those. Often a too low view. I'm not smart enough. So how does God answer that? God replied, I am the one who always is or literally I am that I am.
Just tell them that I am. The ever-existent one is the idea. Ego ami. Jesus will quote this later in Greek when he talks to people who think he's claiming to be God and he'll say, before Abraham was, I am. And he reaches back into this text. The Lord, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, you tell him I've sent you. Now go and call all the leaders of Israel and tell them the Lord, the God of your ancestors. Skip down to verse 18.
He reassures him again. Hey, you don't have to be smart enough. The leaders of the people of Israel, they're gonna accept your message. And then he says, I promise even the Egyptians will treat you well.
When you leave, they'll give you silver and gold. And then we skip to chapter four and we get excuse number three. So God reassures him, I'll be with you, I'll take care of it.
Chapter four then, but Moses protested again. Look, they won't believe me. They won't do what I tell them. They'll just say, the Lord never appeared to you.
So, okay, let's see, I'm a nobody, so God can never use me. I'm not smart enough. No, I'm not credible. I mean, they're not gonna listen to me. I mean, I don't have the credentials.
I don't have the platform. They'll never listen to me. And so God says, okay, wait, wait, Moses, tell you what, I authenticate people by just not what they need out there someday, someway. Let me take something that's very common to you, you've used all your life. See that staff in your hand? Yeah, yeah, put it on the ground. No, no, really, drop it down. So he drops it down, it becomes a snake. So, okay, I want you to grab it.
This was probably very hard the very first time. I want you to grab this viper by the tail. He touches the tail, bam, it becomes a staff again. He said, so, like, if you think you need credibility, what do you think about that one? And I think Moses' facial expressions go, man, I'm not really sure that'll work. And so God says, okay, okay, okay, okay. That's plan A. Plan B, if they don't listen to that Moses, you know that little robe you got on, put your hand in it.
Okay, yeah, good. Okay, now pull it back out. What is it?
Leprosy. Oh, my lands. He says, stick it back. Pull it back out.
It's gone. See, if they don't believe plan A about the staff, go with the hand. That is gonna be really powerful. And then, by the way, if that's not good enough, we'll go to the Nile. I got a deal. We'll turn all of it into blood. Here's what I want you to know.
Your credibility isn't the issue. You trust me and get your focus off yourself and I'll take what you already have by my power and by my grace and I'll use you in ways that you never dreamed. Well, the excuse is Moses is a very slow learner. He's had 40 years to get stuck in his ways, 40 years to believe after he thought he was such hot stuff that he's nothing now. And so as we pick up the story, but Moses pleaded with the Lord. There's a guy who's really learning to pray. He's pleading, oh, God, oh, God, oh, God, no, no, no, no, not me. So he's pleading with the Lord.
He says, you know what? All your answers are pretty good, God, but I'm just not a very good speaker. You know, this is really gonna take some oratory skill. I'm just not gifted. You know, I don't have the ability. You've got the wrong guy. God's answer is, who makes man's mouth?
Hmm. Who makes him deaf or dumb or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord?
Now you go and I will tell you what you're to say. And then Moses, after being convinced by the God of the universe that how he has made is exactly right for the job he's being called to do, he says, Lord, could you just send someone else? Now, I think this is, you know, one of the most amazing passages in Scripture because you talk about mercy and grace. You talk about a guy kind of backing into God's will.
He is reluctant as he can be. And yet God's got his hand on his life. And so he says, tell you what, Moses, I'm gonna accommodate. And by the way, every time we accommodate, God often will get his will done in a way that we accommodate, but it always produces problems we don't plan on. So Aaron, your brother, he's a good speaker.
You know what? I'm gonna have him meet you and he can do some of the speaking and I'll talk to you and you tell him what to do and he'll do a good job up front. He's a good PR guy. But boy, he's gonna cause you problems later. He's also an artist. He builds golden calves, leads small rebellions.
I mean it's true. Sometimes we think too high of ourselves, we miss God's will, God's calling. Sometimes we think too low of ourselves, we miss God's will. Moses' reluctant trust in God's promises and God's character, notice it was reluctant, but they were his baby steps to a sober self-assessment.
And notice in your notes, I put God's answers and under his answer, I put a New Testament passage so you could know this isn't some Old Testament thing about God with one man about delivering. When you have the excuse and I have the excuse, I'm a nobody, God says, I'll go with you. I will never ever leave you or forsake you. Jesus says that to you and he says it to me.
