B.I.O. - Practice #1: Come Before God Daily, Part 1

It has often been said that we become like those we spend the most time with.

So if you were to look at a chart of how you invest your time, what people you spend the most time with, what people influence you the most, who would they be? Well, today I want to help you learn how to spend time with the most important person in the universe and how by rubbing up next to him, you'll actually become more and more like him. Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. Thanks for being with us as we continue our newest series, BIO, Three Essential Practices to Becoming More Like Jesus. Today, Chip will dive into the first practice that Jesus modeled for us. So to help you get the most out of this program, let me encourage you to download Chip's message notes. They contain his outline, scripture references, and much more. Get them by going to the Broadcasts tab at livingontheedge.org.

At listeners tab, fill in notes. Well, with that, here's Chip with his talk, Practice Number One, Come Before God Daily. Someone has accurately observed that, show me your friends, and I'll show you your future. The fact of the matter is that we become like the people that we admire.

We become like the people that we want acceptance from, and we become like the people we hang out with the most. I mean, we pick up their mannerisms, we pick up their accents, we pick up their values, and that's why this practice, coming before God, is so absolutely important because the more time we spend with God, the more we actually experience him relationally, the more we actually become like him. What's it mean to come before God daily? What I mean by that is this. It's to meet with God daily through his Word and prayer, and not just read a chapter or two or a program or through the Bible in a year. That's not what I'm talking about.

That may be the method. I'm talking about meeting with a person, connecting from the heart, hearing his voice, pouring out your heart, an interchange where you listen as he speaks through his Word. You listen as you learn to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit.

You share honestly and deeply your heart, your dreams, your struggles, where there's a real relationship. The second, it also means practicing the presence of God. Some people call it a quiet time or your devotions, and I have my devotions and I get my devotions done. Okay, see you later, God. And now here I go, and I do my life, and oh, you know, it's like nine o'clock at night or, well, I'm winding down. I guess it's time to say good night.

Oh, okay. Lord, thank you for today. Even for those who developed the time and the discipline to meet with God, and then it's like, oh, I kind of forgot about him most of the day. When we talk about coming before God, we're talking about cultivating a relationship, and it does take time and practice and skill. We're going to talk about all of that, but the attitude and the perspective is so, so important. It's about meeting with a person. It's like an appointment with one of your closest friends, or if you're married, a date with your wife or husband. Or if you're not married, it's a date or an appointment with your boyfriend or your girlfriend or maybe one of your closest friends. It's that kind of relationship where you, in my world, you go out and get a cup of coffee together. And there's not a big agenda.

You just love to be with each other, and you get to know each other, and you share things with them you wouldn't share with other people. That's what God wants. That's what he desires. Even before there was sin in the garden, that's what he wanted. When we're in the new heaven and the new earth, that's the way it's going to be. And so coming before God, that practice is not just an event, but it's also learning throughout the day. And we'll talk about how to do this, where you bring to mind God, where you're aware of his presence. And then finally, coming before God is a time where you come with other believers on a regular basis, and you thank God, and you praise God, and you adore and worship him, usually in the reading of Scripture and in the singing of songs. And then you're instructed in God's Word by someone who's gifted by God to help all of us understand his Word because he's given people certain gifts to help us do that.

So that's the practice of coming before God. In our last time together, I talked about Bob and Mary and how they came to know Christ, and they got involved in a church, but no one ever taught them to come before God or do life in community or actually kind of be on mission. If we could turn the clock back 25 years, and Bob and Mary had come to know Jesus, and I could sit down with them and help them understand this is what happened to you, and you've been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, God's beloved Son, and your sins are forgiven, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.

God has a great life for you, not an easy one, but a great life, and he has a plan for your life. So I want to meet with you, and the very first and most important thing is for you to come before God and build a connection and a relationship. Podcasts are great.

Hearing maybe someone like me on a broadcast or some other streaming venue, that's helpful, but I would want Bob and Mary to know this. Nothing is a substitute for you opening God's Word and the Spirit of God taking the written Word and making it the living Word and him actually speaking to you and you making this connection, and you start to pray specific things, and you actually see this invisible God Creator of the universe hear you and respond in very specific ways that you could say to another person, God's real. He's real. I prayed this, and he did that. I had a big question. I came to him, and I was reading.

He spoke to me, and I know he spoke to me. That's what I would want for Bob and Mary because, see, what would happen is that would bleed out into the kids. That would bleed out into the priorities. That would bleed out into the work. That would bleed out into every area of their life.

We talked about the three essential practices of becoming a Romans 12 Christian or a mature disciple, and this first one I think is the most important, and here's why. We're living in a world today that has a crisis of identity. We have a whole generation that has bought into the Freudian view that my identity is rooted in and defined by my sexuality. We have others who think their identity is about how they look or what they accomplish or where they work or how much money they have or the kind of home, but this issue of identity, who am I?

Who answers that question? I heard recently I was flipping through the channels, and TMZ came on, and they had a very, very famous person that I won't mention her name but very famous, and she was walking through and doing an interview, and they asked this question and that question, and she flipped around and said, I will tell you this. Don't let anyone tell you who you are. You see, we're living in a day where I have my view of me, and my view of me is reality, and it's created a world where people are anxious and depressed and suicide is off the charts and mental health issues are everywhere, and we have dysfunction in family. There's 30 different categories of identity about your gender or sexuality alone.

We have a world that is so confused, but here's the good news. Jesus emphatically teaches who you are. When you come to know Jesus and you receive by faith the gift of salvation, here's who you are. You are a child of God. That's your identity. You may be an athlete. You may be a business person. You may be single. You may be married. You may have all kind of other issues that talk about your identity. You may have a family history.

You may have a certain ethnicity, but here's the deal. Who you are is primarily defined by you are a child of God. You are loved. You're accepted.

You're forgiven. The tragedy most Christians understand that intellectually, but have no deep, overwhelming sense that they are loved deeply and they're a child of God. The Bible says in Romans chapter 8 that we have been adopted into a new family, that our spirit now cries, Abba, Father, in Romans 8, 15, and 16. Ephesians 1 says we've been predestined to adoption. Galatians chapter 5 will say if we are children, then we're also heirs. God has a future for us. First and foremost, your identity.

When we're taught to pray, what do we pray? Our Father who art in heaven. He's omniscient. He's omnipresent. He's powerful. He's robed in light.

He's unapproachable. He's holy above all things. And He's intimate and He's tender and He's personal and He's your Father and He wants to have a relationship with you. And so what we want to talk about is how do we have a relationship with our Father?

How do we come before Him and experience Him in our personal life as our Father? Because the bad news is this. Most Christians have very little family resemblance to their Father or to Jesus. You hear it all the time. Christians are bigoted. Christians are narrow. They're judgmental. They're hypocrites. And yes, some of that is blaming that's unfair. But let's be honest.

A lot of that is true. And it's true because I think we don't understand that we're children of the living God and we haven't entered into the practice of Jesus so that we become more and more like Jesus. Listen carefully.

Knowledge about God is not the same as knowledge of God. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram and Chip will be back in just a minute to finish today's talk. But quickly, this program is supported by the generosity of listeners like you. And right now during our year-end match, it's a great time to partner with us. Between now and December 31st, every gift we receive will be doubled dollar for dollar.

You can give today by going to livingontheedge.org or by calling 888-333-6003. Well, with that, here again is Chip to continue his message. Let me say that again. You need to digest it. Knowledge about God. I go to church. I listen. There's a podcast. I talk to people about God.

That's different. I can have knowledge about the President of the United States. I can have knowledge about a king of another country. That's different than meeting them, knowing them, spending time with them, having them share intimately with me and me share intimately with them. And I think in general we have Christians that know a lot about God but know little of God. We believe the teaching about Jesus, but the sonship that we need to experience, the daughtership that we need to experience, that's what's lacking. And we're going to talk about how you, ordinary person like you and me, can develop a relationship with our Heavenly Father following the path of Jesus. So let's ask the question, what did Jesus actually do to cultivate his relationship with his Heavenly Father? Let me give you three things. Number one, his highest priority was knowing and pleasing God.

Think of that. His highest priority. Remember the story about the woman at the well? And he's there at the well, and the disciples, they go to get some food, and a woman comes that, you know, a Jew would not speak with a woman that day, let alone a Samaritan woman, and they have a conversation, and he tells her some things, and then she goes away, and the whole town comes out, and there's a revival. And the disciples say, hey, did you get lunch? You know, where did you get the food?

I mean, what's going on? And Jesus makes this definitive statement. He says, my food is to do the will of him who sent me.