I'll never leave you or forsake you. I'll be with you to do exactly what I've called you to do. When we say to God, you know, I'm not smart enough, he says, look, I have all the answers. Philippians 4, 13.
You can do all things, not on your own, but through Christ who gives you strength. I'm gonna give you what you need, but step out and trust me. When we say to God, you know, I'm not credible.
No one will ever believe me. He says, I'll empower you. 2 Timothy 1 says, for God has not given us, when we trust in Christ, when we turn from our sin and we accept him as our savior, the Spirit of God comes into us and he takes up resonance in our body and it says God has not given us a spirit of timidity or fear, but of power and love and sound mind are literally disciplined. You have inside of you all the power you need to fulfill all God wants to do in you. And then the final excuse is, you know what, basically I'm just not gifted. You know, I'm just not able to do this.
And God's answer is, I've gifted you for this job. Are you beginning to see why it's so important that you ask some hard questions, that you peel back some things in the past, that you put things into your mind that help you see yourself for who you are? You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and we'll get you back to our series Momentum in just a minute. But first, do you feel stalled out spiritually? Like no matter how hard you try, you just can't find a consistent rhythm. We'll keep listening after this message as Chip highlights a helpful resource we have that will jumpstart your faith and get you growing again.
You won't want to miss it. Well, with that, here again is Chip. You know what, if I'm a young woman and I'm like 14 to 18 years old or a little older, and I look at all the people that are all the pretty people, and then I look in the mirror and look at me, I'll tell you what, it's like, uh-oh. Or if I'm a guy and I'm thinking, you know, I've got to have biceps like this and steroids like this, in six weeks I could get abs of steel, and so I tried the rocker and I tried this, you know. And if I can just look a certain way, and then others, you know, forget it, you know, I'll never get that.
So I pick up Forbes and it says, tell you what, you get three or four more zeros behind your name. You can stretch your stuff. And it's all relative, you know what, it's all relative. And all I'm saying to you is those bombarding messages and issues will eat you up, telling you, you don't measure up. But if, this is the key to advertisement, if you can't be discontent with who you are, you don't need to buy what they got. But you get a sober self-assessment. You realize who you really are, who God made you to be, what your calling is, and then you can choose and say, you know what, that's a false message. But you know what, I do want to keep my body in shape and I do want to present myself the best way I can.
And there's nothing wrong with being beautiful or attractive, but that stuff can't make me, break me, and it doesn't tell me who I am. Notice what he says, Moses' life reveals that a sober self-assessment, write this word, is a prerequisite to fulfill your divine assignment. You can't do what God made you to do unless you figure out who you are. Our key passage is going to be Romans chapter 12 verse 3. It says, for by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of the faith that God has given you. If you have a pen, I want you to underline, do not, the word think, and then more highly than, underline the word ought in this translation. Actually, the Greek text, it has the word think repeated again. And then I want you to underline the next word, think, and then I want you to underline the next word, sober.
That's all the same root word. You know what he's saying? Look, you're surrendered to God. You've offered your body as a living sacrifice. You're saying no to the world.
You're not going to let it conform you because it's death, but you're saying yes to God. You're renewing your mind. Now, the first place to renew your mind, don't think too highly of yourself. Don't think too lowly of yourself. Think as a sober judgment. Look into the mirror physically, but the mirror of your soul, and realize this is who God made you.
And you know what it means? You have strengths and you have weaknesses. You have things that come out of your past and your suffering, your hurts, and some even abused that have produced scars that are hard to trust people and produce levels of compassion and care for others that could have never happened apart from even the difficulty you've been through. And so God says, I want you to have a sober self-assessment. You need to know what your strengths are, but you need to know what your weaknesses are because God's going to bring other people's strengths.
You're going to find there are no lone rangers. You need them and they need you. No one can give you an accurate view of your life but God. And we're back to the verse that I keep quoting. You're his workmanship.
That word, you can circle workmanship. Literally, you're his poem. It's a picture of you're his tapestry. You're his work of art. You're his Rembrandt. You're his Michelangelo. God created you.
There's no other DNA in all the universe exactly like yours. And in his sovereignty, he knew where you would be born. He would know the mistakes that other people would have against you. He would know the opportunities that are unique to you. He would know your eye color. He would know what time in history. And here he's been preparing you all these years for today, to prepare you for the good work for you to walk in.