In other words, what drove Jesus? What matters to Jesus was pleasing his Heavenly Father. The apostle Paul would make the same statement. He said, we make it our ambition, whether in the body or outside someday, is to be pleasing to him. Jesus would also say, I can do nothing apart from my Father. Knowing him and pleasing him was his number one agenda. What if the beginning of every day that you live on this earth from today on, you said, Lord, I know you're my Father. I want to get to know you. And I want my life more than anything else to be pleasing to you.

More than what I get done, more than what other people think, I want my life to be most pleasing to you. The second thing is he habitually memorized and meditated on God's Word. That's right. Yes, he was fully God, but he was a man. And so being fully human, he had to learn the Old Testament like every other good Jewish boy. And a good Jewish boy, by the time they were 12, would have the first five books memorized. Many, many people in that day, this is hard for us to believe, but it was an oral culture, they had the entire Old Testament memorized. When Jesus was doing spiritual battle, do you remember this? He's in the wilderness and he's being tempted by the enemy. If you are the Son of God, turn these stones into bread.

What did he say? Man shall not live by bread alone, but every word that proceeded out of the mouth of God. Jesus memorized huge portions and he meditated on it. The things that the Old Testament taught, Jesus practiced, and his disciples would watch him be in God's Word.

Pray, talk to the Father. He habitually spent time in the Scriptures. He would say to those Jews, you search the Scriptures because you think in them is eternal life, but they bear witness of me. He was teaching the disciples the Old Testament, all those prophecies, all those things, all aligned around what?

Jesus, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior of the world. The third thing he did was he habitually slipped away to a private place to pray. Luke chapter 5, Luke chapter 11, all through the book of Luke, he slips away, he slips away, he slips away. After the biggest demands that he ever had ever recorded in Scripture, it says he got up a great while before dawn to go to a lonely place and spend time with his Heavenly Father. Jesus' way, his practice, not his teaching, his way, what he actually did was he made pleasing God and meeting with God and memorizing God's Word and getting away to talk to his Father, the number one priority in his life. And I know you can do time with God anytime during the day, and I know there's early birds and night owls and there's no actual command that says you need to do it in the morning. But when I look at the example of Scripture and when I look at the lifestyle of most of us, if you don't meet with God first, your life gets so overwhelmed and so busy, it is pretty hard to squeeze that in.

And the other thing I've found is this. God knows what's going to happen in your day, whether it's at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m. or 730, whenever you get up. He knows the meetings you're going to go to. He knows exactly what the traffic is going to be like. He actually knows Wall Street exactly what all the numbers are going to be. He knows who's going to have a problem. He knows what phone calls you're going to get.

He knows what irate person that you get stuff coming at you that you don't deserve. So you could go through all of that and then sort of at the end of the day say, Lord, could you help me process that? Or you could meet with God and say, Lord, since you know all about my day, would you give me direction? Would you prepare me? Would you speak to me so I could put on the full armor of God? Would you speak to me so that my heart would be ready and sensitive to you so I'd be dependent on the Holy Spirit?

Would you prepare me for what's ahead? And so, again, I don't want to be legalistic, but I just want to tell you if you want to develop almost any habit, doing it first, doing the most important thing first, is the easiest way to develop habits that make a real, real difference. And so that's what Jesus did. He made his first priority following and knowing his Heavenly Father. So if we are to take his yoke upon us, if we're to say, okay, I want to take your yoke and learn from you, I see this is what you do. You come before God. You practice the presence of God. You soak in God's Word, and you get away and talk with him privately.

That's your way. What did Jesus teach? What's his yoke? What did he teach his disciples, then and now, you and me, about coming before God? Jesus taught that our relationship with the Lord will be determined by our response to his Word. Remember the parable of the seeds and the soils? It's the most important parable. Jesus said the keys to the kingdom are in this parable. The Son of Man is the sower, the seed is the Word of God, the soils are human hearts, and the seed of God's Word drops into four different kinds of human hearts. The first human heart is hard. It doesn't receive the Word of God.

Satan comes and snatches it away. The next human heart is shallow. We respond to God's Word, we get excited, but when it gets difficult, it's gone.

The third is a crowded heart. It's a person that's in God's Word and listens to what he says, but the desires of other things and the deceitfulness of riches and life gets complicated and distracted, chokes out the fruit. And the final seed is a human heart that's open and receptive, and it takes in God's Word, and it puts it into practice.

And after putting it into practice and persevering, even when it's difficult, it bears fruit 30, 60, 100-fold. The greatest sermon that Jesus gave was the Sermon on the Mount. At the very beginning, he talks about the priority of God's Word, and he's saying, this is how the kingdom of God works. And then he gets to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, and he says, let me tell you a quick story. There was a man who built his house on sand, and the floods came, and the wind blew, and the house was blown away.

There was another man who built his house on the rock, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and the house didn't move. I say to you, everyone who hears my words and puts them into practice is like the man who builds his house on the rock. Jesus taught his disciples then, and disciples now, our relationship with the Lord will be determined by our relationship to his Word.

Pause. What's your relationship to God's Word? Not to Jesus, not to church, not to podcasts. What's your personal relationship to this book? Do you read it regularly? Are you studying it?

Are you taking core passages and memorizing them? Are you digging in and saying, I want to get to know my Heavenly Father because that's what Jesus did, and that's what Jesus taught. I've been a pastor for a lot of years, and I'll never forget one particular time where I was looking for the next sort of level of leaders in the church, and I asked our staff and asked our elders, give me some names of some people that, you know, they're leaders. I mean, they're making a difference either in the business world, in our church, and, you know, they come regularly, and so they gave me the names, and I got together with them. And so I just asked them a number of questions, and I said, would you meet with me every other week, Sunday afternoons, just for an hour and a half, and I'd just like to go on a journey with you about your relationship with the Lord. I've been told you're leaders.

I'd love to get to know you better. I want God to use your life, and this is what God's called us to do at this church, and I just found that, you know, no church grows beyond the level and the depth of its leaders. And so we got to know each other, heard their stories, their marriages, how they came to Christ, et cetera, and I got to the very end, and I said, guys, just before we leave, we've got about 15 minutes or so, there's about five, six guys in the room.

Could you share with me what's your relationship to God's Word? And I mean, these are very capable people. I mean, you know, a computer programmer, a CEO over here, a business owner over here, a doctor over here, and I think an electrician or something.

I mean, just great, great group of people. And we started to go around. Now, these people come to church regularly, and the first guy, I'll never forget, he was a doctor. He goes, yes, I will tell you about my time in God's Word. And he pulled out his phone, and he said, every day, I open the YouVersion app, and I read the verse of the day. And then I was waiting for it.

And? And then he goes, next? And I said, so, I mean, that's it? He goes, yeah. And I just thought, not the time to dig in.

Okay. I went around that room, and this is a group of people that are hearing me teach through the Bible for a few to many years. There's a group of people that, they certainly have the intellect to learn how to study the Bible for themselves. I can tell you, of the five or six people in the room, there was only one that had any kind of relationship with God's Word that was consistent, in-depth, and developing on his own. And then, as I began to hear stories about their dreams, about their marriages, dreams for their kids, what they wanted to do in their careers, and we got near the very end, and then I remember I sort of stepped back. I said, guys, what a joy to be with you all. Can I just make one observation before we get together next time? Oh, sure, sure, sure, pastor. I said, do you know those dreams about your career, about your families, about your marriages? I just want to go on record to let you know that all of you sitting in this room, save one, is on a trajectory that I will guarantee none of those things will happen.

And they looked at me like, whoa! I said, your relationship with the Word will determine your relationship with the Lord, and your relationship with the Lord will determine the kind of marriage you have and the kind of dad you are and the kind of person you are. You're very busy people. You're people of high integrity, but if your current practice of being in God's Word stays what it is, you will find that the dreams that you have and the desires that are all very good will never be achieved. And it's a very, very long story, and we begin to meet, and I went from scratch. I said, guys, forget anything I was going to do.

We are going to learn how to get into the Bible together to hear God's voice and really walk with Him. I remember one guy who was just so amazing because he said, you know, I'm torn. He was in a really, really big company, a really important company.

He had to really think of one of those tech companies that everyone would know the name of, and he had this huge position in it. And he was leaving at 6 a.m. and getting a workout and doing this and coming home by 730, 8 at night. Sometimes he saw his kids, often he didn't, never eating with family together. And as he got into God's Word and as he got clarity and as he got priorities, I'll never forget, it was probably 10 or 11 weeks later, he said, you know something?