But the prerequisite is you're going to get accurate on who you are. I mean, this is so profound. Even Jesus, you know, sometimes we think that Jesus just automatically did God's will.
No, no, no. It was a struggle. He was fully God, but he was absolutely fully human, and he lived his life out of his humanity, looking to the Father, trusting in the Holy Spirit to give him the strength and the grace to fulfill his will. When he started his ministry, and just before he was tempted, do you know what he needed to remember?
He needed to remember who he really was. And he comes out of that baptismal water. What does God say? This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
Some of you need to hear that from God. This is my beloved daughter. This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.
If you've put your faith in Christ, you've been made by God, redeemed by God, forgiven, adopted into his family. He not only loves you. Are you ready for this? He likes you. He likes you without makeup. He likes you without rock-hard abs. He likes you when you had a lot of money, and he likes you when you don't have a whole lot right now.
He likes you when you're peppy and encouraged and obeying, and he likes you when you're struggling. You're his beloved son. The transfiguration, remember when he launched out and it was near the end of his ministry?
And they're up on the mountain, and there's Moses and Elijah make a visit, and there's Peter, John, and James, and the cloud envelops them in Luke chapter 9. This is my son in whom I dearly love. Listen to him. He needed to be reminded clearly in his humanity of a sober self-assessment, which gave him the renewed strength to do what? Go to the cross for you and for me.
Turn to the back page, and let me get you started on some very specific application. Number one is ask God to help you recognize the warped mirrors of the world that have shaped your life. At some point in time, don't you think if you had like an 11 or 12-year-old kid, and they were really, really struggling with life, and they came to you and said, Mom, Dad, whatever, would you please help me because I'm...you'd tell them, wouldn't you?
I mean, wouldn't you? So don't you think your Heavenly Father, if you said, you know, I find myself, I'm a workaholic, you know, I started with a glass of wine and now it's okay, it's way more, and I'm pleasing people all the time, I say yes to everything, I get overextended, I don't like my body, I don't like this, I don't like that, I struggle with depression, and I don't know. It's just, by the way, I'm just describing all of us in this room at various levels at various times. What if you said to your Heavenly Father, Lord, would you...I know, I feel like I'm in sort of, you know, the fun house with the different mirrors, and my head tells me I'm sort of normal, semi-dysfunctional, like everyone else, saved by your grace, but when I look in this mirror, I look like I weigh 5,000 pounds in my head, in my emotions, or actually then when I look at this mirror and I look like, you know, I'm 67 pounds and bulimic emotionally, God, would you help me see me the way you see me? Boy, that's a prayer-healing answer.
I mean, I don't read the Bible in the morning because, okay, you know, chapter day, keep the devil away. I need to be reminded of what's true of God, me, and life. Second, His people.
Then personal evaluation. Fourth thing is discover your primary spiritual gift. Final thing I would encourage you is celebrate daily that you are unique, loved, accepted, capable, and being prepared to fulfill your divine assignment. I have to share one little thing because I think when people hear all this, I just...this last word is, this is really possible.
And then I'm not going to lie to you, this is really a lot of hard work. And everyone struggles, but I think the culture has made it much harder for women than men. Isn't it interesting, movie stars, how come the guys can be like 50 and 60, have leading roles and be with all these hot chicks? And if you're a hot chick, you know, you hit 40, ah, you're out, unless you can get a lot of surgery. I mean, it's true. And so I married this very beautiful woman that thought she was ugly, and we went through a very long journey that allowed her to see herself God's way.
And I just wanted to share this as I close. Lest you think you can never change, you're wrong. Changing how you think about yourself is hard work. Underline that in your mind, hard work.
But the rewards are well worth it. Teresa was a woman who was beautiful, but thought that she was ugly. Who was gracious and kind, but thought she didn't measure up. Who was the most wonderful person I'd ever met, but felt inferior, and had desperately low self-esteem. Little by little, she began to believe what God said about her, rather than the message she absorbed from the people of her past, and the traumatic experiences she'd lived through.
Today, I live with a woman who is beautiful on the inside and the outside, that has a clear sense of confidence and positive self-worth, that comes from thinking accurately about herself. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and the message you just heard, Learning to Come to Grips with the Real You, is from our series, Momentum. Chip will join us in studio to share some insights from today's talk in just a minute.