I'm eating dinner with my family about three times a week. Fast forward another five years, he and I have become very, very good friends. And I will tell you what, when we played nine holes of golf about two weeks ago, I said, hey, how's it going? He goes, let me tell you what I'm learning right now.

And he has a relationship with the CEO of this major, major global company. And he goes, actually, I'm doing a lot of apologetics because I'm building a real relationship. And I know he's going to be asking me some questions, and I've been in God's Word, and I just can't wait for the opportunity when I can share Christ. And God's given me real favor because, you know, he works in the financial area, and there's billions of dollars on the line, and God's used him to save them a lot of money and do some really good things. See, great followers of Christ do great work, and they do great work that creates a platform to share very significant things. That man's life did a 180, and it all began with this practice, getting into God's Word. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and you've been listening to part one of Chip's message, Practice Number One, Come Before God, from our series, BIO, Three Essential Practices to Becoming More Like Jesus.

Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. It's been said that the 21st century church is thousands of miles wide, but only an inch deep, meaning many people identify as Christians, but few truly live out of God's Word. Few truly live out a life that honors God. In this new series, Chip takes us on a journey through the gospels, revealing the profile of an authentic follower of Christ. Together, we'll explore the discipleship path Jesus modeled while on earth, built around three simple yet powerful practices that will help us live out our faith. You're not going to want to miss a single program of this meaningful series. Well, before we go on, here's Chip with a quick word.

Thanks so much, Dave. We all know there's a lot of turmoil, division, fear, and confusion in our society right now. We need, and I don't mean this tritely, we need Jesus. We need truth. We need strong pastors and leaders and strong parents and grandparents equipped with the truth.

This fall, we taught a series called Caring Enough to Confront. We believe with all of our heart, the truth sets people free, and the only loving way to really help people is to actually teach what the Bible teaches in a loving and kind way. And so we address abortion, LGBTQ issues, and politics done the right way.

These are heart and life issues of people that are hurting and suffering. We've empowered the body of Christ to be strong and bold and caring and kind. This is what God has always called His church to be. If you care about our country, if you care about the next generation, will you pray about joining us on this year-end match so that we can keep God's word going forth in a way that transforms lives?

Great challenge, Chip. So if you want to help us in our mission to teach God's word unashamedly, let me encourage you to become a financial partner, because between now and December 31st, every gift we receive will be matched dollar for dollar. To be part of our year-end match, visit LivingOnTheEdge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. Again, that's 888-333-6003 or go to LivingOnTheEdge.org.

App listeners, tap Donate. Well, Chip, let's get to your application for what you taught on today. Thanks so much, Dave. Lean back for just a minute, and I'm kind of talking to some of you that you have what we call a quiet time. I mean, you are committed. You spend time in the Bible maybe every single day, and here's something I just want to challenge you on. Sometimes we develop this habit, and it's a great habit, and then you walk out the door and you get in your car and your life goes, and you may not think a whole lot about God until basically you're ready to go to bed, and some of you have a practice of saying your prayers before you go to bed, which is a wonderful thing, reflecting on the day. I want to challenge you to think about what it looks like to meet with God, come before God, but then learn to practice His presence. I will tell you of all the things that have helped me connect with God, it's this awareness in developing the habit of having my thoughts gravitate toward the presence of God, even in meetings, while I'm driving. And so here's an experiment. What I'd like you to do is set your phone for noon, 3 o'clock, and then 9 p.m., and all I want you to do is set a little alarm, and you can change the times if you want to, but you set your alarm, and when it goes off, take 30 to 60 seconds, get your focus upward, may not be able to do it out loud, and I want you to thank God for what's happened, and then say to the Lord, Is there anything I'm missing today, or how do you want to lead me?

Just 60 seconds, 30 seconds even. And what I can tell you is that little practice will cultivate a habit of experiencing the presence of God throughout the day. Thanks, Chip. And as we close, I want you to know that as a staff, we ask the Lord to help you take whatever your next faith step is, and we'd love to hear how it's going. Would you take a minute and send us a note or give us a call?

Either one is easy. Just email chip at livingontheedge.org, or call 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003, or email chip at livingontheedge.org. We'll listen to next time as Chip picks up in his series, BIO, Three Essential Practices to Becoming More Like Jesus. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge. .