You know, sometimes the best way to develop a new skill or habit is by learning from someone with more experience. And that principle is the same for spiritual growth, too. And that's what Chip's showing us in this series. Stay with us as we focus on six familiar biblical characters whose lives teach us valuable lessons like overcoming evil with good, discovering your purpose, and finding authentic immunity. So if you want to grow your faith, stay with us for every part of this series. Well, Chip's joined me in studio now to share an important word that goes right along with what we learned today from the life of Moses.
Thanks, Dave. We all have this human tendency. It's called keeping up with the Joneses. We want to have a little more money.
We want to have a little bigger house. We want to have a perfect family. And as Christians, we all understand, look, that's not the way to go, and if I even get all those things, it's not going to deliver. But I think that attitude sort of creeps into the life of fellow believers like myself and you. It's like, I need to be a super Christian.
I need to pray like so-and-so, or I need to be a giver like so-and-so, or if I could minister or sing. We compare with others, and we have a devotional that I think will help you stop comparing and help you recognize that God has made you for a purpose, and some of your greatest heroes, when you look behind the scenes, they're ordinary people. A friend of mine, Lance Witt, wrote a 25-day devotional called Leave Ordinary Behind, and in it you're going to dig in and snapshots of Abraham and Daniel and Moses, and you'll learn what it looks like in everyday life to be that ordinary person that God uses in an extraordinary way. If you need something to kind of encourage you or give you some fresh perspective in your time with God, or you know a friend, maybe even someone who's struggling, that they need something that's digestible, that isn't too long, but it's really powerful, this devotional is exactly what I think will help them. Hope you'll check it out. Thanks, Chip.
To order Leave Ordinary Behind by our friend Lance Witt, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. As you study the life and faith of these notable biblical figures, you'll see your faith and dependency on God grow. So order this devotional today by going to LivingOnTheEdge.org or by calling 888-333-6003.
You'll be glad you did. Well, with that, here's Chip with a few final thoughts for us to think about. As we close today's program, I'd like to take just a minute and address you ladies. I mean, we've been talking about Moses, and he's a man, and we've talked about having a sober self-assessment, and early on he thought too highly of himself, and then later on he thought too lowly of himself. But what God wants is for you and for me to have a sober self-assessment, an accurate picture, not too high and not too low. And ladies, the reason I wanted to address you is I shared this story about my wife, and I have found that women especially struggle with an accurate self-perception.
It's not that men don't, but I just think you're up against it more. The emphasis of a man having to look perfect is very minute compared to all the messages that little girls get from the time that they are small all the way in your life that you need to look a certain way. All the messages, all the magazines, the multi-billion dollar cosmetic industry that always tells you that there's a blemish. There's a blemish on your face. There's a blemish in your body. You don't look right.
You don't sound right. You need to have this. You need to look this way. And you have been bombarded by a world that tears at the very fabric that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. And I just want you to know that I wish I could push a button and have all your thinking that's negative erased, and that many of you who are so wonderful could believe that just the way you are, the way you look, the height you have, the personality you have, the gifts you have, you are the person that God made.
And here's the thing. If you fail to see yourself the way you really are, you will almost always miss the purpose for which you were made. You don't have to compare yourself with anyone else. You are precious in God's sight.
You matter. The journey that my wife went on has been now two or three decades, but she came up with a teaching that she did for some women. It's on our website, and it's called Precious in His Sight. And if you are a woman listening to my voice thinking, wow, I sure would like to see myself the way God sees me, but I just don't know how to get there, let me encourage you to go to the website and maybe just download the MP3s. It's called Precious in His Sight, and it's not by me, it's by my wife. And I just feel for you, and I would long for the Holy Spirit to put His arm around you and begin to renew your mind, and you realize that you are wonderful, that you're fearfully made by the Creator of the universe, and He has a great plan for you.
That's absolutely right, Chip. So if you'd like to learn more about Teresa's resources that Chip mentioned, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org and search for Precious in His Sight. You'll find her book and the insightful broadcast series she taught. Again, go to LivingOnTheEdge.org and search for Precious in His Sight. These resources will be an absolute encouragement to you. Well, from all of us here, I'm Dave Drouie, thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge, and I hope you'll join us next time.
